The Art of Political Activism
A Labor of Love
By Khalfani Malik Khaldun

General political activism has to be embraced by every active revolutionary as a constant labor of love. Your head and heart has to be in it for the long term. Because political activism is a protracted service doesn't always produce immediate results.

My interactions with a host of political activists since 1994 has taught me some valuable lessons. When we are fighting to build an organization to expose conditions of oppression in society and inside these industrial prison complexes. We have to establish and weed out who are simply situational activists, and work only with those committed to this art. While I have learned that everyone can play a role in political activism, we have to prepare ourselves for those who stand with us today, then they're gone tomorrow. They are situational activists. Lacking a revolutionary commitment.

The Black Panther Party (BPP) formed in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale is an excellent example of genuine political activism. Their legacy gives us a basic blueprint of their love for the masses. They gave us their loyalty, time, heart, soul, love, and protection. That is a true labor of revolutionary love.

The initial practice of the Panthers was to conduct armed citizen's patrols to monitor police officer's conduct and to prevent police brutality. They also operated other community programs including community health clinics and the free breakfast programs for children. Which was the first nationally formed breakfast program inside Amerika. The poor oppressed communities are always going to support you when they see that you support them. So to be effective in our communities, we need the people's support. If our presence is visible and consistent, they will believe us to be serious. Genuine activism is an art.

Today's headlines are filled with multiple stories of the deaths of black men and women carried out by the police in cities across the country, and speak to the injustice that continues. With the vastness of social media and cell phone cameras, the wanton bloodshed by police of poor black men and women is more polarized today than ever, which resulted in 2015 over 120 black men and women being killed by law enforcement.

The birth of the Black Lives Matter movement and its influence shows us that all it takes is an idea and a vision. Now Black Lives Matter organizations are all over the country, protesting and organizing to expose the impunity of injustice everywhere. The continuation of a legacy started with the political activism of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. The black community in every state in this country are becoming more agitated and angry with these police murdering our loved ones.

We, as political activists, must direct that energy away from them tearing up their neighborhoods by encouraging them to get involved in political activism. Encourage them to join local activists in building strong organizations where they live or where they are ill-represented.

We have to encourage groups like Mothers of the Movement and Black Lives Matter to build the bridge of activism connecting with prison activists. There is an undeniable wave of solidarity, unity, and collective protest sweeping through the prison industrial complex that must be promoted and encouraged. As a First Amendment right supported by the US Constitution, as a founder of the Free Indiana Movement, it is my commitment to network and build the bridge from the inside these prison walls that connects and flows in unison with political activism locally here in the State of Indiana.

Prisoncrats placed me in solitary confinement on August 19, 2016 and released me days after the days of national prison resistance. To curtail and halt any planned support for September 9, 2016, I'm proud of our Incarcerated Worker Organizer Committee comrades and our comrades from Indianapolis, Bloomington, Chicago, Texas, and North Carolina for their love and support, letters, calls, and time. I honor your activism as effective and genuine. Thanks for having my back. Now they know that I'm not alone. I'm feeling the warmth of your love in this dark cold man-made plantation. We got racist Jim Crow turning in his grave. Please support the Free Indiana Movement, and join our Friends and Family Campaign to Free Bro. Khalfani Malik Khaldun.

Comrades, you have to be careful in them streets. Domestic struggles are occurring all across this country, and the forces of oppression are on high alert. Our communications and mail are heavily monitored. We have a lot of work to do in being an effective force for change. You have my loyalty and solidarity in service to true political activism. May the forces of love, truth, peace, freedom, and justice navigate you to victory. Because when we fight, we win.

I look forward to hearing from you with your ideas and vision for more organized activism inside and outside of these plantations. Walk in the balance of correct ideas and a genuine love for this work. Take care, peace and blessings. Hope you enjoy the poem attached; it fits the current movement. Aluta-continua (the struggle continues).

Write to me at:
Bro. Khalfani Malik Khaldun
(Leonard McQuay) #874304
6908 S. Old US Highway 41
Carlisle, IN 47838

Or

The Free Indiana Movement
P.O. Box 2321
Terre Haute, IN 47802

===

Life or Death

A Soul, half through the Gate, said unto Life
"What does thou offer me?" And Life replied:
"Sorrow, unceasing struggle, disappointment;
after these
Darkness and silence." The Soul said unto Death:
"What does thou offer me?" And Death replied:
"In the beginning what Life gives at last."
Turning to Life: "And if I live and struggle?"
"Others shall live and struggle after these
Counting it easier where thou hast passed."
"And by their struggles?" "Easier place shall be
For others, still to rise to keener pain
Of conquering Agony!" "And what have I
To do with all these others? Who are they?"
"Yourself!" "And all who went before?" "Yourself."
"The darkness and the silence, too, have end?"
"They end in light and sound; peace ends in pain
Death ends in Me, and thou must glide from
Self
To Self, as light to shade and shade to light again.
Choose!" The Soul, sighing, answered: "I will live."

Philadelphia, May 1892