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Assata Radio! - Jul 11,2009

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! Saying Goodbye To The Armchair Revolutionary!!! Discussion is great but networking, formulating plans, putting those plans into action is supreme! The Talking Drum Collective is all about that precisely! Let us see what real revolution looks like and rid ourselves of the Armchair Revolutionary Mind!!! Hosted by Majadi Baruti

Pan-Africanism | Black Nationalism | Assata Shakur | Black History | Black People

Assata Radio - Apr 05,2009

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 04/05/09: The Afrikan Fallacy Called, Separation of Church and State. Historically Africans are a spiritual people, yet in the community there is a current separation of spirituality (Church, Mosque, and African Traditional Religions) and our political, cultural and economic aspects of our movements. This insanity imitates the Euro-Centric world view and has caused much damage to us as a people. How can we solve this issue? Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

African Religion | Spirituality | Black Nationalism | Black Unity | Pan-Africanism

Assata Radio - Mar 22,2009

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 03/22/09 The Few, The Proud, The Afrikan Revolutionary! Hosted by Black Unity Host

Political Prisoners | Yurugu | Black Nationalism | Black Unity | Dr. Marimba Ani

Philadelphia Pigs Attack Uhuru Movement Protesters in City Council - Mar 22,2009

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 13:22:26 GMT

PHILADELPHIA, PA —

On Wednesday, March 19, 2009, police attacked members of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) in the gallery of the City Council during the City Council session where Mayor Nutter was announcing his 2010 budget. International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement members were holding signs protesting Mayor Nutter’s budget, which cuts essential services for the African population while spending more than one billion dollars a year for police and prisons attacking the black community. Subsequent to the police attack, InPDUM international organizer Diop Olugbala, (aka Wali Rahman), and member Shabaka Mnombatha, (aka Franklin Moses), were brutally arrested and are being charged with aggravated assault on police!

As the meeting started, some of the many InPDUM supporters present were holding up signs saying "Unite Philadelphia through Economic and Social Justice", "Jail Killer Police", "Stop the War on the Black Community", and other demands upholding the rights of the impoverished black community.

The meeting began with a resolution to recognize the unbeaten Frankford Chargers youth football team. The Chargers were wearing black armbands in memory of their teammate, 14-year-old Sharif Lee Jones, who was murdered by Philadelphia police on August 24, 2008.

As the team left the chambers, civil affairs police gathered behind the InPDUM organizers and demanded they immediately sit down and stop protesting. A Civil Affairs officer put Diop Olugbala into a chokehold. When Diop and the entire audience protested this attack, the police threw Diop and Shabaka down and arrested them.

During the violent attack, the police threw at least two elderly people to the ground, and another member of InPDUM, an elderly African woman, was taken to the hospital with a broken hip.

The International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement calls for people to join the Campaign to Free the City Hall 2!

Stop Philadelphia’s Billion Dollar War Against the African Community!

Throw Nutter in the Gutter! Impeach Mayor Nutter!

InPDUM is calling on people to contact the offices below with the following Demands:

1. The immediate Release of Wali Rahman and Franklin Moses.
2. Stop the frame up and drop all charges.

Offices to be contacted:

9th District Jail where our Comrades are being held hostage at 215-686-3090.

And call into Mayor Nutter’s Office 215-686-3000.

Police Brutality | Uhuru Movement | Philadelphia | Racist Cops | Mayor Nutter | InPDUM

Assata Radio-Independent Afrikan Economics:Funding The Revolution! - Mar 15,2009

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 03/15/09 A discussion on how to create independent Afrikan Economics. Oftentimes African people assume the economic strategies of the Euro-American power structure. Investing in Stocks, Mutual Funds, Seeking loans from banks, sub-prime mortgages etc. Obviously these have not worked, therefore it is time w move towards independent Afrikan Centered ideas! Our discussion will cover Communalism, Bartering, Land Acquistion and Control of Natural Resources! Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

Black Economics | Assata Shakur | Black Nationalism | Black Unity | Pan-Africanism

Black Unity - Mar 13,2009

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Black Unity's vision is to focus on the positive so that a foundation can be built for future generations and to pay homage to those that have paved a way for us to be here with the thought of liberation from a corrupt society

Black | History | Talk | Education | Positive

Assata Radio - Mar 08,2009

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 03/08/09 What is Your Story? Are you bold enough to be unapologetically Afrikan, are you brave enough to speak, love and fight for us and us alone? What will you tell your children and grandchildren of your relationship to the Afrikan Race? It seems since the Obama catastrophe, few of us can say that! Now it is time to check for Afrikan Men and Afrikan Women of a Pure Afrikan Centered Mind! Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

Political Prisoners | Assata Shakur | Black Nationalism | Black Unity | Pan-Africanism

15 year old girl brutally beat by cops Seattle, Washington Police, Doing What These Punks Do Best! - Mar 01,2009

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:04:29 GMT

This is an obvious display of the brutality of the policing forces of the United States!

http://www.youtube.com/v/cl67FmVRjYs&hl=en&fs=1"> name="allowFullScreen" value="true">http://www.youtube.com/v/cl67FmVRjYs&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344">

Police Brutality | 15 year old Beaten | Seattle Police!

Assata Radio - Mar 01,2009

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 17:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 03/01/09 Robert and Mabel Williams Revolutionary Black Love! Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

Robert F Williams | Assata Shakur | Black Nationalism | Negroes With Guns | Pan-Africanism

Assata Radio - Feb 22,2009

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 02/22/09 Putting Our Money Where Our Revolution Is! Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

Political Prisoners | Assata Shakur | Black Nationalism | Black Unity | Pan-Africanism

Beaten Blind by Georgia Pigs! - Feb 21,2009

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:39:33 GMT

n Left Blind - Greenville News Story - WYFF Greenville
The Hartwell Sun Online
============

2/19/09

HARTWELL, Ga. -- The daughter of a 51-year-old man says his eye was surgically removed Wednesday due to injuries caused by the excessive force used by a police officer -- and she says he is now at least partially blind in his other eye.

Hartwell police officer Bobby C. Mitchell said that he approached Jimmy Blackwell on Savannah Street on Monday morning after he observed suspicious behavior. Mitchell said after he asked Blackwell for identification, Blackwell fought with him.

Blackwell and the 26-year-old officer were injured during the fight. Mitchell was treated and released. He is on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation.

Blackwell remains hospitalized with serious injuries.

On Wednesday, Blackwell's daughter, Keesha Blackwell Oglesby, talked to WYFF News 4's Kisha Foster.

She said, "It's been very hard. I just looked at him. I was like, 'My God he's just laying there. He's going to die.'"

Oglesby said her father's eye was too damaged to save.

"The doctor was going to try and put it back in attach it back. It was so badly done he couldn't do it. He called in someone else to remove it."

She said her father doesn't know yet that he has lost his sight.

"Right now he just knows he has cups over his eyes," she said. "It's going to be very hard on a person to know you can't see. Very emotional."

Oglesby said she thinks Police Chief Cecil Reno sympathizes with them about what happened.

She said, "I haven't been speaking on anything that happened at the scene. My main concern is I know my father was brutally beaten and his eye was literally out of his socket."

Reno said he cannot comment on the case because of the ongoing investigation. He requested that the Georgia Bureau of Investigation look into the allegations.

The GBI said that Blackwell is charged with felony obstruction and terrorist threats.

The district attorney will decide whether the use of force was excessive, but said he hasn’t received the case yet and won’t until the Georgia investigation is complete.

At 6 p.m. Friday, a community meeting will be held at Flat Rock CME Church in Hartwell to discuss the incident and any other concerns the community may have with the police department.

Police Brutality!

Assata Radio - Feb 15,2009

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! This Week's Program: A New Tradition of Sedition and Insurrection! Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

Political Prisoners | Assata Shakur | Black Nationalism | Police Killings | Police Brutality

Please forward and distribute widely --POCC + Troy Davis' Sister Speaks 2/11 + More! - Feb 11,2009

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:48:09 GMT

POCC + Troy Davis' Sister Speaks 2/11 + More!

As protests over the brutal police murder of Oscar Grant III continue in Oakland--and as Oakland imposes a week-day youth curfew which will be directed mainly against young people of color--two events in the San Francisco Bay Area this week will shine a spotlight on racism, police brutality and terrorism, and the death penalty --

1. POLICE TERRORISM -- MARTINA CORREIA, sister of Troy Davis, an innocent man on Georgia's death row, and FRED HAMPTON JR, Chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee (POCC) and a victim of police terror, will speak in West Oakland this Wednesday.

7 pm, Wednesday, February 11th, at THE BLACK DOT, 1195 West Pine Street, Oakland

This event is sponsored by the POCC, and will be hosted by journalist JR, of Block Report Radio, Flashpoints, and the SF Bay View, and the Minister of Information of the POCC.

NOTE: Martina will also be interviewed on Hard Knock Radio, KPFA, 94.1 FM, on Wednesday Feb 11.

2. RALLY AGAINST RACISM -- The ILWU (longshore workers), the union that shut down all the ports on the West Coast to free death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1999, is sponsoring:

Racism, Repression and Rebellion: The Lessons of Labor Defense

12 Noon, Saturday, 14 February 2009 at the ILWU Local 10 Hall,
400 North Point (at Mason) near Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco
FREE ADMISSION More info: (510) 501-7080

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

ANGELA DAVIS UC Santa Cruz Professor, former Black Panther, witch-hunted by FBI,

MARTINA CORREIA Sister of Troy Davis on Georgia's death row, and

Rev Cecil Williams Glide Memorial Church, Robert R Bryan lead attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal,
on Pennsylvania death row, Gerald Smith former Black Panther, Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pierre LaBossiere founding member, Haiti Action Committee, JR Prisoners of Conscience Committee, Minister of Information, and Richard Brown former Black Panther, San Francisco 8.

Cultural presentations by Jack Hirschman, SF Poet Laureate; Tayo Aluko, Nigerian actor portraying Paul Robeson: and Upsurge! Jazz/Poetry Music

ILWU was born out of the militant 1934 strike in which police killed two strikers in San Francisco, shooting them in the back. Still today police are banned from membership in Local 10. The union has a legacy of defending those under attack by the government, in particular reds and blacks, from Harry Bridges and Paul Robeson, to Angela Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Troy Davis. For Black History Month, Local 10 is organizing this rally to teach the lessons of the need for unity of action to defend against government repression and racist profiling. These lessons are never more necessary than today, as evidenced by the brutal murder by BART police of Oscar Grant, who was lying face-down when shot.

Racism, Repression and Rebellion: The Lessons of Labor Defense

12 Noon, Saturday, 14 February 2009 at the ILWU Local 10 Hall,
400 North Point (at Mason) near Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco
FREE ADMISSION More info: (510) 501-7080

this flyer sent by:
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 Oakland CA 94610 (510) 763-2347 LACFreeMumia@aol.com

Prisoners of Conscience Committee | Troy Davis | Political Prisoners | Oscar Grant | Police Brutality!

Assata Radio - Feb 08,2009

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 02/08/09 Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

Political Prisoners | Assata Shakur | Black Nationalism | Black Unity | Pan-Africanism

African Women and Youth's Conference! - Feb 01,2009

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:07:45 GMT

THE AFRICAN WOMEN’S CHARITY ORGANIZATION

~~THE ALL AFRICAN PEOPLE’S REVOLUTIONARY UNIFICATION PARTY~~

~~THE ALL AFRICAN WOMEN’S REVOLUTIONARY UNIFICATION UNION~~

~~are organizing an~~

~~AFRICAN WOMEN’S AND YOUTH CONFERENCE~~

~~THEME: The Role of Africans in the United States to the Unification of Africa~~

“All peoples of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean , or in any other part of the world are Africans and belong to the African nation.” Kwame Nkrumah

This conference will take place in

October of 2010 in Oakland, California USA

We are in the process of building powerful African Women’s and Youth Movements throughout the world that will connect all African women and youth, inside and outside of Africa . This is a very important part of the African independence movement. An African Women’s and Youth movement is necessary to educate, mobilize, and organize the largest number of African Women and Youth as possible. Our vision includes collectively solving our problems to obtain proper collective childcare, collective housing, collective kitchens, transportation, healthcare, clean drinking water for all and employment/skills, etc. We must build a strong infrastructu re in Africa and we must be tightly organized inside and outside of Africa .

I
n order to be in the African Women’s and Youth Movements you must study 2 books, Class Struggle in Africa by Kwame Nkrumah and Women in Society by Sekou Toure. The study must be with a group of people.

~~The African Women’s Charity Organization is proud to announce that we are organizing a conference on~~

~~This will be the 12^th conference that we have organized inside the United States since 2000. We have organized eight conferences in Africa .~~

~~On Independence Day for Ghana , March 6, 1957 President Nkrumah declared that “the independence of Ghana was meaningless unless it was connected to the unification of Africa .”~~

0D

“The greatest danger at present facing Africa is neo-colonialism and its major instrument, balkanization. The latter term is particularly appropriate to describe the breaking up of Africa into small, weak states, since it arose from the action of the great powers when they divided up the European part of the old Turkish Empire, and created a number of dependent and competing states in the Balkan Peninsula .”

“The liberation of women is the fundamental necessity for the revolution, a guarantee of its continuity and a precondition for victory.” (Samora Machel at the Founding Conference of the Organization of the Mozambican Women (OMM) in 1973).
To organize African society from the bottom up means to organize the women of Africa . Organization is the weapon of the oppressed. Every person must join an organization and the strategy must the organizing of organizations. It is our goal to become so organized that we can do in one day what previously took 20 years. The radicalization of the revolution is the unification of Africa characterized by the emancipation of w omen.

The panels will be are as follows: “The Importance of Women’s Leadership in the Unification of Africa,” “The Necessity of Organization for the Unification of Africa, ”The Role of Youth in the Unification of Africa ” “Solidarity with Women of the World and World Unity” and “Men for the Emancipation of Women”

For participation or more information please contact:

The AFRICAN WOMEN'S CHARITY ORGANIZATION f

orafricanwomen@aol.com
PO Box 23074 Oakland ,
CA 94623-0074
Phone
415 789 7360

Assata Radio - Feb 01,2009

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Pan-Afrikan Nationalism in Action can be found here! 02/02/09 Pan-Africanism and the African Woman! Hosted by Majadi Baruti& Moorbey

Political Prisoners | Assata Shakur | Black Nationalism | Black Unity | Pan-Africanism

Assata Radio - Jan 25,2009

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Hosted by Moorbey & Majadi Baruti Update on Various aspects of the movement, introduction of new economic concepts to fund the revolution!

Assata Shakur | Black Culture | POW/Political Prisoners | Black History | Black Panther Party

Dr. Mutulu Shakur - Jan 25,2009

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 05:41:03 GMT

In a war against Black people in the United States that spans over four centuries and for many generations, few will rise as frontline soldiers on behalf of the oppressed. In such an enduring struggle, few will have the stamina and fortitude to fight and remain committed. Even fewer will have the courage. But, in the spirit of the slave revolters-the Nat Turners and the Gabriel Prossers, and the Harriet Tubmans-new men and women rise, taking life and action.

Dr. Mutulu Shakur, a lifelong activist in the New Afrikan (Black) Independence Movement and a Doctor of Acupuncture, is one of those people. Because of his dedication to the Black liberation struggle-a struggle for human rights-he is currently being held prisoner by the U.S. government at Marion, a federal prison located in Marion, Illinois.

Notorious for the violation of civil and human rights of inmates, Marion has recently been declared inhumane by Amnesty International.

In 1987, Shakur was sentenced to 60 years imprisonment for an alleged conspiracy by the Black Liberation Army/New Afrikan Freedom Fighters against the U.S. government. Because of his political action, Dr. Shakur was marked a criminal and arrested. Since that time, there has been immeasurable and inhumane abuse inflicted upon Shakur from behind prison walls, unwitnessed by the public eye.

And still, he is not broken.

As a fearless activist for Black Liberation, Shakur was cofounder of the Republic of New Afrika (1968), and is now at the forefront of efforts to expose the FBI's illegal COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) campaign of domestic repression. As an acupuncturist, Dr. Shakur cofounded the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of America and was one of the pioneers in using acupuncture in the treatment of substance abuse. He is a dedicated member of the New Afrikan People's Organization.

But, it is no easy struggle. Because of his consistent activism, even from within the prison system, he is persecuted. There are no rewards for his work. Instead, there is only cruel and unusual punishment. Dr. Mutulu Shakur helped found the Islamic Young Men's Movement, a youth prisoner organization, and was a key organizer in the historic gang truce between the Bloods and the Crips at Lompoc Penitentiary. He is recognized in the international media as an American political prisoner and freedom fighter. The government, however, fearful of his positive influence over massive numbers of young, Black minds, tries everything to disempower him.

At 4:00 a.m. on the morning of March 4, 1994, Dr. Mutulu Shakur was abruptly taken from his cell at the Federal Correction Facility at Lewisburg, PA, and transferred to Marion. There was no 7-hour notice and he was not allowed to take any of his personal belongings. Since his incarceration at Lewisburg, Dr. Shakur has not been charged with a crime, nor is there any indication that his classification has changed. His sudden transfer is not separate from the reasons that led to his arrest. Dr. Shakur has been and remains an organizer committed to changing the living reality of Africans born in the United States.

"We are establishing a continuum of resistance of the oppression of New Afrikan People against the oppression of 400 years of slavery and genocide," Dr. Shakur affirms. "Many of us engaged in the conflict, targets of the conflict and victims of the conflict find ourselves in jail or cemeteries or find ourselves suffering mental stress and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Without the recognition that a conflict exists, the martyrs and patriots of our struggle will continue to be labeled criminals in the annals of history. It is a significant political struggle for our movement and allies of our movement to create the recognition that there exists and will continue to exist political prisoners and prisoners of war in America."

While former South African political prisoner Nelson Mandela has been liberated from incarceration and continues to work on behalf of his people, political prisoner Dr. Mutulu Shakur, right here in America, is sentenced to life behind bars because he believes in and struggles for basic human rights.

But still, he is not broken.

mutulu shakur | political prisoner | africana studies | african history | black power

Assata Radio - Jan 18,2009

Sun, 18 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Hosted by Majadi Baruti and guided by Bro. Moorbey, This week's Program: Revolutionary Economic: Funding The Movement, Supporting The Revolution!

Assata Shakur | Black Culture | POW/Political Prisoners | Black History | Black Economics

Assata Radio- - Dec 28,2008

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Hosted by Moorbey & Majadi Baruti Today's Program Political Prisoner Updates, Reading from Ali Khalid Abdullah WE NEED A REVOLUTION IN ORDER TO HAVE A REVOLUTION!

Assata Shakur | Revolutionary | POW/Political Prisoners | Black Liberation Army | Black Panther Party

Ali Khalid Abdullah - Dec 28,2008

Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:36:21 GMT

From: jancius

Sunday, December 21, 2008, 6:19 PM

Dear fellow activists,

I just received an update from Ali Khalid Abdullah.

Many of you know

Ali through his essays that we've published on Prisonersolidarity:

After serving almost twenty years in prison for taking action against
a drug dealer who had molested an 11-year old, Ali has recently been
released. While in prison, he has always been an activist and a
strong supporter of the Lucasville Five. Ali was married in prison
but things haven't worked out, and he now finds himself more-or-less
homeless (sometimes sleeping on the street, sometimes staying with an
acquaintance) . Ali has diabetes, four blood clots in his legs, and
two slipped herniated discs in his back. He won't begin receiving his
Social Security check until January 20, and is wondering whether any
of us might be able to help him raise the $80 he needs to buy his
medications. He's in a lot of pain and his health is in jeopardy
without them. He sends directions (see below) for anyone who wishes
to wire some money to a Western Union in Indianapolis. You may also
be able to mail him a few dollars instead. Write to Ali at
alikabdul@yahoo. com to request his mailing address. He could
probably use a bit more than $80 to pull him through the next month. I
plan to send him $20. Also, please contact him if you happen to live
in or near Indianapolis and might have a room available.

Here are the directions Ali writes, for sending him money to cover his
meds:

"i have gone to many agencies and contacted the Salvation Army begging
for help and showing them my medical records and the prescription
bottles and they weren't able to help me at all. i have not found
ANYONE with the extra cash to help me out. i am so frustrated i don 't
know what to do. If anyone is willing or can lend me a hand TODAY with
an emergency $78 dollars so i can obtain my meds i would be soooo
thankful. THAT WOULD BE MY CHRISTMAS GIFT!!! iF HELP CAN BE GIVEN
please...please let me know and if possible it can be sent to me via
Western Union as follows: Ali Khalid Abdullah, Indianapolis. Ad a Test
Question that says: "FIrst name at birth?" The answer is "Irving". And
then send me the CONTROL NUMBER of the transaction i could pick up the
money and immediately go get my perscriptions filled TODAY! However, i
could not repay it back until i found some money. i am hoping my SSI
will have kicked in by January 20th, according to them."

in solidarity,
Angela
Prisonersolidarity

Assistance

Assata Radio - Dec 14,2008

Sun, 14 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Hosted by Moorbey & Majadi Baruti Today's program: The Terribly Flawed Logic of Either/Or!

Assata Shakur | Revolutionary | POW/Political Prisoners | Black Liberation Army | Black Panther Party

Moorbey!!! - Dec 07,2008

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:57:39 GMT

An Update on Our Beloved Comrade In Arms, and Brother!

Bro. Moorbey, the creator of Black Unity (http://blackunity.ning.com) which he developed and maintains as "a home away from home," After a period of hospitalization in the ICU, he is due to be discharged to outpatient treatment next week. Bro. Moorbey (aka bigdaddiej) is well-known on-line for his ability to bring together Afrikans from a variety of backgrounds to dialogue around issues most pressing to our people, with humanity, humility, commitment, and tireless dedication.

Our Bro. is RBG to the bone and has had no problem getting down on behalf of every call to assist that has come his way, from issues directly affecting our mother continent to the liberation of our political prisoners, and everything in between. This powerful heart has impacted many lives in a real positive way and we've known him to most definitely be concerned and helpful whenever any call for support is issued.

While recuperating from these life-threatening events, Bro. Moorbey has fallen upon hard financial times. Please give what you can to help relieve as much of that burden as possible, no amount is too small, whatever you can spare would be most gratefully appreciated!

Please send an m.o. made out to:

James L. Harris,

and mail it to:

5822 North West 25th Terrace, Gainesville FL 32653,

today!

Asante sana on behalf of our Bro., and thank you for taking the time to read these words!!

Forward ever
Sankofa Uhuru

Moorbey | Black Unity | Black People | Black History | Africana Studies | Culture | Black Culture | African Americans | Revolutionary

Assata Radio - Dec 07,2008

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:00:00 GMT

This program is a tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war. Revolutionaries past & present. Today we present the start of assistance for our Revolutionary and brilliant brother Moorbey, having fallen on difficult times, now is our time to show our love in a very real way! Listen in to learn how you can help Hosted by Moorbey & Majadi Baruti

Assata Shakur | Revolutionary | POW/Political Prisoners | Black Liberation Army | Black Panther Party

Armchair Revolutionary, What is it? Are You One? How Do We Break The Cycle? - Nov 27,2008

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:13:11 GMT

There is a strange creature that lurks, behind the ebony colored typed words that fill you with angst, fear, excitement and the fire of longing for Mama Afrika. This creature has motivated you to action with its decisive words of Afrikan togetherness and the need for change; you jump from your chair with great jubilance amazed at what you have just read! You begin swiftly researching the source of this creature’s power, the movement of the creature throughout the earth. You began frantically looking for footsteps across the information superhighway, you attempt locate the creature’s alleged base of operation, its cave if you will, you search and search and you find…nothing. This mighty slayer of Global White supremacy, this being that magically whisked you away into a fog-filled land of esoteric teachings and higher spiritual consciousness, that monster that was able to move you through anger, through sadness, through joy that expressed how you had thought you found a kindred spirit in warfare. Yes, that great and mysteriously, beautiful creature you had fallen in love with is no more than a wisp of smoke, a shadow of Afrikan understanding, a small bit of steam and still lit embers of a fire that no longer exists. You have found that creature, its name….The Armchair Revolutionary!

"Armchair revolutionary is a pejorative term, generally used within the Radical Left and other left-revolutionary movements, to describe a person who endlessly criticizes the thoughts, ideology or practice of social movements or armed groups from a metaphorical armchair — i.e., from a mostly or totally inactive, theoretical position. When someone is referred to as, or accused of, being an "armchair revolutionary," it is always a term of abuse, intended to invoke a defensive reaction on the part of the accused, or to discredit the political ideas and/or practices that person subscribes to, or both.

Inherent in the meaning of armchair revolutionary is the idea that the person knows that their ideas require them to be physically involved in political struggles, but that instead the person chooses to be intentionally ignorant or dismissive of real-world issues and problems, in an attempt to continue believing in the false reality their views create. In this way the armchair revolutionary is often regarded to see the world in at least a quasi-idealist manner, i.e., one relative solely to his or her own perceptions, rather than bothering with what s/he should really do — to absorb the physical and practical reality s/he would be compelled to see around him/her if s/he stopped the alleged "political posturing" and became an activist in actual political causes.

revolutionary, when used as a noun, is a person who either actively engages in some kind of revolution, or advocates the revolution, with recognition from some government or party which is effectively carrying out a revolution of the same category ^[1]. The term is usually applied to political revolutionaries or social revolutionaries, and less frequently used to revolutionary scientists, inventors, and artists. In the political context, the term "revolutionary" is often used in contrast to the term reformist. While a revolutionary is someone who supports abrupt change, a reformist is someone who supports more gradual change. When used as an adjective, revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor."

From Wikipedia (Armchair Revolutionary and Revolutionary definitions)

How Do we break the cycle?

The Armchair Revolutionary must do a few things:

1. Look at themselves and ask the serious question of commitment, Do I have the commitment to take action?

2. They must also commit to a study of revolutionaries from the past and today, Assata Shakur, Nat Turner, Maria Stewart, David Walker, Harriet Tubman, Denmark Vesey, by doing this they can find their fire and see how actual work is to be done. Take this reading list found on AssataShakur.org

Recommended Reading List for Black Revolutionaries
compiled by Assata Forums Members (Updated once a year)

Assata: An Autobiography
Assata Shakur

Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton
Bobby Seale

Ready For Revolution : The Life and Struggle Of Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael)
Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael)

Inadmissible Evidence: The Story of the African-American Trial Lawyer Who Defended the Black Liberation Army
Evelyn A. Williams

Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare
Kwame Nkurmah

From Plan to Planet: Life Studies: The Need for Afrikan Minds and Institutions
Haki R. Madhubuti

Afrocentricity
Molefi Kete Asante

Black Power: The Politics of Liberation In America
Kwame Ture and Charles Hamilton

How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America: Problems in Race, Political Economy, and Society
Manning Marable

Metu Neter Vol. 1 & 2
Ra Un Nefer Amen

All Things Censored
Mumia Abu-Jamal

Destruction of Black Civilization
Chancellor Williams

The Huey P Newton Reader
Huey P. Newton

The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or, Africa for the Africans
Marcus Garvey

Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (New Marcus Garvey Library)
Tony Martin

The Creature From Jekyll Island
G. Edward Griffin

By Any Means Necessary
Malcolm X

Soul On Ice
Eldridge Cleaver

Black Skins, White Faces
Frantz Fanon

Ijo Orunmila
Fasina Falade

Two Thousand Seasons
Ayi Kwei Armah

Stokely Speaks: Black Power Back to Pan-Africanism
Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture)

The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient African Teachings in the Ways of Relationships
Sobonfu Some

Notes for an African World Revolution
John Henrik Clarke

The African Origin Of Civilization: Myth Or Reality
Cheikh Anta Diop

Enemies: The Clash of Races
Haki R. Madhubuti

Cultural Unity of Black Africa
Cheikh Anta Diop

Countering the Conspiracy to Destroy Black Boys series
Jawanza Kunjufu

3. They should examine themselves and what talents, skills and abilities they may have that can assist the upliftment of our people!

4. They should lastly join or start right where they are, a movement of actual movers and shakers in the revolution, like the folks at Black Unity, Assata Shakur.ning, Assata Shakur.org, Something to show a commitment and stop simply complaining!

We can collectively eliminate the Armchair Revolutionary syndrome! We can collectively promote Black Unity!

Despite what some may say!

Assata Radio - Nov 27,2008

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 04:00:00 GMT

Tonight's program will feature a discussion of our brother Moorbey's concepts of the Armchair Revolutionary, What it is, and how to break the cycle! Hosted by Majadi Baruti and the powerful vibration of our temporarily down brother MOORBEY! featuring our Powerful Sister Sankofa Uhuru!

Assata Shakur | Revolutionary | POW/Political Prisoners | Black Liberation Army | Black Panther Party

Assata Radio - Nov 20,2008

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 04:00:00 GMT

A tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war.Revolutionaries past & present. Hosted by Moorbey and Majadi Baruti

Assata Shakur | Revolutionary | Pow/pp | Afrikan | Our-story

Dhoruba Bin-Wahad On Obama’s ascendency to the U.S. presidency - Nov 20,2008

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:33:09 GMT

PITTFALLS OF RACE CONSCIOUSNESS: SUBSTITUTING POLITICAL REFORMATION OF WHITE FINANCE CAPITALISM FOR BUILDING AN INDEPENDENT POLITICAL MOVEMENT

Obama’s ascendency to the U.S. presidency has been consistently portrayed as the culmination of the African-Americans protracted struggle for “equality” in America. In a sense it is, because all advancements secured by Africans in America have enhanced the rights of all people, but those advancements have seldom moved the majority Africans in America out of the economic and political doldrums. The brutal truth is this portrayal is both facetious and inaccurate.
While it is true that for the first time white Americans in significant numbers have voted for a “Black” man as President, it is of course inaccurate to say that Barack Obama represents or even reflect the historical or contemporary experience (legacy) of African-Americans who are connected at the Hip to White America. After all, with the exception of Tiger Woods (who has tried to invent a Race to match his background) how many Africans in America were raised in Hawaii by white Grandparents and went to Harvard Law School? Clearly those whites who voted for Obama voted for him based on the “American Story” version of “Dreams of My Father” rather than Nightmares of my Ancestors. Hence, it is facetious to claim the majority of white voters consciously voted for an “African-American” descendant of the slaves their forebears terrorized and exploited for centuries– they voted for an African-American without that baggage, perhaps trusting that he couldn’t experience a DNA induced flashback to the bull-whip days on the plantation and go buck-wild as commander-and-Chief because he had no cultural-social connection to that past. I think this was at the basis of the claim by many whites (especially from among “undecided” and neo-liberal Whites) that they “didn’t really know Obama or who he really was”. I am sure many will consider such distinctions “playa hating”, or another knock on a Black mans achievements. Quite the contrary. Such distinctions are often the strand of thread upon which history hangs in the balance. I know for a fact white lefties, Blacks of all classes are disconcerted by the above view. But those same lefties and Blacks wouldn’t express such disconcertion with a similar analysis of Roosevelt (whose disability was an important subjective factor in his political career) or perceive a critique of John F. Kennedy’s relationship to his Quasi-Gangster Dad and Clan Patriarch as inappropriate in ascertaining what influenced the character of JFK.

Clearly Obama is an extraordinary individual and is to be commended for his success. His success has opened up plenty African minds to their own self-value. But just feeling good about ones self won’t stop others who don’t feel so good about you from pursuing their nefarious ambitions.
That the Obama campaign was able to effectively avoid entirely the influence of a Race based power paradigm in formulation of U.S. Foreign policy in no small part was due to the McCain camp’s absolute lack of racist subtlety. The racist and reactionary Rightwing supporting McCain attacked Obama with excerpts from the sermons of his family Pastor Jeremiah Wright, an activist and Liberation Theologian, in an attempt to associate the ideology of Black Nationalism, the noble legacy of Black militancy with Obama and thereby frighten white voters into knee jerk racist apoplexy. Not a difficult task for a nation that has never confronted the true legacy of its history. As if “thinking Black, thinking African, or viewing history from the experiences of one’s own peoples was a form of subversive moral blasphemy. Perhaps it is. Michelle Obama (who does have the Bullwhip days in her family DNA memory) was attacked as “un-American” for saying “for the first time” she felt proud of America” – a sentiment shared by 90 % of African-Americans - when Obama received the Democratic nomination. To reassure White folks that African history in America was not his legacy, his basis of analysis and frame of reference, Obama renounced all association with Rev. Wright and defined Wright’s views as “divisive” rather than worthy of challenge by American historians. Moreover, Obama didn’t take the Wright imbroglio as an opportunity to educate America about Race; instead he merely distanced himself from the issue and moved on to win the ultimate political prize in the land, the Presidency of the United States. To many of course this was “strategy” after all, you can’t scare “white people” who believe they have an innate right to piss on the rest of the world while whistling the battle hymn of the republic and expect to win a national election. Only a monumental crisis that threatened everyone’s livelihood could shake up white folks more than the prospect of a Black President, and lo and behold, finance capitalism’s October surprise – economic meltdown. America woke up to the reality of debt-based prosperity as the American empire tumbled into financial distress. Fannie and Freddie were on Viagra and the pharmacy wasn’t taking any more credit. Of course this opportunistic view in itself is deprecating because it also presumes that White Americans are a bunch of historically challenged and ignorant Hoogies and can’t be trusted to think beyond their narrow self-interests. So the economy Gave Obama boost – but he probably would have won anyway.

Even if McCain had ran his campaign like the Clintons, he may have still lost, but he would have had a broader spectrum of undercover racist whites on his side, and conservative self-hating Negroes applauding his virtues. Indeed up until the Democratic convention disgruntled Hillary supporters were anti-Obama and mumbled their support for McCain ostensibly because of his “inexperience”. Hanoi Shorty tried to exploit this discontent among white female Democrats by appointing “Muffy” from Alaska, Sarah Palin as his running mate. She was a true political Palindrome – an airhead spelled the same backwards as forward- an affront to any thinking woman, White or Black. Few could believe it! Obama couldn’t have chosen a better opposition to run against if he wanted too. The McCain – Obama contrasts were so stark and glaring that they could have illuminated Ray Charles way to Georgia were he still alive. Clearly the only way Obama could lose was if the Republicans “butched-off” the elections as they did the previous two national elections. Of course the rest is “history” (his-story) and as George Will the erudite right-wing pundit explained, the Obama campaign has relieved white America of the lodestone of race – “Obama is white America’s emancipation proclamation”. I would suppose George Will envisions a different reconstruction scenario from the one that took place at the end of the civil war.

The Obama rise to political imminence has given Bigots and White supremacy a pass - straight to the gun shops. White supremacy is going back underground for awhile – to resurface in opposition to the grass roots struggles against racist cops; the war on urban communities financed by the government as “Drug Wars, and gentrification; domestic colonialism (subjugation of entire communities to Criminal Justice systems that feed Black flesh into the economic matrix of a Prison Industrial complex that enriches rural white communities) soon to be transformed by Obama and his Kool-drunk minions into “District Anti-Terrorism Committees” under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security. “Now that we found love what are we going to do with it? Build more jails? Kill more Muslims? Gentrify culturally Black communities?

Weeks after the historic U.S. election we have some glimpse of the quality of “Love” we’ve just found by electing America’s first Black President. Not encouraging. It’s as though like most Africans in America, President Elect Barack Obama is looking for love in all the wrong places. President Elect Obama, advocate of a fresh approach to government, after his historical triumph turns to former Clinton appointees to manage his transition to State power and fill out his cabinet. Least we be reminded by images of Black women from Harlem’s roughest projects singing “stand by your man” when Hillary appeared at Harlem’s historical Abyssinian Baptist church at the height of the Lewinski scandal, former President Clinton is considered by many wanna be middle-class Blacks as the first Black President in all but hue only. Clinton was a consummate manipulator of the Black gatekeeper class – those Blacks who derive income and status off of America’s race politics and exploitation of African-American marginalization. Clearly continuation of Empire cloaked in the rhetoric of change looms on the horizon not real change. Least we forget it was both Democrats and Republicans that have presented us with this historical moment of global economic crisis, foreign interventionist wars, and collapse of urban infrastructures. To transcend the myopia of his social being and truly move America in a new direction President elect Barack Obama is going to have to be as “Black” he can, rather than as white as the position requires. An extremely difficult challenge made all the more impossible by Obama’s failure to educate whites to the simple notion that African experience in America could embrace both the “Rosetta stone” to the Republics salvation and the chronicle of its fall
In Search of One’s Identity: In the Land of the Blind the person with the one eye is King.
The overwhelming majority of African-Americans are descendants of the victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. At best it can be said that African history in the U.S., (the Black Experience in America) obliquely relates to Obama’s social existence – indeed it is probably the social and psychological disconnect that many offspring of mixed-racial unions experience and strive in their personal lives to reconcile that inspired Obama to settle in Chicago and do work in the Black communities there. Rather than the altruistic sacrifice of a brilliant Harvard Law graduate who shunned corporate (and hence a successful) law career as popularly portrayed. Perhaps Barack was trying to find his roots as a Black man. Only President Obama can honestly answer whether this is true or not, and how much political ambition flavored his reconciliation with his “Africaness”, for he has clearly renounced any connection to the ontological Black American experience when he denounced Reverend Jeremiah Wright to appease white bigotry. Again and again Obama, directly and indirectly insinuated that the “African” experience in America is in fact the “American” experience – hence there is no legitimacy to African-American claims of sovereignty – to sovereign thinking or Africans in America charting their own political destiny based on that experience. In an almost African soap opera twist, both the historical debt of post slavery reconstruction and emancipation, as well as the concept of post-industrial reparations has been neutered by the first successful Presidential campaign of a Black person.

Clearly jingoistic American nationalism has achieved its greatest victory over the ideology of African self-determination. It follows that because “race” is purportedly no longer a factor, (relegated to the dustbin of history by Obama’s election) there can be little legitimacy to the proposition that Africans in America constitute a distinct people who were culturally and socially traumatized by successive systems of chattel slavery, feudal share-cropping, wage slavery, and now the prison-industrial plantation system. Clearly, the Barack Obama success marks the absolute distortion of African history in America and its appropriation by the state and dominant white culture. It is as if during the centuries long horror of White supremacist domination, our struggles, sacrifices, and triumphs were really fought by Blacks to enrich the humanity of the White majority and burnish the imagery of the “American Dream”. When in fact we have always sought independence, self-sufficiency, dignity and freedom for ourselves in a world dominated by Europeans.
However, many will argue that Obama’s upbringing doesn’t mattter now because people of all racial and class persuasions voted for the 44th President of the U.S. But it is precisely because Obama’s personal history rise that he has risen to political superstardom in this historical moment – when white America still infected with the ignorance of white supremacy is so frightened, fed-up, and hungry for change that they would throw their weight behind the vision of an extraordinary Black man for the chief-executive post of the Nation.

African history, once confined to the back of American textbooks, has now, in its revised and sanitized version become a major text of the great melting pot myth – that bouillabaisse of ethnic mingling that Newark mayor Corey Booker (himself a light-skin former law school whiz who moved to the Hood for political positioning, described as a “delicious” mixture of ethnic blending). Unfortunately the Black experience on America’s soup line was less like a flavorful meal and more like force feeding at Guantanamo.

African history in what was once the European settler-state of America conferred the experience of both de facto and de jure predatory discrimination, consigned generations of Africans to feudal share-cropping, discriminatory wage slavery, criminalization of culture, and predatory discrimination. All of this is what has brought us to this moment in time, and while we must not dwell in the past, we must understand it to inform the present and help prepare us for the future. Should we let go of our legacy, born of resistance and nurtured with the blood of countless African heroes and she-roes (of whom white America would define as terrorists and radicals)? Denmark Vessey, Nat Turner, Malcolm, Marcus, were heroes of our cause as are Assata Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal, Imam Jamil Al-Amin, and dozens of others – not the cause of white supremacist America. President elect Obama when asked did he think, if Dr. King were alive today whether he would have endorsed Obama for President; Barack wisely commented that he would probably have endorsed neither he or McCain, but would have been in the street organizing poor people. Perhaps Obama is more acutely aware of his real historical legacy than the millions of African-American who voted for him, and distilled their dreams and hopes in him. He does not so much represent the culmination of the Black experience in America merely because he’s dark skinned by European standards, as he represents the attempt of an entire culture, state, and economic system to redefine itself in the 21st century without being held accountable for its historic crimes. In a way President Obama is the bridge between the known and the unknown of that process – he stands astride the historic moment of global realignment between the powerful and the powerless, between the dispossessed and the rich, and he knows it.
His foreign and domestic policies will tell us exactly how powerfully he is influenced by the countless African bones at the bottom the Atlantic Ocean that have enriched Europe and the Americas, or how strongly he is tied to the very forces that have enslaved and exploited the African world and peoples of color around the globe. While the first Black President figures this out, we, poor people, ordinary people, activists, educators, opinion makers must not tiptoe around issues to burnish the image of the First Black President. This is no time for platitudes of shallow good will, but the time to organize a true peoples movement for change in America, a movement led by the millions of victims of Americanism. As Black Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks once wrote in the second sermon on the Warpland: “we are the last of the loud…so have your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind”…..

Dhoruba Bin-Wahad
November 2008

Dhoruba Bin-Wahad | Political Prisoners

From The Mind of Queen Mother Assata Shakur!!! - Nov 20,2008

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:24:04 GMT

My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Shakur ("the thankful one"), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984. I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program. because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it "greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive in US prisons. I was falsely accused in six different "criminal cases" and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was certainly not the case. It only meant that the "evidence" presented against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident. This political persecution was part and parcel of the government's policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.

On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a "faulty tail light." Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he became "suspicious." He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Forester was killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Forester was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial. We were both convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. I

n 1977, I was convicted by an all- white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life. The U.S. Senate's 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed that "The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the publics perception of persons and organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or through "friendly" news contacts." This same policy is evidently still very much in effect today. On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to inform him about the reality of’ "justice" for black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States.

In January of 1998, during the pope's visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope, about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes I saw in the United States and it's treatment of Black people in the last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago. After years of being victimized by the "establishment" media it was naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell "my side of the story." Instead of an interview with me, what took place was a "staged media event" in three parts, full of distortions, inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts. Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this "exclusive interview series" on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money advertising this "exclusive interview" on black radio stations and also placed notices in local newspapers. DISTORTIONS AND LIES IN THE NBC SERIES In an NBC interview Gov. Whitman was quoted as saying that "this has nothing to do with race, this had everything to do with crime." Either Gov. Whitman is completely unfamiliar with the facts in my case, or her sensitivity to racism and to the plight of black people and other people of color in the United States is at a sub-zero level.

In 1973 the trial in Middlesex County had to be stopped because of the overwhelming racism expressed in the jury room. The court was finally forced to rule that the entire jury panel had been contaminated by racist comments like "If she's black, she's guilty." In an obvious effort to prevent us from being tried by "a jury of our peers the New Jersey courts ordered that a jury be selected from Morris County, New Jersey where only 2.2 percent of the population was black and 97.5 percent of potential jurors were white. In a study done in Morris County, one of the wealthiest counties in the country, 92 percent of the registered voters said that they were familiar with the case through the news media, and 72 percent believed we were guilty based on pretrial publicity. During the jury selection process in Morris County, white supremacists from the National Social[ist] White People's Party, wearing Swastikas, demonstrated carrying signs reading "SUPPORT WHITE POLICE." The trial was later moved back to Middlesex County where 70 percent thought I was guilty based on pretrial publicity I was tried by an all white jury, where the presumption of innocence was not the criteria for jury selection. Potential jurors were merely asked if they could "put their prejudices aside, and "render a fair verdict." The basic reality in the United States is that being black is a crime and black people are always "suspects" and an accusation is usually a conviction.

Most white people still think that being a "black militant" or a "black revolutionary" is tantamount to being guilty of some kind of crime. The current situation in New Jersey's prisons, underlines the racism that dominates the politics of the state of New Jersey, in particular and in the U.S. as a whole. Although the population of New Jersey is approximately 78 percent white, more than 75 percent of New Jersey's prison population is made up of blacks and Latinos. 80 percent of the women in Jersey prisons are people of color. That may not seem like racism to Gov. Whitman, but it reeks of racism to us. The NBC story implied that Governor Christie Whitman raised the reward for my capture based on my interview with NBC. The fact of the matter is that she has been campaigning since she was elected into office to double the reward for my capture. In 1994, she appointed Col. Carl Williams who immediately vowed to make my capture a priority. In 1995, Gov. Whitman sought to "match a $25,000 departmental appropriation sponsored by an "unidentified legislator." I watched a tape of Gov. Whitman's "testimony" in her interview with NBC. She gave a very dramatic, exaggerated version of what happened, but there is no evidence whatsoever to support her claim that Trooper Forester had "four bullets in him at least, and then they got up and with his own gun, fired two bullets into his head." She claimed that she was writing Janet Reno for federal assistance in my capture, based on what she saw in the NBC interview. If this is the kind of "information" that is being passed on to Janet Reno and the Pope, it is clear that the facts have been totally distorted. Whitman also claimed that my return to prison should be a condition for "normalizing relations with Cuba".

How did I get so important that my life can determine the foreign relations between two governments? Anybody who knows anything about New Jersey politics can be certain that her motives are purely political. She, like Torrecelli and several other opportunistic politicians in New Jersey came to power, as part time lobbyists for the Batista faction - soliciting votes from right wing Cubans. They want to use my case as a barrier for normalizing relations with Cuba, and as a pretext for maintaining the immoral blockade against the Cuban people. In what can only be called deliberate deception and slander NBC aired a photograph of a woman with a gun in her hand implying that the woman in the photograph was me. I was not, in fact, the woman in the photograph. The photograph was taken from a highly publicized case where I was accused of bank robbery. Not only did I voluntarily insist on participating in a lineup, during which witnesses selected another woman, but during the trial, several witnesses, including the manager of the bank, testified that the woman in that photograph was not me. I was acquitted of that bank robbery. NBC aired that photograph on at least 5 different occasions, representing the woman in the photograph as me. How is it possible, that the New Jersey State Police, who claim to have a detective working full time on my case, Governor of New Jersey Christine Whitman, who claimed she reviewed all the "evidence," or NBC, which has an extensive research department, did not know that the photograph was false? It was a vile, fraudulent attempt to make me look guilty. NBC deliberately misrepresented the truth. Even after many people had called in, and there was massive fax, and e-mail campaign protesting NBC's mutilation of the facts, Ralph Penza and NBC continued to broadcast that photograph, representing it as me. Not once have the New Jersey State Police, Governor Christine Whitman, or NBC come forth and stated that I was not the woman in the photograph, or that I had been acquitted of that charge. Another major lie and distortion was that we had left trooper Werner Forester on the roadside to die. The truth is that there was a major cover-up as to what happened on May 2, 1973. Trooper Harper, the same man who shot me with my arms raised in the air, testified that he returned to the State Police Headquarters which was less than 200 yards away, "To seek aid." However, tape recordings and police reports made on May 2, 1973 prove that not only did Trooper Harper give several conflicting statements about what happened on the turnpike, but he never once mentioned the name of Werner Forester, or the fact that the incident took place right in front of the Trooper Headquarters.

In an effort to hide his tracks and cover his guilt he said nothing whatsoever about Forester to his superiors or to his fellow officers. In a clear attempt to discredit me, Col. Carl Williams of the New Jersey State Police was allowed to give blow by blow distortions of my interview. In my interview I stated that on the night of May 2, 1973 I was shot with my arms in the air, then shot again in the back. Williams stated "that is absolutely false. Our records show that she reached in her pocketbook, pulled out a nine millimeter weapon and started firing." However, the claim that I reached into my pocketbook and pulled out a gun, while inside the car was even contested by trooper Harper. Although on three official reports, and when he testified before the grand jury he stated that he saw me take a gun out of my pocketbook, he finally admitted under cross examination that he never saw me with my hands in a pocketbook, never saw me with a weapon inside the car, and that he did not see me shoot him.

The truth is that I was examined by 3 medical specialists: (1) A Neurologist who testified that I was immediately paralyzed immediately after the being shot. (2) A Surgeon who testified that "It was absolutely anatomically necessary that both arms be in the air for Mrs. Chesimard to receive the wounds." The same surgeon also testified that the claim by Trooper Harper that I had been crouching in a firing position when I was shot was "totally anatomically impossible." (3) A Pathologist who testified that "There is no conceivable way that it [the bullet] could have traveled over to hit the clavicle if her arm was down." he said "It was impossible to have that trajectory. "The prosecutors presented no medical testimony whatsoever to refute the above medical evidence. No evidence whatsoever was ever presented that I had a 9 millimeter weapon, in fact New Jersey State Police testified that the 9 millimeter weapon belonged to Zayd Malik Shakur based on a holster fitting the weapon that they was recovered from his body. There were no fingerprints, or any other evidence whatsoever that linked me to any guns or ammunition. The results of the Neutron Activation test to determine whether or not I had fired a weapon were negative. Although Col. Williams refers to us as the "criminal element" neither Zayd, or Sundiata Acoli or I were criminals, we were political activists. I was a college student until the police kicked down my door in an effort to force me to "cooperate" with them and Sundiata Acoli was a computer expert who had worked for NASA, before he joined the Black Panther Party and was targeted by COINTELPRO. In an obvious maneuver to provoke sympathy for the police, the NBC series juxtaposed my interview with the weeping widow of Werner Forester. While I can sympathize with her grief, I believe that her appearance was deliberately included to appeal to peoples emotions, to blur the facts, to make me look like a villain, and to create the kind of lynch mob mentality that has historically been associated with white women portrayed as victims of black people. In essence the supposed interview with me became a forum for the New State Police, Forester's widow, and the obviously hostile commentary of Ralph Penza. The two initial programs together lasted 3.5 minutes - me - 59 seconds, the widow 50 seconds, the state police 38 seconds, and Penza - 68 seconds. Not once in the interview was I ever asked about Zayd, Sundiata or their families. As the interview went on, it was painfully evident that Ralph Penza would never see me as a human being. Although I tried to talk about racism and about the victims of government and police repression, it was clear that he was totally uninterested. I have stated publicly on various occasions that I was ashamed of participating in my trial in New Jersey trial because it was so racist, but I did testify. Even though I was extremely limited by the judge, as to what I could testify about, I testified as clearly as I could about what happened that night. After being almost fatally wounded I managed to climb in the back seat of the car to get away from the shooting. Sundiata drove the car five miles down the road carried me into a grassy area because he was afraid that the police would see the car parked on the side of the road and just start shooting into it again. Yes, it was five miles down the highway where I was captured, dragged out of the car, stomped and then left on the ground. Although I drifted in and out of consciousness I remember clearly that both while I was lying on the ground, and while I was in the ambulance, I kept hearing the State troopers ask "is she dead yet?" Because of my condition I have no independent recollection of how long I was on the ground, or how long it was before the ambulance was allowed to leave for the hospital, but in the trial transcript trooper Harper stated that it was while he was being questioned, some time after 2:00 am that a detective told him that I had just been brought into the hospital. I was the only live "suspect" in custody, and prior to that time Harper, had never told anyone that a woman had shot him. As I watched Governor Whitman's interview the one thing that struck me was her "outrage" at my joy about being a grandmother, and my "quite nice life" as she put it here in Cuba. While I love the Cuban people and the solidarity they have shown me, the pain of being torn away from everybody I love has been intense. I have never had the opportunity to see or to hold my grandchild. If Gov. Whitman thinks that my life has been so nice, that 50 years of dealing with racism, poverty, persecution, brutality, prison, underground, exile and blatant lies has been so nice, then Id be more than happy to let her walk in my shoes for a while so she can get a taste of how it feels. I am a proud black woman, and I'm not about to get on the television and cry for Ralph Penza or any other journalist, but the way I have suffered in my lifetime, and the way my people have suffered, only god can bear witness to. Col. Williams of the New Jersey State Police stated "we would do everything we could go get her off the island of Cuba and if that includes kidnapping, we would do it."

I guess the theory is that if they could kidnap millions of Africans from Africa 400 years ago, they should be able to kidnap one African woman today. It is nothing but an attempt to bring about the re-incarnation of the Fugitive Slave Act. All I represent is just another slave that they want to bring back to the plantation. Well, I might be a slave, but I will go to my grave a rebellious slave. I am and I feel like a maroon woman. I will never voluntarily accept the condition of slavery, whether its de-facto or ipso facto, official, or unofficial. In another recent interview, Williams talked about asking the federal government to add to the $50,000 reward for my capture. He also talked about seeking "outside money, or something like that, a benefactor, whatever." Now who is he looking to "contribute" to that "cause"? The ku klux klan, the neo nazi parties, the white militia organizations? But the plot gets even thicker. He says that the money might lure bounty hunters. "

There are individuals out there, I guess they call themselves ‘soldiers of fortune ’ who might be interested in doing something, in turning her over to us." Well, in the old days they used to call them slave catchers, trackers, or patter rollers, now they are called mercenaries. Neither the governor nor the state police say one word about "justice." They have no moral authority to do so. The level of their moral and ethical bankruptcy is evident in their eagerness to not only break the law and hire hoodlums, all in the name of "law and order." But you know what gets to me, what makes me truly indignant? With the schools in Paterson, N.J. falling down, with areas of Newark looking like a disaster area, with the crack epidemic, with the wide-spread poverty and unemployment in New Jersey, these depraved, decadent, would-be slave masters want federal funds to help put this "n-word wench" back in her place. They call me the "most wanted woman" in Amerikkka. I find that ironic. I've never felt very "wanted" before.

When it came to jobs, I was never the "most wanted," when it came to "economic opportunities I was never the "most wanted, when it came to decent housing." It seems like the only time Black people are on the "most wanted" list is when they want to put us in prison. But at this moment, I am not so concerned about myself. Everybody has to die sometime, and all I want is to go with dignity. I am more concerned about the growing poverty, the growing despair that is rife in Amerikkka. I am more concerned about our younger generations, who represent our future. I am more concerned that one third of young black are either in prison or under the jurisdiction of the "criminal in-justice system." I am more concerned about the rise of the prison industrial complex that is turning our people into slaves again. I am more concerned about the repression, the police brutality, violence, the rising wave of racism that makes up the political landscape of the U.S. today. Our young people deserve a future, and I consider it the mandate of my ancestors to be part of the struggle to insure that they have one. They have the right to live free from political repression. The U.S. is becoming more and more of a police state and that fact compels us to fight against political repression.

I urge you all, every single person who reads this statement, to fight to free all political prisoners. As the concentration camps in the U.S. turn into death camps, I urge you to fight to abolish the death penalty. I make a special, urgent appeal to you to fight to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the only political prisoner who is currently on death row. It has been a long time since I have lived inside the United States. But during my lifetime I have seen every prominent black leader, politician or activist come under attack by the establishment media. When African Americans appear on news programs they are usually talking about sports, entertainment or they are in handcuffs. When we have a protest they ridicule it, minimized it, or cut the numbers of the people who attended in half. The news is big business and it is owned operated by affluent white men. Unfortunately, they shape the way that many people see the world, and even the way people see themselves. Too often black journalists, and other journalists of color mimic their white counterparts. They often gear their reports to reflect the foreign policies and the domestic policies of the same people who are oppressing their people. In the establishment media, the bombing and of murder of thousands of innocent women and children in Libya or Iraq or Panama is seen as "patriotic," while those who fight for freedom, no matter where they are, are seen as "radicals," "extremists," or "terrorists."

Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the press. The black press and the progressive media has historically played an essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create media outlets that help to educate our people and our children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one woman. I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerikkka. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in truth, freedom To publish this statement and to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS,
Wish I could be there,
Assata Shakur
Havana, Cuba

Assata | Political Prisoners | Cointelpro | Black Panther Party | Black Liberation Army

Assata Radio - Nov 13,2008

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:00:00 GMT

A tribute show dedicated to Queen Mother Assata Shakur and all political prisoners/prisoners of war.Revolutionaries past & present. Hosted by Majadi Baruti and Moorbey

Assata Shakur | Revolutionary | Pow/pp | Afrikan | Our-story