‘I believe in our people’s ability to find the light’: Celebrating Black August in dark times

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

Black August is important because it’s always important for us to honor those who are willing to make a sacrifice for our freedom, for our liberation, and that’s what political prisoners have done. Crystal, our fifth principle is what brings us here today, and that’s calling for the release of all political prisoners. Prisoners Award and political exiles for that one. Can I get a freedom? All freedom All.

Mansa Musa:

Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. Today we was filming Black August activities sponsored by the Malcolm X grassroots movement DC chapter. Specifically, he was focusing on Mutulu Shakur acupuncture to take over the Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx in 1970 of this political education class and P class is anybody that know it is an opportunity where we discuss theory and practice of revolutionary ideas. So this Black August for them, this is accumulation

Ethan, Community organizer:

Of that. I mean, I think Black August is crucial because it takes ideology and theory and puts it into everyday practice.

Bree, Pan-African Community Action:

The theme for this year was all about medical genocide and political prisoners. And leading into that, we’re going through our Pan-African Community Actions new health program, the People’s Pan-African Wellness front. So we really wanted to tie in the themes of health so that when we’re going into the fall and we’re giving people training on door knocking, we’re going to start doing the training for the health practitioners and all those things. It kind of primes people to think about health in this way as one of something that’s being used in order to harm us and what we can do to take control of that process.

Awaly Diallo, MXGM organizer:

The lack of hospitals in Ward seven and eight, but there is never a lack of police currently occupying the streets here in Washington dc and so we see that resources are available, but the ways in which and where we pour money is very intentional because it’s not about the safety or minimizing crime and is about the repression. Is about the repression, but also the surveillance of particularly our youth. We thought it was important to talk about the medical conditions of the folks who are currently behind bars and incarcerated and the work that they do. And we saw that connection to the conditions that we see both in our communities here in DC but also in New York and Philly, other urban areas, but also suburban areas or rural places where folks don’t have access to a hospital.

Mansa Musa:

What kind of response y’all getting from the commute?

Bree, Pan-African Community Action:

So we’ve had some pretty good responses because people are understanding the barriers. We talked to someone, we do outreach over by Anacostia. We talked to a young sister that was incarcerated and she was telling me that she couldn’t get her healthcare because she was released, but her profile still says incarcerated, even though she was standing in front of them, her thing said incarcerated, so she couldn’t take her meetings or she needed those meetings for her parole. So it’s like this kind of cycle of getting of people having lack of access so people understand you ask somebody if they like their healthcare, they got a million stories, they know an aunt that couldn’t get treatment. So people are very open to an alternative. Okay.

Awaly Diallo, MXGM organizer:

The Regional Addiction Prevention Incorporation, otherwise known as Rap Incorporated, and they were founded in the seventies, also modeled by the Lincoln Detox Center, and they were actually the first therapeutic community model here in dc. And so these are all examples of the ways in which we can seek holistic care and wellness like acupuncture, ear seating with my Conrad L in the back or herbal medicine. They all understand self-determination of our people as a central principle and struggles towards liberation.

Joniesha Hickson, Assoc. of Black Psychologists:

I’m a clinical psychologist by trade, but I work in a school, so yeah, I’m always wondering about different Indigenous methods, if you will, that might help our kids.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

And you’ve gotten acupuncture done before?

Event attendee:

I have, yeah. Not on my ears though.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

Oh, okay. Awesome.

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

But I do have pretty big ears, so it should be a little easy.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

Wait. It’s like the seed of life is what they’re thinking.

Bree, Pan-African Community Action:

We really want to keep the legacy of honoring our political prisoners alive in the way that it was intended to be. So study fast, train fight. We don’t want black August to become kind of like new black History month where it just becomes about celebrations or parties. That’s not the spirit of it. It’s in resistance and how we can prepare ourselves to resist our own oppression.

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

It’s also important, and particularly in this political moment, to be reminded that resistance and self-defense is a human right. That’s right. And it’s been a right that’s been exercised by political prisoners and our willingness to fight for them sends a message to those who need to fight today, that when they take a stand like Matullo did, so many of our other political prisoners have that the people will back them. The people will come to get them, the people will come and free them.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

As Shakur always said, no liberation struggle has left behind their political prisoners. And so Black August is a great reminder of that to show us how to commemorate them, the ones that we’ve lost, but also the ones who are still behind the bars who we’re fighting for their freedom. And also the newer generation of political prisoners at the state is trying to create, especially through things like the Rico 61 and Atlanta for stop custody.

Right. Reverend Joy Powell, who is a political prisoner from the Black Lives Matter movement era, Imam Janelle Lumin, also known as H Rap Brown, been organizing alongside his campaign to bring him whole former Black Panther party member, former community elder. Some people may know him as Papa Eddie Conway, who was located in Baltimore, Maryland in some ways that his resistance still living on, although he is transitioned. So we’ve always had to find ways to resist the chemical warfare imposed on us by the state. During Conway’s incarceration in Baltimore, Maryland as a political prisoner for his involvement in the Black Panther Party, he and other prisoners organize the Survival package, mutual aid project, and an intergenerational and politically conscious peer support group. That was the birthing ground for the community initiative. Tubman House, which was founded by Conway and his wife Dominique, which is still in existence today, located in Baltimore, is actually in the neighborhood where Freddie Gary was killed by Baltimore Police.

Awaly Diallo, MXGM organizer:

People are sick and tired of being sick and tired, especially with the federal takeover. So we see people feeling just more enraged, and so we hope that people take that rage and come out to these organizations and organize with us. This is really, really important to join an organization, to be a collective and not to try to do this thing by yourself. Right. It is about all of us.

Joniesha Hickson, Assoc. of Black Psychologists:

So I’m the president of the Association of Black Psychologist, the DC chapter, but we also do a podcast and we talk about mental health and the intersection of that and other things. So if I could get your information, maybe we could have you on to talk about your work. Oh yeah, for sure. That would be cool.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

Yeah, that’d be great.

Joniesha Hickson, Assoc. of Black Psychologists:

Yeah. We’re always trying to give people practical tools to respond to racial trauma and anxiety and depression and all that. And I never would’ve thought acupuncture to respond to that, but here we are. It’s a lot of shit going on. Yeah.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

It’s a lot for us to carry. Even if we do have the understanding as to why things are happening the way that they are, it still doesn’t take away from the fact that this is heavy as hell.

Joniesha Hickson, Assoc. of Black Psychologists:

So

Angel, MXGM organizer:

Carry it all.

Joniesha Hickson, Assoc. of Black Psychologists:

I’m sitting here while y’all are educating us, and I’m like, tan, I’m probably going to have to drive through mad cops on my way home. So anxiety provoking.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

Yeah. Yes. Hopefully this can help.

Joniesha Hickson, Assoc. of Black Psychologists:

I’m sure it will be driving like, oh, actually I’m done. That was it. That’s so quick.

Mansa Musa:

How do you see the Landscaping District of Columbia now with the federal tego basically is a coup. What’s y’all response and how y’all going to go about organizing people to understand how to respond and be effective in their response?

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

This is just an intensification of an occupation that has already been happening for years. DC

Mansa Musa:

That’s right.

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

Has not had residents having had a right to determine their own destiny. Just most recently actually got the right to vote for mayor and then in federal elections if that stuff is important. But the ideal is that we don’t have a control over our own destiny to be able to set our own programs. Part of all this stuff is even being created by a budget crisis that was created by Congress, but it’s also been facilitated by a black leadership class. That’s

Mansa Musa:

Right.

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

That has refused to really fight and give folks the kind of determination that they need that we saw on today’s pe. Right. They have been setting the conditions they have called for the National Guard and other police forces well before this particular moment. So we’ve been calling for the folks to really look at self-determination.

Ethan, Community organizer:

Right?

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

Right. We’ve been calling for folks to come together to build people’s assembly.

Ethan, Community organizer:

What we can do in this moment is come together and organize. We have to talk to one another and not only disseminate our analysis of what’s happening, but how we fight back and how we fight back strategically and not just reactionary. We have to be on the offensive, but we have to be on the offensive in a smart way and in an organized way.

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

People can come together to come up with real solutions to the problems that we face that don’t involve involving solutions that don’t work. Right. We know policing does not work. The researchers know policing don’t work, police, police don’t work.

Angel, MXGM organizer:

We’re talking a lot about building community self-defense networks.

Well, self-defense networks. We don’t have to rely on the police because we know what our communities need. They don’t. So it makes sense for us to be out in the community talking to each other and letting people know that we have the power. They can’t take it away from us. And so it’s more important what we do with that power rather than being reactionary or for giving it to apathy or the defeatism. How can we look to our organizers who came before us, but then also those in other places throughout the world who are organizing against state repression and think similar to federal takeovers and learning from them and applying it to our current conditions.

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

How do we build ways to bring community healing? Because again, we see people being kicked off Medicare that was happening before DC before this Trump takeover. And then our last piece is then I’ll continued work around political prisoners and continue to lift up their work and to talk about them because again, a lot of the problems that we are facing, they offered us a solution. Are you optimistic

Mansa Musa:

About our struggle and going forward where we refreshing? Are you optimistic that we going to continue to fight or are we going to acquiesce in kow?

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

Right. Well, we believe, and I believe that the laws of history are on our side. Our people’s history has shown us that even in these dark moments, we have found a way to find the light. And as Ms. Ella Baker teaches us, when we give people light, they will find a way. So I believe in our people’s ability to find a way to find the light. And political prisoners teach us that from the dark, deepest dungeons of the belly of the beast. That’s right. They were a light. That’s the George Jackson. When the doors open, the real dragon will fly out. And we believe that’s what we’re trying to be up for black August, is really transforming our folks into dragons and letting them loose to build the nation that will free us all

Mansa Musa:

Power to the people,

Jmo Muhammad, MXGM organizer:

All power to the people.

Mansa Musa:

We ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars. We’ve been covering a series of events and activities that’s cutting edge, but more importantly, we out there, we feeling the pulse of the people. We’re turning the volume of people’s voices up. And it’s important that at this day and age that we come together around alternative news, real news, people’s news.