The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind
320
The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind
320eBook
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Overview
In 1968, Safiya Bukhari witnessed an NYPD officer harassing a Black Panther for selling the organization’s newspaper on a Harlem street corner. The young pre-med student felt compelled to intervene in defense of the Panther’s First Amendment right; she ended up handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car.
The War Before traces Bukhari’s lifelong commitment as an advocate for the rights of the oppressed. Following her journey from middle-class student to Black Panther to political prisoner, these writings provide an intimate view of a woman wrestling with the issues of her time—the troubled legacy of the Panthers, misogyny in the movement, her decision to convert to Islam, the incarceration of outspoken radicals, and the families left behind. Her account unfolds with immediacy and passion, showing how the struggles of social justice movements of the past have paved the way for the progress—and continued struggle—of today.
With a preface by Bukhari’s daughter, Wonda Jones, a forward by Angela Y. Davis, and edited by Laura Whitehorn, The War Before is a riveting look at the making of an activist and the legacy she left behind.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781558616547 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Feminist Press at CUNY, The |
| Publication date: | 01/11/2019 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| Sales rank: | 849,431 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Coming of Age: A Black Revolutionary1
Greek mythology tells the story of Minos, ruler of the city of Knossos. Minos had a great labyrinth (maze) in which he kept the Minotaur, a monster that was half man and half bull, whose victims were boys and girls who would make it to the center of the maze only to be killed when they came face to face with the Minotaur. If an intended victim chanced to survive the encounter with the Minotaur, the person perished trying to find a way out of the many intricate passages. Finally, Theseus of Athens, with the help of Ariadne, Minos's daughter, entered the labyrinth, slayed the beast, and found his way out by following the thread he had unwound as he entered.
The maturation process is full of obstacles and entanglements for anyone, but for a Black woman in America it has all the markings of the Minotaur's maze. I had to say that, even though nothing as spectacular takes place in the maturation process of the average Black woman. But the day-to-day struggle for survival and growth reaps the same reward in the end in ten thousand different ways. The trick is to learn from each defeat and become stronger and more determined, to think and begin to develop the necessary strategies to ensure the annihilation of the beast. ...
I am one of a family of ten children. My parents were strict and religious, but proud and independent. One of the strongest influences of my childhood was my mother constantly telling us to hold our heads up and be proud because we were just as good or better than anyone else, and to stand up and fight for what we believe to be right.
There was a lot of competition in my family. You had to be competitive with ten children (all two years apart) growing up, each trying to live up to the other or be better. We were determined not to be caught up in the rut of the ghetto. We were going to get out, so each of us worked on our separate goals, ten individuals, one family, in our separate world.
We believed that with the right education we could "make it," so that is the route we took searching for the "American Dream." I was going to be a doctor. In my second year of college, I pledged a sorority; it was here that the rose-colored glasses were cracked and rays of reality were allowed to filter in.
The sorority had decided to help "disadvantaged" children as one of our projects for the year and we were trying to decide what country to work with when one of the sisters suggested that we work in the ghettos of New York. Personally, I had never even thought of people in the United States being disadvantaged, but only too lazy to work and "make it." I was in for one of the biggest rude awakenings of my life.
A few of us were sent to Harlem to investigate the situation. We talked to people on the street, in the welfare centers, from door to door, and watched them work and play, loiter on the corners and in the bars. What we came away with was a story of humiliation, degradation, deprivation, and waste that started in infancy and lasted until death — in too many cases, at an early age.
Even at this point, I did not see this as affecting me personally, but only as a sorority project. I was sort of a tourist who takes pity on the less fortunate.
The sorority decided to do what we could to help the children. The Black Panther Party was already running a free break-fast program to feed the children. I had a daughter of my own at this point and decided that I would put my energies into this.
I could not get into the politics of the Black Panther Party, but I could volunteer to feed some hungry children; you see, children deserve a good start and you have to feed them for them to live to learn. It is difficult to think of reading and arithmetic when your stomach is growling. I am not trying to explain the logic of the Free Breakfast for Children Program, only showing how I had to be slowly awakened to the reality of life and shown the interconnection of things.
At five a.m. every morning, my daughter and I would get ready and go to the center where I was working on the breakfast program. It entailed cooking and serving breakfast, sometimes talking to the children about problems they were encountering, or helping them with their homework. Everything was going along smoothly until the number of children coming began to fall off. Finally, I began to question the children and found that the police had been telling the parents in the neighborhood not to send their children to the program because we were "feeding them poisoned food."
It is one thing to hear about the underhanded things the police do — you can choose to ignore it — but it is totally different to experience it for yourself. You must either lie to yourself or face it. I chose to face it and find out why the police felt it was so important to keep Black children from being fed that they told lies. I went back to the Black Panther Party and started attending some of their community political education classes.
First Encounter with the Police
Not long after that, I was forced to make a decision about the direction I was going in politically. I was on Forty-second Street with a friend when we noticed a crowd gathered on the corner. In the center of the crowd was a Panther with some newspapers under his arm. Two police officers were also there. I listened in. The police were telling the Panther he could not sell newspapers on the corner and he was insisting that he could. Without a thought, I told the police that the brother had a constitutional right to disseminate political literature anywhere, at which point the police asked for my identification and arrested the sister and myself, along with the brother who was selling the papers.
I had never been arrested before and I was naive enough to believe that all you had to do was be honest and everything would work out all right. I was wrong again. As soon as the police got us into the backseat of their car and pulled away from the crowd, the bestiality began to show. My friend went to say something and one of the police officers threatened to ram his nightstick up her if she opened her mouth again, and then ran on in a monologue about Black people. I listened and got angry.
At the Fourteenth Precinct, they separated us to search us. They made us strip. After the policewoman searched me, one of the male officers told her to make sure she washed her hand so she would not catch anything.
That night, I went to see my mother and explained to her about the bust and about a decision I had made. Momma and Daddy were in the kitchen when I got there. Daddy was sitting at the table and Momma was cooking. After I told them about the bust, they said nothing. Then I told them about how the police had acted, and they still said nothing. I said I could not sit still and allow the police to get away with that. I had to stand up for my rights as a human being. I remember my mother saying, "If you think it's right, then do it." I went back to Harlem and joined the Black Panther Party.
I spent the next year working with welfare mothers, in liberation schools, talking to students, learning the reality of life in the ghettos of America, and reevaluating many of the things I had been taught about the "land of the free and the home of the brave." About this time, I quit school and looked for a full-time job. I had education and skills, but there was always something wrong. What it was only became clear after I went to International Telephone and Telegraph to apply for a job as a receptionist-clerk. They told me I was overqualified. I ended up working in my friend's mother's beauty parlor and spent all my spare time with the Party.
By the summer of 1970, I was a full-time Party member and my daughter was staying with my mother. I was teaching some of the political education classes at the Party office and had established a liberation school in my section of the community. By listening to the elderly, I learned how they could not survive off their miserly social security checks — not pay the rent and eat, too — so they would pay their rent and eat from the dog food section of the supermarket or the garbage cans. I had listened to the middle-aged mother as she told of being evicted from her home and how she was sleeping on a subway with her children. She did so because welfare refused to help her unless she signed over all her property; out of desperation, she fraudulently received welfare. I watched a mother prostitute her body to put food in the mouth of her child, while another mother, mentally broken under the pressure, prostituted her eight-year-old child. I had seen enough of the ravages of dope, alcohol, and despair to know that a change was needed to make the world a better place in which my child could live. My mother had successfully kept me ignorant of the plight of Black people in America. Now I had learned it for myself, but I was still to learn a harsher lesson: the plight of the slave who dares to rebel.
Turbulent Times
The year 1971 saw many turbulent times in the Black Panther Party and changes in my life. I met and worked with many people who were to teach and guide me: Michael Cetewayo Tabor of the Panther 21; Albert Nuh Washington; and "Lost One" Robert Webb, who was responsible for my initial political education. Cet taught me to deal in a principled fashion, Nuh taught me compassion, and Robert taught me to be firm in my convictions.
When the split took place in the Black Panther Party, I was left in the position of communications and information officer of the East Coast Black Panther Party. Much later, I was to discover the vulnerability of that position. Many Party members went underground to work with the Black Liberation Army (BLA). I was among those elected to remain aboveground and supply necessary support. The police murders of youths such as Clifford Glover, Tyrone Guyton, etc., and the BLA's retaliation with the assassinations of police officers Piagentini and Jones and Laurie [and Foster] made the powers-that-be frantic. They pulled out all the stops in their campaign to rid the streets of rebellious slaves. By spring 1973, Comrades Assata Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were captured, along with Nuh and Jalil (Anthony Bottom); Twymon Myers was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, and I was still traveling back and forth across the country trying to build necessary support mechanisms.
In 1972, I had recognized the need to depend on something other than myself. In less than two years, I had come to realize that nothing is permanent or secure in a world in which it is who you know and what you have that counts. I had seen friends and loved ones killed or thrown into prison; associates who I believed would never go back turned state's evidence or melted into the woodwork. Nuh introduced me to Islam, which gave me a new security, sense of purpose, and dignity.
By 1973, I was receiving a great deal of flak from the police because of what they "suspected" I might be doing. Mostly, it was because I did not have a record, they could not catch me doing anything, and I had gained the community's support. All the while, I actively and vocally supported BLA members.
Capture
On January 25, 1975, some other members of the Amistad Collective of the BLA and I went into the country in Virginia to practice night firing. We were to leave Virginia that night on our way to Jackson, Mississippi, because I wanted to be there on Sunday to see someone. Before returning to the crib where we were staying, we decided to stop at a store to pick up cold cuts for sandwiches to avoid stopping at roadside restaurants on the way down. We drove around looking for an open store. When we came to one, I told the brothers to wait in the car and I would go in and be right back.
I entered the store, went past the registers, down an aisle to the meat counter and started checking for all-beef products. I heard the door open, saw two of the brothers coming in, and did not give it a thought. I went back to what I was doing, but out of the corner of my left eye, I saw the manager's hand with a rifle pointed toward the door. I quickly got into an aisle just as the firing started. Up to this point, no words had been spoken. With the first lull in shooting, Kombozi [Amistad] (one of my bodyguards and a member of the Amistad Collective) came down the aisle toward me. He was wearing a full-length army coat. It was completely buttoned. As he approached, he told me he had been shot. I did not believe him at first, because I saw no blood and his weapon was not drawn. He insisted, so I told him to lie down on the floor and I would take care of it.
Masai [Ehehosi] (my codefendant) apparently had made it out the door when the firing started because he reappeared at the door, trying to draw the fire so we could get out. I saw him get shot in the face and stumble backward out the door. I looked for a way out and realized there was none. I elected to play it low key to try to get help for Kombozi as soon as possible. That effort was wasted. The manager of the store and his son, Paul Green Sr. and Jr., stomped Kombozi to death in front of my eyes. Later, when I attempted to press countercharges of murder against them, the Commonwealth attorney called it "justifiable" homicide. Five minutes after the shoot-out, the FBI was on the scene. The next morning, they held a press conference in which they said I was notorious, dangerous, etc., and known to law enforcement agencies nationwide. My bail was set at one million dollars for each of the five counts against me.
Trial and Imprisonment
On April 16, 1975, after a trial that lasted one day, I was sentenced to forty years for armed robbery; that night, I arrived here at the Virginia Correctional Center for Women in Goochland. Directly following my arrival, I was placed in the maximum-security building. There I stayed until the threat of court action led them to release me into the general population. The day after my release to general population, I was told that the first iota of trouble I caused would land me back in the maximum-security building and there I would stay.
My emphasis then and for the next two years was on getting medical care as well as educational programs and activities for myself and the other women, with the priority being on medical care for myself. Inside the prison, I was denied care. The general feeling was that they could not chance hospitalization for fear I would escape; as such, they preferred to take a chance on my life. The courts said they saw no evidence of inadequate medical care, but rather a difference of opinion on treatment between the prison doctor and me.
The quality of "medical treatment" for women prisoners in Virginia must be at an all-time low. Their lives are in the hands of a "doctor" who examines a woman whose right ovary has been removed and tells her there is tenderness in the missing ovary. This "doctor" examines a woman who has been in prison for six months and tells her that she is six weeks pregnant and there is nothing wrong with her. She later finds her baby has died and mortified inside of her. Alternatively, he tells you that you are not pregnant and three months later, you give birth to a seven-pound baby boy. The list includes prescribing Maalox for a sore throat and diagnosing a sore throat that turns out to be cancer.
In December 1976, I started hemorrhaging and went to the clinic for help. No help of any consequence was given, so I escaped. Two months later, I was recaptured. While on escape a doctor had told me that I could endure the situation, take painkillers, or have surgery. I decided to use the lack of medical care as my defense for the escape to accomplish two things: (1) expose the level of medical care at the prison and (2) put pressure on them to give me the care I needed.
I finally got to the hospital in June 1978. By then, it was too late. I was so messed up inside that everything but one ovary had to go. Because of the negligence of the "doctor" and the lack of feeling on the part of the prison officials, I was forced to have a hysterectomy. When they brought me back to this prison in March 1977, because of the escape, they placed me in cell 5 on the segregation end of the maximum-security building — the same room they had placed me in on April 16, 1975. Today I remain in that cell, allegedly because of my escape, but in actuality because of my politics.
How do I know? Since I was returned to this institution on March 24, 1977, other women have escaped, been brought back, and been released to general population. Yesterday, after twenty-two months, my codefendant on the escape charge was okayed for release to general population. I was denied.
Despite my emotional and physical setbacks, I have learned a great deal. I have watched the oppressor play a centuries-old game on Black people — divide and conquer. Black women break under pressure and sell their men down the river. Then the oppressor separates the women from their children. In two strokes, the state does more damage than thirty years in prison could have done if the women had supported the men.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The War Before"
by .
Copyright © 2010 estate of Safiya Bukhari.
Excerpted by permission of Feminist Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface by Wonda Jones,
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis,
Introduction by Laura Whitehorn,
1 Coming of Age: A Black Revolutionary,
2 Testimony: Experiences in the Black Panther Party,
3 Marriage Contract: Safiya A. Bukhari and Michael M. [Ashanti] Alston,
4 What is Security? And the Ballot or the Bullet ... Revisited,
5 Enemies and Friends: Resolving Contradictions,
6 On the Question of Sexism Within the Black Panther Party,
7 "Islam and Revolution" Is Not a Contradiction,
8 We Too Are Veterans: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders and the Black Panther Party,
9 This is Worth Fighting For,
10 On the Question of Political Prisoners,
11 Building Support for Political Prisoners of War Incarcerated in North America,
12 Talks on the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Struggle,
13 Lest We Forget,
14 CBS Tries the New York Three,
15 Talking About Assata Shakur,
16 Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!,
17 COINTELPRO and the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
18 Safiya Interviews Albert Nuh Washington,
19 Letter for the Parole of Jalil Muntaqim,
20 Q&A on Jericho 98,
21 Debate: Should We Grant Amnesty to America's Political Prisoners?,
22 Kamau Sadiki: Injustice Continues ...,
Afterword by Mumia Abu-Jamal,
