READ THIS! IF U MUST BANG, BANG FOR FREEDOM! Today marks the 47th anniversary of the epic Newark Rebellion! We will be on the streets today honoring that mighty moment of resistance! We share here a reprinting of an article Baba Zayid did to mark the 40th anniversary of the Rebellion! At the time, he organized an important Town Hall meeting that honored Baba Amiri who I miss incredibly!...He had a special stool made in Ghana for him for his life commitment to our struggle!...At the same time, Imam Jamil Al-Amin who now has cancer in prison was just being put into solitary confinement! Tell those u love how much they meant to u when they are here! Long live Amiri Baraka! Free Imam Jamil! To my yg warriors and warrior queens, please take the time out to take some notes!...we need yall to carry it on! The newark rebellion—thru redblack &green eyes By bro.zayid For all the hoopla about the 40th anniversary of the Newark Rebellion,very little has been done to appreciate that epic moment in my town’s history, through our own Black eyes. We will try to a little better than that. Here we will try to appreciate the Rebellion thru red, black and green eyes, or thru the revolutionary trappings of our history. In so doing, we must appreciate the global Black revolutionary experience first to do so. Post WW2-Global Factors.The mass destruction of WW2, of angry white men killing each other mercilessly and desperate in their frenzy to involve the colonized hands of non-white men in the process, did two very important things for the Global Black South (as in the Southern Hemisphere). One, it shattered the myth of white invincibility, a crucial psychological base of global white supremecy; Two, it taxed white supremecy’s resources in both the mutual destruction and reconstruction of Europe, the continental seat of savage western civilization and compromised its ability to maintain its stranglehold on its colonies. As such, it triggered among many in the colonized lands of the south, the need to seize the time and to organize in a mass way for independence like never before. But more pointedly, as we relate this to the Newark Rebellion, four critical things happened in the Global Black South that had a huge emotional impact on the generation that set America afire in ’67. The Mau Mau Uprising of 1952. The Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya was first major Global Black South uprising in Afrika to physically confront the myth of white invincibility. This was the Black man scaring the hell out of the white man like he hadn’t in Afrika in a long time. Although it was ultimately put down, this uprising accelerated mass organizing for independence, not just in Kenya, but throughout Afrika. It was especially impactful in Ghana, Congo and Algeria. This especially true of the latter because they used force of arms to run the French out of Algerian dodge. The Bandung Conference of 1955. The Bandung Conference was the first broad united strategy of the Global Black South that truly launched the NonAligned Movement. Here, most Global Black South nations together declared their ‘positive neutrality,’ that they were not going to depend solely on, or take sides with, neither the United States, nor the now former Soviet Union; That they would instead pursue ways to relate to these superpowers that uniquely served their own interests. (Harlem’s Adam Clayton Powell, who hosted the 1966 Black Power Conference, went to Bandung as an unofficial observer). Nkrumah and Ghana’s Independence in 1957. The independence of Ghana, with its stated and stately PanAfrikan posture, got the attention of Black nationalists and integrationists alike. Martin Luther King, the immortal ‘drum major for justice,’ quiet as its kept, I in a moment of singular PanAfrikan clarity, attended Ghana’s inaugural activities. This had a marked positive impact on how Afrikans in America saw themselves. The Cuban Revolution of 1959. Just a stone’s throw from the American South, the Cuban Revolution quickly emerged as the revolutionary gem of Latin America. Having uniquely thrown off the shackles of neocolonialism she would emerge as the most advance example of taking peoples power by any means necessary! The Rise and Fallof Patrice Lumumba. The emergence of the immortal Patrice Lumumba electrified Afrikans all over the world. The incredible potential of an immensely mineral rich Afrika, in control of its own destiny, was made spring water clear with the emergence of Lumumba and Congo…Tragically, for these same reasons, the global white north, meaningly especially the u.s., the Belgians and the French, turned over every covert stone possible to topple and to defer as savagely as possible their deferment of his and ours Pan Afrikan dream. There are also several key moments here in America that are an important part of this background that most be appreciated as well. Brown v. Bd.of Education of 1954. This landmark case is key for two reasons. First, it de-legitimized segregation for the first time in nearly 100 years. Two, it elevated the use of social science data to establish the crippling impact of white supremecy on Black children, opening another arena for a full frontal attack on American national white supremecy. The Lynching of Emmitt Till of 1955. This particularly savage lynching of a young Black Chicago son in Mississippi infuriated Black people as a nation like nothing in a longtime, certainly like no lynching in the 20th century. The late Mamie Till-Mobley, Emmitt’s mother and the late John Johnson of the Ebony-Jet Mountain of Success, deserve enormous credit for taking and daring to publish that picture of Emmitt’s most gruesome corpse to galvanize our people’s outrage. The Montgomery Bus Boycott. This was the first successful mass action against American national white supremecy in the southland. It manifested the power potential of united mass action here ‘inside the monster.’ The Afrikan Peoples Conference of 1959 in Harlem. This underappreciated Pan Afrikan gathering organized by the immortal Carlos Cooks attacked the question of language and race in a full frontal way. As such, it put the word ‘Negro,’ then the formal way used to racial describe our people in America, squarely on its deathbed. The Nat’l Emergence of Malcolm X. The national emergence of Malcolm X as an alternative voice for struggle cannot be underestimated. It was through Malcolm’s voice the youth of the 1960s made Global Black Sense of our captive experience in America and how else we could break those chains! The Birmingham Black Church Bombing of 1963.This bombing and killing of those four beautiful Black girls while at Sunday school minding their own business on September 15, 1963, spelled the beginning of the end of strict allegiance to nonviolent protest as the sole means to securing our freedom, justice and equality. The Rebellions of Harlem and Watts. Although confined to Black communities, these uprisings were important because they were rehearsals for fighting back, especially against police brutality, the ultimate trigger pulled to fire the Newark Rebellion. Harlem’s was especially noteworthy because Black youth more than willing to push aside the conventional compromising nonviolent civil rights leadership and called for Malcolm, who was in Afrika at the time. The Watts Rebellion covered a huge, wide area like few uprisings before. Out of its ashes emerged two bold nationalist tendencies, both committed to armed selfdefense, both extremely important to the period and the time, The Kawaida Movement and the Black Panther Party. Tragically, they would later fall into conflict with each other. Then of course, Newark’s own local background to the Rebellion must necessarily be appreciated. Without a doubt, police brutality was the order of the day in Newark in ’67.It proved to be the straw that broke the white camel’s back. Local organizing efforts shined at the time the Rebellion blew. CORE led by Bob Curvin, SNCC led by Phil Hutchins, among others before we even get to Amiri Baraka, were in full gear. The influence of the Nation Of Islam in Newark must not be overlooked here. Mosque #25 was one of the most influential mosques in the Nation and had a wider influence on the greater local community than other mosque in the country especially after Malcolm’s unceremonious departure. This left this town full of young Black men having absolutely no problem with ‘sending the devil to hell’! Newark was indeed a Swing City. It’s ‘coast’ district was thick with serious Black performance art. So it should come as no surprise that Amiri Baraka’s organizing efforts would not only break new ground in a militant direct action groundbreaking way. That background made it also logical for that effort to also take on a culturally wholistic form as well it did. So in the end, the Newark Rebellion must be appreciated for what it set it off. It set off, in just a matter of days, dozens of serious rebellions throughout the country. The upsouth state of New Jersey was especially spread thin. Those rebellions also forced the u.s government to extend itself militarily extend at home almost like it was in Vietnam. They were forced to occupy to a degree that even they were not comfortable with. Of course, in a very Fanonian way, the Rebellion sounded the widespread end of that generation’s fear of the white man in America. Most importantly, the Newark Rebellion, and all its sister rebellions, accelerated revolutionary organizing efforts, which in the end successfully ended urban apartheid once and for all. The cost was high in lives and commitment. We still have dozens of political prisoners still languishing in prison from that very heroic activity, including Imam Jamil Al-Amin, who was just put in solitary confinement.This is the man who gave voice to the validity of those uprisings like no other and who was one of the chief players at the Newark Black Power Conference that miraculously took place only days later. But the fruit from those sacrifices were real and tasty and let no compromising buckdancing negro democrat tell you anything different. ©2007
Posted on: Sat, 12 Jul 2014 10:52:07 +0000
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