Friday, June 18, 2010
Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez and Yoself!
Friday, June 18, 2010
PULL YO PANTS UP
FADA BLACK PREZ
AND YOSELF!
ESSAYS ON OBAMA DRAMA
MARVIN X
Black Bird Press, Berkeley
August 2010
50 pages
$14.95.
Contents
Introduction
Excuse Me, Mr. President
Obama, A One Act Play
Jobs for Terrorists Abroad, None for the Hood
Response to State of
The Primary
Hillery and Obama, Neck to Neck
Obama's Last Ghost
Transformational or Transactional?
Wins Nomination
Sermon on the
As Predicted
As-Salaam-Afakkum
Weary of Intellectualism
Obama As Joseph
The War that ain’t War
Parable of Oil and White Supremacy
Pull Yo Pants Up fa da Black Prez
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Comments on Take this Hammer
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Straight Outta Hunters Point
Comments on Take This Hammer
Comment on film
During the time of the film, 1963, I was a youth worker in Hunters Point, the hilly neighborhood visited in the film. This area of San Francisco has been long coveted by the whites who have finally managed to occupy the area that has the best view and weather in San Francisco. Through gentrification that began around the time of the film,( the term Negro removal was used in those days), whites have finally begun to occupy the community that is extremely zhenophobic, i.e., if you ain't from here, don't come here.
But Hunters Point is a valiant community with the highest rate of black property ownership in the city. Of course all the problems still exist, if not more, drugs, gangs and homicide are epidemic. But it is a militant community. The only rebellion in SF during the 60s happened in Hunters Point.
Many of those housing projects have been and are being torn down and replaced with market rate housing, a few reserved for low income residents. For sure, at the time of Baldwin's visit, there were very few, if any, whites in the area.
The current crisis in the neighborhood is with the old Naval shipyard land that is toxic but in the process of being developed. Radiation dust is periodically blown up into the hilly area by the winds. The area is a cancer cluster with high rates of asthma. There have been community protests for years, recently the Nation of Islam minister addressed the SF Board of Supervisors and called them whores for, yes, putting profits above the health of the people. They are determined to begin developing the land without a thorough clean up of toxic waste. The politicians have flip/floped between support of the community and support of developers.
As per redevelopment in San Francisco, former Mayor Alioto apologized to the North American African community for destroying its economic and cultural life, especially the Fillmore area. Of course there were blacks who collaborated with the destruction.
For an updated film on Hunters Point, see Straight Outta Hunters Point by Kevin Epps.
--Marvin X
www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com
----- Original Message ----
From: Abdul Alkalimat
To: H-AFRO-AM@H-NET.MSU.EDU
Sent: Wed, June 16, 2010 4:44:53 AM
Subject: Re: Take this Hammer - a James Baldwin documentary
From: Rhone Fraser
I saw this film, thank Earl for sending it, and Alex for making it
possible. I was struck by so many truths Baldwin stated in this film, some of which are in notes on the film I took here, which I would love to discuss on H-Net:
One of the young people interviewed said the only jobs available were those that help you tear down your own home. This speaks to the kind of economy in urban areas that cater to only the economic interests wealthy
philanthropists instead of community centers or schools.
Baldwin said you can't do anything about the moral and psychological effects of living in the ghetto. This reminds me of St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton's observation in *Black Metropolis* of Richard Wright's similar critique of Bronzeville in Chicago:"For him [Wright], all of the segregated Negro communities were intellectually sterile ghettos into which Negroes had been driven by social forces beyond their control, and which incorporated, in exaggerated form, what Wright considered some of the worst facets of American life: conspicuous consumption, pursuit of the products of a mass culture, devotion to frivolous trivialities, and a plethora of escapist religion. Richard Wright made no pretense of being detached or even tolerant about the way of life in Bronzeville" (x, Black Metropolis) Both Wright and Baldwin see that ghetto as institution that is meant to demoralize Blacks in the service of white supremacy; and both became expatriates as some
time in their lives to protest such an institution. James Baldwin expressed his critique of the ghetto in which he grew up in film, three years after Richard Wright's exiled death. Their critiques of the ghetto and gentrification are still so relevant today.
Baldwin also said 'The society makes the assumption that it is more
important to make profit than it is to make citizens...Children learn it is more important to make profit than it is to be aman. And that's the way society really operates." This is true of every new hi-rise that goes up; a high rise put up by people interested in making money, instead of lobbying to divert more funding FROM military occupations to public schools and arts programs.
When he and his host (I wish we knew his name) looked at the gutted Catholic church in downtown San Francisco, I appreciated Baldwin's calling that gutted church a metaphor for the utility of the Catholic church in the lives of black youth in that time and place. It is still an apt metaphor today, along with his critiques of gentrification when noticing the Catholic church's tacit approval of U.S. military occupation and arms exports across the world.
This was an enlightening video; I had so much more to share about this, but these were most pressing comments I had; thank you for sharing. -RF.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
James Baldwin in San Francisco-[-Take This Hammer
At the end of April last year, SF State posted James Baldwin's Take
This Hammer online ( https://diva.sfsu.edu/bundles/187041 ).
> KQED's film unit follows poet and activist James Baldwin in the spring of 1963, as he's driven around San Francisco to meet with members of the local African-American community. He is escorted by Youth For Service's Executive Director Orville Luster and intent on discovering: "The real situation of negroes in the city, as opposed to the image San Francisco would like to present." He declares: "There is no moral distance ... between the facts of life in San Francisco and the facts of life in Birmingham. Someone's got to tell it like it is. And that's where it's at." Includes frank exchanges with local people on the street, meetings with community leaders and extended point-of-view sequences shot from a moving vehicle, featuring the Bayview and Western Addition neighborhoods. Baldwin reflects on the racial inequality that African-Americans are forced to confront and at one point tries to lift the morale of a young man by expressing his conviction that: "There will be a negro president of this country but it will not be the country that we are sitting in now." The TV Archive would like to thank Darryl Cox for championing the merits of this film and for his determination that it be preserved and remastered for posterity.
A number of people immediately asked for a copy, but there were
copyright issues so downloads were not allowed.
Two weeks ago Alex Cherian, the film archivist, posted the following
note on the page:
"Please contact me directly with requests to access 'Take This Hammer'
on DVD, at acherian@sfsu.edu"
Friday, June 11, 2010
The CIA and Christopher "Dudus" Coke
By Casey Gane-McCalla June 3, 2010 2:06 pm
With the recent violence in Jamaica and the controversy over alleged drug lord, Christopher “Dudus” Coke, many people are talking about the infamous Jamaican Shower Posse and the neighborhood of Tivoli Gardens, where they have their base. What is being is being ignored largely by the media, is the role that the American government and the CIA had in training, arming and giving power to the Shower Posse.
It is interesting that the USA is indicting Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the current leader of the Shower Posse for drug and gun trafficking, given that the CIA was accused of smuggling guns into Jamaica and facilitating the cocaine trade from Jamaica to America in the 70s and 80s. In many ways Dudus was only carrying on a tradition of political corruption, drug running, guns and violence that was started with the help of the CIA.
Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father was was Lester Coke, also known as Jim Brown, one of the founders of the Shower Posse and a fellow champion and protector of the impoverished Tivoli Gardens neighborhood in Kingston. Coke was a political enforcer and bodyguard to Edward Seaga, the leader of the Jamaican Labour Party.
Seaga’s opponent Michael Manley had begun to adopt “socialist” stances and began openly criticizing American foreign policies and meeting with U.S. enemy, Fidel Castro, in the 1970s. Given the cold war the US was having with Russia, the CIA did not want Jamaica to be friendly with communists.
According to Gary Webb’s book,”The Dark Alliance,” Norman Descoteaux, the CIA station chief in Jamaica began a destabilization program of the Manley government in late 70s. Part of that plan was assassinations, money for the Jamaican Labour Party, labor unrest, bribery and shipping weapons to Manley’s opponents, like Lester “Jim Brown” Coke.
Author, Daurius Figueira writes in his book, “Cocaine And Heroin Trafficking In The Caribbean,” “In fact, it meant that illicit drug runners linked to the JLP were integrated into a CIA linked illicit drugs guns and criminal trafficking pipeline.”
Former CIA agent, Philip Agee, said “the CIA was using the JLP as its instrument in the campaign against the Michael Manley government, I’d say most of the violence was coming from the JLP, and behind them was the CIA in terms of getting weapons in and getting money in.”
One of Lester Coke’s associates, Cecil Connor, would claim that he was trained by the CIA to fight political wars for the JLP through killing and spying. Connor would stuff ballot boxes and intimidate voters to help the JLP win elections. Connor would go on from being a political thug to being part of the international Jamaican based cocaine ring known as the Shower Posse. He wound up testifying against Lester Coke and his cohort Vivian Blake, only to return to his native St. Kitts to become a drug kingpin who almost held the country hostage.
Christopher “Dudus” Coke’s father, Lester Coke has also been accused of working with the CIA. Timothy White speculates, in his biography of Bob Marley, “Catch A Fire,” that Jim Brown was part of a team of armed gunman that attempted to assassinate Bob Marley led by JLP enforcer Carl “Byah” Mitchell. Authors Laurie Gunst and Vivien Goldman also make the same assertions in their books, “Born Fi Dead” and “The Book Of Exodus.” Marley’s manager Don Taylor claims that one of Marley’s attackers was captured and admitted that the CIA had agreed to pay him in cocaine and guns to kill Marley.
Lester Coke would later be burned to death in a Jamaican jail cell, while awaiting extradition the the United States. Many people have claimed that he was killed so he wouldn’t reveal his secrets dealing with the CIA, JLP and criminal activity.
In its efforts to destabilize the Jamaican government in the 1970s, the CIA created a group of drug dealing, gun running, political criminals. Through the cocaine trade, these criminals would eventually become more powerful than the politicians they were connected to. The CIA destabilization program did not only destabilize Jamaica in the 70s, but it destabilized Jamaica for the next 40 years.
Given the secrecy of both CIA and Jamaican society, it is unclear exactly what was the CIA’s role in creating the Shower Posse. Did they give them guns? Were they given cocaine? Were they trained how to smuggle drugs? Did the CIA use the Shower Posse to try and kill Bob Marley? These are all questions that the CIA should answer.
If what is alleged about the CIA is true, then they are partially responsible for the cycle of gun trafficking, gun smuggling and violence that plagues Jamaica today. If the US can extradite the son of one of the CIA’s political enforcers for trafficking guns and cocaine, shouldn’t the CIA be investigated for training Jamaicans on how to conduct political warfare, arming them, giving them cocaine and helping them traffic it? Given the revelation that the CIA allowed Nicaraguan drug dealers to sell cocaine in the US to fund their revolution against their communist government, it is not that far fetched to believe that they would arm Jamaicans to with guns and give them cocaine to fight communists in Jamaica.
A Poem for Dessie Woods/Rashidah Muhammad
A Poem for Dessie X. Woods/Rashidah Muhammad
The following poem by Kalamu ya Salaam honors Dessie X. Woods/Rashidah Muhammad (RIP), a warrior queen who killed her rapist in Georgia before moving to Oakland where she worked with the Uhuru Movement, Marvin X, and became a midwife and community organizer in West Oakland before making her transition due to cancer at 61.
There is a street named Rashidah Muhammad Way, downtown Oakland, but we doubt those who named the street in her honor were aware of her valiant past in Georgia as told in the story following Kalamu's poem.
--Marvin X
HIWAY BLUES (for Dessie Woods)
photo by Alex Jones
HIWAY BLUES (for Dessie Woods)
Ain't it enough
he think he own
these hot blacktop hiways,
them east eighty acres,
that red Chevy pick up
with the dumb bumper stickers
and big wide heavy rubber tires,
two sho nuff ugly brown bloodhounds
and a big tan&white german shepherd
who evil and got yellow teeth?
Ain't it enough
he got a couple a kids to beat on,
a wife who was a high school cheerleader,
a brother who's a doctor,
a cousin with a hardware store,
a divorced sister with dyed hair,
a collection of Hustler magazines
dating back to the beginning,
partial sight in his left eye,
gray hairs growing out his ear,
a sun scorched leathery neck that's cracking,
a rolling limp in his bow legged walk,
and a couple of cases of beer in the closet?
Ain't it enough
he got all that
without having to mess
with me?
Yeah, I shot the
motherfucker!
—kalamu ya salaam
______________________
Africa loses a courageous warrior!
The APSP built the National Committee to Free Dessie Woods and fought to free the courageous African woman who was an example of resistance to the African community On November 4, 2006 the Uhuru Movement and the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) lost a dear friend and a powerful fighter for the liberation of African people everywhere. Dessie Woods, also known as Rashida Mustafa, died of lung cancer in Oakland, California at the age of 61.
Dessie Woods’ name was known around the world after she was sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing a white man in Georgia with his own gun when he tried to rape her. The story of the resistance of Dessie Woods and of the powerful movement led by our Party that freed her is part of the legacy of the ongoing struggle of African people for independence and liberation.
The APSP joins the work to free Dessie Woods
In the early 1970s, the entire Black Liberation Movement was under heavy attack by the U.S. government’s COINTELPRO program, one of the counterinsurgency programs responsible for assassinating our leaders, destroying our revolutionary organizations and locking up African people who took a stand of resistance. During this time, the African People’s Socialist Party was a leading force in defending countless African people who found themselves in prison for fighting back against the conditions imposed on us.
Our Party freed Pitts and Lee, framed up and facing the death penalty in Florida, and Connie Tucker, a Party member who had been imprisoned for her stand. Because of the success of these campaigns the Party was asked to join the existing work to defend Dessie Woods.
The Party was asked to join this campaign by one of the two factions around which the work had developed. This factional struggle represented the ongoing contest between those struggling for African self-determination and the ideological imperialists posing as revolutionaries.
Joining the work to free Dessie Woods was a strategic decision made by our Party. In the Basic Party Line, Chairman Omali Yeshitela makes it clear that “All our work is guided by our understanding that our struggle for national liberation within U.S. borders is an integral part of the whole African Liberation Movement…”
When we joined the work, the existing committee to defend Dessie woods was disorganized and dominated by white left forces. The white women’s movement and their sympathizers who wanted to build a defense for Dessie Woods based on a struggle against rape and sexual abuse of all women. Our Party struggled that the attack on Dessie Woods was part of the colonial violence imposed on all African people for the past 500 years. The white left position was defeated.
The Party formed and led The National Committee to Free Dessie woods with the slogan, “Free Dessie Woods! Smash Colonial Violence!” This was a powerful statement that brought to center stage once again the liberation struggle of African workers inside the U.S.
1975: a defiant example
On June 17, 1975, Dessie Woods and her friend Cheryl Todd were hitch-hiking home to Atlanta, Georgia from an unsuccessful attempt to visit Todd’s brother in Georgia’s infamous Reidsville Prison. The two African women were picked up by an insurance salesman named Ronnie Horne.
As an ordinary southern white man, Horne understood his “right” to assault the two African women if he chose to do so, and he did. Horne began to intimidate the women and when they resisted he pretended to be a cop and threatened to arrest them.
After stopping in a deserted area, Cheryl Todd escaped from Horne’s car and ran. Horne drew his pistol in an attempt to stop her, but Dessie Woods who had been sitting in the back seat, grabbed the gun and struggled.
Dessie was successful in removing this colonial attacker from the land of the living and ensuring that he would never again attack another African woman. She then took Ronnie Horne’s money and made sure that she and Cheryl Todd got safe transportation home to Atlanta.
1976: the trial and demonstrations
For this courageous act of self-defense and African resistance, the women were jailed and convicted. Todd’s family was able to secure an attorney, but Dessie Woods had to rely on a public defender. The attorneys made some small trial victories and had the trial moved to Hawkinsville, Georgia. On January 19, 1976 a contentious trial began in this small plantation town of cotton and peanut farms and a population of 3,000. Woods, Todd and their militant supporters were seen as such a threat to the colonial relations, that scores of law enforcement officials descended on Hawkinsville — armed bailiffs, armed state troopers, sheriffs deputies and local cops.
Beginning with her successful confrontation of Ronnie Horne, Dessie Woods continued to act with calm resolve. Through her carriage during the trial, she personally smashed any preconceived notion of the passivity of African women and the general servility of African people.
Hers was a defiant example too dangerous to go unpunished. The State therefore chose her as their main target, allowing the liberal and white left supporters to separate Cheryl Todd’s case from Woods. Todd was given a light sentence, primarily probation.
The trial was understood to be a sham, and the mass support for Dessie Woods and for justice to African people continued to build. Because of this, the State was unable to convict her for murder, but on February 12, 1976, Dessie Woods was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and armed robbery. She was sentenced to 10 years and 12 years to be served concurrently.
The Party forms the African People’s Solidarity Committee
In September of 1976, the Party, guided by our strategy, convened the first meeting to organize the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC), laying out the theoretical framework for North American people to do anti-colonial organizing — such as the defense of Dessie Woods — under our leadership. A second meeting was held in December of 1976 and the practical work of organizing Dessie Woods Support Committees under the APSP-led National Committee to Defend Dessie Woods was laid out.
On November 1, 1976, the supreme court of Georgia denied Dessie Woods’ appeal and upheld her conviction regardless of the more than 20 errors committed by the trial court. The struggle to free Dessie became our primary mass work and we intensified this work throughout the United States and in Europe.
1977: the resistance intensifies
Despite the legal setbacks, the Party knew that the defense of Dessie Woods was the defense of all African people colonized in the U.S. and understood the strategic necessity to put her case within the context of the African Liberation Movement. This is illustrated in a quote from Ironiff Ifoma’s November 1978 Burning Spear article entitled– “Dessie Woods Is All Of Us” that reads, “rape attacks against black women by white men are not sexual acts but tactics of colonial terror to keep a whole people terrorized.”
The struggle continued to build, and on September 4, 1977 some 500 people from virtually all areas of the country came together in Atlanta, Georgia to militantly demand the freedom of Dessie Woods. The Atlanta rally of predominantly African forces rejuvenated the African Liberation Movement at that time and further consolidated the APSP’s leadership.
This action, along with a subsequent one on September 14 in the San Francisco, California bay area, also demonstrated the growing support for Dessie Woods.
On the inside, Dessie continued to be defiant and organize other prisoners. She paid a heavy price for this, being continually drugged, brutalized and put into solitary confinement.
APSP “on fire” in 1978 with non-stop mobilizing around the case of Dessie Woods
On July 4, 1978 the National Committee to Defend Dessie Woods led two national demonstrations. Collectively known as the July 4th Movement to Free Dessie Woods, the demonstrations held in San Francisco, California and Plains, Georgia raised the slogan “Free Dessie Woods! Smash Colonial Violence!”
These two mobilizations were extremely significant. They continued the momentum from the September 1977 demonstration in Atlanta and further consolidated the Party’s leadership of the pro-independence movement. This was made clear by targeting Plains, Georgia the hometown of peanut farmer turned president James Earl Carter.
As head of the U.S. Government, Carter represented the colonial relationship Africans had to the United States. The treatment of Dessie Woods and all Africans in the U.S. dispelled the myth that he and the Democratic Party were anything but anti-African white ruling class representatives.
“At that moment in 1975 when she took on Ronnie Horne to protect herself and Cheryl Todd, she also took on U.S. imperialism and defended us all.”
The struggle against opportunism and for real solidarity
The significance of the mobilization for July 4 in the San Francisco bay area is found in the profound ideological struggle made by our Party. We declared and determined that we would lead our own liberation struggle; that ours was a struggle against domestic colonialism; and that the white left’s act of “adopting” the cases of individual African women or prisoners was opportunism and unacceptable.
In 1978, San Francisco was a hotbed of so-called progressive causes, including the Women’s Movement, the Gay Movement, and the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC) — which was articulating clear support for the anti-colonial struggle of African People. There was a strong prisoner support movement with many individuals and organizations such as PFOC having significant relationships with prisoners, particularly African prisoners.
Remnants of the Black Panther Party still existed and memories of the Black Power Movement were strong in people’s minds. There was extensive solidarity work being done with the revolutionary movements in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Cuba.
In this atmosphere, the Chairman’s first large public speech was received enthusiastically and the turnout for the July 4th Movement to Free Dessie Woods was large, boisterous and fantastic. This would all change soon, and by 1979 the Party was publicly calling for the disbanding of PFOC as an organization and struggling with the opportunism of APSC and the North American “left”.
Our primary struggle was that we would lead our own liberation movement, and that the correct response from the North American community was to follow our leadership and provide our movement with political and material support. This put us at odds with PFOC and other ideological imperialists.
The Party struggled that the attempted rape of Dessie Woods was an act of colonial violence targeting all colonized African people, and that the prevention of such atrocities against African women in the future can only be found through the freedom of all African people. This put us at odds with the white women’s and gay movements.
Those ideological struggles made with the white left were earth shaking and ground breaking. The APSC of today is clear proof of our having needed to make the struggle at that time and further proves the correctness of our strategy.
We end 1978 challenging the legitimacy of the U.S. government
The November 1978 issue of the Burning Spear Newspaper has several articles describing our nonstop mobilizing. In early September, members of the National Committee to Free Dessie Woods held a demonstration in Midgeville, Georgia, home of Hardwick Prison, and then went out to the prison itself demanding to see Dessie Woods.
An APSP-led demonstration to free Dessie Woods The demonstrators were bold, refusing to be intimidated by the guards and prison officials. While they were not able to see Dessie, they did set a militant example for all the visitors and challenged the authority of the State.
In the Point of the Spear of the same issue, the Chairman summed up the situation:
“Months of hard work by the African People’s Socialist Party bore fruit on the night of Friday, October 6 [1978] in San Francisco. It was on this night that the California Dessie Woods Support Coalition (DWSC) sponsored a historic political program entitled, ‘Night of Solidarity With African National Freedom Fighters.’
“This program saw almost 100, mostly North Americans, turn out for a program organized by the mostly North American Dessie Woods Support Coalition to express militant solidarity with African national freedom fighters — freedom fighters whose collective existence up to this period has not been acknowledged by the North American Left movement.
“This was an important program for our Party, for it was the concretization of our strategy for winning support from the progressive sector of the North American people for our struggle for political independence through self-liberation.”
At the end of a dynamic 1978, on October 18, the Dessie Woods Support Coalition sponsored a picket and rally in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco. Fifty people, mostly North Americans, militantly marched chanting “Free Dessie Woods, Put the State On Trial!”
1979: Not One More Year!
The March 1979 issue of the Burning Spear was a special edition with the headline reading “Black Women in the Fight for Freedom.” The Spear issue told of a demonstration held on February 17, 1979, when the Dessie Woods Support Coalition marched across the Golden Gate Bridge, a historic San Francisco landmark, thirty strong demanding “Not One More Year — Dessie Must Be Free!” With voices and signs they demanded loudly and publicly that the U.S. State release Dessie Woods from its death grip in 1979 and end the colonial violence against black people in the U.S.
As this activity was occurring on the outside, Dessie Woods maintained her resistance on the inside of Hardwick Prison. She began her fourth year of incarceration challenging the otherwise routine conditions inside this highly controlled southern concentration camp.
Her militancy and pride in her Africanness quickly began to influence other prisoners who sought out her help. In retaliation, the prison authorities made numerous attempts on her life and continued to drug her.
International solidarity with Dessie Woods
Throughout this period of protracted struggle, our Party was guided by a strategy for liberation of all African people. An important component of that strategy, international recognition and support, had the Party touring Europe in 1979 successfully stopping in Copenhagen, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris and culminating with a demonstration at the U.S. Embassy in London on September 26. The Party established fraternal relations with several organized African forces in Paris and London and also received a solidarity statement from the Vietnamese government at their London embassy.
This is further illustrated in the article “Dessie Woods Must Be Free This Year” from the November 1979 issue of the Burning Spear:
“On December 8, hundreds of people in over 12 cities in Europe and the U.S. will be in the streets demanding the immediate release of Dessie Woods and an end to colonial violence against African people. In Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Paris, London, New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Eugene, San Francisco and elsewhere, [U.S. president James Earl] Carter will be confronted with the massive denial of human rights of Dessie Woods and all African people colonized in the U.S. The internationally supported actions led by the APSP will be demanding African independence and the destruction of U.S. colonialism.”
On November 1 in Eugene, Oregon, an enthusiastic crowd of over 200 people enjoyed a variety of culture by African artists and the North American “Amazon Kung-Fu School.” It was a successful fundraiser for the Dessie Woods support work, but still at the end of 1980 after more than four years in prison, Dessie was “in the hole” and brutally beaten. Her parole had been denied and our work to free her continued on the outside.
1981-2006: Dessie Woods is free from prison
In 1981, after serving five years of the original 12, Dessie was released from Hardwick Prison in Georgia, and she relocated to Oakland, California.
In subsequent years, Dessie Woods, known to us as Sister Rashida, was not always active in the Uhuru Movement, but she was a tireless community activist defending her neighborhood and the human rights of Oakland’s African community. She regularly attended events at the Uhuru House in Oakland, California. Her photo as part of a panel on Building the African People’s Childcare Collective was featured on the cover of the October 1983 issue of the Burning Spear Newspaper.
The headline for the article describing the panel’s work was “The Struggle of Black Women is the Struggle of Us All.” This sums up the contribution that Dessie Woods, Sister Rashida, made to Africa and African people. At that moment in 1975 when she took on Ronnie Horne to protect herself and Cheryl Todd, she also took on U.S. imperialism and defended us all.
>via: http://uhurunews.com/story?resource_name=dessie-woods-death
