What in society would exist if not for a radical thought? Would there be vision, invention, technology, or medicine? What advancements would the world bear witness to or be without? What nations would we claim as citizens if not for the radical thought of nation building? Moreover, what of society and its values and beliefs and all we conform to? Reading this, I hope it forces my reader to examine exactly who and what is considered radical. In prison, there is this general dislike amongst prisoners and staff alike for those of us who take different stances against the status quo. If you reject our predicament or the tenants and practices of prison culture, you are labeled an outcast, a radical, or misfit. What then of those in society who throughout the course of history were viewed as such? Were they on the wrong side?

Writing this, I think of two of my fondest radical thinkers: El Hadj Malik El Shabazz, formerly known as Malcolm X, and Wilma P. Mankiller. Much has been written about Brother Shabazz in the April edition of our newsletter. On May 19th we celebrated his 98th birthday. That day, I sat in a prison cell in Northern California giving thought to how over time he became a symbol of what it is to be a radical thinker. Here, I could not help but take issue with those who attempt to pigeonhole his message and image as segregationist, extremist, nihilist, or Black Nationalist. Brother Shabazz was an educator! A man whose worldview was constantly adapting to the ever-changing and challenging world he encountered through his life. A man who vehemently spoke out against systemic injustices while working to build political power for black America. Even more, he was a symbol that spoke a seldom heard truth: No matter where you begin in life, education can change it!

Brother Shabazz’s story served to inspire me. Very much like Malcolm Little, I too was a troubled and misguided youth. When I was 16 years old, I also managed to land myself a stint in a boy’s reformatory–the Tenkiller Youth Program, which was located outside the city limits of Tahlequah, Oklahoma. While there, a once in a lifetime opportunity presented itself for the other delinquents and I to attend an event at Northeastern State University. Author Alex Haley was to give a lecture on the Autobiography of Malcolm X. “Malcolm who? Alex Haley?” I vividly recall asking myself. Neither had been included in the history books provided by my racist school administrators. So it was no surprise I did not attend the event. 

Five years later, I was sitting in an Oklahoma jail reading a copy of this book. Brother Shabazz’s story, I.e., his transition from ignorant street hustler to gifted speaker and the most controversial minister in the Nation of Islam, was simply electrifying. It would inspire me to begin the life-long journey to becoming an educated man. After I was released, I moved to the Bay Area where for the next two years I would attend community college as a business major. However, my ambitions for college were short-lived. I was arrested and convicted of murder. Four years would pass as I sat in the Alameda County Jail in Dublin, California, reading sun-up, sundown–literally! I read four libraries full of books. However, as I have written in previous editions of our newsletter, some of my reads were not in the pages of a book, rather the brothers I was locked-up with. They were the children of the Black Panther Party. As time passed, they shared with me their stories of resistance; being educated at the Party’s schools and breakfast programs; and how the black community had been flooded with heroin, cocaine and conflict. They nourished my love for reading, providing me titles to books that began a radical educational process. 

Ironically, in 2017, I was sitting in a cell at Salinas Valley, a maximum-security prison located in Central California. I was watching the documentary MANKILLER that was premiering on PBS. It was a story about Wilma P. Mankiller. She was born on November 18, 1945 in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Despite her ranking among revolutionary leaders like Harriet Tubman and Eleanor Roosevelt, very much like Brother Shabazz, her story had also been omitted from the history books. Her family and she had moved to Hunters Point, a housing project in San Francisco, in 1957 as part of a federal program to “urbanize” Native Americans and help them find work. By the end of the 1960s, she was a sociology student and social worker in the Bay Area. It was a place I lived, studied and came to respect as a nesting ground for radical praxis. Consequently, she would become submerged in the revolutionary tempest of organizations like the Black Liberation Army, United Farmers, and Black Panther Party who were expanding as disciples of the Left. By all accounts, they were pr0ducts of Marx-Leninism, ready consumers of radical literature and praxis rooted in the revolutionary ideology of class analysis. Communism, guerrilla tactics, Ho Chi Minh, and Chairman Mao Zedong’s Little Red Book, would ultimately shape Mankiller’s political views by 1969. Whereas, she would play an active role in the American Indian Movement and the protests that took place on Alcatraz Island in that same year. It would become a catalyst for her activism. 

In 1977, she returned to Oklahoma and became the Cherokee Nation’s economic recovery coordinator. While completing her courses in the social sciences and training in urban planning at the University of Arkansas, she launched various projects to promote the socioeconomic development of Cherokee communities in Oklahoma. The projects she initiated–i.e., the rural health centers, Head Start programs for Cherokee children, and Dr.ug treatment facilities–were greatly influenced by her exposure to the Black Panther Party’s “10 Point Program”. Before her death on April 6, 2010, she had become an extremely controversial figure as the first woman to hold the position of Chief of the Cherokee Nation, having increased its membership by 200%, and recipient of countless awards for her service in the public sector.

Representation, housing, employment, education, foreign and domestic policy, ending police brutality and disparities in the criminal legal system, and healthcare, were core values that both Brother Shabazz and Sister Mankiller represented in their radical call for change. Arguably, these demands have gone unanswered as our nation has yet to deliver on its promises of freedom, justice and liberty for all. Consequently, the inequities that come from them continue to live with us today as conservative forces fight against creating a more just society. Yet we fight! We build! We build in their spirit and still hear their radical voices moving us to do, as V.V. Sands so eloquently states, “Speak up and speak out!” And most importantly, take action!

That said, as I write this, I set in a prison cell and cannot help but think of how amazing and humbling it truly is to have Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of Mrs. Betty and El Hadj Malik El Shabazz, acknowledge our organization’s work, which is grounded in the radical spirit of her father and Sister Mankiller’s legacies. As we work to develop and fund our programs, I can only try and imagine what this will someday mean for our organization as the world reads Dr. Shabazz’s introduction to Reimagining the Revolution: Four Stories of Abolition, Autonomy, and Forging New Paths In the Modern Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, it is of the highest honor that we can strive to recapture the spirit and genius of their socioeconomic development strategies. 

Let us all contribute to the process of developing organizations and programs that invest in people and communities. Learn more about R.E.B.U.I.L.D. and how you can support marginalized communities! Donate today!