This year I moved from Western Massachusetts to Atlanta to build the Black Hammer Organization. Despite losing the vast majority of my possessions in the move, a heart wrenching break up, and sleeping on a comrades couch for most of the year, building this organization has been the most rewarding experience. I can honestly say that working to serve my people pushed me to struggle with myself to be the best revolutionary I can possibly be. I do this work for my people, for them, I have the deepest love I can give. It is this love that pushed me to struggle so fiercely this year.
Firstly I need to Shout out my committee. Without whom none of the work would have been possible. It is truly thanks to their collective efforts and disciplined struggle that we have been able to achieve so much with so little resources and in such a short time.
The Black Hammer Organization has had an extremely eventful 2019. From fighting to win the freedom of a 12-year-old African boy to feeding those in need, to showing up in order to protect our young girls, to organizing a gun club tor arm our people for self-defense. Black Hammer has been on the ground making moves!
This year the Black Hammer organization introduced ourselves to the world and showed y’all we really bout that action! We struggled to make sure that our efforts were organized and producing the results we were looking for. If an issue came up that we were having trouble overturning we looked to the collective and to the advice of our revolutionary ancestors to overcome these struggles.
This year we built the foundations of an organization that will successfully lead the colonized working-class masses to their liberation through revolution! We knew that in order to achieve this immense goal we would have to struggle to show the people that we are able to stand the heat and keep ourselves principled and strategic.
With organization and unity as our building tools, we showed the people that it is possible to build our own institutions and platforms. We showed the people that with very few resources, principled unity, and an unwavering struggle for organization we can be self determinate and no longer have to rely on the colonizer and his parasitic system. We were able to show the people that we won’t need the capitalist system to take care of our own. We achieved this by organizing food and clothing and hygiene drives across the nation.
We really came out the gate swinging! Winning our first campaign to make sure that the young Atlanta rapper Lil C-Note was not locked up on felony charges. The young boy who was 12 years old when he was arrested had to heal from the trauma of being brutalized by the pgs while they tried to criminalize him.
With other organizations having dropped the work of fighting and struggling around this case just one year after it first occurred, we took up the mantle. Instrumental in that was the fact that we showed up and showed out at Cumberland Mall where the child was arrested. We also turned up outside the court where the crooked slave auction court and jury we’re looking to try this young boy. These actions made sure they knew that we were no longer going to allow them to criminalize and brutalize our youth without facing the consequences of organized resistance. This organized resistance lead to a victory in the campaign with all charges against the young boy being dropped this set a precedent for the rest of the black hammer organizations campaigns.
After realizing that we were not reaching the masses at Cumberland mall we moved our protest to the West end mall to reach more African and colonized people. This was a huge strategic success, with people showing support left and right. The highlight of the trip was when we inspired an African youth to join us in our struggle. He broadcasted his full unity with the revolution on the Megaphone yelling “Black Power!” and “Power to the people!”. This wasn’t the last time we were joined by people on the street around this campaign. When we were protesting outside the courthouse during one of Lil-C Note’s trials, multiple people took up banners and joined our fight, having never heard of us or Lil C-Note before. This is just a testament to the people’s unity with our efforts and objectives.
Another campaign we have worked diligently to support is the #ProtectOurGirls campaign. When the stepmother of two young African Girls (7&8) approached our organization, we knew they needed our help. After laying out that her fiance’s children were living with their pedophile stepfather, and the multiple ways the state and other individuals had sabotaged the case against the best interest of these children, we united that we were not having it! So Black Hammer dove into action. We began building the petition and raising resources for the family. As the case continues and the family is in settlement discussions we know that we were successfully able to alleviate some of the financial burdens of fighting this case, and made sure the family felt like they had a community who supported them. This was extremely important for keeping up the families moral.
I am personally self-critical as the leader of the #ProtectOurGirls campaign around the lack of turnout at our first protest for the campaign. Despite the contractions, Chief Nyah and I were able to drive down to Alabama and show material support with our presence. On a personal level, this has been a year full of growth, realization, and understanding. This is a level of growth that I’ve only come through struggle self-criticism and self-organization.
This year I learned how deep the internal struggles of a revolutionary can and will be for anyone who is trying to become the best cadre revolutionary they can be. I learn to recognize my weaknesses and taught myself to struggle internally so that my weaknesses will become my strength and my contradictions will be judged by the way I overturn them. Specifically, the struggle of personal organization has been one of my greatest hurdles to overcome in the year 2020.
Despite struggling with depression anxiety and sometimes acute Insomnia, I was able to see the demise of the colonial system through the work the struggles and the achievements of my organization and comrades. I was able to witness the creation of an organization whose sole objective is to liberate the African and colonized working-class masses. I witnessed comrades struggle to maintain a cadre stance and overturn contradiction. who made sure it runs I learned what my revolutionary ancestors meant when they said that the revolution is not a dinner party that is neither pretty nor is it perfect but it is a fight for liberation. A struggle that must be waged by any means necessary.
