Almost a year ago, I left what I thought maybe the closest thing to a revolutionary organization. I had only been a member of this organization for about 10 months and there were several red flags that let me know that sometimes just wasn’t right. Don’t get me wrong, I met a lot of awesome Comrades while in the movement, but there were egregious contradictions that I couldn’t ignore. When I did finally leave, I felt a way, because I wanted to be instrumental in acquiring the freedom of African and colonized people, but I had just learned that the Uhuru Movement wasn’t where it was at.
The sheer audacity to exploit the very people that it claims to want to liberate—I was livid. I left Uhuru determined that I would find some way to contribute to the movement, but it would be in time. I remained in contact with Gazi Kodzo, even prior to officially leaving Uhuru. We talked and I decided to attend the launch of the Black Hammer organization February 4, 2019. I had no intention of joining at that moment. I decided that I would just be a supporter and help when I could. I felt that after the bullshit with the last movement, I needed to take some time. That was the opposite of what happened!
Less than a month after the launch of the event, I had been asked to fulfill the role as the Chief of Membership and the forces present in Atlanta were already planning a protest in the city. On the day of the Lil C Note protest, we met up at Cumberland Mall, in bourgeois white Smyrna. There were many Africans in the mall that day, however. I’ll never forget when Gazi leaped (yes leaped) up on that table while I recorded him shouting into the megaphone at the masses of people staring back at him of why this child had been brutalized by the Cobb County police. I thought for sure that I would be arrested along with all the other Comrades there that day. Before we could get out of the parking garage, the pigs cornered us, but we refused to speak with them. I thought for sure that they would detain us until we at least provided our names. The lady pig asked me if my son was my son and I refused to answer. After our Comrade that we united could speak with the pigs recited their law back to them, they told us we could go, but not to return. A few months later, we learned that we had been instrumental in getting the charges completely dropped against Lil C Note.
Here it is, December 2019 going into a new decade. I will say that Black Hammer has taught me an abundance of revolutionary discipline and patience. I am almost 36 and not particularly young, but I am young in organizing and coming down this political path. I have learned (not mastered) endurance. I have learned more about how to take and digest criticism. I’ve had to revisit organization and planning. I’m struggling with things too, though, like trust, settling appropriate boundaries, confidence, and leadership. When we were at the Atlanta Black Pride Event in August, I believe I spoke briefly before more people than I ever had in my life and I hadn’t even prepared a speech! I’ve never been a great public speaker, to be honest, but that is something else that Black Hammer has nudged me to become more comfortable with—engaging the people.
For the first time ever, I organized a local food drive to feed the homeless. I’ve participated in food drives and soup kitchens, but never orchestrated an event. There is something intoxicating about that. Self-determination comes to mind when I think of it because we raised that money. We cooked and prepared that food. We met up and handled it out to the people. We came together and united that we would feed the people every month! We the people!
Black Hammer has and is teaching me that there is nothing the people cannot do for ourselves. We can house ourselves, trade with ourselves, educate ourselves, produce our own food, care for our own health. Why should we shrive to thrive in a system that is literally killing us? As the Chief of Membership, I can gladly and proudly report that the membership has quadrupled since its launch in February of 2019. In 2020, I want to see that number double! I could just see Black Hammer making the capacity to get our brothers and sisters out of jail with a phone call or having the capacity to teach self-defense to our brothers and sisters in their own neighborhoods. I could see us forming food and good coops to barter with one another. I imagine childcare coops ran by us, the people. Education coops, health clinics, and facilities, libraries full of literature and information about our history and our veterans. Our community will be one where we as Colonized people thrive and not merely survive. To do that, Black Hammer must and will grow. We will recruit engineers, attorneys, mechanics, farmers, doctors, and teachers. We will also recruit those who truly have the heart of the people and will protect and serve.
We won’t stop recruiting until the membership virtually recruits itself—until there is a chapter in every major U.S. city, and it percolates into every neighboring rural town.
We will not stop until there are chapters replicated in every Colonized nation and every nation that has Colonized people. If we proclaim that we want freedom, we must be willing to take freedom and we do that by bringing in the masses. The political education we give, the outreach activities, the propaganda and news we bring to the masses, the money that the people donate is all for the purpose of building a nation where we can truly experience and live within freedom. Black Hammer has made me define what freedom truly is in that before that, I/ we used the word so much, we almost don’t know how to define it. To me to be free means to be unrestricted to any domineering power from the resources of this world put here to help us live a comfortable and prosperous life. That all starts with the hearts and minds who decide to join the Revolution by joining Black Hammer. In 2020, not only will we not give up, we will push through imperialism and show them who the fuck we are. We aim for imperialism to meet its end and the power to do that resides within the people.
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE! BLACK POWER!!
