By Any Means Necessary
15
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.