By Chief Oju Múkaro
I met Gazi Kodzo for the first time in Chicago, toward the beginning of the pandemic. Actually, more specifically, it was a few days after George Floyd was murdered by the pigs in Minneapolis. We went to a protest in downtown Chicago and in addition to exclaiming for justice at the top of our lungs, we distributed free KN95 masks to colonized people at the protest. It was early on in the pandemic, so many people were going completely maskless even though hundreds were still dying in the hospitals. People were angry and it made sense that no one was actively informed about how to stay safe, it took this country two years to even say KN95 masks were better than others. However, Commander Gazi understood. And they wanted to protect their people. So we passed out masks, and she slayed doing it, locs in a headwrap for protection from the virus and wearing their beloved camo jacket. Colonel Keno wears that camo jacket now, but of course he styled it for himself (now it ain’t got no sleeves!).
Now, as revolutionaries we don’t measure someone’s merit by subjective memories or circumstances. Revolutionary work isn’t about feelings, opinions, vibes, it’s about what it says it is—work. The work exposes all. And from passing out KN95 masks at George Floyd protests in Chicago to passing out bands to the homeless in Atlanta, the work exposes that Gazi Kodzo is indeed the people’s Robin Hood.
The ambitious campaign to distribute free KN95 masks around the world was something that no other organization was taking on, let alone any organization not funded by the government or grants. In the span of the first several months, thousands of KN95 masks went out to poor and working class colonized people around the world from Los Angeles to Minneapolis to Nigeria. There was a massive education campaign to inform people how to safely sanitize, come in and out of the house, and more. Commander Gazi personally did their own set of videos to teach people how to do this:
But as Commander Gazi always says, “We are not a charity.” The Black Hammer Party is not a charity out to distribute resources for the sake of distributing resources. The Black Hammer Party is a revolutionary party politically educating and organizing the masses. And so Hammers took to the streets to politicize not just the murder of George Floyd and the colonial system that was designed to murder him, but also why it was African and other colonized people dying the most from COVID-19 and why it was genocide—again. We taught the people why it wasn’t Black Lives Matter but POWER that mattered. In a speech to 40,000 people on the gentrified former site of the notorious Cabrini-Green projects in Chicago, Commander Gazi declared that colonialism doesn’t turn colonized people into workers that are meant to unite with white workers worldwide, colonialism turns us into the loot that white workers process and manage and white billionaires and sellouts profit from! Commander Gazi speaks not from opinion but from dialectical historical materialism—studying the patterns of history and past revolutions—because they want our people to be VICTORIOUS this time. The heroes that we honor like Malcolm X, Fred Hampton and Assata Shakur, did amazing work for the trajectory of our people. But they didn’t win. Not just because of any mistakes they made, but mainly because they were working against a colonial, white supremacist superpower that didn’t want them to win. This same colonial, white supremacist superpower, the united snakkkes, has struck again, incarcerating the leader of the revolution. The leader who does the most work and gives the least fucks about what their enemies think. That’s a scary combination. And our enemies know that.
Commander Gazi continued to work to give back to the people. Creating a home for poor and working class colonized people at Hammer City became the party’s main project, based on an understanding of getting our land back—a vital part of Black Hammer’s first principle of unity. With our land back, whether Turtle Island, Pachamama, Africa, Asia, Australia, wherever our lands have been colonized, we will have control of the resources that will allow us to determine our own lives and labor. And with that in mind, we moved forward as the crisis of colonialism kept deepening and deepening throughout the pandemic. In the process of this project, it became clear how dangerous petit-bourgeois people can be inside a revolutionary apparatus. It’s something laid down in history, Mao speaks of it, Ho Chi Minh speaks of it, but as Mao says—you don’t know a thing until you experience it. Petit-bourgeois colonized sellouts make their individual needs, fears, and shortcomings the center of their work, and in doing so slow down the work for the people. Eventually, this individualism makes these sellouts fend for themselves, backstabbing and undermining the revolution. The damage that the petit-bourgeois sellouts did was not to individuals, but to the collective masses around the world, and it was despicable and disgusting. However, Commander Gazi carried on and led us through it because the people had to be victorious. The people were not going to stop getting what they needed to organize against colonialism and white power. There was no stopping Da Vanguard.
It was then in Atlanta that it became clear—the revolution has to be based entirely on poor and working class colonized leadership and those breaking away from their class backgrounds to serve the poor and working class entirely. Commander Gazi, who was once homeless, led Hammers throughout Atlanta onto the MARTA trains, into the parks, onto the streets to recruit and organize the homeless so we can defeat colonialism once and for all. Da Revolutionary Church became the gathering place for organizing the homeless. In Woodruff Park in downtown Atlanta, Hammers under the leadership of Gazi Kodzo distributed hundreds of sleeping bags, pieces of clothes, tents, self-defense supplies, packages of food, and more. But like said before, the Black Hammer Party is not a charity. Each Sunday at Da Revolutionary Church, Commander Gazi politically educated the people—talking about why this system got our people addicted to substances, why it got our brothers and sisters fighting each other through horizontal violence, why our people have been taught to be homophobic. And then later came the political education of War of the Flea. Of Materialism and the Dialectical Method. WHAT OTHER REVOLUTIONARY LEADER IS READING WAR OF THE FLEA WITH OUR PEOPLE ON THE STREETS! Showing our people that the Black Hammer Party is preparing to fight this system militantly and strategically motivated our people. The people unite with a gay African revolutionary leader because of the work! The work exposes all and it was this work that immediately began being targeted by the Atlanta Police Department and other pigs throughout metro Atlanta.
As the work grew, so grew the ability to house our people on the streets so that they too could take part in this revolutionary work. The work has grown so much and the people have given so much to this work, that Commander Gazi has been able to give hundreds and hundreds of dollars directly into the hands of the homeless of Atlanta. Gazi Kodzo is the people’s Robin Hood. But more accurately, Gazi Kodzo is the people’s leader. No matter how many times the pigs have targeted them, they have returned right back to the people to carry on the revolution.
The Black Hammer Party detests all of the vile accusations against our leadership. We detest the willingness of petit-bourgeois sellouts to align themselves with the pig and with the colonial state in their campaign to quell revolutionary work. We detest the inhumanity of the monsters that would laugh at the death of an 18-year old African young man at the hands of colonialism. More importantly, however, the Black Hammer Party will continue to work for the masses of poor and working class colonized people who now more than ever need leadership that works hard and gives no fucks about their enemies. There is a massive food shortage happening. There are the continued mutations of COVID-19 and now the spread of monkeypox around the world. Revolution is rising in the people everywhere.
The Black Hammer Party takes this attack on our leadership and work as a sign that we are indeed Da Vanguard and on the path of victory. Anyone should question these rapid attacks on a leader that speaks good of China, the DPRK, Russia, and Cuba. As Mao says: “I hold that it is bad as far as we are concerned if a person, a political party, an army or a school is not attacked by the enemy, for in that case it would definitely mean that we have sunk to the level of the enemy. It is good if we are attacked by the enemy, since it proves that we have drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves. It is still better if the enemy attacks us wildly and paints us as utterly black and without a single virtue; it demonstrates that we have not only drawn a clear line of demarcation between the enemy and ourselves but achieved a great deal in our work.”
The line has been drawn. Gazi Kodzo is the people’s Robin Hood. Who is you?
Call 770-461-6353 now to demand the release of Commander Gazi and Colonel Keno. Call 404-546-5700 to demand the release of General Drako. Donate to support their legal fees and to get resources for the people at $BlackHammerOrg on CashApp.
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