VOL-

Volume 1: Issues11 and 2

BAMN

By Any Means Necessary

“A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.� - Malcolm X H T T P S : / / W W W. M X G M . O R G /

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By Any Means Necessary

TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S Editorial: Introduction to By Any Means Necessary - Dr. Makungu Akinyela

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Section - 1 - Nehanda Abiodun Memorial Tributes Section Editor: Edward Onaci

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Statement on the Transition of Nehanda Isoke Abiodun - NAPO p. 4-5 MXGM in Cuba - Ifetayo M. Flannery p. 6-7 Statement on the Passing of Nehanda Isoke Abiodun - The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, New York Chapter p.8 Nehanda Abiodun - Warrior Woman, Freedom Fighter - Dylcia Pagan p.10 p. 11 Ministry of Culture, Cuban Institute of Music, Cuban Agency of RAP - A Tribute Your Life Represents; Never Give Up - Dr. Mutulu Shakur p.12-13 From Malika to Nehanda - Comrade Malika p. 14 Reflection on Nehanda Abiodun - Chinganji Akinyela p. 15 Section 2 - International Section Editor: Edward Onaci Section Contextualization - Nyeusi Jami The Bolivarian Republic of V enezuela in the Crosshairs: A Short Intro - K wame-Osagyefo Kalimara The People’s Flood Unleashed Again In Haiti - Akinyele Umoja Section 3 - Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War Section Editor: Nyeusi Jami Section Contextualization - Edward Onaci Biographies - Mutulu Shakur & Sundiata Acoli - Hiram Rivera Section 4 - Culture Section Editor: Makungu Akinyela Section Contextualization - Culture is a Weapon - Makungu Akinyela Interview with Sunni Patterson - Nyeusi Jami Whirlwind - Makungu Akinyela Section 5 - Notes on Revolutionary Theory and Practice Section Editor: Makungu Akinyela Section Contextualization - Makungu Akinyela The Black Liberation Movement at the Crossroads – Muhammad Ahmad

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Introduction to BAMN Makungu Akinyela MXGM National Information Coordinator Congratulations on reading the first edition of the BAMN News Journal (volumes 1 and 2). This journal will be delivered to you each quarter of the year and published by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. The BAMN publication staff has been working on this volume for months and we decided that the best time to release was in the second quarter of 2019 on time for the birth date of the Black Nations “Shining Black Prince,” Malcolm X,” May 19th. This journal on both the e-document platform and hard copy is an important step in the MXGM program to organize our people to fight for self-determination and human rights. It comes at an important period of our struggle when news, ideas of struggle, culture and theory will play an important part in developing and shaping a grassroots centered national consciousness and identity that will unite all of our people in the fight for freedom. Our hope is that this journal will reflect the best tradition of the revolutionary journal Soul Book of the House of Umoja/RAM, the Black Star newspaper of the African Peoples Party, and the New Afrikan Voice of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Afrika, three of the predecessor organizations of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Today, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is working to organize our people for liberation for the twenty-first century. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is an organization of Afrikans in America/New Afrikans whose mission is to defend the human rights of our people and promote self-determination for our colonized nation and our oppressed communities throughout the U.S. empire. We understand that the collective institutions of white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism have been and continue to be at the root of our people’s oppression. We understand that without community control and without the power to determine our own lives, we will continue to fall victim to genocide. Through this journal, we will heighten our people’s consciousness about self-determination and national independence as a human right and a solution to our colonization. The BAMN News Journal will help us build a network of every day people and is committed to the protracted struggle for the liberation of our New Afrikan Nation – By Any Means Necessary. Our Movement is defined by six key principles: 1. We actively support and struggle to defend the Human Rights of Afrikan people in the United States and around the world. We actively oppose those social, economic, political and cultural practices and structures that contribute to the violation of our people’s human rights whether it is based on ethnicity, nationality, social status, class, gender or sexual orientation (including gay, lesbian, transgender, bi-sexual, or other sexuality). 2. We demand Reparations, or repayment for four hundred years of slavery, colonialism and oppression of our people in the United States of America. 3. We promote Self-Determination and must organize for the liberation of the Afrikan nation, held colonized in the United States. 4. We oppose Genocide or the acceptable and calculated killing of our people by individuals, institutions and organizations of the United States government, through lynching, disease, police terror and any other means. 5. Freedom for All Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War. We demand the release of activists who have been imprisoned because of their commitment in seeking human rights and liberation for our people. These brothers and sisters are Political Prisoners or Prisoners of War and should be recognized as such. 6. We actively struggle to End Sexist Oppression. We oppose any form of oppression that limits women from reaching their fullest potential, as manifested in our cultural, economic, political and social institutions, practices and beliefs. We actively oppose those beliefs, ideas, terms, etc. that limit the human worth of women and contribute to violations against women. Each quarter the BAMN News Journal will cover important news stories, both national and international. Additionally, the journal will have timely discussions and reporting on our people’s culture from poetry, hip hop, music, film, theatre and literature as well as important grassroots cultural trends. You can also expect cutting edge write ups on twenty-first century theory of revolutionary Black nationalism. Our goal is to consistently reflect and deliver on the seven criteria for education of MXGM. We strongly believe that our revolutionary journal must 1)Teach Black people who we are: We are an Afrikan nation colonized by American imperialism 2) Teach Black people what we are fighting for: We are fighting for self-determination, the right to make our own decisions about our political destiny 3) Teach Black people who we should identify with: We identify with all colonized people fighting for their own freedom around the world 4) Teach Black people where our loyalty lies: We are loyal to our nation, the Black nation and to all of our members who love freedom 5) Teach Black people what we should do: We should organize and fight for freedom “by any means necessary” which includes all legal means, civil disobedience, economic resistance or any new solutions that will work for our collective freedom 6) Teach Black people how to do it: We will get our freedom by building social/economic institutions, organizing youth, building people’s political assemblies, organizing for collective self-defense and gaining land which will be the basis of our political autonomy 7) Teach Black people that the destiny of all Black people are inseparably linked: This means that we need all Black people who want to be free regardless of our class, gender, sexuality, skin shade or whether we are urban or rural dwellers. We expect that all of these criteria will be filled quarterly in the BAMN News Journal. We encourage you to support the jour-nal. Support our movement and make it your own. Write to us at BAMN and tell us what you want to read. If you have a contribution that fits our principles of Unity and the criteria for education, make a contribution to the journal and to our people’s liberation struggle. To contact us at: BAMnews@protonmail.com. You can also contact us through the MXGM website at www.mxgm.org.

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By Any Means Necessary

Statement on the Transition of Nehanda Isoke Abiodun The New Afrikan People’s Organization January 30, 2019

“Carry on the traditions of principled struggle. Carry it on now” - Nehanda Isoke Abiodun The New Afrikan Independence Movement and the worldwide anti-imperialist movement has lost a powerful soldier, comrade, and sister. Our comrade, Nehanda Isoke Abiodun, a founding cadre member of the New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO) and an Organizer for the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM) died on the early morning of January 30, 2019. She was living in exile in Havana, Cuba where she resided for over 30 years representing our struggle to the Cuban people and the international community. Nehanda lived among the grassroots people in her small Havana community organizing, educating, and mentoring Cuban youth, as well as scores of young New Afrikans (African Americans) who traveled to Cuba for educational purposes, to gain medical education, or simply learn more about the Cuban Revolution. Nehanda became known as the “Godmother” of Cuban hip-hop because of her influence and encouragement of young Cuban rappers, and hip-hop artists who were creating a uniquely Cuban hip-hop culture. She connected young local artists, with the support of the New York Chapter of the MXGM, to young rising New Afrikan artists from the USA, such as Jay-Z, dead prez, Common, Zayd Malik, and Mos Def. They were intro-duced to the Cuban revolution through MXGM Black August Hip-Hop Conferences. In the spirit of Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara, Nehanda was a true anti-imperialist and internationalist who steadfastly supported her adopted home Cuba, while whole heartedly defending the national liberation struggle of her own nation, New Afrika, against the settler colonial U.S. empire. Mama Nehanda was also a New Afrikan Womanist. She was a co-founder of the New Afrikan Women’s Organization which preceded the New Afrikan Women’s Task Force of NAPO before her exile. In Cuba, she organized three international women’s conferences co-sponsored by the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and the New Afrikan Women’s Task Force (NAWTF). This allowed Revolutionary New Afrikan Nationalist women to exchange ideas and discuss mutual support for the struggles of New Afrikan women and Cuban women. She facilitated the invitation of the New Afrikan Women’s Task Force to represent the New Afrikan Independence Movement and New Afrikan women at two International Women’s conferences in Cuba.

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Nehanda introduced New Afrikan revolutionary culture to the international community of young people who constantly flowed into Cuba. She initiated an annual “Anti-Imperialist” Thanks-Taking Dinner, inviting expatriates, exiles, and community people. She conducted tours and taught political education classes, which encouraged scores of youth to stand in support of the New Afrikan Independence Movement and revolutionary internationalist struggles. She also organized an annual Kwanzaa celebration for the community and she continuously engaged international representatives, journalists, and scholars who visited Cuba. Even before her exile and before becoming a cadre of NAPO and an Organizer for MXGM, Mama Nehanda was a government worker for the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika (PGRNA) and served as editor of its newspaper The New Afrikan. Comrade-Sister Nehanda was also a worker for the National Black Human Rights Coalition, a pre-formation for NAPO. She helped organize the NBHRC mobilization of 5,000 people to the United Nations in November 1979, three days after the Black Liberation Army liberated Sister Assata Shakur from prison. Nehanda was forced into exile from her home after being charged along with her friend and comrade Dr. Mutulu Shakur for their alleged involvement in the 1979 liberation of Assata Shakur, as well as the 1981 expropriation of a Brinks truck in Nyack, New York. The U.S. government claims this was carried out in support of freedom schools, political organizing, and developing revolutionary institutions. Despite being forced underground, she continued her revolutionary work and remained committed to the New Afrikan people. Despite being isolated from her family, she continued her revolutionary work and commitment to New Afrikan people. She is the finest example of what Baba Chokwe Lumumba, the late Chairperson of NAPO, taught. She had a great love for the people because she understood, as Chokwe said, “If you don’t love the people, sooner or later you’re going to betray the people.” Nehanda Isoke Abiodun loved New Afrikan people and served the New Afrikan Nation to her death. Long Live the Revolutionary Spirit of Nehanda! Still Standing! Asè!

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By Any Means Necessary

MXGM in Cuba

Ifetayo M. Flannery, Ph.D. MXGM, Oakland Chapter In Black August of 2017, a small contingent of MXGM members and officers from both Atlanta and Oakland chapters arrived in Havana, Cuba. During this orga-nized trip, Mama Nehanda visited with and escorted the five of us each day to advance the visibility and reach of MXGM at the international Latin American “Hip Hop & Revolution� conference in Havana. By day, we would eat breakfast with Mama Nehanda and discuss her life in Cuba, the political happenings of the state, the role of MXGM members everywhere, and the fore-sight of our many ideological and revolutionary strate-gies in the United States and abroad.

This is an image taken of Ifetayo Flannery by a graffiti depiction of Malcolm X in an alleyway of central Havana near Quinta de Los Molinos, August 2017. By afternoon and evening we would attend the conference events and engage the many participants who considered themselves the grassroots voices of oppressed peoples in Latin America. It had been explained to us by participants that in areas of the Caribbean and Latin American countries, political education was hardly transmittable through intuitional mediums and therefore hip-hop continues to be a platform for activists to insight political consciousness and action. In this way, a high regard and appreciation for New Afrikans was expressed regularly and there was no omission to the fact that hip-hop was a New Afrikan cultural production. We were treated very well during our visit. It was also notable that Mama Nehanda was received and recognized as an important political figure in Cuba. Our association with her allowed us into many spaces and privileged us to interview artists and activists who were involved in Third World revolutionary actions in their various communities.

Various hip-hop artists and activists who interviewed with MXGM members Taliba Obuya, Ifetayo Flannery, Omar Hunter and Mama Nehanda on how to engage MXGM and the revolutionary messages of New Afrikans

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MXGM members in Havana Cuba, Black August 2017: Baba Makungu Akinyela, Taliba Obuya, Ifetayo Flannery & Omar Hunter. During our time with Mama Nehanda, she spoke about the impact of being in political exile. As a revolutionary, she expected to sacrifice for the people’s struggle and did not regret her decisions. However, as a community member, a mother, a sister, a comrade to many, being in exile was a challenging and isolating experience. She told us stories of the proud memories of her life in community with other New Afrikans and how she missed everyone so much. She spoke of the sorrow in hearing about folks who had transitioned over the years and the tax of not being with community to show or receive intimate support during those times. She advised that to better care for New Afrikans in exile, MXGM members could do more to aid the material needs of people like herself. She reported facing periodic deficits of basic items like food, clothes, cigarettes, feminine products, or toothpaste. But mostly, she spoke of what she felt was critically important for us to remember before we sojourned home. It was critical for Mama Nehanda to remain strict with us during our stay and engage in revolutionary discipline. All of our meeting times and locations were to be closely adhered to, because she never considered us to be completely safe. In one instance, many of us were five to ten minutes late in meeting at the car after doing some market shopping. She sharply reprimanded us and said that being late was never acceptable, because for her, any number of scenarios could have occurred. In the moment we were a bit alarmed by her treatment of the situation, but on the ride home she enforced her position by recounting her experience of a bank operation gone wrong. In that situation, being one minute late cost a comrade their life. We felt the weight of history on us. We sat in silence riding through the rainy streets of Havana. I will always remember the lesson that a revolutionary plan is only as good as being prepared to carry it out. In our last talks, I thanked Mama Nehanda for her commitment and asked how she saw herself as a leader in our revolutionary struggle. She replied that she never saw herself as a leader. She said she was simply doing what she expected anyone of us to be able to do. This was my last memory with Mama Nehanda. Long live the revolutionary Spirit of Mama Nehanda. Free The Land!

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By Any Means Necessary

Statement on The Passing of Nehanda Isoke Abiodun The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, New York Chapter Translated by Maria Fernandez

In the spirit of solidarity and on behalf of the Puerto Rican Independence Movement, the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party-NY Chapter extends its deepest condolences to the family of Nehanda Isoke Abiodun. For over a century, Puerto Rican and Black/New Afrikan people have shared a bond, born out of our mutual roots in the African continent and sealed under the resistance to the mutually felt oppression of U.S. colonial, racist, and imperial violence. Since the early 20th century, the Black/New Afrikan and Puerto Rican people have shared political struggle, historical icons such as Arturo Schomburg, and a camaraderie among the diaspora in the United States that can’t be matched by any other community. Nehanda Isoke Abiodun was one of the greatest examples of that camaraderie. Born and raised in Harlem, New York City, Nehanda understood very well the connections between the liberation of our two nations. She recognized that the struggle for the liberation and independence of Black/New Afrikan people was fought against the same empire seeking to crush the struggle for liberation and independence in Puerto Rico. She knew that the Black families forced to move from their homes in the southern United States as political and economic refugees found themselves living next-door to Black and Brown political and economic refugees from Puerto Rico. She understood that language, cultural differences, and the negative consequences of colonialism on both our peoples – manifested in the form of anti-immigrant xenophobia or anti-Black prejudice – could not stand in the way of the revolutionary potential of a union among these two communities. This understanding was followed by action, and alongside her Puerto Rican and New Afrikan comrades, she worked tirelessly to teach and to heal the bodies and minds of our people sick with addiction. Nehanda gave life back to those individuals the system had attempted to destroy so they could return to their communities ready to struggle for freedom. The struggle for freedom against the U.S. empire has spanned 121 years in Puerto Rico and 400 in the United States. From Cuba she advocated on behalf of our political prisoners, and she was an unyielding and open supporter of Puerto Rican independence. She taught both young Cubans and visitors to Cuba about the struggle for independence of our country and the historical and familial bonds between Puerto Ricans and New Afrikans people in the United States. In the words of our great leader, “El Maestro,” Don Pedro Albizu Campos: “La patria es valor y sacrificio/ The homeland is valor and sacrifice.” Nehanda Isoke Abiodun was one of the bravest warriors who sacrificed everything, and for that we are forever grateful. May the spirit of Nehanda continue to serve as bridge between our two nations, and a re-commitment to joint struggle against the Yankee empire until victory is won! In the name of our great women leaders, such as Blanca Canales, Isabelita Rosada, and Lolita Lebron we say “Nehanda, PRESENTE!” Que Viva Puerto Rico Libre! Que Viva Nueva Afrika Libre! Que Viva Nehanda Isoke Abiodun! Con Valor y Sacrificio, El Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico- Junta de Nueva York

By Any Means Necessary

artwork by newafrikan77

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Warrior Woman, Freedom Fighter Dylcia Pagan

Sometimes we come across people and immediately a magical connection occurs; that is how it was for me and Nehanda. Times passed, and it didn’t matter as our bond is still intact. Prior to my revolutionary sabbatical in federal custody, I spent one of the best New Year’s Eve ever, dancing chatting and enjoying laughter with Nehanda. I was eight months pregnant and fighting a grand jury. Years later, I was informed about my comrades’ situation. I hoped one day to be able to see her. We had so much of our struggles to share. I was kept informed about her via my comrades. In 2007, I was able to visit Cuba. The first thing I did was ask the Director of Casa Puerto Rico, Edwin Gonzalez, to find my dear friend. I wanted to surprise her. Because many of the young people that visited me inside were involved in the hip-hop music industry as musicians, poets, and activists, I always told them about Nehanda. Some had the privilege of meeting her, working with her, and making documentaries with her. Others visiting Cuba who got to visit her shared that being with Nehanda was always a memorable event. Edwin was able to connect with her and asked to attend a gathering of the family of the Cuban 6 who were incarcerated in the USA. Little did she know I would be there. The family members had never met another comrade that had been incarcerated in USA. We shared stories that made them laugh as well as cry. In the middle of our interaction, in walked Nehanda. I forgot what I was doing there. We looked at each other, ran into our arms and hugged; we parted a bit and stared into each other's eyes. It was as if time had never passed. The coming together of kindred souls of struggle had finally come to be. Believe me we were sharing it. My heart was filled as I was finally able to see my comrade after over two decades. I just received one of my sister’s last interviews sent to me by Brother Shep. I felt her spirit of verticality and commitment. No one knows all the pain that Nehanda went through. What we do know is that no matter what circumstances she faced, she prevailed, a true warrior woman. I am so honored and blessed by our ancestors that Nehanda was in my life in so many ways. I thank my comrades, Hiram Rivera and Eli Fantausi for calling me to inform me of her transition. Her spirit lives in all of us who continue to struggle. I got to dance salsa with her and boy did we jam. Nehanda Vive! Viva Pueto Rico Libre! Ashe! Your loving Sister in Struggle, Dylcia Pagan

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Ministry of Culture Cuban Institute of Music Cuban Agency of RAP

On January 30, 2019, the Cuban hip-hop movement suffered one of the greatest losses in our ranks, our grand sister and comrade, one of our greatest guides in this endless struggle for civil rights and the struggle for our identity. We lost our Cheri Dalton, or as the movement named her, Nehanda Abiodun. Those who knew her in person know that she was, and continues to be, one of the fundamental linkages in the begin-nings of a young movement that needed guidance to find its way. She was always there. We remember her in those conversations that were not conspiratorial at all, but were full of knowledge and teachings about what it meant to be Black in society and what our role in the struggle was. I speak with the clarity and vision of the Cuban Agency of RAP in these times of struggle for the identity of Black people, among many other qualities that would be impossible for me to summarize. We are in the presence of one of the most significant people who has left a mark in our movement and who we will remember always. On behalf of the Cuban rap movement and the Cuban Agency of RAP, we send our most sincere condolences to her family and friends. Sincerely, Ruben Marin Maning

Noah Friedman-Rudovsky, NYtimes.com

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“Your Life Represents: Never Give Up.” Dr. Mutulu Shakur

I love you, beautiful one. I know it wasn’t easy. Your love, you gave it to your people and humanity, while changing your name and face to live in exile. You were loved just the same. No matter the name or the face you presented, you were our exile of New Afrika. Oh how they loved you. Not knowing your personal pain. The degree of hope chambered in your soul that fueled your spirit of understanding, demanding of yourself “don’t give up,” your heart wanting to yell “LOOK AT ME. I HAVEN’T!” Daring others to compare, not judge. Never giving up, refusing to be ashamed, realizing I and those who love you, know that which is chambered in your soul is what fueled this journey in hopes for a better tomorrow in another land. We thank the people of Cuba who cuddled you, cried with you, and joined their voices in the chant “We are worth it. We will never give up.” I wanted to hug, love, and dance a victory lap of victory for all of our band who has sacrificed, wounded . . . yes, something the struggle against repression can not avoid, that which your father spoke of in your ear on his knee. “Don’t give up. We’re not broken yet.” As he protected our leader Malcolm, you inherited in your genes the obligation to protect the dream of our people and the “Have Nots, wherever they may be. You knew there was a place for us “have Nots.” The address was located in our hearts. You were loved, Nehanda. It was infectious. You gave more than was possible. never losing faith, smiling on the path for the realization of hope in exile. Vanessa and Hakima were scars of pain you constantly endured. Whenever their names were mentioned you cried tears of joy and pain, as well as tears of anger and despair over the choice made. Holding out for the extended family so the flames of life would not be extinguished. Oh how we pain at your agony over the lost opportunity for your love to be given to your children. The love they were surely due. We honor them today. Their sacrifices are no less weightier. Our great history teaches us how love for our children can not truly be left as a “hung run-away”, never able to explain that life taken on this tree with a noose around the neck was a sacrifice in order to give them a chance of a better place on earth. Somewhere on this earth is a better place where we belong. “Never give up.” Nehanda, I love you. You are my hero. And as you’ve done for many others, you’ve saved my life as well when no one else could’ve. And at a time when you had options. You brought peace, courage, audacity, love, and hope. You were never perfect, whatever that is. I’m so proud of you. Not because it was text book perfect or politically correct. No, it was AGAINST ALL ODDS, with many pit falls. You snatched Victory to move forward to the next level. Never giving up. You never gave up. Never whatsoever. Your circumstances and critiques that you were taught to internalize, you fought and won the desire to “NEVER” give up. You believed in our friends. You held out many times with complete despair waiting . . . waiting, knowing how it would feel to receive their love, and dance the dance, and give a big hug and say “I knew you would come.” You never gave up. Nehanda, I’ll always love you. You taught us to never give up, and I thank and love you so much. These tears and pain will never express the delicacy and perfection of your persuasion, structuring your circumstances into a plan to carry-on! At times it has caused you to hit your toe on a rock, but you only laughed it off, and made it into another lesson to be taught and learned. The international hip-hop conferences in Cuba that helped spread the culture around the world for an international political perspective deemed you the Momma of Hip-Hop of Black August internationally. Your lectures on the struggle in America, the role of our people for justice made you a scholar of the subject. So many of your students you’ve mentored, as well as tourists, and researchers, have reached out to us to get a realization of your life’s purposes. They believed in your analysis. I have spoken to many of them and read their letters. There’s so much I do not have the authority to speak on, such as how you’ve touched so many lives and encouraged them to support the struggles you belonged to. Thank you. We will never forget, and we will go forward.

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I don’t suggest to know all of your trials and tribulations, but I do know that I thank the Cuban government and people whose existence represents true allies of the oppressed, as their role has been clear. May they continue to be victorious. I want to thank the New Afrikan, and the true internationalists, for providing you with limited resources that assisted in your quality of life while you were in exile, for that allowed you to accomplish the many important historic events. Such a “BEAUTIFUL ONE,” the code between us. I’ve used it to address our people in light of your lesson that we are all beautiful. “If we never give up” on each other, knowing that it won’t be and, most times, it ain’t cute. It would require selfheal-ing. We would need a Red Cross to use as you taught the people of Cuba, for what acupuncture has done for us here, it would require as a movement that we never abandon our people. Not one. We can be judgmental, but we cannot leave our own on a corner of Oblivion. Nehanda, the freedom we searched for is further than we initially ideally believed, but in pursuit we found our core. We learned to believe not only in ideology, but in the soul of our people. Willingness to take and make sacrifices for that reason. You, my dear sister, have traveled in exile as the sole articulator of our dream down the road filled with optimism. “Never give up.” Awaiting signs of our people awakening. Not withstanding self-criticism. I love you, of course. The FBI and Inter-pol hunted us all over the world. You were never bitter, but brave and audacious. I know you were motivat-ed by the demonstration of our peoples’ love. Nehanda, your journey taught us that our exiles is not a casual relationship. We come from the mud, through the water and back to the mud. We don’t forget Geronimo jiJaga Pratt, Michael Cetayowa Tabor, Don D.C. Cox, and many more. They all belong to us Your transition sister, surely Allah has seen your display of love and selflessness. You will be in a place of love and we hope you will be rewarded. I’ll pray every day for your reward in paradise. My love, my sister, your happiness was infectious, so my pain and sadness seems unjustifiable in reflection of your essence. As I remember the passing of my grandmother, you were there for me. You were also there for me during my time of grief over our comrade Mtayari, and of course, Lumumba. You held me down as Anita Baker’s soulful voice sung “Sometimes”, which was always on time for “Us.” You smothered my pain with your love. I love you so much. I must teach of your lessons and sacrifices. Do not go gentle into the night, but keep the light on so we can see it and find that light, that love. BEAUTIFUL ONE. I am sure your buddies, comrades, and friends: Mtayari, Kweusi, Shaheem, Abdul, Tupac, Yes, Fulani, Afeni, Ed Brown, Yakhiziwe, Chokwe, and so many more who too are waiting and watching for the Love. You never gave up Hope. You never gave up Understanding. You never gave up on your people. What more must we do to confirm our dignity as a people? As you (And as Donny Hathaway sung) we too have “A Sack Full of Dreams." You rejected options to ensure your true convictions, respect of your conviction defining friendship, love, and ideology. Love is not just an idea, it is real. Vanesa, Hakima, I know your burdens are heavy, but know she was proud of you, and the love you surrounded her with was fuel for her soul. The sacrifices you made were tremendous. Was it worth it? History will teach its essence and value. Until then, we honor and celebrate her life’s journey. FOREVER THANKFUL. FORGIVE MY FAILURES. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE KNOW OUR INTENT. SORRY FOR NOT GETTING FREE TO ASSIST YOU. I LOVE AND LOVED YOU. NEHANDA, BEAUTIFUL ONE. I WILL BE LOVING YOU ALWAYS. SEE YOU IN THE NEXT LIFE, OR I’LL MEET YOU, INSHA ALLAH, IN PARADISE. WE CELEBRATE YOU AND WILL DANCE TO YOUR SPIRIT. Against all odds we endure. With love in our heart. Dr. Mutulu Shakur

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From Malika to Nehanda Comrade Malika

We each come here stepping onto the stage of life to perform our part and then we exit. You, our courageous NAWO sister, shed yourself of materialism and the hoax of an American dream and you answered a greater calling. You armed yourself with the principles of self-determination and nation building. Prepared to do battle with the enemy, you like a fearless lioness, stepped onto the stage of Revolution. Freely you gave as it demanded. You fought and sacrificed your life so that our children might have a right to the tree of life. Now as the sweet sound of freedom rings, rest well my sister in the bosom of peace and power. Loving memories always, Comrade/Sister, Malika National Black Theatre February 16th, 2019

Attribution Unknown

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Reflections from a Friend Chinganji Akinyela

This is the Reflection on Mama Nehanda Isoke Abiodun given by her friend and close comrade Mama Chinganji Akinyela at the memorial service for Mama Nehanda in New York. It is both personal and political and reflects the dedication, fight-ing spirit, and long term commitment of Nehanda as well as the importance of building revolutionary friendships (sister and brotherhood) as we build our struggle. On behalf of the men, women, and children of the New Afrikan People’s Organization and our mass association, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, I greet you in our battle cry, Free the Land. I’m here today as a representative of this organization that Nehanda Isoke Abiodun helped to found, and that I am a member of, but I am also here because Nehanda was my sister, friend, and comrade. We often joked, that we loved each other’s dirty draws. I loved this woman and I will miss her forever. It did not start that way; if I remember correctly, there was a sort of instant dislike between us two. I met Nehanda when she first came to California, unbeknown to us, to speak at our International Women’s Day program. We had sent a ticket for Afeni Shakur, who was a dynamic, awesome speaker but in her place, Nehanda came. We were in the beginning formation of NAPO, and there was a women’s organization being formed, the New Afrikan Women’s Organization (NAWO), so Nehanda was sent to talk to us about NAWO and to speak at our program. As she introduced herself, I thought, “how dare she think she could speak instead of Afeni?” And then I noticed that like me she’s all tall and fly and everything and sporting quarter carat diamond earrings. Hmph, I did not like her! She was snooty and she didn’t seem to like me much either. I did see her again when I visited New York for Freedom Fighters Day, I still wasn’t feeling her but we had very little interaction. Nehanda later was forced underground. We met again when I was invited to Cuba by Assata Shakur, to interview her for NAPO, as we endorsed her book, Assata: An Autobiography. I was surprised to learn that Nehanda had been granted political exile status in Cuba as well. I was assigned by NAPO to be the international representative and liaison to our Cuban office, led by Nehanda. This led to a building of a sisterhood like no other. For some years as I traveled to Cuba, most of the Cuban people believed we were biological sisters and we never corrected them because we were so close that it felt like we shared the same blood. We laughed, we cried, we worked, and we partied. Our favorite work office was the beach or the pool as we both shared a love for water and the sun. But we made sure that we worked. But we did laugh a lot. We laughed about just about everything; the fact that we were stallions and could be seen from any-where, the fact that when God was giving out brains, we were on the Luther line, singing, “Go Luther, Go Luther.” The fact that just because we were pretty, people thought we were dumb, hmpf! We cried a lot. She missed her children terribly and felt a tremendous guilt for leaving them. She never ever thought it would be forever, and she was so sad about not being there for them when they needed her – and yes she needed them too. I shared my children with her. I took my daughter, Nefertiti Nehanda Meritaten to visit her when she was just 4. Nehanda became her Godmother. My son Zayd came to Cuba for the Black August Conference and concert, and she became his Godmother as well. She also adopted and Godmothered the many young people who came to Cuba as medical students. She became “Mama Nia.” She touched hundreds of young people’s lives as she tried to fill the gaping hole she felt from missing her children. Some of them are with us today.

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International Section Introduction Nyeusi Jami

“The only way we’ll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too.” - Malcolm X The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement is a Pan-Africanist and Internationalist organization. We believe that the fate of all Black people, and all poor people, wherever we are in the world, is interconnected. Our struggle against oppression here in the United States is the same struggle as the people of the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. This is so because we all have the same opponent. The global capitalist system can only survive through the exploitation of the labor and resources of the masses. The prosperity of North America and Western Europe literally cannot exist without the natural resources of Haiti and Brazil and the Congo and pretty much every place in the world where the majority of people look like us. And you can’t take a people’s natural resources without brutally and violently dominating them through some form of colonization. Whenever any movement in the world strikes back at the global capitalist system and has some success, it makes the entire system a little bit weaker and brings all of us one step closer to freedom. So we feel that it is necessary for BAMN to document the liberation struggles of our comrades all over the world. It is necessary for us to recognize that we are part of a global struggle for freedom.

Slavery in America, Slave Trade From Africa to the Americas 1650-1860, www.slaveryinamerica.org

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The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in the Crosshairs: A Short Introduction Kwame-Osagyefo Kalimara

Venezuela is a nation on the northern coast of South America colonized by Spain in 1522. The indigenous population resisted the invasion of the Spanish but were unsuccessful. Spanish rule over the colony soon faced internal contradictions. Rebellion became commonplace and under the leadership of Francisco de Miranda. Venezuela declared independence from Spain in 1811. This was considered the first Venezuelan republic. The second occurred in 1813 lasting only for a few months. It was not until Simon Bolivar took leadership in 1821 that sovereignty was attained. In 1823, New Granada assisted in consolidating Bolivar’s victory by giving him control over its army. Bolivar went on to liberate a number of countries and founded Gran Colombia. One of his generals, Antonio Jose de Sucre, liberated Ecuador and became the second president of Bolivia. In 1830 Venezuela seceded from Gran Colombia under the leadership of Jose Antonio Paez and he became Venezuela’s first president of the new nation. The cost of the wars it is estimated 800,000 deaths, perhaps 1/3 of the country’s population. The flag of Venezuela has three colors, yellow, blue and red. Yellow symbolizes the wealth of its nation, blue representing the sea which separates Venezuela from Spain, and red for the blood (loss of lives) by the independence fighters. With the enslavement of the African and indigenous population ending in 1854, Venezuela’s challenges persisted. Paez served as president three times between 1830 and 1863. The Federal War (1859–1863) saw hundreds of thousands die in this civil war. Its population at the time was at least one million people. Dictatorships, political and military, dominated the country until 1958 when democracy took some root. In the 1980s and 1990s, economic contradictions created chaos for Venezuela. The Caracazo riots in 1989, two coup attempts in 1992, and the 1993 impeachment of Carlos Andres Perez for embezzlement were some outcomes of the contradiction.1 It was in 1998 that Venezuelan people began to have confidence in its government. They elected career military officer Hugo Chavez, whom they saw as a leader who had integrity and had conviction in the pursuit of programs for the benefit of the masses. Chavez was a former coup leader and in 1999 wrote a new Constitution of Venezuela, launching the Bolivarian Revolution. The Bolivarian Revolution evidenced a significant power shift in Venezuela. President Chavez in 2002 was the subject of a coup d’état led by opposition forces. The poor populous waged demonstrations, coupled with actions by the military, for two days in Caracas, the capital city, returning Chavez to power. Although there was a national strike later that year until February 2003, the people steadfastly supported him. A strike and a lockout of the state oil company PDVSA (Petroleum of Venezuela) also produced great economic hardships, effecting currency vis-à-vis devaluation, less import and export goods, oil being the primary export.2 In 2004 there was a recall referendum, a 2006 election, and in October 2012 Chavez was re-elected to a third term as the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution. However, he transitioned after a two-year struggle with cancer before starting that term in office. Nicolas Maduro succeeded Chavez as President of Venezuela, was elected last in 2018, and in February this year he was inaugurated. Chavez’s popularity with the masses of Venezuela was a result of his establishment of populist social welfare policies, to reduce economic inequality and poverty. Further, his administration was actively working to support the Afrikan-descendent and indigenous populations. Although, Chavez made some economic errors according to 1) 276 people died according to the official count. Other estimates put death toll above 2,000. 2) Citgo oil is an American subsidiary of its state-owned oil company.

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economists who are not critical of socialist economies, the masses valued his intentions, work, and efforts. United States imperialism has been an enemy of the Bolivarian Revolution since its inception and imposed sanctions to destabilize the nation and further create perilous economic conditions. Recently it has imposed de facto embargo on Venezuela’s oil. These sanctions have given exemptions to companies Halliburton and Chevron among others in order to privatize Venezuela’s oil in its favor. The nationalization of Venezuelan oil began before Chavez came to power. He invested the oil wealth to benefit the populace of his country. The reason for the 2002 strike against Chavez was because the wealthy in the country objected to the oil revenues being used for social programs for the poor. They wanted the oil revenue for themselves. Under Chavez Venezuela assisted Haiti by providing oil and canceling its oil debts, when Haiti needed extreme support. In the United States empire, in Boston, former Congressman Joe Kennedy established with Venezuela a program to provide low-cost heating oil to his lower-income constituents in the Boston area. In Jackson, Mississippi when Mayor Chokwe Lumumba was a City Councilperson, Venezuela shared energy saving technology with the community. In October 2009, his Ward 2 People’s Assembly Task Force, led by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, provided about 4000 free compact fluorescent light bulbs to local residents. At the time, the light bulbs averaged $8.3 United States Imperialism has continued to promoted regime change for the nation, aided by its press labeling Venezuela as a communist or a socialist government. Structurally, the government controls approximately one third of the private corporate equity of the country. There are varying types of private business that operate freely. However, it is important to acknowledge that the wealthy class has been determined to see their profits increase at the expense of the poor. This is the nature of capitalism. As of May 2019, the United States empire is considering using military force to depose the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and install self-proclaimed president, opposition leader Juan Guaido. Guaido, trained by the Center for Applied Non-Violent Action and Strategies (CANVAS), is the perfect fit for United States imperialist interest. CANVAS specializes in forcing regime changes across the globe. Venezuela is in serious crisis now because of the additional sanctions imposed by the United States empire and its allies. Food, goods, and services are scare and demonstrations for them intense. The Venezuelan military recently blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid from hostile forces at the Colombian and Brazilian borders. Four people died and hundreds were injured when Maduro’s forces and the supporters of the opposition group clashed. According to some reports, opposition supporters threw rocks and Molotov cocktails. The Venezuelan security forces, and civilian groups known as “colectivos” responded with force, including tear gas and rubber bullets. Two trucks carrying aid were set on fire on the Colombian side of the border. Maduro believes the socalled humanitarian U.S. aid is a Trojan horse for an eventual invasion. The United Nations, the Red Cross, and other relief organizations have refused to work with the United States on delivering aid to Venezuela, which they say is politically motivated. Venezuela has allowed aid to be flown in from Russia and from some international organizations, but it has refused to allow in aid from the United States, according to Jorge Arreaza, Venezuelan Foreign Minister. It is important to support the Bolivarian Revolution as it is part of our international anti-imperialist front. U.S. aggression continues to grow and as an internal colony of the empire, our allies need us as we need them. 3) See “Chavez Brings the Light” by Adam Lynch, 2009, Jackson Free Press, http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2009/oct/26/chavez-brings-the-light

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Below is the relevant international law of which the United States empire is violating. See the Charter of the United Nations for more detail: https://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/chapter-i/index.html Article 1 The Purposes of the United Nations are: 1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace; 2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace; 3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and 4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends Article 2 The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles. 1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members. 2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter. 3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered. 4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations. 5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action. 6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security. 7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter Vll. UN International Decade For People of African Descent Logo.

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Principles of International Law Recognized in the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and in the Judgment of the Tribunal 1950 Principle I Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment. Principle II The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law. Principle III The fact that a person who committed an act which constitutes a crime under international law acted as Head of State or responsible Government official does not relieve him from responsibility under international law. Principle IV The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him. Principle V Any person charged with a crime under international law has the right to a fair trial on the facts and law. Principle VI The crimes hereinafter set out are punishable as crimes under international law: (a) Crimes against peace: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under (i). (b) War crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill- treatment or deportation to slave-labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns, or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. (c) Crimes against humanity: Murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with any crime against peace or any war crime. Principle VII Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity as set forth in Principle VI is a crime under international law.

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The Peoples Flood Unleashed Again in Haiti Akinyele Umoja The Haitian grassroots movement has engaged in active rebellion against the country’s ruling elite and their neo-colonial masters in the United States, France, and Canada for the past several months. The Haitian grassroots movement has called for “Chavire chodyè” (Haitian Kreyol for “overturning the cauldron [pot]”). The spark of this series of protests is the exposing of the corruption of the Haitian elite’s robbery of the people’s resources, in particular the Petro Caribe scandal. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, through its Petro Caribe alliance with Caribbean states, contributed 4.2 billion for infrastructure development and social services in Haiti. The exposure of Haiti’s neo-colonial government squandering these funds and in the midst of rising fuel prices in the country was the match that ignited the people’s explosion. The current upheaval is also sparked by dissatisfaction from the Haitian grassroots belief that the 2016 presidential election was stolen by the Haitian right-wing and their supporters in the U.S. empire, France, and Canada. It was the first election that allowed the participation of Fanmi (Family) Lavalas since the 2004 coup of the popularly-elected government headed by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Lavalas in the Haitian language Kreyol means “flood” and also is interpreted as “people’s flood.” Fanmi Lavalas is the political party formed from the people’s movement that opposed and forced the end of the Duvalier dictatorship in 1986 and elected Aristide, an activist liberation theologian and Catholic priest, to President in 1990. It is widely believed the Haitian elite and foreign interests robbed the 2016 elections to install the right-wing Parti Haïtien Tèt Kale (PHTK) candidate Jovenal Moïse as the country’s President. Reports of the disposal of ballots that selected the Fanmi Lavalas candidate Dr. Maryse Narcisse and other fraudulent practices were widespread. The popular rebellion in Haiti is the result of years of occupation by the United Nations (UN) following the 2004 coup of Aristide’s popularly elected government. Aristide’s Lavalas government was a popular, democratic movement in power fighting for the interests of Haitian poor and oppressed people, the overwhelming majority of the Haitian population. The Lavalas government fought for improved health care, housing, and education for everyday Haitians. It championed for the rights and advancement of women and elements of society previously locked out by the elites. The Lavalas government not only fought the country’s elite for social, economic, and cultural revolution, but issued a $21 billion demand of restitution from France. This demand was the result of 1824 “gunboat” diplomacy when imperial France used its military might to coerced the Haitian government to agree to pay $90 million in gold francs. France’s demanded compensation for its loss of Haiti, the most valuable colony in the western hemisphere in the 18th and 19th centuries created a foundation for its ongoing economic woes. Haiti’s current instability goes beyond the Petro Caribe scandal and robbery of recent elections. The USsupported coup of the Lavalas government and subsequent banishment of President Aristide and his family from the western hemisphere from 2004 until 2011, and institution of foreign occupation of the country by the UN all significantly contribute to the uncertainty of Haiti today. It must also be noted that the Haitian elite is not alone in the robbery of resources designated for the people of Haiti. Millions were donated by wellmeaning people to groups as the Clinton-Bush Fund and the Red Cross after the horrific earthquake of 2010. It is well documented that only small portions of these funds have made it to the Haitian people. The grassroots movement has taken to the streets to make the country ungovernable. Without a people’s army, the Haitian masses are resisting with the means they have available against Haitian police supported by the UN occupation force. The UN, under the direction of the United States, Canada, and France, has occupied Haiti

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since 2004. The masses yearn for democracy. The Haitian police has engaged in political repression of the movement under the UN’s watch. Right-wing paramilitary forces have participated in counter-insurgency popular movement under the UN’s watch. Right-wing paramilitary forces have participated in counterinsurgency during the UN occupation, including kidnapping grassroots activists and leaders, including Lavalas organizer Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine who disappeared in 2007. The Haitian masses have had enough! Since the occupation, the Haitian grassroots movement has mobilized tens of thousands to the streets to confront police terror and right-wing paramilitary. Without arms they are willing to sacrifice their bodies and lives facing armed police and paramilitary thugs in the streets to overturn an illegitimate government. The recent uncovering of U.S. mercenaries captured in Haiti and confession that they were working “for the government” reminds us of U.S. imperialism’s connection to the denial of Haitian democracy and self-determination. International solidarity for Haiti has been inconsistent though. The anti-imperialist solidarity movement in the U.S. empire and left forces have often been silent in the face of occupation and the coup of the popularly elected Lavalas government and people’s power in Haiti. Black liberation forces have been inconsistent at best, some limiting their attention to the romantic identification with the 19th century Haitian Revolution and Vodou, while ignoring the current fight for democracy and human rights in Haiti. The Haitian Revolution and culture of resistance is inspirational. Let us also be inspired by the courage and sacrifice of the Haitian people’s flood against right-wing forces supported by U.S. imperialism, France, and Canada today. We must build consistent anti-imperialist and internationalist solidarity for the Haitian grassroots movement. We must challenge U.S. policy and the UN occupation of Haiti. We must increase our contact and support for the popular, pro-democratic forces of the Haiti, including solidarity for Fanmi Lavalas. The New Afrikan People’s Organization and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement support the demands of Fanmi Lavalas: 1) Obtain the resignation of Jovenel Moïse through a general mobilization; 2) Resignation of Jean-Henry Céant and all his ministers; 3) Assess the dysfunction and lapses in the Parliament; 4) Put in place an executive and a government of public safety to ensure a transition for a period of 36 months.

References for Further Reading Auguste, Annette. (2003). We Will Not Forget: The Achievements of Lavalas in Haiti. Hallward, Peter. (2010). Damming the Flood: Haiti and the Politics of Containment. Fanmi Lavalas (2018). “Crisis and Resolution” (statement). https://haitisolidarity.net/crisis-and-resolution/. Labossiere, P., Roth, R., & Flynn, L. 2003. Hidden from the Headlines: The US war against Haiti. Robinson, Randall. 2007. An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President. Haiti Action Committee. www.haitisolidarity.net

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Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War Edward Onaci

Safiya Bukhari once wrote that no liberation movement is complete if it does not achieve the liberation of political prisoners (PP) and prisoners of war (POW). Therefore, organizing around any given issue should include discussion and action regarding those who have suffered incarceration due to their efforts on behalf of our cause. PPs are those who have been arrested and convicted in enemy courts as a result of their political beliefs and actions around those beliefs. POWs, like PPs, are in the confines of U.S. detention camps because of their political beliefs and actions. The difference here is that POWs may have participated in armed self-defense leading up to or in the moment that they were apprehended. Some examples include the RNA-11, Panther 21, Wilmington 10, Sundiata Acoli, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Safiya Bukhari, and scores of others. Agreeing with Bukhari, MXGM seeks “Freedom for all Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War. We demand the release of activists who have been imprisoned because of their commitment in seeking human rights and liberation for our people. These brothers and sisters are Political Prisoners or Prisoners of War and should be recognized as such.” Just as Nelson Mandela’s liberation was tied to the destruction of apartheid, we see the release of our PPs and POWs as integral to the success of the broader effort for human rights and self-determination of our nation and to all historically oppressed peoples. Featured in this section are brothers and sisters who have fought hard for our liberation. They are serving life sentences, in some cases as stipulated at the time of their sentence hearing, and in other cases as a result of being locked away long after they have served their set time. Even as their legal teams work to get them out of prison, they benefit greatly by hearing from those of us who are on the outside. Writing to them helps them maintain their inextinguishable spirits. Lifting them up as PPs and POWs also makes clear to the world that we have not forgotten them and that a luta continua!

MutuluShakur.com

newafrikan77.com

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Mutulu Shakur Hiram Rivera

Dr. Mutulu Shakur is one of the most decorated prisoners of the New Afrikan Independence Movement. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Dr. Shakur moved to Queens, New York City at the age of 7. Acutely aware of the ways in which the systems and institutions of New York City and the federal government so negatively impacted his family, Dr. Shakur made a commitment at a very early age to fight for the self-determination of his people. Understanding that without complete control of the institutions impacting the lives of New Afrikan people, there would never be freedom, justice, or equality for his family or the millions of New Afrikan families to come. Dr. Shakur was politicized in an era of violent segregation, racist policing, and the beginnings of U.S. military and imperial domination of the world. He understood that his life was going to be one of service to his people and to the oppressed peoples of the world. By the age of 16 he was an active member of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM). RAM was a revolutionary nationalist organization founded by Dr. Muhammad Ahmad and Donald Freeman, and it fought for the self-determination of the “internal Black colony” of the United States. He later joined the Republic of New Afrika, under the leadership of Imari Obadele, where he again experienced firsthand the extreme violence of the state toward New Afrikan people fighting for freedom within the empire. Already a veteran of this country’s open war against its New Afrikan population, Dr. Shakur channeled his experiences and skills into healing the most marginalized of our community. Using the eastern practice of acupuncture, Dr. Shakur worked alongside members of the Black Panther Party, the Republic of New Afrika, the Young Lords, and Students for a Democratic Society to establish the Lincoln Detox Center inside the notorious Lincoln Hospital. Healing Black and Brown people of their heroin addictions through natural medicine and political education, Dr. Shakur not only gave these individuals their lives back, but also gave them the skills and knowledge to go back and fight for the communities they came from. With the increased violence as a result of the federal government’s COINTELPRO terrorism campaign, Dr. Shakur acted on his belief that self-defense is a human right. After being indicted in 1982 by a federal grand jury under U.S. conspiracy laws, he lived underground until he was captured in 1986. Dr. Mutulu Shakur has remained a POW ever since. You can write to Dr. Shakur at: Dr. Mutulu Shakur #83205-012 Victorville USP P.O. Box 3900 Adelanto,CA 92301

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Sundiata Acoli Hiram Rivera

“We must spread the campaign to free Sundiata all over the world.”- Assata Shakur Sundiata Acoli is one of the longest held Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War in the gulags of the United States empire. Raised in Vernon, Texas and a graduate of Prairie View A&M College, Sundiata Acoli’s case is a prime example of this country’s never-ending war against New Afrikan people. Raised in the Jim Crow South until graduating college, Sundiata had experienced the dehumanizing effects of segregation, economic and police violence, and racial bigotry that defined the country for generations, post-“emancipation.” In 1964, armed with a degree in Mathematics, Sundiata joined with hundreds of other young people to engage in voter registration work in Mississippi. These activists were hopeful that the voting process could bring freedom and justice for New Afrikan people. Unfortunately, those prospects would fade as repression by police and intelligence agencies, including targeted assassinations of key leaders, proved yet again the empire’s commitment to the subjugation and killing of its New Afrikan population. In 1968, Sundiata joined the Harlem Chapter of the Black Panther Party and continued his community work on issues of education, housing, employment, health care, and policing. He was arrested in 1969 as part of the Panther 21 and held in jail without bail for two years before all 21 of them were acquitted. After that, FBI COINTELPRO intimidation of potential employers left Sundiata with no work in the computer profession and forced him underground. In 1973, Sundiata and his comrades were stopped and assaulted on the New Jersey Turnpike. Zayd Shakur was killed, Assata Shakur was wounded and captured, one state trooper was killed and another was wounded, and Sundiata escaped but was captured days later. He was sentenced to life plus 30 years. Sundiata has been eligible for parole since 1992. The empire has waged a well organized resistance to his freedom ever since. He has served much of his time in solitary confinement in federal “supermax” penitentiaries, despite being held on state charges. In 2014, a panel of New Jersey judges ordered the parole board to “expeditiously set conditions” for his release. Two years later, the parole board denied his parole and mandated that he serve another 15 years. He is currently 82 years old. Sundiata Acoli deserves our unyielding commitment to his freedom campaign. Nothing short of liberation should be the goal. “Spread the campaign all over the world” until our comrade and all Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War are home. You can write to Sundiata Acoli at: Sundiata Acoli #39794-066 (Squire) FCI Cumberland Federal Correctional Institution P.O. BOX 1000 Cumberland, MD 21501

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Culture is a Weapon! Makungu Akinyela

Culture is at the heart of the Movement for the liberation of Black people in the USA as well as internationally. It is through culture, the way we move, the way we sing and make music, the way we cook and dress, and the way we talk to each other and spend time with each other that we create the collective national identity that we call New Afrikan. Our New Afrikan culture, whether it is expressed musically in blues, gospel, jazz or hip hop, or whether it’s expressed aesthetically in dashikis and head wraps or in sagging pants and cutoffs, shapes our struggle and is shaped by the struggle. It is important as we build our struggle that we pay attention to and honor the rich deep African culture that has developed here in colonized New Afrika over the past 400 years. It is a culture of resistance and liberation. It is the source of the voice of our nation. For these and many more reasons we here at BAMN News Service see the importance of regular discussions, presentations, and expressions of our people’s culture which is at the center of our revolutionary development.

Southern Style International LLC by Torrence L. Taylor

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Interview with Sunni Patterson Nyeusi Jami

Sunni Patterson is a poet, playwright, educator, and activist. She began her career as a full-time high school teacher. She has appeared on programs like HBO’s Def Poetry and BET’s Lyric Café. She has also worked with artists such as 2 Chainz, Yaasin Bey (Mos Def), Sonia Sanchez, and The Last Poets. Sunni is an embodiment of her native New Orleans. She lives by an African Spirituality and a Self-Determination ethos which are unique to New Orleans tradition. The African drum and dance of Congo Square, the influence of Haitian Revolutionary immigrants, the vodun, the Second Line, the Masquerade, the artistic expansiveness of Jazz, surviving Katrina and resisting displacement – it all lives in Sunni Patterson. She moves seamlessly between the worlds of Revolutionary Black Nationalism, the arts, and the People, giving life to Toni Cade Bambara’s instruction to “make Revolution irresistible.” This interview with Nyeusi Jami has been edited for clarity and brevity. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------NYEUSI: How did you begin honing your craft with spoken word? SUNNI: I was always writing. And I was always encouraged to write and to read. My father would push Na’im Akbar’s “Chains and Images of Psychological Slavery” for example and say “I need you to read this book and I need you to write about it.” And I’m like, “I’m trying to read Wrinkle In Time.” But I’m glad I did it because books like this shaped my worldview. I was surrounded by people who allowed me the opportunity to ask questions and they would point me in the direction of study. Learning punctuation and metaphors and such all came second to “How does this uplift a people? What does this say about Black people? What does this art say about Spirit?” NYEUSI: Outside of your father and your immediate family, what other influences were in the community around you that shaped your worldview? SUNNI: That’s a long list. All of the older people in the church. My uncles, Ruby Lumbard, Big Duck, these are people who are renowned activists. Duck’s mentor was Lorraine Hansberry, his best friend was James Baldwin. My uncle Rudy served as chairman of the New Orleans chapter of CORE. The list can go on and on of women who shaped me. And being president of Student Council and spokesperson of different groups helped me to be who I am now. NYEUSI: When did you realize that Sunni Patterson was starting to be a thing out here in these culture streets – that people knew who you were? SUNNI: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe after Katrina. I remember one show in particular in Philadelphia maybe eight years ago. I had lost my voice performing in Arkansas the day before. No voice, throat aching, I got to the microphone. Couldn’t speak above a whisper. And the whole crowd started to do the poem. They carried me. So that’s when I was like, “Oh, they know this. They know me.” NYEUSI: What is your post-Katrina story? Where did you go? How did you adjust? How did you heal? SUNNI: After Katrina, I went to Houston, TX for a year and built beautiful community there before returning to New Orleans. But even during that year in Houston I was still back and forth to New Orleans. Just getting the city back. It was grief rituals and things like that, things to shift the vibration not just of the people but of

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the ground in general. It truly was like empty, but like filled with the empty, a heavy kind of empty. You’ll never know that feeling until you seen that kind of destruction. Seeing cars of top of houses, houses to the ground. . . So it was doing everything that we needed to do to lift the heart of the city up and lift our hearts as well. Which including continuing to create art. NYEUSI: I guess I would be an irresponsible journalist if I didn’t ask about 2 Chainz (Sunni has made a guest appearance on two albums from platinum rapper 2 Chainz. How did you connect with him? SUNNI: We met in college in Alabama. Just been cool and tight ever since. Been making music since then. From his days in Playaz Circle in the late ‘90s to the album that just came out. They’ve tried to sign me to the label but I have to tell them if my name was Lil Young Sunni things would be moving differently around here. But thanks be to God I am who I am and things move as they should for all the right reasons…I appreciate the beauty of witnessing his process in the studio. He doesn’t overthink, he doesn’t even like to hear the beat before he goes in the booth. He just turns on the beat and starts saying whatever comes to mind, being free. So I was telling that to my brother, like, there is thing of being free in those moments that don’t always happen in certain conscious communities. We can speak freely but when it comes down to artistry a lot of times it is focused more on being smart or righteous instead of just being creative. Meanwhile this thing of freedom is happening on this other end. So I get that from him. I appreciate his business savvy. He’s a hard worker. He’s a beautiful father. And he always looking out for me. It’s some stuff that’s coming out soon that he has a big hand in with helping me get it out on another scale. NYEUSI: What’s next for you as an artist? SUNNI: I’m a resident artist for the city of New Orleans with the Claiborne Cultural Innovation District. I’m also a resident artist for a theatre company here called Junebug Productions which housed the production that I did called Gomela. We do a bunch of work centered around displacement and homecoming, being able to come back to New Orleans, the Right of Return. I’m a spiritual cheerleader and coach for people with whatever it is that I do. The art is what opens the door for me to be able to do the real work of upliftment and loving on our people. So that’s the path. Using this art as a channel. If that’s what has to get me in then, perfect – because who else is gonna do it? It’s only the artist that can truly speak to the pulse of the people. And allowing my children to see a life well lived. And be able to see that you can still be cool or whatever and uplift. It’s not a lame thing to do. It’s beautiful to uplift.

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Whirlwind

(for Assata and Nehanda) Makungu Akinyela You don’t know where to find me To lock me up and bind me You look where you thought I might have been I live in the eyes of the people The hearts and minds of the people You look for me in the alleys and I ride the wind No matter how you treat me Lock me up and beat me I’m determined to one day break free I live in the eyes of the people The hearts and minds of the people You look for me in the streets and I’m in the breeze I’m a panther, a phantom A soldier in workers dress I’ll rise up in the east And then strike you from the west I’m a cobra, a tiger An urban freedom fighter I’m certainly not where You thought I might have been I live in the eyes of the people The hearts and minds of the people I’m certainly not where You thought I might have been I know you’re going to look for me So if you look for me Look for me . . . In the whirlwind!

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Notes on Revolutionary Theory and Practice An Introduction to One of the Architects of Revolutionary Black Nationalist Theory Makangu Akinyela Our people’s struggle for self-determination, human rights, and liberation will always be at its strongest when it is guided by theory put into action. The theory that guides the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the New African People’s Organization is rooted in the revolutionary black nationalism of Queen Mother Audley Moore, Malcolm X, and Robert F. Williams. That revolutionary black nationalist theory was built on by the sisters and brothers of the Revolutionary Action Movement, the House of Umoja, the Afrikan People’s Party, and the Republic of New Afrika. Our theory has been influenced and sharpened by great thinkers like Harry Haywood, James and Grace Lee Boggs, Akbar Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford) and Mamadou Lumumba. This and each following issue of BAMN will include the best in Revolutionary Black Nationalist theory including its latest developments through New Afrikan womanist, queer, and Afrofuturist lenses. We will continue to publish the best of Revolutionary Black Nationalist thought in the interest of self-determination and liberation for our nation. We are pleased to be able to publish a timely and important work in this first volume from Akbar Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford), a founder of the Revolutionary Action Movement and the African People’s Party. Dr. Ahmad has been a consistent voice and a guiding thought leader for Black liberation. It is our honor to publish this important article on the current state of the self-determination movement and what we should be doing to move it forward.

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The Black Liberation Movement at the Crossroads* Muhammad Ahmad (Max Stanford, Jr.)

In the late 1970s, the Black Liberation Movement began to slowly regroup from the state’s (U.S. Imperialism’s) attacks waged against it during the 1960s and early 1970s. The United League of Mississippi successfully fought the KKK, and united fronts and coalitions formed and mobilized against police murders and racist mayors. The Nation of Islam reorganized as a collective force, the Republic of New Afrika and the African People’s Party survived, despite a continuous ten-year onslaught by the police against them. Revolutionary Nationalists became a leading viable force, mobilizing some 5,000 New Afrikans to march on the United Nations, demanding prisoner of war status for captured BLA soldiers and charging the U.S. government with the crime of genocide against New Afrikans and oppressed nations of the world. As the 1980s approached, the mass movement of the Black Liberation Movement seemed to be on the rise once again. The Miami Rebellion (an embryonic insurrection) and the general call for a National Black United Front and a National Black Independent Political Party, both of which have become defunct, were concrete positive developments. This gave the appearance that the movement was advancing at a faster pace than it actually was. With obvious compliance with the military-intelligence-industrial complex, a powerful, politically sophisticated, and illegal paramilitary right-wing army numbering at least two million began to surface. It has terrorized hundreds, if not thousands in the last ten years with little or no publicity. Such a counter-revolutionary military onslaught caught many New Afrikans by surprise, because even many revolutionaries failed to realize that bourgeois democracy is a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. The impending crisis for imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, is mounting; the right-wing element of the bourgeoisie has gained hegemony in the monopolistic capitalist class circles. They are opting for fascism, military dictatorship, genocide, or any combination of these to ward off the internal contradictions that the international capitalist crisis is producing. As a result, racism (national chauvinism) is again being fanned to further divide the U.S. proletariat (which is already divided) using “Reborn Christians” and “Make America Great Again” as its cover for a “native born American style Fascist movement.” With this crisis, the New Afrikan nationality is grossly affected. New Afrikan youth are 60-80% unemployed, are grossly affected by the increased use of automation and robotization in industries; and as things get worse, unemployment among all New Afrikans will increase. Thus, at a time when New Afrikan nationalist formations are re-emerging, the New Afrikan nationality is facing its worst crisis since the late 1880s. What is the weakness in the Black Liberation Movement? The central weakness is there is no tactical plan of action for New Afrikan revolutionaries inside the imperialist U.S. There is no theoretical guide using a humanist, dialectical, materialist approach to address the “real” unique conditions New Afrikans face, described in terms New Afrikans can understand; there is no Malcolm X style program for the New Afrikan movement for self-determination, human rights, and democracy. Before the New Afrikan proletariat can fulfill its historical task as leader of the Black Liberation Movement, it must be awakened to both its national and class interest. Being in the belly of the beast, the New Afrikan proletariat will not move on its own interest unless it consciously understands its interest as a proletariat of an oppressed nation. This is called “national consciousness.” Only when the New Afrikan proletariat reaches a * Note: The original draft was written and circulated in the mid 1980s, re-edited in 2008, and attempted to update in 2018 as a guide for activists of the new movement.

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collective level of national consciousness will it be able to develop a clear class-consciousness. The New Afrikan proletariat will see its true class interest. The New Afrikan nationality’s oppression is the greatest strength of U.S. imperialist finance capital. It must first develop a collective consciousness and understand its (New Afrikan proletariat) specific needs. The New Afrikan working class is the most oppressed sector of the proletariat in the U.S. imperialist state, along with other oppressed nations held in captivity inside the American empire.1 New Afrikans, particularly New Afrikan workers, should be taught the potential of the revolutionary economic and political power they have and their relationship to the liberation of the international proletariat and the world socialist revolution. Since 40% of all capital investment in the world is planned for the southern United States with the aim of extracting super-profits from New Afrikan workers, the conscious organization of the New Afrikan proletariat (particularly in the black belt South) against extraction of surplus value is the central antithesis to capitalism and U.S. imperialism in the present period.2 The central task for New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists is to organize the New Afrikan proletariat/underclass (the unemployed) into special formations to fight for their national, racial, and class interests. The Black Liberation Movement will continually flounder until that occurs, so the process should begin on the local level. New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists have the responsibility of “fusing in,” that is working with and constantly projecting political ideas into the proletariat’s ranks. The revolutionary school for the masses is national/class struggle, which is developed through selforganiza-tion (spontaneous actions) and mass organization that is developed by organizers who work with the masses daily. There should also be conscious scientific socialist education among the advanced sectors of all sec-tions of the population.3 After developing the initial nucleus, New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists should develop New Afrikan workers’ nuclei, whose purpose (after intensive ideological training) would be to develop the intermediate and elementary sections of the New Afrikan working class. New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists engage in point of production work because it is of strategic importance to build the labor power to affect the system. This should be combined with neighborhood work. The political consciousness of New Afrikan workers, however, is tied to the fact that all New Afrikans face racial exploitation, therefore political consciousness is very much tied to the political level of mass struggle presently taking place. After the initial development, the question of “fusion” is of the utmost importance. The major task of New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists is to help build an organization of New Afrikan workers and politicize broad sectors of the community. Our task is to merge our activities with the practical, everyday questions of working class life, to help workers understand these questions, to draw the workers’ attention to the most important abuses (employers more precisely and practically), to develop among the workers consciousness of their solidarity, consciousness of the common interests and common cause of all the workers as a united working class that is part of the international army of the proletariat.4 1. 2. 3. 4.

Rally Comrades, 1982, Volume 2, Number 4 August, p.2. Workers Tribune, 1982, Number 9, July-august, p.3. Ibid. p.3. V.I. Lenin, 1977, On Building the Bolshevik Party: Selected Writings 1894-1905 (Chicago, Illinois: Liberator Press), p.37.

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A central goal of New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists is to organize study circles among New Afrikan workers to establish secret connections between them and the New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist cadre; to publish and distribute literature, particularly geared to eventually connecting workers, eventually connect centers; agitate among New Afrikan workers and train a body of revolutionary New Afrikan trade union agitators. Now comes the key question: where to concentrate the work. New Afrikans organizational strength is at the industrial workplace and in the social service industries in the urban city areas. New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists should be good at drawing in unorganized and backward workers permanently into the ranks of the organization. The organizational assessment of New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists of where to proceed should be based on scientific data, trends, and motion. The creation of a dynamic revolutionary organization among New Afrikan urban workers is the first and most urgent task confronting New Afrikan nationalists today. Both economic and political agitation are equally necessary to develop the class consciousness of the proletariat; both economic and political agitation are equally necessary for guiding the class struggle of the workers, because every class struggle is a political struggle.5 Both kinds of agitation enable workers to test their strength on immediate issues and needs to wring partial concessions from their enemy and thus improve their economic conditions, compelling the capitalists to reckon with the strength of organized workers. Presently in almost every city, New Afrikan labor has been transformed from the private to the public sector. They are, for the most part in the public sector, service workers in service industries. The largest employers are the “new� multinational corporations of universities and hospitals. New Afrikan workers also are concentrated in transportation, water and garbage departments; as well as maintenance, sanitation, security, postal and other municipal services. In the private sector, hotel and office maintenance and retail service workers are found in almost every city. The next fight will be to achieve parity for New Afrikans in the construction industry in these cities. Legal struggle and mass resistance transitional stages: The New Afrikan national liberation revolution for Reparations and self-determination has taken many zigzag forms and has had several high tides and setbacks. It is important for people to understand that, before another mass revolutionary era can occur that would be sustained by transforming it into a mass resistance movement against the state, the legal means of struggle should be exhausted first, at least in the minds of the people. Waging a mass struggle for reform does this, and in the process of struggling for reform the people learn the necessity for revolution. At the same time, revolutionaries need to conduct literacy campaigns among the masses to enhance their ability to comprehend political theory. Reform struggles under capitalism to improve the lives and conditions of the people are important in them selves. They should not be seen merely as a means to an end. The struggle for reform limits the capitalists in their relentless drive to intensify exploitation of the working class. Material gains in our share of the social product and advances in democratic rights gives workers a stronger base from which to fight. 5. V.I. Lenin, Ibid. pp.40-41. 6. Bay Area Socialist Organizing Committee, 1980, Confronting Reality: Learning from the History of our Movement (San Francisco), p.12.

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The movement for national democratic human rights cannot be achieved within the framework of U.S. monopoly capitalist imperialism. The system cannot survive without race, national, class and gender oppression. Only a transformative overthrow of the capitalist class and state can achieve parity in human rights and selfdetermination. This means New Afrikan revolutionaries must master all forms of struggle, including mass legal struggle. Transitional political demands for proportional political representation for New Afrikans in the political system, unionization of New Afrikan workers, economic democracy, democratic rights at the workplace, nationalization of industry, and an Economic Bill of Rights for the Poor are key political demands to advance the struggle. Revolutionaries should be in the forefront of building independent political formations, possibly a people’s party, and registering the masses to vote. By breaking the allegiance of the New Afrikan nationality with the two capitalist political parties, the struggle for self-determination and reparations will advance. By forming political mass people’s formations, the question of reparations for war crimes committed against the New Afrikan nationality by the U.S. imperialist government can emerge inside the political and public communications process. In addition, the question of self-determination for the domestically oppressed nations, including the right of secession can be addressed. This, along with mass agitation for human rights, could lead to a mass New Afrikan national movement and another revolutionary period. This will be a long process. How will a tactical plan for reparations be implemented? In order to make reparations real for the masses of New Afrikans, tactics must go from defensive “fight-back” political action to offensive “revolutionary action” political action. Mass revolutionary action means taking the political offensive. It means agitating both inside and outside of the capitalistic political structure to isolate, expose, and oust (vote out of office) the racist conservative politicians and cause a political polarization/realignment of political forces inside the U.S. How do we proceed to do this? By having a people’s coalition inside the Democratic Party and developing a constitutional recall movement of conservative/racist politicians around their anti-people voting records. This could entail convening democratic people’s conventions, people’s courts, political tribunals and civil lawsuits. From below or outside the capitalist political structure, having political “reparations” demonstrations by the army of the unemployed with teach-ins concerning the use of voting records, deals, and conspiracies that politicians used to crush the people’s movement. Realistically, while many New Afrikan revolutionaries have remained outside the ranks of the capitalist parties, many need to take struggle inside the Democratic Party to galvanize a “progressive people’s bloc.” Their purpose would be to force the KKK, racists, and conservative politicians either out of the Democratic Party or to a political showdown, thereby impacting the local, regional and national arena. They would develop a broad infrastructure and run “Democratic Socialist” candidates with a base in the neighborhood movement. Methods of proceeding: Agitating the advanced sections of the New Afrikan proletariat is the accurate way to arouse the entire New Afrikan proletariat. The dissemination of socialist ideas and ideas of national race oppression and class struggle among urban workers will inevitably cause those ideas to flow to wider and wider areas. Essentially, it means these ideas taking deep root among the more “politically aware” elements and spreading throughout the consciously aware. Cadre need to comprehend the unique historical features of their local (base) situations and how they relate to the national movement.7 7. Cedric Johnson, 2007, Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of New Afrikan Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).

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While concentrating all its forces on activity among workers, New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists are ready to support and unite with other elements of the population. These alliances should not lead to compromises or concessions on matters of theory, program, or slogan. The doctrine of democratic socialism, national oppression, and race, class, and gender struggle is the only revolutionary theory that can serve as the beacon for the revolutionary movement. New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists will exert every effort to spread this doctrine, to guard it against false interpretation, and will combat every attempt to steer the New Afrikan working class from its revolutionary mission and to galvanize the entire U.S. working class towards revolution. In order to do this, propaganda should be directed primarily toward winning advanced workers to wage a protracted struggle for self-determination of the oppressed New Afrikan nationality. At the same time, it must be understandable and appealing to the broad “middle forces” as well. This approach requires a consistent and responsible praxis to the question of working with reformist leaders. In attempting to do so, we will find a real test of our political maturity and flexibility and perhaps of the strength of our understanding of, and commitment to, our political principles. In general, New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists’ approach to working with reformist leaders should be to unite with their positive aspects, whether substantial or merely superficial public rhetoric. In the latter case, New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists’ support reflects what people believe the leaders stand for and part of our strategy must be to push the contradiction between assertion and action. In conducting propaganda among the workers, New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists deal with the practical political problems of the masses. They strive to spread an understanding of New Afrikans’ relationship to the system, national oppression, race, class, and gender oppression and what it means. In addition, the necessity to overthrow the system, the impossibility of waging a successful struggle for New Afrikan workers’ cause without self-determination from the capitalist system should be understood. Agitating New Afrikan workers around their immediate economic demands, New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists inseparably link this with the immediate political needs of the New Afrikan people. Their political power and proportional representation take on a new light within this context. Just as there is no issue affecting the life of the workers in the economic field that must be left unused for the purpose of economic agitation, so there is also no issue in the political field that does not serve as a subject for political agitation.8 In this respect, New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists, constantly try to show that the Black Liberation Movement should try to effect structural changes in the labor market. Organizing New Afrikan workers to wage a scientific, economic, and “political” struggle at the workplace can advance this. By doing this, the Black Liberation Movement will also be enabling other workers to see the true class contradictions within the U.S. imperialist state. What is the objective/subjective situation, and how do we proceed to develop a broad mass proletarian line? Of the 8.31 million New Afrikans employed in 1977, about 33% were unionized by 1981, as compared to only 26% of white workers. New Afrikan and other oppressed nationality workers made up 48% of the Laborers union, 37% of the Service Employees union, 30% of the Food and Commercial Workers union and 30% of AFSCME, the largest public workers union in the United States. In 1960 six percent of the AFL-CIO was New Afrikan, by 1981 it was 17%.9 8. V.I. Lenin, Op. Cit.p.40 9. “Black Workers: The Black Nation and the Black Liberation Movement,” Worker’s Tribune, No.3 June-July 1981, p.4

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The question that New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists must address is that 33% of the approximately 2.5 million New Afrikan workers are in unions controlled by the labor aristocracy (bureaucrats) who don’t represent either the class or national interests of New Afrikan workers. It is necessary to organize a revolutionary New Afrikan caucus movement inside these unions to push these unions in a revolutionary direction, and also to form an organization, which represents the national, and class interests of the New Afrikan proletariat. This would link its common interests with the revolutionary sectors of the proletariat inside of the United States imperialist state, the Third World, and the international proletariat in general. Each has a different character and the forms of unity may come in various phases of development. As of 2008, there are 16.9 million members in all trade unions. Of these, 2.4 million are New Afrikan, 1.9 million Hispanic, and 657,000 are Asian American, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.10 The majority of New Afrikan workers are still not unionized, which is a question that the New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist movement must seriously address. At the same time, as unemployment is increasing, a sector of the New Afrikan proletariat has fallen victim to bourgeois cultural genocide and are becoming lumpenized. Important to every great national liberation movement is the political socialization of the youth. From 1970 to 1980, the great New Afrikan mass movement for self-determination lost momentum as the state regained the offensive through physical repression and through more subtle methods, including psychological warfare, media genocide, chemical warfare (drugs), and monetary co-opting. As a result, an entire generation of youth has emerged who are more politically backward than the last generation. This proves the point that critical revolutionary political consciousness does not remain intact or a dominant force within the New Afrikan com-munity unless it is institutionalized and transmitted to each forthcoming generation through mass struggle. Beginning in the early 1970s, particularly with the showings of Superfly and Coffy, the pimp, prostitute, and drug-pusher became the glorified hero/heroine of New Afrikan street culture in the inner cities. This psychological media genocide blitz of Black-exploitation films coincided with the state’s flooding of drugs into the inner cities, building the “black mafia” in conjunction with the “white mafia” and the CIA. This altered the images of the New Afrikan liberation fighter who had been the hero/heroine for New Afrikan youth in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They were replaced with the “romanticized” lumpen. Published estimates state that one-third of all New Afrikan men in America are narcotics users. Approximately one million New Afrikan youth between the ages of 11 and 19 make a living from their participation in the drug traffic and are not in the labor market. Approximately three million New Afrikans are part of the drug traffic (selling drugs). Black-on-black crime is the highest ever in the history of the New Afrikan nationality, which says something about their subjective condition. The present situation is a result of the New Afrikan community’s struggle to desegregate public facilities in the South, breaking down the legal barriers that kept them from upward mobility within the capitalist system. As long as segregation existed in the superstructure, New Afrikans, regardless of class mentality or class status within the larger class structure of American society, identified collectively with New Afrikans. What the Black Liberation Movement did not take into consideration is that New Afrikans had been imbued with the same individualistic go-for-self mentality as the white community was imbued with. As the economy expanded in the sixties, and racial discrimination in the superstructure was setback; the class contradictions within the New Afrikan community began to emerge full bloom. 10. www.bls.gov.

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At the same time the petty bourgeoisie gained hegemony over the Black Liberation Movement and New Afrikan revolutionaries were imprisoned en-masse, driven underground, exiled or assassinated. The co-opting of the Black Liberation Movement by the New Afrikan petty bourgeoisie and their failure (in the past 30 years) to develop effective leadership or a program has led to a complete demoralization of the entire New Afrikan community who then turned inward on themselves. The New Afrikan community faces a crisis that is affecting the entire New Afrikan nationality. Cutbacks in social services and employment of the poor present an economic crisis, but an even greater crisis is the loss of unity in the community and the misdirection of New Afrikan youth. This misdirection is a growing problem in every New Afrikan community in the country and is a direct result of magazines, movies, and all forms of media from the “new street culture” that has emerged from the drug traffic. Institutions (church, school, family) that had previously provided New Afrikans with a value system for the day-to-day realities that they face, have not responded adequately to the growing crisis. As a result, facing 5060% unemployment, this generation of New Afrikan youth, have lost all sense of having values or morals. They have little or no respect for elders, parents, or any responsible person in the New Afrikan community. Since they have not been taught of the struggles that New Afrikans endured, even to get to where they are now, they are easy victims of the “pimp-prostitute-drug pusher-rip off artist-hustler” culture. With the loss of a sense of identity and sense of community, New Afrikan youth have taken to ripping off (stealing) from any easy prey they can find. There is a precipitous rise of black-on-black crime perpetrated by these youth in our neighborhoods. They, like the larger New Afrikan community, have been ‘lumpenized” by the media culture’s conception of what they should be. Unlike the generation in the 1960s, when New Afrikan youth took to the streets to change the system (Black Social Responsibility); today’s youth are engaging in antisocial behavior, blatant disrespect for adults and even life itself. This tendency towards black-on-black crime is sorely dividing and destroying the New Afrikan community, even as it faces the most severe repression it has faced in years. Black-on-Black Crime When the Black Liberation Movement is at its highest tide, black-on-black crime recedes. The intra-hate complex that New Afrikans harbor due to oppression psychosis produced by the racist monopoly capitalist system has a creative outlet. It is a form of therapy for the New Afrikan nationality and also takes the form of mass social dislocation, mass demonstrations, mass uprisings, and revolutionary self-defense against the system. Most so-called crimes committed by New Afrikans have been out of economic desperation and self-hate. Crimes committed against forms of white power structures (banks, insurance companies, retail stores, etc.) are economic wars by the oppressed class. Black-on-black crime, (murder, drug-pushing, ripping off neighbor’s homes) are crimes stemming from self-hate, even though they are from an economic motivation. The Black Liberation Movement must address itself to black-on-black crime and create the means to eliminate it. It should attempt to restore love and respect in New Afrikans for New Afrikans. While the objective conditions exist for the highest level of revolutionary mass organization, cutbacks in social services, high unemployment, mass racist attacks, blatant police brutality, and the rapid move toward consolidating fascism create the conditions that New Afrikans cannot collectively organize because of the low level of their “national” consciousness. New Afrikan revolutionaries should be creating the special organizational forms that fit the masses’ objective and subjective needs.

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The New Afrikan unemployed should be organized and mobilized into homeless unemployment councils. A tactical program of action should be raised by a national organization of New Afrikan workers. The entire New Afrikan left can unite around forming and galvanizing the thousands of unemployed (especially New Afrikan youth) into unemployment councils. These councils should be broad united front organizations based on economics on the local level. Their purpose would be to get welfare, social security, and unemployment insurance guarantees and to pressure for the opening of jobs previously reserved for white workers. In addition, pressure on the capitalists/government, an Economic Bill of Rights for the poor, guaranteed income (full employment) and a call for the nationalization of basic industries as a solution to the unemployment problem would be additional areas to be addressed. Part of a tactical New Afrikan workers’ unemployed program could be: 1. Recognize the rights of all workers to unemployment insurance. 2. Expand benefits and the cessation of all cutbacks, with benefits paid by the employer and the government. 3. Simplify all laws and rules on unemployment insurance, eliminating bureaucracy. 4. Eliminate racism at the workplace in: hiring; promotions; unequal pay; harassment and unfair treatment; firing; sexual abuse of black women on the job. 5. Equal pay for New Afrikan women workers to male workers. 6. Affirmative action in the skilled trades. 7. Affirmative action in skilled and unskilled unions. 8. Oust all reactionary union bureaucrats. 9. Organize the unorganized (non-union shops). 10. Complete benefits to the elderly. 11. Complete benefits to welfare recipients. 12. Restitution to New Afrikan ex-soldiers forced to fight in U.S. imperialists’ racist wars. 13. Immediate release of all political prisoners. 14. Nationalization of industry and the establishment of a 36-hour workweek with full pay as a means of obtaining full employment. 15. Immigrant workers right to same benefits as native-born workers. 16. End to all rules disqualifying the unemployed from benefits. 17. Maternity grants of 26 weeks, with access to these at any time during pregnancy; also available to adoptive parents. 18. End all waiting restrictions. 19. No penalty for firing or voluntary resignation because of the unsuitability of work. 20. Unemployed staffing of unemployment offices. 21. Continuation of benefits during illness or injury without penalty. 22. End to chauvinism, harassment, and racism practiced by unemployment agencies toward oppressed nationalities and immigrants. 23. Unemployment centers staffed with bilingual workers. 24. Struggle for full workers’ democracy in decisions affecting their working conditions and environment. 25. Job retraining for the unemployed and debt free college/university education. It is important, in this period, to create mass proletarian organizational forms where the advanced class-conscious workers can surge forth to leadership and propel the self-organization of the New Afrikan proletariat. Within the development based on agitation and actions, is socialist political education. This often neglected arena, “the ideological struggle,” will become increasingly sharp in the forthcoming period. The ideological front, like the economic, political, and cultural fronts, is very important, because actions can be guided by precisely developing a clear ideological line.

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For over forty years, since the early 1960s – from the days of SNCC, RAM, Black Panther Party, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, Black Workers Congress, Black Liberation Army, Republic of New Afrika, African Peoples Party, African Liberation Support Committee to the present moment of NAPO-MXGM, Black Lives Matter, Black Workers for Justice, BRC, Black Workers League – there has been a lot of mobilizing and organizing of the New Afrikan community. What has been lacking is comprehensive ideological cohesion and internal education in the Black Liberation Movement. This weakness gives rise to ultra-leftism, which sometimes takes the form of adventurism, sectarianism, or right-wing tailism of the mass movements or petty bourgeois leadership. Organizing the masses around immediate issues that they see as important, such as housing, jobs, wages, workers’ benefits, gentrification, and political empowerment is critical. If the tactical line does not flow from a strategic line, then actions will lead to a blind alley, as they have in the past. This is where strategy coming from the theory of Revolutionary Nationalism helps. Working with the New Afrikan proletariat in an organized and systematic way in organizational forms (workers’ control and People’s Assemblies), New Afrikan revolutionaries will have a forum in which to learn from the masses; they will have an arena to “listen” to them, learn, and re-learn how to correctly address their needs. This organizational arena will give New Afrikan revolutionaries a chance to concretely address the question of how to take day-to-day issues and relate them to the theory of revolutionary internationalism. Internationalism, we will win: The call for unity creates One Struggle, Many Fronts, an understanding of the “actual” character of internationalism inside the imperialist state, and also outside of it. It means New Afrikan workers need a “fresh” non-sectarian approach and education to revolutionary internationalism. The socialist internationalist perspective is very important for the developing New Afrikan proletarian leadership. Only when New Afrikans see the world correctly, knowing the revolutionary forces, their true friends and allies, will New Afrikans be able to see their real enemies. The legacy left by Brother Malcolm X for New Afrikan revolutionaries to deal with is “socialist education” of the masses. It includes support for the Palestine Liberation Movement and elimination of outside influences of the Black Liberation Movement. It is just as meaningful for the New Afrikan "on the block" as when the brothers and sisters in South Africa rose to destroy apartheid, because it’s One Struggle, Many Fronts. The New Afrikan National Democratic Revolution has unique national conditions that are subjective. It also has general objective (class) laws that have followed the basic laws of National Democratic Revolutions and Socialist Revolutions worldwide, since 1917. We need to see our organizing of the New Afrikan community and developing pre-party cadre organization as the New Afrikan ethnic sector of a future multi-national multi-racial people’s party that organizes a majority of the American masses through the transitional process of leading to people’s democracy and democratic socialism. New Afrikans need to understand that, while they are in a unique situation, one that is historically different from others, their self-determination is tied to the international struggle for socialism. This is because Africans’ enslavement played a central role in the building of the world capitalist system. The victory of the New Afrikan Democratic Revolution is linked to the victory of the socialist revolution in the U.S. and throughout the world. While each has its own laws of development, they are linked by protracted general laws of development of the world revolution, which occurs in the weakest links first and by stages and the objective protracted historical process.

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By Any Means Necessary

The principal enemy of New Afrikans is the U.S. imperialist state and the capitalist class/system. New Afrikans call on all freedom-loving progressive people of the world to unite to destroy the enemy of the world’s people. It is this political understanding that will carry the Black Liberation Movement towards victorious liberation.

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BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY

Magazine Name or url

BAMN Staff: Makungu Akinyela Edward Onaci Maria Fernandez Ifetayo Flannery Nyeusi Jami Kwame Kalimara Akinyela Umoja Zalika Ibaorimi Karanja Keita Kwame-Osagyefo Kalimara Designed by The Center for Ideas, Equity, and Transformative Change

Volume 1: Issues 1 and 2 In Honor of Nehanda Abiodun

H T T P S : / / W W W. M X G M . O R G

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