The Talking Drum v2.0

I WILL NOT “APOLOGIZE”, I WILL NOT “RESIGN!”
The recent dishonest, consciously distorted and insulting non- interpretation of my poem, “Somebody Blew Up America” by the “Anti-Defamation” League, is fundamentally an attempt to defame me. And with that, an attempt to repress and stigmatize independent thinkers everywhere. This trashy propaganda is characteristic of right-wing zealots who are interested only in slander and character assassination of those whose views or philosophies differ from or are in contradiction to theirs .First, the poem underlying theme focuses on how Black Americans have suffered from domestic terrorism since being kidnapped into US chattel slavery, e.g., by Slave Owners, US & State Laws, Klan, Skin Heads, Domestic Nazis, Lynching, denial of rights, national oppression, racism, character assassination, historically, and at this very minute throughout the US. The relevance of this to Bush call for a “War on Terrorism”, is that Black people feel we have always been victims of terror, governmental and general, so we cannot get as frenzied and hysterical as the people who while asking us to dismiss our history and contemporary reality to join them, in the name of a shallow “patriotism” in attacking the majority of people in the world, especially people of color and in the third world. This is said to us, even as this counterfeit president has legalized the Confederate Flag in Mississippi. Could the victims of European Fascism be as frantically loyal to a regime that would fly a Nazi Swastika over their homes? So we cannot, in good conscience, celebrate what seems to us an international crusade to set up a military dictatorship over the world, legitimatised at base, by white supremacy, carried out, no matter the crude lies, as the most terrifying form of Imperialism and its attendant national oppression. All of it designed to drain super profits bluntly from the colored peoples of the world, but as well, from the majority of the peoples in the world. For all the frantic condemnations of Terror by Bush etc., as the single International Super Power, they are the most dangerous terrorists in the world!

Actually, in my focus on various forces of terror Afro Americans and other oppressed people of the world have suffered, slavery, colonialism, Imperialism, Neo neo- colonialism, National Oppression, the ADL disingenuously makes no mention of my probing into the creators of the holocaust, e.g., “who put the Jews in ovens, / and who helped them do it, / Who said “America First”/ and Ok’d the yellow stars”, which of course is a reference to America’s domestic fascists just before World War II and the Nazi Holocaust.
Nor do these ADL purveyors of falsehood mention the poem’s listing of some of the Jews across the world, oppressed, imprisoned, murdered by actual Anti- Semitic forces, open or disguised. The poem asks “Who killed Rosa Luxembourg, Liebnecht/ Who murdered the Rosenbergs/ And all the good people iced, tortured, assassinate, vanished”.
The ADL apparently is not outraged by McCarthy era frame-up and execution of the Rosenbergs, nor the assassination of German Jewish Communist leaders like  Liebnecht, Luxembourg. The ADL leaves these things out to try to make their lies more believable, and also because these victims of imperialism were on the Left. Happily the Star Ledger published the entire poem, though including in a box, supposedly identifying the offending phrases, my question, “Who Blew Up The Reichstag?” as if the ADL had also claimed that the poem was inferring that Jews did it. When it was Hitler’s destruction of the Reichstag, that provided the pretext for the general imprisonment of Jews, after incarcerating Communists, Social Democrats and Trade Unionists. Why this was done one can only speculate, but this is the kind of sloppy or intentionally slanderous journalism one can often find in the media. It also reflects the kind of unprincipled attack that characterizes ADL press release.

The Reichstag fire, parallels the 911 Attack, in that after that “mysterious act of terrorism”, which Hitler blamed on Jews and Communists, the Nazis passed a law The Reichstag Enablement Act, that gave the Nazis much the same carte blanche as the Bush administration used the 911 tragedy to pass the wholly undemocratic Patriot Bill and begin rounding up suspects, even without identifying them. Of course the actual arsonists of the Reichstag terror were never found, though most scholars are certain it was the Nazis themselves.
Of the other lines of the poem, which the ADL termed an example of the Hitlerian “Big Lie”, and the poet’s “spewing Anti-Semitic venom”. The lines, “Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get/bombed?” Well now, certainly, even the Democratic Party has affirmed that the Bush Administration knew. I agree with this, and it is everywhere on the Internet that not only was the US warned repeatedly by Germany, France, Russia, England but also Israel. Michael Ruppert of the Green Party has issued a video stating clearly, “Israeli security issued urgent warnings to the CIA of large-scale terror attacks. And that the Israeli Mossad knew that the attacks were going to take place they knew that the World Trade Center were the targets. This is from British newspaper the “Telegraph”.

In addition there are articles in all forms of media and of course the Internet confirming or suggesting that the entire Imperialist world knew and had warned the US CIA in advance, but no action was taken. WHY. They say they “couldn’t connect the dots”. The FBI agents in  Minnesota and Arizona who said that FBI received a report in 1998 that a terrorist organization planned to bring people to the US to enroll in flight schools. Zacharias Moussoui, now charged with conspiring in the Sept 11 attacks, was arrested by the Minnesota agents of the FBI in August 2001 but FBI HQ denied agents request to seek a warrant even to search his computer. And in a prepared statement by a Minnesota FBI agent, he blamed legal restrictions but principally FBI headquarters for impeding a more aggressive investigation of this man. As for the other agent’s attempt to warn the FBI HQ of these attacks, he was rebuffed when he made the report, but now FBI HQ says it has not record of such warning. (See http://www.Truthout.org/docs) There are other incredible dots on the media, for instance the stockholders of American Airlines and United, which were the carriers high-jacked to commit the terror began withdrawing stock from these companies in August before the attacks.

The most offensive phrase in the poem to my various attackers is, “Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / to stay home that day/ Why did Sharon stay away?” To infer that I am accusing Israel of committing the atrocity is disingenuous slander and character assassination. But I do believe, as I stated about England, Germany, France, Russia, that the Israeli government, certainly it’s security force, SHABAK knew about the attack in advance.
My sources were, “Ha’aretz” and “Yadiot Ahranot” (two Israeli newspapers) “Al Watan” (a Jordanian newspaper) “Manar”-TV and the website of the Israeli security force SHABAK. There are myriad references to this in Reuters, Der Spiegel. The Israeli newspaper Yadiot Ahranot first revealed that SHABAK had canceled Sharon’s appearance in New York City that day, Sept 11, where he was supposed to speak at an “Israel Day” celebration. This was also mentioned in the Star Ledger, to the effect that Sharon was supposed to visit the US, but no dates were mentioned. It is the Green Party’s Ruppert who makes the most effective case for the 4000 Israeli workers (Not Jewish Workers!) but Israeli nationals. He says in his video, “if what I am showing you is known overtly although the media, how much more does our thirty billion dollar intelligence community know”. He goes on, and this seems true to me, It is “Nonsense” to say the Israelis did it. They were warning the U.S. hand over fist Ruppert speculates further 1. The US did not listen 2. They needed the attacks” which I leave to time, as Malcolm X said, Time will tell. But the most stunning revelation is this, again Ruppert, “We reviewed the list of former tenants of the World Trade Center at the on-line Wall St Journal site. And there’s the website. It is an alphabetical list of tenants. Scroll to the very bottom and notice the moving date for the office of Zim American-Israeli Shipping to Norfolk Virginia. They were in the World Trade Center. They must have had Mossad” (or Shabak- AB) input because they vacated one week before September and they broke their lease. The Israelis didn’t pull the attack, but they were smart enough to get their people out of the way. How come our government didn’t do the same thing for us.” (Statement & Quote by George DeCarlo, Coordinator of Union County Greens, Co Founder of the NJ Lavender Greens- included in media pkg.) The poem was never saying anything else, i.e., why didn’t the other slaughtered Americans know? I WAS NOT SAYING ISRAEL WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ATTACK, BUT THAT THEY KNEW AND OUR OWN COUNTERFEIT PRESIDENT DID TOO! There is other disturbing facts surround the hideous 911 attacks, which my family and I could see from the third floor bathroom window of our homes! And certainly one day all this will be thoroughly investigated. The poem says “Who know why Five Israelis was filming the explosion/ And cracking they sides at the notion.” I got this story from The Star Ledger, where it appeared twice, and The New York Times.

The reference to “cracking they sides” or laughing uproariously while filming the 911 attack, apparently on the top of a truck from the Jersey side is a direct paraphrase of them, stated that that is one of the reasons they did arrest them, because they were laughing.
Again, these were Israeli Nationals, persons holding Israeli passports. The Times article even reported on what their lives were like in Jail. And implied they would be deported. So this reference is not more of the ADL’s “Anti- Semitic venom” but arrived at merely from studying the US media. Why those five Israelis were there filming and laughing I do not claim know. That’s why the poem here and throughout continuously chants the question WHO WHO WHO? That is, who is responsible for this horrible crime and WHY? It is a poem that aims to probe and disturb, but there is not the slightest evidence of Anti-Semitism, as anyone who reads it without some insidious bias would have to agree. Why the ADL would do this, I can only speculate. I wish they and other concerned pundits would speculate on how an Airplane flying in America, where the pilot has to file a flight plan before taking off, how can such a plane or two or three of them file such a route in which they would travel, and in the case of the planes leaving Boston make 45 degree turns south and fly 54 minutes to the World Trade Center and 90 minutes to the Pentagon and not be challenged by US Air Defense Fighters, or brought down by ground to air missiles? Having been in the Air Force I know those ADC fighters would normally confront such “rogue” aircraft within a few minutes! Why was this not done? Let the ADL and the media investigating me, investigate that! We should know that Bush and his Right Wing crew want War against all the forces of their so called “Axis of Evil” What a not so wild coincidence that the path of this Axis parallels the route of the proposed US oil corporations- pipe line from Saudi to the far east, apparently to oppose the spiraling economic growth and influence of China. They scream “Bin Laden” and “Taliban” and destroy Afghanistan, install a puppet president and a shadow occupation force.
Next in the Axis is Iraq, we should have known that. With no real proof at all again the people of the US outraged and frightened by the Reichstag of 911 are hyped with chants of “Regime Change” and “Saddam Hussein”. No longer is the madness of crowds being aroused by the “Anti -Terrorist” campaign and Bin Laden as the Devil figure used to rouse the people to a patriotic frenzy, now it is Saddam Hussein. So forget last month’s war and get ready for this month’s. Bush says he wants “regime change” in Palestine, he wants to oust Arafat, now in Iraq, and he wants to oust Saddam. The Axis projects Iran next and then North Korea. What is this an updated version of 1984 or an American version of Hitler’s and Bush 1’s) New World Order? Regime Change, why? Because these regimes are anti democratic or terrorists or in the case of Saddam, they have “weapons of mass destruction”. Well if being anti democratic were a good rationalization for foreign invasions of countries then the United States better watch out because the Florida coup, which tricked the American people into accepting Bush as President is anything but democratic. Should we let foreign countries invade us to get rid of Bush? What would be the American People’s reaction to such Third Reich replay?

And as for Saddam having “weapons of mass destruction” (or mass diversion as some critics say), the US has these weapons. So do Israel, South Africa, Germany, France, Italy, England, Russia, and now China, India, Pakistan. How is it the US and its allies (except the Chinese) can have such weapons, but no one else can. The answer to that, of course, is White Supremacy and Imperialism. And what should be the growing understanding by the American people and the democratic people of the world, is what the far right Bush coven wants is a military dictatorship of the world. The ADL, by attacking me by distorting what my poem is saying, is doing its usual ugly, as a well known running dog of imperialism, particularly by attacking anyone who takes an independent position or is critical of Israeli Imperialism and its attendant ideology political Zionism. As they are attempting with me the ADL slanders anyone who is not happy with Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians As Anti Semitic, when lst of all Israel and its guiding philosophy have nothing to do, as categories, with Jews. (See “Zionism in the Age of the Dictators”, Brenner
But this is the trick such demagogues as the ADL use to hide the crimes of Imperialist Israel. When we criticize US imperialism does that make us enemies of Christianity, maybe only to Jerry Falwell and such Right wing Christian Zealots, perhaps Asscraft But neither Israel nor Zionism is the same as Judaism. (Op cit Brenner; also “The Dilemma of the Modern Jew, Prinz”.) But this is the trick the Israeli’s and their sympathizers use to hide behind Judaism. Israel (and it’s political Zionism) has as much to do with Judaism, as the US has to do with Christianity. In the US our constitution makes clear that this is a secular nation and by law theoretically enforces separation of church and state, though Mr. Bush and Mr. Asscraft have demonstrated they disagree, and Israel outright says it is a “Jewish State” but if that is so then that explains why it can discriminate against its Arab people living inside Israel and make them 2nd class citizens, in much the same way that South Africa, a close friend did under Apartheid. (See “The Crisis of Black Jewish Relations”, Brenner & Bloom; “Israel and South Africa”, Stevens & Ellmessi; The “Arabs in Israel” by Sabri Jiryis, foreword by Noam Chomsky).
The ADL attacks so it can confuse people and show me as just another Anti- Semitic attacker of their absolutely false depictions of Israel as a victim of Palestinian Terrorism. This is absolutely in tune with the Bush administrations Frenzied “destroy Iraq regime change “Jones” (a street word for narcotics addiction) that the administration is chanting around us like cheer leaders at a football game! So that US imperialism can transform the whole of the Middle East, the Arab world into a gas station (See “Bushwacked: A Counterfeit President for a Fake Democracy”, Baraka) So that we are supposed to believe that if a little girl blows herself up in a Israeli Pizza Parlor, she is a terrorist, but when Israeli Jets, made in the USA, destroy whole sections of Palestinian cities, bulldoze neighborhoods, all but destroy the Palestinian Center of Governance, with its President, Yasser Arafat, inside sitting in the dark, it is the Israelis who are victims and the little Palestinian girl or boy or young man or young woman or even elder, they are the terrorists. We are supposed to be intimidated by demagogues like the Anti Defamation League (who should be called the Anti Anti Defamation League) so that Israel as a jr. partner of the Bush led US goosestep to world military domination can commit ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in the name of fighting terrorism. It is the ADL, which is actually guilty of what its leader, Abraham Foxman calls the Hitlerian “Big Lie”, and ironically it is the ADL, which is “spewing anti-Semitic venom”. The same ADL which became aware of “Black Anti Semitism”, which it had earlier said has never been a threat, until Stokely Carmichael and SNCC began to support the PLO and the Palestinian Struggle as a Liberation Struggle and condemn Israeli Imperialism and Zionism. That is when, as Stokeley Carmichael says in the A-APRP’s “Smash Zionism” the ADL smashed SNCC instead. As Israel drew closer to South  Africa, politically, economically, militarily in the 60’s (Op Cit, above & others) the Black Liberation Movement and African Nations became more and more guilty, according to the ADL, of “Black Anti-Semitism”.
This is the same ADL who opposed Affirmative Action, even though many Jews benefited by the Civil Rights Struggle, and the most notable white comrades in that struggle were young Jews. The same ADL that filed an Amicus Curiae (friend of the court brief) in the historic and reactionary Baake Decision which challenged & defeated the University of California’s affirmative action as “racist” and was explained by the ADL as its opposition to quotas. So that the university’s could now enforce a quota on Black students of none!
This is the same ADL, which in league with the American Israel Political Action Committee, just a few weeks ago sent millions of dollars into Atlanta, Georgia to defeat progressive Black Congress woman Cynthia McKinney, because she called for a more balance American view of the Palestinian -Israeli Conflict. These same forces defeated in Alabama, another progressive Black incumbent Congressman, because he too dared to support the Palestinians. (See New York Times), Amsterdam News, Star Ledger). Very much like the way Bush touts “Regime Change,” recently even hinting at an attempted Assassination of Saddam Hussein, if the American People rise up and force our congress to deny the Bush juggernaut of terror to attack Iraq.
ADL and their ” bagman” AIPAC didn’t like these black politicians stance on Israel, so in a minute and a few million dollars, they are gone! So now, it’s my turn. Using my poem, Somebody Blew Up America” they are going to spread the Big Lie, distort what poem says. Cover the fact that this poem actually is an attack on Imperialism, National Oppression, Monopoly Capitalism, Racism, Anti-Semitism. I challenge ADL to show anywhere in this poem that is Anti- Semitic in the least. In their press release they say talk about “Jews being scape-goated throughout history then “conspiracy mongers of the Arab world have taken Anti- Israel propaganda to a new level ” (Mr. Foxman, what is the Arab World? Alan Dershowitz in his “Chutzpah” says the basis of bigotry is “overgeneralization,” so where is the “Arab World”? Is Detroit included? Asscraft thinks so.
Earlier the press release mentions “the Muslim World” does that include Lyons Ave., Newark? But then from “Anti-Semitism” the release goes to Israel, not Jews, and Israeli Mossad as those victimized. So they fight Anti Semitism mainly by “defending” Israel. In fact they defend Israel like Joe McCarthy “defended” the US against Communism. Included in my package is a communiqué from an Israeli Peace Organization “: Gush Shalom”, “Israeli Peace Block (see Defamation from the Anti Defamation League Answered” (info@gush-shalom.org) This was first published 7/11/2000 as a press release. “In the past 24 hours, an attack is being mounted against Gush Shalom. Knesset Member Collette Avital (Labor) has actually lodge a complaint with the police, claiming that cartoons presented on our website constitute “incitement”. And the powerful American Jewish organization Anti -Defamation League found time, even on election day, over there, to disseminate a message of defamation against “Gush Shalom”, which already resulted in hate e mails being sent our address”. In a following message signed by Adam Keller Gush Shalom Spokesperson. The organization defends itself from an ADL press releases “expressing outrage at Gush Shalom’s portrayal of Prime Minster Barak as a killer of Palestinian children in a caricature on its web site, stating that the image of Barak standing on the bleeding bullet ridden body of a Palestinian child is abhorrent.” Gush Shalom replies, “Still after consulting with my fellow activists I am in a position to make an offer. Should a complete week – seven days pass in which not a single unarmed Palestinian is killed by the Israeli armed forces which are answerable to Mr. Barak, we would remove the above mentioned cartoon from our website.
The Gush Shalom statement ends “As for the ADL- an organization which claims to “counter hatred prejudice and bigotry” can you truly find no other places to search for such, with Israeli society in its present condition, except at our modest website. Was the ADL attacking these Israelis for being Anti Semitic or criticizing rather forcefully the continuous murder of the Palestinians. So in Israel itself, ADL is still covering for and attacking anyone, even Israeli citizens themselves who oppose the Bush Zionist Plan to de- Palestinianize Palestine!
Another communication from Israe(robertoj69@yahoo.com): This signed by 95 Israeli Academics Sept 23, 2002 that begins “URGENT WARNING: THE ISRAEL GOVERNMENT MAY BE CONTEMPLATING CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” It goes on, “We members of the Israeli academe are horrified by US buildup of aggression towards Iraq and by the Israeli political leadership’s enthusiastic support of it. We are deeply worried by indications that the “fog of war” could be exploited by the Israeli government to commit further crimes against the Palestinian people, up to full-fledged ethnic cleansing.” One striking description of the Israeli Military by these professors is that in an interview found in Ha’aretz Sept 19, 2002, Israeli Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon describe the Palestinians as a “cancerous manifestation” and equated the military actions in the Occupied territories with “chemotherapy”. Certainly the ADL will have to go after these “Anti Semites” using the “Big Lie” and “Spewing Anti- Semitic Venom”! And the growing list of progressive democratic people around the world who will have opinions about Israel and Political Zionism independent of the ADL, the ADL will have to attack and slander them as well I challenge the ADL to set up a national television program so that we might debate this issue. We can project the poem on a wall and go down line by new and discuss it. If not that then why not a forum or debate some place like NYC Town Hall or at Symphony Hall in Newark. Why not take a survey of those who heard the poem at the Dodge Festival? Those who registered and the students brought by schools could be contacted and a survey taken to reflect just the majority of people hearing the poem thought, not just some shadowy surrogates of Imperialism who are trying to convince people that I and my poem are the enemy not US and Israeli Imperialism.

I have already gotten a great many communications praising the poem. A great many E-mail letters and phone calls not only praising the poem, and the poet for writing it, but also opposing the attempt to violate my first amendment rights by this oft repeated ADL skin game of calling critics of imperialism Anti Semites. I have already said, in answer to what Governor McGreevey is quoted as demanding that I apologize and that I resign as NJ Poet Laureate. And I have said repeatedly that I will do neither. It is unfortunate that Governor McGreevey has been stampeded by paid liars, and apologists for ethnic cleansing and white supremacy, bourgeois nationalists and the dangerously ignorant, to be panicked into joining in the ADL’s slander, belittling my intelligence, and insulting not only my person, my family, my fellow artists and activists who know all this is just the feces of a very small cow. But they are also attacking my work in the arts and my social political views. By demanding that I apologize to Evil and Submit to some fundamentally racist and politically motivated call for me to resign as New Jersey’s Poet Laureate, he is insulting the broad group of people who know he is incorrect and who have read and celebrated and valued my work. And that is a grave mistake, one I am hoping he will correct. “Somebody Blew Up America!” was written Oct 1, 2001. A month after the terror attack. Almost immediately I circulated it around the world on the Internet. In addition, I have read this poem in Spain, Portugal, Africa, Switzerland, Italy, Finland and it was translated into German and read on German radio, at Universities and other venues across this country. It has become one of the most circulated of my poems. Yet it was not until I read the poem at the Dodge Poetry Festival that I got negative response from three people that I know of. The overwhelming response was an almost thunderous applause. I even had to come out and take a second bow at one performance. So why now and Who, as the poem asks, is behind it? Perhaps the forces which have dishonestly tried to characterize the poem as “venom” or merely “a harangue” (just as they called John Coltrane’s music “Barbaric Yawps”) are simply, the Charlie McCarthy voices for Bush & Sharon’s Edgar Bergen’s. Empty-headed devilish dummies constructed of wood and painted and costumed to look like it is real people speaking, when all the time it is imperialism is the ventriloquist speaking through their mouths. NO, I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE, I WILL NOT RESIGN. In fact I will continue to do what I have appointed to do but still have not been paid to do. Publicize and Popularize poetry and poets throughout this state. To set up new venues and new networks for poetry reading and workshops, in the state’s libraries and schools and other institutions. Hopefully initiated and given paradigm right here in the Newark Public Library, its branches and throughout the school system. Therefore giving more of our citizens access to poetry, involving poets of all nationalities, both male and female, of diverse experience and styles. I have already begun to enlist coordinators of poetry programs throughout the state, so that we can network a tour of poets, hopefully beginning in January, throughout the state. To do this I will be approaching local, county, state, federal and private funding. And expand our budget with the cooperation of these other existing programs. We will ask that poets POET-ON! That they begin to produce at least one poem or publish a poem monthly, in the most modest forms, Kinko style, and give them away if they have to. That they begin to set up readings not only in the places we mentioned but also in parks and restaurants and in neighborhoods.
We say this because we feel that this state and indeed this nation and this world is desperately in need of the deepest and most profound human values that poetry can teach. That is what Keats and Du Bois called for the poet to do, to bring Truth and Beauty. To be like the most ancient paradigmythic image of the poet. To be like Osiris and  Orpheus, whose job it was to raise the Sun each morning with song and story. To illuminate the human mind, and bring light into the world.
POET ON!

Imamu Amiri Baraka

People opposing U.S. policies in Central America, giving sanctuary to refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador, struggling for Black liberation, and against nuclear weapons, are today more than ever likely to receive visits from FBI agents or other federal investigators. Increasingly, agents are also visiting the families, friends, and employers of these activists.

This page is designed to answer the most frequent questions asked by people and groups experiencing government scrutiny, and to help them develop practical responses.

What is Political Intelligence?

Political intelligence is information collected by the government about individuals and groups. Files secure under the Freedom of Information Act disclose that government officials have long been interested in all forms of data. Information gathered by government agents ranges from the most personal data about sexual liaisons and preferences to estimates of the strength of groups opposing U.S. policies. Over the years, groups and individuals have developed various ways of limiting the collection of information and preventing such intelligence gathering from harming their work.

Do I have to talk to the FBI?

No. The FBI does not have the authority to make anyone answer questions (other than name and address)  to permit a search without a warrant, or to otherwise cooperate with an investigation. Agents are usually lawyers, and they are always trained as investigators; they have learned the power of persuasion, the ability to make a person feel scared, guilty, or impolite for refusing their requests for information. So remember, they have no legal authority to force people to do anything — unless they have obtained an arrest or search warrant. Even when agents do have warrants, you still don’t have to answer their question. A law enforcement official can only obtain your name and address if he or she has a reasonable suspicion to believe that you have committed or are about to commit a crime. Thus, if an FBI agent knocks at your door you do not have to identify yourself to him you can simply say “I don’t want to talk to you,” or “You’ll have to speak to my lawyer,” and then close the door. An FBI agent, unlike a local police officer, does not have jurisdiction to investigate violations of state statute.

Under what laws do the agents operate?

In 1976, FBI guidelines regulating the investigation of political activities were issued by Attorney General Edward H. Levi. Criticized by liberals and conservatives alike, the guidelines were issued in the wake of a Congressional committee’s report of highly questionable activities by the FBI: monitoring the activities of domestic political groups seeking to effect change. The report exposed the FBI’s counter-intelligence program (COINTELPRO) under which the agency infiltrated groups, compiled dossiers on, and directly interfered with individuals engaged in activities protected by the First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and association.

The FBI COINTELPRO program was initiated in 1956. Its purpose, as described later by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, was “to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize activities” of those individuals and organizations whose ideas or goals he opposed. Tactics included: falsely labeling individuals as informants; infiltrating groups with persons instructed to disrupt the group; sending anonymous or forged letters designed to promote strife between groups; initiating politically motivated IRS investigations; carrying out burglaries of offices and unlawful wiretaps; and disseminating to other government agencies and to the media unlawfully obtained derogatory information on individuals and groups.

In 1983, Attorney General William French Smith issued superseding guidelines that authorized “domestic security/ terrorism” investigations against political organizations whenever the FBI had a reasonable belief that these groups might violate a law. The new guidelines permitted the same intrusive techniques the FBI used against organized crime.

The Smith guidelines were justified by the Attorney General’s observation that “our citizens are no less threatened by groups which engage in criminal violence for political… purposes that by those which operate lawlessly for financial gain.” He concluded: “we must ensure that criminal intelligence resources that have been brought to bear so effectively in organized crime and racketeering investigations are effectively employed in domestic security/ terrorism cases.” The guidelines provide, therefore, no safeguards to protect against infringements of First Amendment rights.

Worst, they ignore the history of COINTELPRO abuses, and abolish the distinction between regular criminal investigations and investigations of groups and individuals seeking political change. They fail to limit the investigative techniques used to obtain data on political groups, so that now the FBI may use any technique, including electronic surveillance and informers, against political organizations.

Today, the FBI may begin a full investigation whenever there is a reasonable indication that “two or more persons are engaged in an enterprise for the purpose of furthering political or social goals wholly or in part through activities that involve force or violence and a violation of the criminal laws of the United States.” The FBI has interpreted “force or violence” to include the destruction of property as a symbolic act, and the mere advocacy of such property destruction would trigger an investigation. Even without any reasonable indication, under a separate guideline on “Civil Disorders and Demonstrations Involving a Federal Interest,” the FBI may investigate an organization that plans only legal and peaceful demonstrations.

Another set of rules governing federal intelligence gathering is Executive Order 12333, in force since 1981. It authorizes the FBI and CIA to infiltrate, manipulate and destroy U.S. political organizations, as well as to use electronic surveillance — under the pretext of an international intelligence
investigation.

What federal agencies are likely to be interested in a citizen’s political activities and affiliations?

The FBI is still the major national intelligence gathering agency. There are also many other federal, state, local and private investigative agencies. At least 26 federal agencies may gather intelligence, including the Immigration & Naturalization Service, Internal Revenue Service, and the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Local police agencies sometimes contain “special services” units and narcotics or other “strike forces” in which federal, state, and local agencies cooperate. The Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency are particularly active when a political organization has or is suspected to have international contacts. Military security agencies and increasingly significant “private” research institutes and security agencies also gather intelligence.

A recent Freedom of Information Act request on behalf of the Livermore Action Group, an anti-nuclear organization, revealed that the Navy, the U.S. Marshal’s Service, and the Marine Corps all sent agents to the Group’s public meetings and kept newspaper reports of such meetings. Most chilling was the revelation that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — the federal agency charged with implementing martial law in the event of a nuclear war — was also watching the Livermore group.

Federal and state, local and private agencies, all tend to share information in a variety of ways.

How does the FBI learn about citizens and organizations?

Political intelligence is gathered from public sources, such as newspapers and leaflets. It is also collected by informers who may be government employees or people recruited by them. Political intelligence is also collected through FBI visits to your home or office. We are here most concerned with this aspect of intelligence gathering.

Agents may be sent to interview people after FBI officials decide there is a “reasonable indication” that an organization or person meets the guidelines for a “domestic security” investigation. Such interviews are a primary source of information, for most people are not aware of their right not to talk to federal agents.

Most people are also unaware of the limits to the power of FBI and other investigative agents. Many people visited by agents are also afraid of being rude or uncooperative. Agents may be friendly and courteous, as if they are attempting to protect you or your organization, or express admiration for your organization and its goals. Occasionally, the FBI may persuade a disaffected member of an organization to give them information about other members, including their personal lives, character and vulnerabilities.

A major job of FBI agents is to convince people to give up their rights to silence and privacy. For example, after a Quaker pacifist spoke in Anchorage, Alaska, at a memorial Service for El Salvador’s Archbishop Romero, FBI agents visited a local priest and interrogated him about the speaker. The agents asked about the speaker’s organizational affiliations and expressed fears about “terrorist connections.” The agents informed the priest that they would do a “computer check” on the speaker and his wife, and asked the priest if the two might do violence to the U.S. President, scheduled to visit the area. These interrogations were repeated in the community by agents who later admitted there was no basis for their questions about “terrorist connections” and the danger to the President.

What if I suspect surveillance?

Prudence is the best course, no matter who you suspect, or what the basis of your suspicion. When possible, confront the suspected person in public, with at least one other person present. If the suspect declines to answer, he or she at least now knows that you are aware of the surveillance. Recently, religious supporters of a nation-wide call to resist possible U.S. intervention in Central America noticed unfamiliar people lurking around their offices at 6 a.m., but failed to ask what they wanted and who they were. If you suspect surveillance, you should not hesitate to ask the suspected agents names and inquire about their business.

The events giving rise to suspicions of surveillance vary widely, but a general principle remains constant: confront the suspected agents politely and in public (never alone) and inquire of their business. If the answer does not dispel your suspicion, share it with others who may be affected and discuss a collective response. Do not let fears generated by “conspicuous” surveillance create unspoken tensions that undermine your work and organization. Creating fear is often the purpose of obvious surveillance. When in doubt, call a trusted lawyer familiar with political surveillance. Please do not call the number that was printed here as the Movement Support Network Hotline, because it is no longer active, and is now the private residence of an unrelated person.

How should I respond to threatening letters or calls?

If your home or office is broken into, or threats have been made against you, your organization, or someone you work with, share this information with everyone affected. Take immediate steps to increase personal and office security. You should discuss with your organization’s officials and with a lawyer whether and how to report such incidents to the police. If you decide to make a report, do not do so without the presence of counsel.

What rights do I have?

1. The Right to Work for Change. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of groups and individuals who advocate, petition, and assemble to accomplish changes in laws, government practices, and even the form of government Political intelligence gathering is not supposed to interfere with these rights.

2. The Right to Remain Silent. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution provides that every person has the right to remain silent in the face of questions (other than name and address) posed by any police officer or government agent.

Since 1970, however, federal prosecutors may request judges to order a subpoenaed witness to testify, after a grant of immunity, at a grand jury hearing or at a criminal trial. This grant of  immunity means that your Fifth Amendment right to refuse to testify is taken away. What is given to you is only the promise not to use your testimony against you in a subsequent criminal prosecution. But you can still be charged with a crime. Failure to testify after a grant of  immunity is discussed on page 12 below.

3. The Right to be Free from “Unreasonable Searches and Seizures.” Without a warrant, no government agent is allowed to search your home or office (or any other place that is yours and private) You may refuse to let FBI agents come into your house or into your workplace. unless they have a search warrant. Politeness aside, the wisest policy is never to let agents inside. They are trained investigators and will make it difficult for you to refuse to talk. Once inside your home or office, just by looking around, they can easily gather information about your lifestyle, organization, and reading habits.

The right to be free from “unreasonable searches and seizures” is based on the Fourth Amendment lo the Constitution. This Amendment is supposed to protect against government access lo your mail and other written communications, telephone and other conversations. Unfortunately, it is difficult to detect government interference with writings and conversations. Modern technology makes it difficult to detect electronic surveillance on a telephone line, other listening devices, or cameras that record whatever occurs in a room. Also common are physical surveillance (such as agents following in car or on foot), mail covers, and informers carrying tape recorders.

What should I do if police, FBI, or other agents appear with an arrest or search warrant?

Agents who have an arrest or search warrant are the only ones you are legally required to let into your home or office. You should ask to see the warrant before permitting access. And you should immediately ask to call a lawyer. For your own physical safety you should not resist, even if they do not show you the warrant, or if they refuse to let you call your lawyer. To the extent permitted by the agents conducting a search, you should observe the search carefully, following them and making mental or written notes of what the agents are doing. As soon as possible, write down what happened and discuss it with your lawyer.

What should I do if agents come to question me?

Even when agents come with a warrant, you are under no legal obligation to tell them anything other than your name and address. It is important, if agents try to question you, not to answer or make any statements, at least not until after you have consulted a lawyer.

Announce your desire to consult a lawyer, and make every reasonable effort to contact one as quickly as possible. Your statement that you wish to speak to the FBI only in the presence of a lawyer, even if it accomplishes nothing else, should put an end to the agents’ questions. Department of Justice policy requires agents to cease questioning, or refrain from questioning, anyone who informs them that he or she is represented by a lawyer. To reiterate: upon first being contacted by any government investigator the safest thing to say is, “Excuse me, but I’d like to talk to my lawyer before I say anything to you.” Or, “I have nothing to say to you. I will talk to my lawyer and have her [or him] contact you.” If agents ask for your lawyer’s name, ask for their business card, and say you will have your lawyer contact them. Remember to get the name, agency, and telephone number of any investigator who visits you. If you do not have a lawyer, call the local office of the National Lawyers Guild.

As soon as possible after your first contact with an investigator, write a short memo about the visit, including the date, time, location, people present, any names mentioned by the investigators, and the reason they gave for their investigation. Also include descriptions of the agents and their car, if any. This may be useful to your lawyer and to others who may be contacted by the same agents.

After discussing the situation with your lawyer, you may want to alert your co-workers, friends, neighbors, or political associates about the visit. The purpose is not to alarm them, but to insure that they understand their rights. It might be a good idea to do this at a meeting at which the history of investigative abuse is presented.

If I don’t cooperate, doesn’t it look like I have something to hide?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions. The answer involves the nature of political “intelligence” investigations and the job of the FBI. Agents will try to make you feel that it will “look bad” if you don’t cooperate with them. Many people not familiar with how the FBI operates worry about being uncooperative. Though agents may say they are only interested in “terrorists” or protecting the President, they are intent on learning about the habits, opinions, and affiliations of people not suspected of wrongdoing. Such investigations, and the kind of controls they make possible, are completely incompatible with political freedom, and with the political and legal system envisaged by the Constitution.

While honesty may be the best policy in dealing with other people, FBI agents and other investigators are employed to ferret out information you would not freely share with strangers. Trying to answer agents’ questions, or trying to “educate them” about your cause, can be very dangerous — as dangerous as trying to outsmart them, or trying to find out their real purpose. By talking to federal investigators you may, unwittingly, lay the basis for your own prosecution — for giving false or inconsistent information to the FBI. It is a federal crime to make a false statement to an FBI agent or other federal investigator. A violation could even be charged on the basis of two inconsistent statements spoken out of fear or forgetfulness.

Are there any circumstances under which it is advisable to cooperate with an FBI investigation?

Never without a lawyer. There are situations, however, in which an investigation appears to be legitimate, narrowly focused, and not designed to gather political intelligence. Such an investigation might occur if you have been the victim of a crime, or are a witness to civil rights violations being prosecuted by the federal government. Under those circumstances, you should work closely with a lawyer to see that your rights are protected while you provide only necessary information relevant to a specific incident. Lawyers may be able to avoid a witness’ appearance before a grand jury, or control the circumstances of the appearance so that no one’s rights are jeopardized.

How can grand juries make people go to jail?

After being granted immunity and ordered to testify by a judge, grand jury witnesses who persist in refusing to testify can be held in “civil contempt.” Such contempt is not a crime, but it results in the witness being jailed for up to 18 months, or the duration of the grand jury, whichever is less. The purpose of the incarceration is to coerce the recalcitrant witness to testify. In most political cases, testifying before a grand jury means giving up basic political principles, and so the intended coercion has no effect witnesses continue to refuse to testify.

Witnesses who, upon the request of a grand jury, refuse to provide “physical exemplars” (samples of handwriting, hair, appearance in a lineup, or documents) may also be jailed for civil contempt, without having been granted immunity.

The charge of “criminal contempt” is also available to the government as a weapon against uncooperative grand jury witnesses. For “criminal contempt” there is no maximum penalty the sentence depends entirely on what the judge thinks is appropriate. Charges of criminal contempt are still rare. They have been used, however, against Puerto Rican independentistas, especially those who have already served periods of incarceration for civil contempt.

Is there any way to prevent grand jury witnesses from going to jail?

There is no sure-fire way to keep a grand jury witness from going to jail. Combined legal and community support often make a difference, however, in whether a witness goes to jail and, if so, for how long. Early awareness of people’s rights to refuse to talk to the FBI may, in fact, prevent you from receiving a grand jury subpoena. If the FBI is only interested in getting information from you, but not in jailing you, you may not receive a grand jury subpoena.

What can lawyers do?

A lawyer can help to ensure that government investigators only do what they are authorized to do. An attorney can see to it that you do not give up any of your rights. If you are subpoenaed to a grand jury your lawyer can challenge the subpoena in court, help to raise the political issues that underlie the investigation, and negotiate for time. Your lawyer can also explain to you the grand jury’s procedures and the legal consequences or your acts, so that you can rationally decide on your response.

First Edition published March 1985. Published by Center for Constitutional Rights 853 Broadway, 14th Floor NY, NY 10003 (212) 674-3303

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational corporation dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Contributions to the CCR are tax deductible.

Notes:

1. See Final Report of the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations,      94th Congress, 2d Session, Report No. 94-755    2. See e.g. United States v. Hensley, 83 L. Ed. 2d 604 (1985); Kolander v. Lawson, 461      U.S. 352 (1983); Brown v. Texas, 443 U.S. 47 (1979).

This pamphlet is reproduced for educational purposes. I am not a lawyer, and I cannot give legal advice. I did not write this pamphlet. If you need legal help, contact the Center for Constitutional Rights at the address above, or contact the local America Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU).
Peter Jaques <pjaques@cs.oberlin.edu>

African Liberation Day Freetown, Sierra LeoneAfrican Liberation Day St. Louis, Mo.

On April 15, 1958, in the city of Accra Ghana, African leaders and political activists gathered at the first Conference of Independent African States.  It was attended by representatives of the governments of Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, The United Arab Republic (which was the federation of Egypt and Syria) and representatives of the National Liberation Front of Algeria and the Union of Cameroonian Peoples.  This conference was significant in that it represented the first Pan-African Conference held on African soil.  It was also significant in that it represented the collective expression of African People’s disgust with the system of colonialism and imperialism, which brought so much suffering to African People.  Further, it represented the collective will to see the system of colonialism permanently done away with.

After 500 years of the most brutal suffering known to humanity, the rape of Africa and the subsequent slave trade, which cost Africa in excess of 100,000,000 of her children, the masses of African People singularly, separately, individually, in small disconnected groupings for centuries had said, “enough”!  But in 1958, at the Accra Conference, it was being said in ways that emphasized joint, coordinated and unified action.

This conference gave sharp clarity and definition to Pan-Africanism, the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism.  The conference as well laid the foundation and the strategy for the further intensification and coordination of the next stage of the African Revolution, for the liberation of the rest of Africa, and eventual and complete unification.

The Conference called for the founding of African Freedom Day, a day to, “mark each year the onward progress of the liberation movement, and to symbolize the determination of the People of Africa to free themselves from foreign domination and exploitation.”

Five years later after the First Conference of Independent African States in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia another historical meeting occurred.  On May 25, 1963, leaders of thirty-two independent African States met to form the Organization of African Unity (OAU).  By then more than two thirds of the continent had achieved independence from colonial rule.  At this historic meeting the date of Africa Freedom Day was changed from April 15th to May 25th and Africa Freedom Day was declared African Liberation Day (ALD).  African Liberation Day has been held on May 25th in every corner of the world since.

African Liberation Day as an institution within the Pan-African movement reflects the growth and development of Pan-Africanism.  When Pan-Africanism was faced with fighting colonialism, the focus of African Liberation Day was on the anti-colonial struggle and the fight for national independence.  As Pan-Africanism grew stronger and developed into a more mature objective, African Liberation Day activities reflected this maturation.

African Liberation Day has contributed to the struggle to raise the level of political awareness and organization in African communities worldwide.  It has further been used as a tool to provide a platform for many African and other oppressed peoples to inform the African masses about their respective struggles for true liberation and development.  Particularly for Southern Africa, African Liberation Day played a critical role in the defeat of colonialism and apartheid.  It inspired others to support through various progressive organizations, liberation committees and movements both in Africa and the socialist countries around the world, the building of anti-colonial and national liberation movements by generating arms for the freedom fighters, offering a platform where the world could receive political education on the nature of the struggle, and providing a mass assembly where the spirit and moral of the freedom fighters could be reinvigorated.

African Liberation Day has helped to expose U.S. led imperialism, Zionism and colonialism as enemies of Africa.  Imperialists for decades have attempted to distance African Liberation Day (and the African Revolution in general) from the struggle for socialism.  Remember that it was, and is, capitalist Europe, and not the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, China or Vietnam which occupied, colonized and exploited Africa.  Several states in Africa today stand independent because of military and other assistance from socialist countries.
From the first ALD held in Accra, Ghana where Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah planted the first seed to the hundreds of African Liberation Day observances which have occurred all over the world.  African Liberation Day stands committed to the struggle for national independence, African redemption, African liberation, African unification and scientific socialism.  Today African Liberation Day activities are being organized throughout Africa and all over the world where African people are living and struggling.  The journey down the Revolutionary path can only be accomplished by joining a revolutionary organization working for the people.  The freedom of Africa and African people demands revolutionary action through revolutionary organization.

HIV/AIDS
The Untold Story

THEORIES THAT AIDS IS A GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY TO DESTROY UNDESIRABLE POPULATIONS MAY MAKE POLITICAL SENSE, BUT ARE THEY SUPPORTED BY FACTS?

Table Of Contents
Dangerous To Your Health Scientific Unraveling  Shyster Science Fraudulent Science  Deadly Lies Reactionary Politics
Sign Of The Times  The Real Genocide  Sexually Transmitted Diseases And Drugs  Criminal Negligence  Fight The Power

AIDS has an uncanny knack for attacking people the dominant society considers “undesirables”: gays, injection drug users (IDUs), prisoners, and people of color. The commonly cited US statistic that African Americans have twice the AIDS rate as white Americans understates the problem because it is based on the total number of cases since 1981. While white gay men constituted the large majority of cases in the early days, by  the early 1990s the rate of  new cases among Latinos was 2.5 times higher than among whites, and the black/ white ratio was even starker at 5-1 for men and 15-1 for women. By 1993, AIDS had become the leading cause of death among African Americans between the ages of 25 and 44. Internationally, the racial disparity is even worse: About 80 percent of  the world’s 9 million AIDS deaths through 1995 have occurred in Africa, where 2 million children have already  been orphaned.

AN ALMOST PERFECT FIT

The correlation between AIDS and social and economic oppression is clear and powerful. What is more, the pattern meshes neatly with an extensive history of chemical and biological warfare (CBW) and medical experiments which have targeted people of color, Third World populations, prisoners, and other unsuspecting individuals. In the first North American example of CBW, early European settlers used smallpox infected blankets as a weapon of genocide against Native Americans. A few centuries later, the US Army conducted hundreds of tests that released “harmless” bacteria, viruses, and other agents in populated areas; one was to determine how a fungal agent thought mainly to affect black people would spread. Washington also subsidized the pre marketing tests of birth control pills before a safe dosage was determined on Puerto Rican and Haitian women who were not warned of the potentially severe side effects. Since the 1940s, the US has conducted 154 tests on 9,000 people, soldiers, mental patients,  prisoners many of whom had no idea of the risks involved. On another level, the drug plague in the ghettos and barrios whether by intent or not has the effect of chemical warfare against these communities.

The most apposite example is the four decade long Tuskegee syphilis study. Starting in 1932, under US Public Health Service auspices, about 400 black men in rural Alabama were subjects in an experiment on the effects of untreated syphilis. They were never told the nature of their condition or that they could infect their wives and children. Although penicillin, which became available in the 1940s, was the standard of treatment for syphilis by 1951, researchers not only withheld treatment but forbade the men from seeking help elsewhere. This shameful “experiment” was stopped in 1972, only after a federal health worker who was involved blew the whistle. Nor is experimentation on people of color a thing of the past. Beginning in 1989, 1,500  children in West and East Los Angeles and Inglewood were given an experimental measles vaccine as part of a  government sponsored trial. Most of the subjects were  Latino or African American.  The parents of these children were never told that they were part of an experiment with an unlicensed drug, and thus had a less than adequate basis for giving their consent. The Edmonston-Zagreb, or E-Z vaccine was also tested in Senegal and Guinea-Bissau and Haiti, Guinea, and  more than a dozen other Third World countries. Trials in Los Angeles conducted with the cooperation of Kaiser Permanente, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and John  Hopkins University, were stopped two years later after questions were raised about the vaccine’s relationship to an increased death  rate among female infants. When use of the experimental drug  came to light, CDC Director Dr. David Satcher noted, “A mistake was made. It shocked me. … But things sometimes fall through the cracks.” Dr. Stephen Hadler, director of the epidemiology and surveillance  division of the CDC’s national  immunization program, said that although researchers have not confirmed a causal association between the more potent dose of E-Z vaccine and the deaths, “it was enough to make the World Health Organization say that “high doses of the vaccine should no longer be considered for use in kids.” It  should be emphasized, he told  the Los Angeles Times, that the deaths occurred among children living in poor countries, many of whom were malnourished and did not have access to adequate health care. Hadler did not, however, emphasize that those same  conditions are all too common in the US. In light of this gruesome pattern and pervasive evidence in every corner of society that the lives of blacks are less valued, there are good reasons why so many prisoners as well as a significant portion of the African American community  believe that government  scientists deliberately created AIDS as a tool of genocide.

Dangerous To Your Health

There is only one problem with this almost perfect fit: It is not true. The theories on how HIV the virus that causes AIDS was purposely spliced together in a lab wilt under scientific scrutiny. Moreover, these conspiracy theories divert energy from the work that must  be done in the trenches if marginalized communities are to survive this epidemic: grassroots education, mobilizations for AIDS  prevention, and better care for people  living with HIV. They distract from  the urgent need to focus a spotlight on the life-and-death issue of AIDS  prevention and on the crucial struggle against a racist and profit driven public health system that is responsible for tens of  thousands of unnecessary deaths. After more than nine years doing AIDS education in prison, I have found these conspiracy myths to be the main internal obstacle in terms of prisoners’ consciousness to implementing risk reduction strategies. A recent study at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, confirmed that African Americans who believe in the conspiracy theories are significantly less likely to use condoms or to be tested for  HIV. Put bluntly: The false conspiracy theories are themselves a contributing factor to the terrible toll of unnecessary AIDS deaths. What’s the use, believers ask, of making all the hard choices to avoid spreading or contracting the disease if the government is going to find a way to infect people anyway? And what’s the point of all the hassles of safer sex, or all the  inconvenience of not sharing  needles if HIV can be spread, as many conspiracy theorists claim, by casual contact such as sneezing or handling dishes? The core of the mind-set that undermines prevention efforts is “denial.” People whose activities have put them at risk of HIV are often petrified and  turn to conspiracy theories as a hip and seemingly militant  rationale for not confronting their own dangerous practices.  At the same time, such  theories provide an apparently simple and satisfying alternative to the complex challenge of dealing with the myriad of social, behavioral, and medical factors that propel the epidemic. While convinced that humans did not design HIV, my main concern here is not to disprove the conspiracy theories. Neither do I attempt to solve the problem of the origins of AIDS or even review the many different theories and approaches to that question. The  origin of this disease, as of many others, is likely to remain unsolved for years to come.  Rather, the article examines the validity of one set of  theories being widely propagated to prisoners and to African American communities: that HIV was deliberately spliced together in a lab as a weapon of genocide. What follows is a look at the major flaws in, and political agenda of, the major conspiracy theories. Readers uninterested in this detailed critique may skip to the section beginning with “The Real Genocide,” which discusses the system that made these theories so plausible and that abets as  part of its routine functioning the spread of AIDS to “undesirable” communities.

SCIENTIFIC UNRAVELING

An early version of the AIDS-as-biowarfare theory was based on the work of two East German scientists, Jakob and  Lilli Segal, published by the Soviet news agency Tass on March 30, 1987. The Segals claimed that HIV could not have evolved naturally, being in fact an artificial splice between visna virus (a retrovirus that infects the nervous system of sheep) and HTLV-1 (the first retrovirus known to infect humans). This splice, they asserted, was created at the notorious CBW lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and then tested on prisoners in the area. Finding the article politically credible, I sent it to Janet Stavnezer, a friend and long-time supporter of the civil rights and anti-war  movements, who is a professor of molecular genetics and microbiology specializing in immunology. Her response was unequivocal: The Segals’ splice theory is scientifically impossible. A few years later, as perestroika spread, the Soviet Union withdrew  these charges whether out of good science or good diplomacy is  unknown. In any case, by then, even non-scientists had noted flaws. For example, there was an obvious error  of US geography. The Segals had speculated that the Maryland prisoners, once released congregated in New York City, which then became the seedbed of  the epidemic. But most Maryland prisoners would have returned to Baltimore, or Washington, DC neither of which was an early center of AIDS. Since the Segals, there have been a number of related theories that HIV was artificially created by splicing two existing viruses. One, set at Fort Detrick, puts the date back to 1967; another implicates the World Health Organization (WHO), starting in 1972. Stavnezer and Mulder debunk these theories by showing that none of the viruses posited in the various splice theories has nearly enough genetic similarity (homology) with HIV to be one of its parents. Investigative journalist Bob Lederer conducted a separate inquiry into AIDS conspiracy theories for Covert Action Information Bulletin in 1987. One of his prime sources, Dr. David Dubnau, a long- time  activist against CBW, was emphatic: The HIV splice theorists “are simply wrong,” he said, and offered the same explanation as Stavnezer and Mulder. Lederer had written in the 1987 article that the various non splice theories of dissemination were plausible. Recently, in light of current knowledge, he has revised his conclusion and determined that “None of the AIDS as CBW theories [including the non splice theories] really holds up.” Needing a vehicle for the deliberate dissemination of the allegedly spliced virus, the conspiracy theorists also characterize vaccination programs (against smallpox in Africa, hepatitis-B among gay men in the US, and polio in various places) as examples of a CBW campaign. While vaccination programs with  inadequate controls for contamination may have contributed to the spread of the infection, they could not have been a prime cause: The geography of the vaccination campaigns does not correspond with the locations of early centers of AIDS. Meanwhile such unsubstantiated rumors can dangerously discourage people here and in the Third World from getting the same  protection for their children that have done so much to stop diseases for more privileged whites.

There is another telling problem with the theories: timing. HIV almost certainly arose well before scientists had any reason to consider retroviruses as possible CBW agents to destroy the human immune system. The first human retrovirus (HTLV-1) was not discovered until 1977, and could not immediately be linked to any disease. Through the end of the 1970s the search for human retroviruses was propelled by speculation that they might cause cancer, not that they would target the immune system. Since the epidemiological evidence shows AIDS in several countries in 1978, HIV (a virus with a long  incubation period), had to exist at least a few years before that. And it is  probably considerably older. Retrospective tests on 1,129  blood samples taken in 1971-72 from US injection drug users found that 14 were HIV positive. There are also cases of patients who died of  AIDS defining illnesses decades ago: a teenager in St. Louis in 1968, a sailor in England in 1959, and a Norwegian sailor, his wife and child in the late 1960s. Preserved tissue and blood samples from all of these cases later tested positive for HIV antibodies, although the more difficult direct tests failed to find the virus itself. Medical case histories going back to the 1930s the earliest period in which accurate records were kept show isolated cases with all the earmarks of AIDS. Various analyses of the DNA sequences a technique used for broad assessment of a specie’s age have provided estimates for the age of  HIV that range from 30-900 years. In brief, the lack of knowledge of any human retroviruses before the late 1970s and the compelling evidence for the earlier genesis of  HIV virtually eliminate the possibility that scientists deliberately designed such a germ to destroy the human immune system. More specifically, and decisively, Stavnezer and Dubnau independently confirm that all the alleged splices are in fact impossible because HIV does not have nearly enough genetic similarity to any of the proposed parent viruses.

SHYSTER SCIENCE

The most common source of the conspiracy theories circulating in New York State prisons is William Campbell Douglass, M.D.15 His article “WHO Murdered Africa, “(referring to the World Health Organization), and his book AIDS: The End of Civilization, are prime sources for many black community militants and prisoners who embrace the conspiracy theory out of a sincere desire to fight genocide. But Douglass, who is white, expresses little concern for black lives. He instead states his purpose as being the defense of Western civilization, and describes his politics as “conservative” which turns out to be quite an understatement for his ultra right wing political agenda. Douglas taps into the font of mistrust created by the arrogance and glibness of establishment science. Quick acceptance of the still unproven African green monkey theory was especially suspect and led many people to react against the presumptions of mainstream medicine. Douglass’ alternative, however, is a bizarre cocktail of half truths, distortions, and lies. He fails to recognize a basic distinction in epidemiology between the cause of AIDS (a virus) and a means of transmission (dirty needles) (p. 171). He evidently thinks that all RNA viruses are retroviruses (p.230)  which is like thinking that all fruits are citrus. And his pronouncements on the possibility of transmission by insects display fundamental  ignorance of the science involved. There is also something radically wrong with his statistics; he offers five different figures for the number of HIV infected people in the US (pp. 53, 60, 63, 168, 170) without trying to reconcile the variations. He also” proves” that HIV is a splice of two other viruses by comparing shapes as depicted in his  own crude sketches (p. 231), when the scientific method for determining the degree of  relatedness of different viruses is to make a detailed
comparison of the sequence of the base pairs of nucleic acid in the DNA. Such an analysis disproves the splice theory.

FRAUDULENT “SCIENCE”

Douglass goes beyond mere distortion when he reaches the core of his conspiracy. His “smoking gun” is an article from the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. In a blatant distortion of the 1972 article, Douglass claims that the World Health Organization called for the engineering of a retrovirus to cause AIDS. He is unequivocal: WHO is talking about “retro viruses” and is asking scientists to “attempt to make a hybrid virus that would be deadly to humans. …That’s AIDS. What the WHO is saying in plain English is Let’s cook up a virus that selectively destroys the T-cell system of man, an acquired immune deficiency.’ ” (Emphasis in original.) He presents an almost identical description in his book. (p. 80) Aside from the unlikelihood of conspirators’ publishing their evil plans, Douglass’ characterization borders on fraud. The WHO article in question is not primarily about retroviruses; it is not at all about engineering new viruses; it  never discusses making hybrids; and it is absolutely not about making a virus to destroy the human immune system. Anyone who takes the time to look at the original will find that it details a number of existing viruses that cause various illnesses in humans and other mammals. Evidence was emerging by 1972 that some of these viruses, in addition to their direct damage, impacted the immune system. The only call the article makes is to study these secondary effects. He offers only one quote from the original. Not only does he change the context, he omits the list of viruses under study. All the listed viruses were related to already recognized illnesses; most are not retroviruses; none is a retrovirus that affects humans; and none is a suspect in any of the proposed scenarios for HIV splicing. Douglass has created a bogeyman out of thin air.

DEADLY LIES

Douglass’ disinformation becomes a deadly threat when he discredits the very prevention measures needed to save lives: “It is possible, ” he wrote, “that even the government propaganda concerning intravenous drug use is a red herring. If the intravenous route is the easiest way to catch AIDS, why does it take as long as five to seven years for some recipients of contaminated blood to come down with AIDS?” (p. 171) Here, he seems to forget the well established incubation  period between infection with HIV and onset of AIDS, although he manages to remember it later when he refers to a “latency” period of 10 years. (p. 245) And arguing that there isn’t a perfect correlation between the number of acts of intercourse and infection, he declares “AIDS is not a sexually transmitted disease. “(p. 243) Then, after sabotaging prevention efforts by disparaging the well established danger of needle sharing and unprotected sex, Douglass fuels hysteria with claims that AIDS can be contracted by casual contact. “The common cold is a virus,” he says in his article. “Have you ever had a cold? How did you catch it?” By failing to differentiate between airborne and blood borne viruses, he is conjuring up a scare tactic as scientific as  warning that your hand will be chopped off if you put it in a goldfish bowl because, after all, a shark is a fish. He also asserts, citing  no evidence, that “the AIDS virus can live for as long as 10 days on a dry plate,” and then asks, “so, are you worried about your salad in a restaurant that employs  homosexuals?” People are understandably skeptical of government reassurances on any matter. But we can turn instead to the experiences of families of people with AIDS and of grassroots AIDS activists: There are hundreds of thousands of us who have worked closely with infected people for years without catching the virus. The unwarranted fears about casual contact deter sorely needed support for our brothers and sisters living with HIV infection and divert attention from the most common means of transmission: unprotected sex and shared drug injection equipment.

REACTIONARY POLITICS

Despite the apparent irrationality, there is a coherence to Douglass’ distortions and fabrications. They are driven by an ultra-right-wing political agenda that goes back to the 1960s, when he was a member of the John Birch Society and ran a phone line spouting 90 second “patriotic message.” In it, Douglass railed against the civil right  movement and denounced the National Council of Churches and three presidents as part of a “Communist conspiracy.” Among the nuggets he offered callers in at least 30 US cities was the likelihood “that those three civil rights workers [presumably Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman] in Mississippi were kidnaped and murdered by their own kind to drum up sympathy for their cause.” In another message he predicted that  “The Civil Rights Act will turn America into a Fascist state practically overnight.” Two decades later he was blaming gays for AIDS in The Spotlight, the organ of the ultra-right-wing Liberty Lobby, for which he wrote regularly and in which he ran advertisements for “The Douglass Protocol,” his cure all medical clinics. In 1987, he wrote, “some have suggested that the FDA is waiting for the majority of the homosexuals to die off before releasing ribavirin,” a drug he was at the time promoting as a miracle cure for AIDS. Douglass, however, opposed withholding a “suppressed” cure “although I feel very resentful of the homosexuals because of the holocaust they have brought on us.” Later Douglass began promoting a strange cure all treatment (pp. 251-52), photoluminescence, in which small amounts of blood are drawn, irradiated with ultraviolet light, and reinjected. Treatments at his Clayton, Georgia, clinic can span several weeks and cost thousands of dollars. By 1992, when he wrote AIDS: End of Civilization, hes aw AIDS as part of the “entire mosaic of the current attack against western civilization” (p. 14); the term “western” being a thinly veiled code word for “white.” He had also shifted blame from homosexuals to communists, and portrayed AIDS as a diabolical plot perpetrated by WHO, which “is run by the Soviets.” (p. 118) In these later writings, Douglass weaves an elaborate and intricate plot describing how the communists much like an invading virus took over the machinery of the US Army’s CBW labs at Ft. Detrick and the US National Institutes of Health in order to use them to create and propagate HIV.
Douglass is so mired in anti communism that he fails to revise this scenario for his 1992 edition after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He even charges that a Russian, Dr. Sergei Litivinov, headed WHO’s AIDS control program in the late 1980s, when, in fact, it was led by an American, Jonathan Mann, whose writings Douglass cites favorably on a  number of occasions. In the guise of a program against AIDS, Douglass proposes a basket full of policies favored by the ultra right and neo-Nazis: support and strengthen the powers of local law enforcement (p. 139); make preemptive military strikes against Russia (p. 138); abolish the UN and WHO (p.120); and stop all illegal Mexican immigration into the US (p. 253). Then there are his more specific proposals: mandatory testing for HIV (p. 66); quarantine of all those with HIV  (pp. 165-66); removal of HIV infected children from school (p. 161); and incarceration, castration, and execution to stop prostitution. (p. 158) He argues that if we don’t  overcome a tradition “where civil rights are more revered than civil responsibility,” hundreds of millions will die. (p. 165) While such proposals may further the right’s law-and-order agenda, a wealth of public health and activist experience has shown that such repressive measures are counterproductive. Discrimination and repression drive those with HIV and its high risk activities underground, making people unreachable for prevention, contact notification, and care. And here is the final appeal in his book: “[I]t appears that regulation of social behavior, as much as we hate it in an egalitarian society such as ours, may be necessary for the survival of civilization.” (p. 256)

SIGN OF THE TIMES

As bizarre, self contradictory, and refutable as his pronouncements are, Douglass is not an isolated crackpot. A fellow conspiracy theorist with whom he shares much common ground is Lyndon LaRouche, a notorious neo-fascist with documented links to US intelligence agencies. LaRouche’s “National  Democratic Party Committee” organized the intensely homophobic campaign in 1986 for California’s Proposition 64, which, had it not been rejected by voters, would have mandated an AIDS quarantine. In 1989, Douglass and many key LaRouchites spoke at a conference which focused on various conspiracy theories for the origin of AIDS. The “scientific” source that the LaRouchites used for their  reactionary campaign is Robert Strecker, M.D., who also addressed the conference Douglass has worked closely with Strecker, considers him a mentor, and dedicates AIDS: The End of Civilization to him. Michael Novick reported in White Lies/White Power that within the far right, it is “The LaRouche groups that are particularly dangerous because, despite their fascist orientation, they have been attempting to recruit from black groups for some time.” The political analysis of Bo Gritz, head of the “Populist Party” is another source for AIDS conspiracy theorists. As Novick’s book shows, the “Populists” use anti business  rhetoric to try to recruit among the left, but the organization has deep roots in the ku klux klan and strong ties to the extreme white supremacist christian identity. When such forces propagate AIDS conspiracy theories among African Americans, one result is to divert people from the grassroots mobilization around prevention and education that could foster greater cohesion, initiative, and strength within the black community. At the same time, the right fans the flames of homophobia which combines with the problem of racism within the predominately white gay and lesbian movement to undermine a potentially powerful alliance of the communities most devastated by government negligence and inaction on AIDS. We live in a strange and dangerous period when the attractive mantle of “militant anti-government movement” has been bestowed on ultra-right-wing, white supremacist groups. The main reason they can get away with such a farce is that their big brother the police state did such an effective job in the blood- soaked repression of opposition groups such as the Black Panthers, which was rooted in the needs and aspirations of oppressed people. With people’s movements silenced, the right has co-opted the critique of  big government and big business to achieve new credibility. The seedbed  of discontent comes from the erosion of the previous guarantee of  economic security and relative privileges for a wide range of white people in the middle and working classes. The right, however, portrays the threat as coming from the inroads  made by women, immigrants and people of color. Thus their vehemence and militancy spring from the same legacy of white supremacy and violence that is the basis of the government they criticize and their program is in essence a call to return to the pioneer days’ ethos that any white male had the right to lay a violent claim to Native American land, African American labor, and female subservience. Whatever the right’s motives, the practical consequences are clear: There is a definite correlation between believing these myths and a failure to take proven, life saving preventive measures. In the end, the lies promulgated by the likes of Douglass, Strecker, and LaRouche kill.

THE REAL GENOCIDE

The New York Times, in an editorial expressing alarm that an “astonishing” number of African Americans believe in conspiracies with AIDS as a prime example could only understand the phenomenon as “paranoia.” Educated white folks, to the degree they are aware of such matters, tend to be “amazed” by such beliefs. But what is truly amazing is that so many whites are so out of touch with the systematic attack by the government-medical-media establishment on the health and lives of African Americans. The stone wall of calculated ignorance and  denial that blacks face every day is a fine surface on which  to write conspiracies, and may explain why some people become vested in a plot scenario that seems to crystallize the damage. But the problem is far more powerful and pervasive than any narrow conspiracy theory can capture. And although the health horror this society imposes on African Americans is not a “mainstream” public issue, black people know what they are experiencing. They also know that the radical gap between the life expectancy of African Americans and that of white Americans was there even before AIDS burst onto the scene. A 1980 Health and Human Services Department report showed that there were 60,000 “excess deaths” among blacks. This is the number of black people who would not have died that year if blacks    had the same mortality rate as whites. That figure marks more unnecessary deaths in one year alone than the total number of US troops killed during the entire Vietnam War. The black body count is a direct result of overwhelming black/white differences in living conditions, public health resources, and medical care. The infant mortality rate a good indication of basic nutrition and health care is more than twice as high among black babies as among whites, while black women die in childbirth at three times the rate of whites. There are also major differences in prevention, detection, treatment, and mortality for a host of other illnesses, such as high blood pressure, pneumonia, appendicitis and cancer.   Comparisons are even starker when class as well as race is factored, and, of course, the health status of both Latinos and poor whites is worse than that of more affluent whites. The situation has worsened since 1980 with the advent of  AIDS and the new wave of  tuberculosis. TB, long considered under control in the US, began a resurgence in 1985. One big factor was the greater susceptibility of  HIV infected people to TB. But TB is an important example for another reason: It has always been closely linked to poverty. Crowded tenements, homeless shelters, jails, inadequate ventilation, and poor nutrition all facilitate the spread of this serious disease. Given the distribution of wealth and privilege, it is not surprising that the rate of TB for black Americans is twice that for white Americans, African Americans are also assailed by a range of problems such as high stress, poor nutrition, and environmental hazards. One significant example of environmental hazards is the excessive blood levels of lead in children a condition with proven links to lowered academic performance and to behavioral disorders. In 1991, 21 percent of black American children had harmful quantities of lead in their blood, compared with 8.9 percent of    all US children. In addition to disease, the high rate of black-on-black homicide a    secondary but particularly painful source of needless deaths is in its own way a corollary of the frustration and misdirected anger bred by oppression.

STDS AND DRUGS

The evidence is clear that far from being a mysterious new development, AIDS and other    epidemics and health hazards    flow most easily along the    contours of social oppression. There are two particular ways in which the racist structure of US society fosters the spread of HIV: The public health system fails to stem the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs); and the legal system seeks only to punish drug abusers rather than treat them or ameliorate the underlying social and economic causes. A major risk factor for HIV transmission is untreated STDs. These infections can concentrate HIV laden white blood cells in the genital tract and can also cause genital sores, which are easier points of entry for HIV. Although STDs can be readily contained by responsible public health programs, rates began to soar for blacks in the mid-1980s, with, for example, a doubling of syphilis for Blacks from 1985 to 1990. At the same time, rates have remained stable for whites. This grave racial difference probably results from the lack of adequate STD clinics and the failings of public health education, along  with the more general breakdown in social cohesion and values that can affect communities under intense stress. Drugs, along with the violence and police repression that accompany  them, constitute a plague in their own right for the ghettos and barrios. However, the public perception that illicit drug use is more prevalent among non whites is wrong. Household surveys conducted by the National    Institute of Drug Abuse show    that African Americans, 12    percent of the US population, comprise 13 percent of illicit  drug users. Where there is a  tremendous difference, though, is in incarceration. Seventy four percent of the people in prison for drug  possession are African American. There is also a major racial disparity in terms of drug related infection by HIV. While partially a result of which drugs are used and how they are used, there is certainly a big and deadly difference in access to new (sterile) needles and syringes through either pharmacies or personal networks. Also, on the street, the police are much more likely to stop and search Blacks and Latinos. This practice deters injection drug users of color from carrying personal sets of works (in states where they are illegal) and pushes them instead to share needles at shooting galleries.

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

The latest example of the public health failing concerning AIDS is hardly known beyond the immediate circles of AIDS workers. Studies completed in 1993 showed that the previously recommended and widely disseminated protocol for cleaning needles with bleach does not work. Yet there has been no wide scale effort to sound the urgently needed alarm about this grave danger. The literature since 1993 has delineated a new, more effective bleach method that entails using 100 percent undiluted bleach (as opposed to a 10 percent solution) and holding the bleach or rinse water in the needle and syringe, while shaking and tapping, for a full 30 seconds for each step of the nine step process. However, most IDUs do not even look at new  handouts because they believe they already “know” the bleach method. In addition, public health authorities have taken no responsibility for the type of training it takes to get an IDU, anxious to get  high, to properly complete such a complex and  time consuming process. One reason the authorities haven’t trumpeted warnings about the problems with bleach may have more to do  with politics than public health: The assumption that there is an easy method of  bleach sterilization serves as a    buffer against pressure to implement sorely needed  needle exchange programs. There is impressive evidence  that these programs, which  allow IDUs to obtain new, sterile needles and syringes, are highly effective in reducing  HIV transmission, while there  is no evidence that they lead    to any increase in drug use. Needle exchange programs could even serve as an  outreach and contact point for reducing drug use if  “anti drug” politicians allocated funds for treatment instead of incarceration. Despite the clear public health evidence, many  politicians have opposed needle exchange programs out of fear of being labeled “soft on drugs.” Meanwhile, the rate of HIV  among IDUs in states where needle are proscribed is five times higher than in states where they are legal. Tens of thousands of IDUs  their lovers, and their children have been condemned to die because health agencies won’t advertise their mistakes and because politicians posture for political advantage by banning the use of federal AIDS funds for needle exchange programs.  Shared needles is just one area of potential risk reduction. For overall prevention to work, the most  effective and documented method of sharply reducing HIV transmission in peer education. Homeboys and home girls with appropriate training in HIV/AIDS information speak the same language, live in the same situations, and can work with the people in their communities in the  consistent, caring way needed to change risky behaviors. Meanwhile, prisons provide fertile ground for peer education. They have some of the highest HIV rates in the US, and people who might have been constantly on the move in the street are now stationary and congregated. The vast majority of prisoners eventually return to their outside communities where they can spread either AIDS  awareness or AIDS. But prison administrations have generally been hostile to peer led HIV/AIDS education; only a pitiful handful of such programs exist, and those are often hamstrung by  bureaucratic restrictions. Allowing misinformation about cleaning needles to persist, blocking needle exchange programs, failing to treat  STDs, and thwarting prison peer programs are major examples of the continuing official criminal negligence with regard to AIDS and in particular, how this plague has been allowed to explode in the ghettos and barrios.

FIGHT THE POWER
Waiting for the government to act is suicidal. The peer education model shows that when we take responsibility  for ourselves, our families, and our communities, we can make a big difference. Through grassroots organizing communities can ally to demand social use of social resources instead of allowing  tax dollars to go to massive military budgets and corporate welfare schemes. What we don’t need are the  fundamentally right wing conspiracy  theories of Dr. Douglass and the like that lead us on a wild goose chase for the little men in white coats in a secret lab. The false information they purvey that HIV is spread by casual contact but not by sex and drugs generates cruelty toward people with AIDS and fosters support for a police  state. In a bitter twist, these conspiracy theories divert people from identifying and fighting back against the real genocide. While US government plots such as the secret radiation and Tuskegee experiments do in fact exist the damage they’ve done is small compared to the high human costs of the everyday functioning of a  two tiered public health system that is rooted in racism, sexism, and profiteering. Overall, the living  conditions of people of color  in the US are a concatenation of epidemics that cascade through the ghettos and  barrios: AIDS-TB-STDs;  unemployment, deteriorating schools, homelessness; drugs, internal violence, police brutality, wholesale incarcerations; violence against women, teen  pregnancies, declining support structures for the raising of children; and environmental hazards. These mutually reinforcing crises flow from decisions made by government and business on social priorities and the allocation of economic resources. Government  policies  that have such a disparate impact on survival according to race can be defined as genocide under  international law. Whatever term is used, the cruelty of tens of thousands of preventable deaths is unconscionable. This reality is the basis for the scream of a people that  “mainstream” society seems unable or unwilling to hear. These conditions are the real genocide in progress that must be confronted.

Afeni Shakur

Tupac Shakur’s mother, Afeni Shakur activist, Black Panther, poet, actress, NY 21 political prisoner,  addicted to freedom and liberation The Black Panther Party, life addicted to the assessment of Amerikkka’s idea of her:  helpless Black woman without a clue to what life is/was about. Being born Black in the 1960’s-1970’s was a struggle for dignity and power. A time to challenge prejudice and edicts, sexism etc. Corporate and institutionalized deaths, her language is fierce and loving hard and soft her words are lullabies and martial songs. Her words, so untold full of secrets waiting to reveal themselves, Tupac and Afeni are two miracles! two individuals daring to live and create and love. Both cross color, class and gender. Afeni is indeed the miracle woman wonder. Afeni comes from a very closed world, from Lumberton, North Carolina. She moved to New York when she was in the sixth grade, she was 11 and lived in the Bronx. she went to the Performing Arts High School in Manhattan. She wanted to be an actress. When she was in her late teens she would go to Manny’s Bar on 169th St. in the Bronx. This guy use to come in there named Shaheed. At the time I was a greasy short haired little colored girl, skinny, with no breasts and never had no butt,  she wasn’t the one men would look at but she was smart and had a nice smile. Shaheed introduced her to the lessons given by the Nation of Islam.

As she listened to Brother Shaheed, she began to like herself, because of what she was, this little Black girl with short hair. He introduced her into MalcolmX, At 19 she got a job working at the post office, she met a brother there, and they became lover, she was with him when she first saw the Black Panther Party, they found their Blackness together, She had gone to the Black Power Conference in Philadelphia and that singular event affected her like no other even in her life. She had seen the pictures of the Black Panthers in Sacramento. What a wonderful sight that was to her, A black woman who was unapologetic, told her if she wanted to be a revolutionary she didn’t have to do anything but walk through the supermarket with a razor blade and run her hands across the flour and the sugar An act of  resistance She saw Elderige Cleaver, you have to have heard him to know how wonderful and beautiful he was and what a motivator he was for those of us who didn’t go to college or who were dropouts from college, she explains. His words became like food, hope and dreams in her brain,  her name Afeni was given to her by the brother who built the Yoruba village in South Carolina, Afeni means “dear one” or “lover of the people”. Harlem Time It was the first time Afeni heard the Ten Point Program of the Black Panther Party and she was truly hooked. She heard Bobby Seale recite the Ten Point Program. He could recruit a town full of Black people just by saying it. Meetings for the Black Panther Party, were held at L.I.U. on Saturdays at 1:00 p.m. Afeni was there every Saturday.

The Panthers got involved in the
school strike. She was now part of the Black Panthers Party and Lumumba Shakur’s wife. Lumumba later got arrested and one other member was beaten up, two were killed in L.A. And the trigger was allegedly pulled by members of the Ron Karenga Led, United Slaves (US) Organization. There was a party rally the next morning, At 5:00a.m. there was banging at Afeni’s apartment door,  Lumumba ran to the door and looked out the peak hole, there was a fire and a whole bunch of people yelling. He opened the door and police came in with shotguns at his head, one at his stomach and one on my stomach. Brother Lumumba was a polygamist. Sister Sayeeda was his first wife, Afeni at first disrespected her, She thought Sayeeda wasn’t bad enough to be the wife of this revolutionary brother. Afeni now feels it was cruel and insensitive, but she didn’t  understand that then. But she accepted Afeni into her home, All I did was make her life miserable and i was with her husband, which we were sharing. Earlier the police took Lumumba and Afeni in a caravan, to the D.A.’s office, there she saw everybody in the party. Her sister and her sisters husband scraped together all the money they could to bail me out of jail. They raised 1000 dollars. But when they go into the courtroom the first name they call is Lumumba Abdul Shakur. They announce his bail at 100,000 dollars, they got to my name and said the same. She thought they were mistaken. They didn’t misspell her new name. So she went to jail and there she sat for eleven months while George Jackson, Jonathan Jackson and Fred Hampton were killed. While in jail She was about organizing the jail, anybody and anything she could. Finally woman from the church raised her bail The Dickersons (Charlotte and Angela) and their friends. Black and White women raised 64,000 dollars in cash and then the church put up 36,000 dollars in church property. They weren’t even party members! Young and older woman, Black and White Leftist lawyers Church going mommas. She was amazed by that. Bail revoked, she was imprisoned in the Women’s House of Detention in Greenwich Village. In her cell she patted her belly and said, “This is my prince. He is going to save the black nation. “By the time Tupac was born on June 16, 1971, Afeni had already defended herself in court and been acquitted on 156 counts. Living in the Bronx, she found steady work as a paralegal and tried to raise her son to respect the value of an education. From childhood, everyone called him the “Black Prince”. I named him Tupac Amaru Shakur (Shining, Serpent, Blessed One). I wanted him to have the name of revolutionary, indigenous people in the world. I wanted him to know he was part of a world culture and not just from a neighborhood…When he was two years old and did something wrong, I would say to him, an independent Black man wouldn’t do that. He was always an independent Black man! I wasn’t by myself when my son Tupac died: a lot of mommas have lost their sons to this country’s violence. I AM NOT ALONE.  So don’t try to isolate me,  If you do, it will relieve ordinary people of assuming their important roles. We all have important roles to assume before we leave this planet.”