Sekou Osei on the beating of Elder BPP Warrior Dhoruba Bin Wahad

"As Ancestor Amiri Baraka would say, 'The only reason is no reason'."--Marvin X

 Dhoruba Bin Wahad, New York Black Panther Party member, spent 19 years as a political prisoner.

From: Sekou Osei

To: Marvin X

 

I understand the tactical errors on the part of Dhoruba, but one of the contradictions of Brother Dhoruba is his intellectual and physical fearlessness to confront. As you know I've had heard about this incident, if you could you please give me the NBPP reasons for a 30 people attack against 6 people?           

While I never took the NBPP seriously beyond militant "protest theater" of angry symbolism and with "no program." But this leads to some very profane conclusions of "counter-revolution." I gather that Dhoruba wanted to confront the use of the "name" that has nothing in common with the original Black Panther Party, while the New Black Panther Party came out of masonic leadership under the leadership of Khalid Muhammad.

However, what I understood in my E-mal in June and July that the NBPP was having an  open round table discussion and Dhoruba felt that what was needed was a full public disclosures of the origins of the NBPP and its false actions of a radical tradition and as a revisionism of the actual radical tradition.

What has to be noted, I guess Dhoruba felt he had to confront these theater imposter himself, because there is no Black radical left to take that on. The best that this so-called left does is call militant protests as base building and relies on spontaneity that never comes. They don't have the ability to analyze or critique and the  best that they  do is create list of so-called Black radical theorist whose only character is loquacious intellectual narcissism that provide no clarity of anything and only provide academic feel-good speculation.

Perhaps from this, this was the background that Dhoruba felt he had to take action to confront this stench of toads. While, Dhoruba may not of  had a full organization to carry out this ideological confrontation, it would be a mistake to belittle Dhoruba confrontation as a silly escapade of an  old man and not see the counter-revolutionary character and actions of the NBPP to attack a former political prisoner and never lift a pinky to the agents and extra legal agents of the state that murder Black people without consequence. And has taken this public posture for the last 20 years...  

Sekou

Black Bird Press News & Review: Male Rape in the Hood

Black Bird Press News & Review: Male Rape in the Hood

Two poems by Julian Bond (RIP)

 

Post Publisher Paul Cobb and his longtime friend and comrade in the Civil Rights Movement, Julian Bond (RIP)

Poems by Julian Bond

Look At That Girl
I Too, Hear America Singing

LOOK AT THAT GIRL

Look at that girl shake that thing,
We can't all be Martin Luther King.

Copyright © Julian Bond, 1960, all rights reserved.
[This was written sometime in the very early '60s — or perhaps even '58 or '59, — when I was a Morehouse College student. From time to time, usually through the auspices of some religiously oriented campus group, we'd be invited to meet with our white counterparts at Emory or Agnes Scott. We'd wear our Sunday best and sip tea and eat cookies. Typically a well-meaning white student would say as we were parting — 'If only they were all like you.' That prompted the poem." — JBond.]
 
I TOO, HEAR AMERICA SINGING
[As published in the first issue of The Student Voice — SNCC's newsletter, summer, 1960.]

I too, hear America singing
     But from where I stand
I can only hear Little Richard
     And Fats Domino.
But sometimes
I hear Ray Charles
     Drowning in his own tears
     or Bird
Relaxing at Camarillo
     Or Horace Silver doodling,
Then I don't mind standing
     a little longer.

Copyright © Julian Bond, 1960, all rights reserved.

I just saw Straight Outta Compton, here's what I thought

Prez candidate Dr. Ben Carson says Planned Parenthood is for Black Population Control

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks at the National Sheriffs’ Association presidential forum, Tuesday, June 30, 2015, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Planned Parenthood Clinics Are Set Up To Control The Black Population Says Dr. Ben Carson

By Nigel Boys
In an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto,” 63-year-old retired neurosurgeon and GOP presidential candidate, Ben Carson, said that Planned Parenthood sets up abortions clinics in black neighborhoods to “control that population.”

Tying the nation’s leading provider of abortions to eugenics, then eugenics to Hillary Clinton, the author and political pundit who retired from Johns Hopkins hospital told Cavuto, “Well, maybe I’m not objective when it comes to Planned Parenthood.”

The founder of Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger, had a history of eugenics and racist policies and he knew all about her deliberate attempts to curb the black population, said Carson. “And one of the reasons you find most of their clinics in black neighborhoods is so that you can find ways to control that population,” he added.

The Hill reports that the Detroit, Michigan native also disputed claims that de-funding Planned Parenthood would harm women’s healthcare.

“Well, certainly women’s health is an important issue,” the White House hopeful in the upcoming 2016 election said. “There are a lot of women’s health organizations that don’t engage in abortion, by the way, so by no means is it a do-or-die situation.”

“I believe that abortion and paying for abortion with federal funding when so many people are against it is just not the right thing to do,” Carson said. Pointing out that Clinton says she admires Sanger, he added people should read about Sanger’s history. “Look up and see what many people in Nazi Germany thought about her, a great person.”

In an appearance on “The O’Reilly Factor,” Carson confirmed that he believes Planned Parenthood concentrates its clinics in black neighborhoods. The number one cause of death for black people is abortion, he told guest host Eric Bolling, according to Fox News.

After the release of a series of undercover videos, allegedly demonstrating how Planned Parenthood is in the business of selling fetal body parts, the organization has come under fierce scrutiny and demands to cease its federal funding. Carson believes that the important questions to be asked should be: “Why is that happening?” and “What can be done to alleviate the situation?”

“One of the ways they’re able to perpetrate the deceit is because people are not informed,” Carson said on the show. “The more people are informed, the less likely these kinds of things [are].”
Carson also told Cavuto that he was willing to have a discussion about when life begins, when he was asked about his views on de-funding Planned Parenthood in the light of the undercover videos.
“Certainly once the heart starts beating. Certainly at that point,” Carson said. “If we are willing to open up the discussion, both sides, I think we can come to accommodation.”

According to the National Review, in her 1922 book “The Pilot of Civilization,” Sanger wrote: “The lack of balance between the birth-rate of the “unfit” and the “fit” [is] admittedly the greatest present menace to the civilization…”

“The example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken, should not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit, and therefore less fertile, parents of the educated and well-to-do classes,” Sanger continued. “On the contrary, the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”

Life Dynamics found in a 2011 study of the zip codes of every abortion or abortion-referral facility in the U.S., that the majority of these facilities were overwhelmingly located in zip codes with minority populations well above the state average. The pro-life organization reported that out of 94 facilities in Texas, 72 of those were located in zip codes with disproportionate black and/or Hispanic populations.
The study’s author noted, “There is not one state in the union without population control centers located in ZIP codes with higher percentages of blacks and/or Hispanics than the state’s overall percentage,” according to the National Review.

Fetus by Marvin X

Mama, please don't kill me
don't you see
I got your eyes
Mama, please don't kill me
don't you see
I got my daddy's hands, head feet
Mama, please don't flush me down the toilet
I might be a prophet
come to save the world
Mama, please
don't kill me.
--Marvin X

from Liberation Poems for North American Africans, Marvin X, Al Kitab Sudan Press (Black Bird Press), 1983.


The Truth About MARGARET SANGER
(This article first appeared in the January 20, 1992 edition of Citizen magazine)
How Planned Parenthood Duped America

At a March 1925 international birth control gathering in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the "black" and "yellow" peril. The man was not a Nazi or Klansman; he was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger's American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood.

 
Sanger's other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against 
White Supremacy.  
Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as "scientific" and "humanitarian." And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member for her group, spoke of purifying America's human "breeding stock" and purging America's "bad strains." These "strains" included the "shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South."

Not to be outdone by her followers, Margaret Sanger spoke of sterilizing those she designated as "unfit," a plan she said would be the "salvation of American civilization.: And she also spoke of those who were "irresponsible and reckless," among whom she included those " whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers." She further contended that "there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped." That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment of Sanger considered "unfit" cannot be easily refuted.

While Planned Parenthood's current apologists try to place some distance between the eugenics and birth control movements, history definitively says otherwise. The eugenic theme figured prominently in the Birth Control Review, which Sanger founded in 1917. She published such articles as "Some Moral Aspects of Eugenics" (June 1920), "The Eugenic Conscience" (February 1921), "The purpose of Eugenics" (December 1924), "Birth Control and Positive Eugenics" (July 1925), "Birth Control: The True Eugenics" (August 1928), and many others.

These eugenic and racial origins are hardly what most people associate with the modern Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), which gave its Margaret Sanger award to the late Dr. Martin Luther King in 1966, and whose current president, Faye Wattleton, is black, a former nurse, and attractive.

Though once a social pariah group, routinely castigated by religious and government leaders, the PPFA is now an established, high-profile, well-funded organization with ample organizational and ideological support in high places of American society and government. Its statistics are accepted by major media and public health officials as "gospel"; its full-page ads appear in major newspapers; its spokespeople are called upon to give authoritative analyses of what America's family policies should be and to prescribe official answers that congressmen, state legislator and Supreme Court justiices all accept as "social orthodoxy."

Blaming Families

Sanger's obsession with eugenics can be traced back to her own family. One of 11 children, she wrote in the autobiographical book, My Fight for Birth Control, that "I associated poverty, toil, unemployment, drunkenness, cruelty, quarreling, fighting, debts, jails with large families." Just as important was the impression in her childhood of an inferior family status, exacerbated by the iconoclastic, "free-thinking" views of her father, whose "anti-Catholic attitudes did not make for his popularity" in a predominantly Irish community.

The fact that the wealthy families in her hometown of Corning, N.Y., had relatively few children, Sanger took as prima facie evidence of the impoverishing effect of larger families. The personal impact of this belief was heightened 1899, at the age of 48. Sanger was convinced that the "ordeals of motherhood" had caused the death of her mother. The lingering consumption (tuberculosis) that took her mother's life visited Sanger at the birth of her own first child on Nov. 18, 1905. The diagnosis forced her to seek refuge in the Adirondacks to strengthen her for the impending birth. Despite the precautions, the birth of baby Grant was "agonizing," the mere memory of which Sanger described as "mental torture" more than 25 years later. She once described the experience as a factor "to be reckoned with" in her zealous campaign for birth control.

From the beginning, Sanger advocacy of sex education reflected her interest in population control and birth prevention among the "unfit." Her first handbook, published for adolescents in 1915 and entitled, What Every Boy and Girl Should Know, featured a jarring afterword:

It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stoop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them.

To Sanger, the ebbing away of moral and religious codes over sexual conduct was a natural consequence of the worthlessness of such codes in the individual's search for self-fulfillment. "Instead of laying down hard and fast rules of sexual conduct," Sanger wrote in her 1922 book Pivot of Civilization, "sex can be rendered effective and valuable only as it meets and satisfies the interests and demands of the pupil himself." Her attitude is appropriately described as libertarianism, but sex knowledge was not the same as individual liberty, as her writings on procreation emphasized.

The second edition of Sanger's life story, An Autobiography, appeared in 1938. There Sanger described her first cross-country lecture tour in 1916. Her standard speech asserted seven conditions of life that "mandated" the use of birth control: the third was "when parents, though normal, had subnormal children"; the fourth, "when husband and wife were adolescent"; the fifth, "when the earning capacity of the father was inadequate." No right existed to exercise sex knowledge to advance procreation. Sanger described the fact that "anyone, no matter how ignorant, how diseased mentally or physically, how lacking in all knowledge of children, seemed to consider he or she had the right to become a parent."

Religious Bigotry

In the 1910's and 1920's, the entire social order–religion, law, politics, medicine, and the media–was arrayed against the idea and practice of birth control. This opposition began in 1873 when an overwhelmingly Protestant Congress passed, and a Protestant president signed into law, a bill that became known as the Comstock Law, named after its main proponent, Anthony Comstock. The U.S. Congress classified obscene writing, along with drugs, and devices and articles that prevented conception or caused abortion, under the same net of criminality and forbade their importation or mailing.

Sanger set out to have such legislation abolished or amended. Her initial efforts were directed at the Congress with the opening of a Washington, D.C., office of her American Birth Control League in 1926. Sanger wanted to amend section 211 of the U.S. criminal code to allow the interstate shipment and mailing of contraceptives among physicians, druggists and drug manufacturers.

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Oba of Yoruba African Village, Sheldon, South Carolina, requests your presence

Black Lives Matter and Political Correctness in Seattle WA

Black lives trump “politeness”: The disruption of a Bernie Sanders speech in Seattle There has been a great deal of heated debate on social media and elsewhere about Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists shutting down a Bernie Sanders speech in Seattle on August 8. As attendees at this rally celebrating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, we admire the courage of the two young Black women who took over the stage to demand that Sanders, and other candidates for U.S. president, address the epidemic of violence and oppression faced by black communities across the nation. The real question is why Bernie Sanders did not try to engage with them. Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford boldly grabbed the microphone to point out that “progressive Seattle” is riddled with problems of police abuse, incarceration of youth of color, gentrification, disproportionate suspension of Black schoolchildren, and other racial justice issues. And they demanded Sanders address racism. This is not the first time these issues have been raised to Sanders. At a Netroots Nation conference in July, Black women called on him to put forward a racial justice agenda to dismantle structural racism in the U.S. At the Seattle event Sanders made no attempt to speak with the BLM activists, have a dialogue, or address the crowd on this burning issue of our times. If he’d desired, surely one of the rally organizers could have walked a mic over to him. Instead, he stood aside and shook his head, and then walked off the stage without speaking. Sanders’ reputation as a progressive should in no way give him a pass on racial justice issues. He voted for Bill Clinton’s Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which props up the racist prison-industrial complex. He voted to extradite Assata Shakur, an African American freedom fighter who is living in exile in Cuba. And his refusal to denounce Israel’s war against Palestinians gives tacit consent to some of the most racist repression on the planet. (See the Freedom Socialist Party statement, distributed at the Sanders rally, that critiques his run to be Democratic presidential nominee: www.socialism.com.) Some say that the BLM protestors went too far by interrupting the event. That it was rude. But after hundreds of years of continuous racist violence in the “land of the free”, it is ridiculous to expect anti-racist protestors to follow all Seattle protocols on politeness. Especially when they see the violence only escalating. The murder of Black men continues unabated and, in July alone, five Black women died in police custody. Besides, politeness was in short supply when many in the largely white audience reacted to the BLM action with intense hostility. Some shouted racist and sexist invectives like “tase them,” “get these Black bitches off the stage,” and “call CPS” (Child Protective Services). It was chilling. Members and supporters of Radical Women and Freedom Socialist Party, and some others in the crowd, began loudly chanting to support the Black Lives Matter protesters. We debated those around us. When someone said they could not understand why the BLM activists were taking over, one of our contingent shot back, “Have you had a family member arrested or killed by the police?” The answer was no, and a discussion began on why the fight for racial equality can’t wait. We could feel the majority of the rally crowd grow tense when the BLM protestors leveled charges of white supremacist liberalism. We see a difference between liberals and those with an explicitly racist ideology. But racism is racism. At times some of the viciously hostile responses sounded like a KKK rally. That's not so surprising in a country built on the foundations of genocide and slavery, where racism, which is essential to keeping the profit system alive, permeates everyday life. But it was downright hypocritical at a social justice event. It is imperative that we tackle head-on the racism and sexism that reared its head in Seattle’s progressive movement. And that we focus on the critical issues the BLM activists raised and Sanders skirted. For inspiration, let us remember that the history of the civil rights movement includes courageous multi-racial organizers who were not polite. Folks of all colors risked their lives in the effort. We know that white folks committed to social change can channel their inner John Brown, a white man who collaborated with Harriet Tubman to free slaves and gave his life trying to spark an armed slave rebellion. The “ill-mannered” disruption of the rally sparked a new national discussion about racism. It’s time for everyone to link arms with the BLM movement in the fight for radical change now. Steve Hoffman, Seattle Freedom Socialist Party Anne Slater, Seattle Radical Women Radical Women RWSeattle@mindspring.com • 206-722-6057 www.RadicalWomen.org Freedom Socialist Party fspseattle@mindspring.com • 206-722-2453 www.socialism.com   Freedom Socialist Party statement Bernie Sanders’ Bid for President: What Would Eugene Debs Think? It’s clear why fed-up voters are attracted to Bernie Sanders. He rails against the billionaires and calls for a U.S. political revolution. Who doesn’t want to end the rule of banksters and CEOs? Who doesn’t want to stop the corporate harvesting of all things profitable at the expense of people and the planet? Who doesn’t want to hear the needs of working people promoted for a change? Sanders’ self-professed hero is U.S. revolutionary socialist Eugene V. Debs. As a Socialist Party candidate, Debs ran for president five times in the early 1900s, twice gaining over 900,000 votes. But Debs understood that workers and the poor need a party independent of the duopoly of power. In a 1904 speech, he said: The Republican and Democratic parties … are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principle. With either of these parties in power one thing is always certain and that is that the capitalist class is in the saddle and the working class under the saddle. … The ignorant workingman who supports either of these parties forges his own fetters and is the unconscious author of his own misery. In contrast, Sanders is running as a Democrat; he has chosen to hitch his wagon to the overlords in the saddle. He has promised to support whoever wins the Democratic primary. In Congress, he votes with the Democrats 98 percent of the time, and he consistently supports their presidential candidates. His function in this election is the same as left-identified Democratic presidential contenders like Jesse Jackson, Dennis Kucinich, and others before him. It is to bleed off protest against the two-party chokehold over U.S. politics and to make sure that unionists and progressives once again vote — against their own interests — for a Democrat acceptable to big business. And what about Sanders’ actual record? It’s seriously at odds with his image. Wall Street — Sanders promises to reform Wall Street. But this can’t be done through tweaks such as taxing certain financial transactions, as Sanders proposes. Given the devastating power they wield over people’s lives, the banks need to be nationalized under workers’ control! Also, Sanders aims his anti-corporate fury almost entirely against Republicans, while giving a pass to Democratic friends of finance capital. War — Sanders accepts the U.S. role as World Cop. In Congress, he has voted to fund nearly every imperialist military action by the U.S., from Iraq and Somalia to Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. He refuses to denounce Israel’s war on Palestinians, and endorsed the sanctions that killed over a million Iraqi civilians. Labor — Sanders’ version of defending U.S. workers is of the jingoistic, “America First” variety. He points to immigrants and foreign workers as the source of job loss, rather than the bosses’ policies of speedup, automation, and the global “race to the bottom.” But, internationally, an injury to one truly is an injury to all! Even when it comes to U.S. workers, Sanders hasn’t stepped up to the plate when it counts. Earlier this year, he didn’t resist when the Democratic governor of Vermont, his ally, pushed through a budget that meant cutting hundreds of union jobs. Civil rights — The Vermont senator has supported racist federal legislation, like Bill Clinton’s Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, which props up the prison-industrial complex. He has not championed the Black Lives Matter movement or other groups aimed at ending police murders and the criminalization of youth of color. In his campaign speeches, this supposed socialist generally has refused to pinpoint capitalism as the problem and socialism as the solution. While more and more voters are identifying their affiliation as “independent,” Sanders is headed in the opposite direction. He excels at rousing populist oratory, but considers Hillary Clinton, warmonger of U.S. foreign policy, his “good friend.” Sanders is the man for the job for the beleaguered Democratic Party in these times of growing anger and dissent. Not as president, mind you, but as the latest in a series of perennial false hopes for a kinder, gentler party — and social system. On the socialist Left, there are groups, like the Socialist Alternative of Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, who give Sanders direct or indirect support, ignoring or downplaying the ugly parts of his record and wishing away his longtime collusion with the Democratic Party. This is no way to build a movement for lasting fundamental change. What would be productive is left cooperation rather than competition on the electoral battlefield. By joining forces, it would be much more possible to give people opportunities to vote for bold, honest, radical opponents of the profit system and its ravages at home and abroad. A big part of any joint anti-capitalist effort would have to be challenging the tangle of state and federal laws that keep Left and independent labor candidates off the ballot. And a possible outcome of such an effort could be the launch of a new national party to defend working people and the oppressed. The Freedom Socialist Party is for a national conference that could discuss these ideas and get something moving. And the sooner the better! U.S. voters need relief!

Fidel Castro and Cuba as Pan African

d

Did America support Malcolm X? Did America support Nelson Mandela and the ANC? No, no, no, but Fidel and the Cuban did. Today the Great Shaitan returns to Cuba, raising the flag of imperialism and white supremacy. Yankee/Gringo go home!

Oba Okunade Sijuwade, the Oni of Ife has joined the ancestors

The Oni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, has passed away.



The monarch died at the age of 85 in a London hospital on Tuesday, Punch reports.
A source told the newspaper that Oba Sijuwade was flown out of the country from Ibadan about five days ago in an unconscious state.

“Kabiyesi was flown out of the country about five days ago in an air ambulance. He was unconscious; his situation was critical.

“As a matter of fact, some people have been weeping in the palace since the weekend because of his situation when he was flown out from Ibadan in that air ambulance,” he said.
Oba Sijuwade became the fiftieth traditional ruler or Ife in 1980.

b

Ilé-Ifẹ̀ Ifè Oòyè
Ilé-Ifẹ̀
Coordinates: 7°28′N 4°34′E
Government
• Ọọ̀ni	Olubuse II
• Local Government Chairman of Ife Central	Taiwo Olaiya
• Local Government Chairman of Ife North	Lanre Ogunyimika
• Local Government Chairman of Ife South	Timothy Fayemi
• Local Government Chairman of Ife East	Tajudeen Lawal

Ife (Yoruba: Ifè, also Ilé-Ifẹ̀) is an ancient Yoruba city in southwestern Nigeria. The city is located in the present day Osun State. Ife is about 218 kilometres (135 mi) northeast of Lagos.^[1]

Contents

• 1 History
  • 1.1 Mythic origin of Ife, the holy city: Creation of the world
  • 1.2 Origin of the regional states: Dispersal from the holy city, Ife
• 2 Traditional setting
  • 2.1 The King (Ooni)
  • 2.2 Cults for the spirits
  • 2.3 Art history
• 3 The modern town
• 4 Exhibition
• 5 See also
• 6 Notes
• 7 References
• 8 External links

History

Yoruba Copper mask for King Obalufon, Ife, Nigeria c. 1300 C.E.

Mythic origin of Ife, the holy city: Creation of the world

According to Yoruba mythology, Olodumare, the Supreme God, ordered Obatala to create the earth but on his way he found palm wine which he drank and became intoxicated. Therefore the younger brother of the latter, Oduduwa, took the three items of creation from him, climbed down from the heavens on a chain and threw a handful of earth on the primordial ocean, then put a cockerel on it so that it would scatter the earth, thus creating the land on which Ile Ife would be built.^[2] Oduduwa planted a palm nut in a hole in the newly formed land and from there sprang a great tree with sixteen branches, a symbolic representation of the clans of the early Ife city-state. The usurpation of creation by Oduduwa gave rise to the ever lasting conflict between him and his elder brother Obatala, which is still re-enacted in the modern era by the cult groups of the two clans during the Itapa New Year festival.^[3] On account of his creation of the world Oduduwa became the ancestor of the first divine king of the Yoruba, while Obatala is believed to have created the first Yoruba people out of clay. The meaning of the word "ife" in Yoruba is "expansion"; "Ile-Ife" is therefore in reference to the myth of origin "The Land of Expansion".

Origin of the regional states: Dispersal from the holy city, Ife

Oduduwa had sons, daughters, and a grandson who went on to found their own kingdoms and empires, namely Ila Orangun, Owu, Ketu, Sabe, Popo and Oyo. Oranmiyan, Oduduwa's last born, was one of his father's principal ministers and overseer of the nascent Edo empire after Oduduwa granted the plea of the Edo people for his governance. When Oranmiyan decided to go back to Ile Ife after a period of service in Benin, he left behind a child named Eweka that he had in the interim with an indigenous princess. The young boy went on to become the first legitimate ruler of the second Edo dynasty that has ruled what is now Benin from that day to this. Oranmiyan later went on to found the Oyo Empire that stretched at its height from the western banks of the river Niger to the Eastern banks of the river Volta. It would serve as one of the most powerful of Africa's medieval states prior to its collapse in the 19th century.

Traditional setting

The King (Ooni)

The Oòni (or king) of Ife claims direct descent from Oduduwa, and is counted first among the Yoruba kings. He is traditionally considered the 401st spirit (Orisha), the only one that speaks. In fact, the royal dynasty of Ife traces its origin back to the founding of the city more than two thousand years ago. The present ruler is Alayeluwa Oba Okunade Sijuwade, Olubuse II, styled His Imperial Majesty by his subjects. The Ooni ascended his throne in 1980.^[4] Following the formation of the Yoruba Orisha Congress in 1986, the Ooni acquired an international status the likes of which the holders of his title hadn't had since the city's colonisation by the British. Nationally he had always been prominent amongst the Federal Republic of Nigeria's company of royal Obas, being regarded as the chief priest and custodian of the holy city of all the Yorubas.^[5] In former times, the palace of the Oni of Ife was a structure built of authentic enameled bricks, decorated with artistic porcelain tiles and all sorts of ornaments. ^[6]

Cults for the spirits

Ife is well known as the city of 401 or 201 deities. It is said that every day of the year the traditional worshippers celebrate a festival of one of these deities. Often the festivals extend over more than one day and they involve both priestly activities in the palace and theatrical dramatisations in the rest of the kingdom. Historically the King only appeared in public during the annual Olojo festival; other important festivals here include the Itapa festival for Obatala and Obameri, the Edi festival for Moremi Ajasoro, and the Igare masqueraders.^[7]

Art history

Bronze Head from Ife, probably a king and dated around 1300 C.E., in the British Museum.

Kings and Gods were often depicted with large heads because the artists believed that the Ase was held in the head, the Ase being the inner power and energy of a person. Both historic figures of Ife and the offices associated with them are represented. One of the best documented among this is the early king Obalufon II who is said to have invented bronze casting and is honored in the form of a naturalistic copper life-size mask. ^[8]
The city was a settlement of substantial size between the 12th and 14th centuries, with houses featuring potsherd pavements. Ilé-Ifè is known worldwide for its ancient and naturalistic bronze, stone and terracotta sculptures, which reached their peak of artistic expression between 1200 and 1400 A.D. In the period around 1300 C.E. the artists at Ife developed a refined and naturalistic sculptural tradition in terracotta, stone and copper alloy - copper, brass, and bronze many of which appear to have been created under the patronage of King Obalufon II, the man who today is identified as the Yoruba patron deity of brass casting, weaving and regalia. ^[9] After this period, production declined as political and economic power shifted to the nearby kingdom of Benin which, like the Yoruba kingdom of Oyo, developed into a major empire.
Bronze and terracotta art created by this civilization are significant examples of naturalism in pre-colonial African art and are distinguished by their variations in regalia, facial marking patterns, and body proportions. Ancient Ife also was famous for its glass beads which have been found at sites as far away as Mali, Mauritania, and Ghana.

The modern town

Today a mid-sized city, Ife is home to both the Obafemi Awolowo University and the Natural History Museum of Nigeria. Its people are of the Yoruba ethnic group, one of the largest ethnolinguistic groups in Africa and its diaspora. Ife has a local television station called NTA Ife, and is home to various businesses. It is also the trade center for a farming region where yams, cassava, grain, cacao, and tobacco are grown. Cotton is also produced, and is used to weave cloth. Hotels in Ilé-Ife include Cameron Hotel, Hotel Diganga Ife-Ibadan road, Mayfair Hotel, Obafemi Awolowo University Guest House etc. Ilé-Ife has a stadium with a capacity of 9,000 and a second division professional league football team.

Exhibition

A major exhibition entitled Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures of West Africa, displaying works of art found in Ife and the surrounding area, was held in the British Museum from 4 March to 4 July 2010.^[10]

See also

	Nigeria portal
	Yoruba portal

• History of the Yoruba people
• Legends of Africa
• List of rulers of Ife

Notes

1. 
   

"World: Africa Arrests after Nigerian cult killings." BBC. Monday July 12, 1999. Retrieved on October 31, 2011.

Bascom, Yoruba, p. 10; Stride, Ifeka: "Peoples and Empires", p. 290.

Olupona, 201 Gods, 144-173; Lange, Ancient Kingdoms, 347-366; idem., "Preservation", 130-1.

Homepage of the Ooni of Ife

Olupona, 201 Gods, 94.

Cheikh Anta Diop's Precolonial Black Africa, pg. 203

Walsh, "Edi festival", 231-8; Bascom, "Olojo", 64-72; Lange, Ancient Kingdoms, 358-366; Olupona, 201 Gods, 111-223.

Blier, Suzanne Preston. "Art in Ancient Ife Birthplace of the Yoruba" (PDF). Academia.edu. African Arts 2012. Retrieved April 7, 2015.

Blier, Suzanne Preston (2015). Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Politics, and Identity c. 1300. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107021662.

10. Britishmuseum.org

References

• Olubunmi, A.O. The Rise and Fall of The Yoruba Race 10,000BC-1960AD, The 199 Publishing Palace ISBN 978-2457-38-8
• ---: On Ijesa Racial Purity, The 199 Publishing Palace ISBN 978-2458-17-1
• Akinjogbin, I. A. (Hg.): The Cradle of a Race: Ife from the Beginning to 1980, Lagos 1992 (The book also has chapters on the present religious situation in the town).
• Blier,Suzanne Preston. Art and Risk in Ancient Yoruba: Ife History, Power, and Identity c.1300, Cambridge University Press 2015. ISBN=978-1107021662.
• Blier, Suzanne Preston. "Art in Ancient Ife Birthplace of the Yoruba" African Arts 2012 [1]
• Bascom, William: The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria, New York 1969 (The book mainly deals with Ife).
• --- "The Olojo festival at Ife, 1937", in: A. Falassi (ed.), Time out of Time. Essays on the Festival, Albuquerque, 1987, 62-73.
• Frobenius, Leo, The Voice of Africa, London 1913 (Frobenius stayed for nearly two months in Ife, in 1910-11).
• Johnson, Samuel: History of the Yorubas, London 1921.
• Lange, Dierk: "The dying and the rising God in the New Year Festival of Ife", in: Lange, Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa, Dettelbach 2004, pp. 343–376.
• ---: "Preservation of Canaanite creation culture in Ife", in: H.-P. Hahn and G. Spittler (eds.), Between Resistance and Expansion, Münster 2004, 125-158.
• ---: "Origin of the Yoruba and 'Lost Tribes of Israel'", Anthropos, 106, 2011, 579-595.
• Ogunyemi, Yemi D. (Yemi D. Prince), The Oral Traditions in Ile-Ife, ISBN 978-1-933146-65-2, Academica Press, 2009, Palo Alto, USA.
• ---: The Aura of Yoruba Philosophy, Religion and Literature, ISBN 0-9652860-4-5, Diaspora Press of America, 2003, Boston, USA.
• ---: Introduction to Yoruba Philosophy, Religion and Literature, ISBN 1-890157-14-7, Athelia Henrietta Press, 1998, New York, USA.
• ---: The Covenant of the Earth--Yoruba Religious & Philosophical Narratives, ISBN 1-890157-15-5, Athelia Henrietta Press, 1998, New York, USA.
• Olupona, Jacob K.: City of 201 Gods: Ile-Ife in Time, Space and Imagination, Berkeley 2011.
• Stride, G.T. and C. Ifeka: "Peoples and Empires of West Africa: West Africa in History 1000 - 1800", New York 1971.
• Walsh, M.J., "The Edi festival at Ile Ife", African affairs, 47 (1948), 231-8.
• Willett, Frank: Ife in the History of West African Sculpture, London 1967 (The book also deals with some oral traditions of Ile-Ife).
• Wyndham, John: "The creation", Man, 19 (1919), 107-8.

Book signing at Geoffrys Inner Circle: Zaza Ali and Professor Griff

Black August: Hugo Pinell down in Cali, BPP Dhoruba Bin Wahad jaw broken in ATL clash with NBPP

Movement Activists Violently Attacked at Atlanta Conference

On Saturday, August 8, 2015, a group of six Black Liberation Movement activists were violently attacked at a downtown Atlanta hotel. The group included members of the Free The People Movement, including their Coordinator, Kalonji Jama Changa, members of the Nation of Gods and Earths and Dhoruba Bin Wahad, the internationally recognized former Black Panther Party leader and political prisoner of 19 years. The group was jumped by 25 to 30 members of The New Black Panther Party at “The Power Belongs to the People 2015 Summit” in Atlanta, Georgia, an event hosted by the New Black Panther Party.

According to eyewitnesses, 71 year-old Dhoruba Bin Wahad and the others approached the side of the stage where attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz was speaking. While standing there, Shabazz, leader of the New Black Panther Party asked, “Who is that?” Bin Wahad replied, “You know who I am!” Shabazz responded “WAHAD! We’ll deal with you later!” Bin Wahad countered with “You can deal with me now…” Knowing that Dhoruba Bin Wahad was there with information that would publicly expose Shabazz’s government affiliations that contradict his stance as a Nationalist and activist for Black liberation, Shabazz immediately ordered the NBPP members in attendance to “Get his b*tch ass out of here!” At that point the whole group was mobbed and violently attacked by at least 25 members of the audience.

As they defended themselves, the men were struck with chairs and other objects. Bin Wahad’s jaw was broken in three places, one of his associates was choked unconscious and others received head gashes that required staples.

As of this release, Bin Wahad is undergoing a 6-hour surgery to reconstruct his jaw and the others have been treated and released. More details will follow as information is gathered.

Blacks 4 Palestine needs your signature now!

 

 Black Arts Movement Poet Marvin X at Gaza Rally, Seattle WA

From: Black4Palestine
To: Marvin X, Black Arts Movement District, Oakland CA
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2015 9:26 AM
Subject: Pushing for 1,000 signatures before our statement is published next week!

Peace everyone, 

We wanted to give you a couple of updates on publishing the statement:

1. The statement will debut in Ebony next week! 
2. The statement will remain open for additional signatures until the end of Monday
3. We currently have 700 individuals and 29 organizations signed on and we'd like to reach 1,000 over the next five days

If we can add 100-150 signatures by Friday, we'll be in pretty good shape! Can everyone reach out to 5-10 people or organizing lists today? If everyone only gets one new person to sign, we'll still be at 1,500!

We encourage organizations to sign the statement as well. If your org has already signed on, please send another blast asking for individual signatures.

Sample appeals for signatures are below, as well as a list of the orgs and some of the notable figures who have signed so far.

We recognize we've said that the statement is being closed/re-opened/published a few times now and appreciate your patience--it's taken us more time than expected to iron things out, but the statement has only grown stronger in that time.

In love and in struggle,

Kristian & Khury

​

Here are some sample social media messages. We still recommend posting on Facebook/mailing lists over Twitter, as the latter opens us up more to getting trolled by anonymous people.

700 Black activists, artists, and scholars have signed this statement of solidarity with Palestine. Help us get to 1,000 over the next five days!

A group of Black activists, artists, scholars, and writers are circulating a solidarity statement with Palestine. We're trying to add 300 signatures by Monday. Will you read, sign and share it? http://www.blackforpalestine.com/

​

Join Angela Davis, Cornel West, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and me in signing this Black Statement of Solidarity with Palestine! http://www.blackforpalestine.com/

Here is a list of organizations and notable ​signatories to help with your efforts:

Individuals

Angela Davis

Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Boots Riley

Cornel West

dream hampton

Emory Douglas

Jasiri X

Mumia Abu Jamal

Phil Hutchings

Robin DG Kelley

Rosa Clemente

Sundiata Acoli

Talib Kweli

Tef Poe

Marvin X

​Organizations​

Amistad Law Project 

Assata's Daughters 

Baltimore Bloc 

Barry University Black Student Union

Black Arts Movement District, Oakland

Black Autonomy Federation-North East Branch 

Black Bottom, LLC 

Black Student Alliance at Yale 

Black Student Alliance Executive Board 

​- St. Louis University​

Black Unity Group 

BlaQue UCLA 

​C​

oalition of African Lesbians 

Columbia University Black Students' Organization 

Columbus Coalition on Mental Health, Addiction & Mass Incarceration 

Dorothy Cotton Institute 

Friends of the Congo 

Hands Up United 

Muslim American Society - South Florida 

Muslims for Economic, Racial and Reproductive Justice Network for the Elimination of Police Violence 

New Afrikan Independence Party 

Organization for Black Struggle 

Peace by Piece 

Spoken Word Alliance at Tufts 

Stanford NAACP Executive Committee 

The Dream Defenders 

Tribe X 

UCLA Afrikan Student Union 

Ujima People's Progress Party 

Wisdom Within Health & Wellness

PALESTINE by Marvin X (El Muhajir)

I am not an Arab, I am not a Jew
Abraham is not my father, Palestine is not my home
But I would fight any man
Who kicked me out of my house
To dwell in a tent
I would fight
To the ends of the earth
Someone who said to me
I want your house
Because my father lived here
Two thousand years ago
I want your land

Because my father lived here
Two thousand years ago.
Jets would not stop me
From returning to my home
Uncle toms would not stop me
Cluster bombs would not stop me
Bullets I would defy.
No man can take the house of another
And expect to live in peace
There is no peace for thieves
There is no peace for those who murder
For myths and ancient rituals
Wail at the wall

Settle in "Judea" and "Samaria"
But fate awaits you
You will never sleep with peace

You will never walk without listening.
I shall cross the River Jordan
With Justice in my hand
I shall return to Jerusalem
And establish my house of peace,
Thus said the Lord.

 
© 1972 by Marvin X, published in Black Scholar Magazine, circa 1970

             Two Poems for the People of Syria

 

Oh, Mohja
how much water can run from rivers to sea
how much blood can soak the earth
the guns of tyrants know no end
a people awakened are bigger than bullets
there is no sleep in their eyes
no more stunted backs and fear of broken limbs
even men, women and children are humble with sacrifice
the old the young play their roles
with smiles they endure torture chambers
with laughs they submit to rape and mutilations
there is no victory for oppressors
whose days are numbered
as the clock ticks as the sun rises
let the people continue til victory
surely they smell it on their hands
taste it on lips
believe it in their hearts
know it in their minds
no more backwardness no fear
let there be resistance til victory.
--Marvin X/El Muhajir

Syrian poet/professor Dr. Mohja Kahf

Oh Marvin, how much blood can soak the earth?

The angels asked, “will you create a species who will shed blood

and overrun the earth with evil?” 

And it turns out “rivers of blood” is no metaphor: 

see the stones of narrow alleys in Duma

shiny with blood hissing from humans? Dark

and dazzling, it keeps pouring and pumping

from the inexhaustible soft flesh of Syrians,

and neither regime cluster bombs from the air,

nor rebel car bombs on the ground,

ask them their names before they die. 

They are mowed down like wheat harvested by machine,

and every stalk has seven ears, and every ear a hundred grains.

They bleed like irrigation canals into the earth.

Even one little girl in Idlib with a carotid artery cut

becomes a river of blood. Who knew she could be a river 

running all the way over the ocean, to you,

draining me of my heart? And God said to the angels, 

“I know what you know not.” But right now,

the angels seem right. Cut the coyness, God;

learn the names of all the Syrians.

See what your species has done.

--Mohja Kahf

www.blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com 
jmarvinx@yahoo.com