Did you know about Africa Liberation day?

You got to praise the red, the black, and the green.
Brothers and Sisters are being redeemed.
You got to open up your eyes and see.
We're on our way to being free.

I wonder how many readers knew that May 25 was Africa Liberation Day. No need to be ashamed if you did not notice it. I am not sure if many did either in many African countries and among Africans in the diaspora.



ALD is the direct descendent of Africa Freedom Day created by the Conference of African States convened under the auspices of the Nkrumah government in Accra, Ghana. April 15, 1957 was designated as Africa Freedom Day. The eight heads of states at that meeting intended Africa Freedom Day to be a day marking their renewed commitment to the liberation/decolonization of the whole African continent and all it's people. When the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was created in May of 1963, the founding delegates proclaimed May 25, 1963 African Liberation Day (ALD), as the successor commemoration day to Africa Freedom Day. Since then African peoples have observed ALD all over the world. The first A-APRP sponsored ALD was held in 1976 under the slogan, "Take ALD Back to Africa", and was convened in Washington, DC.



In years gone by, the day used to be marked officially and unofficially celebrated by many groups in Africa and the diaspora. Now there are only scattered activities by activists who have not given up on the belief that ‘a different Africa is possible’. It remains a public holiday in a few countries.



It is a day of solidarity with the various struggles of African peoples for justice, equality, human dignity, freedom and liberation. It was started on April 15, 1958 and called Africa Freedom Day, as a result of the first All-African Peoples conferences called by the indomitable Kwame Nkrumah, foremost Pan- Africanist of all times, a fact remembered and honoured by Africans worldwide who voted him ‘Greatest African of the Millennium in 2000 despite orchestrated campaigns by supporters of other living or dead claimants.

The two conferences of 1958 were called by Nkrumah as Prime Minister of newly independent Ghana, to show solidarity and plan strategies for the total liberation of Africa from colonialism. Those conferences brought together the few independent countries of Africa and the representatives of nationalist groups and liberation movements from across Africa and a few observers from the diaspora.

Frantz Fanon was there with the Algerian Liberation Movement against French colonialism, FLN and it was in the second of those two conferences that the charismatic Patrice Lumumba was introduced to the world and three years after had led Congo to freedom but was assassinated in a grand conspiracy between erstwhile colonial interests and local reactionaries aided and abetted by complacent UN and global powers namely the US, France and Belgium. Does the story not sound only too familiar more than four decades later?



Nkrumah’s famous dictum that ‘the independence of Ghana is meaningless without the total liberation of Africa’ is still true today and most relevant. While then it was regarded as the utopian wish of a romantic Pan-Africanist in the face of today’s dual threat of recolonisation and rapacious globalisation, those words should be made the opening sentence of the national anthem of every country in Africa. In the past few years, Africa has been returning to the drawing board of Pan- Africanism.

The new African Union with all its contradictions and the various struggles within and without it represent an advance from the past while we seek further clarity and decisive action towards the future.


"African Liberation Day for us is only an instrument to help organize our people..."
Ancestor Kwame Ture, Central Committee Member, A-APRP

It offers a wider scope for all Africans to be part of the solution instead of just complaining about the many problems. Instead of constantly enumerating what this leader or that leader is doing wrong, why do you not ask yourself what, no matter how small, you are doing as an individual, a member of an organisation, part of a community, your profession and in whatever station you are, to advance the cause of Africa and the dignity of the African?

ASE! ASE! ASE!
If you wanna keep a dream alive try Baba Kwame's Dream of a Liberated AFrika!!!!

If people are no longer connecting to the historical inspirations for Africa Day why don’t we agitate for a proclamation of an African Union Day (July 9) as symbol of our commitment to make Pan- Africanism relevant for our times and the younger generation?

It should be a publicly celebrated day in every country. Our leaders and diplomats should be ashamed of themselves for donning their best suits to attend cocktails marking European day but forgetting Africa day!!!!




http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/20/436299

The COLORED Section

Welcome.......


Rome, Georgia. September 1943. Esther Bubley, photographer. "A sign at the Greyhound bus station." [Sign: "Colored Waiting Room."]


Durham, North Carolina. May 1940. Jack Delano, photographer."At the bus station."


Memphis, Tennessee. October 1939. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer. "Secondhand clothing stores and pawn shop on Beale Street."[Sign: "Hotel Clark, The Best Service for Colored Only."]


Memphis, Tennessee. June 1937. Dorothea Lange, photographer."A fish restaurant for Negroes in the section of the city where cotton hoers are recruited." [Sign: "Bryant's Place Hot Fish for Colored."]


Leland, Mississippi, in the delta area. November 1939. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer. "The Rex theater for Negro People." [Sign: "Rex Theater for Colored People."]


Halifax, North Carolina. April 1938. John Vachon, photographer. "A drinking fountain on the county courthouse lawn." [Sign: "Colored."]


Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. July 1939. Russell Lee, photographer. "Man drinking at a water cooler in the street car terminal." [Sign: "Reserved for Colored."]


Belzoni, Mississippi, in the delta area. October 1939. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer. "Negro man entering movie theater by "Colored" entrance."[Signs: "Colored--Adm." and "White Men Only."]


Waco, Texas. November 1939. Russell Lee, photographer. "Sign above moving picture theater." [Sign: "The Gem Theatre Exclusive Colored Theatre."]


South Carolina. June 1939. Marion Post Wolcott, photographer. "A highway sign advertising tourist cabins for Negroes." [Sign: "Cabins for Colored."]


Memphis, Tennessee. October 1939(?) Marion Post Wolcott, photographer."Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee." [Sign: "Rex Billiard Hall for Colored."]

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/085_disc.html


Colored Troops Lousiana Native Guards 1861

Colored Waiting Room..........by Patricia Pope

www.patriciapope.com

COLORED WAITING ROOM is a novel set in contemporary rural Tennessee that poignantly reveals the struggles of a Black female to be accepted in the unwavering traditional workforce ranks of a racist employment circle. The author takes the reader on a suspense-filled journey from a fierce beginning to a shocking and unpredictable ending. Injecting murder, corruption, and deceit into the arena of the federal government, the story paints a picture not readily forgotten. The central character explores love, deals with personal weaknessess and vulnerability.

Published by Trafford Publishing
2002
ISBN: 155369136-9

Sister Pope has been featured in the chat forum 'Ebony Intelligent Individuals III', hosted by an insightful gentleman, Spoiler8xxx, on Paltalk (www.paltalk.com)

Read comments from Amazon.com representatives about Ms. Pope's 'revealing' work.
http://www.webbradio.com/patriciapope.html

An Excerpt:
For years, Alberta fought to avoid this hour of reckoning, when everything that had occurred would be reduced to front-page rhetoric and recyclable mush. But fate intervened, causing her to believe in the worst type of disease – a virus that develops, moves and settles, all in silence – hatred. Nothing mattered but revenge. Getting even with those whom she believed were a part of her destruction; getting even, in the most irrational method conceivable, she felt, would wipe the slate clean for her years of humiliation at TVA, and the years of racial discrimination others had experienced. This was her hour of self-actualization.

As she crossed the small concrete room, Alberta Graham counted each stick of dynamite stacked neatly on the shelf. The count was the same as five minutes earlier. Exactly fifty pieces. With trembling fingers she wiped sweat from her brow, and stood staring at the explosives. Satisfied, she backed away.

Cherokee Nuclear Plant had proved easy to enter without detection for Alberta. She entered with a sense of well-being. The Westside Wind Tunnel, overgrown and forgotten, opened as the Red Sea and cleared a path for her to escape further into her fantasy, into a world that would have an ending. A few clips of the underbrush and she ran the half mile stretch to safety, laughing aloud at the incompetence of the security force.

REVIEWS



Oprah really does know good literary work when she sees it.

Suzanne Claud, from Bookideas.com Colored Waiting Room by Patricia Pope is not for the faint hearted. It is a powerful story of one woman’s stand against racism, bigotry and government racketeering. It is an honest book where the novel’s central character is portrayed ‘warts and all’. You will empathize with her but the subtle changes in her character as the situations unveil are disturbing leading to an inevitable ending.I recommend this book especially for those people who are interested in psychology and the effects of power play on the mind. Check out the entire review at www.bookideas.com

CWR from Daytona Beach, Fl USA"Colored Waiting Room is a captivating novel that keeps you wanting to know more about the perils of Alberta Graham. This is definitely a thinker's novel. The novel has been painted in a way that holds you and makes you say, "It's got to get better". This novel is not a predictable one, it does have some dips, turns, and twist in it. Patricia Pope does a fine job in showing how in a given situation, over a period of time, the mind and soul can be stripped of all hope."

NETWORKING


Patricia with Dick Gregory, Freda Payne and Maxine Waters

We can only hope that enough exposure of Patricia's work will result in the ultimate elimination of what we know to be an all too familiar part of amerikan history.

The Best of Luck in spreading the word Sister Patricia......

U.S. Concentration Camps: FEMA and the REX 84 Program

I was listening to Dr. Ray Hagins talk about information I'd heard and studied long ago. He refreshed my memory and anxieties.



http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/camps.html

There over 600 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States.

In light of the new and improved 'national security' measures taken by the usa since 911 the 'powers that be' have a new and improved view on 'who' should be considered terrorists. I suggest that they've always held the view that nationalist thinking Afrikans are terrorizing but with recent legislation we can now be legally identified as terrorists.......

If you don't know the terms; Rex84, Garden Plot, King Alfred Plan, Operation Cable Splicer......you should.

To promote his 1967 novel The Man Who Cried I Am, John A. Williams xeroxed portions of the book detailing the King Alfred Plan--an international conspiracy to exterminate all people of African descent--and left copies in subway car seats around Manhattan. The ploy worked so well that soon after, black folks all over New York City were talking about "the plan," a fictitious plot that many thought was true.

Williams explained this gambil to me several years ago, but he didn't divulge the origins of the King Alfred Plan, though it might have evolved from rumors in the early 1950s surrounding the McCarran Act, all anti-Communist law in which political subversives were to be rounded up and placed in concentrations camps during a national emergency. The Act was given fresh currency in 1966 when journalist Charles Allen published an extensive pamphlet after touring several World War II concentration camps. Written at a time when the Black Panthers were on the rise, Williams's imaginative "plan" may have been prompted by the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO, which was designed to undermine the black power movement.

The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a mass exodus of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.
Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot are the two sub programs which will be implemented once the Rex 84 program is initiated for its proper purpose. Garden Plot is the program to control the population. Cable Splicer is the program for an orderly takeover of the state and local governments by the federal government. FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations. The Presidential Executive Orders already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this operation.




http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/fema.htm

What is the Federal Emergency Management Agency? Simply put, it is the "secret government". This agency has powers and authority that go well beyond any other agency in the nation. What can FEMA do? It can suspend laws. It can move entire populations. It can arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and can hold them without a trial. It can seize property, food supplies, and transportation systems. And it can even suspend the Constitution of the United States.

A series of Executive Orders (EO) was used to create FEMA. It does not matter whether an EO is Constitutional or not, it becomes a law simply by being published in the Federal Registry. These orders go around Congress.

Executive Orders

10900
Allows the government to take control over all modes of transportation, highways, and seaports.
10995
Allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
10997
Allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels, and minerals.
10998
Allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
11000
Allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
11001
Allows the government to take over all health, education, and welfare functions.
11002
Designates the Postmaster General to operate national registration of all persons.
11003
Allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
11004
Allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.
11005
Allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways, and public storage facilities.
11051
Specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
11310
Grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
11049
Assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
11921
Allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and flow of money in the U.S.A. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months.

President Regan signed Presidential Director Number 54 in April of 1984 that allowed FEMA to activate a secret national readiness exercise. This exercise was given the code name REX 84. The purpose of the exercise was to test FEMA's ability to assume military authority. REX 84 was so highly guarded that special metal doors were installed on the fifth floor of the FEMA building in Washington, D.C. The only people that were allowed to enter the premises were ones who had a red Christian cross on their shirt. The exercise required the following.....


*Suspension of the Constitution of the United States
*Turning control of the government over to FEMA
*Appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments
*Declaration of Martial Law




FEMA Concentration Camps:

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm

Check the link for potential, possible, LIKELY to be, concentration camps in a city near you!

There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached. Ask yourself if you really want to be on Ashcroft's list. The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.


C'mon now....we know this is possible....

HOW COULD THESE EXECUTIVE ORDERS IMPACT THE LIVES OF AFRIKAN PEOPLE HERE IN AMERIKKKA????.......hmmmmm.....

Blogging.....a potentially powerful tool!!

I really like this thing, blogging. Since beginning to take mine a bit more seriously I have spoken to several other Afrikans who didn't really know anything about it. Many of them have taken on the challenge of structuring and presenting meaningful and valuable information for us to share with each other.

We have sooooooo much work to do in so many areas we need as many study groups, message boards, chat forums, blogs, websites, media formats, builders.....etc., etc., etc., as we can get.....or should I say, as many as any Nation needs.

Htp and Respect,

Peace and Blessings,

Asante Sana!
Aluta Continua!
Pamoja Tutashinda!

For those interested in this relatively easy and potentially powerful means of 'building' check out the following sites or simply 'google it'.

RACISM.....

The first post on this blog was the 'QUESTION'.

What is appropriate counter-racist logic (thought, speech and/or action) to use among AFRIKAN people to 1) minimize the varying degrees of mental illness we suffer as a result of our exposure to racism AND 2) minimize our participation in the maintenance of this racist (white supremacist) social order?

As I thought more about the question I realized there needed to be some discussion or reference to what RACISM is, and how it operates. Otherwise, how can we effectively counter racism?

Because.......

"If you do not understand White Supremacy (Racism) What it is, and how it works everything else that you understand, will only confuse you" Dr. Neely Fuller Jr. (1971)

"Racist" and "racism" are provocative words in American society. To some, these words have reached the level of curse words in their offensiveness. Yet, "racist" and "racism" are descriptive words of a reality that cannot be denied. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans (people-of-color) live daily with the effects of both institutional and individual racism.

Race issues are so fundamental in American society that they seem almost an integral component. Some Americans believe that race is the primary determinant of human abilities and capacities. Some Americans behave as if racial differences produce inherent superiority in European Americans (whites). In fact, such individuals respond to people-of-color and whites differently merely because of race (or ethnicity). As a consequence, people of color are injured by judgments or actions that are directly or indirectly racist.

Much of the attention of the last 20 years has focused on individual racist behavior. However, just as individuals can act in racist ways, so can institutions.

Institutions can behave in ways that are overtly racist (i.e., specifically excluding people-of-color from services) or inherently racist (i.e., adopting policies that while not specifically directed at excluding people-of-color, nevertheless result in their exclusion).

Therefore, institutions can respond to people-of-color and whites differently. Institutional behavior can injure people-of-color; and, when it does, it is nonetheless racist in outcome if not in intent.

http://academic.udayton.edu/race/intro.htm

I found the following commentary on a poster as I searched the web looking for related links.

Everybody knows that racism is
wrong. So why does it still exist? Why
can’t we fix it? Maybe the problem is
too big. Maybe human solutions are
too small. Maybe we need superhuman
solutions, like changed
hearts.

hmmmmm........ from my experiences that sounds like something someone who benefits from rasicm might say, one who has the benefit of 'white priviledge'

I wonder if the hearts being referred to are those of the racists. Certainly, after such consistent exposure to the brutality of racism the hearts of the victims are damaged and broken.

The following is the preface of the significant work by Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing, The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors



We now are nearing the final decade of the 20th century. Recently, there has been an unraveling and an analysis of the core issue of the first global power sysem of mass oppression-- the power system of racism (white supremacy). One the collective victim (non-white population) understands this fundamental issue, the ultimate organizing of all of the appropriate behaviors necessary to neutralize the great injustice of the white supremacy power system will only be a matter of time. The length of time required to neutralize global white supremacy will be inversely proportional to 1) the level of understanding of the phenomenon; plus 2) the evolution of self- and group-respect, the will, determination and discipline to practice the appropriate counter-racist behaviors--on the part of the non-white victims of white.

As I search for actual definitions of racism I am amazed at how this concept, known all to well to people Afrikan descent, has been 'multiculturalized'. It seems to me that the trend these days is to say that 'everyone' has experienced racism in one form or another.....how can that be?

People are even holding conferences to discuss racism..........in South Afrika no less.

http://www.un.org/WCAR/

There is a "Racism....No Way" program in Australia.......isn't the location for the story told in Rabbit Proof Fence?
http://www.racismnoway.com.au/

Powerful true-life account of three Australian aboriginal girls who were abducted as part of the country's internment camp treatment of ‘half-caste' children (Aborigines of mixed race with white) who were raised to be lower class citizenry for nearly 100 years . Set in 1931 the three girls set about their quest to return home to their mother 1,500 miles away with only the titular life-line running across the continent as a guide. The three girls cast are all non-professionals but that doesn't discourage the emotional impact achieved by their heartbreaking performances (particularly Sampi, whose expressive brown eyes conveys volumes of words in simple glances) and Branagh as the perpetuator and self-professed protector of the natives elevates his blind passionate character from becoming an easy villain to loathe.

What I'm seeing is a current trend in masking a new-aged racism with enough overcast(e) that no one knows exactly what it is.........consequently no one seems to know exactly how to counter it....Dayum, that was clever!!

I thought this was interesting.... kinda cute huh?

NOT!!!!

I've gotta think about this some more........pull the pieces together.........they've got me looking at the symptoms and not the causes.

PLEASE take a look at this site til I get back to this topic.....
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/

To Be Continued..............

Sister Assata

In Her Own Words:
My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of color. I am an ex political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984.

I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI's COINTELPRO program.

Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it "greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.


The enemy is intensifying its efforts to catch our beloved Sister Assata.



http://www.jinxmagazine.com/shakur.html

Occasionally through the din of crime-and-punishment rhetoric bandied about like so many other hot-button issues in the political scene, one hears a voice from a not-so-distant shore. It troubles the ears of those it reaches because it refuses to fade. And because it bespeaks a truth we've long tried to hide from the rest of the world - and from our national consciousness.

This voice casts an uncomfortable light upon the society we've convinced ourselves is the most righteous, the fairest, and the best that imperfect beings can create in order to arrive at justice in this world. In such a light, our national shames of bequeathed racism and stubborn inequality cannot help but be gazed upon, seen for what they are, and abhorred. These, our collective sins find no easy absolution. And this voice shakes the very core of our being.

This voice has had many intonations, spanning the two hundred plus year history of this Great Experiment called America. One hundred and fifty years ago, it came from the mouths of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglas. Thirty- five years ago, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. claimed it as their own. Today, that voice belongs to, among others, Assata Shakur.

The responsibility that faces the Jinx Project, then, is to determine whether or not it will add its voice to the one she now claims, strengthening the message, enlarging the audience, and adding weight to it by the Project's mere participation. A responsibility, history has shown, it does not take lightly.



MAY 2, 1973

The events of the 2nd of May, 1973 remain, to this day, sketchy and contradictory. As is always the case, it depends upon which side of the event tells the story. Their differences are manifold and seemingly intractable. In an effort to avoid adding any more conjecture, let us simply deal with The objective facts of the incident.

Following a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike of three Black Panthers (a group J. Edgar Hoover called the "greatest threat to the internal Security of the country") by a pair of State Troopers, a gruesome scene ensued. The results of which are as follows:

Assata Shakur shot and near dead.

Zayd Malik Shakur shot and killed.

State Trooper Werner Foerster shot and killed.

In the trial that followed, prosecutors claimed Ms. Shakur (formerly JoAnne Chesimard) had been crouched in a "firing position" with a nine millimeter pistol in her hand, a fact contested even by the surviving State Trooper. Medical experts testified that "it was anatomically necessary that both arms be in the air for Ms. Chesimard to receive [her] wounds" and that prosecutors' claims of her being in a firing position were "totally anatomically impossible." The State offered no refuting medical testimony. Neutron Activation tests to determine if she had even fired a weapon on that day were negative.

Despite such evidence, an all-white jury in the richest county in New Jersey (where a poll revealed that 72 percent of registered voters believed her to be guilty based on pretrial publicity alone) convicted her and passenger Sundiata Acoli (a former NASA engineer) of both murders, including that of their Friend Zayd Shakur - a killing confessed to by Trooper Harper, the other officer on the scene.

The inhumane treatment of her immediately following arrest, not limited to the denial of medical attention, physical abuse, and solitary confinement in a men's prison fostered in Shakur a realization that blind justice may be an elusive freedom in which she may never take solace. This, combined with the spurious conviction by a jury of her "peers," led Shakur to plan and successfully orchestrate a prison break.

Escaping to Cuba and securing asylum as a political prisoner of the United States, Assata Shakur has lived free from American extradition for over 20 years.



EXILE

While in Cuba, her consistent and repeated attempts to draw the world's attention to her case and cases like hers have aroused the ire of many in the U.S., most notably current New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman. Whitman has posted a $50,000 bounty for the return of Shakur to the judicial system and nation that has already condemned her. That she be returned alive or in a manner consistent with national or international law has not been stipulated.

Shakur has described herself as a "twentieth century escaped slave," Likening the efforts of Whitman to slave owners of the nineteenth century who often encouraged illegal means under the auspices of property and justice for the return of "problem slaves." Efforts, it should be stated, which have Included national television publicity of the bounty and even a written appeal for intervention to the Pope before his recent visit to Cuba this year.

Whitman, who has claimed to have reviewed the evidence of the case, has not ruled out kidnapping Shakur and, through New Jersey police officials, has even encouraged the donation of "outside money" to increase the bounty. In doing so, she has issued a clear signal. Not that New Jersey will not tolerate law-breakers. But, that the Fugitive Slave Act, while no longer having the force of law, still lingers in the mind of those charged with executing law and that Assata Shakur's crime may not have been in her being a Black Panther - rather her crime may have been in her being black.

RECOMMENDATION



It is the opinion of this agent that, based upon the facts of her case alone, there is sufficient proof that Shakur qualifies as a compelling political refugee worth Project support. Her actions since arrest have been consistent both with her beliefs before arrest and with the actions of similar individuals falsely accused.

What remains troubling, of course, is her embracing of the Communist Horde (Enemies of Jinx) with seemingly tireless dedication. Her pro-Communist pronouncements, however, may be merely the wages of a Cuban asylum. The United States can pressure nearly any nation into returning its "escaped slaves." Castro knows that it cannot compel him to return this well-spoken woman so long as she continues to speak well of his Revolution and denounce the United States' embargo of Cuba. Shakur, this agent is convinced, understands this tenuous accord better than most.

Lest we forget, it was her involvement with the Black Panthers (Friends of Jinx) that brought her to this precarious position. That she refused to renounce her dedication to their struggle is a fact that should not be discounted, but rather revered.

The Jinx Project, though, must weigh all of this evidence before rendering its decision. Willing as always to heed the Project's conclusions, this agent hopes nevertheless that it comes down on the side of Assata Shakur. Not to do so, it seems, would cheapen the efforts of an individual who has embodied the grandest ideals of Jinx and done so in the face of tremendous opposition.



This is a woman who commands the voice that, once again, reminds us that ours is not a society always worth praising, the voice that lingers in our mind until we are forced to admit to our failings, and the voice that refuses to falter under the weight of our insistence. Assata Shakur, echoing the words of Harriet Tubman before her, speaks with the voice that simply says, "There was one of two things I had a right to: liberty or death. If I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted . . ."