Below, I am reproducing the talk I gave at our 20th Anniversary Gala on October 17th. It was a great party, attended by over 200 of our staunchest supporters from Western Massachusetts, as well as people from Boston, New York City, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York City, and the Albany, NY area. I’m sharing my words with you, because many of you could not make it.

-Robert Meeropol

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I left off my last blog by promising to discuss the impact of this new information on the phrase “I come from Julius” and the Jello box top.

I concluded my blog last week, "Surprise Ending," with an overview of how I would have summarized my parents’ case prior to reading Walter and Miriam’s Schneir’s new book Final Verdict, and promised in my next blog to report on how the new book altered my beliefs. I also reviewed the two key events that led to my parents’ conviction and execution:

I don’t consider myself the world’s foremost expert on my parents’ case. For one thing, my brother, who has a better head for details and more patience for pinning them down, can recount more of the finer points than I can. Still, there are very few people in the world who know more about my parents’ case than I do.

Since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act in the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, we’ve watched the agents of repression target progressive activists using the vast powers of surveillance and detention these laws granted to the police and the Justice Department. These agents, in conjunction with corporate America, have made a concerted effort to portray progressive activists as terrorists.