OVERVIEW: HISTORY OF NEW AFRIKAN RESISTANCE

Resistance has always been a part of the African experience in the so called "New world". In the midst of the middle passage, Afrikans fought their captors in more than 155 mutinies. Once on the shores of America and in chattel slavery, Afrikans continued to engage in acts of resistance, from teaching themselves to read, to escaping from plantations, to plotting rebellions insurrections, revolts, arson and run-aways.

Liberation struggles continued after the abolition of slavery since the end of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation brought new challenges for Afrikans. Our status as “free individuals” included designation as second class citizens subject to draconian laws, harsher working conditions and abhorrent violence. Yet the Afrikan spirit persisted as we formed organizations, built our communities.

Afrikans demonstrated that our strength and zeal for freedom were unrelenting. A period of time which brought with it unspeakable violence, lynchings, murders, kidnappings, also brought with it incredible artistic, literary and liberation movements. Afrikans fought for their right to be recognized as citizens, to vote and to provide their children with quality education. Some, under the leadership of Marcus Mosiah Garvey, organized to return to Afrika.

The fifties and the sixties brought with them a restless nation and a changing Afrika. On the Afrikan continent, anti-colonial movements brought us figures such as Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyrere and Jomo Kenyatta as independence swept the continent from Algeria to Tanzania. In the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Liberation Movement, the Women’s Liberation and the Anti-War Movements shook America. Audacious leaders such as Malcolm X, Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker emerged to address the human rights violations plaguing Afrikans here in the US.

One of the most prominent organizations of that time advocating for human rights was the Black Panther Party (BPP).The BPP fought for basic rights such as housing, food, education and health care. They organized such things as free breakfast programs, free clinics and a cop watch to stop police brutality. The government persistently attacked the BPP. Many of the individuals who are political prisoners today were member of the BPP. As a result of their activities, they were imprisoned, forced into exile or killed. Those who are imprisoned were targeted, prosecuted and received long and unusually harsh sentences, despite flimsy evidence and prosecutorial misconduct. There are currently over 100 political prisoners incarcerated in the United States.

The oppression of Afrikans in America continues today, almost 50 years after the movements of the sixties. The challenges which have continuously plagued the Afrikan community, such as lack of access to quality education, substandard housing conditions, and lack of political empowerment, still remain. The police continue to target Afrikans, at times beating and killing us, and arresting young Akfrikan's to funnel us into the Prison Industrial Complex, a system to reintroduce free labor, i.e. slavery in America. These conditions point to the need to continue the legacy of resistance began by and for which brothers and sisters remain unjustly incarcerated today.

The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement asserts that it is an exercise of one’s human right to engage in acts of resistance against oppression and domination. It is in the spirit of the tradition of Afrikan resistance, that we work free all political prisoners and prisoners of war and encourages those committed to the ideals of freedom to join us in the struggle.

POLITICAL PRISONERS:

PRISONERS OF WAR:

WHY ARE THERE POLITICAL PRISONERS? WHAT IS COINTELPRO?

The presence of political prisoners in the United States speaks to the continuing repression against liberation movements.  Indeed, it is the result of one of the most brutal actions of the government. In 1956, upon the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated the "official" Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), a program whose purpose was “to expose, disrupt, discredit or otherwise neutralize” the activities of individuals and organizations which the government considered to be its “radical” political opponents.  Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history (Marcus Garvey was targetd by J. Edger Hoover and the precursor to the FBI for arrest and later deportation)  the formal COINTELPRO of the period 1956-1971 were the first to be both broadly targeted and centrally directed.            

The program was launched when the customary methods of harassing progressive organizations proved futile. Through COINTELPRO, the FBI utilized methods similar to the covert activities of the CIA.  These tactics included falsely labeling people as informants, infiltrating groups with persons instructed to disrupt the organization, grand jury subpoenas, false arrests, sending anonymous and forged letters to promote strife between organizations, initiating politically motivated IRS investigations, carrying out burglaries of organizational offices, placing illegal wiretaps, and finally political assassinations.   

COINTELPRO victimized various liberation movements including the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and the Women’s Movement. However, the biggest victims of COINTELPRO were members of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Movement. Through COINTELPRO, the government was generally able to capture and convict people based on the information and false testimony of infiltrators, agent provocateurs and informants.

Its tactics resulted in political assassinations, in the incarceration of members of the BPP and the BLA, many of whom are still held as political prisoners and prisoners of war and in the exile of others.  The covert nature of COINTELPRO enabled the program to distort the perception of progressive organizations and enabled their isolation and persecution.  COINTELPRO’s violent and covert tactics deprived the movement of some of its most committed, talented and experienced leaders. Furthermore, the covert nature of COINTELPRO enabled the FBI and the police to weaken domestic political opposition to the government without disrupting the perception that freedom of expression, speech and association were available.

The activities implemented under COINTELPRO were exposed after an FBI office in Media Pennsylvania was broken into after which a  senate investigations in 1975 started. The investigation which were conducted by a committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (the “Church Committee”) and concluded that COINTELPRO was an illegal and unconstitutional abuse of power by the FBI. The Church committee found that COINTELPRO engaged in actions "which had no conceivable rational relationship to either national security or violent activity. The unexpressed major premise of much of COINTELPRO is that the Bureau has a role in maintaining the existing social order, and that its efforts should be aimed toward combating those who threaten that order."  

In light of these revelations, some measures of reform were taken in an effort to control the damage. The courts ordered the FBI to reveal part of its activities and to agree to end COINTELPO. However, the tactics which had been effective in destroying many liberation movements, -- the willingness to infiltrate organizations, to spy on individuals who are exercising their constitutionally protected rights, to convict people based on false charges--continued. Indeed, these tactics have been institutionalized by forces aiming to disrupt political dissidents. Furthermore efforts to reopen investigations into COINTELPRO and the cause of political prisoners have been met with vehement opposition.  More recently, by utilizing the hysteria which gripped the nation since September 11th, the government has intensified its intrusion on the rights of individuals, particularly communities of color.  In the name of national and homeland security, intelligence organizations have been given carte blanche to spy on, gather information about individuals and organizations and unlawfully detain and question individuals based on their religion and ethnicity. While the surveillance and disruption of opposition movements probably never ended, the current climate of political repression has legitimized these tactics making the new millennium version of COINTELPRO eerily evocative of the sixties.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO SUPPORT POLITICAL PRISONERS?

1. START A SUPPORT COMMITTEE BY:
   1. Selecting a single political prisoner or prisoner of war to work with.  Send him or her a letter introducing yourself and why you want to work together.  Find out how to get on their visiting list.
   2. Finding out what the person’s specific needs are (i.e. legal;or more personal). Find out whom their other supporters are -- what family, attorneys and friends work with them. Ask and learn everything you can about their case.
   3. Inviting friends to dinner -- Tell them what you’ve learned, what you want to do, who the political prisoner is. Ask your friends for specific help. Go to work.


2. THESE ARE THINGS YOU CAN DO EITHER AS A MEMBER, SUPPORT COMMITTEE, OR WORKING ALONE:
   1. Send current news and cultural publications to a political prisoner.
   2. Write at least one letter to one political prisoner a month.
   3. Send commissary ($25-40) once a month.
   4. Do a teach-in or invite MXGM to do a teach-in/speaking engagement on political prisoners at your school, church or community center.
   5. Start a reading or study group with friends, family, and/ or classmates utilizing titles provided in this packet and others you may come across.
   6. Wear buttons, t-shirts and display posters with the names or pictures of political prisoners on it.
   7. Throw house parties, poetry readings, fashion shows,etc. as fundraisers to help defray legal costs for the political prisoner with whom you're working
   8. Call, write and email your local Congressional Black Caucus Member requesting caucus hearings on COINTELPRO and political prisoners In the United States.

Learn about current Political Prisoners (click here)