Assata Shakur

interview on combat and Female Self Defense

2011-07-19T01:50:00.000-04:00

I will be on Brother Charles Allen blogtalk radio program, Wednesday 20th from 9-11pm. The topic-Sisters Protect Yourselves. Tune in and listen http://tobtr.com/s/2110683 . Special guest Bro. Mukasa Afrika will be in the virtual studio to discuss Black female self defense, as well as physical, and weapons training. We will discuss his combat system called Ma’at-Sumu and the many elements that are a part of the system, including the mental, spiritual and physicals aspect of it. Our sisters need to protect themselves in a very wild world. And this show will promote that. Mukasa Afrika is the author, of The Redemption of Afrikan Spirituality, and he formulated the Miamba Tano or Five Pillars of Afrikan Spirituality.He is an true pan African Nationalist… an educator, author, and lecturer. Call-in Number: [B]1 (347) 994-2959[/B]

Lupe Fiasco Calls President Obama the ‘Biggest Terrorist’

2011-06-28T15:21:00.000-04:00

Lupe Fiasco isn’t known to mince his words, but his recent comments about President Obama have got folks talking. This week the rapper appeared on CBS’s “What’s Trending with Shira Lazar”, and when asked about the dearth of politically outspoken pop artists, he explained his own outlook:
In my fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama, in the United States of America. For me, I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s actually causing the other forms of terrorism. The root causes of the terrorism is the stuff that the U.S. government allows to happen and the foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists. And it’s easy for us because it’s really just some oil, which we can really get on our own.
Then, when asked who he’d vote for in next year’s presidential election, he added:
I don’t vote. I don’t vote. I don’t get involved in the political process ‘cause it’s meaningless, to be honest. First of all, I’m a real big believer if I’m gonna vouch for someone, then I’m gonna stand behind everything that they do. So that can be you, that can be the cameraman. If I’m going to say I stand behind this person, and write on a piece of paper that says, ‘Hey, I stand by this person,’ then I have to take responsibility for everything that he does. ‘Cause that’s just how I am as a human being. So politicians aren’t gonna do that because I don’t want you to bomb some village in the middle of nowhere.
Lupe grew up the son of an African drummer on Chicago’s West Side. He’s known mostly as a gifted lyricist who draws beautiful and heart-wrenching connections between America’s impoverished black communities and conflicts abroad, notably in Africa. Fans are so taken with his message that when he announced that Atlantic Records had refused to release his third album “Lasers” because it was “too dark”, they collected over 28,000 petition signatures and staged protests in front of the company’s headquarters in New York City. The project was finally released in March and includes visionary tracks like “All Black Everything” in which the rapper paints a fantasy picture of a world in which “racism has no context.” One memorable verse: “Malcolm Little dies as an old man/Martin Luther King read the eulogy for him/followed by Bill O’Reilly who read from the Koran/President Bush sends condolences from Iran/Where Fox News reports live/that Ahmadinejad wins the Mandela peace prize.”
All that to say that Lupe’s criticism shouldn’t come as a surprise. But what makes it important is that President Obama has tried hard to court hip-hop’s biggest stars. The president has boasted about having Jay-Z on his iPod while his wife, Beyonce, appears to be on the BFF fast track with First Lady Michelle Obama. Right wingers went into panic mode when Chicago rapper Common, whose discography includes a song dedicated to exiled political prisoner and former Black Panther Assata Shakur, was invited to the White House earlier this year.
Like everywhere else, the political spectrum among black artists in hip-hop is vast and constantly evolving. But seldom has anyone with Lupe’s stature publicly and so brazenly criticized the president’s actions, much less with a short and succinct argument that can’t easily be dismissed.

Remembering Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt

2011-06-07T16:39:00.000-04:00

By Bakari Kitwana

Political activists around the country are still absorbing the news of Geronimo ji Jaga’s death. For those of us who came of age in the 80s and 90s, the struggles of the late 1960s and early 1970s were in many ways a gateway for our examination of the history of Black political resistance in the US. Geronimo ji Jaga (formerly Geronimo Pratt) and his personal struggle, as well as his contributions to the fight for social justice were impossible to ignore. His commitment, humility, clear thinking as well as his sense of both the longevity and continuity of the Black Freedom Movement in the US all stood out to those who knew him.

I interviewed him for The Source magazine in early September 1997 about three months after he was released from prison, having served 27 years of a life sentence for a murder he didn’t commit. Three things stood out from the interview, all of which have been missed by recent commentary celebrating his life and impact.

First that famed attorney Johnnie Cochran was not only his lawyer when ji Jaga gained his freedom, but also represented him in his original trial. They were from the same hometown and, according to ji Jaga, Cochran’s conscious over the years was dogged by the injustice of the US criminal system that resulted in the 1970 sentence. Second, according to ji Jaga, he never formally joined the Black Panther Party. As he remembered it, he worked with several Black activist organizations and was captured by the police while working with the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. And finally, his analysis of the UCLA 1969 shoot-out between Black Panthers and US Organization members that led to the death of his best friend Bunchy Carter and John Huggins is not a simple tale of Black in-fighting. Now is a good time to revisit all three.

Misinformation is so much part of our current political moment, particularly as the 24-hour news cycle converges with the ascendance of Fox News. In this climate, the conservative analysis of race has been normalized in mainstream discourse. This understanding of racial politics, along with the election of Barack Obama and a first term marked by little for Blacks to celebrate, makes it a particularly challenging time to be politically Black in the United States. Ask Jeremiah Wright, Shirley Sherrod, and Van Jones—all three serious advocates for the rights and humanity of everyday people whose critiques of politics and race made them far too easily demonized as anti-American.
If we have entered the era where the range of Black political thought beyond the mainstream liberal-conservative purview is delegitimized, Geronimo ji Jaga’s life and death is a reminder of our need to resist it.

EXCERPTS FROM THE 1997 INTERVIEW:

How did you get involved with the Black Panther Party?

Technically I never joined the Black Panther Party. After Martin Luther King’s death, an elder of mine who was related to Bunchy Carter’s elder and Johnnie Cochran’s elder requested that those of us in the South that had military training render some sort of discipline to brothers in urban areas who were running amuck getting shot right and left, running down the street shooting guns with bullets half filled which they were buying at the local hardware store. When I arrived at UCLA, Bunchy was just getting out of prison and needed college to help with his parole. We stayed together in the dorm room on campus. But we were mainly working to build the infrastructure of the Party.

You ended up as the Deputy Minister of Defense. How did that come about?

They did not have a Ministry of Defense when I came on the scene. There was one office in Oakland and a half an office in San Francisco. I helped build the San Francisco branch and all of the chapters throughout the South—New Orleans, Dallas, Atlanta, Memphis, Winston-Salem, North Carolina and other places. We did it under the banner of the Panthers because that’s what was feasible at the time. Because of shoot-outs and all that stuff, the work I did with the Panthers, overshadowed the stuff that I did with the Republic of New Afrika, the Mau Mau, the Black Liberation Army, the Brown Berets, the Black Berets, even the Fruit of Islam—but I saw my work with the Panthers as temporary. When Bunchy was killed, the Panthers wanted me to fill his position [as leader of the Southern California chapter]. I didn’t want to do it because I was already overloaded with other stuff. But it was just so hard to find someone who could handle LA given the problems with the police. So I ended up doing it, reluctantly. And this is how I ended up on the central committee of the Black Panther Party. I never took an oath and never joined the Party.

What was your role as Deputy Minister of Defense?

The Ministry of Defense was largely based on infrastructure: cell systems in the cities; creating an underground for situations when you need to get individuals out of the city or country. When you get shot by the police, you can’t be taken to no hospital. You gotta have medical underground as well. That’s where the preachers, bible school teachers and a lot of others behind the scenes got involved. When Huey got out of prison in 1970, this stuff blew his mind.

What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Party?

The main strength was the discipline which allowed for a brother or sister to feed children early in the morning, go to school and P.E. classes during the day, go to work and selling papers in the afternoon, and patrol the police at night. The weak points were our naiveté, our youth, and the lack of experience. But even at that I really salute the resistance of the generation! I have a problem saying it was just the Panthers `cause that’s not right. When you do that you x-out so much. There was more collective work going on than the popular written history of the period suggests. And when you talk about SNCC you are talking about a whole broader light than the Panther struggle. So you have to talk about that separate—that’s a bigger thing. They gave rise to the intelligence of a whole bunch of Panthers.

What was Bunchy Carter like?

He was a giant, a shining prince. He had been the head of the Slausons gang. He was transforming the gangbangers in Los Angeles into that revolutionary arm. He was my mentor. Such a warm and lovable, brainy brother. At the same time he was such a fierce brother. He was very dynamic—he was an ex-boxer, and he was even on The Little Rascals probably back in the fifties. His main claim to fame was what he did with the gangs in the city. And that was a monumental thing. All that was before Bunchy became a Panther.

Because of the death of Bunchy Carter as a result of the Panthers’ clash with Maulana Karenga’s US organization, even today rumors persists that Dr. Karenga was an informant. . .

Not true. Definitely not true.

What was the Panther clash with US all about?

We considered Karenga’s US organization to be a cultural-nationalist organization. We were considered revolutionary nationalist. So, we have a common denominator. We both are nationalist. We never had antagonistic contradictions, just ideological contradictions. The pig manipulated those contradictions to the extent that warfare jumped off. Truth is the first casualty in war. It began to be said that Karenga was rat, but that wasn’t true. The death of Bunchy and John Huggins on UCLA campus was caused by an agent creating a disturbance which caused a Panther to pull out a gun and which subsequently caused US members to pull out their guns to defend themselves. In the ensuing gun battle Bunchy Carter and John Huggins lay dead.

What’s your worst memory of the 27 years you spent in prison?

I accepted the fact that when I joined the movement I was gonna be killed. When we were sent off to these urban areas we were actually told, “Look, you’re either gonna get killed, put in prison, or if you’re lucky we can get you out the country before they do that. Those are the three options. To survive is only a dream.” So when I was captured, I began to disconnect. So it’s hard to say good or bad moments because this is a whole different reality that had a life of its own.

Many people would say that during those twenty-seven years that you lost something. How would you describe it?

I considered myself chopped off the game plan when I was arrested. But it was incumbent upon me to free myself and continue to struggle again. You can’t look back twenty-seven years and say it was a lost. I’m still living. I run about five miles every morning, and I can still bench press 300 pounds ten times. I can give you ten reps (laughter). Also I hope I’m a little more intelligent and I’m not crazy. It’s a hell of a gain that I survived.

What music most influenced you during that time?

In 1975 I heard some music on a prison radio. I hadn’t seen a television in six years until about 1976, and it was at the end of the tier. I couldn’t see it unless I stood up sideways against the bars. When I really got to see a television again was in 1977. So, I was basically without music and television for the first eight years when I was in the hole. When I was able to get on the main line and listen to music and see T.V., of course the things I wanted to hear were the things I heard when I was on the street. But by then those songs had to be at least nine years old. So, I would listen to oldies. And the new music it was hard to get into, but I slowly began to get into that. But when hip-hop began to come around, it caught on like wildfire. It reminds me how the Panthers and other groups started to catch on like wildfire. It reminded me of Gil Scott-Heron. He would spit that knowledge so clearly and that was the first thing that came to mind when I heard Grandmaster Flash, KRS-One, Paris, Public Enemy and Sista Soldier—the militancy.
What type of books were you reading?

We maintained study groups throughout when I was on main line. Much of the focus was on Cheik Anta Diop—He was considered by us to be the last Pharaoh. We also read the works compiled by Ivan Van Sertima. Of course, there were others.
In terms of a spiritual center, what helped you to get through?
Well the ancestors guided me back to the oldest religion known to man—Maat. We also studied those meditations that were developed by all of our ancestors—the Natives, the Hispanics, the Irish—not just the ones that were strictly African.
The youngest of seven children, Ji Jaga was born Elmer Pratt, in Morgan City, a port city in southwestern Louisiana, two hours south of New Orleans, on September 13 1947. 120 years earlier marked the death of Jean Lafitte, the so-called “gentleman’s pirate” of French ancestry who settled in Haiti in the early 1800s until he was run out with most other Europeans during the Haitian revolution. Lafitte’s claim to fame was smuggling enslaved Africans from the Caribbean to Louisiana during the Spanish embargo of the late 17th & early 18th centuries, often taking refuge in the same bayous that were Pratt’s childhood home. Pratt was dubbed Geronimo by Bunchy Carter and assumed the name ji Jaga in 1968. The Jaga were a West African clan of Angolan warriors who Geronimo says he descends from. Many of the Jaga came to Brazil with the Portuguese as free men and women and some were later found among maroon societies in Brazil. How Jaga descendants could have ended up in Louisiana is open to historical interpretation, as most Angolans who ended up in Louisiana and Mississippi and neighboring states entered the US via South Carolina. Some Jaga were possibly among the maroon communities in the Louisiana swamplands as well. According to the Pratt, the Jaga refused to accept slavery—hence his strong identification with the name.
What were some of your earliest early childhood memories?
Well, joyous times mostly. Morgan City was a very rural setting and very nationalistic, self-reliant, and self-determining. It was a very close-knit community. Until I was a ripe old age, I thought that I belonged to a nation that was run by Blacks. And across the street was another nation, a white nation. Segregation across the tracks. We had our own national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” our own police, and everything. We didn’t call on the man across the street for nothing and it was very good that I grew up that way. The worst memories were those of when the Klan would ride. During one of those rides, I lost a close friend at an early age named Clayborne Brown who was hit in the head by the Klan and drowned. They found his body three days later in the Chaparral River. And, we all went to the River and saw them pull him in. Clayborne was real dark-skinned and when they pulled him out of the river, his body was like translucent blue. Then a few years later, one Halloween night, the Klan jumped on my brother. So there are bad memories like that.
Does your mother still live there?
She’s gone off into senility, but she’s still living—94 years old this year. [She died in 2003 at 98 years-old] And every time I’ve left home, when I come back the first person I go to see is my mama. So, that’s what I did when I got out of prison. Mama has always stood by me. And, I understood why. She was a very brainy person. Our foreparents, her mother was the first to bring education into that part of the swampland and set up the first school. When I was growing up, Mama used to rock us in her chair on the front porch. We grew up in a shack and we were all born in that house, about what you would call a block from the Chaparral River. She would recite Shakespeare and Longfellow to us. All kind of stuff like that at an early age we were hearing from Mama—this Gumbo Creole woman (laughs). And she was very beautiful. Kept us in church, instilled all kinds of interests in us, morals and respect for the elders, respect for the young.
What about your father?
My father was very hard working. He wouldn’t work for no white man so he was what you could call a junk man. On the way home from school in Daddy’s old pick-up truck we would have to go to the dump and get all the metal that we could find as well as rope, rags, anything. When we got home, we unloaded the truck and separated the brass, copper, the aluminum, so we could sell it separate. That’s how he raised an entire family of seven and he did a damn good job. But he worked himself to death. He died from a stroke in 1956.
With an upbringing so nationalistic, what made you join the US military?
I considered myself a hell of an athlete. We had just started a Black football league. A few years earlier, Grambling came through and checked one of the guys out. So initially my ambition was to go to Grambling or Southern University and play ball. Because of the way the community was organized, the elders called the shots over a lot of the youngsters. They had a network that went all the way back to Marcus Garvey and the days when the United Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.) was organizing throughout the South in the 1920s. My uncle was a member of the legionnaires, the military arm of the U.N.I.A. Of the seventeen people in my graduating class, six of us were selected by the elders to go into the armed forces, the United States Air Force. The older generation was getting older and was concerned about who would protect the community.
Many of the brothers that went to Vietnam have never gotten past it. You seemed to have made a progressive transition. How have you done that?
I’ve never suffered the illusion that I was aligned to anything other than my elders. And my going to Vietnam was out on a sense of duty to them. When I learned how to deal with explosives, I’m listening at that training in terms of defending my community. Most of the brothers that I ran into in the service really bought into being Americans and “pow” when they were hit with the reality of all the racism and disrespect, they just couldn’t handle it.
What was it like to be a Black soldier in the US military in 1965?
This was my first experience with integration. But I was never was a victim of any racial attack or anything. During the whole first time I was in Vietnam—throughout 1966—I never heard the “N” word. And all of my officers were white. When I went back in 1968 that’s when you would see more manifestations of racial hatred, especially racial skirmishes between the soldiers. But first off there were so many battles and we were getting ambushed so much. Partners were dying. We were getting over run. I mean it was just madness. If you were shooting in the same direction, cool.
You were very successful in the military. Why did you get out?
On April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. I was due to terminate my service a month later. I wasn’t gonna do it. I was gonna re-up ‘cause I had made Sergeant at a very early age, in two tours of combat, so I could have been sitting pretty for the rest of my life in the military. I was loyal and patriotic to the African nation I grew up in who sent me into the service. And after Martin Luther King was killed, my elders ordered me to come on out of the service. King was the eldest Messiah. Malcolm was our generation’s Messiah. And now that their King was dead, it was like there’s no hope. So they actually unleashed us to do what we did. This is why when Newsweek took their survey in 1969, it was over 92% of the Black people in this country supported the Black Panther Party as their legitimate political arm. It blew the United States’ mind.

Queen Mother Assata Shakur Discusses Spirituality

2011-05-21T10:57:00.000-04:00

THE AFRIKAN BLOOD OATH by Mukasa Afrika Ma'at
http://afrikan-resistance.blogspot.com/2009/02/afrikan-blood-oath-by-mukasa-afrika.html

OUR REVOLUTIONARY HERITAGE by Mukasa Afrika Ma'at
http://afrikan-resistance.blogspot.com/2010/07/excerpt-from-redemption-of-afrikan.html

Assata Shakur Interview on COINTELPRO

2011-05-21T10:49:00.000-04:00

Informative Background on COINTELPRO

A Short History of FBI COINTELPRO

by Mike Cassidy and Will Miller

The FBI and police used secret and systematic methods of fraud and force
    [Editor's note: More information on COINTELPRO in the Bari case is available at the Monitor Judi Bari index. Much of the following was taken from Brian Glick's book War At Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It, (South End Press; Boston, 1989), a source for detailed and documented information on the history of domestic covert action against movements for social change.]

In early 1971, the FBI's domestic counterintelligence program (code named "COINTELPRO") was brought to light when a "Citizens Committee to Investigate the FBI" removed secret files from an FBI office in Media, PA and released them to the press. Agents began to resign from the Bureau and blow the whistle on covert operations. That same year, publication of the Pentagon Papers, the Pentagon's top-secret history of the Vietnam War, exposed years of systematic official lies about the war.

Soon after, it was discovered that a clandestine squad of White House "plumbers" broke into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in an effort to smear the former Pentagon staffer who leaked the top-secret papers to the press. The same "plumbers" were later caught burglarizing the Watergate offices of the Democratic National Committee. By the mid-1970's Senate and House committees launched formal and lengthy inquiries into government intelligence and covert activities. These investigations revealed extensive covert and illegal counterintelligence programs involving the FBI, CIA, U.S. Army intelligence, the White House, the Attorney General, and even local and state law enforcement, directed against opponents of government domestic and foreign policy. Since then, many more instances of these "dirty tricks" have been revealed.

When congressional investigations, political trials and other traditional legal methods of repression failed to counter the growing movements of the 1950s, '60s and '70s, and even helped fuel them, the FBI and police moved outside the law. They used secret and systematic methods of fraud and force, far beyond mere surveillance, to sabotage constitutionally protected political activity. The purpose of the program was, in FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's own words, to "expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize" specific groups and individuals. Its targets in this period included the American Indian Movement, the Communist Party, the Socialist Worker's Party, Black Nationalist groups, and many members of the New Left (SDS, and a broad range of anti-war, anti-racist, feminist, lesbian and gay, environmentalist and other groups). Many other groups and individuals seeking racial, gender and class justice were targets who came under attack, including Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, the NAACP, the National Lawyer's Guild, SANE-Freeze, American Friends Service Committee, and many, many others.

The Reagan Administration reinvigorated covert action
    The public exposure of COINTELPRO and other government abuses resulted in a flurry of apparent reform in the 1970s, but domestic covert action did not end. It has persisted, and seems a permanent feature of our government. Much of today's domestic covert action can also be kept concealed because of government secrecy that has been restored. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a source of major disclosures of COINTELPRO and other such activities, was drastically narrowed in the 1980s through administrative and judicial reinterpretation, as well as legislative amendment. While restoring such secrecy, the Reagan Administration also reinvigorated covert action, embracing its use at home and abroad. They endorsed it, sponsored it, and even legalized it to a great extent.
Much of what was done outside the law under COINTELPRO was later legalized by Executive Order 12333 (12/4/81). There is every reason to believe that even what was not legalized is still going on as well. Lest we forget, Lt. Col. Oliver North funded and orchestrated from the White House basement break-ins and other "dirty tricks" to defeat congressional critics of U.S. policy in Central America and to neutralize grassroots protest. Special Prosecutor Walsh found evidence that North and Richard Secord (architect of the 1960s covert actions in Cambodia) used Iran-Contra funds to harass the Christic Institute, a church-funded public interest group specializing in exposing government misconduct.

North also helped other administration officials at the Federal Emergency Management Administration develop contingency plans for suspending the Constitution, establishing martial law, and holding political dissidents in concentration camps in the event of "national opposition against a U.S. military invasion abroad." There were reports of similar activities and preparations in response to the opposition to the Gulf War in 1991. Even today, there is pending litigation against the FBI involving alleged misconduct in connection with the near-fatal bombing of Judi Bari.

Domestic Covert Action Methods
    Although covert action will be adapted to changing social and technological conditions, only a limited number of methods exist. A study of COINTELPRO revealed four basic approaches.
First, there was infiltration. Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. The main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. They also exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.
Second, there was psychological warfare from the outside. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.
Third, there was harassment through the legal system, used to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.
Fourth and finally, there was extralegal force and violence. The FBI and police threatened, instigated and conducted break-ins, vandalism, assaults, and beatings. The object was to frighten dissidents and disrupt their movements. In the case of radical Black and Puerto Rican activists (and later Native Americans), these attacks, including political assassinations, were so extensive, vicious, and calculated that they can only be accurately called a form of official "terrorism."
For details, along with many examples of each of these methods, read Glick's well-documented and heavily footnoted "War At Home."

A Song for Black Panther Revolutionary Assata Shakur by Rap Star Common

2011-05-21T10:40:00.000-04:00

A Song For Assata

(Common)
In the Spirit of God.
In the Spirit of the Ancestors.
In the Spirit of the Black Panthers.
In the Spirit of Assata Shakur.
We make this movement towards freedom
for all those who have been oppressed, and all those in the struggle.
Yeah. yo, check it-

There were lights and sirens, gunshots firin
Cover your eyes as I describe a scene so violent
Seemed like a bad dream, she laid in a blood puddle
Blood bubbled in her chest, cold air brushed against open flesh
No room to rest, pain consumed each breath
Shot twice wit her hands up
Police questioned but shot before she answered
One Panther lost his life, the other ran for his
Scandalous the police were as they kicked and beat her
Comprehension she was beyond, tryna hold on
to life. She thought she'd live with no arm
that's what it felt like, got to the hospital, eyes held tight
They moved her room to room-she could tell by the light
Handcuffed tight to the bed, through her skin it bit
Put guns to her head, every word she got hit
'Who shot the trooper?' they asked her
Put mace in her eyes, threatened to blast her
Her mind raced till things got still
Opened her eyes, realized she's next to her best friend who got killed
She got chills, they told her: that's where she would be next
Hurt mixed wit anger-survival was a reflex
They lied and denied visits from her lawyer
But she was buildin as they tried to destroy her
If it wasn't for this german nurse they woulda served her worse
I read this sister's story, knew that it deserved a verse
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All this shit so we could be free, so dig it, y'all.

(Cee-lo vocals)
I'm thinkin' of Assata, yes.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yes.
Your Power and Pride is beautiful.
May God bless your Soul.

(Common)
It seemed like the middle of the night when the law awakened her
Walkie-talkies cracklin, I see 'em when they takin her
Though she kinda knew,
What made the ride peaceful was the trees and the sky was blue
Arrived to Middlesex Prison about six inna morning
Uneasy as they pushed her to the second floor in
a cell, one cot, no window, facing hell.
Put in the basement of a prison wit all males
And the smell of misery, seatless toilets and centipedes
She'd exercise, (paint?,) and begin to read
Two years inna hole. Her soul grew weak
Away from people so long she forgot how to speak
She discovered freedom is a unspoken sound
And a wall is a wall and can be broken down
Found peace in the Panthers she went on trial with
One of the brothers she had a child with
The foulness they would feed her, hopin she's lose her seed
Held tight, knowing the fight would live through this seed
In need of a doctor, from her stomach she's bleed
Out of this situation a girl was conceived
Separated from her, left to mother the Revolution
And lactated to attack hate
Cause federal and state was built for a Black fate
Her emptiness was filled with beatings and court dates
They fabricated cases, hoping one would stick
And said she robbed places that didn't exist
In the midst of threats on her life and being caged with Aryan whites
Through dark halls of hate she carried the light
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All of this shit so we could be free.
Yeah, I often wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All of this shit so we could be free, so dig it, people-

(Cee-Lo)
I'm thinkin' of Assata, yeah.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yeah.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful...
May God bless your Soul.
Oooh.

(Common)
Yo
From North Carolina her grandmother would bring
news that she had had a dream
Her dreams always meant what they needed them to mean
What made them real was the action in between
She dreamt that Assata was free in they old house in Queens
The fact that they always came true was the thing
Assata had been convicted of a murder she couldna done
Medical evidence shown she couldna shot the gun
It's time for her to see the sun from the other side
Time for her daughter to be by her mother's side
Time for this Beautiful Woman to become soft again
Time for her to breathe, and not be told how or when
She untangled the chains and escaped the pain
How she broke out of prison I could never explain
And even to this day they try to get to her
but she's free with political asylum in Cuba.

(Cee-Lo vocals)
I'm thinkin' of Assata, yeah.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yeah.
We're molded from the same mud, Assata.
We share the same Blood, Assata, yeah.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful...
May God bless your Soul.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful...
May God bless your Soul.
Oooh.

(Assata)
Freedom! You askin me about freedom. Askin me about freedom?
I'll be honest with you. I know a whole more about what freedom isn't
than about what it is, cause I've never been free.
I can only share my vision with you of the future, about what freedom is.
Uhh, the way I see it, freedom is-- is the right to grow, is the right to
blossom.
Freedom is -is the right to be yourself, to be who you are,
to be who you wanna be, to do what you wanna do. (fade out)

Common gets a bad rap on Assata ShakurThe synthetic rage over Common's event with Michelle Obama rests on the unending demonisation of the Black Panther party

2011-05-17T12:25:00.000-04:00

Common gets a bad rap on Assata ShakurThe synthetic rage over Common's event with Michelle Obama rests on the unending demonisation of the Black Panther party
Jonathan Farley guardian.co.uk, Saturday 14 May 2011 21.34 BST Article history

Huey Newton, founder of the Black Panther party, in San Francisco, July 1967. Photograph: Corbis/Ted Streshinsky

She was stunningly beautiful. I still remember the sheen of her black hair, her creamy complexion. She was at the San Francisco Book Festival, hawking a book of photographs. She seemed to be 25, although I learned later that her skin held fast to her secret. Her name was Fredrika, widow of Dr Huey P Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther party: the greatest – perhaps only – American heroes of the last third of the 20th century.
I was too shy to speak with her, then, but in time, I had affairs with almost all the women leaders of the Black Panther party. Save one. We shall come to her by and by.
Instead, I spoke to Fredrika's colleague, David Hilliard, a compact, gruff old man with a raspy voice, at one time fourth-in-command of "the greatest threat to the internal security" of the United States, according to America's top law enforcement agent, FBI director J Edgar Hoover.
The following winter, I was at Hilliard's house, and in our two-hour conversation, I told him that there should be a Black Panther party tour in Berkeley and Oakland. A few months later, Hilliard started one, garnering coverage on CNN; celebrities like California governor Jerry Brown went on it. I called up Fredrika Newton to ask her why they didn't want me involved, and she told me she'd had the idea eight years earlier. Apparently, she just hadn't gotten around to doing it. That was the end of that affair. (I never said these were love affairs.) But there were others.
On the hallowed ground of the University of California at Berkeley, I organised a 30th anniversary commemoration of the event that made the Black Panthers world-famous – the March on Sacramento ("Arrest them all. On anything") – with guest speaker Tarika Lewis, the first woman to join the party. Ericka Huggins, who had faced execution when police framed her in New Haven, Connecticut, declined to come; more precisely, when I invited her, she hung up on me after demanding to know how I had gotten her phone number. (A one-minute affair.) But later, I brought Elaine Brown, the first woman to lead the party, to speak to a standing-room-only audience at my conservative, Confederacy-commemorating university; and I had dinner for two with Kathleen Cleaver, the regal former communications secretary for the party.
Perhaps because of its essential female element, the essence of the Black Panther party lay not in confrontations with the police – as thrilling as stories of Huey Newton facing down 10 cops are – but in serving the people. The party gave away free groceries and shoes, ran free health clinics and schools, and assisted the elderly. The Black Panthers were lovers of humanity who sought to realise the social gospel: to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, comfort the broken-hearted and set the prisoners free.
Oh, the enemies of civilisation will trot out the same slander, stories of irrational violence, drugs and misogyny. Terrorists, they'll cry, murderers, racists, reverse Ku Kluxers, thugs, thieves, addicts. And most Americans, black and white, will believe the lies.
It's true, some Panthers had criminal pasts: Newton was once a burglar, Cleaver's husband was a rapist, and, worst of all, party co-founder Bobby Seale was a comedian. But if we can forgive American president Thomas Jefferson, a slaveholder, torturer and rapist, we can forgive the Panthers. At that moment in American history, the heroes wore the black hats.

So, cue conservative outrage over Michelle Obama's inviting rapper Common to a White House poetry reading, because Common wrote an adulatory song about Black Panther Assata Shakur. The New Jersey state police protested.
Former Black Panther party member and Black Liberation Army activist, in a 1973 prison mugshot after her arrest on various charges. Photograph: New Jersey department of corrections Is it possible that the vile New Jersey police – just this week it was announced that Newark's police department is being investigated by the justice department for multiple civil rights violations – and their rightwing puppetmasters do not know about COINTELPRO? That while Soviet tanks crushed Prague's spring, in America, police assassins, provocateurs and slanderers felled our saints as they slept? That the US government admits it had a programme to "neutralise" the Black Panther leadership? That J Edgar Hoover confessed that this was not because the Panthers were committing any crimes, but because they were feeding children? That medical experts testified that Assata Shakur could not have shot the New Jersey policeman for whose death she went to jail?
Like Geronimo Pratt, whose murder conviction the courts overturned after 27 years, when evidence emerged that the government had framed Pratt to remove him from the Panthers' leadership, the US government wanted Assata Shakur because she dared to say that she has the right to defend her kin against murderers, such as the white policeman who shot a black 16 yearold in the back in Teaneck, New Jersey.
Conviction or no, the honour of our African Eowyn is pristine. Decades of racist propaganda cannot alter the fact that there is no greater homage than to say, "Assata Shakur, Black Panther".
Today, admittedly, when America's president is black, Assata's rhetoric seems foreign, anachronistic. Today, I, like most African Americans, would not stand with Assata Shakur.
No.
In her presence, we should all kneel.

Capital punishment: America's worst crime Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row for 29 years. Now, a court rules his sentencing unconstitutional. When will we learn?

2011-04-27T09:21:00.001-04:00

Capital punishment: America's worst crimeMumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row for 29 years. Now, a court rules his sentencing unconstitutional. When will we learn?
Amy Goodman guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 27 April 2011

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther party member, has spent 29 years on death row, convicted for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner

The death penalty case of Mumia Abu-Jamal took a surprising turn this week, as a federal appeals court declared, for the second time, that Abu-Jamal's death sentence was unconstitutional. The third US circuit court of appeals, in Philadelphia, found that the sentencing instructions the jury received, and the verdict form they had to use in the sentencing, were unclear. While the disputes surrounding Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence were not addressed, the case highlights inherent problems with the death penalty and the criminal justice system, especially the role played by race.
Early on 9 December 1981, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over a car driven by William Cook, Abu-Jamal's brother. What happened next is in dispute. Shots were fired, and both Officer Faulkner and Abu-Jamal were shot. Faulkner died, and Abu-Jamal was found guilty of his murder in a court case presided over by Judge Albert Sabo, who was widely considered to be a racist. In just one of too many painful examples, a court stenographer said in an affidavit that she heard Sabo say, in the courtroom antechamber, "I'm going to help them fry the n****r."
This latest decision by the court of appeals relates directly to Sabo's conduct of the sentencing phase of Abu-Jamal's court case. The Pennsylvania supreme court is considering separate arguments surrounding whether or not Abu-Jamal received a fair trial at all. What the court of appeals unanimously found this week is that he did not receive a fair sentencing. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams has decided to appeal the decision to the US supreme court, saying:
"The right thing for us to do is to ask the US supreme court to hear this and to make a ruling on it."
As a result of this ruling, Abu-Jamal could get a new, full sentencing hearing, in court, before a jury. In such a hearing, the jury would be given clear instructions on how to decide between applying a sentence of life in prison as opposed to the death penalty – something the court found he did not receive back in 1982. At best, Abu-Jamal would be removed from the cruel confines of solitary confinement on Pennsylvania's death row at SCI Greene. John Payton, director counsel of the NAACP legal defence fund, which is representing Abu-Jamal in court, said:
"This decision marks an important step forward in the struggle to correct the mistakes of an unfortunate chapter in Pennsylvania history ... and helps to relegate the kind of unfairness on which this death sentence rested to the distant past."
His other attorney, Judith Ritter, a law professor at Widener University school of law, told me: "This is extremely significant. It's a life or death decision." I asked her if she had spoken to Abu-Jamal yet, and she told me that the prison failed to approve her request for an emergency legal phone call. I was not surprised, given my many years of covering his case.
He has faced multiple obstacles as he has tried to have his voice heard. On 12 August 1999, as I was hosting Democracy Now!, Abu-Jamal called into our news hour, mid-broadcast, to be interviewed. As he began to speak, a prison guard yanked the phone out of the wall. Abu-Jamal called back a month later and recounted that:
"Another guard appeared at the cell hollering at the top of his lungs, 'This call is terminated!' I immediately called to the sergeant standing by and looking on and said, 'Sergeant, where did this order come from?' He shrugged his shoulders and said: 'I don't know. We just got a call to cut you off.'"
Abu-Jamal sued over the violation of his rights, and won.
Despite his solitary confinement, Abu-Jamal has continued his work as a journalist. His weekly radio commentaries are broadcast from coast to coast. He is the author of six books. He was recently invited to present to a conference on racial imprisonment at Princeton University. He said (through a cellphone held up to a microphone):
"Vast numbers of men, women and juveniles … populate the prison industrial complex here in America. As many of you know, the US, with barely 5% of the world's population, imprisons 25% of the world's prisoners … the numbers of imprisoned blacks here rivals and exceeds South Africa's hated apartheid system during its height."
The United States clings to the death penalty, alone in the industrialised world. In fact, it stands with China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Yemen as the world's most frequent executioners. This week's decision in Mumia Abu-Jamal's case stands as one more clear reason why the death penalty should be abolished.
• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
© 2011 Amy Goodman; distributed by King Features Syndicate

Event canceled

2010-11-18T02:39:00.001-05:00

In 5 years I've never cancelled an Ashra Kwesi event. Due to a family emergency, I must reschedule this event to a later date. Everyone please inform the community. Baba is okay with this and actually recommended this before I did. That's much more than what I can say for some other elder brothers.

President Obama Asked to Extradite Assata Shakur

2010-09-26T18:07:00.001-04:00

President Obama Asked to Extradite Assata Shakur

By Olokun Shangol Olugbala (D. Noble)

Nothing enrages the American injustice system more than an escaped slave. When Harriet Tubman was liberating Black people from institutionalized genocide, rape and servitude, the state offered a reward of $40,000 to any bounty hunter who could bring her to “justice.” And if you think $40,000 goes a long way now, imagine what it did in 1875. Tubman was so vigorously desired by the state, not only because she broke the laws of chattel slavery (she was legally a thief, who ran away with thousands of dollars worth of what they considered to be stolen property), but also because she represented a revolutionary ideology. In many ways, her impact on the minds, hearts and souls of African American people was more damaging to the system of enslavement than the hundreds of African people that she emancipated physically. Same bed, new sheets.
Former political prisoner and member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Assata Shakur is still being aggressively perused by her former captors, over three decades after her escape from prison. Utilizing the same tactics as their slave holding predecessors, the New Jersey Police and U.S. Justice Department offered a $1,000,000 reward for her capture in 2005 - the largest reward placed on an individual in the history of New Jersey. Like Tubman, Shakur is being hunted not only for her alleged crimes against the state of New Jersey, but also because of her unwavering revolutionary opposition to imperialism and injustice. Shakur has spent the past thirty years of her life living in Cuba with political asylum.

In their newest attempt to imprison Assata Shakur, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram and State Police Superintendent Rick Fuentes have announced that they will write to President Barack Obama to request Assata Shakur’s extradition. Milgram said President Obama’s plan to normalize relations with Cuba is a perfect opportunity to push for the return of the state’s “most wanted fugitive.” Joining the call for Shakur’s capture is Jersey Senator Sean Kean (R-Monmouth), who asked the President to delay normalizing relations with Cuba until they agree to the extradition. “She’s your classic urban terrorist, and she should be in jail,” he said. “Anybody who tells you different is a liar.” Interestingly enough, similar statements were made about Harriet Tubman who was was, indeed, a terrorist. She was a radical, guerrilla revolutionary who marched towards freedom with a double-barreled shot gun in-hand. The question is: to what extent does President Obama work on behalf the plantation owners? Will he use his power and influence to try to force Cuba to extradite Assata Shakur? Or will he champion the legacy of Harriet Tubman by giving her diplomatic immunity as a citizen of Cuba? I hope he makes the right decision.

(Click Title for Source)

New Hearing Date Set for Mumia Abu-Jamal by Afro.com

2010-09-25T17:26:00.000-04:00

Death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal will receive a new hearing on Nov. 9 to review his death sentence for the 1982 murder of a Philadelphia police officer.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Sept. 21 agreed to hear arguments in the case, under a directive from the U.S. Supreme Court to review Jamal’s death sentence for killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
In an e-mail to supporters, Jamal’s defense lawyer Robert Bryan said “We are cautiously encouraged that the federal court has taken this step.”
Abu-Jamal was convicted in a unanimous decision by a majority white jury and sentenced to death.
Born Wesley Cook, he has maintained his innocence from death row in a Pennsylvania state prison, submitting appeal requests based on allegations of judicial bias, police brutality, and an inadequate defense during his arrest and trial 28 years ago.
At the time of his arrest, Abu-Jamal was a radio announcer and president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He was known for his outspoken political views and commentary on racial injustice and police brutality.
During his incarceration he has written several books, appeared on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” and continues to protest his conviction on prisonradio.org, a non-profit organization run by The Redwood Justice Fund.
Opponents to Abu-Jamal's claims of innocence include the Fraternal Order of Police and Maureen Faulkner, the widow of the murdered officer. At a recent screening of the film “Barrel of a Gun,” a documentary about the case, Faulkner’s widow said the movie “will put people’s mind at rest,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“There is no doubt that Mumia Abu-Jamal wanted to murder a police officer that night, and that person was my husband,” she said.
His trial and subsequent attempts at an appeal have gained international attention and support including former South African president Nelson Mandela, Amnesty International, the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, members of Congress and celebrities.

The FBI's War on the Black Panther Party's Southern California Chapter

2010-09-18T12:14:00.000-04:00

The Black Panther Party (BPP) of the 1960s is remembered clearly by both its friends and its enemies. Both remember it as an organization that popularized the ideas of socialism and armed revolution in North America, particularly among Black people. Its friends also remember it for the challenges it posed to police brutality, hunger, disease, ignorance, and the oppression of Black people generally.(1) This article is not about these successes, however. Nor will it cover the exact course of either the West Coast BPP's degeneration - from its original revolutionary positions to its later reformist positions - or the ultraleft turn of the East Coast BPP (which became the Black Liberation Army). Instead, after providing some background, it will focus on the state repression of the Southern California chapter of the BPP. The reader should remember that the repression that the BPP faced in Southern California was only a fraction of the repression the entire Party faced.(2) The fact is that the U.S. government engaged in deceit, sabotage, and murder to crush and silence its political opponents. This is crucial to understand, because it strikes at the heart of the U.S. government's myths about itself regarding free speech, human rights, liberty and justice.

The BPP's fall from its position as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" preceded its formal dissolution in the early 1980s.(3) It is perhaps impossible to pinpoint an exact moment at which the BPP abandoned its earlier positions, but clearly this degeneration took place. For instance, BPP founder and leader Huey Newton had once been clear in condemning liberal politicians:

"I don't believe that under the present system, under capitalism, that they will be able to solve these problems [of housing, unemployment, self-determination, justice, and imperialism]. I don't think Black people should be fooled by their come-ons, because everyone who gets in office promises the same thing. They promise full employment and decent housing; the Great Society, the New Frontier. All of these names, but no real benefits. Black people are tired of being deceived and duped. The people must have full control of the means of production."(4)
But by November 1974, Jerry Brown was elected governor of California with the help of a BPP endorsement.(5) Newton's former comrade, Geronimo Pratt, languished in a California jail cell on false charges throughout Brown's tenure as governor.(6) Nonetheless, in 1976, the BPP, under Elaine Brown's acting leadership, supported Jerry Brown for President.(7) Whereas BPP Chairperson Bobby Seale had been brought to trial - bound and gagged for his participation in the demonstrations against the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, in 1976 - Elaine Brown served as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.(8) Former Panthers Kit Kim Holder and Safiya Bukhari suggest that the 1970-1971 split of the BPP into an Oakland faction under Newton's leadership and a New York faction under Eldridge Cleaver's initial leadership marked the degeneration of the BPP. Says Holder, "both factions began to overemphasize either the mass organizational or military aspect of the struggle."(9) While not the only factor, state repression was key in bringing about this destruction of the BPP.
Origins and Infiltrators

The Black Panther Party was formed in Oakland, Cal. in October 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, principally Huey Newton. Newton and his party had already made names for themselves by the time Newton was arrested on Oct. 28, 1967, for allegedly killing a police officer in self-defense. In response to this arrest, Earl Anthony of the BPP Central Committee moved to Los Angeles in November 1967 to raise support for the Huey P. Newton Legal Defense Fund.(10) This marked the start of Panther activity in Southern California. It marked the start of covert anti-Panther activity in Southern California as well. By his account, Anthony had agreed four months prior to become "an FBI informant-agent-provocateur inside the Black Panther Party."(11)
Furthermore, 1967 was also when the FBI's Richard Wallace Held "was assigned to the Bureau's Los Angeles field office, as a specialist in 'black extremist' matters and head of the local Cointelpro section."(12) Cointelpro, FBI short for "counterintelligence program," was first launched in 1956 against the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA). The Cointelpro against Black nationalists began in 1967, with the BPP as its main target.(13) On Aug. 25, 1967, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote an internal memorandum to all FBI offices which explained: "The purpose of this new counterintelligence endeavor is to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters."(14) Cointelpro first became publicly known on March 8, 1971, when a group called the Citizens Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into the FBI's Media, Penn. office and removed thousands of pages of classified files.(15) Exposed, the state officially discontinued Cointelpro. In reality, however, the code name changed, but the operations continued.(16) For instance, Richard Held became the special agent in charge of the San Francisco office, where he may have been responsible for operations against the radical environmentalist group Earth First!, including a failed assassination attempt on and subsequent arrest of two Earth First! activists on May 24, 1990.(17)
The Southern California chapter of the BPP was formed in 1968 by Alprentice "Bunchy" Carter. Carter was the former head of the 5,000-strong Slauson gang and its 'hardcore,' the Slauson Renegades, and was therefore known as "the Mayor of the Ghetto." While spending f our years in Soledad prison for armed robbery, he became a Muslim and a follower of Malcolm X. In 1967, Carter met BPP Minister of Defense Huey Newton and became a Panther on the spot. Carter formed and headed the Southern California chapter, taking position of Deputy Minister of Defense, announced in early 1968. (18)

Among the best-known members of the Southern California chapter besides Carter were Elaine Brown, Raymond "Masai" Hewitt, Vietnam veteran Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, Ericka Huggins, Angela Davis, and Captain (later Chairperson) John Huggins. Huggins, who had served in Vietnam, became the number-two-ranking member of the chapter. Davis joined briefly before being recruited away by the CPUSA. (19) In accordance with party-wide requirements, chapter members were required to attend political education classes regularly, read certain books including Marx, Ché, and Quotations from Chairman Mao (the "Red Book"), memorize and follow the rules of discipline, memorize the BPP program and platform, learn to use firearms (training was conducted in the Mojave desert), and learn to perform emergency medical techniques.(20) By April 1968, the Southern California chapter gained 50-100 new members each week, though not all stayed.(21)
Attacks on the party

As the chapter grew, so did the attacks against it. These initially took the form of random raids of party offices and homes and random arrests of Party members. On April 5, 1968, a day after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, San Diego police crashed down the door of Ken Denman, a Peace and Freedom Party leader and Panther organizer in San Diego - without a warrant.(22) On Aug. 5, 1968, police killed BPP Captains Little Tommy Lewis, Steve Bartholomew, and Robert Lawrence at Adams Boulevard and Montclair in Watts.(23) On Jan. 1, 1969, Captain Franco (Frank Diggs), the reputed leader of the BPP's local underground apparatus, was shot dead in an alley in Long Beach.(24) In 1969, the Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) vice squad was transformed into its "metro squad." The metro squad was the LAPD's Panther unit, an "urban counterinsurgency task force."(25) In April 1969, hundreds of Panthers were meeting on the second floor of the BPP's Southern California chapter's headquarters at 4115 S. Central Avenue in Los Angeles. Hundreds of LAPD officers from the Newton Street Division surrounded the building. The chapter's leader at the time, Geronimo Pratt, turned off the lights and armed and organized the Panthers to defend themselves. Panthers Joan Kelley and Elaine Brown contacted the news media, ultimately prompting the LAPD to withdraw.(26) On May 1, 1969, the LAPD raided the L.A. BPP office. Nine Panthers were arrested in the raid, and two other L.A. Panthers were arrested the same day.(27) During a two-week period around this time, the LAPD made 56 arrests of 42 Panthers. (28) On June 16, 1969, the San Diego Police Department raided the San Diego Panthers' office at 2608 Imperial Avenue. (29)
On Sept. 8, 1969, armed police raided the Watts breakfast program.(30) This raid accorded with an early 1969 FBI directive to "eradicate [the BPP's] serve the people programs."(31) On May 15, 1969, in an internal memo, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote: "The Breakfast for Children Program represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for."(32) From September to December of 1969, Southern California's Panthers were arrested on a daily basis, with most of the charges dropped within a week.(33) On Oct. 10, 1969 the LAPD had a shoot-out with some Panthers. Panther Bruce Richards was wounded and charged with attempted murder, and Panther Walter Toure Poke was killed.(34) On October 18, the L.A. BPP office was raided yet again.(35) On November 22, the San Diego BPP office was raided. All seven Panthers present were arrested. (36)
Most dramatically, on December 8, the LAPD deployed its new SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics, a militarized police unit) teams, a warrant, a battering ram, helicopters, a tank, trucks, dynamite, and 400 police officers to raid three L.A. BPP facilities including the Central Ave. headquarters.(37) The raid bore much similarity to the raid against the Chicago BPP led four days prior by the FBI and Chicago police.(38) For instance, the government's plan called for the police to focus gunfire at chapter leader Geronimo Pratt's bed; however, Pratt was sleeping on the floor at the time.(39) But whereas the Chicago raid ended with Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark murdered, the L.A. Panthers, under Geronimo Pratt's leadership, stood their ground. Only after exchanging fire with the police for five hours did the Panthers surrender, alive.(40) Participant Melvin Cotton Smith, security officer for the L.A. branch, was later identified by former government agent Louis Tackwood as a police informant.(41) Louis Tackwood, too, was a government infiltrator of the Southern California BPP.(42) Cotton provided the LAPD and FBI with detailed blueprints of party facilities before the raid. (43) The LAPD's warrant was obtained on the basis of false information provided by the FBI regarding stolen military weapons. The day after the raid, Angela Davis and others set up a vigil outside BPP's Southern California headquarters, during which LAPD attacked, forcing people to flee in all directions.(44)
The attacks on the rank and file continued. On Nov. 4, 1970, the LAPD raided the L.A. BPP's child care center, rounded up children, and held guns on them while officers beat up an adult Panther. Police claimed to be responding to a landlord complaint of children in the building.(45)
The rank and file of the BPP were not the only targets of Cointelpro-BPP. Special attention was given to the leadership. In Southern California, the FBI success in "neutralizing" the BPP was largely attributable to its success in neutralizing two layers of local leadership: first Bunchy Carter and John Huggins, who were killed, then Geronimo Pratt, who remains in jail today on bogus charges.
Hoover's agenda

In late 1968, Hoover openly announced that the BPP was, in his opinion, "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country."(46) Cointelpro was massively expanded. In November 1968, Hoover ordered FBI offices "to exploit all avenues of creating dissension within the ranks of the BPP" and encouraged agents to "submit imaginative and hard-hitting counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the BPP." (47)
In this context, the Los Angeles office of the FBI set the stage for the Jan. 17, 1969, "neutralization" by murder of the L.A. BPP's top two leaders, Bunchy Carter and John Huggins at UCLA's Campbell Hall. Because local Cointelpro head Richard W. Held took credit for the killings, there is no question that the FBI was responsible. Carter and Huggins' apparent killer was Claude "Chuchessa" Hubert, although George and Larry Stiner were arrested for the crime. All three were members of the cultural nationalist US organization led by Ron "Maulana" Karenga. It is unclear whether Hubert, the Stiners, and Karenga were knowing agents of FBI-Cointelpro, accidental agents, or some combination of the two.
Congressional investigators of Cointelpro put forward the most conservative plausible argument. Huey Newton summed up this argument: "The impression given from official investigations is that the FBI merely took advantage of an existing state of 'gang warfare' between the two organizations. This was supposedly accomplished by the sending of false death threats and derogatory cartoons in the name of one organization to another."(48) It is true that local Cointelpro head Richard W. Held "devised and released a series of cartoons and forged in the names of the Panthers and a nationalist organization known as United Slaves (US), in which the rival groups appeared to be viciously and publicly ridiculing one another."(49) And there were genuine differences between the two groups. The Panthers were Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries, while US was cultural nationalist.(50) US was highly patriarchal, while the Los Angeles Panthers were anti-sexist (though it is true that other BPP chapters were more like US in this regard).(51) Concretely, the two organizations competed for recruits. This rivalry grew as the two organizations found themselves competing on the same turf - UCLA.
In September 1968, Bunchy Carter, John Huggins, Geronimo Pratt and Elaine Brown all registered as students in UCLA's High Potential Program.(52) Huggins seized the opportunity to become a student organizer.(53) On Nov. 25, 1968, J. Edgar Hoover told 14 FBI field offices that "an aura of gang warfare with attendant threats of murder and reprisals" existed between the BPP and the US organization and said they should exploit the situation.(54)
UCLA killings

Around this time, US leader Ron Karenga had suggested Dr. Charles Thomas as head of a proposed Black Studies program at UCLA. UCLA Chancellor Charles Young authorized funding for Karenga's program. The rank and file of the Black Student Union (BSU) were upset at having been uninvolved in the decision-making process. They called a meeting. Fearing the US organization, the BSU asked the BPP to act as security for the meeting. The BPP refused to take sides, but agreed to back up the BSU's majority decision regarding the program. On January 15, the BSU voted against Karenga's program.(55) At a follow-up meeting two days later, Carter and Huggins were shot and killed. (56)
"[Local Cointelpro head Richard] Held quickly took 'credit' for the killings [of Carter and Huggins], and recommended sending more cartoons. This was duly approved and resulted in the wounding of several more Panthers and the death of yet another, Sylvester Bell. In the aftermath, Held again patted himself on the back for such 'success' via internal memoranda."(57)
In 1969, Panther Ronald Freeman was shot by US organization members while selling BPP newspapers.(58) BPP member John Savage was killed by US members in San Diego on May 23. The BPP claimed that Savage had witnessed the Carter and Huggins murders and was killed to prevent him from testifying at the US members' trial.(59) In all, four Panthers were shot and one wounded by US members in 1969.(60)
The theory outlined above suggests that genuine rivalries between two genuine organizations were exacerbated by the FBI to create war between them. On the other end of the spectrum of plausible theories, some suggest that the US organization was not a genuine part of the Black power movement at all, but was in fact an anti-Panther death squad financed by the FBI. Elaine Brown suggests that she believes this was the case, at least after the Campbell Hall killings.(61) Former FBI infiltrator and agent-provocateur Earl Anthony alleges that he knows this to be true:
"When I met with [FBI Agents Robert] O'Connor and [Ron] Kizenski at our designated time [Aug. 6, 1968],...[t]hey said they were tired of the 'Panther shit,' and the FBI had worked out a deal with Karenga where they would supply US with weapons and a master plan to destroy the LA Black Panther Party; and they were hoping to get something like that going in New York."(62)
Anthony's words have proven in the past to be untrustworthy, so this allegation is not worth very much. It is quite possible that he is continuing to spread slanderous disinformation on behalf of the FBI.
What gives some credence, though not proof, to the theory held by Brown and Anthony is that while the more conservative theory holds that the FBI was using each group against the other, the repression faced by the BPP was much more severe than that faced by the US organization. The pattern of killings described above is a case in point. Another is that the FBI opened a conspiracy investigation for Panther Geronimo Pratt for a bank robbery that the FBI knew had been committed by US members.(63)
Another example of police favoritism towards US is the initial police response to the killings of Carter and Huggins, which was not to go after the US organization or any other suspects in the murder, but instead to deploy over 150 police officers to raid a Panther apartment and arrest 75 Panthers, including the remaining Panther leadership, on charges of intending to murder US members in retaliation!(64) Later, the police arrested US's Stiner brothers, Larry and George. The Stiners were given life terms and sent to San Quentin, but, adding to suspicions that US members were deliberately given light treatment, they "walked away from a minimum security area on March 30, 1974."(65) Larry Stiner turned himself in on Feb. 5, 1994, while George Stiner remained a fugitive.(66)
FBI killers?

Another theory holds that, whatever the role of the US organization as a whole, those who shot Carter and Huggins were knowing FBI agents. This theory, put forward by Huey Newton, relies on the testimony of a Black former FBI informant named D'Arthard Perry, also known as Ed Riggs and, according to him, the FBI code name "Othello."(67) Perry claims he reported directly to L.A. FBI agents Brandon Cleary, Will Heaton, and Michael Quinn.(68) Perry's testimony is more plausible than Anthony's (although it is possible that both are true), and is worth quoting at length:
"Shortly after my arrival in the parking lot I heard shots from the direction of Campbell Hall.
"Within a few minutes I observed George Stiner, Larry Stiner, and Claude Hubert also known as Chuchessa, jump into a 1967 or 1968 light tan or white, four-door Chevrolet driven by Brandon Cleary of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I saw this car drive away from the parking lot of Campbell Hall. I left the campus on foot and immediately went to FBI headquarters by bus. I inquired as to the whereabouts of Brandon Cleary at this time, and, was told he was not available. I am informed and believe that the four-door Chevrolet described above was the property of a man called 'Jomo,' a known member of the US organization, now deceased.
"I recognized George Stiner, Larry Stiner, and Claude Hubert from seeing them prior to this date on the 14th floor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation building on several occasions in the company of Brandon Cleary, the man I had seen drive them away from the Campbell Hall area.
"I had been told to give a report within twenty-four hours of the incident to my supervising agent, Will Heaton, on the 14th floor of the Wilshire Blvd. Federal Investigation building.
"A few hours later, I went to the building and met with my supervising agent, Will Heaton. While in his company, I observed George Stiner, Larry Stiner, and Claude Hubert in the company of Brandon Cleary on the 14th floor of the Federal Bureau of Investigation building. I asked Cleary, 'what was happening' and was told that there had been a 'fuck up' - no one was to be killed by 'our' people. I also learned that the car that had been driven by Cleary was taken from the place Jomo Shambulia had parked it and returned to the same parking space after the incident. I also learned that it was Claude Hubert who fired the shot that killed John Jerome Huggins and the same Claude Hubert who fired the shot that killed Alprentice 'Bunchy' Carter and not George or Larry Stiner.
"Through information and belief, I have knowledge that George Stiner and Larry Stiner were Intelligence Gatherers for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and were working for Brandon Cleary and others when John Jerome Huggins and Alprentice 'Bunchy' Carter were murdered. I am informed and believe that Claude Hubert was on January 17, 1969 at the time he reportedly executed John Jerome Huggins and Alprentice 'Bunchy' Carter, an agent in the service of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Los Angeles office. I am further informed that this same Claude Hubert was subsequently transferred to an east coast office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, specifically New York, New York."(69)
White former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen relates a similar account:

"Soon after I had been assigned to the Los Angeles racial squad, I was told by a fellow agent that another agent on the squad had arranged for [his] informers in the United Slaves to assassinate Alprentice Carter and John Huggins. Following [the agent's] instructions, informants George Stiner and Larry Stiner shot them to death on the UCLA campus on January 17, 1969.
"I later reviewed the Los Angeles files and verified that the Stiner brothers were FBI informants. I know that D'arthard Perry was an FBI informant and that he is telling the truth about the FBI."(70)
Again, while the details are disputed, the basic fact is not. Regardless of how direct or indirect the FBI's role was in the murders of Carter and Huggins, clearly at the very least the FBI encouraged the hostilities that culminated in the murders, then claimed credit after the murders took place.
Target: Geronimo Pratt

Following these murders, Carter's former bodyguard, Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, rose to fill the local leadership vacuum, and became the next local Cointelpro target for "neutralization."(71) As noted, LAPD officers fired at Pratt's bed during the December 1969 FBI-planned raid on L.A. Panther headquarters.(72) The FBI also took actions to isolate Pratt from the rest of the Party, leaving him vulnerable to state attack.(73) In September 1970, the LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Section (CCS) was working to indict Pratt on false murder charges, although "according to both [former informants] Tackwood and Cotton Smith, there had been considerable controversy in CCS and the FBI over exactly what murder to use in preparing a case against Pratt."(74)
They arrested Pratt on Dec. 4, 1970.(75) He stood trial in the spring of 1972 at Los Angeles Superior Court on charges of murdering Caroline Olsen, a white schoolteacher, on a Santa Monica tennis court on Dec. 18, 1968.(76) The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of LAPD and FBI informant Julius Carl "Julio" Butler, who at the trial denied being an informant.(77) Butler to this day denies that he was ever an informant, no doubt in part because such an admission would jeopardize his position as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Los Angeles' oldest and most prominent Black church, the First African Methodist Episcopal Church (First A.M.E.).(78) Pratt argued, and maintains today, that he was at a BPP meeting in Oakland, 400 miles away from Santa Monica, on the evening of the murder.(79) The FBI's success in isolating Pratt from the BPP prevented Party members, except for Kathleen Cleaver, from testifying on his behalf and corroborating his alibi.(80) Then-FBI agent Wesley Swearingen reports:
"My supervisor and several agents on the racial squad knew that Pratt was innocent because the FBI had wiretap logs proving that Pratt was in the San Francisco area several hours before the shooting of Caroline Olsen and that he was there the day after the murder.
"The Los Angeles office had a wiretap on Panther headquarters in Los Angeles for a two-week period covering the date of December 18, 1968. These wiretap logs could prove that Elmer Pratt was in the San Francisco area on the day Caroline Olsen was shot to death.
"I reviewed the Black Panther Party file that showed that the Los Angeles FBI office had had a wiretap on the Panther office at 4115 South Central Avenue from November 15, 1968 through 2:00 P.M., December 20, 1968. I had worked with wiretap information since 1952, and this was the first time in my twenty-five-year career that I could not find the Panther wiretap logs for the period November 15 through December 20, 1968. Someone had destroyed those logs so there would be no proof that Elmer Pratt had been in the San Francisco area on December 18, 1968.
"A wiretap by the San Francisco FBI office placed Pratt in the Bay area just hours before the shooting. An illegal wiretap in Oakland placed Pratt in Oakland the day after the murder. "This is a total of three wiretaps known to the FBI with information that placed Pratt in the San Francisco area before, during, and after the murder of Caroline Olsen, and yet the FBI withheld this information from the court and the jury." (81)
Pratt was convicted of first degree murder on July 28, 1972.(82)

"At present, Geronimo Pratt remains in prison after nearly two decades in California, a state in which the average time served on a first degree murder conviction is 4.5 years. During a 1988 parole hearing, Los Angeles Assistant District Attorney Dianne Vianni went before the board to explain why: Pratt should not be released, she stated, because 'he is still a revolutionary man.'"(83)
Cointelpro-BPP was not limited to attacks on BPP leaders or even members. Outside supporters, too, were subject to "neutralization."
"Held also assumed a leading role in destroying the Panthers' white supporters, and is known to have written the false accusation that actress Jean Seberg, an outspoken advocate and fundraiser for the BPP, had been sexually unfaithful to her husband and was pregnant by 'a prominent Panther leader.' This bit of poison pen prose found its way into print on May 19, 1970 in the syndicated column of a 'cooperating journalist,' Carol Haber, and caused predictable complications in Seberg's marriage. The actress, whom Bureau profiles had already described as being 'mentally unstable,' became very emotionally distraught at such disinformation, suffered a spontaneous abortion, and subsequently attempted suicide on the anniversary of this event each year. After several tries, she was successful [in June 1970]. According to former agents, who were there, Held was gleeful at the 'effectiveness' of the Seberg gambit."(84)
Learn our lessons

To those who seek to emulate the BPP, it is not enough to know that the state smashed the BPP. To these activists, the important question is what the BPP could have done differently to ensure its own survival. Briefly, the internal problems of the BPP that led to its demise all have to do with a failure to adequately prepare for state repression. For instance, the short-term gains of being above-ground - having public offices and having publicly known membership - do not look worthwhile in hindsight, 40 martyrs later.(85) Flashing guns in front of news cameras popularized the BPP and made a political point asserting the right to self-defense, but it also made it easier for the FBI to paint the BPP as a dangerous group that had to be crushed by any means. The BPP could also have benefited from tighter discipline on questions of study and theoretical work, and from a greater emphasis on the importance of political theory. Finally, the BPP tolerated illegal drug use in its ranks, and Huey Newton's cocaine use in particular hastened the demise of his leadership.(86)
Repression, while not the only aspect, was a key factor in the decline of both the Black Panther Party and its Southern California chapter. Believers in the illusion that the U.S. government supports free speech, freedom of assembly, human rights, liberty, justice, and democracy - or that the government is invincible - will tend to be complicit in America's crimes, often without even knowing that the crimes exist or that they are criminal. Thus, it is of the utmost importance to build public awareness of domestic repression. Building public opinion against domestic repression is a necessary prerequisite to its eradication.
Notes:
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/077.html

"Top Secret America"

2010-07-20T09:53:00.000-04:00

"Top Secret America"

Washington Post Investigation Reveals Massive,

Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System

@ Democracy Now

AMY GOODMAN: "Top Secret America." That’s the title of an explosive investigative series published in the Washington Post this morning that’s already creating a firestorm on Capitol Hill. It starts, quote, "The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."

Some of the findings of the two-year investigation include more than 1,200 government organizations and nearly 2,000 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. An estimated 854,000 people—nearly one-and-a-half times as many as live in Washington, DC—hold top-secret security clearances. Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste.
The series by Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and Bill Arkin includes an online searchable database and locator map. PBS Frontline is producing an hour-long documentary on the investigation that will run in October. This is its trailer.
NARRATOR: You think you know America. But you don’t know Top Secret America. We’re all aware that there are three branches of government in the United States. But in response to 9/11, a fourth branch has emerged. It is protected from public scrutiny by extraordinary secrecy. Top Secret America.
WILLIAM ARKIN: This is a closed community. And since 9/11, it’s become even more so.
DANA PRIEST: The money spigot was just opened after 9/11, and nobody dared say, "I don’t think we should be spending that much."
NARRATOR: It has become so big, and the lines of responsibility are so blurred, that even our nation’s leaders don’t have a handle on it. Where is it? It’s being built from coast to coast, hidden within some of America’s most familiar cities and neighborhoods—in Colorado, in Nebraska, in Texas, in Florida, in the suburbs of Washington, DC. Top Secret America includes hundreds of federal departments and agencies operating out of 1,300 facilities around this country. They contract the services of nearly 2,000 companies. In all, more people than live in our nation’s capital have top-secret security clearance.

Click on title above for full article

Geronimo ji Jaga says that Elaine Brown was an Informant

2010-07-12T11:12:00.001-04:00

My First remembrance of Elaine brown was while I was conducting
security for Elrage Cleaver, October 1968â€¦. After Elrage gave a

rousing speech at Pauley Pavillion, UCLA, this girl came to the

security gate crying and begging to meet Elrage. She was escorted

to Bunchy Carter, whom I was standing with and he began to question

her. She said that she was Elaine brown and was in awe of Elrage and

wanted to meet him. Bunchy arraged the meeting after consulting w/

Elrage. During that period, I was assisting Bunchy w/developing his

security forces and techniques and made note of this breech of

protocolâ€¦.(Elrage later explained that she only wanted him to crappity smack

her and he saw it as his duty to implement his "thingy Power"

program). The next time I remember seeing Elaine was a couple of m

onths later because it'd been reported to me that she was John

Huggins' new lover while his wife Erika was pregnant . At that time

Elaine was dubbed as another girl who wanted to have sex w/men in

leadership positions which placed her in a higher suspicion in my

security files. Bunchy and I were sharing an apartment and I remember

that night we discussed John Huggins' relationship w/Elaine and how

displeased Bunchy was w/John's sexual activities w/this girl because

Bunchy felt very close to Erika and didn't want her to find this out.

I had no idea that but a few weeks after this (1/17/69) on the campus

of UCLA at a carefully pre-arranged* meeting between the US group and

the Panthers, that elaine brown would incite a ruckus by slapping one

of the US members whom she also had sexual relations with, then ran

to John Huggins screaming that "She'd" been assaulted by this US

member ! John Huggins immediately pulled a 357 magnum from his waist

and shot at the US member who returned fire resulting in Huggins and

Bunchy's deaths ! ! During the police investigation, Elaine brown

lied and wrongfully attested that the Steiner Brothers had murdered

Bunchy and John w/out provocation. She then continued this lie all

the way to the witness stand in LA Superior court resulting in the

wrongful conviction of 1 st degree murder of George and Larry St

einer who are still being persecuted till this da y. (her testimony

a matter of public record). The pandemonium and turmoil that ensued

the death of our most revered leader Bunchy, made it nearly

impossible to get hold of the raging fratricidal situation but as

soon as the smoke began to clear. the pieces began to fall into place

clearly implicating elaine brown as the instigator of the entire

deathly drama ! This information was known to me "Prior" to my

agreement to continue Bunchy's program in the capacity of Deputy

Minister of Defense of the Liberation Forces there in Southern

California . So it is impossible for Elaine to have joined any

formation of which I was in charge as I was very meticulous/selectiv e

re new membership . Futher, I am sure that we never permitted

membership to ANYONE who testified for the pig so-called justice

system as they were known, as "Snitches and/or "Rats" .

My security reports were sent to various leaders in the movement but

was continually watered down by those "Leaders" who had become victim

to elaine's sexual manipulations. Each time I received reports of

elaine brown popping up in Oakland, Chicago, Connecticutt, etc., I'd

act quickly to banish her and I'd then render whatever form of

discipline necessary to those who'd hosted her. Our main obstacle

in handling this at that time was the sad alienation of Elrage who

had by then fled and was our International Ambassadorâ€¦and was adamant

in giving Elaine brown "another chance " . So it was decided that she

would be sent to work w/Elrage and she'd finally be out of our

hair. Elrage told me years later that that was the biggest mistake

he'd made while there cuz as soon as she got to Algeria, unity began

to crumble â€¦,and before he could rectify the situation, Elaine was

gone . It was now 1970 and Huey had just been released. Elaine

somehow ended up right in Huey's bed and as Huey told me in 1988,

"She kept cocain e and sexy women on him everyday/night" . Huey also

admitted that it was Elaine who'd inflamed his hatred against Elrage

resulting in the infamous phone call that marked a clear split in the

top leadership of that important sector of the Black Liberation

Movement. During that stint in Quentin 1988,Huey refused to leave

the prison unless I was released first because he stated that he had

ordered key exculpatory witnesses not to testify on my behalf because

he was misled to believe what agents like Elaine brown wanted him to

believe. I remember Huey reflecting on the strange fact that was

revealed in my trial that Elaine brown's name was on th e receipt

from the paint shop that changed the color of my car and how that bit

of info opened his ever-drugged eyes to suspect . Then he told me

that he learned that she'd testified for the pigs lying on those

brothers, as he put it, when everyone knew that they did not shoot

Bunchy nor John. H e said it took months for him to raise out of that

euporia and realize that he was surrounded by agents. He then put

Elaine in his "Panther Jail" but was over taken by a barrage of

"Advisors who'd constantly tell him that he was going thru a severe

stage of paranoiaâ€¦." Next thing he said he remembered was that Elaine

was out of his jail and had gotton Masai to get her back in the

mixâ€¦.All throughout these conversations, Huey made sure to mention

Elaine brown's complicity as an fbi agent ,including her occasional

meetings w/the "same white dude". I remember stopping him to say that

way back in 1970, Nsondi (aka Sandra "Red" Pratt) was the first to

report to me about elaine's meeting w/this wh ite fella at a LAX

hotel. We now know that the white dude was the same "Kennedy" super-

mind- control CIA chief of psy-war operations against many key forces

for Black Liberationâ€¦including SCLC !

There is much much more irrefutable evidence that continues to expose

this sad sally for the COINTEL conspiratorsâ€¦ but do not lose sight of

the fact that this girl Elaine was brought to ucla for psychiatric

treatment which seems to be a pre-requisite for patsies of elaine's

type and that she was but one, tho a very important one, of so many

others who were used , unwittingly , as moles , provocateurs, et cet

ad nauseam.
It's a low down dirty and a doggone shame that here in 2007 elaine is

still being used to now attack the beautiful Fighter for True Justice

Cynthia Mckinney and if there is more I can do to assist, don't

hesitate to let me know.

Geronimo ji Jaga
Uhuru Sasa

On Dr. Maulana Karenga: An open letter by Wesley Kabaila

2010-07-09T12:17:00.000-04:00

Greetings,
For those who don't know me, my name is Wesley Kabaila and have been an advocate of Kawaida since 1967, a member of the Us Organization fro 1967-1985, and served as it's Vice Chair from 1979-1985. During the years that I served in the Us Organization, I was trained as a Simba Wachanga, our defense and security arm. During 1979-1985, I also served as Chair of the Simba Wachanga. Lastly, I went through a 3 year training period to become a Sebati, a student-priest in the Maatian tradition. During my entire tenure in Us, I was often assigned to Dr. Karenga's personal security.
I state the above as qualification for what I'm about to write. I write the following in the spirit of Maat, and the truth embodied in it. I also write it as a matter of corrective history, that has too long endured as lies. I too, applaud Geronimo Pratt for his forthrightness and honesty in speaking truth about the Us Organization being an equal victim of Cointelpro and dispelling the lies about any of it's leadership being complicit with police agencies in any way. I wish to be unambiguous and state clearly, that it is my belief and knowledge, that no one in the inner circle of the Us organization were police agents.
I feel, however, that it is equally important, that Dr. Karenga be open and honest about the demise of the Us Organization, 1969-1971. For too long now, he has incorrectly asserted that members of the organization left him, and that his jail time was served for "trumped up" charges. It is my opinion, that one of the reasons it remains believable that Dr. Karenga is a police agent in some circles, is because he has been dishonest about his involvement in the torture of two sisters, for which he served 4 years and his current wife, Tiamoyo served a stint also. I wish to state here, unequivocally, that he and his wife not only tortured these two sisters for a period of over 3 weeks, but also directed two young brothers in the torture also. Prior to this period of torture, he also locked up his first wife, Haiba, in a tiger cage that was housed in the garage of a home he leased in Inglewood, California. Dr. Karenga also hit on wives of some of his closest confidantes and I personally know of one sister, who is writing a book in which she asserts that he attempted to rape her. Now, those of us who still proclaim to be Kawaida advocates, can say that the pressures of Cointelpro, the Us/Panther conflict all contributed to this abhorrent behavior. But the fact is, there was evidence of this kind of behavior long before the UCLA shooting, January 19, 1969. In fact, there are those I've talked to personally, that state this behavior started in the Afro-American Association which pre-dated the Us Organization of 1965, when, then Ron Karenga had an affair with his Vice Chair's wife. At that time his Vice Chair was Ahyum Palmer, who later became President of Marcus Garvey School, here in L.A.
Many will ask, why raise these issues now. For one, the truth of Maat demands it. Second, there are lessons about leadership that we should and must pass on to the next generation, and most of all, there are victims who still need to be apologized to and atonement done by the victimizer. I had never heard of atonement before the Million Man March, for which Dr. Karenga authored the Mission Statement, which admonished black men to atone for their past treatment of our women. My respect for Minister Farrakhan was greatly enhanced when he took responsibility for his role in creating the atmosphere for the assassination of Malcolm. How could he ask us, as black men, to atone if he did not. The same principle applies to Dr. Karenga. My question is, how can Dr. Karenga continue to call himself a High Priest of Maat or Master Teacher, when the very principles he writes about, seemingly do not apply to him.
In sum, I challenge those of us who still consider ourselves Kawaida advocates, to demand from Dr. Karenga an apology for the continued lying, which has affected the credibility of those of us who have defended him. But even more than that, he owes an apology and release to the sister he tortured and to her family which was threatened if she broke silence about her true torturer. If we, who consider ourselves revolutionary, do not check and challenge this kind of behavior, then our revolution is not even worth fighting for. I respect and recognize Dr. Karenga, for his theoretical and practical contributions to our struggle, but that does not excuse his torture tactics of young (18) black woman, lying about it to his followers or the masses, and the continuing cover up of it, although he has already been convicted and served the time.
Before writing this, I had to ask myself, what have I been fighting for all of my life, if not to become a better African. I learned much of what I know about becoming a better African under the tutelage of Dr. Karenga, and feel it is my responsibility to hold him to the same standard and principles that he writes about for us. I have spent all of my adult life as an Advocate of Kawaida and cultural nationalist, but not to see it all reduced to lies and miss-truths. We deserve more as a people, community and as comrades in struggle for a higher level of life and humanity. I challenge those who disagree with me, to state why we should demand less.
In Unity and Struggle,
Wesley Kabaila
Los Angeles

Did Al Sharpton work as an FBI Informant?

2010-07-09T11:44:00.001-04:00

Click on title for main website

What was Al Sharpton doing in Cuba?

Andres Petit, 12/1/00

Recently, the Reverend Al Sharpton was seen in Cuba, paying a very short visit to the World Solidarity Conference in November. Basically, he signaled his presence and left, staying about an hour for a photo op in the front row. He was also looking to develop hip-hop exchanges with Cuba and had lunch with Fidel Castro to promote his plan. This is now coming out in several stories in the New York Daily News and on Rapstation.com. Curious that he should be getting so much attention on it when the fundamental work by Black August in promoting and carrying out numerous exchanges has been so under-reported. Quite an achievement for someone who Newsday and the Village Voice, among others, repeatedly reported was working as an FBI informant.
Al was also recently in Florida. Right wing pundits seized on this as fodder to counter the charges related to the "Bourgeois Riot" that stopped the Miami Dade Canvassing Board from recounting the votes -- after all, if Al Sharpton is raising cain in Florida, what's wrong with a few Republicans doing the same? Except that Sharpton did not shut down any recount effort...
What was the Reverend Al doing in Cuba? As is clear from his recent forays, he is trying to build up a national reputation. The news about the hip-hop ventures may also be seen as an effort to restore credibility on the streets and on the left. The Reverend Al appears to have gained ground in erasing his earlier career as an FBI informant, having lunch with Fidel Castro and organizing a large hip-hop exchange with InterScope records, among others. However, the road has sometimes been rocky: folks in Detroit prevented him from achieving much there by posting these Newsday articles below from 1988. Basically they outline how he was an FBI informant and tried to set up Assata Shakur for capture. The Village Voice also did a piece on him back then, describing how he had extorted 1,000 tickets from Michael Jackson for a NY concert. The FBI got wind of this and used it to sign him up as an informant, getting him to rat on Don King, organized crime, and various New York area black leaders and politicians.
As Newsday recounts:
One law-enforcement source, who declined to be identified but has detailed knowledge of Sharpton's activities as an FBI informant, said this week that Sharpton was working as an informant at the time he sought to meet Chesimard [Assata]... "It wasn't a big massive operation. It was just a small shot, an everyday deal," the source said. "I would equate it with setting up 10 traps a day trying to catch a fox..."
Sharpton of course denied this:
This week, Sharpton denied assertions by Ahmed Obafemi, a long-time activist, and Kwame Brathwaite, an activist and photographer who says Sharpton asked him to set up an encounter with Obafemi. Both men say that Obafemi acted as the intermediary in the failed discussions with Sharpton to reach Shakur. Sharpton called the men "liars" and said they were possibly "police agents."
We can only note that Ahmed Obafemi is still the respected leader of the Malcom X Grass Roots Movement over 10 years later.
Who says COINTELPRO died?
Cuba eyes embargo-busting rap show, 11/27/00

http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusic/nov27_cuba-can.html

Monday, November 27, 2000
The latest hip-hop concert promoter on the scene could turn out to be Fidel Castro.

New York's Daily News reports that New York African American leader Rev. Al Sharpton recently flew down to Cuba and met with the country's long-lasting ruler to discuss the possibility of organizing a massive hip-hop show in violation of the U.S. trade embargo.
"We talked about the embargo and how we might bring it down," Sharpton told the Daily News.

"If Bill Clinton can go to North Vietnam and bring down those walls, African-Americans should be able to start doing business in places like Cuba. We can bring in concerts, sporting events."
With a follow-up meeting set for after Christmas, Sharpton has already met with Interscope Records -- home of Eminem, Dr. Dre, Jurassic 5, Ruff Ryders, Black Eyed Peas, the late Tupac Shakur and rap-metal fusion titans Limp Bizkit.
"We can do a huge event, a hip-hop concert in Havana, beam it around the world and bring down the embargo," Sharpton told The Daily News.
"It would show the strength of African-Americans in foreign policy. It would tell the world that we are actively going against the embargo."
Sharpton told The Daily News he intends to line up entertainers before holding a second meeting with Castro.

-- JAM! Music

Castro's Open to Rap Invasion, 11/27
Monday, November 27, 2000, New York Daily News
by Mitchell Fink
And the newest member of the hip-hop culture is ... Fidel Castro?
Don't laugh. A large contingent of top-name rappers is soon expected to descend on Havana in an effort to help end the cultural embargo between Cuba and the United States.
The Rev. Al Sharpton was in Havana last week, where he met with Castro and talked about the possibility of bringing a massive hip-hop concert to the island.
"I was in Jamaica for the annual convention of the Carib News," said Sharpton. "Cuba was supposed to be part of the [itinerary], but when [that part of the trip] was canceled ... I went to Cuba on my own."
Sharpton had never been to Cuba, and he asked for a meeting with Castro. The Cuban president agreed and the two had lunch.
"We talked about the embargo and how we might bring it down," Sharpton told me. "If Bill Clinton can go to North Vietnam and bring down those walls, African-Americans should be able to start doing business in places like Cuba. We can bring in concerts, sporting events.

"Castro said he was open to me coming back with suggestions, and we scheduled another meeting for around Christmastime."

For this rest of this story, see

http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-11-27/News_and_Views/Daily_Dish/a-90011.asp

AL SHARPTON HOOKS UP WITH FIDEL, 11/00

AL SHARPTON HOOKS UP WITH FIDEL

There are reports circulating around that indicate Civil Rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton may be leading an army of Hip Hop artists down to Cuba. The New York Daily News is reporting that Sharpton has been in talks with Interscope record executive Steve Stoute to explore ways that the Hip Hop industry and Castro's Cuba could hook up and take the first steps to ending the long standing embargo that exists between the US and Cuba.

For the rest of this article, see
http://www.rapstation.com/

This link actually takes you directly to the article.

The Rev. and the Fugitive
Sharpton tried to set up Chesimard, activists say.
October 21, 1988, Newsday
By Ron Howell. Robert E. Kessler contributed to this story.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has worked as a federal informant, tried to set up a meeting with black fugitive radical JoAnne Chesimard in 1983, according to activists who said they were approached by Sharpton.
The black activists said they feared Sharpton was trying to deliver Chesimard into the arms of federal agents, but said they had no proof.
One law-enforcement source, who declined to be identified but has detailed knowledge of Sharpton's activities as an FBI informant, said this week that Sharpton was working as an informant at the time he sought to meet Chesimard. The source said that one of Sharpton's assignments was to try to lead agents to Chesimard, who escaped from prison in 1979 after being convicted in the killing a New Jersey state trooper.
"It wasn't a big massive operation. It was just a small shot, an everyday deal," the source said. "I would equate it with setting up 10 traps a day trying to catch a fox . . ." He said Sharpton was not a major participant in the search for the woman, who goes by the African name Assata Shakur.
A top FBI official said that Sharpton was not used in any manner to lure Shakur into a trap. "This is the first I'm hearing of it, it's bull - - - ," FBI Assistant Deputy Director Kenneth Walton, who led the Shakur investigation, said earlier this week.
Sharpton flatly denied trying to make contact with Shakur.
Newsday reported in January that beginning in 1983 Sharpton secretly supplied federal law enforcement agencies with information on boxing promoter Don King, reputed organized crime figures and black leaders and elected officials. And in a two-hour interview, Sharpton admitted to Newsday that he had assisted the government in drug and organized crime cases. He said he also accompanied undercover federal agents wearing body recorders to meetings with various subjects of federal investigations. He said he had allowed the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York to install a tapped telephone in his Brooklyn home.

For the rest of this article, see
http://www.prisonactivist.org/pipermail/prisonact-list/2000-March/003647.html

Sharpton Denies Chesimard Plot

October 22, 1988 Newsday
By Anthony M. DeStefano
The Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday denied that he ever tried to set up a meeting as a federal informant to trap fugitive black radical JoAnne Chesimard in 1983.
Sharpton charged that the report, which appeared in yesterday's New York Newsday, was designed to divide and confuse the black community.
The story cited unidentified law enforcement sources and two black activists, Ahmed Obafemi and Kwame Brathwaite, who claimed that Sharpton tried to reach Chesimard through them.
Chesimard, now known as Assata Shakur, has been living in Cuba for several years. She escaped in 1979 from a New Jersey state prison where she was serving a life sentence for the killing of a state trooper.
"If I tried to reach JoAnne Chesimard, I would have called someone like [attorney William] Kunstler," Sharpton said at a news conference in the Manhattan office of attorney C. Vernon Mason.
"Who is Ahmed?" Sharpton said. "Why would I seek people I do not know?"
The story cited Sharpton and a top FBI official as denying that the minister was used to lure Shakur to a meeting.
"Newsday took a page from J. Edgar Hoover in its racism," said Mason, referring to the late FBI director who conducted intelligence gathering operations against black activists.
Mason accused the paper of trying to set up a divisive atmosphere in the black community by publishing the report.
"There is nothing confusing and divisive about this," said Jim Toedtman, managing editor of New York Newsday. "This is a serious issue, involving a public figure whose activities we regarded as important and newsworthy."
Labeling the story "slanderous, scurrilous and libelous," Mason said a lawsuit would be filed over the story and others earlier this year in which Newsday reported that, beginning in 1983, Sharpton secretly supplied federal law enforcement agencies with information about reputed mobsters, black leaders and elected officials.
Sharpton has admitted assisting the government in drug and organized-crime cases but insisted he never turned over information about others.
Mason said that he believed the latest Newsday story was written to divert attention from a number of upcoming events in the black community, such as a showing next week of a videotaped documentary that purportedly will "establish that Tawana Brawley was, in fact, raped, kidnaped, and assaulted by several white men."
Sharpton, Mason and attorney Alton H. Maddox Jr. have served as advisers to the Brawley family in the case in which Tawana Brawley said she was sexually attacked by a group of white men in the vicinity of Wappingers Falls, her previous home.
However, a recent state grand jury report said an investigation determined that Brawley fabricated the story about the attack. In addition, state Attorney General Robert Abrams filed attorney disciplinary charges with the appellate division over the actions of Mason and Maddox in the case.

Internet Radio Interview Tonight July 9, 2010

2010-07-09T09:55:00.001-04:00

I will be on Brother King C-Los's internet radio program tonight at 12midnight Eastern Time and 11pm Central Time. We are talking about sell-outs, traitors, and opportunists who exploit our community.

You can listen live at http://www.rastaresolutions.com/
or
http://www.wgnu920am.com/
The call in number is 314-448-4325

Rev. Al Sharpton was an FBI Informant Attempting to have Assata Shakur Captured according to Veteran New York Black Nationalists

2010-07-06T18:58:00.003-04:00

The Rev. and the Fugitive Sharpton tried to set up Chesimard, activists say
By Ron Howell, Newsday, Friday 21 October 1988

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has worked as a federal informant, tried to set up a meeting with black fugitive radical JoAnne Chesimard in 1983, according to activists who said they were approached by Sharpton.

The black activists said they feared Sharpton was trying to deliver Chesimard into the arms of federal agents, but said they had no proof.

One law-enforcement source, who declined to be identified but has detailed knowledge of Sharpton’s activities as an FBI informant, said this week that Sharpton was working as an informant at the time he sought to meet Chesimard. The source said that one of Sharpton’s assignments was to try to lead agents to Chesimard, who escaped from prison in 1979 after being convicted in the killing a New Jersey state trooper.

“It wasn’t a big massive operation. It was just a small shot, an everyday deal,” the source said. “I would equate it with setting up 10 traps a day trying to catch a fox . . .” He said Sharpton was not a major participant in the search for the woman, who goes by the African name Assata Shakur.

A top FBI official said that Sharpton was not used in any manner to lure Shakur into a trap. “This is the first I’m hearing of it, it’s bull———,” FBI Assistant Deputy Director Kenneth Walton, who led the Shakur investigation, said earlier this week.

Sharpton flatly denied trying to make contact with Shakur.

Newsday reported in January that beginning in 1983 Sharpton secretly supplied federal law enforcement agencies with information on boxing promoter Don King, reputed organized crime figures and black leaders and elected officials. And in a two-hour interview, Sharpton admitted to Newsday that he had assisted the government in drug and organized crime cases. He said he also accompanied undercover federal agents wearing body recorders to meetings with various subjects of federal investigations. He said he had allowed the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York to install a tapped telephone in his Brooklyn home.

Sharpton has insisted he never turned over information on black radicals or on King.

This week, Sharpton denied assertions by Ahmed Obafemi, a long-time activist, and Kwame Brathwaite, an activist and photographer who says Sharpton asked him to set up an encounter with Obafemi. Both men say that Obafemi acted as the intermediary in the failed discussions with Sharpton to reach Shakur.

Sharpton called the men “liars” and said they were possibly “police agents.” He charged they are part of “an element in the black community that has lost out . . . and that will fabricate any story out of jealousy because they have no following . . . ”

Obafemi, the national organizer for the New Afrikan People’s Organization, said Sharpton met with him in Manhattan at least four times in 1983, over a period of about two months. He said that Sharpton offered to donate money to help black revolutionaries running from the law and that Sharpton was particularly interested in setting up a meeting with Shakur, once referred to as the “soul” of the Black Liberation Army.

Sharpton told Obafemi he was representing two former Black Panthers, who wanted to see Shakur, according to Obafemi.

The ex-Panthers were supposedly trying to make useful contacts in case they had to flee the country someday, Obafemi said he was told.

“The first discussion was that they were close to her, that they had been in the [Black Panther] party with her and that they wanted to talk to her,” Obafemi said. “I wanted to find out who they were, but he said they really didn’t want to be known.”

Shakur was once a member of the Black Panther Party, but went underground around 1971 because she said she believed the group was being infiltrated by city and federal law enforcement officers.

The 1983 deal fell through at a final meeting when Sharpton insisted that money would be donated only if the two former Panthers could meet Shakur. Failing that, Obafemi said, Sharpton was interested in making any kind of “contact” with her or with any of her close associates also on the run from the law. “Naturally, I never got back” to him, said Obafemi, whose organization believes that blacks should have their own country within the United States and that they have the right to fight for it.

“Obviously we had to feel that a definite possibility existed he was working for the government, and we would have felt that way about him or anybody else who approached us in that manner,” said Chokwe Lumumba, an attorney and chairman of the New Afrikan People’s Organization.

Lumumba had been informed in 1983 by Obafemi about Sharpton’s proposal. The attorney said his organization was more interested in getting information about Sharpton’s motives than in receiving money from him. “I can’t say that we were able to make any definite conclusions” about whether Sharpton was acting as an agent for the government, Lumumba said.

Both Lumumba and Obafemi denied knowing where Shakur was at the time.

Sharpton’s first broached his interest in Shakur during a chance encounter with Brathwaite, a black nationalist, Brathwaite said. Brathwaite said he happened to run into Sharpton one day in midtown but he could not remember the month. Already acquainted with each other from entertainment circles, the two men started talking and Sharpton “said he wanted to make a donation to Assata,” Brathwaite said.

A day or two later, Brathwaite told Obafemi of the offer. “I told him to watch out,” said Brathwaite. “I knew that authorities were trying to find out where she [Assata Shakur] was and that they were trying to get close to somebody who was close to her . . . And then I just knew that he’s always been a hustler.”

Last year, Newsday disclosed that Shakur was given political asylum in Cuba and was living there with her daughter, now 14 years old. She is probably the most sought-after of the 1970s radicals linked to bank robberies and police killings over a 10-year span.

The specific amount of the contribution Sharpton said he was prepared to make in 1983 on behalf of the ex-Panthers was not discussed, Obafemi said; but Sharpton said the prospective contributors gained the money by “ripping off the system,” Obafemi recalled.

He said that at least two of the meetings occurred in a luxurious apartment at 30 Lincoln Plaza, near Lincoln Center. That was the building where, according to a law enforcement source and a report published in the Feb. 2, 1988 edition of The Village Voice, a federal agent using the name Victor Quintana set up an apartment in 1983 or earlier to lure boxing world denizens suspected of illegal activity. Quintana in that year ensnared Sharpton into working for the FBI, New York Newsday reported in January.

The Village Voice article reported that apartment was on the 29th floor, but Obafemi could not recall the floor on which he had his rendezvous with Sharpton. Sharpton lives in Brooklyn and Obafemi said he did not explain why Sharpton had access to the apartment. “He made me think it was his,” said Obafemi. “I was saying (to myself), ’What kind of money must they have to have a spot in here.’ He had the keys and everything.”

Sharpton denied this week ever being in the building.

Obafemi said that up until 1983 he knew Sharpton only as the head of a youth organization, the National Youth Movement, and as someone with vague connections in the entertainment world.

Obafemi is the ex-husband of Nehanda Obafemi, once known as Cheri Laverne Dalton, who is still wanted by the federal government in connection with the notorious Brink’s robbery which took place seven years ago yesterday. She is allegedly connected to the group of black and white revolutionaries convicted in the Brink’s heist. A guard and two police officers were killed in that incident, which took place upstate near Nyack.

In 1983, Obafemi was busy trying to gain support in the black community for the people arrested in the Brink’s case. In October of that year, several blacks and whites were convicted in that robbery and in the highly planned breakout of Shakur from prison in 1979.

The law enforcement source implicating Sharpton in the hunt for Assata Shakur said that Sharpton was also, secondarily, trying to help agents get other fugitives, especially Mutulu Shakur, who was still on the run at that time. Mutulu Shakur, no relation to Assata, was later apprehended and convicted in connection with the Brink’s robbery and the escape of Assata Shakur.

Robert E. Kessler contributed to this story.

[***The following appeared in the City version***Brathwaite is the brother of Elombe Brath, an official of a black nationalist organization called the Patrice Lumumba Coalition. Brath and several associates have been opposed to Sharpton because of his FBI ties. ]
+-+ sent by the PrisonAct List +-+ A project of the Prison Activist Resource Center. See the Prison Issues Desk at .

1 - Move Confrontation in Philadelphia

2010-02-02T18:06:00.001-05:00

CLICK ON TITLE FOR PART I OF MOVE DOCUMENTARY. ALL OTHER PARTS ARE UNDER RELATED VIDEOS.

Ona MOVE! As you already know, May 13, 2010 marks 25 years since the bombing and murder of our MOVE family. We're asking those of you that can't be in Philadelphia to write a letter of support (organizational or individual) that we can read at our activities, especially our overseas supporters. Thanks for all our support----Ramona

MOVE 1978 VIDEO

1 of 8 clips of documentary video about the Move Organization entitled "MOVE: Confrontaion in Philadelphia." Brief history and onsite footage outside the MOVE headquaters in Powelton Village.

Health Care = 'I Don't Care' by Mumia Abu-Jamal

2009-09-10T14:43:00.001-04:00

Health Care = 'I Don't Care' [col. writ. 8/29/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As the White House and Congress square off on health care, take care, because the deals with the big dogs have been made -- and the people will be -- once again -- left holding an empty bag.
That's because in the opening hours of this drama, the central issue -- single payer -- was given away, in an attempt to attract the support of big insurance companies. A pre-pay-off, if you will, to show them that neither their profits nor future growth would be impaired.
Truly, this is change that they can believe in, for it means more clients, more funds flooding their tills, and legislative protection for their dwindling pay outs (for sick people.)
Single-payer means that all doctors and hospitals would have been paid for their services by a single government agency -- spelling the end to the immense profits garnered each year by hundreds of insurance companies -- now costing at least $350 billion annually.
Now, that amount of money would've paid for much of the nation's health care needs, instead of private business profits, and executive bonuses.
With the deal made, that money is gone -- and so are the hopes of millions for a fix of the nation's broken health care system.
Do you really think the insurance companies donated millions to Obama and select members of Congress because they liked their looks?
They'll give dough to Democrats, Republicans -- hell, even communists if they think it'll buy them more profits.
And it looks like they have.
There's an old American saying, 'You get what you pay for.'
Well, they've paid the politicians -- and they're about to get the payoff!
There's considerable coverage on the recent passing of Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy, a long time advocate of universal healthcare. While his brain cancer undoubtedly shortened his days, it's also likely that this adept politician, seeing the horse trades being made to sell out the people on health care, caused him to die from a broken heart.
Oh -- and about those town halls? It's much ado about nothing, or as Shakespeare once wrote, it's 'sound and fury, signifying nothing.'
Most of them are people who didn't even vote for Obama, and who call him a 'socialist' for using 'the guvamint to interfere with Medicare.' Nutty as a Snickers bar. Many still believe he was born in Kenya, East Africa!
And yes, a bill will pass, and Obama will sign it, but it'll mean less, not more health care. It'll mean higher co-pays (really prepays, or deductibles), less services, and more profits for their campaign contributors. There will be celebrations and TV PR people will praise it like American Idol -- but it'll be a sell-out -- pure and simple.
Unless -- unless -people really raise hell -- and demand single payer -- and universal health care -- before the door slams shut.
--(c) '09 maj

"With all due respect... I was not chosen as president to restore capitalism to Cuba or to renounce the revolution"

2009-08-06T05:19:00.001-04:00

(click title for source)

Raul Castro offers US direct talks
Cuban President Raul Castro says he is willing to enter into dialogue with the US but the island's communist system remains non-negotiable.

Mr Castro said he wanted to respond to recent overtures by Washington.

But in a speech that was given a standing ovation in parliament, he also emphasised that he had not been elected to return Cuba to capitalism.

US President Barack Obama has said he wants to "recast" relations with Cuba but the US has also called for reforms.

In his speech, Mr Castro acknowledged that there had been less aggression and anti-Cuban rhetoric under the Obama administration.

I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism - not to destroy it

Cuban President Raul Castro
He repeated Cuba's willingness "to sustain a respectful dialogue with the United States, between equals".

But he also noted that a decades-old US embargo remained in place and said he wished to respond to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's comments linking dialogue with reform.

"With all due respect, in response to Mrs Clinton, but also to the European Union... I was not chosen as president to restore capitalism to Cuba or to renounce the revolution," Mr Castro said.

"I was elected to defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism. Not to destroy it."

Mr Castro, 78, stepped up to the Cuban leadership three years ago when his older brother, Fidel, underwent gastric surgery.

He formally assumed the presidency last year.

In his speech, he scoffed at those who say Cuba's political system will crumble after the "the death of Fidel and all of us".

"If that's how they think, they are doomed to failure," he said.

On the economic front, the Cuban president announced that the government had cut its budget for a second time this year amid a growing financial crisis.

The government has recently pushed through a series of austerity measures and cut its projected economic growth estimate for this year to 1.7%

The Obama Administration and Political Prisoners?

2009-04-19T20:23:00.011-04:00

The Obama Administration and Political Prisoners?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6iBWvgPY2c

The Illegal Hunt Continues Under the Obama Administration
http://www.app.com/article/20090419/NEWS03/904190339/1007/NEWS03

"They could release political prisoners," Obama said.
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/04/19/ap6308290.html

Congresswoman Waters issues statement on U.S. Freedom Fighter Assata Shakur

2009-04-19T19:59:00.002-04:00

Pictures of Fidel Castro with Malcolm X and later with Nelson Mandela

Congresswoman Waters issues statement on U.S. Freedom Fighter Assata Shakur
29 September 1998
September 29, 1998

President Fidel CastroCentral CommitteePlaza de la Revolucion Habana, Cuba

Dear President Castro,

I am writing to clarify my position on a resolution recently passed by the United States House of Representatives on September 14, 1998.

I, and some of the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, mistakenly voted for House Concurrent Resolution 254 which called on the Government of Cuba to extradite to the United States Joanne Chesimard and all other individuals who have fled the United States from political persecution and received political asylum in Cuba. Joanne Chesimard was the birth name of a political activist known to most Members of the Congressional Black Caucus as Assata Shakur.
For the record, I am opposed to the resolution.

By way of explanation, the Republican leadership quietly slipped this bill onto the accelerated suspension calendar last week as one of thirteen (13) bills that had been announced that same day. The suspension calendar is supposed to be reserved for non-controversial legislation like naming federal buildings and post offices. But, the Republican leadership chose to push this provision in an apparent effort to look tough on Cuba for the November elections.

As evidence of their deceptive intent, the resolution did not mention Assata Shakur, but chose to only call her Joanne Chesimard.

Unfortunately, none of our offices were alerted to the fact that this legislation was coming up for a vote by any of the numerous advocacy groups that monitor related issues.

Once I discovered the nature of this deception, I prepared a statement of opposition, which I delivered on the floor the next day. I unequivocally stated that a mistake was made and I would have voted against the legislation.

Allow me to explain why I am opposed to this measure.

I support the right of all nations to grant political asylum to individuals fleeing political persecution. The United States grants political asylum to individuals from all over the world who successfully prove they are fleeing political persecution. Other sovereign nations have the same right, including the sovereign nation of Cuba.

Although there are Members of Congress that may disagree with particular decisions made by other sovereign governments regarding political asylum, it is the inviolate right of legitimate governments to grant asylum pursuant to the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I will fight to maintain the ability of political refugees to find asylum in United States and respect the right of other governments to be able to grant political asylum. Just as we maintain the right to grant political asylum for individuals from Cuba, we must respect the right of the government of Cuba to grant political asylum for individuals from the U.S. fleeing political persecution.

I believe that the current thirty-seven year embargo on Cuba is a relic of a Cold War past, now over, and is primarily hurting the poor and working people of Cuba. I was encouraged by the words of the Pope in his visit to Cuba this year, and look forward to a new era of US-Cuban relations. Part of these efforts include work to allow humanitarian and medical aid for Cuba.
The second reason I oppose this measure is because I respect the right of Assata Shakur to seek political asylum. Assata Shakur has maintained that she was persecuted as a result of her political beliefs and political affiliations. As a result, she left the United States and sought political asylum in Cuba, where she still resides.

In a sad and shameful chapter of our history, during the 1960s and 1970s, many civil rights, Black Power and other politically active groups were secretly targeted by the FBI for prosecution based on their political beliefs. The groups and individuals targeted included Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, officials of the American Friends Service Committee, National Council of Churches and other civil rights, religious and peace movement leaders.
However, the most vicious and reprehensible acts were taken against the leaders and organizations associated with the Black Power or Black Liberation Movement. Assata Shakur, was a member of the Black Panther Party, one of the leading groups associated with the Black Liberation Movement. The Black Panther Party was the primary target of U.S. domestic government political harrassment and persecution during this era.

This illegal, clandestine political persecution was wrong in 1973, and remains wrong today.
I hope that my position is clear. I hope to see a new era of U.S.-Cuban relations in the future.

Sincerely,
Maxine Waters, ChairCongressional Black Caucus

(Editor's note: Following is an attachment to the letter. It is part of the official record of U.S. House activities.)
PERSONAL EXPLANATION (House of Representatives - September 15,1998) Page: H7785
Ms. WATERS. Mr. Speaker, I inadvertently voted 'yea' on rollcall vote No. 428. If I had been aware of this, I would have changed my vote to 'nay' instead of 'yea.'
(c) 1998 HYPE Information Service, on the Web at http://afrikan.net/hype/

Concerning the Daily News Article by Jason Nark

2009-04-05T20:02:00.002-04:00

I received a phone call from Jason Nark of the Daily News some weeks ago. He wanted to interview someone for the Daily News for the "other" perspective on Assata Shakur for an article he was writing. He said he wanted to be objective and express all sides. I rattled off a number of Philadelphia based activists who I thought would be good. He expressed possible interest in interviewing me. I told him that I'm not interested in being objective, I'm interested in the truth. I told him that I probably was not the best person because I didn't expect mainstream media to print my views. I used Obama as an example. I told him that if former President Bush is a war criminal, which he is, then President Obama is a war criminal. Bush bombed innocent people, and Obama is doing the same in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He said he wanted to interview me and proceeded to basically ask me what I thought about Assata Shakur.

I told him that she was innocent and not only deserved the bounty to be lifted but should be compensated. He put that in the article, but unfortunately the journalist, Jason Nark, put nothing else of what we discussed in his article. In his attempt to be objective he yielded to the views of those such as New Jersey State Police Lt. Kevin Tormey and the "Black Bounty Hunter" Mayor Douglas Palmer of Trenton. So, what did Jason leave out of our very brief discussion about Asssat?

I informed Jason that Assata was not a criminal. COINTELPRO and J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI were criminals. The New Jersey justice system and that of the US government were criminal. I fully expected Jason to research COINTELPRO and get back to me for an actual interview. Unfortunately, he had already written his article, which obviously met the standards of Daily News' objectivity. However, he veered from the truth. Black activists and other activists were persecuted for their political views and revolutionary views by the US government with Hoover as one of the leads of this persecution. Assassination, incrimination, organizational disruption, and character assassination were some of the methods used. This is historical fact, yet no one has been held accountable. Many of these activists sit in prisons today. Others such as Assata Shakur left the country which persecuted them, the USA. The Palmers and Tormeys of the world refuse to even believe that COINTELPRO existed and that the Assatas of the world are victims of this persecution. In fact, the Malcolms, Martins, and Mumias are all victims of COINTELPRO or COINTELPRO-type operations. It would have been a small gain had Jason done a little research in the historical incrimination committed by Hoover, the FBI, and COINTELPRO. Unfortunately, he did what so many in mainstream has done, he met the standards of his newspaper while not standing up for justice.

Before we finished our little discussion, he seemed somewhat hopeful about Obama being in office. I said, if the President is against reparations for Afrikan people but stands up against Palestine on behalf of Israel, I seriously doubt if he would support Assata Shakur or other political prisoners. If he refuses to investigate and prosecute the Bush administration, I doubt if he'd do anything to hold accountable the architects of COINTELPRO.

Well, the discussion I had with Jason Nark was reduced to a few sentences he quoted:
"Assata is an innocent woman. Not only should the bounty be lifted, but she should receive some type of compensation," said Mukasa Afrika, founder of Laying the Foundation, a Philadelphia-based organization devoted to African-culture education.
"It's a hunt. That's all it is, and the fact that she continues to inspire people angers police." And that is the nature of mainstream media for you. You can click on the title above for Jason's article. However, I'd recommend you do what I thought Jason would have done - find out the historical truth and stand up for justice.

Mumia Abu Jamal Press Conference

2007-07-16T18:33:00.000-04:00

Click on title above for important YouTube interview from the Mumia Abu Jamal Press Conference.
Also see: http://highbridnation.highbrid.com/?p=2212

Assata Shakur on Spirituality, Religion, and Revolution

2007-04-14T22:39:00.000-04:00

Click title for interview.

Assata Shakur's 60th Birthday Launch!

2006-10-24T12:46:00.000-04:00

LAYING THE FOUNDATION
and Action Committees

Join LAYING THE FOUNDATION as we go to New York to celebrate, participate, and organize with sisters and brothers on behalf of Assata Shakur and her 60th birthday. The cost of travel from Philadelphia to New York and back is only $25 to help make history and promote the pardon of the persecution of Sister Assata. We will take a van or a bus to New York depending on the number of sisters and brothers who correspond with us to express their immediate interest in the event. You must respond by Friday the 27th at the very latest and you will be given a time and location to make payment for travel by Friday. We need at least 10 people for a van and at least 20 people to charter a bus, $25 per seat either way. We will depart Philadelphia from in front of Ben Franklin High School, 550 N. Broad St., at 3:00pm on Thursday, November 2nd, 2006. We will arrive in New York ahead of schedule to guarantee our entrance into the event, which is free.
Details of the event are below.
To reserve your seat, contact Mukasa Afrika
Phone: 215-662-0286 or
email: spirits360@yahoo.com

LAYING THE FOUNDATION websites:
http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/ http://kingtutankhamen.blogspot.com/
http://afrikan-resistance.blogspot.com/ http://mukasa.info/
---------------------------
Assata Shakur's 60th Birthday Launch!
-------------------------------
Join the Hands Off Assata Campaign, co-hosts Susan Taylor and Mos Def, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, and many other supporters in an international mobilization to call on the state of New Jersey and the US Department of Justice to rescind the illegitimate $1 million bounty to capture Assata Shakur, remove her name from the domestic terrorist list, and ultimately issue Ms. Shakur a rightful, long overdue pardon.

Join us:
Thursday, November 2nd, 2006 6pm
SEIU 1199 Hall
310 West 43rd Street
(between 8th and 9th Aves.)
New York, NY

Free...donations accepted
Featuring:
·Co-Hosts Susan Taylor and Mos Def
·Gloria Rolando's "Eyes of the Rainbow" about
Assata's life in Cuba
·Assata Skakur's Birthday Card Sign the card,
receive a hand made Hands Off Assata bracelet, and
contribute to a larger liberation movement for Assata
Shakur...for Cuba...for us all.
For more information:
http;//www.happybirthdayassata.org
http://www.happybirthdayassata.org
hoacampaign@yahoo.com
mailto:hoacampaign@yahoo.com
(866) 244-4708

Assata: An Autobiography

2006-03-22T15:12:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/
"The idea of the Black Liberation Army emerged from conditions in Black communities: conditions of poverty, indecent housing, massive unemployment, poor medical care, and inferior education. The idea came about because Black people are not free or equal in this country. Because ninety percent of the men and women in this country's prisons are Black and Third World. Because ten-year-old children are shot down in our streets. Because dope has saturated our communities, preying on the disillusionment and frustrations of our children. The concept of the BLA arose because of the political, social, and economic oppression of Black people in this country. And where there is oppression, there will be resistance. The BLA is part of that resistance movement. The Black Liberation Army stands for freedom and justice for all people. "
http://www.afrocubaweb.com/assata.htm

Assata Shakur: The Government's Terrorist is Our Community's Heroine By Mos Def

2006-03-08T22:02:00.000-05:00

www.assata-shakur.blogspot.com

Earlier this month the federal government issued a statement in which they labeled Joanne Chesimard, known to most in the Black community as Assata Shakur, as a domestic terrorist. In so doing, they also increased the bounty on her head from $150,000 to an unprecedented $1,000,000. Viewed through the lens of U.S. law enforcement, Shakur is an escaped cop-killer. Viewed through the lens of many Black people, including me, she is a wrongly convicted woman and a hero of epic proportions.
My first memory of Assata Shakur was the "Wanted" posters all over my Brooklyn neighborhood. They said her name was Joanne Chesimard, that she was a killer, an escaped convict, and armed and dangerous. They made her sound like a super-villain, like something out of a comic book. But even then, as a child, I couldn't believe what I was being told. When I looked at those posters and the mug shot of a slight, brown, high-cheekboned woman with a full afro, I saw someone who looked like she was in my family, an aunt, a mother. She looked like she had soul. Later, as a junior high school student, when I read her autobiography, Assata, I would discover that not only did she have soul, she also had immeasurable heart, courage and love. And I would come to believe that that very heart and soul she possessed was exactly why Assata Shakur was shot, arrested, framed and convicted of the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper.
There are some undisputed facts about the case. On May 2nd, 1973, Assata Shakur, a Black Panther, was driving down the New Jersey State Turnpike with two companions, Zayd Shakur and Sundiata Acoli. The three were pulled over, ostensibly for a broken tail light. A gun battle ensued, why and how it started is unclear. But the aftermath is not. Trooper Werner Forester and Zayd Shakur lay dead. Sundiata Acoli escaped [he was captured two days later]. And Assata was shot and arrested. At trial, three neurologists would testify that the first gunshot shattered her clavicle and the second shattered the median nerve in her right hand. That testimony proved that she was sitting with her hands raised when she was fired on by police. Further testimony proved that no gun residue was found on either of her hands, nor were her finger prints found on any of the weapons located at the scene. Nevertheless, Shakur was convicted by an all-White jury and sentenced to life in prison. Six years and six months to the day that she was arrested, and aided by friends, Shakur escaped from Clinton Women's Prison in New Jersey. As a high school student I remember seeing posters all around the Brooklyn community I lived in that read: Assata Shakur is Welcome Here. In 1984, she surfaced in Cuba and was granted political asylum by Fidel Castro.

The Case for Impeachment of George Bush: Congressman John Conyers, www.truthout.org

2006-02-28T15:42:00.000-05:00

...The Conyers report doesn't lack for further instances of the administration's misconduct, all of them noted in the press over the last three years-misuse of government funds, violation of the Geneva Conventions, holding without trial and subjecting to torture individuals arbitrarily designated as "enemy combatants," etc.-but conspiracy to commit fraud would seem reason enough to warrant the President's impeachment. Before reading the report, I wouldn't have expected to find myself thinking that such a course of action was either likely or possible; after reading the report, I don't know why we would run the risk of not impeaching the man. We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal-known to be armed and shown to be dangerous. Under the three-strike rule available to the courts in California, judges sentence people to life in jail for having stolen from Wal-Mart a set of golf clubs or a child's tricycle. Who then calls strikes on President Bush, and how many more does he get before being sent down on waivers to one of the Texas Prison Leagues?

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706C.shtml

A Brief History of the Black Panther Party. Its Place in the Black Liberation Movement

2006-02-27T15:42:00.000-05:00

A Brief History of the Black Panther Party. Its Place in the Black Liberation Movement
By Sundiata Acoli, from the Sundiata Acoli Freedom Campaign1995

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in October, 1966, in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale. The name was shortened to the Black Panther Party (BPP) and it began spreading eastward through the Black urban ghetto-colonies across country.
In the summer of '68, David Brothers established a BPP branch in Brooklyn, New York, and a few months later Lumumba Shakur set up a branch in Harlem, New York. i joined the Harlem BPP in the fall of '68 and served as its Finance Officer until arrested on April 2, 1969 in the Panther 21 Conspiracy case which was the opening shot in the government's nationwide attack on the BPP. Moving westward, Police Departments in each city made military raids on BPP offices or homes in Philadelphia, Chicago, Newark, Omaha, Denver, New Haven, San Diego, Los Angeles, and other cities, murdering some Panthers and arresting others.

After i and most other Panther 21 members were held in jail and on trial for two years, We were all acquitted of all charges and released. Most of us returned to the community and to the BPP but by then COINTELPRO had taken its toll. The BPP was rife with dissension, both internal and external. The internal strife, division, intrigue, and paranoia had become so ingrained that eventually most members drifted or were driven, away. Some continued the struggle on other fronts and some basically cooled out altogether. The BPP limped on for several more years, then died what seemed a natural death.

History will be the ultimate judge of the BPP's place in the Black Liberation Movement (BLM). But in these troubled times Afrikan people in the U.S. need to investigate both the positive and negative aspects of the BPP's history in order to learn from those hard lessons already paid for in blood. In particular We need to learn the reasons for the BPP's rapid rise to prominence, the reason for its ability to move so many Afrikans and other nationalities, and the reason for its demise during its brief sojourn across the American scene. It's not possible in this short paper, on short notice, to provide much of what is necessary, so this paper will confine itself to pointing out some of the broader aspects of the BPP's positive and negative contributions to the BLM.

Click Here For Entire Essay:
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/004.html

The injustice of Assata Shakur's trial by Atty. Lennex Hinds

2006-02-25T19:35:00.000-05:00

http://www.assata-shakur.blogspot.com/
The injustice of the trial
By Atty. Lennex Hinds, Covert Action Quarterly,[26 October 1998]
Assata was convicted in New Jersey as an accomplice to the murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster and of atrocious assault on James Harper with the intent to kill. Under NJ law, if a person's presence at the scene can be construed as "aiding and abetting" the crime, that person can be convicted of the substantive crime itself.
The state of NJ convicted Sundiata Acoli for these same murders after Assata was severed from the proceedings because of her pregnancy. The jury at Assata's trial for the same offences was permitted to speculate that her "mere presence" at a scene of violence, with weapons in the vehicle, was sufficient to sustain a conviction -even though three neurologists testified at the trial that her median nerve had been severed by gunshot wounds, rendering her unable to pull a trigger, and that her clavicle had been shattered by a shot that could only have been made while she was seated in the car with her hands raised.
Other experts testified that a neutron activation analysis adminstered by the police right after the shootout showed no gun residue on her fingers, meaning she had not shot a weapon.
She was also convicted of possession of weapons -none of which could be identified as having been handled by her -and of the attempted murder of state trooper Harper, who had sustained a minor injury at the shootout.
It had been and is in my view that it was the racism in Middlesex County, fueled by biased inflammatory publicity in the local press before and throughout the trial, fanned by the documented government lawlessness, that made it possible for the white jury to convict Assata on the uncorroborated, contradictory, and generally incredible testimony of trooper Harper, the only other witness to the events on the Turnpike.
Harper's testimony as well as that of all the other state's witnesses was riddled with inconsistencies and discrepancies. On three separate official reports, including his grand jury testimony, Harper said that he saw Assata take a gun from her pocketbook, while in the car, and shoot him. He admitted on cross-examination during both Sundiata's and Assata's trial, that he never saw Assata with a gun and did not see her shoot him -that, in fact, he lied.
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/097.html

PrisonRadio.org with Mumia Abu-Jamal

2006-02-24T15:42:00.000-05:00

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http://prisonradio.org/PrisonWritings.htm

"In this land of prisons, the prisons aren't always the places with bars."
Mumia Abu-Jamal discusses prison writing, the encaged prison society, and the power of our history.

Click to listen to prison radio:
1) 7:41 Essay Aiff CD quality
2) 7:41 Essay Mp3 faster download but convert back to play on boombox

[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM: A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South End Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph. #1-800-533-8478.] "When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die. And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice." - Mumia Abu-Jamal MUMIA'S COLUMNS NEED TO BE PUBLISHED AS BROADLY AS POSSIBLE TO INSPIRE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT AND HELP CALL ATTENTION TO HIS CASE. The campaign to kill Mumia is in full swing and we need you to **please** contact as many publications and information outlets as you possibly can to run Mumia's commentaries (on-line and **especially off-line**)!! The only requirements are that you run them *unedited*, with every word including copyright information intact, and send a copy of the publication to Mumia and/or ICFFMAJ. THANK YOU!!! Keep updated by reading ACTION ALERTS!! at http://www.mumia.org, http://www.onamove.com/ and their links. ======================================== To download Mp3's of Mumia's commentaries visit http://www.prisonradio.org or http://www.fsrn.org ==============================================> The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia! PLEASE CONTACT: International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ P.O. Box 19709 Philadelphia, PA 19143 Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180 E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES! Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at: Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335 SCI-Greene 175 Progress Drive Waynesburg, PA 15370 WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!! Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing icffmaj@aol.com!
For additional information and to order Mumia's new book We Want Freedom,
visit: southendpress.org
Check out Mumia's NEW book:"Faith of Our Fathers: An Examination of the Spiritual Life of African and African-American People" at www.africanworld.com
The Power of Truth is Final — Free Mumia!
PLEASE CONTACT:International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJP.O. Box 19709Philadelphia, PA 19143Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180E-mail - AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:Mumia Abu-JamalAM 8335SCI-Greene175 Progress DriveWaynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa

The U.N. Petition: From Covert Action Quaterly 26 Oct. 1998

2006-02-23T19:35:00.000-05:00

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The U.N. Petition
From Covert Action Quarterly26 October 1998
On December 11, 1978, attorney Lennox Hinds, on behalf of the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racism, and the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, sent a petition to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights alleging a "consistent pattern of gross...violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of certain classes of political prisoners in the United States because of their race, economic status, and political beliefs."
The petition, referring to the case of Assata Shakur, stated that, "The FBI and the New York Police Departments, in particular, charged and accused Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law enforcement personnel, and widely circulated such charges and accusations among police agencies and units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as being a leader of the Black Liberation Army, which the government and its respective agencies described as an organization engaged in the shooting of police officers. This description of the Black Liberation Army and the accusation of Assata Shakur's relation to it was widely circulated by government agents among police agencies and units. As a result of these activities by the government, Ms Shakur became a hunted person; posters in police precincts and banks described her as being involved in serious criminal activities; she was highlighted on the FBI's most wanted list; and to police at all levels she became a "shoot to kill target"
In response to the petition, seven international jurists visited a number of prisons on August 3-20, 1979, and reported their findings... They listed four categories of prisoners, the first of which were political prisoners, defined as "a class of victims of FBI misconduct through the COINTELPRO strategy and other forms of illegal government conduct who as political activists have been selectively targeted for provocation, false arrests, entrapment, fabrication of evidence, and spurious criminal prosecutions. This class is exemplified by at least: The Wilmington Ten, the Charlotte Three, Assata Shakur, Sundiata Acoli, Imari Obadele and other Republic of New Africa defendants, David Rice, Ed Poindexter, Elmer Geronimo Pratt, Richard Marshall, Russell Means, Ted Means, and other American Indian Movement defendants."
"One of the worst cases," they wrote, "is that of Assata Shakur, who spent over twenty months in solitary confinement in two separate men's prisons subject to conditions totally unbefitting any prisoner. Many more months were spent in solitary confinement in mixed or all-women's prisons. Presently, after protracted litigation, she is confined at Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in maximum security. She has never on any occasion been punished for any infraction of prison rules which might in any way justify such cruel or unusual punishment."
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/093.html

FBI's COINTELPRO: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King

2006-02-22T20:35:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

COINTELPRO Revisited -
Spying & Disruption
IN BLACK AND WHITE: THE F.B.I. PAPERS
Following are transcripts of official FBI COINTELPRO documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The March 4, 1968 communique was sent out by J. Edgar Hoover himself just one month before the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. It specifically identified Elijah Muhammed and the Nation of Islam as primary targets of COINTELPRO, as well as Rev. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Other released FBI documents show the Bureau had infiltrators within Macolm X's Muslim Mosque, Inc. Still others prove the FBI had undercover in the very room when he was assassinated; one such agent actually administered mouth-to-mouth to the dying man.
Note: in the originally released documents, most of the names ofCOINTELPRO targets are censored. However, the names which are includedhere exactly fit the spaces marked out by the FBI. It is also now knownthat all of these individuals were in fact targetted for "neutralization"by the FBI.
Click here:
whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/COINTELPRO/COINTELPRO-FBI.docs.html

Amilcar Cabral and Revolution in Guinea-Bissau

2006-02-22T19:35:00.000-05:00

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Amilcar Cabral Born: 1924 Died: January 20, 1973
Architect and undispited leader of the PAIGC & the national liberation movement in Guinea-Bissau.
In the early 1950s, Cabral was employed as an Agronomist. Using this position, he went to every village in the entire country and from this direct observation, he came up with an analysis and strategy for the national liberation movement.
With others, he founded the PAIGC in 1956, and in 1963 their full-blown military campaign to overthrown Portuguese colonialism began.
Within two years they had extensive liberated zones where effectively they were in power.
In 1971 Cabral argued for the creation of the National People's Assembly, which was created in 1972 and based on popular vote in the liberated territories.
In January 1973, just months before the victory of the national liberation struggle, Cabral was assassinated with the help of Portuguese agents operating within the PAIGC.
Resource Site on Cabral:
http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/humanities/jaffee/historian/1729/sigal/index.html
http://www.nathanielturner.com/amilcarcabral.htm

Assassination of Fred Hampton Sr. of Black Panther Party

2006-02-21T19:35:00.000-05:00

www.assata-shakur.blogspot.com

That Unforgettable Morning: That evening Fred Hampton and several Party members including William O'Neal came home to the BPP Headquarters after a political education class. O'Neal volunteered to make the group dinner. He slipped a large dose of secobarbital in Fred's kool-aid and left the apartment around 1:30am, a little while later, Fred fell asleep. Around 4:30am on December 4, 1969 the heavily armed Chicago Police attacked the Panthers' apartment. They entered the apartment by kicking the front door down and then shooting Mark Clark pointblank in the chest. Clark was sleeping in the living room with a shotgun in his hand. His reflexes responded by firing one shot at the police before he died. That bullet was then discovered to be the only shot fired at the police by the Panthers. Their automatic gunfire entered through the walls of Fred and his pregnant girlfriend's room. Fred was shot in the shoulder. Then two officers entered the bedroom and shot Fred at pointblank in his head to make sure that he was dead, and no longer a so-called menace to society. It has been said that one officer stated, "he's good and dead now." The officers then dragged Fred's body out of his bedroom and again open fired on the members in the apartment. The Panthers were then beaten and dragged across the street where they were arrested on charges of attempted murder of the police and aggravated assault. The incident also wounded four other Panther members. For more information look at our page about COINTELPRO and Government Oppression of the BPP. Read More
http://www.providence.edu/afro/students/panther/hamptonsr.html

Former Black Panther Assata Shakur— living quietly in exile in Cuba for decades, why has the FBI now placed a million-dollar bounty on her head?

2006-02-19T00:19:00.000-05:00

http://www.assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Essence , August, 2005 by Kathleen Cleaver

Twenty-eight years ago, in a highly disputed trial, an all-White jury convicted former Black Panther Assata Shakur of the murder of a New Jersey state trooper. In 1979, while serving a life sentence, she escaped from prison and eventually resurfaced in Cuba, where she was granted asylum and has lived ever since. But the U.S. government has continued to pursue Shakur, regularly increasing the bounty on her head and classifying her as a "domestic terrorist." Last May the Justice Department issued an unprecedented $1,000,000 bounty for the return of Assata Shakur, 58, who continues to maintain her innocence. Kathleen Cleaver, a law professor and former communications secretary for the Black Panther Party, talks about why we all need to know about Assata, and why she must live free:

Read full article:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1264/is_4_36/ai_n14821596

Maxine Water's 1998 Statement to Fidel Castro regarding Assata Shakur

2006-02-18T00:19:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Congresswoman Waters issues statement on U.S. Freedom Fighter Assata Shakur
29 September 1998
September 29, 1998
President Fidel Castro
Central Committee
Plaza de la Revolucion
Habana, Cuba
Dear President Castro,
I am writing to clarify my position on a resolution recently passed by the United States House of Representatives on September 14, 1998.
I, and some of the Members of the Congressional Black Caucus, mistakenly voted for House Concurrent Resolution 254 which called on the Government of Cuba to extradite to the United States Joanne Chesimard and all other individuals who have fled the United States from political persecution and received political asylum in Cuba. Joanne Chesimard was the birth name of a political activist known to most Members of the Congressional Black Caucus as Assata Shakur.
For the record, I am opposed to the resolution.
By way of explanation, the Republican leadership quietly slipped this bill onto the accelerated suspension calendar last week as one of thirteen (13) bills that had been announced that same day. The suspension calendar is supposed to be reserved for non-controversial legislation like naming federal buildings and post offices. But, the Republican leadership chose to push this provision in an apparent effort to look tough on Cuba for the November elections.
As evidence of their deceptive intent, the resolution did not mention Assata Shakur, but chose to only call her Joanne Chesimard.
Unfortunately, none of our offices were alerted to the fact that this legislation was coming up for a vote by any of the numerous advocacy groups that monitor related issues.
Once I discovered the nature of this deception, I prepared a statement of opposition, which I delivered on the floor the next day. I unequivocally stated that a mistake was made and I would have voted against the legislation.
Allow me to explain why I am opposed to this measure.
Read the full text here:

http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/089.html

Cynthia McKinney Blasts Government For Creating “New Underclass of Katrina Homeless"

2006-02-17T11:19:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

The House select committee examining the federal response to Hurricane Katrina recently released a 600-page report criticizing all levels of government for the disaster. Democrats had refused to be involved in the committee officially, but a few participated informally and released their own supplementary reports. We speak with Georgia Congressmember Cynthia McKinney, one of the participating Democrats.
The report titled “A Failure of Initiative” blames the government for “an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare.” The report assigned blame to all levels of government for the failed response to the storm. But Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff and President Bush’s staff drew the heaviest fire. The report says Chertoff should have moved two days before Katrina hit – when the National Weather Service issued dire warnings about the storm and that the Homeland Security Department should have done more to help the Gulf Coast. It states “the failure of complete evacuation resulted in hundreds of deaths and severe suffering for thousands.” The report goes on to say that “if 9/11 was a failure of imagination, then Katrina was a failure of initiative.”

The committee that prepared the report was comprised of eleven Republicans. Democrats refused to be involved officially because they feared a whitewash. However, two Democratic Louisiana Representatives – William Jefferson and Charlie Melancon- participated informally in the committee’s activities. Georgia Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney also participated. All three Democrats released their own supplementary reports and said that the official House Committee report did not go far enough especially in addressing the needs of thousands of hurricane victims who remain homeless. They also called for Michael Chertoff to resign.

* Rep. Cynthia McKinney, (D – Georgia)

LISTEN ONLINE:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/16/1525217

http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/02/1802674.php

Rep. Cynthia McKinney Warns of New Underclass of Hurricane "Katrina Homeless"

2006-02-17T00:19:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Excerpts:
[Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), made the following statement February 15, 2006 at the Select Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina.]
“Thank you once again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to participate in the work of this Committee…
As a result of the President's failure to act, Secretary Chertoff's failure to act, and the failure of Congress to act, it appears we are about to see a new underclass of "Katrina Homeless" in America, even as Halliburton and other contractors take fifty per cent off the top of their sweetheart, no-bid Katrina contracts before subcontracting the work out at rock bottom rates.
Given the vast amounts of money that has gone "missing"—billions of dollars—from this Administration’s Iraq misadventure, it is scandalous that we won’t provide housing to the survivors.
What Katrina survivors facing homelessness need is enough assistance to rebuild their lives. Why did we offer a Victims Compensation Fund to 9/11 families but not to Katrina survivors? And why hasn’t the Congress moved swiftly to pass or at least held hearings on HR 4197, the Hurricane Katrina Recovery, Reclamation, Restoration, Reconstruction and Reunion Act of 2005?”
“Poverty cuts across ethnic divisions, but there is another side to this story. In the testimony at our hearings and in my report, there is a very clear pattern. In numerous instances, whites were evacuated before blacks while blacks were detained or turned back, as happened on the bridge to Gretna. The media stereotyped blacks as "looters" and whites as "takers" and fueled fears of blacks that led to the "invasion" of New Orleans, shockingly by hired mercenaries.
Shoot-to-kill orders were issued in a city whose police have a history of abuse, and who will spare no excuse to jail young black men for petty offenses…
There is much more to discuss. We have between 60,000 to 70,000 survivors in metro Atlanta right now, and the needs are tremendous….
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_2440.shtml

Valentine's Day: Are You Supporting Child Slavery & Murder?

2006-02-13T21:50:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Nestlé One-third of Nestle's chocolate is from West Africa, where over 286,000 children have been reported working in slave conditions on cocoa (chocolate) farms. Nestle promotes genetically engineered foods while claiming "the Fair Trade approach is not a solution." learn moreNestlé is the largest food manufacturer and chocolate company in the world with over $65 billion in annual sales. Fair Trade Certification, which guarantees a modest minimum price of $.80 per pound, would establish a "floor" or minimum price that Nestlé could easily afford to pay, thus providing a fair price to small farmers, a subsistence wage for cocoa plantation workers, and an end to the practice of child slavery.Nestle refuses to investigate the September 22, 2005 brutal assasination of Diosdado Fortuna, the leader of the Nestle union in the Philippines (the second Nestle union leader to be assasinated in this area).

Read More:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/valentines/alert.htm
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/showthread.php?p=73884

Mama Khandi

2006-02-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/
Greetings brotha Mukasa and everyone!

We of the COASADOS Legal Defense Committee in support of Mama Khandi, would like to add to your Black Activists Websites List:

Rev. Khandi Konte-Bey Paasewe
http://khandi.kickinthedoorprod.com/CRLDF

Mama Khandi has been an activist since age 13 when she joined the Black Panther Party, became a Garveyite and a Muur. She has continued her fight on behalf of Afrikan people in the Diaspora and at home for the past 53 years of her life thru home child births for Afrikan women for over 35 years, immunizations homeopathically, co-founding 5 independent Afrikan schools, MOVE supporter, Million Woman March website designer and co-chair for the Midwest Regaion, co-founder of DEC (Determination and Empowerment Collective) designed to fight the EBT food stamp card consentration camp efforts by the state of ohio, and presently fighting various factions of the state of ohio's attack against her (false arrest, false incarceration in solitary confinement with obsurd bond of $850,000, 3 felony charges, almost died, tortured in jail, no medical care, assigned incompitent council, and the lsit goes on...)

Today, Mama Khandi, after having won all court cases brought against her by the state, she will be in kkkourt for Pre-trial for a case she filed against the women who started this against her. This past weekend, she completed the FIFTH eviction and loss of her home since this attack against her began almost 4 years ago. She fights from a place of homelessness, multiple disability and renewed commitment to our people's struggle...

thanx,
COASADOS Legal Defense Committee on behalf of Mama Khandi
http://us.f517.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=coasados@yahoo.com

Welcome Statement by Sister Monika

2006-02-12T21:50:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Assata Website Welcome Statement
“Black brothers, Black sisters, I want you to know that I love you and I hope that somewhere in your hearts you have love for me. My name is Assata Shakur (slave name Joanne Chesimard), and I am a revolutionary. A Black revolutionary.”
(Excerpt from “To My People” by Assata Shakur-for full text, see Links, and then click on “To My People”)

It was with these first lines that on so-called “Amerikkkan Independence Day”, July 4, 1973, Assata Shakur declared her own independence before the world. She was a 26 year-old Afrikan woman in the hells of Amerikkka. This was indeed a very dangerous move during this time. The air was thick with tension from the recent murders of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. The Black Panther Party was ripe and ready for revolution and Amerikkka was on alert to further destroy any and all signs of the Black struggle. It took a courage that has been unmatched by any Afrikan woman since. Perhaps even by any Afrikan man since. She spoke these words while being held in custody for the alleged murder of a New Jersey State Trooper. Who would dare to stand up and proclaim oneself to be the very embodiment (a Black Revolutionary) of what the Gestapo law enforcement had been trained to obliterate, all the while facing accusations of killing one of them? Who was this Assata Shakur? What organized body of persons was supporting her? How could she have arrived at such a defiantly strong position at such a young age despite the centuries-old system of indoctrination that racism white supremacy had built? Who was this Afrikan woman that declared war on the unjust system that had managed to incarcerate her physical being but not her spiritual and mental? And who was this woman that succeeded, where so many others had failed, in a brave escape reminiscent of the days long ago of her great Afrikan ancestor Harriet Tubman? These were some of the questions that perplexed the United States government.

However, we, as Afrikan brothers and sisters, knew and still know who Assata Shakur is. Why she is the spirit of all of our Great Afrikan Warrior Queens! She is Harriet Tubman! She is Queen Nanny of the Jamaican Maroons! She is Yaasantewa of Ghana! She is Queen Nzinga of Angola! She is Empress Taytu of Ethiopia! She is Queen Hatsheput! She is Queen Ahmose Nefertari! Assata Shakur is the immortal spirit of the Afrikan Warrior Queen!
We offer Peace and Blessings on your discovery of our website in honor of this Afrikan Queen Warrior. We invite you to read and learn about her struggle and the struggle for Afrikan Liberation worldwide. However, we do so with a request. While researching this site, we would like that you ask yourself the following questions

Who am I?
Do I possess the same spirit, strength, and righteousness as Queen Assata Shakur?
Have I declared my own Afrikan Independence?
What am I doing now, today, to help my people?
Can I do more?

You will find several links to online petitions directed at getting Queen Assata exonerated of all charges and returned to the U.S., if she so chooses, to be with her family and friends. We urge you to sign up and let your voice be heard loud and proud, “Hands Off Assata”! We also encourage you to seek out organizations, like ours online and in your local community, that are working diligently to free our Queen. We encourage you to visit frequently and while here feel free to post your comments, perspectives, and Afrikan Liberation activities to the site. If you experience any difficulty posting, send an email to us at spirits360@yahoo.com. It is our sincere hope that we can assist our people in understanding the injustice that the U.S. government has perpetuated against our Queen Assata Shakur. And in doing so, we look to inspire our people to support the fight to not only end the persecution of our Queen Mother, but to also end the suffering of all Afrikans world-wide!

We pay homage to our Great Afrikan Queen Warriors:
Harriet Tubman, Empress Taytu, Queen Ahmose Nefertari,
Queen Nanny “Maroon,” Queen Nzinga, Betty Shabazz,
Yaasantewa, Queen Hatshepsut, Coretta Scott King

In the spirit of our ancestors may peace be with you!
Respectfully submitted by the Assata Shakur Action Committee

PrisonRadio.org Mumia Abu-Jamal discusses Assata Shakur

2006-02-12T12:10:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Assata: Terrorist, or Survivor of Terrorism?
by Mumia Abu-Jamal Written and Recorded 5/13/05
With the news of the posting of an additional eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the return of former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur from Cuba, the U.S. government has taken another step in its ridiculous so-called War on Terrorism. They did this by New Jersey officials branding Assata with the latest libelous label “terrorist” in an attempt to justify this modern day slave bounty...

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http://prisonradio.org/assataMumiaSlavebounty.htm

Assata went through a devil’s brew of show trials in several states, best summed up in a book by her lawyer/aunt Evelyn Williams titled Inadmissible Evidence. These were trials that seemed more fitting for Mississippi than Middlesex County, New Jersey, or Manhattan borough, New York. But no matter where that happened, they featured all white juries, and ambitious judges who didn’t even pretend to be fair and unbiased arbiters. Even despite these obvious obstructions, she was occasionally acquitted, and when she was convicted in Middlesex, it was clear this was a verdict not of her guilt, but of her political ideas. To label this woman a terrorist, is to bleed all meaning from the word. For, during her life as an activist, during her wounding and her arrest, and during her travails as an accused in courtrooms that were more lynching posts than halls of justice, she was terrorized by a system that wanted to punish her for daring to rebel.
It is fitting that these words are written on May 13, 2005, twenty years to the day from the police mass murder and bombing of the MOVE home in Philadelphia. Today, twenty years later, only one person, Ramona Africa, ever spent a day in jail. What of those cops who shot and bombed unarmed children? What of the politicians who unleashed these dogs of urban war? Like Ramona, Assata was jailed for daring to survive

Click "Essay MP3" to listen
http://prisonradio.org/assataMumiaSlavebounty.htm

Listen to PrisonRadio.org with Mumia Abu-Jamal

2006-02-11T12:10:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Mumia Abu-Jamal discusses Dhoruba Bin-Wahad

"Street gangs that started out as expressions of our community's inability to control our own streets and in opposition to police terror, were led down a certain path by the likes of Tookie. These gangs became predatory, apolitical, and reactionary. Our communities suffered as a consequence. Those who followed in Tookie's footsteps did so because not one Black institution existed that embraced and channeled their warrior spirit in a positive direction. Black nationalist[s] were to[o] busy "getting the right political line"; The Black Clergy was to[o] busy mobilizing themselves to influence a body politic that considered them nothing more than mouth-pieces for the Black middle class; Black professors and militant academician[s] were hollering at white educational institutions for inclusion and relevancy ... none spoke the language nor harnessed the energies of our street soldiers. The only organization that did so was the Black Panther Party -- and that was destroyed by a potent combination of forces over three decades ago. Nothing ever replaced it. " [fr. Bin-Wahad, Dhoruba al-Mujahid, "The Ethics of Black Atonement in Racist America: The Execution of Stanley Tookie Williams", 12/16/05

To hear, click on "Essay Mp3"
http://www.prisonradio.org/DhorubaBinWahadMumiaAbu-Jamal.htm

"The Tookie Williams execution by the state of California is not just about the efficacy of the death penalty in America, or punishment for a heinous crime, but about the ethics of atonement and redemption in a racist culture and society. Indeed, the Governor of California in his Hollywood portrayal as the 'terminator' and other violent monosyllabic killers is himself a role model for countless thugs, bandits, and murder[er]s around the globe, some of whom I've met personally. Liberia's murderous rebels, Sierra Leonean butchers of children, and scores of other misguided youth have adopted the violent persona of .. Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo" and Arnold Schwarzenegger... the 'Terminator!'"

To hear, click on "Essay Mp3"
http://www.prisonradio.org/DhorubaBinWahadMumiaAbu-Jamal.htm

Kathleen Cleaver's Introduction to Mumia Abu-Jamal's We Want Freedom

2006-02-10T18:30:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Writing from the barren confines of his death row cell, Mumia Abu-Jamal provides a remarkable testament in his latest book to the transformative impact of being a part of the Black Panther Party. A high school student when he joined, reflection now polishes Mumia's extensively researched account that clarifies why, in his words, "the Party became the central focus of the lives of thousands of Panthers across the nation." Frank vignettes of unforgettable encounters he had - -with fellow members, hostile opponents, larger-than-life Panther leaders, and brutal police are a sheer delight to read. His portrayal of the unquenchable enthusiasm for liberation that animated the Black Panther Party, most of whose members were, like Mumia, teenagers- and over 50 percent were young women - is refreshing. But personal experience comprises only one facet of We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party.
Kathleen Cleaver
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACcleaverK.htm
http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=661&IssueNum=36
Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.mumia2000.org/
http://www.freemumia.org/intro.html

Angela Davis' quote from the Foreword of Assata Shakur's Autobiography

2006-02-06T23:10:00.000-05:00

http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Twenty-five years later, the retailoring of the image of Assata as enemy is even more damaging, omitting the original political context and representing her as a common criminal - a bank robber and murderer. The lifting of her image out of the past for very contemporary purposes serves to justify the consolidation of a vast prison industrial complex, which Assata herself has described as “… not only a mechanism to convert public tax money into profits for corporations [but also] an essential element of modern neoliberal capitalism.” In her view, this new formation serves two purposes: “one, to neutralize and contain huge segments of potentially rebellious sectors of the population, and two, to sustain a system of super-exploitation, where mainly black and Latino captives are imprisoned in white rural, overseer communities.”
As the above quotation reveals, Assata remains very much engaged with contemporary radical politics specific to the United States, even though she has been unable to visit this country since her escape from prison and her decision to settle in Cuba many years ago. As you read her extraordinary autobiography, you will discover a woman who has nothing in common with the hostile representations that refuse to expire. I urge you to reflect on what it must mean for her to have been unable to attend her mother’s funeral or to visit her new grandchild. As you follow her life story, you will discover a compassionate human being with an unswerving commitment to justice that travels easily across racial and ethnic lines, in and out of prison and across oceans and time. She speaks to all of us, and especially to those of us who are sequestered in a global network of prisons and jails. At a time when optimism has receded from our political vocabulary, she offers invaluable gifts – inspiration and hope. Her words remind us, as Walter Benjamin once observed, that it is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.
Angela Y. Davis
University of California, Santa Cruz
March 2000

More on Angela Davis:
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/ssmith/davisbio.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdavisAN.htm

Assata Shakur: To My People

2006-02-04T02:10:00.000-05:00

To My People
Assata Shakur
http://assata-shakur.blogspot.com/

Black brothers, Black sisters, i want you to know that i love you and i hope that somewhere in your hearts you have love for me. My name is Assata Shakur (slave name joanne chesimard), and i am a revolutionary. A Black revolutionary. By that i mean that i have declared war on all forces that have raped our women, castrated our men, and kept our babies empty-bellied.I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property.I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i am a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that amerika is capable of. Like all other Black revolutionaries, amerika is trying to lynch me.I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered over fifty thousand dollars in rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army...

Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the BlackLiberation Army at this time is to create good examples, to struggle for Black freedom, and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary.It is our duty to fight for our freedom.It is our duty to win.We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

read the full text at the following website:
http://www.assatashakur.org/forum//showthread.php?t=5100