Many of the efforts toward unity among our people must focus on how well the variety of organizers and activists in our community work together. The main idea of many Pan Afrikan Coalition groups is to look at the various areas where we do our work in terms of how one area affects what we must do in another, to establish how the different areas of activist activity (such as culture, electoral politics, media, law, international advocacy, science, health, tech, education, spirituality, prison outreach, economics, revolutionary activism, etc.) can actually function in the “real world” as opposed to in theory, and who among our community’s activists and leaders are working to help coordinate these functional areas to build unity. Our conviction is that the different areas in which we operate cannot be looked at in isolation, and that they all impact each other in ways that we might not realize at first. Realizing this is an important step in developing a “grand strategy” for how those different areas of activity will actually work together toward the uplift of our community.
In the meantime, things happen on a regular, dare I say daily basis to impact the work we do and to pile more struggle and important work on our plate. Recent developments in the United States with regard to immigration and the imposition of police state-style tactics from the current US administration have led many of us to look outside the United States as places we might go to live. Now, some of those options may be threatened by the actions of governments around the world in response to the isolationism of the US, particularly in this case, in Afrika.
As activists, organizers and leaders of Global Pan Afrikanist organizations, among the issues I have always assumed to be important to all (or most) of us is that of the ability of Afrikans of the Historic Diaspora (“Afrikan Americans” and Afrikan Descendants living around the world outside the Mother Continent) to “get away from Amerikkka”, repatriate to Afrika and establish dual, or even exclusive, citizenship in an Afrikan country.
An example that may have been overlooked for some time has involved the recent development of the Alliance des Etats du Sahel (AES), or the Alliance of Sahel States in English. The Trump administration’s recent decision to deny entry into the United States to those in possession of a passport from Burkina Faso, along with what apparently were numerous attempts on the life of Burkina Faso’s president, Captain Ibrahim Traore, led to the reciprocal denial of passport holders from the United States from entering Burkina Faso. I wonder whether or not the current anti-immigrant fervor that is trying to sweep the US is leading to similar, retaliatory or even “copycat” actions from another Afrikan nation to which many of us feel a strong kinship.
One of the most prominent and popular locations to which we might want to repatriate is Ghana, which has proposed, and even implemented, numerous programs over the years to facilitate the repatriation and ultimate citizenship of members of the Historic Diaspora, from former Ghanaian President John Kufuor’s earlier entreaties, to the Ghana Nkwanta Project, to the One Africa movement, to the efforts of Dr. Maulana Maulana, to the settlement of several villages in Ghana between Accra and Cape Coast that have been largely settled by members of the Historic Diaspora over the last several years.
This and similar arrangements might have just become more complicated, and might even be threatened altogether, by the most recent decision that has been announced by the Republic of Ghana.
The Ghanaian government has announced the “Temporary Suspension of Ghanaian Citizenship Application Process for Historical Diasporans” and the imposition of new standards that must be met to qualify for Ghanaian citizenship, which might even impact upon the ability to establish residency in Ghana even without the granting of official citizenship. Apparently, there was also an “emergency town hall meeting” held in Ghana on the morning of February 1 about this issue.
The official policy, announced by the Republic of Ghana on February 1, was briefly outlined in the document “Temporary Suspension of Ghanaian Citizenship Application Process for Historical Diasporans” (in the form of a PNG image) from the Diasporan Affairs Office of the President, Republic of Ghana.
This was answered in a Press Release (in the form of a PDF document) from Nana Abena Grace James, Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) Africa Facilitator (Tanzania), detailing the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus’s objection to and rejection of the Ghanaian Government’s proposed new standards for citizenship, which apparently include a two-year residency period, a DNA test (the standards of which are not explained) and a $2500 fee. That response is viewable here.
I received Nana Abena James’s email about this later that day, February 1, 2026, along with the above documents. She is seeking support from a variety of global Pan Afrikan Diaspora organizations for the attached Press Release, as the new standards, despite the claimed desire to “further streamline and enhance the overall experience” and make it “even more accessible, efficient, and user-friendly for our brothers and sisters across the diaspora”, would seem to only make an already-difficult process of establishing dual citizenship for Afrikan Diasporans in Ghana even more difficult.
How many of us are aware of these new “standards” being imposed by the Ghanaian government?
What impact, if any, might these new “standards” have on current repatriation efforts, specifically the settlement of the Historic Diaspora in Ghana?
Is this new policy from the Republic of Ghana motivated by increased American xenophobia and isolationism (whether a retaliatory move against anti-immigrant sentiment in the US or some twisted “copycat” policy because, well, that’s how things are done now) or by some fear of unchecked immigration from the US and the greater Historic Diaspora (There are, after all, over 85 million Afrikan Descendants in Brazil, 12 million in Colombia and millions more elsewhere in South America, Central America and Europe)?
Would any of the Pan Afrikan organizations that have a concern about this development have an interest in signing on to the Press Release, affixing the applicable organizational logos to the effort, or any other gesture of support?
With the increased authoritarianism sweeping across the United States “courtesy” of the Trump administration and the resulting feelings of alienation among several members of the Pan Afrikan community towards continuing to embrace the prospect of living in the United States, I anticipate that leaving the US and repatriating to Ghana or other Afrikan nations has gained greater consideration from many of us. This will only become more difficult if Ghana, and other Afrikan nations, start to “take the US’s lead” and clamp down on those seeking to emigrate out of the United States.
The people of Minneapolis, Minnesota have given us all a lesson in mounting resistance to authoritarianism, with their sustained marches, protests, and calls for a general strike even as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents swarm over the city, invade homes, arrest people in stores and churches, chase people down in the street, ram people’s cars, and even summarily execute people in public. Minneapolis has essentially become “ground zero” for the anti-ICE protests, much as it had become during the immediate aftermath of the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in 2020, only this time not limited to a single atrocity but to a continuing string of abuses which claimed to be about rooting out “the worst of the worst” among the “illegal immigrant invasion” that, according to US president Donald Trump was “destroying our country”, but was increasingly abducting children, arresting US citizens and murdering people in the street.
We’ve all seen the videos of ICE agent Jonathan Ross shooting Renee Nicole Good in the face through the window of her SUV as her wife screamed in horror, the denial of critical care as she lay dying in the driver’s seat of her vehicle, the actions of ICE agents as they removed evidence, thereby corrupting the crime scene, and the mendacious accusations from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi “ICE Barbie” Noem (regally positioned behind a podium that featured the Nazi-inspired slogan “One of Ours, All of Yours”) that Ms. Good was a “domestic terrorist” who was using her vehicle as a weapon in an attempt to run over Ross. US president Donald Trump, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and ICE commander Gregory Bovino (“resplendent” in floor-length Nazi-style overcoat) would echo these remarks and throw in a few gratuitous threats against “insurrectionists” for good measure. Kyle Rittenhouse, who had earned infamy for his August 2020 rampage in Kenosha, Wisconsin that saw him cross state lines and illegally brandish an AR-15 rifle, then subsequently gun down two men participating in protests following the police murder of George Floyd, would insist in an interview, as described in an article by Andrew Stanton on MSN (Kyle Rittenhouse says he would have shot Renee Good, 
And two weeks later, ICE agents would fatally shoot Veterans Administration (VA) Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurse Alex Pretti, who had committed the mortal sin of coming to the aid of a woman who had been brutally shoved to the ground by ICE agents. After half a dozen ICE agents pepper-sprayed him, wrestled him to the ground and confiscated his legally-licensed handgun which was still holstered in his waistband, one of them fired several shots into Pretti’s back, followed by several more shots — 10 or 11 in total — to his back and head, killing him on the spot as bystanders cursed and screamed in shock. Despite the fact that the entire incident was captured on camera, from several angles that showed that Pretti never drew his weapon and was not even resisting them, he was vilified by Trump administration officials as a “domestic terrorist” who was “brandishing a weapon” as he “assaulted the officers” and had intended to inflict serious bodily harm on the ICE agents. The same officials who had, over the past several years, supported right-wing activists attending political events of “woke” politicians with rifles strapped to their backs, made references to a “good guy with a gun” as the defender of the helpless as a push-back against banning guns in schools, and supported the rights of citizens to use a weapon to defend themselves against perceived (and sometimes imagined) aggression according to their cherished Second Amendment and “Stand Your Ground” state laws, were now cautioning that “if you’re participating in a protest, you shouldn’t be carrying a gun.” And to make matters even worse, video footage has been shared of an ICE agent telling a protester on the streets of Minneapolis, “If you raise your voice, I will erase your voice,” a clear threat of retaliation against a citizen exercising their Constitutional right of questioning his actions.
Meanwhile, the atrocities continued, with most of the attention remaining trained on “ground zero” in Minneapolis, key among them ICE agents using a five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos as bait to draw family members out of a house, then taking Liam and his father to a detention center in Texas. Texas Congress member Jasmine Crockett, one of the few members of Congress bold enough to assertively stand up to the abuse of the Trump administration and the relative fecklessness of Democrats as well as Republicans in the House and Senate, visited the detention center where she found several children even younger than Liam being held there. Video footage of a Minnesota citizen of Asian descent being detained outside in the snow dressed only in shorts and a bathrobe before finally being released, and ICE agents in an SUV ramming a woman’s car, then approaching her car with guns drawn and forcibly removing her from the vehicle to take her into custody, has also been widely circulated.
Their anger is colliding with a political crisis already engulfing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, 54, who has reportedly seen her handpicked “commander at large,” Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino, 55, demoted by President Donald Trump, 79.
way. While we harbor no illusions about morals or ethics within this administration, our hope is that staring its own cruelty in the face (“The cruelty is the point!”) will finally cause it to implode of its own weight and allow justice to prevail, by the administration’s minions losing their nerve or by others in government growing a spine or a pair of testicles at last. The alternative, the path of increasing xenophobia and repression, can bring nothing but destruction.
The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Maryland on Eutaw Place in Baltimore was the gathering place for a number of activists, organizers and spiritual leaders from different parts of the United States as they paid tribute to Recent Ancestor Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (October 4, 1943 – November 23, 2025), once known to those of us who were “Sixties activists” as H. Rap Brown.
Organized by Sis. Tomiko of Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign (APP-HRC) and the Internet radio programs Africa 500 and The REvolution Is Black Love, the event drew attendees from Baltimore, Washington DC, South Carolina, Philadelphia PA, Atlanta GA, New York NY and Los Angeles CA.
Baba Mike Johnson, one of the co-founders (with Baba Bill Goodin and Baba David Murphy) of BlackMen Unifying BlackMen a decade ago, delivered the welcome and introductory remarks, reminiscing on his early days in the Civil Rights and Black Power marches and how Imam Jamil Al-Amin and other freedom fighters of the day had influenced his activism as well as his development as a Black Man.
Longtime educator and activist Baba Charlie Dugger, who sponsors the annual Garvey Day and Billie Holliday celebrations in Baltimore as well as numerous presentations during Kwanzaa, gave an invocation and libation to the Ancestors.
Imam El-Hajj Mauri’ Saalakhan, a human rights advocate with The Aaria Foundation in the Washington, DC area, spoke about Imam Al-Amin’s transition from Black radical freedom fighter to respected Imam and how this did not mean the end of the repression he faced until his final days: “The opposition understood this as well. H. Rap Brown became a bigger, more closely watched target after his spiritual transition.” He noted Coretta Scott King’s request for a fair trial for the Imam and the vicious backlash that resulted, including predictions from the mass media that he “would die in prison, alone and forgotten. … While he did indeed die in prison, execution by medical neglect is what we call it, the other part of that prediction has proven to be false. Our creator has revealed, in the final revelation for all humanity, the Qur’an, ‘Do not say of those who are slain in the way of Allah that they are dead. They are alive receiving sustenance from their lord, though you do not perceive it.’ A Syrian poet wisely noted, ‘The blood of a martyr is not an ordinary blood. It transfuses itself into the life of a people and energizes them. We didn’t just bury a body on November 26, 2025 in South Florida. We planted a seed, and the struggle continues.” 
Imam Ayman Nassar, founder of the Baltimore-based Islamic Leadership Institute of America (ILIA), who works in youth development and leadership, connected the Imam’s work with Qur’anic passages to show that the beautiful struggle: “Indeed, the believers are those who believe in Allah, in God, and his messenger, and they have no doubts, then they exert effort with their lives, their wealth, for the path of God. These are the truthful ones.” Our lives are a continuum of struggles, and the Imam’s struggle was a lifelong one, “to uphold truth and justice in the face of tyranny.” Imam Al-Amin exemplified “the exertion of effort with no hesitation and no doubt.” He stressed the importance of following the proper principles, the proper spiritual directives, and the proper means, “with no hesitation, with no doubt. … They believed, they walked the talk, and they had no hesitation. They knew that they are on the straight path, and they are going to just keep plugging through. … understanding that it’s going to involve discomfort. Sometimes pain. Sometimes losses. Losses of life, or wealth, or both. … and intentions are sincere …” Imam Al-Amin was in constant transformation, learning, growing and becoming more focused on “what truly counts.” One must be peaceful but must also know when to be strong in the face of oppression. One must work on their personal growth so as to be able to lead through submission and not through domination of others. Baba Nassar related all of this to what he referred to as the Seven Criteria for a Beautiful Struggle, focused on the divine revelation that is perfect, that has no impurities, that has mercy for mankind and follows in the footsteps of the best man who walked on this planet, the Prophet, it must involve discomfort, the exertion of effort, the investment of wealth, and must be sincere.
Baba Khalil Abdulkabbir came from New York to speak about his interaction and work with Imam Jamil Al-Amin. Having been inspired in his teens by the man who was at the time known as H. Rap Brown, he would come into Islam in his twenties in Brooklyn with the Dar al Islam Movement, a network of American Muslims in Brooklyn dedicated to raising the status of the community, build autonomy and establish places of worship, schools and governing bodies according to the tenets 
of Islam, and he began interacting with those who were incarcerated in New York state prisons. He had met H. Rap Brown at that time (around 1972) and was impressed with his calmness, humility and perspective despite his having been targeted, prosecuted and incarcerated in Ossining, New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility at a young age, already branded as dangerous by the powers that be. Imam Jamil was influenced by the Dar al Islam Movement, and “the amazing thing that Imam Jamil did … was 0hat he showed that people of faith can still hold on to and continue on the road to revolutionary change. You don’t have to think that, because you are religious, that you just pray and that you just fast, but also there are also things that are within your faith practice that is about raising your status as an individual …” Imam Jamil would found a number of masjids across the country modeled on the Dar al Islam Movement. His work would help form the 1993 Islamic Shura Council that brought together the four major American Muslim organizations, including Imam Warith Deen Muhammad’s. Imam Jamil Al-Amin was always engaged in helping others, always asking “What can I do for you?”, which is a lesson we can all learn from in seeking ways to work more effectively with each other. He closed his remarks with a quote from one of Imam Jamil’s writings, “Truth is the cry of all but the discipline of the few. There is no worse lie than truth misunderstood by those who say they know. Truth is a trust; falsehood is a treason. Truth is absolute. Truth is never relative. … To speak the truth is a part of faith. In a time of universal deceit, to speak the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Baba Waziri Mustafaa Taqwaa Waliuddin of the Jericho Movement-Atlanta spoke about the political prisoners as “the heartbeat of the struggle”. Having always known him as the Imam he became rather than the SNCC revolutionary he had been in his youth, Baba Mustafa noted that Imam Jamil was always “there in real time … still doing grassroots work in the community” and not hiding in the church or mosque. Having been raised never to compromise, even as he found himself facing a stint of incarceration of his own, he had learned not to talk to the 
police, not to romanticize the struggle, not to romanticize revolution and “not to live in a bubble either”; as he embraced the mantle of being a New Afrikan Muslim, he learned to embrace activism and Islam as a “culture of resistance”, he learned that “just because you lick the slave master’s boot, won’t liberate you, won’t stop him from coming and knocking at your door.” Islam showed him that “the first revolution is inside yourself. … If we don’t liberate ourselves, we can’t liberate nobody. … We’ve got to be accountable for our actions. … We can no longer think we are safe from a diabolical system … that will show you no mercy.” Imam Jamil Al-Amin, as well as all our political prisoners, are “the heartbeat of the struggle, and they need our assistance.” Baba Mustafa challenged us to show up for our communities with the same commitment and enthusiasm that was shown in the recent No Kings Marches. July 4, 2026 will see a mobilization to freedom against ongoing genocide and celebrating 250-plus years of resistance in Atlanta, Georgia.
Attorney Mama Efia Nwangaza began her remarks with excerpts of several freedom songs reminiscent of the marching songs that strengthened the people as they faced batons, rubber bullets, firehoses and police dogs during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, followed by the greeting “Free The Land”. Having been active in the freedom struggle during the Imam’s heyday as H. Rap Brown, she called us all to follow the Imam’s example by noting that “his mantra, ‘To be Black is necessary but not sufficient,’ challenged us all to struggle as did he. … November 23 is not the day he died; in fact it’s the day that he spoke loudest, for which he is echoed and multiplies. It is our duty that we not allow him to be silenced or forgotten.”
Baba Tyronne Morton, longtime prison activist and psychologist, spoke about Tawhid, the Islamic principle of the Creator’s absolute oneness, and drew comparisons to Imam Jamil Al-Amin’s consistent struggle for truth. “When you’re fighting for the truth, you’ve got to be constant. … you’ve got to have patience. … And … the most important thing is sincerity.” He spoke of parables, “the way that Allah communicates with us to get us to understand. … If you’re conscious, you understand. If you’re not conscious, you’re in trouble.”
the devil has distracted us from [everything] but materiality. … And that was done purposely a long time ago. Why? Because when you’re distracted [to] materiality, you have no time for the remembrance of Allah. You have no time because you’re out there hustling, doing what you’ve got to do to survive. So, we live in a world right now where we are basically imprisoned based on somebody else’s way of thinking and doing. If you don’t understand the culture that you are a part of, if you don’t understand American culture, you are an imprisoned person … because culture carries the values, culture carries the principles that give you your perspective on life, what reality is, what reality is not, what’s right, what’s wrong. Culture does that. So whoever set up the culture, set you up. Set me up.” Connecting this to Imam Jamil Al-Amin, he noticed that the system had set up Black men in particular into a certain way of thinking and behaving. “He understood that the culture was set up with a certain message for Black people: ‘Nigger, you ain’t nothing. Nigger, you ain’t about nothing, and we’re going to keep our foot on your neck as long as we can.’ … During the enslavement period, they did it through a system. They locked us in.” Nowadays, the culture does it in a more sophisticated manner, “locking us into a material universe, devoid of Tawhid.” Imam Jamil Al-Amin was “trying to find another mode of thinking and behaving” that he did not find in the Panthers, SNCC, the Civil Rights Movement or the street organizations, that would equip him to discern those who were true from those who were false, and to fight those who practice evil. The prison system tested him in ways that many of us are not prepared to be tested. He understood that to deal with anything, one must deal with Tawhid. “This Brother was true, true to the cause.” We live in a system right now that forces us into a struggle between what is right and what is wrong, and most of us are lost. Imam Jamil Al-Amin was a living parable of jihad, of struggle, and his faith helped see him through, even in prison, helping him leave the materialistic existence behind to live on the plane of spirituality with higher beings. “Allah said when you don’t remember him, he won’t remember you.”
Imam Abdul Salaam Muhammad, Representative of the Honorable Louis Farrakhan in Baltimore from Muhammad Mosque No. 6, also spoke about Imam Jamil Al-Amin. After giving all praise to Allah and thanking Him “for all of his messengers and all of His prophets” and giving thanks for The Honorable Elijah Muhammad and The Honorable Louis Farrakhan and the “second chance” to get to know Imam Al-Amin, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali and the Black Panther Party through the Nation of Islam and Afrikan American Muslims, he likewise thanked Sis. Tomiko and the organizers of this gathering for the remembrance and exaltation of Imam Al-Amin and the opportunity for all of us to participate in it. Reflecting on his first meeting, at age 25, with Imam Al-Amin in Washington, DC at an event in support of Ancestor Kwame Ture as he was battling illness, he noted Imam Al-Amin’s comment that “the essence of love are the principles upon which life in the 
universe are based, and those principles are freedom, justice and equality. And those who truly love struggle, the struggle for these principles, and since these principles are eternal, those who struggle for these eternal principles ultimately find eternal life.” He connected this to Sheikh Saalakhan’s earlier remarks that we should “not speak of those who are slain or die in the way of Allah as being dead; nay, they are alive; we just can’t technically perceive it.” Imam Al-Amin “lived his life for freedom, justice and equality, but he did it in the strongest of ways.” This connects with the platforms of the Nation of Islam and other revolutionary organizations calling for freedom for our Political Prisoners and for the right of People of Afrikan Descent to determine our own path and destiny as a people, to live free from US and western oppression. He urged us all to not “let his work or any other work of our Ancestors or leaders of the modern time die. That is the proper use of social media, to use it to educate. That’s the proper use of podcasts now, to indoctrinate the minds of young people that are binging on foolishness, and the filth and degeneracy and hot topics of the world where they’re destroying Black leaders and Black People at every turn.” He closed with a prayer and an official letter from The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan to the family, friends and followers of Imam Jamil Al-Amin, “a great friend and a Brother. … the greatest revolutionary in the Civil Rights Movement. … He is among those who have been falsely accused of murdering a police officer, but he was never a criminal in our eyes, and he died a fierce, uncompromising Brother. We in the Nation Of Islam will always revere him and keep him in our honor as an Ancestor inspiring us to continue in the struggle and until every one of our people and all of those unjustly imprisoned will be set free. May Allah grant him protection and have mercy on him. May the historians write the truth concerning this wonderful Brother. May Allah’s peace surround his wife and his sons and grant peace to all who stand for justice and righteousness.”
Dr. Umar Johnson traveled from Philadelphia to attend the event (“There’s a special energy in Baltimore, Maryland”), noted that he had not had the honor of meeting many of the freedom fighters of Imam Jamil Al-Amin’s time (“I stand on the shoulders of the departed ones”) and spoke at length about our need as a community to honor Imam Jamil Al-Amin’s work by remembering “what we owe ourselves” as well as what the oppressor owes us by becoming more committed to the internal reparations manifested by “teaching our children where they come from … who they are [and] what the struggle was before they were born”, 
important requirements that he sees lacking in our community as a trained school psychologist; committing to our community-building work; establishing our own schools, hospitals, grocery stores and other much-needed infrastructure that our community needs; and less enamored with consumerism among the general populace and empty self-promotion by those who seek to take the mantle of leadership in our community. “Things will only get better when Black People make them better. … We need to get serious, we need to get focused, we need to get organized as a community. … Ancestors will come, ancestors will go, but we have to make sure that the work continues. And the best way to make the work continue is to make sure we’re building institutions for our children in which they can be taught that legacy. The reason that they don’t know H. Rap Brown is we don’t have enough schools that teach them H. Rap Brown. The reason that they don’t know H. Rap Brown is we no longer have the study groups we used to have that teach them H. Rap Brown. … We’ve got to build Councils of Elders in every Black community. The Elders have not done your work yet. … It is time for you to institutionalize your wisdom and give it back to the babies.”
Dr. Maulana Karenga, initiator of the annual Afrikan American Afrikan-centered commemoration we know as Kwanzaa, gave a keynote address online over Zoom. “We must speak truth and justice, and walk in the way of light. … We are here to pay homage … to Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.” He wished health, peace and blessings to the Imam’s family, and he brought greetings from the Organization Us. He thanked Sis. Tomiko for organizing this event. As he gave homage to Imam Al-Amin’s work and legacy, he spoke of the meaning of Imam Al-Amin’s name. “Jamil speaks to his beautifulness, inward and outward. It’s the same as in Swahili, when we say Zuri, or in Zulu … or in Ancient Egyptian, Neter. It’s not just beautiful on the outside, it’s goodness on the inside. He was a good person, and therefore, he was what we would call in the community, “a beautiful Brother”. Second, his name is Abdullah … servant of Allah … his commitment to give of himself to Allah, to offer his life … to submit to the will of Allah for good and justice … his commitment to live a righteous life to reflect God’s will. His name Al-Amin, the sincere one, the genuine one, the trustworthy one, one who we can rely on, and count on in times of need, in times of testing and struggle, and always, and anywhere, at any time. … I will always see him as … a Sixties Soldier, conscious, courageous, committed to the Black freedom struggle … a fearless leader of a generation.” He quoted a line from the Husia that instructs us that “we are all morally obligated to bear witness to the truth, and to set the scales of justice in their proper place among those who have no voice, and he did that.” Imam Al-Amin “raised our people and challenged them to stand up, step forward and continue the liberation struggle. … a shield and a sword, a pillar of peace, and a constant call to righteous and relentless struggle.” He recounted meetings at SNCC Headquarters in different parts of the country, where Imam Jamil Al-Amin did his work, “making sense, doing work as he was 
saying this … making a case for togetherness … a master rapper, skilled in the spoken word … and he lit fire to falsehood.” Dr. Karenga recalled Imam Jamil Al-Amin’s words that we must not expect to be given justice by our enemy, and that “I can find only three places for a righteous man in an evil society: on the battlefield fighting his enemy, in a cell imprisoned by the enemy, or in his grave, free from his enemy.” Dr. Karenga noted that “Imam Jamil committed himself to be both a Shahid and a Mujahid as he became a Muslim. He wanted to be a witness … for good in the world, and he was.” The consciousness for continued struggle is exemplified in the Qur’anic passage, “We are on the battlefield for something good … and for the weak and the oppressed upon men …” Dr. Karenga noted three key and interrelated aspects of the righteous work that Imam Jamil Al-Amin had undertaken: “Mujahid, a righteous warrior; an Imam, a righteous guide; finally, a Shahid, that did not volunteer but was ready to offer, and did offer his life and his death, in witness … to his faith, in witness to his people, in witness to the will and work of Allah God for justice and good in the world.” Dr. Karenga encouraged us all to ask ourselves, “How can we best honor him except by trying to learn the lessons of his life and legacy, and … live them in our own particular way?” Dr. Karenga noted Imam Al-Amin is known and honored for his work as “a spiritual guide, a teacher, a counselor … who continued to work for the people, his religious community and the good of humanity … in work of peacemaking, peacekeeping, mediation, prevention and resolution of conflict, fostering conciliation, and building relationships of mutual respect, mutual commitment and mutual good … keeping of peace to bring good into the world.” The commitment to Islam as a religion of peace reminded Dr. Karenga of passages from The Husia and the Qur’an: “You are committed to fight against those who would fight against you, but do not be aggressive, for Allah loves not the aggressor.” The concept of struggle, often referred to in revolutionary circles as jihad, was also discussed, and the importance that the first level of struggle is within, “to strengthen ourselves, spiritually and ethically, so that we can weather all storms. … As a moral spiritual teaching, Imam Jamil teaches us that ultimately, we are confronted in our struggle for the good of society and the world, with certain questions, because we want a good soldier; we don’t want just any soldier. We don’t want the soldier that we see on a live stream committing genocide, wiping out people without any sentiment except blood lust. We don’t want that. So, we have to ask ourselves, What do we bring in to being a good person? How do we raise a people? How do we [bring] consciousness and awareness among humanity that makes us strive for the best? He concludes, It begins with us. … We have to struggle internally to make sure we’re strong enough to overcome hardship and suffering without compromising and walking away from the battle before the struggle is won.” Imam Jamil Al-Amin exemplified jihad, struggle, as a young man, as an imam, and as a political prisoner, from Mujahid to Shahid, to make the world more humane, and this must be the goal of anyone who considers themselves a revolutionary. As such, Dr. Karenga told us that Imam Jamil Al-Amin left us four key lessons: “The first is, we must be spiritually grounded, ethically grounded, in whatever faith we are, ground yourself in the best of what it means to be Afrikan and to remaking the world. Speak that special truth to the world. Make your own unique contribution to how we reconceive and reconstruct this world. And at the heart of all of it is this … to speak truth, to do justice, to care for the poor and vulnerable among us, to have a rightful relationship with the environment, to constantly struggle against evil, injustice and oppression, and to always raise up, praise and pursue good. … Second, is the practice of the Afrikan ethical imperative to love and serve the people. Service is an ethical imperative. … Serve God, so He can protect and provide for you; serve your Brothers and Sisters, so you can be respected for it, serve a wise person so they can teach you wisdom, serve anyone so you can benefit from it, and serve your mother and father so you can go forward and prosper. … All the great people you know is because they served. They gave their lives and their deaths for the cause of good for all of us. Third thing, is the beauty in diversity. [This is what we called] unity in diversity. And Imam Jamil taught this and practiced this, in his SNCC days, in his early days and in his latter days. He brought us together, as he brings us here, today. … The fourth one, is struggle. … Be able to suffer and persevere without breaking, without compromising, without walking away from the battlefield before the struggle is won, without seeking a comfortable place in oppression while all of our people are suffering. Struggle is part of nature. … We are born in struggle. Struggle is one of the defining aspects of the human personality. We struggle when we come into being; that’s called birth. We struggle to make the most out of things; that’s called life. And we struggle not to go out of being; that’s called quest for immortality. And it is in our doing good in life and our quest for immortality that we are rewarded … in the afterlife. … Let me end by saying this: this is our duty, to know our past and honor it; to engage our present and improve it; and to imagine our own future and to forge it in the most ethical, effective and substantive way. … Our Honored Ancestors teach us, our sacred texts teach us: continue the struggle, keep the faith, hold the line, love and respect our people and each other. Let us practice the Nguzo Saba, the Seven Principles. Seek and speak truth, do and demand justice, in positive concern for the well-being of the world, and all that are in it. …” 
Several local community activists and grassroots community members also gave brief reflections on the Imam’s life and the importance of a real understanding of the concept of jihad as consistent struggle within oneself as well as within the greater society. Among the local speakers were Nana Akua Akomfo Nyamekye, current Queen Mother of Baltimore City and advocate for political prisoners who had served with Marshall “Eddie” Conway in the Baltimore Black Panthers and the Soul School, and as such was an ally of Imam Jamil Al-Amin, and who reminded us that we must support activists like MOVE’s Mama Pam Africa and that “the work is never done”; Baba Ade Oba Tokunbo, also a member of the Black Panther Party from his days in New York and is the founder of the Baltimore-based Organization of All Afrikan Unity Black Panther Cadre (OAAUBPC); Baba Charlie Dugger, longtime Baltimore area educator, activist and sponsor of the annual Marcus Garvey Day an Billie Holliday celebrations; Baba Bill Curtis, local activist and vendor of Afrikan-centered paraphernalia including the red, Black and Green flags seen across the city; Mama Kilolo Watkins, member of the Maryland Council of Elders; Ras Tre Subira, community activist, educator and photographer who provided the photography and videography of the event through his company Black Mission Media; Bro. Vernon Streater, founder of Unity TV and provider of the livestream of the event; Baba King Teasdell of the Souls of Life Society; and several others, some of whom had known him as younger people.
Much gratitude to the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of Maryland, 1307 Eutaw Place in Baltimore that made this event possible by providing the space, and their representative, Baba Marc Rollins (pictured above, second from left), who was present to assist throughout the event.
On December 11, 2025, a hearing was held at the headquarters of the Board of Commissioners, Baltimore City School Board to listen to initial testimony on behalf of four Baltimore City area schools: 
The December 11 hearing drew an overflow crowd of community activists, concerned families and educators who had gathered at the school headquarters to voice their support for the four schools. After delaying their appearance for the hearing by close to an hour, an act that had many of those in attendance growing increasingly impatient with what they saw as a bureaucratic stall tactic designed to discourage many of the attendees, led to numerous call-and response chants (“It’s 5:52. Where are you?” and “It’s 5:58. Why are you late?” are two examples) and comments that students who report late to class are sent to detention, the board members finally appeared and informed the gathered crowd that the hearing would not begin because there were not enough chairs for everyone. Most of those who had come to voice their support for the schools were sent to “overflow rooms” where they would wait until the specific school foe which they were advocating was scheduled to make its presentation. This not only inconvenienced the public, but it also had the effect of dividing them so that advocates for one school could not see and hear the proceedings as they impacted the other schools. By “cutting” the gathering into four parts, the board members spared themselves the impact of facing such an intimidating crowd of supporters all at once and were also able to paint these four cases as “isolated incidents” and blunting the perceived impact that these closure decisions would have on the greater community.
Supporters are urged to write letters to the Baltimore City School board and Board of Commissioners, support the petitions that have been launched at support Web sites for the schools, to make donations to these institutions as they face possible defunding by the Baltimore City School Board, and to make plans to attend the follow-up hearing at the Baltimore City Schools headquarters on January 8.
“I speak to you as a man–a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction (“You must succeed – your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!”). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first–but we are termed ‘good citizens.’ Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.
Trump administration. In Baltimore, the Pan-African Liberation Movement (PLM) is holding an 
The Pan Afrikan Liberation Movement (PLM, 
The Pan Afrikan community lost a mighty voice for freedom on September 25, 2025 with the passing to the Honored Ancestors of Assata Olubgbala Shakur. A veteran of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA), wounded in a May 2, 1973 shootout on Interstate 95 that also took the lives of fellow BLA member Zayd Shakur and New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster, tried and convicted of murder despite physical evidence and medical testimony that she was not holding a weapon and was shot in the back with her hands raised, tortured in the hospital as she recovered from her injuries, imprisoned in an all-male US gulag until her liberation and escape in 1979, aided by other BLA members and White revolutionaries, and finally settling in Cuba under the protection of the Fidel Castro government, she finally passed on to the ancestors at age 78, living the life of a free Black woman in exile from the United States with her daughter.
I am hardly qualified to speak about the immeasurable courage, dedication and sacrifice that she embodied. My words would so inadequately describe the life and legacy of New Ancestor Assata Shakur. So I will leave this task to others, from the lyrics of a tribute song by recording artist/actor Common (above) to news articles to tributes on several youth-oriented and pro-Black Web sites to a couple of quotes from Assata herself.
We share here links to several Web sites that have published short biographies and tributes to her, including an article about the reaction of US FBI Director Kash Patel’s remarks and the “Black backlash” that erupted in response to his disrespectful words. We start with the news article from the Associated Press.
