Professional Documents
Culture Documents
liberator, any liberated minded individual must ensure these needs are carefully
attended to or risk stymieing their efforts before they began. The second point
Newton presents is this life sustaining, life affirming attention must spawn programs
developed to not only feed the overt need for self-preservation but to nourish intently
the communal aspirations for self-determination and self-actualization. In doing so,
said programs must embolden and empower participants to form healthful solutions
to problems unsolved by the current program structures. Participants must be made
responsible for helping to seed new concepts and new social structures which will
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[1] the need to properly identify ourselves, our-community, our-nation, and ultimately oursouls divine
lineage, in doing so well ultimately provide the foundational underpinnings for a prosperous cultural and
societal life-force, cohesively forging a bond between our physical selves as Ancestral Incarnates, those
physical structures created by our cooperative hands, and those Ancestral Luminaries awaiting our call
beyond the Netherworld;
[2] the need to acknowledge, reconcilexx and heal the spiritual, emotional and psychological woundedness
we have both endured, as a past tense, and continue to endure, as a present state; in doing so well open up
hitherto locked internal doorways to resources both psychological and spiritual, which will make building
a healthy society more possible.
[3] the need to learn hearty lessons from our past historical achievements and failures, applying those
lessons, reconfigured for todays experiences, to current plans aimed at achieving our liberated future;
[4] the need to bind our modern existence to the living legacies of our forbearers, reminding through song
and dance and legends in tune with history, that we as a people are colonial subjects, intended to struggle
for our freedom or parish in our foolish compliance to colonial rule;
[5] the need to polarize our cultural habits, seeing in our desires to live out these habits completely, a true
essence which sets us apart from those who seek to subjugate us and rule over our Beings completely, and
ruthlessly; Blackness must, by this measure, become counter-oppressive, counter-abusive, counterexploitative, and ultimately counter-empyreal in all its formations, not as a symptom built from hatred of
the other, but a symptom built by necessarily distinguishing our humanism from the inhumane activity
cherished by the ancestors of those still championing such deeds as honorable.
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And lastly [6] the need to engage earnestly in growing a nurturing and connected spirit amongst our
people, tribal differences in Africa and beyond, must become unification mandates; we must become one
united national group, willing to grow honorably together as one people, one blood and one cosmic force
unified in our multi dimensionality and multi-facetedness. Blackness, as ordained by our organic origins,
must become a sound symbol for humanism everywhere on this planet, it must become a calling card for
justice and cosmic order, it must once again stand for divine inspiration and truth no matter where it exists.
These are our six mandates
I have deliberately left each point limited
in scope, providing no description other than
that one necessary for your general
understanding. This purposeful act was not
committed maliciously, nor with hesitance. I
have sought here to plant within your mind,
the opening seeds of a great spring
awakening. In this act, I have sought to
replicate the promissory notice issued by the
coming spring rains to the awaiting buds
under the cold hardened ground, a
promissory notice echoing the great tides of
memories, harkening back to the summer
months when the bud was merely a pollen
grain on the blistering winds. A notice of
growth and achievement, if only the bud
would unfold willfully the natural resolution
within its inner core, it would soon pierce its
head through the frozen soils, tasting the
sweet air. And once that sweet air was tasted,
and freedom was known to exist in the
majestic sun, the bud would lay claim to its
right to reach higher, revealing for all to see,
its outreaching form and blossoming
substance.
Af-Rui-Ka, rather at home on the
Motherland or scattered to the four corners
by ambitious intimacies or by the natural
building up of relationships with this planets
vast landscapes or even by the unprovoked,
unforgiving imperial winds unifiably calls
us Ancestral seeds to a stern formation in the
present time period. She beacons us, with an
attention grabbing shriek, to move into a
posture wherefrom the great salvation
promised us by our Ancestors before us, can
take root and blossom majestically, saving
this tired world from the destruction
described by our Hopi Kin. The six points
listed previously are mere stepping stones for
this salvations coming, each one enriching
the potential and completed work of the
previous and preceding one. Our mission if
we do indeed decide to attend oursouls to its
completion is to fully implement these
points, building for us a future brightly lit by
kinship, community and loving relations. The
challenge presently presented to us, is finding
individual, group and collective Vision
Points to build the world anew from. Modern
Time prophesizes a period when deep social and natural convulsions must occur
the global environment, the organic organisms beset here by the Cosmic winds, have
known little respite since the European set out to conquer the Holy Order. Much like
us, the stresses under-placing their solid structures are resulting in unforeseeable
hyper rhythmic trembles, shattering their delicate bonds to other species, causing
fractures in ecosystems vital to humanities and the planets survival. Already, quaking
shores, unused to such disruptions, are causing many unmotivated Europeans, still
sick with consumption and delusioned by denial, to wonder aloud about the risks
being undertaken by their ilks parasitic practices. Many are finally awakening to see
the total threat to life all life, including their life, their conquering pursuits now
represent. Like the cancerous cells spreading throughout a body, they are now seeing
the European onslaught as deadly to the Terrestrial Host vital to their survival.
We as Black Human Beings, as faithful stewards of this great planetary system,
must take the opportunity presented by these warnings from the Great Mother, and
the momentary sober reasoning by some Eurocentric persons, to join with our
indigenous brethren worldwide to work now for a greater future, to chart a broader
far reaching vision for liberation that includes ecological survival and environmental
healing, we must join together with our continental roots re-establishing our native
dances, reworking them for modern uses, igniting again the strong bond between our
deeply melinated tone and the Earths deeply baritone pulses. With our eyes affixed
firmly on re-establishing Terrestrial wellness our words must become matched by
honest deeds and our deeds matched by insightful forethought. We must become
overflowing vessels again, charge mightily with the greatest power afforded by our
Heavenly Parents, that being love, our hearts must be committed to these ends and
our lives set in motion to their escalating rhythms. Will we have the courage to take
up this mantle or will we be swayed to inaction by our doubts and fears. The world is
waiting on us and the cosmos is calling us to assume this role. If we prove incapable
of achieving this mission, of leading this world from the darken cavern prepared it by
Western Civilizations cancerous philosophies, well be surrendering our mortality to
the terminal death spiral, all prophets foreseen as certain.
All is not lost though, the world doth continues on; we still have a choice, either
remake the world beginning by instilling those six points or continue down this long
dark corridor which all empires have traversed and all have met with ruin. The
choice we should make is obvious, the will to do so presently, is not.
We as Black Human Beings, stewards of this Planetary System, must be
prepared to lead Humanity and Humankind towards this new world possibility, we
must be prepared to lead our species altogether as one family, not as one nation, but
as a hosting group of national common-unities, upholding cultural ambiguities and
emphasizing cultural autonomy while remaining committed to cultural cohesion and
peaceful co-existence. We must be prepared to do so respectfully and charitably
without animosity or condemnation. Our Ancestors council us at this moment to
bare in the right hand the sprouted plant, to offer to the withered ground, the
drenching water, to lay carefully the plant begotten, for future growth, attend
with keen compassion. Love must become the driving force behind this progression,
mixed with stern unforgiving determination; we must make anew this planet or
become pallbearers to its final death march. Our liberation, as formulated by the
Black Power Generation, holds within its penetrating words, a partial vision, one
accounting for the damage incurred by imperialisms savagery. Now that vision must
be matured, this generation is tasked not only with freeing its collective soul from the
bleak realities surrounding its sojourners, but it must awaken the dormant radical
tradition, quieted amongst those who came before them instilling it, without shame
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Ras Baraka (Mayor of Newark, New Jersey), Kasim Reed (Mayor of Atlanta), Byron Brown (Mayor of Buffalo), William Bell (Mayor of
Birmingham), Muriel Bowser (Mayor of Washington D.C), Kip Holden (Mayor of Baton Rouge), David Paterson (Governor of New York
State)
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why do we gather here today to speak of revolution, that word which pretends cataclysmic change and overthrow, the changing of the
order of things? Why, we ask ourselves, we African-Americans, must we speak of revolution at this day and time, when peace and freedom
are breaking out all over the Russias, the Balkans, and the spirit of unity sweeps like a refreshing breeze across Western Europe and the
divided Germanys. When in South Africa, Mandela has thrown away his shackles, when in North America, there is no longer the color line,
where Jesse runs for President, Colon Powell marshals the worlds mightiest war machine, a land where Dinkins and Maynard Jackson and
Wilson Good and Smoke and Young and Bradley rule great cities, where Wilder governs the great state. Where African men and women sit
as ministers in Presidential cabinets, dawn robes of justice and take their places among the directors of Americas global and multi-national
corporations, where Reginald Lewis places TLC on the fortune 500. Why not speak of peace and brotherhood and of joining hands, of
dreams or at least keep silent and not cause undue alarm and let those who are going for a swim in the mainstream, rush headlong, unimpeded
by a call to war. I speak of revolution, I beat the drums of war because one man, nor a few famous men, are not a people. The rule of one, the
judgment, the generalship, the ministry, the captaincy of industry of one, of a few, is not the rulership of a people, the judging, the
generalship, the ministry, the captaincy of the people over themselves or over their destiny. The lives of a few heroes or heroines, is not the
life of a people. I speak of revolution because, we have yet to have one and our freedom and liberation must yet be won and secured. Our
enemies yet rule us and their numbers increase, their strength grows exponentially. In our revelry, inebriated by our celebration of ephemeral
victories, we have left our borders unwatched, our sentinels asleep at their posts, the enemy stealthfully infiltrates our camps and prepares to
slaughter us before we wake. For peace and unity among our enemy are joined, in order to disturb the peace and unity among ourselves. We
spoke easily of revolution in the 60s and 70s, we shouted from mountaintops and deep valleys Black Power, we raised our clenched fists
towards the sky as if to threaten the heavenly host and vowed to march on till victory is won. Is victory won the reason we no longer sing
our battle hymns, we no longer study war and have retired our uniforms and fallen out of our militant formations? As we lift our voices and
hosannas aloud to give all praises due to our ancestors, our heroes past and present, as African men and women aspire to the highest offices
and win seats at the table of the mighty the heroes and heroines of our future, the futures of our people, the carriers of our ethnic
immortality, our young warriors, the mothers of our nation, the minds of our race fall like winter wheat before a chopping sieve of crack,
dope and AIDS. They are slain in the wombs of our mothers, their minds wasted in schools mastered by their enemies, they kill each other
pulling the triggers of guns they cant even manufacture. Their lives go up in smoke, the mayor of the nations capital falls from his pedestal;
all salvation does not lie in being elected. This is the winter of our discontent. The written word is still perceived as an unintelligible cryptic
hieroglyph by too many of our children. Basic mathematics still presents an unsalable riddle. Knowledge of self, self-love and selfconfidence and doing for self still are the holy grails yet to be obtained. While the few who obtain wealth exploit opportunities which never
knocked on our doors before, the multitudes slip desperately into poverty, sickness and disease, their lifespan shrinking faster than the
horizons.
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Random House Page 403 Definition of Dignity
iv
This is Trademarked
v
Random House Page 826, first two definitions
vi
Random House Page 565, definitions 1, 3 and 4
vii
Random House Page 411, definition 4
viii
Random House Page 1211, definition 10
ix
Random House Page 1487
x
This is actually been rewritten by many books to exclude the final words white races; this quote was taken from Jomes Lowens Lies My
Teacher Told Me
xi
Black Liberation Army Dictionary, Page 14
xii
Black Panther 10 Point Program, Points 2, 3 and 10
xiii
Batu Shakis First and Second Commandment
xiv
Neely Fuller Jr. List of Behaviors to Counter The System of Racism-White Supremacy Items 1-10
xv
Black Liberation Army Dictionary, Page 9
xvi
Random House Dictionary, Repression Definition 1, Repress Definition 1 and 3
xvii
From the Book Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa, pages 153-154, this is a paraphrasing of many points on his list
xviii
From the Book Marcus Garvey and the Vision of Africa, page 346, from the speech, Let the Negro Accumulate Wealth, it will bring him
power
xix
The Universal Negro Improvement Association motto
xx
This is a word I use for tend to or suture, clean and monitor
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