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Address to the 18th Annual Political Prisoner Tribute Dinner
by dequi kioni-sadiki
Welcome to our 18th annual Dinner Tribute to the Families of our PPOWs & a most special tribute to our very own freedom fighting “Dynamic Duo” Herman & Iyaluua Ferguson. Let me begin by acknowledging the Transitions of 3 giants in our New Afrikan community – Seydou N’Joya, John Watusi Branch & Amiri Baraka – the Passing of these great warriors is a tremendous loss & challenge to us that we continue the work important to them. & so as we gather here today, we say that is what you intend to keep on doing. So let me say thank you & welcome to those of you here with us for the first time. We hope your presence will become a tradition we can count on so long as our freedom fighters remain behind the walls. To you who have spent this day with us each & every year(or most of them) for 18 years, we cannot thank you enough for making this Dinner Tribute such a vibrant Loving community institution. This Dinner is about gathering in Tribute to our PPOWs & their Families to remind them we have not forgotten their innumerable sacrifices – the family separations, missed weddings, birthdays, graduations, births, funerals, the physical, emotional, financial, spiritual & psychological hardships they endured raising children/grandchildren into adulthood without their fathers/grandfathers; it is for us to say to the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, grandchildren of our BPP/BLA revolutionaries, our u.s. held PPOWs who have been criminalized by this gov’t for Black freedom fighting/Black resistance that we know your lives ain’t in no way been easy, no crystal stair; that anger, betrayals, personal/family troubles, sadness/depression, frustration & disappointment have passed your ways more times than we can count. & so we offer this Dinner as our Balm in Gilead against the winds of time that have sometimes rendered your lives & sacrifice invisible, ignored, dismissed & marginalized; to refute the revisionism, opportunism, celebratory posturing, empty rhetoric & unfulfilled declarations that surround your sons, fathers, husbands, brothers, uncles, nephews, Loved ones 30-40 year separation from your everyday lives. This Dinner is for YOU – Mrs. LaBorde, Mrs. York, Nancy & Kamel, Paula, Ralph, Theresa, Sharon & Russell, Ksisay, Kakuya, J, Chesa, Anochi, Sheila, Sunni, Edith, Pam Hanna & Pam Africa, all the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren & other family members– here & gone –YOU – are also our heroes/sheroes in this here Black Freedom struggle. YOU, who have lived the pain & chaos of having your lives turned upside down, inside out by Cointelpro’s war on Black Liberation, lived through the constant fear & worry of having your sons/daughters/parents/siblings ‘under’ & all those hunting down promises to kill them unless they turned themselves in, the intimidation, harassment & threats to your lives, jobs, mental & emotional health, police helicopters hovering over your homes, guns aimed at your children, visiting their schools, the capture, beatings, torture of your Loved ones, the unpredictably predictable prison transfers, medical crisis, near death experiences, state-sanctioned murders that comeswith decades of poor nutrition, non-existence/negligent prison healthcare & so much more. YOU, who have been there with & for our PPOWs when they needed us all the most – journeying upstate and across states to sit through plexi-glass barriers, shackles, orange jumpsuits, prison tans/greens or browns, invasive prison searches/pat-downs, had visits denied; YOU, who live every day the reality that 20 members of the BPP/BLA are serving 800+ years & counting of political imprisonment, persistently denied parole, sat on death row, solitary confinement, held in 6×9 prison cells – while far too many former “revolutionaries” set about waxing poetic in front of podiums & cameras making charismatic eloquent speeches about their days in the Party, but haven’t seen the need to visit, send letters/commissary monies &/or support/offer assistance of any kind to their fellow Party members &/or their family members for years, even decades; even going so far as to praise our PPOWs in death while having done nothing to advocate for & work on their behalf in life. YOU have seen & lived through it all. We offer you this Dinner is our way of saying to you as Tupac said in one of his songs, ain’t no way we can pay you back, the plan is to show you that we care about what you have endured for these 40 years. As MXCC co-chair, I can say you are in good – NO great – company. Our Dynamic Duo – Herman & Iyaluua Ferguson – have also been committed, dedicated to & consistently supportive & working on behalf of your Loved ones, when others have not, did not & still do not. This Dinner – 18 years strong – is evidence of their/our support, memory & allegiance to you & our BPP/BLA heroes. It was when Herman & Iyaluua returned from exile & Herman faced what they both knew would be his political imprisonment that placed Iyaluua in the role of family member of a PPOW. Iyaluua says that it was the memory of that ‘terror’ & powerlessness at not being able to do anything but wait for Herman to call to know how he was doing, of seeking answers, information & communication from a racist hostile indifferent prison administration bent on ignoring her requests/concern, of driving Joan Gibbs, Herman’s attorney at the time crazy that led to this Dinner. 19 years of exile & 7 years of Herman’s political imprisonment gave them personal insights into what price is paid by those who fight for freedom & by those who Love them who fight for freedom. & so here we come to be on this saturday, january 18th 2014 paying tribute to YOU – the Families of our PPOWs. Where you now sit, Iyaluua also once sat. For this we say thank you Iyaluua & Herman for never forgetting those left behind the prison walls, for not turning away from the sorrow & pain felt by the families of PPOWs, for remembering that Freedom ain’t Free & it is our PPOWs & their families who pay that price EVERY SINGLE DAY. we give honor to you (mention keepsake book) for being the embodiment of Revolutionary Black Nationalism, revolutionary Black Love, for your unapologetic politics of Black self-determination, self-defense & Liberation ‘by any means necessary’; for challenging us to strengthen our goals/strategies to better educate & organize the People in order to free our PPOWs, for speaking truth to power that the political imprisonment of these BPP/BLA members has nothing to do with guilt or innocence & everything to do with this amerikkka being guilty of all manner of war, crimes & genocide against Black people from the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, the war on Black Liberation & its perpetual war on Black peoples’ lives with their police terror/violence, murder, piss poor education, housing, healthcare, & every act of violence choking the lives out of our children & elders every damn day from the cradle to the grave & especially, criminalizing, capturing & imprisoning those who waged struggle to end that oppression. We thank you – Herman & Iyaluua- for addressing the lack of financial support & community recognition these BPP/BLA PPOWs & their families received prior to this Dinner, for reminding us every year since there would be no letup in sight unless we (re)build a national/international Movement to free them. We say to you – Herman & Iyaluua – thank you for every contribution you ever made to the Black Freedom struggle, for standing on principle & leading by example that we must continue to dare to struggle, dare to win, for teaching & inspiring us to Free the Land & our Black/New Afrikan PPOWs, for carrying on the tradition of Black resistance & for your legacy. It is only fitting that we give honor, praise & so much Appreciation to you on this day & everyday just as it is fitting that we give honor to the mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children & grandchildren, families of our PPOWs. We are indebted to each of you for so much more than could ever be spoken in these welcome remarks; what we do today & every year is make an attempt to offer a little of what you are so incredibly deserving. To the Families, we give thanks to you for continuing to serve & defend the People – our PP/POWs –without break, recognition (except to my knowledge this Dinner) or Reparation when others of us have disappeared, fallen by the wayside, grown tired, weary, ‘burnt out’, disillusioned/desensitized or simply moved onto other activism/politics that didn’t include supporting, writing, visiting your family members; for living by example that sacrifice, struggle, commitment & Love are more than words spoken at events; for holding onto every Freedom dream & letting go every prison nightmare shared between you & your Loved one every day of every month of every year for 30 & 40 years, for refusing to allow the ties that bind family/community/Nation to unravel. That you have stayed the course ought to remind us that the work to support you & our PPOWs is an ongoing effort. So long as these 20 members of the BPP/Black Freedom struggle remain unjustly imprisoned our work is not done. We can no more afford the praising worship about the fierce courage, bravery & self-determination of a Nat Turner, Denmark Vesey, Cinque, Malcolm X, Robert Williams others from long ago while ignoring those same qualities in our living freedom fighters than we can in having so many former ‘revolutionaries’ be more about the pomp & circumstance about their ‘back in the day’ Party membership while having greater access to resources, careers, tenured/retired professorships, book deals, thousand $ speaking engagements, grant monies & media exposure & not being about the business highlighting the existence of & fighting for the freedom of their BPP comrades &/or at the very least, assisting their families when & where needed. Dr. Clarke taught us of the need to understand where we were, where we are, where we are going; well, our PPOWs are where they are because of where we were when the BPP was founded, where we still are right now & where we will continue going if we don’t stop this madness. We who do this work need people who are willing to be workers on the side of freedom & justice among the living. If we are to celebrate the legacy of the BPP & its long ago membership (& we should), let it be reflected in the work done to free those 20 members still imprisoned, let it be reflected in the support we provide their families. As the wife of a PPOW, I know well the toll of traveling upstate & what it does to the body & Spirit. i cannot help but wonder why it is that Mrs. LaBorde (Majid’s 80somehting year old umi) takes an almost 24 hour round-trip journey to visit her freedom fighting son on a prison van/bus. It would seem that we, as a community, ought to at least be able to organize a cadre of volunteers – one person taking 12 days out of 365 or 12 people taking one day a month to drive her upstate. Based on what I’ve come to know about Mrs. LaBorde’s self-reliance & self-determination I’m not saying she would ever ask or even accept such an offer – you best believe she is a Black womyn with no problem getting done what needs to be done; but that is not the point. The point is Sekou, Majid, Mutulu, Seth, Sundiata, the other Herman, Jalil, Kamau, Maroon, Mumia, other members of the BPP/BLA & their families have endured & experienced more of life’s journeys through the prism of prison, walked through more prison towers, faced more cracker prison guards, eaten more prison food, endured more prison injustice & terror than any of us can imagine & yet, we fall very short in our responsibility to make clear to them that we recognize, honor & give thanks for every sacrifice they have made to this Black Freedom struggle; the point is the Majid, Sekou & so many of the other brothers i have come to know, make me a believer that if they were on these streets, ain’t no way any one of their imprisoned &/or fallen comrades elderly Mothers, GrandMothers, GreatGrandMothers would have to travel upstate the best way she could. Why? Because these are Black men who really did & still do believe that ‘it takes a village’ & we are our sisters/brothers keeper & we owe to our PPOWs & their families at the least the promise & commitment to look after them in their absence/imprisonment. I ask you to imagine not being there to share with your mother, father, sister, brother, grandparent, family member/Loved one any of life’s occasions – happy or sad – over the last 30-40 years & to consider that this is what our freedom fighters & their families have sacrificed for this Movement. I also ask that if you get anything from today’s presentations it is to ask yourself: what am I doing, what can i do better or smarter, what have I sacrificed, what am i willing to sacrifice for the Black Freedom struggle? These are deeply personal & reflective questions that will be different for everyone of us in this room – maybe you’ve done a great deal, maybe you would like to do more, maybe you’ve done nothing. Whatever your level of support or lack therefore, we are challenged to do better to be part of the collective process that supports these families & fights for our PPOWs. We have skills/human resources – financial, spiritual, etc. – to offer towards the building & sustaining the institutions needed to make our families/communities/Nation stronger. If you do nothing, we are sure to stay on the current path of more & more oppression/repression, we will have more of our PPOWs die behind the wall & we will not have the Movement we, our PPOWs & their families deserve. I don’t want to see that happen & I know there are others – especially Herman & Iyaluua, our PPOWs & their family members – who don’t want to see that happen. Our hope is that when you leave here today, you will be charged with new, renewed & creative vigor to fight for our PPOWs; you will be moved to get involved in the united effort we are forging to bring this divided PPOW work together as one. Like Bob Boyle said upon Lynne Stewart’s release, we can FREE our PPOWs, but it will require that we work together to rid ourselves of the historical ignorance, individualism, click-ism, ego, arrogance, elitism, fear & cult of the personality that pervades so much of where we are today. It will mean that if you believe – as we do – freedom is a divine human right that people not only have the right to fight for, but a duty & obligation, then you to stand with us as we fight for the freedom of our PPOWs, who have done more than enough TIME SERVED for standing up against injustice & wanting to make the world a better place for us to live. In this era of ever shortening attention spans, lack of commitment, a void in effective grassroots organizing, we ask that you do everything you can to fight for the freedom of our PPOWs, fight for them a little more & a little harder than maybe you did last year, fight for them as hard as you would want us to fight for you if you were a PP; fight them, who as part of a Movement, put into practice that All Power truly belonged to the People; fight to ensure the legacy & vision of Herman & Iyaluua Ferguson keeps well, that we keep the Spirit of revolutionary Black Love, resistance & community onward. & let’s do it now! Time is a luxury not on our PPOWs side; we are the ones they been waiting all these years later. We must not us go down in the annals of history as a generation, a Nation of Black folk who allowed our freedom fighters to be forgotten behind enemy lines. So, let’s get organized to build a Movement that will bring our PPOWs home where they belong, where they are needed. In closing I want to say thank you brother Mogadishu for planting the seed for this tribute to our Dynamic Duo, to SODC for seeing a need & filling it, to Anne Lamb for being a ‘shadow’ member of MXCC & my nycJericho partner always doing & getting so much done, to Shaka for being there for my middle of the night technology challenges, a very special thank you & happy birthday wish to sistaRos, who is not a caterer, but has spent her last few birthdays putting together the delicious food for these Dinner Tributes; to all the volunteers who come in early & stay late every year to make this truly a beautiful community event; to Brenda Brunson-Bey of Tribal Truths, Moshood, Melody Burns of Kiini Ibura Jewelry, Dalalia of Oshun Designs for supporting this Dinner every year with their generous donation of merchandise; to Bob Boyle, Susan Tipograph & Barbara Zeller for always being there no matter what the medical &/or legal challenge facing our PPOWs; to MXCC for showing how a small group of dedicated folk can accomplish big things; to everyone here, Herman & Iyaluua, our PPOWs, their families & all of you who for decades have labored selflessly, quietly & consistently on behalf of our Black/New Afrikan PPOWs we owe you & everyone here big time. It might not be said as often as it should, but know that the work you contribute is seen, felt, recognized & very much appreciated for helping to bring us a little closer to where we want to be. FREE the Land! & FREE all PPOWs!
Thank you – dequi kioni-sadiki/jan 18th 2014