“You shittin’ me, girl!—Beyoncé did that?”
“Yuuuup— and they slayed it— it was for her new song, ‘Formation.’ She performed surrounded by somethin’ like 30 sistas wearing black berets, leather, everything! It was amazing!”
I was speechless. I stuttered.
Her excitement was infectious, and as I saw it through her eyes, I saw something beautiful—and yes, “amazing.”
“The cops are furious,” she added with a chuckle. This triggered my own deep, belly laugh.
“Wow,” I exclaimed. “I didn’t see that coming. It sounds wonderful!” Something like this doesn’t happen every day. It was a marker of how far the campaign against the police murder of Black people had come.
I thought back to the days of the late RnB and funk superstar James Brown. When he and his band released “Say It Loud—I’m Black and I’m Proud!,” it went off like dynamite—cultural dynamite. It exploded—in ears, in minds, in hearts—across America and throughout the Black world.
Beyoncé’s timing, coming as it did during the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, means something. It may be a sign that the spark of emergent consciousness has started a fire.
The timing for the reemergence of We Want Freedom therefore, couldn’t be better. Its republication both feeds and is fed by current struggles; it can add fuel to this new, bold, youth movement.
Movements—real social movements—always piss people off for they demand that which millions dread: change.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century abolitionists were shunned and denounced as crazy, as those who question the status quo always are. “How dare they call for the end of slavery!” people harrumphed. Before the war their demands seemed inconceivable to many—the enslavement of Black people was such a prominent feature of the US that even those without a direct property relationship could not imagine another world. But after the Civil War it seemed that abolitionists were everywhere—everybody was one.
Because we look at history from our own historical perspective, Lincoln, who spoke often and openly about his distaste for abolitionists, is today perceived as one!
Today, Black Lives Matter is raising quite the ruckus. If they prevail as a social movement they will become the reasonable ones. Reasonable as in, “of course Black lives matter!” who would even dare question such a thing? This is because social movements transform consciousness. They change minds. They change history.
In a white supremacist society the very notion that Black lives matter is a revolutionary idea; for America was constructed (by slave labor, I might add) based upon the idea that Black lives don’t matter. That has been the official policy of the nation-state on this continent since the 1600s at least.
In this sense, Black Lives Matter is tearing up old things—notions, ideas, beliefs, and, yes, history, to resurrect the long, arduous and tortuous Black Freedom struggle.
They have read of the Black Panther Party (and the Black Liberation Army), and recognize themselves as part of a Black radical continuum. That is their strength.
Yet, as we have suggested, “history repeats itself,” and this repetition takes both positive and negative forms.
The state is using COINTELPRO-type tactics to disrupt, misdirect, and ultimately destroy this latest incarnation of the will of the Ancestors. They will stop at nothing to prevail in retarding the Black freedom struggle. The words written in this text have documented these efforts with care and detail. It behooves Black Lives Matter activists to know what happened in the past, so as to see and sense what is happening today.
The state, said Marx and Engels, is but the executive committee of the ruling class. It exists to stabilize social relations and maintain positions of profound inequality. It is the task of social movements to transform such relations—to change them—to bring forth new ways of seeing, being, and living in islands of freedom. No one said it would be easy. But, surprisingly, it can be fun! Let this be one of We Want Freedom’s many lessons. To learn, to grow, to create new social relations can be exciting—and fun.
When James Brown and his band took to the airwaves singing “Say It Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud!” children began singing it in the streets, it began being played in the bars and beauty shops, apartments blared it out of their windows into the summer streets. It pushed a new way of thinking into creation, and changed culture and music for millions. Just as James Brown continued to provide a soundtrack for the struggle, Beyoncé has continued to raise the issue of the murder of Black people through her videos and statements even as questions about whether she is supporting or appropriating the movement and queer and trans culture have been posed.
The reemergence of We Went Freedom, over a decade after its birth, is a sign of the hunger among the young to examine and learn lessons at risk of being lost through the dim window glass of history. It is, after all, their history; not mine. No Panther ever thought that the Party existed for us; it existed because the People demanded we come into existence and fight the fights that needed to be fought.
I have received many letters from readers of We Went Freedom over the years. One that sticks in my mind today was from Jon, a young man who read WWF in college. He wrote, “I feel cheated because this is the first time I have heard such stories. … Your words, your insights have made me and my colleagues question society and the state.” Jon concluded by thanking me for my work and I’m happy to take this opportunity to thank him for reading We Want Freedom.
I also thank Common Notions for reaching out to me and bringing this book to the next generation. It thrills any writer to know that their work is appreciated and is still being read and I am no different in that regard.
I truly believe that there is much to be learned from the experiences lived by many in the Black Panther Party. I hope our struggles—past, present, and future—prove that the Party did not exist in vain, but made valuable, and sometimes noble contributions. I hope We Want Freedom has made, and will continue to make, a contribution to this process. For it was written precisely for times such as these.
May these pages become nourishing, enriching food for the revolution(s) to come.
Mumia Abu-Jamal
“Life Row”
Writing from the windy hills of northeastern Pennsylvania
SCI–Mahanoy, Frackville, PA
Summer 2016
Introduction, by Kathleen Cleaver
Introduction
by Kathleen Cleaver
Writing from the barren confines of his death row cell, Mumia Abu-Jamal provides a remarkable testament in his latest book to the transformative impact of being part of the Black Panther Party. A high school student when he joined, reflection now polishes Mumia’s extensively researched account that clarifies why, in his words, “the Party became the central focus of the lives of thousands of Panthers across the nation.” Frank vignettes of unforgettable encounters he had—with fellow members, hostile opponents, larger-than-life Panther leaders, and brutal police are a sheer delight to read. His portrayal of the unquenchable enthusiasm for liberation that animated the Black Panther Party, most of whose members were, like Mumia, teenagers—and over 50 percent were young women—is refreshing. But personal experience comprises only one facet of We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party.
Adapted from his master’s degree thesis at California State University, Dominquez Hills, Mumia’s book is accessible but not simple. He places the Black Panther Party in the context of the centuries-long resistance against domination and violence that Blacks have demonstrated during the unending fight to live as a free people. Some may find the way Mumia’s analysis integrates the Black Panther Party into the history of radical challenges to slavery and racism eye opening, as that past is so rarely examined