Roland Sheppard's Web Page

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“The press is so powerful in its image-making role,

it can make a criminal look like he's the victim

and make the victim look like he's the criminal.”

—Malcolm X

Roland Sheppard Speaking Against Gentrification

San Francisco City Hall 4/26/06

My name is Roland Sheppard, I am a retired Business Representative of Painters Local # 4 in San Francisco. I have been a life long social activist and socialist. Prior to my being elected as a union official in 1994, I worked for 31 years as a house painter.

I was in the words of Robert Tressell, a Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, a phrase that Tressell used, in his book, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist, to explain the exploitation of workers, under capitalism, who willingly sell their labor and donate the surplus value, which their labor produces, to the boss.

I have led a unique life. I am one of the few people remaining who were at the Audubon Ballroom when Malcolm X was assassinated.

House painting was my vocation, but working for a better world has been my lifelong advocation. I became especially interested in the environment when I was diagnosed with cancer due to my work environment as a painter.

I learned how to write essays, when I first got a computer, in 1998. Using the internet and my word processor, I was able to put together all the medical legal arguments on my breakthrough workers’ compensation case in California, proving that my work environment, as a painter, had caused my cancer. During the course of the five-year struggle, I won a $300,000 settlement of my court case and, incidentally, I learned how to write.

In my retirement, I am writing about my life experiences as a socialist, as a participant in the Black Liberation Movement, the Union Movement, and almost all social movements.

My, essays are based upon my involvement in the struggle for workers democracy and freedom for all humanity. It is my hope that these essays, which I regularly update, when I discover more facts, will help future generations of Freedom Fighters.

Yours for freedom,

Roland Sheppard

My Essays:

Civil Rights/Black Liberation

The Historic Role of Police Brutality in the United States

Diallo Verdict Gives Police a License for 'Legal Lynchings'

The First Impeachment Trial: Andrew Johnson in 1868

On Its 50th Anniversary: The Lessons of the Montgomery Bus Boycott

The Day the Music Died Malcolm X’s Assassination February 21, 1965

Assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X

Racism at Water Waste Plants PUC to Investigate

The Other San Francisco: Institutionalized Racism