West Philadelphia, PA – Over 100 people came out early Sunday afternoon for a banquet celebrating political prisoners and their loved ones and other supporters.
The 8th annual ‘Prisoners’ Families Brunch’ was held at the OneArt Community Center on 52nd Street, with this year’s event honoring the late Russell Maroon Shoatz (whose autobiography ‘I Am Maroon’ was just released) and Anthony ‘Ant’ Smith, a Philly community organizer and teacher who recently got out of prison after being locked up on federal charges stemming from George Floyd protests in Philadelphia in 2020. Speeches included a few readings from the book and remarks from people Shoatz inspired over the years including other former prisoners incarcerated alongside him.
Organizations endorsing the event included The Care Space Project, Philly Anarchist Black Cross, The Abolitionist Law Center, Ubuntu Freedom, Building Fearless Futures, Landing Freedom and Black Lives Matter Philly.
Watch Unicorn Riot’s full coverage of the event below:
On October 30, 2020 Unicorn Riot streamed a press conference after Smith was arrested by federal authorities for events during the 2020 uprising:
An annual 5K run/walk/roll benefit organized called “Running Down the Walls” aims to amplify the voices of political prisoners and provide support – different “Running Down the Walls” are organized by chapters of the Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) network are held yearly both inside and outside prisons. Over 300 people attended this year’s event in Philadelphia, the largest local turnout yet, according to Philly ABC (phillyabc.org).
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!
Running Down the Walls, Curbfest, and other Upcoming Events
A former Vaughn 17 defendant and contributor to the Vaughn uprising zines Live from the Trenches and United We Stood and other publications. Johnny has continued to organize and agitate against the prison system from within. As a result, he is still being held in solitary confinement.
Johnny is looking for anarchists, autonomists, and other radicals to regularly correspond with. Delaware uses Getting Out for email messaging, so you can also send him a message by going to gettingout.com, setting up an account, and then adding him as a contact using his inmate number #405202.
Birthday: September 1
Address:
John Bramble #405202
Delaware DOC – 1101
PO Box 96777
Las Vegas, NV 89193
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.
There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!
Black August, Week of Solidarity, and Running Down the Walls
Many years ago, while imprisoned at SCI-Smithfield, and struggling to keep our study groups afloat, I received an e-mesage from Casey Goonan. I had no clue whom he was. He said he reached out because he heard about the work I was doing inside and wanted to offer any assistance he could. He did, and he continued to do so. Casey has been one of the most consistent and ready allies/accomplices of imprisoned people. Whether producing zines that center imprisoned voices, mailing zines to imprisoned people at no cost, coordinating phone zaps to combat repression by prison officials, raising funds for mutual aid, building social media presence for imprisoned folx or just lending an attentive ear to the concerns of imprisoned people, Casey has been unstinting in his support of anyone, anywhere, who is being oppressed.
My friend, my comrade, my brother, is currently being held in a county jail in CA. I wish I were out there to do more for him, to manifest by love and solidarity for him. What I want everyone to know is that Casey Goonan is an amazing ally/accomplice of oppressed people everyone. In this, his time of need, he should be supported and cared for. I ask people to keep close tabs on the situation, show up for Casey and make sure that while he is inside, jail officials do not harm him or exacerbate his condition. I don’t ever claim to speak for all imprisoned people, but I feel confident in saying that thousands of imprisoned people across this land have benefited from Casey’s efforts. We ask you support our comrade and care for him.
Join us on Monday July 29th, 6:30pm at Wooden Shoe Books as we send letters to comrades incarcerated for their support of the movement to Stop Cop City. In 2017, the Atlanta Police Foundation proposed the destruction hundreds of acres of Weelaunee forest to build a massive compound that would train cops from around the world in militarized tactics, urban warfare, and putting down social movements. The full Cop City proposal came in 2020 after national uprisings around the police murder of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks.
In 2021, forest defenders and community members established a long-term encampment in the Weelaunee forest. Shortly thereafter, a multi-agency task force began arresting and charging them with domestic terrorism. January 18th, 2023 brought more raids, arrests, and the murder of Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. This was the first police killing of an environmental activist during a protest in modern U.S. history. Autopsy results indicated that the police shot Tortuguita 57 times while their hands were up. On April 19th, the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s office ruled Tortuguita’s death a homicide. On October 6th, a Georgia prosecutor announced that there would be no charges for any of the troopers involved in the murder.
Even before its completion, Atlanta Cop City’s militarized approach to social movements has already become a model for how to train police across the U.S.; between the George Floyd Uprisings and today, planning or construction has begun on 66 new Cop Cities around the United States. Similarly, the unprecedently fierce legal and extralegal measures taken against those resisting Cop City in Atlanta—domestic terrorism charges for civil disobedience, RICO charges for bail fund organizers, generalized harassment, and murder—can be understood as a localized experiment for broader application. These tactics of repression are being auditioned in Atlanta; if successful, you can bet they’ll be generalized across the U.S. For these reasons, it’s incumbent on all of us support those on the front lines of stopping Cop City, and especially those who’ve already paid the price of their freedom for this struggle.
We’ll also be sending birthday cards to U.S.-held political prisoners with birthdays in August: Bill Dunne (August 2nd), Hanif Shabazz Bey (August 15th), Ronald Reed (August 31st).
As our movement gains strength, it will inevitably encounter state repression. How do we respond collectively to this repression? This workshop will discuss some of the tactics most commonly used by police and federal agents to target our movements, and offer suggestions on how to respond. Topics covered will include: what to expect when being arrested in Philadelphia; the role of the FBI in movement repression and how to deal with federal agents; social media “best practices”; and how to support arrestees and political prisoners.
In the past year, the movement for Palestinian liberation has attained unprecedented levels of mobilization. But strategic reflection and study is necessary to keep the movement moving. Writers Against the War on Gaza offers a series of workshops this summer to deepen the knowledge of five elements of the struggle for Palestine: “PACBI,” “Anti-repression,” “Black and Palestinian Solidarity” and “History of Palestinian Resistance.” All are free to attend.
Laura Martin is a labor historian and a member of the Bay Area Anti-Repression Committee, a bail fund and political education collective.
Tori is a legal worker at Up Against the Law Legal Collective, a Philadelphia-based group that supports local activists.
A zine was made on resisting mask bans. It calls for a different set of strategies than the public health model, advocating for a diversity of tactics. The model proposed in this piece is inspired by the prisoner revolts against neglectful COVID practices in 2020.
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.
There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!
Hunger Strikes and Calls to Action
A phone zap has been organized for Alejandro “Capo” Rodriguez-Ortiz of the Vaughn 17, who is facing retaliation after being moved back to Vaughn. DC IWOC write:
He’s been back at James T Vaughn for 4 months and they continue to deny him a job, education, vocational training, or any programming!! Then recently security denied him an honor visit, even tho he qualifies. We’re asking for support in calling the wardens office and Dover (central office) for him to have access to a job/education/programs.
Script:Hello, I am calling on behalf of Alejandro Rodriguez-Ortiz, SBI 515700. I hear that security is denying him an honor visit even though he qualifies, and he is also being denied a job and programming. He has been back at Smyrna for 4 months and has not had any write ups and is trying to live in peace. Why are they denying him a job and honor visit? This type of vindictive behavior from security is corrupt. Please reconsider and let him have the honor visit and give him job opportunities to succeed.
According to an update: “[They] will try to get you to contact family services about the visit. However this does not remedy the fact that the prison is withholding opportunities for a job, which he would need to apply again in the future for an honor visit.”
After 16 years of incarceration and many years of DOC torture, Beans (Abednego Baynes) of the Vaughn 17 is finally coming home this fall. Beans was one of 18 prisoners indicted for the uprising at James T Vaughn Correctional Center in 2017. Beans is asking for donations so his family can get down to Delaware to see him when he lands, and to cover rent and other expenses for several months while he gets work and more permanent housing figured out. Please donate and spread widely! Donations can be sent to phillyantirepression through venmo or $MachaelRobinson on cashapp
Write to Beans at the following address:
Smart Communications/PA DOC
Abędnego Baynes – #NT0594
SCI Mahanoy
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, Florida 33733
General Prison News and Abolitionist Media Updates
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
Welcome back fellow antifascists!
As always, we have a lot to cover in this column, especially important analysis and lots of roundups of antifascist research and action. With lots to talk about, let’s dive right in!
Research Roundup
Other reports from Idavox you may have missed include write-ups on “prominent [Pennsylvania] neo-Nazi Mark Kauffman,” who was arrested by law enforcement at his own wedding on weapons and methamphetamine charges, Nicholas G. Mucci, a neo-Nazi involved in White Lives Matter plead guilty to attacking an antifascist benefit show in New Jersey, and Ebrahim and Mathew Yehounatan, far-Right Zionists in New York who are harassing pro-Palestinian solidarity demonstrations.
Lastly, Idavox also noted that a small group of neo-Nazis held a tiny demonstration in Philadelphia that included Benjamin Franklin Ryder, a “registered sex offender with a long criminal history as well as a history of neo-Nazi activism,” and Stephen Thomas Farrea, a member of the Nationalist Social Club 131, became the second member of the group to be arrested “for possessing child pornography.” Faith, family, and folk!
July 25th and Antifascist Prisoners
Currently there is a call to rally support for antifascist prisoners across the world on July 25th. From the call:
Across the world, fascist and far-Right movements are trying to advance their agendas of bigotry, ultra-nationalism and authoritarian control. The establishment–no matter who is in power–does not and cannot offer solutions for deepening economic inequality or any of the numerous crises we are living through. Instead, those in power continue to advance the militarization of police and the hardening of borders as the rich have become richer than they have ever been before. As the world burns and our lives become harder and harder, the fascist and far-right menace offers only lies and scapegoats–demonizing and attacking migrants, refugees, LGBTQ+ people, as well as racial, religious, and ethnic minorities.
As revolutionary antifascists, we believe that building movements of defense and solidarity with those locked behind the prison walls is fundamental in the three-way fight against both the far-right and the State. This July 25th, we call on antifascists worldwide to take part in the International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners!
In FLIGHTS, Joel Whitney offers us a genre-defying group portrait of radicals, dissidents, and whistleblowers on the run, sharing with us the stories of how many of our best-loved poets, writers, journalists, artists, and leaders have been obliged to elude, evade, and flee from the authorities.Collecting for us the dirty and deep 20th century background to our current age of mass surveillance, torture, assassination and censorship, FLIGHTS is a “fine-grained and deeply engaging” collection (Astra Taylor) that is so “mind-bending … so profound and original” (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz) that you won’t want to miss it.Please join us in person or online on July 5 at 6 pm EDT for a conversation between Joel Whitney and Gabriel Rockhill on radical intellectuals targeted by imperialist states and their intelligence services. The event will also be live streamed on the Critical Theory Workshop YouTube channel.
(It was announced today that Russell “Maroon” Shoatz has joined The Realm of the Ancestors. This Q+A interview was conducted in 2006 by Comrade Sobukwe and Marcus Schell, both supporters of the Russell “Maroon” Shoatz Defense Committee. Marcus Schell is the son of the late Reggie Schell, a founding member of Philadelphia’s Black Panther Party. The interview is part of the 2013 book Maroon The Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz, edited by Fred Ho and Quincy Saul and published by Oakland’s PM Press. Light editing was done on this excerpt.)
*****
How did you get involved with the Black Movement of the 1960s and 1970s?
As a Black male who was born in Philadelphia in 1943, I can honestly say that until the age of twenty I was “dumb-as-do-do” so far as political and broad social issues go. Moreover, my father was a long-distance truck driver and he made very good money. So outside of eating some surplus cheese here and there, my family and my working/middle-class neighborhood was not a place of economic hardship. Thus, there was no incentive there.
In fact, my parents, and the adults in this neighborhood in general, were all on the go-to-school, go-to-church, and be-home-at-a-respectable-time kick. Social and political issues were never discussed or hinted at in the homes, churches, and schools!
All these Negroes (that’s what we were all then known as) were busy trying to get ahead as best a Negro could, even though in Philly just about everything was dominated and controlled by whites: city hall, police stations, firehouses, all the schools, neighborhoods, downtown businesses, and transportation. A Negro couldn’t even become a Boy or Girl Scout!
So, although there was no out-front segregation, like in the South, Philly’s Blacks were segregated in neighborhoods and allowed to leave only in order to work, shop, pay bills, and travel—sort of like apartheid South Africa.
Until I was twenty, that was my life, with the addiction of being deeply involved in gang activities.
Although by 1960 I could see some of the southern Civil Rights Movement struggle being played out on TV, I couldn’t relate to the nonviolence that they practiced. Everybody I knew believed in an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth—except when it came to the police. We were uniformly scared of them.
Consequently, I can put my finger on the exact instant, the exact circumstance that began my awakening and journey into political life: going to a rally in Harlem, New York, and listening to Malcolm X speak.
In 1963, I was twenty and had moved to Harlem to live with an aunt, to get away from my Philly gang and find a job. I was also running from an arrest warrant for a rape, which is a whole another story. Anyway, my aunt warned me not to go around to 116th and Lenox Avenue (now Malcolm X Boulevard) because “the nationalists are having a rally, and there might be some trouble.” Now I had no idea what a nationalist was, but trouble was my thing. I was still steeped in the gang culture’s way of viewing things.
Malcolm, flanked by Nation of Islam security, talked on an outdoor stage for hours. The streets were shut off and throngs of people were on the sidewalk, in the street, in the adjoining park and hanging out of buildings and high-rise projects—all alternately evenly engrossed in his words, then shouting, clapping and screaming at the top of their voices!
But not me. I was, instead, oscillating between being mesmerized by his A-to-Z explanation of things, and a nagging fear. I was like Neo in The Matrix when Morpheus told him he had been living in a dream world. My whole world was being blown away and reshaped as I listened. What put the icing on the cake was the actions of the police, who were dispersed throughout the crowd. They were smoking and joking like they were not listening to Malcolm take apart everything they and the entire American system commonly indulged in!
And although I couldn’t understand everything, I still knew he was challenging them to either come up there and prove him wrong or come up there and shut him up. Never had I seen anyone handle the police like that.
And although nobody could tell me that I wasn’t a tough guy, that was some deliciously scary shit that won me over to begin following politics and important social issues.
But like Neo, I wasn’t ready just then to become actively involved. In fact, it wasn’t until after a squashing of the rape allegations, a return to Philly, a failed marriage that produced four offspring, and a horrible stint as a drug-dealing hustler that I finally ran out of places to hide. In order for me to begin living like a full human being, I had to cast all fear to the wind and start following Malcolm’s example.
What was the Black Unity Council and why did you help found it?
The years 1967-1968 found me completely fed up with being a modern-day slave—a conclusion I had come to since Malcolm had begun my awakening. It was doubly maddening became damn near all my friends, family, and neighbors seemed content to go along with the bullshit that by then was being exposed and attacked in Black communities, on college campuses, and elsewhere, from one side of the globe to the other. They were still trapped in the Matrix.
A former gang buddy named Points, however, had reached the same conclusions that I had, so we decided to put out the word that we were gonna have an open meeting and form an organization to address some of our concerns. Of course, by that time there were other organizations in Philly that we felt good about, but none of them were in our immediate neighborhood.
So one weekend we held the meeting at the house of another gang buddy named Brick and, surprisingly, about fifteen to twenty people showed up, male and female—including my blood sister Gloria, who I had no idea shared my concerns and ideas. Indeed, we all were experiencing feelings of frustration and isolation.
So right there the name Black Unity Council was chosen and the group was formed, although no officers were selected, nor would the BUC ever choose any officers. We always worked by consensus—at least up until we got deeply involved with paramilitary activity about two years later.
In fact, outside of current events and local concerns, the BUC never discussed political theories, ideologies, or much about Black history. Most of us were nevertheless very impressed with the Black cultural nationalists. We admired their knowledge of Black/African history and their choice to dress in African garb—especially how beautiful and graceful it made women look.
We especially liked their emphasis on armed self-defense! At that time the Revolutionary Action Movement, known as RAM, was very active in Philly. Their cultural workers and semi-clandestine paramilitary arm called the Black Guard had a center close to our neighborhood, and we would always hang out there. They had regular seminars, history/cultural classes, karate classes (for women and men with some very sharp sisters along the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon vibe!) In addition, they had a “liberation school” that the BUC planned to emulate.
At the time, the BUC had about thirty regulars—mainly in southwest Philly and Germantown. We were able to assemble enough people to fill a gym or large church and also in each other’s homes. Eventually, we rented a large house and furnished it with the necessities for our own liberation school. We charged each person a can of food to attend our affairs, which we would give to needy families.
Since a number of us had gang backgrounds we also became involved in citywide efforts to get gangs to sign a truce.
Yet all of that was brand new to everyone in the BUC. We didn’t have any experienced political/social workers to work with us on a regular basis. As a consequence, I know now that our emulation of RAM’s emphasis on armed self-defense—not balanced with other considerations—caused many in the BUC to push it to become a strictly paramilitary group. On the other hand, the extremely brutal and terrorist Philly police, coupled with our newfound consciousness that freed us from our fear of them, also played a major role!
We had listened to Malcolm chide Blacks for being ready, willing, and able to kill each other, and, while in the U.S. Army, kill hundreds of millions of Chinese, but being essentially cold cowards when it came to defending themselves right here at home. And RAM hammered that same message home by preaching that Blacks had to stop believing that the police were bulletproof!
Regrettably, although many in the BUC were no longer afraid of the police, most of the community members that they sought to serve still were—sort of like Morpheus telling Neo that he must remember that those they were trying to free from the Matrix were not ready for that. On the other hand, the police no doubt couldn’t imagine that we had lost our fear of them!
Anyway, within two years the BUC had turned into a paramilitary group containing about fifteen and male and female members, fully armed with shoulder-fired weapons, sidearms and even hand grenades. We belonged to shooting/hunting clubs, practiced karate, went on outdoor maneuvers, and fortified all of our homes. In fact, think about today’s survivalists and you’ll see where the BUC was at: food, water, first-aid stocks, and all.
Undoubtedly, today’s readers may also have a hard time understanding the BUC’s zeal unless they view a documentary like the acclaimed Eyes on the Prize. Only then will they get a proper feel for the type of social, political, and psychological ferment that surrounded the BUC.
Thus, when the paramilitary BUC first learned about the Black Panther Party we had already been established for close to two years. Indeed, we liked what we were learning but, on the other hand, we grieved for their comrades being killed off in the streets and in their offices like sitting ducks. So we decided to contact them in order to see if we could assist them in their work and staying alive!
Hold up! I need to backtrack for a minute in order to elaborate on the BUC’s decision to become a paramilitary-style group. Otherwise, the reader may be left with the impression that the BUC was some kind of nutball formation.
The fact of the matter is that in 1968, Philly had similar Black paramilitary-style formations all around the city. Essentially, all of them were motivated by a heightened consciousness, a need to make more sophisticated their neighborhood’s defenses against adjoining white neighborhoods, which had always displayed aggression but were now more fearful due to the rising Black pride on display. We also wanted to prepare for the inevitable showdown with either the police or the National Guard in the event of another rebellion (a so-called “riot”), as had happened in North Philly in 1964, the first of the nation’s “long, hot summers.”
Certainly, most of these groups could easily be identified by their military-style clothing, which, unlike today, signaled to everyone that the wearers were paramilitary elements of the Movement. In that regard, RAM was the largest and best-known local practitioner of this approach. Around that time, moreover, RAM had a very large youth group, militant Black males and females known as the Liberators. They always wore black berets, jackets, pants and combat boots. This is before most people in Philly knew that the West Coast-based BPP also dressed in the same way. And the police didn’t wear black back then!
The BUC was in negotiations with the Liberators’ leadership about merging forces, with the more mature BUC members being asked to serve as officers for the younger Liberators.
Obviously, the police were always aware of this paramilitary-style activity, especially due to RAM’s open agitation and spray-painting of “Join the Black Guard” all over the city. Another formation threw hand grenades into a police parking lot, damaging patrol cars and provoking heavily-armed police to raid Black neighborhoods all over the city.
By the time the BUC decided to contact the local Black Panther Party, many of RAM’s leaders and many of the other paramilitary formation leaders had been jailed, forced underground, or decided to become less militant. As Malcolm said, a lot of people were not clear on what they were doing. He told us that once they found out, they would get back in the alley and change their names.
Anyway, in mid-1969, the BUC contacted the local Panthers, who were headquartered in North Philly. Although by then we had learned a lot about the national organization, our talks left us disappointed. In a nutshell, it was apparent to us that the BUC cadre was much more advanced than the local Panthers—militarily, anyway. Since we were the strongest of the two in this regard, we felt that we could negotiate a relationship the same way we had done with RAM. It was possible since the BUC was governed by consensus.
We found out, however, that the local Panthers couldn’t do that, since the Black Panther Party was a tightly-controlled, top-down organization. Our disappointment arose from the fact that they were getting killed all over the country and their leaders couldn’t come up with a strategy to combat that. In addition, the Panthers were being too rigid to allow local leaders the flexibility needed to create such a strategy. So the talks broke off, more or less, because the BUC never gave up supporting the local Panthers, and around that time some things occurred that cannot be revealed here because that would endanger the freedom of others. If this was not the case, I could give up some raw, hardcore rap that is usually hidden from this generation. Like Malcolm used to say, “Those who know don’t tell; those who tell don’t know.” As a result, a lot of cockeyed urban legends have sprouted up and become accepted as historical fact. I will attempt to set the record straight as much as possible.
First off, people must understand that in dealing with the history of the Black Panther Party, nobody knows it all—not the Panthers, not the police or FBI or other repressive arms of the state! This is because a whole lot of activities happened on a need-to-know basis. In other words, a lot of stuff was so delicate that it was known and handled both by who needed to know about it, with the downside to that being that you were on your own if things didn’t go right or if you got caught. That’s how it worked in the real world. Cadre who went on those types of missions accepted that upfront.
So why did the BUC merge with the Black Panther Party?
In December of 1969, the Chicago police led a deadly raid that resulted in the death of Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and the wounding of others. When members of the BUC heard this on the news, we were furious, sad and disgusted all at the same time. Certainly, our fury was directed toward the killers and our sadness for the dead, wounded, and terrorized Panthers. Our disgust was reserved for the Panther leadership that persisted in an unimaginative strategy that was getting some of the best and most sincere youth in urban areas killed and jailed. We were not experts, but even we had reached the conclusion that Panthers shooting it out with more heavily armed police from fixed positions was downright ludicrous! Even if they survived, it still left them in jail or hospitalized, causing everybody else to have to drop important work to bail them out and raise money for their legal defenses.
Consequently, after some discussion, we essentially decided to again get in touch with the local Panthers. But this time we planned to stick to them closely, no matter what. We just wanted to be around when their turn to get “vamped on” (raided by police) came. Of course, they had already been subjected to home raids, but nothing deadly. We planned to be in a position to upgrade their defenses and react to the expected attacks.
Rightly or wrongly, the BUC had reached the conclusion that in order for Blacks in the United States to be truly free, we would have to wage armed struggle. We believed that our oppression had many facets—social, political, economic, cultural and psychological. We did not have a handle on the intricacies surrounding these aspects, but we did know that in general Blacks did not have any substantial political power. Economically we were last-hired-and-first-fired and culturally we had been stripped of everything that would anchor us to our African past. We knew that it was up to us to prove we were as much man and woman as anyone else!
Can you describe your experience working within the Black Movement’s underground?
In a nutshell, it taught me the absolute necessity of all armed actions having broad, deep, multidimensional support. Otherwise they are open to isolation and destruction, which was the fate of the Black Panther Party.
This has nothing to do with whether armed actions fall into the so-called “terrorism” territory. That accusation is based on purely self-serving and hypocritical grounds. The need for multidimensional support has to do with the simple fact that we must have the resources, energy, creativity, and enthusiasm of the people on the side of the armed struggle. Otherwise, armed movement forces have very little chance of winning against the oppressive forces that do have broad and deep support.
Putting together this support must be very well thought-out. In a multi-racial, multi-cultural, sexist and class-ridden country and world this is a tough task!
That said, I think that we do not learn enough from the successes of the past. We have a goldmine of tried and tested successful approaches if we study how our ancestors used the Underground Railroad. It’s well-known that the Railroad is a shining example of a broad and deep multi-dimensional movement that set the stage for the destruction of slavery. Check out “The Real Resistance to Slavery in North America,” my essay in this book.
Quite frankly, I’m fed up with so much narrow-minded, paranoid crap masquerading as ideology being dished out by a lot of cowardly veteran activists who don’t want to step out of their comfort zones. They are misleading young people who are hungry for direction. Building conscious support is the absolute first step toward militantly challenging our oppressor. These old cowards know that! Nothing is more important than putting in work to stop this global, genocidal oppression!
How did the split in the Black Panther Party affect the local organization?
In my opinion, the “split” in the BPP is of secondary importance. We must instead look deeper into the BPP, the Movement in general, and toward those forces opposing us for a better understanding of what occurred and what should have been done.
Certainly, many splits in organizations during every historical period are more common than not. Splits serve good ends just as often as bad. The 1971 split in the BPP helped destroy it as a revolutionary organization.
From the ashes of the split, the Huey Newton-led West Coast faction showed its true intentions: to gut as much of the old BPP as possible and guide the remainder along clearly reformist and less threatening lines in exchange for some breathing room from the government repression and the campaign of terror that COINTELPRO was leveling against the party.
Perhaps this was a necessary “strategic retreat.”
On the other hand, the East Coast faction never got on his feet, essentially due to the sheer lack of experience of its youthful cadre in attempting to do the following:
Reorganize itself separately from the West Coast, which had control of their main organizing tool—The Black Panther newspaper.
Continue along the revolutionary path by fielding a semi-autonomous armed wing.
Continue to expand its political base.
Survived the intensified government repression.
True, they did begin publishing their own paper called Right On! But nobody ever heard of it, and it was shortly plagued with all types of problems hindering its organizing utility.
Their role in fielding the armed wing, however, served as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the escalating terror leveled against the entire BPP hit the East Coast faction hard. Another batch of bogus arrests was planned to decimate their ranks, like the earlier New York 21 case, when twenty-one BPP members were jailed, tortured for two years, and finally found not guilty by a jury. But this time the arrests would be connected to a COINTELPRO-provoked “shooting split” in the BPP.
On the other hand, instead of chancing arrests and trials in this (by then) well-known conspiracy-to-commit-a-grocery-list-of-crimes dance, many BPP cadre decided to take the courageous decision of joining the fledgling armed wing that came to be called the Black Liberation Army. Although the BPP started off in an armed self-defense mode, by 1971 it had essentially gotten rid of that tactic, on Newton’s orders, except in a ceremony mode such as funerals.
Thus, the BPP who became the BLA chose to continue down the revolutionary path as fully armed members of the Movement. It was a positive decision under the circumstances. The separate armed wing would take away the government’s ability to justify its ongoing oppression of those BPP members who didn’t go underground with the BLA. And the BLA could still use armed members to help protect the Movement and the community from rampant police terror and murders, as well as provide the oppressed with a sense of hope that one day they might build up a counterweight to the armed might that they had always been crushed by—an evolution of the BPP’s mission.
Still, so many BPP members going underground, coupled with the ongoing repression and all-around lack of experience in handling such a complex maneuver, all but brought the expansion of the political base to a halt. This was because most of the veteran organizers were either in the BLA or providing it with support.
Finally, the handful of East Coast BPP members not fully occupied with the above were easily intimidated and subsequently demoralized by the repression. They opted to either give up or try to join the underground.
Plus, and I hate to say this, but it’s hard for me to see how an inexperienced group of young people could have surmounted all those obstacles except with the charismatic and visionary leadership of a few key BPP members. This would have at least given them—us—enough time to adapt to such a task!
We did, however, prove Malcolm and others right: the oppressors ain’t bulletproof!
What can we learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the armed underground?
For my part, I’ve written an essay on that entitled “Black Fighting Formations: Their Strengths, Weaknesses, and Potentials,” included in this book. In that piece, I generally critique Black armed groups in this country from 1960 to 1994.
How were you treated by the prison authorities after you were initially captured, given that you were charged with a “crime” that was highly publicized and political but was a direct assault upon the system?
Well, of course the jailers at Philly’s Detention Center locked me and my comrades who had been captured with me in our cells all day. But for some reason, in a few days, they sent a high officer to let us into the general prison population—after threatening us sufficiently, of course.
Actually, that move might have been because of the presence in lockup of Shamsuddin Au, Philly’s Nation of Islam power, who was known as “Captain Clarence” back in 1972. The so-called “Black Muslims” had hundreds of members in that and other local jails. I believed they wanted him in the general population in order to keep them under control. So we were also let out so it wouldn’t be obvious that the jailers were using him in that manner.
In places such as California, New York, and New Jersey, the BPP/BLA had a tremendous presence and influence in the prisons. To what extent did the BPP/BLA have a presence inside the Pennsylvania prison system?
Regrettably, by 1972, the local Black Panthers in the streets had all either been ordered to move to Oakland, California, expelled on bogus allegations connected to Huey Newton’s attempts to distance the BPP from its militants, left to form other organizations, had just retreated altogether or gone underground to form BLA movements.
And connected to that was an aggressive recruitment strategy undertaken by the Nation of Islam and orthodox Muslim groups that essentially swallowed up most of those in the Philly jails and later in the Pennsylvania state prisons who were most susceptible to revolutionary-sounding ideas and organizing.
Moreover, just about all of my own comrades from the BUC/BPP merger had become Muslims, as well as other local BPP/BLA soldiers who had been captured in armed activities, along with those political-minded prisoners under their sway. Indeed, the feeling was that joining those religious groups was simply the next step in our collective evolution toward true self-determination. This, however, proved not to be true. But that’s a story that’s best left for later.
Nevertheless, BLA recruitment and activity still grew in the midst of this situation, and was only eradicated after a protracted struggle within the state jails and prisons.
What are your ideas about prison organizing and what should forces on the outside be doing?
It would help to first give a few reasons why we must see this as a crucial strategic task for our times. Quite frankly, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone living in this country who is not simply terrified by the thought of falling victim to any combination of circumstances that would leave them into the clutches of America’s jails and prisons! And the gatekeepers, the paramilitary police, and paparazzi-style prosecutors will come down on you whether you’re eight or eighty, blind, crippled, rich, or crazy!
So if for no other reason we must not allow ourselves to be held hostage by those in power through the use of the police, prosecutors, jails, and prisons.
Yet that’s still too abstract, especially since most people just think that they can stay out of the way. On a real level, the Black and Brown communities of this country, in particular, are the victims of an extremely callous set of political and economic calculations in which the jails and prisons play a controlling role. This situation invariably leads to the “normalization” of a reality in which a huge segment of its population is simply fuel for the prison-industrial/depressed-communities hustle.
Furthermore, we have to do our homework so that we’ll see beyond the obvious racial aspects of all this. In truth, it’s not race that’s the determining factor as to why Black and Brown people populate the jails, detention centers, and prisons in such overwhelming populations. No! It’s a matrix of foreign policy concerns, immigration control, government/CIA-controlled drugs, money, political corruption, racism and prisons.
To be sure, this is not an easy thing to fully come to grips with. Of course, most of us have strong suspicions about how it fits together, but I know it’s still murky in the minds of most people. The matrix of drugs, money, political corruption, racism, and prisons equals genocide! Go research for yourself and see if I’m right or not! We have to start educating people about this, about the fact that the overwhelming majority of today’s prisoners—Black, Brown or otherwise—are pawns in a giant domestic and international con game. This is the exact thing that I and other political prisoners were seeing, describing and fighting against in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s.
We must also refine our ideas about how many political prisoners this county holds and just who they are. Then we can actively move to integrate efforts to free the ones already recognized as well as those who have not been recognized.
Check out my essay “Twenty-first-Century Political Prisoners: Real and Potential” elsewhere in this book. No doubt, such an analysis and its recommendations will not fit comfortably with some, who may think it’s too broad and too diverse to include those imprisoned for distributing drugs, for example, as political prisoners. To these individuals, I can only shake my head and wonder: where do they think we’ll amass the counterweight to overcome those powerful and self-serving elements controlling this hustle, if not from other “self-interested” elements? And this says nothing of one’s moral and ethical responsibility to struggle and fight against the real gangsters in the White House, State Department, banks, police agencies, U.S. military, along with all the other bloodsuckers.
So unless you have an analysis and plan that can convince me that my own eyes are lying to me, let’s get started!
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]In this column, we present our monthly roundup of political prisoner, prison rebel, and repression news, happenings, announcements, action and analysis. Packed in as always are updates, fundraisers, and birthdays.
There’s a lot happening, so let’s dive right in!
General Prison News and Abolitionist Media Updates
David Elmakayes 77782-066
FCI McKean
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 8000
Bradford, PA 16701
Anthony Smith
14813-509
FCI Fort Dix
Federal Correctional Institution
Satellite Camp
P.O. Box 2000
Joint Base MDL, NJ 08640
Upcoming Birthdays
Jarreau “Ruk” Ayers
Vaughn Uprising prisoner, one of the only two prisoners from the Vaughn 17 to be convicted.As one write-up put it, “Jarreau Ayers and Dwayne Staats, already incarcerated under the hopeless sentence of life without parole, took it upon themselves to admit to involvement to prevent the rest of their comrades being found unjustifiably guilty, which led to success – not guilty verdicts or their charges being dropped.” You can learn more about Ruk in his own words at Rebellious Hearts and his instagram.
Pennsylvania uses Connect Network/GTL, so you can contact him online by going toconnectnetwork.com, selecting “Add a facility”, choosing “State: Pennsylvania, Facility: Pennsylvania Department of Corrections”, going into the “messaging” service, and then adding him as a contact by searching his name or “NS9994.”
Birthday: June 15
Address:
Smart Communications / PA DOC
Jarreau Ayers – NS9994
SCI Phoenix
PO Box 33028
St. Petersburg, FL, 33733
In FLIGHTS, Joel Whitney offers us a genre-defying group portrait of radicals, dissidents, and whistleblowers on the run, sharing with us the stories of how dozens of our best-loved poets, writers, journalists, activists, artists, and leaders have been obliged to elude, evade, and flee from the authorities.Collecting for us the dirty and deep 20th century background to our current age of mass surveillance, torture, assassination and censorship, FLIGHTS is a “fine-grained and deeply engaging” collection (Astra Taylor) that is so “mind-bending … so profound and original” (Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz) that you won’t want to miss it.
Philadelphia, PA – Nearly twenty University of Pennsylvania students and supporters were arrested after briefly occupying Fisher-Bennett Hall along 34th Street Friday night. Officers including UPenn’s Emergency Response Teams worked to shove hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators away from what they renamed Refaat Alareer Hall. (Alareer was a prominent Gaza professor killed by Israel late last year.) UPenn has also been a site of rallies against Ghost Robotics, an incubator spinoff company that has fast become a key world supplier of military robots including for Israel. We heard that the action was an extension of the UPenn protest encampment organizing that was swept by police action a week earlier, and was aimed at forcing UPenn to divest from companies that do business with Israel.
Philadelphia, UPenn, Drexel and SEPTA Transit Police were all activated during the evening’s events, and the Philly PD “Counter-Terrorism” team which often shows up at demonstrations was also spotted.
Unicorn Riot was live for much of the street demo on 34th Street and after. Full live video stream (YouTube):
Legal observers and other members of the media were shoved away from the scene; approximately 18 people were arrested; at least two people were reportedly tasered, however this is not confirmed.
Team of police lifts a cuffed arrestee into the police van on 34th Street.
Amid a large number of Philadelphia Police Department officers present, a group of them looked at their cell phones while away from the line.
Law enforcement largely controlled 34th Street most of the time.
The arrival of another set of demonstrators on the west sidewalk after it had already been cleared, brought cheers from the crowd:
An additional group of protesters arrived from the north onto the west side of 34th Street.
The police moved their lines south in a couple steps away from the hall and tried to isolate the crowd onto the east sidewalk. However, the crowd took 34th Street then, moving quickly, turned east onto South Street and down to the Penn Museum alumni weekend event.
Drums crafted from water jugs have been a common element since they were used to bonk police officers at Cal Poly Humboldt in April.
More demonstrators and observers on the west side of 34th Street were eventually dislodged south and off these stairs by police.
The vast majority of officers didn’t seem to tail the demonstrators to the museum — showing the utility of cat-and-mouse moves that are difficult for burdened police units to match. (This is one reason the cavalry-like mobile field force program continues to be America’s leading, standardized anti-protest planning template — it is designed to get ahead of, and split up, quick protest formations.)
Besides the UPenn Emergency Response Teams, SEPTA Transit Police, and Drexel campus police also activated. A Drexel officer was spotted assembling zipties.
Officer Adkins from Drexel University Police assembling zipties.
Unicorn Riot heard from one demonstrator that an international student was barred from their dorm room earlier without reasonable options to retrieve their possessions — similar to other tactics seen recently in other campuses.
An alumni event attendee clasped hands with a demonstrator through the fence and compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to apartheid-era South Africa.
A Palestine supporter on another’s shoulders holds the Palestinian flag outside the Franklin Fest alumni event.
According to a series of updates by the Daily Pennsylvanian student paper, the alumni event was closed down around 11 p.m. after the protest encounter at the gate. Demonstrators dispersed and dozens headed to jail support to Philly police headquarters at 400 N. Broad Street.
Social media clips and live video camera operation for the second half of the event by Chris Schiano.