The Struggle - KUUMBAReport.com

Mama Julia Wright, Pan-Afrikan human rights champion and daughter of legendary author Richard Wright, wrote the following Message to Black Women for the Million Woman March Movement on International Women’s Rights Day:

We, Black women, are mothers in more ways than one.

We are the mothers or mothers-to-be of our Black daughters and sons.

We nurture our warriors with the hope and the love that is at the root of all resistance.

We are the mothers of the lynched ones – and of all those who died in the struggle but still live in our hearts.

It is to us that their spirits return because there were so often no bodies, no graves, no mourning.

We are the mothers of the Revolution.

I remember a story told by my father, Richard Wright, in “Uncle Tom’s Children” where a Black mother goes to retrieve the body of the son the white supremacists are about to lynch. She meekly carries a sheet outwardly intended as a shroud but secretly hiding a pistol. She is able to shoot down one of her son’s torturers before being slain with her son.

I remember Maimie Till, the mother of Emmett Till, who moved mountains to have her 14 year old son’s lynched remains returned from the oblivion of an unmarked Mississippi grave to Chicago. There she decreed an open coffin for the whole world to see. The child’s innocence and his mother’s love gave birth to the civil rights movement.

I remember Sister Yuri Kochiyama, mother of six, cradling Malcolm X’s agony after he was shot down, ten years after Emmett Till’s lynching, in the Audubon Ballroom.

Yuri’s scribbled notes on the events that night already presciently pointed to Raymond Woods’ implication.

I will always recall going with Yuri and Pam Africa to visit Mumia.

The voice of Chairman Fred Hampton Jr is still scarred by the staccato tempo of the bullets he heard in his mother’s womb.

And how can we forget George Floyd placing himself in his mother’s hands as he takes his last breath.

Mumia’s 39-year long struggle for justice behind bars speaks to the mothers we are.

He is our brother, father, grandfather but most of all he is our revolutionary native son because time froze his freedom prematurely at the age of 27 when he was brutally framed and nearly killed by the most corrupt police force in the country.

What will we Black mothers do for our native son ?

We, Black women, are legion.

Training prosecutors in Pennsylvania were taught to exclude us from their juries because we are said to be prone to anger.

We are demonized, deleted, shunned, raped – so yes we are angry.

Our anger is rooted in our deep capacity to love.

We ,who love Mumia and all he stands for, we who are legion, will know how to seize the time and stand for him as COVID-19 and congestive heart failure put his life at serious risk again in carceral isolation.

As Sister Assata said : “It is too late for Malcolm but we can still save Mumia.”

Let’s bring Mumia Home!

The only treatment now is Freedom!

Let all our elders and political prisoners go!

Message from Julia Wright to the Million Woman March Movement for International Women’s Rights Day

March 6th 2021

Editor’s Note: The following message was posted in February on behalf of the Ujima People’s Progress Party (UPP), which is currently building a Black Worker-Led Independent Political Party in Maryland.

Hi Friend,

Happy New Year maybe. 2020 was terrible, particularly for black people in the US. I think that actually having a happy new year would require serious personal and collective growth. Growth requires a critical evaluation of the past in order to avoid repeating mistakes and one makes plans for the future. In that vein of reflecting on the past, I want to share with you a short video (9 min) of Michael B. Jordan reciting a famous speech by the Chicago Black Panthers’ Chairman, Fred Hampton. I pulled out these three statements to give you a sense of the speech.

“We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity.”

“We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.”

“I’m telling you that we’re living in a sick society. And anybody that endorses integrating into this sick society before it’s cleaned up is a man who’s committing a crime against the people. If you walk past a hospital room and see a sign that says “Contaminated” and then you try to lead people into that room, either those people are mighty dumb, you understand me… cause if they weren’t, they’d tell you that you are an unfair, unjust leader that does not have your followers’ interests in mind.”

Chairman Fred Hampton was assassinated in his bed by the Chicago PD at 21 years old. At that time in 1969, Chicago’s City Council and Mayoralty were controlled by the local, post-Civil Rights, Democratic Party as it is today. In my opinion, Hampton was right and still is today: Integrating into a sick society and its sick political values hasn’t paid off in fifty one years. Fifty one years later, we still don’t even have enough equality to be killed by police and hospitals at the same rate as white people. Fifty one years later, the median net wealth of black households is trending toward $0 dollars. Fifty one years later, the Democratic National Convention rejected the Movement for Black Lives’ proposal of the Breathe Act while the largest civil rights demonstrations in US history were in full swing. (Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t support the Breathe Act either.) I think that continuing to subordinate the political demands of black people, indigenous people and working class people to the priorities of capitalist, primarily white political parties is likely going to make 2021 as catastrophic for black people as was 2020. Asking Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi to support the Breathe Act (or anything that black people, poor people or the biosphere need) again is not a “strategy” that our leaders should have the audacity put forward in 2021.

Fortunately, this Kwanzaa, many of us spent some time reflecting on the principle of self-determination. Being self-determined would include coming to our own decisions about community safety, imperialism, capitalism, socialism, racism, ecology, etcetera and creating our own agendas. I’m part of an organization that’s working on this in our state. Ujima People’s Progress Party (UPP), a black, working class political party is planning a campaign to achieve ballot access in Maryland. If successful, UPP would become Maryland’s first, black, working class political party. (Roughly 30% of Maryland’s population is black.) No matter what state you’re in, any success that we have would probably produce positive spillover effects on independent, self-determining, black politics in your state. So I would be grateful for your involvement no matter where you live. If you’re not already connected to UPP and you support more choices for black voters, then hit me back and we’ll talk about the ways that you could consider supporting us.

…I hope that I’m communicating how imperative it is that black voters get greater ideological diversity on our ballots.

With the same old ideology in charge, 2021 is going to be as lethally anti-black as the last one. Black lives could matter, but they don’t because, fifty one years later, too many black leaders feel that a black political agenda is less important than the Democratic Party’s priorities. Too many black leaders feel that a back agenda is less important than the organized wealth of white liberals. Black lives will matter when black people link up, overcome our internalized racism enough to develop independent black power. Over 70 million voters just opted to re-elect the most overtly racist US President in recent history. And the incoming President won by trying to win over those same voters. If we don’t try something else, then in fifty one more years, my grandkids will have another lifetime of marching and asking America for equality to look forward to. Let’s try something else.

Happy new year “if you’re willing to fight for it”,
Thinq Tank

An update on the drive for a black, working class-led political party in Maryland:

One of our party leaders, Nnamdi Lumumba was recently interviewed by Dr. Jared Ball, a media and journalism professor here in Baltimore. This is a very important, 18-minute excerpt from that interview. It includes Nnamdi explaining why our party needs ballot access and our theory of power (within and outside of electoral politics). If you’re not sure about why black/African people in Maryland and the US need independent, political power, then I urge you to take a listen. And please consider making a contribution to our effort for ballot access.

I’ve been thinking that, ultimately, the success of this effort will come down to our own capacity to trust primarily black institutions as much as we trust primarily white institutions.

Can black people trust ourselves and other black people with independent, political leadership? Or is our internalized racism too deep for us to invest in a self-determined ideological vision?

Do we only trust a Colin Powell, a Barack Obama, a Kamala Harris or a Brandon Scott because their brown skin is backed up by the capitalist, imperialist, ecocidal politics of primarily white organizations?

Is our awareness of radical black politics so lacking and caricatured that we assume that a black-led party is just a bunch of “hoteps” who want revenge against white people?

From where does our endless confidence in the Democratic Party come – despite its persistent racism, over-policing, war and general shortcomings? And when will we start to keep that tireless energy for our own ideas and institutions?

I think that the answers to such questions are first answered on an individual basis. If, as individuals, we are going to wait until independent, black politics are embraced by the New York Times, CNN, Bernie Sanders, the NAACP, by mainstream America or by wealthier black people, then no, this initiative is going nowhere. But the reason why our organization even exists and why independent black power is even a possibility is because here in Maryland and around the world there have always been (and always will be) individuals who look to ourselves to affirm our own humanity and worth in spite of the violent exploitation that dominates the world. Many of those individuals got organized behind revolutionary ideas, despite the odds, which is what is happening right now in Maryland. If you’re one of those individuals, please make a contribution and let’s get organized!

Asante,

Thinq Tanq