ACTION ALERT: Calling all supporters of Jeff Fort to sign this petition to urge President Donald Trump to grant Jeff Fort executive clemency. #FreeFort
Power to our people. - Jeff Fort
“The purpose of this sentence is not to place you in a federal prison for the rest of your life, but only in a federal prison until such time as maturity, wisdom, and the passage of time render you harmless to yourself and society.” - Judge Charles Norgle-Sentencing Judge
Jeff Fort, born on February 20, 1947, in Aberdeen, Mississippi, is currently incarcerated at USP Florence ADMAX. Mr. Fort is now nearly 80 years old and has been in continuous federal custody since December 16, 1983, over four decades of imprisonment. He has been held at ADX Florence, the Bureau of Prisons’ most restrictive facility, since 2006, where he has spent nearly two decades in extreme solitary confinement.
Mr. Fort’s story is quintessentially American. It is emblematic of what this nation has done to Black children born into racial terror, poverty, surveillance, segregation, and violence, and what this nation then chooses to punish, erase, or misunderstand. Mr. Fort is a Native Son of America because his life reflects America’s own contradictions: a country that speaks of liberty while abandoning Black families to terror, a country that praises civil rights while targeting Black organizers, a country that claims redemption while burying elders alive in solitary confinement.
Mr. Fort and his family did not leave Mississippi voluntarily; their departure was an act of survival after organized racial terror, including Klansmen returning with sheets on their heads, long rifles, and burning torches, forced the family to flee first to St. Louis and then to Chicago. Born into poverty in Mississippi, Mr. Fort’s family worked in cotton fields on a plantation, endured very harsh treatment, and relocated to Chicago when he was about twelve years old. No sheriff came, no law protected them, and no justice system defended them when the Klan terrorized their home. A young Jeff Fort then learned to protect himself and his community.
The South Side of Chicago became the place where Mr. Fort came of age and the place where he learned to organize, protect, and build power for people whom the city had already written off. In Chicago’s segregated public housing projects, Mr. Fort confronted underfunded schools, targeted policing, redlining, and a lack of legitimate pathways to stability or advancement. In that context, Mr. Fort’s leadership cannot be understood only through criminalization. It must also be understood through survival, community defense, political education, and the struggle for dignity.
In 1967, Mr. Fort formed the Grassroots Independent Voters of Illinois, a nonprofit organization that secured a $1 million federal grant for skills development programs; throughout the civil rights era, he worked with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to advocate for poverty eradication and equity in jobs in Chicago, and forged a historic alliance and friendship with Chairman Fred Hampton Sr. Mr. Fort also supported his local community, national civil rights leaders, and political efforts across party lines where he believed they could benefit his people, including relationships with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sammy Davis Jr., Chairman Fred Hampton Sr., Ray Charles, and the Honorable Bobby Rush. His influence also crossed traditional political boundaries, including an invitation from President Richard Nixon to the 1969 inaugural ball. Indeed, Mr. Fort and community members saw themselves as activists working in the interests of the people.
Mr. Fort’s relationship to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is especially important. Dr. King worked directly with young people affiliated with Chicago street organizations because, as Mr. Fort explained, King saw “wealth” in their numbers and organization, and King’s goals were to change how the government treated Black and poor people and to change the violence Black people were inflicting upon themselves. Mr. Fort marched with Dr. King on the Dan Ryan Highway construction site to demand that Black contractors and workers be included, after C.T. Vivian personally requested Mr. Fort’s assistance.
The Marquette Park marches reveal what that work meant. As the Chicago Freedom Movement launched open housing marches into all-white neighborhoods including Marquette Park, thousands of white Chicagoans attacked marchers with rocks, firecrackers, and racist epithets. Gang members participated in those marches from the beginning, many serving as marshals, and even after white mobs attacked them, Dr. King praised their fortitude because they continued and did not retaliate with violence. After Dr. King was hit in the head with a rock on August 5, 1966, Jeff Fort called a meeting of South Side community leaders that evening because they were tired of being targets of violence and had seen themselves as King’s guardians. Dr. King told them, “Water is another option, my brothers, ’cause you don’t put out a fire with fire,” and described them as the water of “our people, the sustenance of life”; the next day, those same young men were “out there catching bricks” with the movement. The nonviolent teachings of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. forever shaped and influenced Mr. Fort’s perspective on peace as a strategy for political and social change.
That is the part of the American story too often erased. Mr. Fort was not merely watched by the federal government. He was targeted.
Mr. Fort was directly targeted by FBI COINTELPRO operations, including deliberate tactics to manufacture conflict and incite violence between his group and other Black civil rights and political organizations, later exposed as part of broader FBI disinformation and psychological warfare against Black organizations. The FBI sent fake letters designed to incite conflict between Black Chicago organizations, particularly with Chairman Fred Hampton Sr., an exchange infamously depicted in ‘Judas and the Black Messiah.’ Thereafter, Fort and Chairman Hampton became friends. Reportedly, FBI records described an anonymous letter sent to Jeff Fort suggesting the Panthers were planning a “hit” against him, and an internal memorandum stated that the purpose was to “occasion Fort to take retaliatory action.”
Mr. Fort’s historic conviction must be viewed against that backdrop of surveillance, racialized fear, and questionable government tactics. In 1987, Mr. Fort was convicted on 35 counts, including conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, interstate travel and phone use in furtherance of the conspiracy, and weapons and explosives offenses. Mr. Fort is understood to be the first person in the United States convicted of a terrorism-related conspiracy charge. There are also serious questions surrounding the government tactics that shaped his prosecution and conviction, including the use of surveillance, informants, political labeling, and a theory of criminality rooted heavily in communications and association. Today, terrorism-related conspiracy prosecutions are often understood to raise profound First Amendment, Fourth Amendment, and due process concerns, particularly where political identity, association, communications, surveillance, and government informants shape the prosecution.
Jeff Fort is not a terrorist, nor has he ever aspired to be one. Rather, he sought funds for a community urban farm project he was planning with his organization and Sammy Davis Jr.
At sentencing, Judge Charles Norgle made clear that Mr. Fort was not meant to die in prison: “The purpose of this sentence is not to place you in a federal prison for the rest of your life, but only in a federal prison until such time as maturity, wisdom, and the passage of time render you harmless to yourself and society.”
That time has come.
Jeff Fort should not remain in prison, let alone ADMAX in extreme solitary confinement, for his entire life.
Mr. Fort is elderly. He is sick. He is a father. He is a grandfather. He is a person of deep religious faith. He identifies as Muslim, prefers to be called Imam Malik or Chief Malik, and Islamic prayer and teachings are central to his identity and daily routine in confinement. He is a beloved grandfather who has yet to meet his grandchildren, and after more than forty years of incarceration, continued imprisonment risks claiming his life.
Even from prison, Mr. Fort has continued to speak to the need for peace in Chicago. Congressman Bobby Rush met with Jeff Fort and Larry Hoover in federal prison to discuss solutions to gun violence. When asked what could be done, Mr. Fort emphasized respect for life, order, discipline, family responsibility, and restored authority as necessary to change the course of violence.
The punishment of Mr. Fort is severely disproportionate. Mr. Fort is nearly 80 years old, housed in the most restrictive federal facility in the United States, suffering from confirmed ventricular tachycardia and chronic conditions placing him at risk of sudden cardiac death, while the BOP’s actuarial risk tool classifies him as low risk for general recidivism, supported by 146 completed programs, two work programs, and 59 months without a serious incident report. Despite harsh conditions, he has maintained a near spotless disciplinary record, completed over 100 educational courses, and been housed in ADX’s honor unit for well-behaved prisoners.
His health is rapidly declining. Independent physician Dr. Barbara Zeller opined that Mr. Fort is an elder with hypertension, high lipids, diabetes mellitus type 2, near-syncope, a documented loss of consciousness with a fall, and ineffectively treated sleep apnea, and that these conditions “pose a danger to his life.” On October 19, 2025, Mr. Fort was found unresponsive, lying face down on the floor of his cell, fully unconscious for two minutes and then stuporous for forty minutes, before being transferred to St. Thomas More Emergency Department. At 79 years old, his medical conditions are more severe, his recovery capacity is diminished, and each syncopal episode brings greater risk of permanent disability or death.
The human rights concerns are grave. The International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for urgent intervention, alleging that the United States was holding ADX prisoners in prolonged and indefinite solitary confinement. The petition sought precautionary measures to protect inmates at ADX Florence from prolonged and indefinite solitary confinement, characterized as cruel, infamous, or unusual treatment, and alleged that prisoners were held at least 22 hours per day in isolation in cells of 5.9 square meters with no direct sunlight or fresh air. The petition described the conditions as indefinite solitary confinement with no meaningful human contact, exercise, access to natural light, or fresh air, conditions tantamount to cruel and unusual treatment and punishment and potentially torture. It concluded that prolonged, indefinite solitary confinement is a serious human rights violation, and that affected prisoners had no recourse through established mechanisms. To this day, at nearly 80 years old, Jeff Fort remains in these harsh solitary confinement conditions.
Mr. Fort has been repeatedly denied parole through a process that raises serious due process concerns. The U.S. Parole Commission denied Mr. Fort two-thirds parole in 2023, conducted a statutory interim hearing in 2025, ordered no change in its prior denial, continued him to expiration, and scheduled another statutory interim hearing for April 2027. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has recognized, in another U.S. parole case, that U.S. Parole Commission processes may violate due process under international law when detention becomes arbitrary. Mr. Fort’s case presents the same moral question: will the United States continue to hold an elderly, gravely ill man in extreme isolation until death, despite age, illness, rehabilitation, faith, family, and the sentencing judge’s own words?
President Trump, you have the power to do what is right.
Clemency exists for cases like this. It exists where punishment has outlived its purpose. It exists where questionable government tactics shaped the path to prosecution. It exists where a sentence has become harsher than the sentencing judge intended. It exists where age, illness, rehabilitation, and human dignity demand mercy.
Will you release Jeff Fort, or will you allow him to die in ADMAX?
The whole world is watching.
Sign the petition today to demand executive clemency for Jeff Fort.
FreeFort
