BASICS Issue #22 (Sep/Oct 2010)
by N. Zahra
“For maximum effectiveness of the Counterintelligence Program, and to prevent wasted effort, long range goals are…[to] prevent the rise of a “messiah” who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement.”
Excerpt from COINTELPRO document (1967-1971).
If one were to read the writings or gaze upon the art of prisoner and revolutionary Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson today, one would surely know the type of leader that the quote above is referring to. Throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, laid out a program to destroy the rise of revolutionary movement amongst the oppressed masses of American society. Far from being a relic of the past, similar tactics are being used today to undermine the organizing efforts of today’s New Afrikan Black Panther Party (a black or ‘New Afrikan’ revolutionary communist organization, not to be confused with the cultural nationalist so-called ‘New Black Panther Party’).Rashid, the party’s Minister of Defense, is currently being held at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia in sub-human conditions. As in the past, the state and its repression ‘correctional’ arm, are doing everything in their power to cow the revolutionary spirit of Rashid and isolate him from his fellow prisoners. Some of the things that Rashid has to endure on a daily basis include the confiscation and monitoring of his mail and communication, 24hr close-range video surveillance, frequent cell searches where contraband materials are planted by guards, frequent food poisoning, and having to eat and exercise separately from other prisoners.
One might pose the question, why is Rashid receiving such attention from the state? Why are they targeting him and those associated with the party specifically? Because the New Afrikan Black Panther Party has managed to organize and raise the consciousness of black, white, brown, and indigenous prisoners and supporters on the outside through their struggle to unite America’s most oppressed into an organized, revolutionary force. Just recently, one of Rashid’s comrades at Red Onion State, Khaysi, was shot three times by a guard while in a prison yard, with a bullet grazing his skull and almost killing him.
The New Afrikan Black Panther Party is one of the first organizations to reemerge in the U.S., since the destruction of the Black Panther Party in the 1970s, that fully embraces the original program of the BPP and has clearly stated its intention to organize oppressed people for socialist revolution. Claiming the ideology of ‘Pantherism’, which they indicate to be “illuminated by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism”, it is not surprising that the state is so harshly targeting one of the Party’s ideological leaders as prolific as Rashid. People on the outside have yet to come to the aid of Rashid, for the most part because Rashid is not yet familiar to many on the outside.
As Rashid has written, “Folks like Sundiata [Acoli], Mumia [Abu-Jamal], [Russell] Maroon [Shoats], etc…would never be left open like this by their supporters.” We need to come together and do our best to expose the state’s efforts to repress the resurgence of revolutionary organizing projects in the world’s number one imperialist state, America. The revolutionary rising of the oppressed nationalities and working-class people in America would aid all people in the world fighting for national and social liberation.
A sketch for the revolutionary art collective Mass Artillery, which sells t-shirts and prints of Rashid’s work to raise funds for the organization’s work.
For more information about the NABPP, or to subscribe to their many journals, write to: Rising Sun Press, P.O. BOX 4362, Allentown, PA, 18101, U.S.A.
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