My name is Brother Khalfani Malik Khaldun, Indiana political prisoner. “Revolutionary Visions Wide Open.” The struggles here in America, of the 1960s and 70s, sparked the rise of courageous freedom fighters who had a unique view of self determination, which compelled these bold leaders to sacrifice their money, time, and ultimately, their lives, to aid this cause. That cause was energized by a revolutionary vision of change for all oppressed people in this country. These men and women were militant to the core, yet lovingly warmhearted to their families and children. We must never forget the efforts made to highlight and expose institutional racism, poverty, and violence carried out by the police on the Black and Hispanic communities and poor people communities. They did a lot to educate the masses on capitalism, imperialism, and they fought against all systems that promote inequality.
Comrades, like Sundiata Acoli, Mutulu Shakur, Eddie Conway, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Jalil Muntaqim, and so many others are currently prisoners of war as a direct result of their participation in the calls for the liberation of Black people in America. They are among so many others who had the courage to go up against this vicious system. J Edgar Hoover then led the FBI, with the power of the office, launched his very silent, secret war against the Civil Rights Movement and Black Liberation Movement. His agents infiltrated organizations they felt posed the greatest threat to America as its political machine, its greatest threat, COINTELPRO, the counterintelligence program, was created to target, identify, and kill or imprison revolutionary leaders. Now, many of those comrades who they didn’t outright murder have spent decades in prison.
These men and women, now in their late 50s or early or middle 60s, are model prisoners educating prisoners and advocating on behalf of those voiceless souls who don’t know how to speak for themselves. Their friends and supporters and families on the outside continue to campaign and petition the courts for their release. The prison parole board simply functions as an extension of the courts that played its role in influencing the denial of paroles or releases. There are no Americans who don’t know the horrors of what has happened to their people, from the church to the Ottoman Empire. There are no people who have suffered indignity that are not aware of the road they had to travel to get to where they are today. Black and Hispanic communities know this reality all too well. We acknowledge Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP for the historic landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education, in 1954, which struck down separate but equal and said that Blacks were entitled to equal education, but not a segregated one. Fifty years later, there is no such thing as an integrated segregated school anymore.
Political injustice brings its natural response no matter how long it takes. Injustice has to be answered by justice, and justice demands that what a man sows, so shall he reap. There is one case that involves a Black revolutionary named Herman Hooks Wallace – rest in peace – who was, and is, a member of the Angola Three. He had advanced cancer. Amnesty International called for his release, just as it has been campaigning on behalf of human rights violations inherent in the extended solitary confinement of the Angola three comrades, Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King. We have multiple victims of this system’s all out attack on revolutionaries inside and outside these prison plantations. The revolutionaries on the inside are living in forced solitary confinement for refusing to be broken or used as agents of the state.
You have been my inspiration in the spirit of our comrade George L. Jackson. I salute those of you who have continued to feed the Panther and the Dragon. Power to the People. Salutations to Brother Abdul O. Shakur, Kevin Rashid Johnson, Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, Romain Chip Fitzgerald, Kenny Zulu Whitmore, Ed Poindexter, Mondo we Longa, and all the 3000 comrades who have engaged in the collective hunger strikes in control units in California and elsewhere. We cannot relent in the struggle. Total liberation. As a revolutionary orientated New Afrikan political prisoner of the legacy of Comrade Ajamu Nasser, Comrade Ziyon and Comrade George L. Jackson, I continue to clench my fists in true solidarity with their revolutionary vision. My eyes are wide open. My consciousness is wide open. A luta continua. Dare to struggle, dare to win. My name is Brother Khalfani Malik Khaldun, Indiana political prisoner, in solidarity.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
