Ronald Armstrong [“Ron Arm”] was a great man. I met him at Vassar College, as we were both studying sociology and specifically prison and other urban issues, and both got out into the prisons and into the communities themselves. Ron was a former Black Panther, active and affiliated with Mumia, who was drafted and sent to Vietnam. There, he became a heroin addict. Upon his return to the U.S., there was little fanfare, and he was eventually kicked out of his home. For about a decade (if I remember correctly), Ron lived on the streets, in the subway cars and, occasionally, at the homeless shelters in New York City, before he applied for a summer program at Vassar. That summer, he was the only student invited to join the full-time college community. After writing his thesis for the repeal of the death penalty, Ron moved back to New York City, this time to a humble apartment, and earned his Law degree. I wrote about him in Elemental [“Elementary”] Magazine, as he was starting his career. He died [“Rest in peace”] little more than five years later. Ron was the first person I ever heard say “there’s no justice, it’s ‘just us’”. And when Ron spoke, we all listened.
