Jason Flores-Williams
Jason Flores-Williams (born 1969, Los Angeles, CA) is an author, political activist, and civil rights attorney. He is best known for his legal work on behalf of death row clients, political protesters, the homeless population of Denver, and his suit to have the Colorado River recognized as a legal person. Flores-Williams is an acknowledged expert in conspiracy law and First Amendment cases whose views are frequently sought by media organizations, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. He was also a lead organizer of the protests against the 2004 Republican National Convention. He lives in Denver, Colorado. Biography Jason Flores-Williams' parents are Camille Flores, a New Mexican journalist and newspaper editor, and Drake Williams, a CPA and small business owner. He was raised in Texas outside of Houston. In the early 1980s, he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico with his family. There, his father was convicted along with his twin brother of involvement with illicit drug trafficking and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. After his father's conviction, Flores-Williams dropped out of high school and moved to Washington, DC, where he self-educated at the Library of Congress and got his GED. He spent the late 80s living in Harlem across from the Apollo Theater, and graduated from Hunter College at CUNY with an honor's degree in Philosophy. He spent the early 90s in Prague where he wrote and worked as the first pizza delivery boy in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. He later moved to San Francisco to focus on writing. He is the grandson of William Flores, one of the founding fathers of League of United Latin American Citizens. Literary career After moving to San Francisco, Flores-Williams' first book was End of the West. Published in 1996, it describes his bohemian lifestyle in the city. His follow up novel, Last Stand of Mr. America was a called "a ferocious portrait of a San Francisco public relations yuppie who lives a double life in underground sex clubs seeking salvation and meaning" and Flores-Williams was called "an all-American outlaw and edge-walker in the tradition of Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and Biggie Smalls" by novelist David Gates. He was also helped start the Litstock festival. After traveling to Scotland to get a 2nd edition of the novel published in 2004, Flores-Williams moved to New York where he became a blogger for High Times. Activism and legal career In the September/October 2004 edition of High Times entitled, How to get Arrested, Jason Flores-Williams wrote the lead article entitled, A Call to Resistance, a guide for people looking to protest the 2004 Republican National Convention In May 2004, he was arrested leading a die-in staged on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to protest the invasion of Iraq by the US. After the convention protests, Flores-Williams became disillusioned with protest politics and completed his J.D. degree at Rutgers Law School. After graduating from law school, Flores-Williams worked for the Capital Appeals Project representing indigent clients on death row in post-Hurricane