Prison Radio
Khalfani Malik Khaldun

Hello, this is brother Khalfani Malik Khaldun calling in from Indiana.

“Affirmation.”

I believe in living.
I believe in the spectrum
of Beta days and Gamma people.
I believe in sunshine.
In windmills and waterfalls,
tricycles and rocking chairs.
And I believe that seeds grow into sprouts.
And sprouts grow into trees.
I believe in the magic of the hands.
And in the wisdom of the eyes.
I believe in rain and tears.
And in the blood of infinity.

I believe in life.
And i have seen the death parade
march through the torso of the earth,
sculpting mud bodies in its path.
I have seen the destruction of the daylight,
and seen bloodthirsty maggots
prayed to and saluted.

I have seen the kind become the blind
and the blind become the bind
in one easy lesson.
I have walked on cut glass.
I have eaten crow and blunder bread
and breathed the stench of indifference.

I have been locked by the lawless.
Handcuffed by the haters.
Gagged by the greedy.
And, if I know any thing at all,
it’s that a wall is just a wall
and nothing more at all.
It can be broken down.

I believe in living.
I believe in birth.
I believe in the sweat of love
and in the fire of truth.

And I believe that a lost ship,
steered by tired, seasick sailors,
can still be guided home
to port.

That is the end of the poem, and I would to say that these are the words of Assata, and I believe that these are the words of freedom sepaking to the world, to touch the hearts and minds of every revolutionary spirit that exists in society.

These words are for those of us who cannot speak: the voice of the voiceless. These words are also memories of those that we have lost, the spirits that have been broken, those that have been chained by those who abuse authority.

And these are the words of the freedom fighter who sits in Cuba in exile, and these words are the words of the political prisoners, those who are struggling and those who continuing to fight. Uhuru Sasa, those are the words of Assata Shakur and the continuation of my opinion of what those words meant to me.