One of the ways to investigate the Black Liberation Movement is to focus
on a key individual. A key person can connect us to organizations,
campaigns, class struggles and ideological development. Basically it is
a way to read our history, always keeping in mind that this would be
merely one of our many, and would need to be repeated over and over
again across genders, generations, geography and groups.
Today we are launching a new website in our series on Black Liberation
and Social Revolution featuring the experience of Saladin Muhammad.
http://theblm.net/saladin/
We began this journey with our page on Malcolm X. We last created an
extensive directory of several hundred Black Liberation Theoreticians.
We place special emphasis on the fact that this directory has a 50-50
gender split, and spans the generations, geography, and groups.
http://www.brothermalcolm.net/.
Mao wrote important words that speak to the heart of this new project:
"The struggle of the Black people in the United States is bound to merge
with the American workers movement, and this will eventually end the
criminal rule of the US monopoly capitalist class." (1968)
Now we have a new project being launched today that helps us understand
how this is happening. It is built around an autobiographical video
interview of Saladin Muhammad (b. Philip White) but also contains the
following pages of information:
Introduction
Autobiographical Video
Writings
Video speeches and interviews
Photos
Organizational links
Background
General link
eBlack Studies
Join us in this project - check our work and hit back with comments. We
need your criticism to improve our work. We need your applause to know
you love us.
We encourage you to share this with all your contacts.
abdul alkalimat
This website is built around a video autobiography of Saladin
Muhammad. Saladin is a veteran revolutionary militant in the Black
Liberation Movement and the workers movement. In eight videos he tells
his life story; in ten more he explains his life outlook. You can also
find here documents from organizations he has helped lead, more of
Saladin’s writings, videos of him speaking in different contexts, and
other informative links. It can be read on multiple levels:
- About an individual: Saladin Muhammad (born Philip White)
- About a generation: the 1960’s awakening
- About movement: trade unions and the workers movement
- About movement: Black liberation movement
- About revolution: revolutionary theory and cadre development
Our movements for social transformation have often fallen victim to
the tendency to over simplify the struggle. Moreover there is far too
little self-criticism to learn from our “right” and “left” errors. This
is particularly dangerous as we are at the beginning of a new
generational awakening. We need to think about the past few decades of
struggle by listening to those who have marched on and maintained a
revolutionary perspective. We have a long history of struggle and we
submit this website as a door way into the development of a
revolutionary perspective from a path out of the Black community into
the Black workers struggle in the Black belt south.
We hope this can be a model for many more projects to dig deep into
the lives of veteran movement activists so that future generations can
see them, hear their voices, and learn from their victories and
defeats. We produced a survey to begin this process: Theoreticians of
the Black Liberation Movement (
http://brothermalcolm.net/SOLDIERS/). This website digs deep on one individual. Our previous work has been on Harold Washington (
http://eblackchicago.org/) , St. Claire Drake (
http://www.stclairdrake.net/) , and of course Malcolm X (
http://www.brothermalcolm.net/) . There is much more work to be done.
There are many theoretical and practical issues involved in the
experiences covered by the life of Saladin Muhammad and his experiences
in struggle. Saladin is a proletarian cadre of the revolutionary
movement. He did not graduate from high school, but got his education
in the movement. He considers himself a communist of the African
American nation fighting to end capitalist rule in the US. He thinks
global and fights local. He served as chairperson of the Black Workers
for Justice for over 20 years. While being retired from full time union
organizing he remains active on many battle fronts including the
Southern Workers Assembly.
We are not presenting this website as the revealed truth to be
followed in a dogmatic fashion as Saladin has often stated about his
life. We are hoping that people learn from this because it represents
actual important experience from a particular point of view. We invite
people who shared these experiences to contribute their point of view,
and on a more general level we invite people to discuss these issues
from other theoretical points of view. We oppose dogmatism as if there
is a pure truth to be believed, but we welcome struggle to clarify and
learn from summing up the diverse and vast experiences of our many
movements.
Here are some of the outstanding issues to be studied in this website:
- What are the paths out of the working class into revolutionary
movements for social transformation? What is the role of family,
childhood friends, cultural practices, and neighborhood political
culture?
-
- How does Black resistance become a conscious part of the Black
liberation movement? What is the role of a progressive Black
nationalism, and how can it link to working class issues?
- How has the struggle in the African Diaspora for national liberation
from colonialism and imperialism impacted the Black liberation movement
in the US? After post-independence reversal into neo-colonialism,
especially in South Africa, what can be the relationship between the
Black Liberation movement in the US and the fight for social
transformation and social justice in Africa?
-
- What are the prospects for the fight of Black workers? What is the
role of the Black workers struggle within the general workers movement?
-
- What is the necessary connection between the fight for Black liberation and the fight for socialism?
written by Abdul Alkalimat
Photos from the autobiographical
interview recorded in Urbana, Illinois at the home of Abdul Alkalimat.
The video and the website has been developed by Chrisp Media, LLC.
We welcome your comments to any and all of the material presented on this website.
Please contact us.
Emory Douglas (born May 24, 1943) worked as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 until the Party disbanded in the 1980s. His graphic art was featured in most issues of the newspaper The Black Panther (which had a peak circulation of 139,000 per week in 1970).[1] As the art director, designer, and main illustrator for The Black Panther newspaper, Douglas created images that became icons, representing Black American struggles during the 1960s and 1970s.
Richard Bell (born 1953 in Charleville, Queensland into the Kamilaroi tribe) is an Australian artist and political activist. He is one of the founders of proppaNOW, a Brisbane-based aboriginal art collective.[1] He lives in Brisbane, Queensland-Australia 
