by the young sisters (yes—mostly sisters) emerging as leaders of this new movement. Their cry—that Black Lives Matter has a historic resonance that anyone with ears and memory can’t help but hear.
The drums. The drumbeats of protest; the calls to angry, seething masses to stand up against this profound indignity. It harkened back to the brief window of Occupy, reflected the Spanish indignados, yes. But it’s boldness gave breath to that which so many in power hoped—wished—had become moribund—the Black Panther Party.
We Want Freedom argues, and hopefully demonstrates, that Black rebellion has deep roots in American soil; its seeds have sprouted across the centuries. As we will see the Black Panther Party emerged from this long history of struggle for Black liberation. History repeats itself in wild, wonderful, and unpredictable ways. Black Lives Matter also belongs to this tradition. We can see some parallels between the founding and message of both organizations. For the Black Panther Party the observation and filming of the police was an early tactic and the unjustified killing of a black man by police gave a focal point to the anger born of years of injustice. We Are Michael Brown and We Are Denzil Dowell. From the streets of Oakland the news of the police murder of a black man spread via the first issue of the Black Panther newspaper—the social media of the day—and of course by people getting together and out in the streets. Both movements made the “controversial” statement—this murder is not acceptable and the insistence on the personhood of Black people was grounded in a movement for social change. Both movements were founded and led by young people and you better believe that the politics and strategies of both movements pissed people off … royally. The Black Panther Party located their message in a strong organization, a clear critique of the existing structure, and a demand for change. It is my hope that Black Lives Matter, which has the luxury of looking at the history of the Black Panther Party, will continue to develop their critique and program.
But history, properly understood, is often a cycle where social forces battle for supremacy positing contradiction against contradiction. Sometimes resistance surfaces where it is least expected and popular culture provides a window into a hidden social reality—causing shock, consternation, and delight!
Consider a recent phone call between me and a sista-friend.
“Did you see it? Did you see IT?” she squealed with excitement when picking up the phone.
“See what?” I replied startled.
“Did you see Beyoncé perform at the Super Bowl? She slayed it! She murdered it!?”
“Whachu talkin’ ’bout, girl? What did she do?”
“You didn’t see it?”
“I ain’t see nuthin’— I ain’t get my property yet.”
“Oh My God, Mu— She did a halftime tribute to Malcolm X—and the Black Panthers!” she screamed.
“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
