Megan Williams Says She Was Set Up, Reveals More Details of Abuse
Megan Williams and her mother, Carmen Williams, have given an interview to the Nation of Islam’s Final Call. Megan Williams claims that she did not willingly go to the trailer home where she was raped and stabbed and tortured by six whites. Rather, she was lured there by a supposed friend.
Megan Williams (MW): When I first went up there, a girl I knew named Christa, she took me up there, she said we were going to a party.
FC: When Christa took you there (the trailer home in Big Creek in Logan County) what did she do?
MW: She said she had to make a run and she would be right back. She didn’t come back.
FC: Do you believe Christa was involved in arranging this?
MW: (Nodding.)
Carmen Williams (CW): Yes, it was a setup, she left her there. When Megan was in the hospital, Christa called and I answered the phone. Christa was asking, ‘how is my friend?’ I told her that she wasn’t a friend of Megan’s because she left her. Christa then hung up the phone. We have not seen or heard from Christa since that time.
The police investigators say they are trying to locate her for an interview, but have not been able to find her.
Megan Williams also insists that she did not have a romantic relationship with Bobby Brewster, despite the many allusions to a “prior relationship” in news reports.
FC: There were some news reports that you had a relationship with one of the defendants, Bobby Brewster. Is this accurate?
MW: We were just friends. It was nothing like that.
FC: No dating relationship between you and defendant Bobby Brewster?
MW: No. They kicked me in the head with steel toed boots, they hit me in the head with several objects, I remember seeing a knife, and they tried to cut my foot off. They told me that is what they did to Kunta Kinte when they cut his foot off so he couldn’t run and that is what they were going to do to me.
FC: When exactly was this?
MW: It was like in August. When she (Christa) dropped me off up there, that’s when they started beating on me, and calling me names. When they were hitting me and stabbing me, they called me n—-r, they said ‘this is what we do to n—-rs up here’ and they said they were going to kill me.
Throughout the interview, Megan Williams makes numerous references to the 6 whites’ use of racial epithets that did not come out in her original statement to the police. She also describes a scene in which she it seems she was being treated purposely like a slave.
They made me pick green beans out of the garden, they made these switches into a braid and they were whipping me as I was picking the greens. They made me pick weeds out of the garden and they were calling me n—-r and said they were going to take me out to a creek and cut my throat and throw me in a river. All I was saying is I wanted to get back to my mom, and they were like, ‘you ain’t ever going to see your mom ever, ever again, never.’ I wanted to get back home so bad.
Similarly, Ms. Williams says the 6 whites made her sleep in the shed outside the trailer home because she is Black.
They told me there were no n—-rs allowed in the trailer.
And she describes the threats of hanging more vividly than before.
I just wanted to get away. I asked one of them if they could let me go, they said no because ‘ain’t no n—-rs allowed up here,’ and they were going to kill me. One day, I was asleep in the room, one of them came in and was kicking me and said ‘hey n—-r, we got a noose out there for you, want to come look at it? We’re going to hang you, come on.’ I got really scared. I just wanted to get out of there. I was fighting for my life.
Do we still think this wasn’t a hate crime? The state government, and, if possible, the federal government must address the racial dimensions of this case.
Showing posts with label Hungry Blues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hungry Blues. Show all posts
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Sunday, December 18, 2005
This From Hungry Blues
The “Shakedown Gang”: Roy Innis and the New Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
Guest post by Patrick Jones
Founded in 1942 by an inter-racial group of pacifist students in Chicago, including George Houser, James Farmer, Anna Murray and Bayard Rustin, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) became one of the most important and influential civil rights organizations in the United States until the end of the 1960s. Profoundly influenced by the writing of Henry David Thoreau and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, CORE organized the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 and the 1961 Freedom Rides, and also played a crucial role during the student sit-in movement of the early-1960s, the 1963 March On Washington and the 1964 Mississippi “Freedom Summer” Project. CORE chapters were also involved in struggles for racial justice throughout the urban North, organizing rent strikes and a variety of campaigns to end employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schooling and police brutality.
Since 1968 when Roy Innis, one of today’s most prominent black conservatives, wrested control of the organization away from Farmer and others, CORE has become an affront to the group's founding principles and to its important contributions to the struggle for racial justice in the forties, fifties and sixties. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has moved sharply right, aligning itself with the Republican Party, conservative think-tanks, anti-environmental organizations and large multi-national corporations, including drug companies like Monsanto, who give it large donations. The organization rarely engages in direct action and does not appear to have a significant grassroots membership, relying instead on its sizable contributions from Right-wing think-tanks and corporate donors to lobby in favor of their favorite conservative issues.
Roy Innis came to power within CORE during the Black Power era after a tumultuous and divisive internal struggle. He led the drive away from inter-racialism and toward an increasingly conservative black nationalism/capitalism. According to one former member of the group, Innis opposed the leadership of Gladys Harrington, the long-time head of the New York chapter of CORE, saying that women should not head black organizations. During the 1970s, Innis and CORE supported the murderous Ugandan dictator and Nazi sympathizer, Idi Amin, stating, "Ugandans are happy under General Amin's rule of Africa for black Africans” and terming the despot’s decision to expel 50,000 Asians from the country "a bold step." The following decade, Innis reportedly said “the so-called anti-Apartheid struggle” was "a vicarious, romantic adventure" with "no honest base." Also in the 1980s, Innis teamed with Bob Grant, the right-wing radio host who at one point called Dr. King a "scumbag," to form the Howard Beach Legal Defense Fund, which assisted a group of white youths who had chased a black man into the street to his death in a racial attack. Innis supported the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court and publicly defended “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz who shot and killed four African American youth on a subway in New York City in 1984.
More recently, the group organized an anti-Greenpeace campaign to uncover what it calls "eco-imperialism" on the left. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has instigated or participated in a variety of campaigns to support and protect multinational corporations in their relentless pursuit of profit over worker/human rights and respect for the natural environment. CORE also defended Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott after his sympathetic comments about Senator Strom Thurmond's "Dixiecrat" run for President in 1948. In 2000, Innis supported extreme right-wing candidate Alan Keyes’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he told Justice Department officials that young African American Muslims in prison and at colleges were ripe for terrorist recruitment ("a clear and present danger," in his estimation). During a February 2005 speech, Innis lamented "liberals coming into Black churches" and "the 1500 black children aborted every day." He also said it is a myth that "slavery has done some irreparable harm [to African Americans].” Addressing the supposed dearth of black leadership in the U.S. today, Innis reportedly said, "We have a black leadership; George Bush is our leader." In April 2005, CORE sent a letter to the Senate encouraging an end to the filibuster in order to get President Bush's upcoming Supreme Court nominees through the process. CORE has also advocated an abstinence-first policy to combat AIDS in Africa and has criticized the UN ban on DDT in Africa calling it a means to hold back those nations from "modernizing." Roy Innis has served on the boards of the Hudson Institute, a Right-Wing think-tank, the Landmark legal Foundation, which led the charge against Bill Clinton in the 90s, the National Traditionalist Caucus, a group that works against women’s rights and equality for gays and lesbians, and the National Rifle Association. Innis has also been a featured speaker at a Christian Coalition gathering.
Niger Innis, Roy’s son, acts as CORE’s public spokesperson and has taken an increasing leadership role in the organization over the past few years. In early 2005, Niger called WV Senator Robert Byrd a "racist" for delaying confirmation of Condaleeza Rise as Secretary of State. Niger occasionally writes for the National Review and has spoken at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] on several occasions, which is billed as the “largest gathering of conservative political activists in the country." He is a board member of the Alliance for Marriage, which seeks a constitutional amendment to define marriage solely as a union of a man and a woman, and “Project 21,” which bills itself as a "National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives.” During a recent interview supporting John Roberts’s nomination for the Supreme Court, Niger Innis called African Americans who vote for Democrats "useful fools."
Over the past few years, CORE has honored a series of individuals at their annual Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration who are hostile to racial justice and human rights, including Jorg Haider, Australian politician and Nazi-sympathizer, Bob Grant and President George W. Bush’s political architect, Karl Rove, claiming Rove's “mission is to fully integrate our people in every aspect.” In 2006, the group is scheduled to honor Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, UN Secretary John Bolton, and Pfizer Vice-President Rich Bagger.
James Farmer called CORE under Roy Innis's leadership a "shakedown gang." Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, prominent black journalists, have written that CORE now has "a tin cup outstretched to every Hard Right political campaign or cause that finds it convenient - or a sick joke - to hire black cheerleaders" and describe Innis as a "gangster 'civil rights' caricature." Shiela Michaels, a long-time civil rights activist, has written that Innis has “shamed the name of CORE.” Dr. Herschelle S. Challenor, Professor at Clark Atlanta University, in a 2000 speech at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa, drew this comparison between James Farmer's leadership of CORE and Innis's: "James Farmer, the leader of CORE during the highpoint of the civil rights movement, was a bright, dedicated activist of unimpeachable integrity. His immediate successor, Roy Innis was seen as a chameleon prepared to change his political ideology as necessary. There were rumors that he worked in later years as an FBI informant."
This summary was culled from a variety of print and online sources. It is intended as a public service, rather than a piece of formal or original academic work
Guest post by Patrick Jones
Founded in 1942 by an inter-racial group of pacifist students in Chicago, including George Houser, James Farmer, Anna Murray and Bayard Rustin, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) became one of the most important and influential civil rights organizations in the United States until the end of the 1960s. Profoundly influenced by the writing of Henry David Thoreau and the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, CORE organized the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 and the 1961 Freedom Rides, and also played a crucial role during the student sit-in movement of the early-1960s, the 1963 March On Washington and the 1964 Mississippi “Freedom Summer” Project. CORE chapters were also involved in struggles for racial justice throughout the urban North, organizing rent strikes and a variety of campaigns to end employment and housing discrimination, segregated public schooling and police brutality.
Since 1968 when Roy Innis, one of today’s most prominent black conservatives, wrested control of the organization away from Farmer and others, CORE has become an affront to the group's founding principles and to its important contributions to the struggle for racial justice in the forties, fifties and sixties. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has moved sharply right, aligning itself with the Republican Party, conservative think-tanks, anti-environmental organizations and large multi-national corporations, including drug companies like Monsanto, who give it large donations. The organization rarely engages in direct action and does not appear to have a significant grassroots membership, relying instead on its sizable contributions from Right-wing think-tanks and corporate donors to lobby in favor of their favorite conservative issues.
Roy Innis came to power within CORE during the Black Power era after a tumultuous and divisive internal struggle. He led the drive away from inter-racialism and toward an increasingly conservative black nationalism/capitalism. According to one former member of the group, Innis opposed the leadership of Gladys Harrington, the long-time head of the New York chapter of CORE, saying that women should not head black organizations. During the 1970s, Innis and CORE supported the murderous Ugandan dictator and Nazi sympathizer, Idi Amin, stating, "Ugandans are happy under General Amin's rule of Africa for black Africans” and terming the despot’s decision to expel 50,000 Asians from the country "a bold step." The following decade, Innis reportedly said “the so-called anti-Apartheid struggle” was "a vicarious, romantic adventure" with "no honest base." Also in the 1980s, Innis teamed with Bob Grant, the right-wing radio host who at one point called Dr. King a "scumbag," to form the Howard Beach Legal Defense Fund, which assisted a group of white youths who had chased a black man into the street to his death in a racial attack. Innis supported the nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court and publicly defended “subway vigilante” Bernhard Goetz who shot and killed four African American youth on a subway in New York City in 1984.
More recently, the group organized an anti-Greenpeace campaign to uncover what it calls "eco-imperialism" on the left. Under Innis’s leadership, CORE has instigated or participated in a variety of campaigns to support and protect multinational corporations in their relentless pursuit of profit over worker/human rights and respect for the natural environment. CORE also defended Republican Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott after his sympathetic comments about Senator Strom Thurmond's "Dixiecrat" run for President in 1948. In 2000, Innis supported extreme right-wing candidate Alan Keyes’s unsuccessful bid for the presidency. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he told Justice Department officials that young African American Muslims in prison and at colleges were ripe for terrorist recruitment ("a clear and present danger," in his estimation). During a February 2005 speech, Innis lamented "liberals coming into Black churches" and "the 1500 black children aborted every day." He also said it is a myth that "slavery has done some irreparable harm [to African Americans].” Addressing the supposed dearth of black leadership in the U.S. today, Innis reportedly said, "We have a black leadership; George Bush is our leader." In April 2005, CORE sent a letter to the Senate encouraging an end to the filibuster in order to get President Bush's upcoming Supreme Court nominees through the process. CORE has also advocated an abstinence-first policy to combat AIDS in Africa and has criticized the UN ban on DDT in Africa calling it a means to hold back those nations from "modernizing." Roy Innis has served on the boards of the Hudson Institute, a Right-Wing think-tank, the Landmark legal Foundation, which led the charge against Bill Clinton in the 90s, the National Traditionalist Caucus, a group that works against women’s rights and equality for gays and lesbians, and the National Rifle Association. Innis has also been a featured speaker at a Christian Coalition gathering.
Niger Innis, Roy’s son, acts as CORE’s public spokesperson and has taken an increasing leadership role in the organization over the past few years. In early 2005, Niger called WV Senator Robert Byrd a "racist" for delaying confirmation of Condaleeza Rise as Secretary of State. Niger occasionally writes for the National Review and has spoken at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] on several occasions, which is billed as the “largest gathering of conservative political activists in the country." He is a board member of the Alliance for Marriage, which seeks a constitutional amendment to define marriage solely as a union of a man and a woman, and “Project 21,” which bills itself as a "National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives.” During a recent interview supporting John Roberts’s nomination for the Supreme Court, Niger Innis called African Americans who vote for Democrats "useful fools."
Over the past few years, CORE has honored a series of individuals at their annual Martin Luther King, Jr., celebration who are hostile to racial justice and human rights, including Jorg Haider, Australian politician and Nazi-sympathizer, Bob Grant and President George W. Bush’s political architect, Karl Rove, claiming Rove's “mission is to fully integrate our people in every aspect.” In 2006, the group is scheduled to honor Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, UN Secretary John Bolton, and Pfizer Vice-President Rich Bagger.
James Farmer called CORE under Roy Innis's leadership a "shakedown gang." Glen Ford and Peter Gamble, prominent black journalists, have written that CORE now has "a tin cup outstretched to every Hard Right political campaign or cause that finds it convenient - or a sick joke - to hire black cheerleaders" and describe Innis as a "gangster 'civil rights' caricature." Shiela Michaels, a long-time civil rights activist, has written that Innis has “shamed the name of CORE.” Dr. Herschelle S. Challenor, Professor at Clark Atlanta University, in a 2000 speech at the U.S. embassy in Kinshasa, drew this comparison between James Farmer's leadership of CORE and Innis's: "James Farmer, the leader of CORE during the highpoint of the civil rights movement, was a bright, dedicated activist of unimpeachable integrity. His immediate successor, Roy Innis was seen as a chameleon prepared to change his political ideology as necessary. There were rumors that he worked in later years as an FBI informant."
This summary was culled from a variety of print and online sources. It is intended as a public service, rather than a piece of formal or original academic work
Monday, September 26, 2005
This from Hungry Blues
Malik Rahim On Black Panthers And Black Resistance In NOLA
[This comes to you courtesy of Google's cache. The
full version includes Ahmad Rahman who was active in Detroit and still lives there now. This conversation about the strength of the NOLA Black community in 1970 is important context for us all to understand. For those who have not caught it here or elsewhere, Malik Rahim again lives in NOLA. Since the start of Katrina, he has remained steadfast in the area called Algiers, just across the Mississippi River from the Lower Ninth Ward. He has stayed in NOLA in order to do community organizing and help whomever he can. He has established Common Ground, "a community-run organization offering temporary assistance and mutual aid to the citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas." --BG]
The 30th Anniversary of the Desire Shoot-out: An Interview with Malik Rahim
by Brice White
This is an interview conducted on WTUL (91.5 FM) on March 13th, 2000.
Malik Rahim is from New Orleans and is an activist in the Bay Area now and Ahmad Rahman is also an activist and he lives in the Detroit area. They were both members of the Black Panther Party.
I wanted to get you, Malik, to talk about the 30th anniversary of the shoot-out in the Desire projects right here in New Orleans...
Malik: Well, I was in the first shoot-out, and at that time, at the time when we first came together to organize a Black Panther Party chapter in New Orleans the governor of this state, McKidden, came on TV and swore he would never allow the Panthers to ever get established in Louisiana. The National Committee to Combat Fascism was the first step in organizing a Black Panther Party chapter. On September the 15th, 1970 there was the first shoot-out between members of the National Committee to Combat Fascism and the New Orleans Police Deparatment, and the second one was the week prior to Thanksgiving in 1970.
Were you from all over the city or were you from one specific area?
Malik: No that's really it, a sister named Betty Toussaint and my first wife Barbara Thomas and I, we came out of Algiers, the Fischer area. Most of the Party members came out of the Calliope projects, and at that time the African American community in New Orleans was one that was very territorial, if you came from the 9th ward you stayed in 9th ward, if came form the 15th ward you stayed in the 15th ward. This was the first time where you had individuals from all over the city coming together. But most of the members came from the Calliope projects and then the Magnolia projects, so those two brought us the most members.
The first house you had was in St Thomas?
Malik: Yes, we started establishing programs in the St. Thomas projects, our education program, our breakfast program, and at that time we were also beginning to organize the crime prevention program. Now, we had only been in existence in New Orleans for about 5 or 6 months, so then we get our eviction notice. And at every place that we would rent, as soon as we would open up our office, we'd get a notice. Our location at the time was at the St. Thomas, our group was having a meeting, and then some people from the Desire housing project came and told us about their plight with crime and asked if we'd come back and help them. With the eviction notice, we decided to move our office to Desire. Our new building was already being occupied by a community activist program called the Sons of Desire. The Sons of Desire was downstairs and we was upstairs.
This was the house on Piety Street?
Malik: Yes, this was the house on Piety. Shortly after we moved in we received an eviction notice there too.
Most people don't know anything about the shoot-out that y'all went through in Desire.
Malik: Well, there was basically 11 of us in the party office at the time, and almost a hundred police with everything from a 60 caliber machine gun and armored cars down to their revolvers. We had about 9 shotguns, and a couple of handguns, .357 revolvers. But everything we had was legally purchased and it was registered to our office. Our position was that African Americans should no longer be lynched or beaten or attacked and have their rights taken away without any form of resistance.. We believed that you had a right to defend yourself, you had a right to defend your community, you had a right to defend your family, and you had the right to defend your honor as a human being.
The reason that we survived the shoot-out was because the community stood with us, they wouldn't leave and allow the police to do their dastardly deeds. During the short period we'd been in the Desire we reduced crime to just about 0%, the Desire projects went from one of the highest crime areas in the city to one of the lowest. It was compatible to any middle class white community by the time of the shoot out. And so the community looked at what we did and they looked at what the police came in their telling them... all these contradictions about what we were gonna do and what was gonna happen, they didn't believe it. They were defiant. They not only didn't believe it, but they stood up for us in the second shoot-out.
Now when we opened our second office in the Desire, 600 police came the second time. 600 police, national guard, and state troopers. And then almost 5000 people came out of the Desire projects and stood between the police and our office and refused to move. That was the reason we survived the second shoot-out. It took them to do a deed that is about the greatest betrayal of morality that I have ever witnessed to get us. They came and raided the office the second time dressed as priests. They borrowed priest's uniforms from the priests here at Loyola who had been coming to our free breakfast program. Those priests had been telling us "We're gonna bring you some more food so you can continue to feed the kids", and then they go and give their uniforms to the police. Betty Toussaint, the sister from Algiers, was shot through the door when they raided the house.
And here in New Orleans, like many places in the country, this was the first time that there was an act of armed defiance against the white power structure where the blacks that participated in it had survived. And they were hell-bent on making sure that since we had survived that we would spend the rest of our lives in Angola. This is our 30th year since then, and this is a part of history that our youth and the youth of this nation need to know about. Not only what we did and accomplished, but what caused the condition for the emergence of the Black Panther Party. It has to be known, it cannot be a part of history that is just kicked on the side.
Maybe you could talk more specifically about some of your programs.
Malik: Well, by the time of the shoot-outs we were feeding somewhere in the neighborhood of about 300 - 400 kids every morning, Monday through Saturday. We did this six days a week....
And in most cities around the country the first sickle cell awareness and sickle cell associations was established by members of the Black Panther Party....
How did you all fund these kind of programs?
[ . . . ]
Malik: We went out and asked for donations from within the community, we had supporters that worked who consistently gave donations, we sold papers, buttons, we raised the funds to make things happen.
I know there was a national Black Panther paper, were there also local ones?
Malik: No, but there was always room for local sections. All chapters submitted articles to the Panther Party Newspaper. In that same period of time [as the shoot-out], I believe it was in 1970, you can correct me if I'm wrong, J. Edgar Hoover had declared the Black Panther Party to be the greatest threat against national security. After that statement it was all out war against the Black Panther Party, I believe that almost 300 party members around the country were assassinated and countless others was incarcerated. I believe at one time almost 60- 70 % of our fundraising effort went to political prisoners. The money went to supporting, to making sure that we were kept aware of their conditions....
It seems like now is a time where a lot of people are starting to get organized and get politically active around the country. I was wondering if you guys could talk about that or why you became politically active in the first place?
[ . . . ]
Malik: I would just like to add that conditions like we have now, they bring about a contradiction. By that I mean in California, on Mardi Gras day, proposition 21 was passed. This proposition means that now in California they can try 14 year olds as adults. Now they gonna send 14 year old boys to prison. The authorities think that this 14 year old person is rational enough to pay the ultimate consequences of being executed or being sentenced to life, but is not rational enough to vote, or drive, or drink, or buy cigarettes. I believe that when any injustice is allowed to exist, that that is an injustice to everyone in that community or society. The injustice that is happening to Leonard [Peltier], the botched surgery, where they have basically fused this man's jaws shut, where this man has got to smash his food and suck it into his mouth. Some may say it was just an accident, but one of the FBI agents that Leonard was charged with killing, was shot in the mouth. This is the kind of thing that is going on...
You have issues, like MOVE, in Philadelphia in the early 1980s, where they literally dropped a bomb on the MOVE house, which is just like in Tulsa Oklahoma in the 1920s. African Americans veterans who had just come home from the war stopped a lynching of an African American man, and it caused a whole town to be destroyed. The white power structure flew over this town and actually dropped kerosene and burnt Tulsa down. You have these type of conditions that are in existence, you have people like Mumia who, because he took the stand and because he was a reporter that spoke the truth he was targeted...you have men here in Louisiana who are political prisoners in Angola, who have spent he last 28 years in solitary confinement. That's 28 years locked down, 23 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Weekends 24 hours. They have took beatings, they have suffered some of the worst conditions that a man can suffer and survive. They have withstood this for 28 years.
Something is drastically wrong when the priorities of a nation are not to serve its citizens but to incarcerate them. The entire HUD budget for 2000 is 23 and a half billion for this entire nation, this nation on the other hand will spend almost 36 billion dollars on prison. Their is a mentality that part of our society is disposable and that is what we are seeing with the current increase in incarceration. And we have two million people incarcerated, two million people! And something like 800,000 of those come out of HUD and subsidized housing.
These kids from the projects have a lot of knowledge, not necessarily the ABCs, but how to survive, how to defend themselves, what to do in case their is a shooting. Most kids in this society have never seen someone killed, but if you go to any public housing development in this city and as soon as a child can form some kind of concept of death they can say they have actually seen someone getting murdered. There's no form of psychologists that are sent to these projects to help these kids deal with what they've seen, no one is there to help them like in Columbine, those kids just have to survive.
And even though this country is experiencing it's most prosperous economic boom in its history, in public housing we are still dealing with unemployment that can run up to 70 And 90 percent. So you still have this. Here you have a direct relationship with poverty and crime, it's not based on race because in poor white areas and during the depression you can draw the same conclusions. And right now we possess the tools to cure this problem and that's what has to be done, we have to find solutions. We are making the appeal process shorter and the execution process quicker. Now we even have a Republican governor in Illinois who has put a moratorium on capital punishment. People need to come out and get involved, regardless of who you are, because this is something we must stop. I am a member of the International Action Center and I am the executive director of Prison Rights Union. And people can contact these groups if they want to get more involved.
Both Malik Rahim and Ahmad Rahman are working on Black Panther Party local and national histories
[This comes to you courtesy of Google's cache. The
full version includes Ahmad Rahman who was active in Detroit and still lives there now. This conversation about the strength of the NOLA Black community in 1970 is important context for us all to understand. For those who have not caught it here or elsewhere, Malik Rahim again lives in NOLA. Since the start of Katrina, he has remained steadfast in the area called Algiers, just across the Mississippi River from the Lower Ninth Ward. He has stayed in NOLA in order to do community organizing and help whomever he can. He has established Common Ground, "a community-run organization offering temporary assistance and mutual aid to the citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas." --BG]
The 30th Anniversary of the Desire Shoot-out: An Interview with Malik Rahim
by Brice White
This is an interview conducted on WTUL (91.5 FM) on March 13th, 2000.
Malik Rahim is from New Orleans and is an activist in the Bay Area now and Ahmad Rahman is also an activist and he lives in the Detroit area. They were both members of the Black Panther Party.
I wanted to get you, Malik, to talk about the 30th anniversary of the shoot-out in the Desire projects right here in New Orleans...
Malik: Well, I was in the first shoot-out, and at that time, at the time when we first came together to organize a Black Panther Party chapter in New Orleans the governor of this state, McKidden, came on TV and swore he would never allow the Panthers to ever get established in Louisiana. The National Committee to Combat Fascism was the first step in organizing a Black Panther Party chapter. On September the 15th, 1970 there was the first shoot-out between members of the National Committee to Combat Fascism and the New Orleans Police Deparatment, and the second one was the week prior to Thanksgiving in 1970.
Were you from all over the city or were you from one specific area?
Malik: No that's really it, a sister named Betty Toussaint and my first wife Barbara Thomas and I, we came out of Algiers, the Fischer area. Most of the Party members came out of the Calliope projects, and at that time the African American community in New Orleans was one that was very territorial, if you came from the 9th ward you stayed in 9th ward, if came form the 15th ward you stayed in the 15th ward. This was the first time where you had individuals from all over the city coming together. But most of the members came from the Calliope projects and then the Magnolia projects, so those two brought us the most members.
The first house you had was in St Thomas?
Malik: Yes, we started establishing programs in the St. Thomas projects, our education program, our breakfast program, and at that time we were also beginning to organize the crime prevention program. Now, we had only been in existence in New Orleans for about 5 or 6 months, so then we get our eviction notice. And at every place that we would rent, as soon as we would open up our office, we'd get a notice. Our location at the time was at the St. Thomas, our group was having a meeting, and then some people from the Desire housing project came and told us about their plight with crime and asked if we'd come back and help them. With the eviction notice, we decided to move our office to Desire. Our new building was already being occupied by a community activist program called the Sons of Desire. The Sons of Desire was downstairs and we was upstairs.
This was the house on Piety Street?
Malik: Yes, this was the house on Piety. Shortly after we moved in we received an eviction notice there too.
Most people don't know anything about the shoot-out that y'all went through in Desire.
Malik: Well, there was basically 11 of us in the party office at the time, and almost a hundred police with everything from a 60 caliber machine gun and armored cars down to their revolvers. We had about 9 shotguns, and a couple of handguns, .357 revolvers. But everything we had was legally purchased and it was registered to our office. Our position was that African Americans should no longer be lynched or beaten or attacked and have their rights taken away without any form of resistance.. We believed that you had a right to defend yourself, you had a right to defend your community, you had a right to defend your family, and you had the right to defend your honor as a human being.
The reason that we survived the shoot-out was because the community stood with us, they wouldn't leave and allow the police to do their dastardly deeds. During the short period we'd been in the Desire we reduced crime to just about 0%, the Desire projects went from one of the highest crime areas in the city to one of the lowest. It was compatible to any middle class white community by the time of the shoot out. And so the community looked at what we did and they looked at what the police came in their telling them... all these contradictions about what we were gonna do and what was gonna happen, they didn't believe it. They were defiant. They not only didn't believe it, but they stood up for us in the second shoot-out.
Now when we opened our second office in the Desire, 600 police came the second time. 600 police, national guard, and state troopers. And then almost 5000 people came out of the Desire projects and stood between the police and our office and refused to move. That was the reason we survived the second shoot-out. It took them to do a deed that is about the greatest betrayal of morality that I have ever witnessed to get us. They came and raided the office the second time dressed as priests. They borrowed priest's uniforms from the priests here at Loyola who had been coming to our free breakfast program. Those priests had been telling us "We're gonna bring you some more food so you can continue to feed the kids", and then they go and give their uniforms to the police. Betty Toussaint, the sister from Algiers, was shot through the door when they raided the house.
And here in New Orleans, like many places in the country, this was the first time that there was an act of armed defiance against the white power structure where the blacks that participated in it had survived. And they were hell-bent on making sure that since we had survived that we would spend the rest of our lives in Angola. This is our 30th year since then, and this is a part of history that our youth and the youth of this nation need to know about. Not only what we did and accomplished, but what caused the condition for the emergence of the Black Panther Party. It has to be known, it cannot be a part of history that is just kicked on the side.
Maybe you could talk more specifically about some of your programs.
Malik: Well, by the time of the shoot-outs we were feeding somewhere in the neighborhood of about 300 - 400 kids every morning, Monday through Saturday. We did this six days a week....
And in most cities around the country the first sickle cell awareness and sickle cell associations was established by members of the Black Panther Party....
How did you all fund these kind of programs?
[ . . . ]
Malik: We went out and asked for donations from within the community, we had supporters that worked who consistently gave donations, we sold papers, buttons, we raised the funds to make things happen.
I know there was a national Black Panther paper, were there also local ones?
Malik: No, but there was always room for local sections. All chapters submitted articles to the Panther Party Newspaper. In that same period of time [as the shoot-out], I believe it was in 1970, you can correct me if I'm wrong, J. Edgar Hoover had declared the Black Panther Party to be the greatest threat against national security. After that statement it was all out war against the Black Panther Party, I believe that almost 300 party members around the country were assassinated and countless others was incarcerated. I believe at one time almost 60- 70 % of our fundraising effort went to political prisoners. The money went to supporting, to making sure that we were kept aware of their conditions....
It seems like now is a time where a lot of people are starting to get organized and get politically active around the country. I was wondering if you guys could talk about that or why you became politically active in the first place?
[ . . . ]
Malik: I would just like to add that conditions like we have now, they bring about a contradiction. By that I mean in California, on Mardi Gras day, proposition 21 was passed. This proposition means that now in California they can try 14 year olds as adults. Now they gonna send 14 year old boys to prison. The authorities think that this 14 year old person is rational enough to pay the ultimate consequences of being executed or being sentenced to life, but is not rational enough to vote, or drive, or drink, or buy cigarettes. I believe that when any injustice is allowed to exist, that that is an injustice to everyone in that community or society. The injustice that is happening to Leonard [Peltier], the botched surgery, where they have basically fused this man's jaws shut, where this man has got to smash his food and suck it into his mouth. Some may say it was just an accident, but one of the FBI agents that Leonard was charged with killing, was shot in the mouth. This is the kind of thing that is going on...
You have issues, like MOVE, in Philadelphia in the early 1980s, where they literally dropped a bomb on the MOVE house, which is just like in Tulsa Oklahoma in the 1920s. African Americans veterans who had just come home from the war stopped a lynching of an African American man, and it caused a whole town to be destroyed. The white power structure flew over this town and actually dropped kerosene and burnt Tulsa down. You have these type of conditions that are in existence, you have people like Mumia who, because he took the stand and because he was a reporter that spoke the truth he was targeted...you have men here in Louisiana who are political prisoners in Angola, who have spent he last 28 years in solitary confinement. That's 28 years locked down, 23 hours a day, Monday through Friday. Weekends 24 hours. They have took beatings, they have suffered some of the worst conditions that a man can suffer and survive. They have withstood this for 28 years.
Something is drastically wrong when the priorities of a nation are not to serve its citizens but to incarcerate them. The entire HUD budget for 2000 is 23 and a half billion for this entire nation, this nation on the other hand will spend almost 36 billion dollars on prison. Their is a mentality that part of our society is disposable and that is what we are seeing with the current increase in incarceration. And we have two million people incarcerated, two million people! And something like 800,000 of those come out of HUD and subsidized housing.
These kids from the projects have a lot of knowledge, not necessarily the ABCs, but how to survive, how to defend themselves, what to do in case their is a shooting. Most kids in this society have never seen someone killed, but if you go to any public housing development in this city and as soon as a child can form some kind of concept of death they can say they have actually seen someone getting murdered. There's no form of psychologists that are sent to these projects to help these kids deal with what they've seen, no one is there to help them like in Columbine, those kids just have to survive.
And even though this country is experiencing it's most prosperous economic boom in its history, in public housing we are still dealing with unemployment that can run up to 70 And 90 percent. So you still have this. Here you have a direct relationship with poverty and crime, it's not based on race because in poor white areas and during the depression you can draw the same conclusions. And right now we possess the tools to cure this problem and that's what has to be done, we have to find solutions. We are making the appeal process shorter and the execution process quicker. Now we even have a Republican governor in Illinois who has put a moratorium on capital punishment. People need to come out and get involved, regardless of who you are, because this is something we must stop. I am a member of the International Action Center and I am the executive director of Prison Rights Union. And people can contact these groups if they want to get more involved.
Both Malik Rahim and Ahmad Rahman are working on Black Panther Party local and national histories
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