THE HANDSTAND

APRIL 2003



WOMEN OF THE WORLD
by Mumia Abu-Jamal



Who can think of the world's women, and not marvel?  There is no area of human endeavor upon which the mark of woman has not been made, and made well.

Every year, around the time of International Women's Month, advertisements in the newspaper trumpet the accomplishments of women, but usually they shy away from the women who have fought for the revolutionary rights of women and others, or who have fought against the partriarchal status quo.  As in Black History Month, those who are celebrated tend to be 'safe' women; those who are acceptable to men because they haven't rocked the boat, or, if they did so, they did so gently.

I will not address such women here; they are represented elsewhere

Let us think of women who are usually ignored; or who are feared, or who are shunned by the corporate media.  Women like those nameless billions who (according to the UN Conference of Women in Copenhagen in 1980) perform between two-thirds and three-quarters of the work in the world (and produce 45% of the world's food!).  They labor against great odds, and keep body and soul together for billions of children. They are heroines.

Let us think of women like Tarika Lewis, who was the first woman to join the Black Panther Party as a rank-and-file member, and with her courage and ability, paved the way for thousands of others to follow her path; while her name may not be known nor famous, history should record her proud contribution of resistance to the racist repression of the 1960s and '70s.

Tarika, like millions of other Black women, came from traditions of woman warriors all along the West African coast.

While some have suggested otherwise, the 18th Century ex-slave, sailor and writer, Olaudah Equiano noted clearly, when telling memories of his tribe, wrote: "All are taught the use of these weapons; *even our women are warriors*, and march boldly out to fight along with the men."  [fr. *The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus assa, the African* (orig., 1789), p. 16]

Equiano recalled seeing a battle while nestled in a tree, his mother in the thick of the battle, armed with a broad sword!

Let us not suggest that brave women warriors were rare or relegated to the dusty pages of dry history books.  The name, Fred Hampton, is legendary, yet few remember his young wife, Akua, who lay beside him as he was slaughtered by the State, and now continues as a leader in the struggle.  While Fred is remembered, and perhaps Mark Clark, few remember that two Panther women were among the wounded that night: Verlina Brewer and Brenda Harris were each shot twice by the state and federal death squad, and both were seriously wounded, but they survived, and bravely continued the resistance as Panthers.

There has been no true popular struggle in African-American history, American history, or world history, that was not, in part, supported or sustained by women.  Women were at the very heart of the Abolition Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Liberation Movement, and the Anti-War Movements.  That they are not well-known is due to their being disappeared from the annals of history.

Let us not forget Ruby Robinson (1942-1967) who was a fiery militant activist
with SNCC; Claudia Jones (1915-1964) a Trinidadian-born radical journalist and communist who led the Free Mandela campaigns in London; Lolita Lebron, who fought for Puerto Rican independence from the U.S.; Petrona Chacon, who was a leading figure in the 1840 slave revolt in Cuba; Ernestina "Titina" Sila (1943-1973) African revolutionary leader, fought for the PAIGC (African Party for Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde); Septima P. Clark (1898-1987), who established 'Freedom Schools' in the apartheid South, worked with the SCLC; Cherry Turner, wife and co-conspirator with the Black rebel, Nat Turner, of the August, 1831 Insurrection that shook the South to its roots; Ella Baker (1903-1986), founded SNCC, organized Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, worked with Puerto Rican Solidarity Committee; affectionately called "Fundi", Swahili for 'teacher';... and these are but a few.

Let us not forget them, and millions like them; mostly unknown, erased from 'official' history; remembered in the realm of the heartfor their strength, their courage, their powerful will to be free, which inspires us all... still.

Copyright© 2003 Mumia Abu-Jamal
From:
nattyreb@comcast.net


Harlem Anti-war march and rally on April 5th


Brothers, Sisters, friends and Supporters: US polls indicate overwhelming Black opposition to the racist and illegal war of "shock and awe" against the people of Iraq. People of African descent understand well the US doctrine of  "shock and awe"  terrorism to expand its empire that drips with the blood of people of color. On April 5th in the historic village of Harlem thousands of African descendants in the US along with people of color allies will raise their voices in protest against this WAR FOR OIL. We will debunk the myth that People of Color do not have a visible voice or presence in the anti-war movement. We will speak to our issues, give our analysis, and support allies without conditions. This is a historic moment for the world, and especially for people of color. It is no accident that African Americans comprise 30% of the 40% people of color serving as cannon fodder for the US military. A bleak future of minimum wage employment or the prison industrial complex drives our sons and daughters into the military. Instead of educating our kids public schools have become fertile ground for military recruitment while every obstacle is put in place to prevent our children from obtaining higher education. It is no accident that New York State's courts have ruled the public school system has the obligation to only provide our children with an 8th grade education. Not to mention the continued daily brutality and death of our young people at the hands of the police. If this is not enough, now they want the blood of our children to fight in the Middle East in a campaign of endless war (Iraq is only the first target in the region). ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! JOIN US ON APRIL 5TH IN HARLEM, LET US SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE.


nellie hester <nelliehester@yahoo.com>


Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
By Robin D. G. Kelley
Beacon Press, 2002. $25.00
Review by Daphne Muse

Intelligence, and how you use it, matters.  And the resounding truth of that lies in the multiply profound words contained in a series of essays in Robin D.G. Kelley's Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination.  Often it takes writers, philosophers and historians like Kelley to help us put our minds on redial and recall those who inspired our dreams and helped to shape our thinking and our visions.

Early on in Freedom Dreams, Kelley notes:
"Sometimes I think the conditions of daily life, of everyday oppressions, of survival, not to mention the temporary pleasures accessible to most of us, render much of our imagination inert.  We are constantly putting out fires, responding to emergencies, finding temporary refuge, all of which make it difficult to see anything other than the present."

There is absolutely nothing inert about Kelley, as he navigates ever so facilely back to the past, dances in the present and drums up the future while listening as Bootsy reminds us, "We need da funk. Gotta have dafunk." But even Bootsy would concur that this current funk may be the mother of all funks, as America nose dives into the tailspin of war on Iraq.

But Kelley's irrepressible energy, intellect and optimism have come together to forge a vision capable of giving us pause for brilliant and vital new possibilities.  As a contemporary preeminent historian, Kelley's intellectual rigor delivers us the dreams of intellectuals and renegades throughout the African Diaspora clearly noting that people are drawn to social movements because they respect their historical legacies, believe in the future and value life.  But the dreams of poet Jane Cortez one of his mentors, activist and artist Paul Robeson and billions of everyday people are so radically different from the world we've inherited. In language that's accessible, Kelley leads us into revisiting conversations and thinking about how our dreams can become a "nation" or an integral part of the sustainable foundation of the country in which we live.

Where others get bogged down in taking theoretical depositions, Kelley navigates with a kind of historical confidence and ease, usually worn by seasoned historians who've clocked decades.   But in every essay, Kelley the historian and cultural critic clearly demonstrates intelligence matters and how we use it matters even more.  From Third World liberation movements to Communism and the imaginative mindscapes of Surrealism to the transformative unmet potential of radical feminism,  Kelley bypasses the usual rhetorical quagmires and fluidly reopens old conversations with scores of brilliant dreamers, producing historically sustained encounters that take us "Roaring from the East: Third World Dreaming," to "This Battlefield Called Life": Black Feminist Dreams soaring upwards to "A Day of Reckoning": Dreams of Reparations" and  landing at the feet of  "When History Wakes": A New Beginning.

"In the Battlefield Called Life" he points out that "Black women don't usually appear in histories of "second wave" radical feminism, except as frustrated critics of white women.  But a few were there at the very beginning.  Florynce "Flo" Kennedy and Pauli Murray, both attorneys with a long history of civil rights and feminist activism, were founding members of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966.  I would urge Kelley to add Aileen Hernandez to that list.  Hernandez was NOW's second National President and a founding member of the organization.  She is a former
Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, a former Assistant Chief of the Division of Fair Employment Practices for California and was the Education and Public Relations Director for the Pacific Coast region of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union who continues the legacy she, Murray and Kennedy set into motion some thirty-seven years ago.  While "the radical feminist vision of revolution paid little attention to race or the unique position of women of color," it did not deter women like Murray, Kennedy or Hernandez from dreaming their dreams into visions and making them operational imperatives in the lives of a generation of colored girls who
became even bolder black women.  At times both witty and graceful, he has us standing with Robeson, dreaming out loud with his Momma, "Hipping the Hip" with poet and veteran radical Ramon Durem, and guarding "Africa's memory" with Ted Joans while climbing scaffolds of struggle to watch the building of revolutions once under construction, destroyed sometimes by their own weight but most often annihilated by those who tried, and often succeeded in marketing of us out of
our dreams.

In his final essay, never presumptuous Kelley states, ""I won't propose much more since the design and realization of such a space ought to be the product of a collective imagination shaped and reshaped by the very process of turning rubble and memory into the seeds of a new society."  His writing constantly beckons me not to inhale the vapors of terrorism, nor allow the drums of war to drown out my dreams.  Like Alice Walker's poem "Revolutionary Petunia's," David Walker's Appeal, Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I A Woman," and Mos Def and Talib Kweli's  Black Star, he challenges me to keep Dreaming in Freedom.

And like a sculptor maybe we will get to take the current maelstrom of destruction and mould it into a long standing monument to life, everyday, everyday life.  I sure hope millions of people, especially young folk will get their reading groove on and get down with the mix brother Kelley represents in these pages, cause I want to "dis-course" and speak on it with them and young people steeped in struggle, like Youth4Reparations, as well as others whose lives are void of this kind of dreaming.
Daphne Muse©
msmusewriter@aol.com,



Artworks by Tayseer Barakat samia@rcn.com