black autonomous movement

8/3/2019 Black Autonomous Movement

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Recommended Reading

1. Dancing With Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin

America by Benjamin Dangl. (Note: Chapter One has a great sectionon the roles and concept o leadership in autonomous movements thatemphasizes the consensus building model).2. “Te Dragon and Te Hydra” by Russell Maroon Shoats3. “Te New Face o Liberation” an essay by Ward Churchill4. Te Art o Leadership by Oba ’Shaka (Note: Tis book was writtenin 1990 and a l ittle o it is outdated however it contains an excellentblueprint or grassroots organizing and concludes that ultimately lead-ership is not an individual but the collective voice/will o the people)5. We Are Everywhere by Notes From Nowhere (Tis book providesexamples o autonomous movements rom around the world.)6. Maroon Societies by Richard Price

5.05.11

BLACK AUTONOMOUS

MOVEMENTSNew Dynamics in Black Liberation

by Robert Saleem Holbrook



IV. CONCLUSION

In conclusion the concept o autonomy and dual power is notabout reormism, its about liberating ourselves rom the oppressivestate. We’re not out to be better politicians than the politicians ormake the police better police or the corporate state a better corpo-rate state. Autonomy is independence, as best possible, rom theseentities which we view as illegitimate. Our relationship with govern-ment one o opposition and i any relationship is necessary it mustbe one o pressure and conrontational politics. We can’t pretend tobe on the same page, we’re in an all together dierent book. A book

o resistance that the oppressed peoples o the world are presently writing and each autonomous movement and member is a chapterbeing written in this book o love and struggle.

“The main threat to humankind, the flora

and fauna and our entire biosphere, is

capitalist imperialism: a totally out of

control, predatory, global system of

accumulation and oppression that’s on

a collision course with the limitations

of our planet: daily devouring children, women, people of color, the poor,

workers of all stripe, wildlife and the

environment in pursuit of profits.”

Russell Maroon ShoatsThe Dragon and the Hydra: A Historical

“T wo features of the new mass movement

must be the intention of creating dual

power institutions to challenge the state,

along with the ability to have a grass-

roots autonomist movement that can take

advantage of a pre-revolutionary

situation to go all the way. Dual power

means that you organize a number of

collectives and communes in cities and

towns all over North America, which are,

in fact, liberated zones, outside of thecontrol of the government. Autonomy

means that the movement must be truly

independent and a free association of all

those united around common goals,

rather than membership as the result of

some oath or other pressure.”

Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin Anarchism and The Black Revolution

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Robert Holbrook, or Saleem, as his friends call him, is a

politicized prisoner being held in pennsylvania. He contributes

regularly to numerous publications and is an active member of

the Human Rights Coalition, an organization which advocates

for prisoners rights and liberation as well as prison correspon-

dent For the defenestrator. to get in contact with saleem, visit

his website for his current mailing address. www.freesalim.net

“You have the emergence in human society o thisthing that’s called the state. What is the state? Testate is this organized bureaucracy. It is the policedepartment. It is the army, the navy. It is the prisonsystem, the courts, and what have you. Tis is thestate, it is an organized oppressive organization.”

- Omali Yeshitela

land, the airwaves and the water are private prop-erty. Put another way, the great Arikan communal tradition teaches us that true liberation cannot exist under a system that allows a ew to control the land,water and airwaves”.

-Oba ’Shaka

Study of Organizational Methods



“Black Autonomous Movements:New Dynamics in Black Liberation”

by Robert Saleem Holbrook

In the city o Philadelphia in response to the unprovoked

brutal beating o a Black man the Askia Coalition Against PoliceBrutality was created to educate the community about police brutal-ity and to conront police repression while prisoners and their am-ilies united to orm the Human Rights Coalition, an organizationcommitted to deending the human rights o prisoners. In Miami theake Back the land movement, a Black collective, moves homelessamilies into empty or abandoned houses the city has neglected andhas even named a section o reclaimed houses “Umoja” (Unity) Vil-lage. In Oakland, the once base o the Black Panther Party, the spirito community based resistance thrives as community activists repre-

senting numerous grassroots organizations have organized a People’sHearing on Racism and Police Repression to challenge police bru-tality and racism while across the Bay in San Francisco antipoverty activists rom the POOR Magazine and Poor News Network raiseawareness o economic injustice within communities o color. In St.Louis the Organization or Black Struggle mobilizes grassroots activ-ists and organizations towards community empowerment while inNew Orleans grassroots activists within the Black community are atthe oreront o rebuilding Black neighborhoods devastated by Hur-

ricane Katrina by demanding government attention and reconstruc-tion.All throughout the Black colonies o the empire (the United

States) local activists and organizations are mobilizing to meet andaddress the problems and injustice they suer at the hands o a cor-porate state that is not accountable to the people, especially poor andworking class communities. Tese activists and organizations or themost part belong to no Black national or centralized movement butinstead are ordinary people taking control o their spaces and strug-gling to live with respect and to enjoy a lie o quality and substance.

Most o them are Mothers, Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, Friends, Neigh-bors, etc who have grown tired o depending upon unaccountable

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rie, ethnic solidarity and solidarity with all activists that share our vision o building a new society that eliminates oppression and ex-ploitation, and promotes collective economics and a social and civicmedium in which eelings o love, sincere support and commitmentare the mediums o exchange as opposed to individualism and thepursuit o a materialistic consumer culture. A person should not be

judged on their nancial worth but rather on their human qualities.

Te pursuit o happiness, authentic expression and sel-determina-tion in the individual and collective spheres is the cornerstone o autonomous movements.

o quote Che, “At the risk o sounding absurd, I will say thatthe true revolutionary is guided by eelings o great love.” In this con-text autonomous movements and communities are not automatedenclaves, they are vibrant enclaves with positive and progressiveenergies where conservatism, patriarchal, or homophobic attitudesshould have no place. Tese traits being stagnant and in the path o personal and communal development. Te values o our society arenot rigid moral codes that place us in judgment over one anotherbut are righteous moral values that respect the individual and thecommunity—they are communal values. Te environment we seekto create will allow or the ull development o an individual’s poten-tial and a new culture and society that releases the ull potentialitieso human beings. While this may sound like a simple goal, when youthink about it, it is truly revolutionary considering we inhabit a soci-ety that is completely in opposition to the values we hold and striveto replicate within our communities.

So the culture we are building is an empowerment culture,a communal culture as opposed to a consumer culture and this canonly be built through action and mutual cooperation amongst our-selves:

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“One o the great strengths o traditional Arikan so-cieties was their communal democratic composition.Tis great communal tradition was ounded on thedeep understanding o the unity o lie. Our Arikanelders understood that the land, the air and the wa-

ter are God’s gi (or natures gi) to all living things.God and Mother Nature did not invent the idea that



career politicians and corrupt political parties to deliver or them.Tey have decided to seize their own destinies and depend on theirown communities to solve problems the state is not interested insolving.

I. HISORICAL CONEX

It is in the spirit and tradition o BlackResistance and Liberation that these com-munities act. Tey are the legacy o the BlackLiberation Movement (BLM) which at onetime represented a strong orce within theBlack community demanding Sel-Respect,Sel-Determination, Community and Individual Empowerment andthe peoples’ control over the resources o their own communities.Te BLM was exemplied by Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party,Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Congress o Racial Equality, the Republic o New Arika, Black Liberation Army, etc. Tese organizations shookthe oundation o the empire as their members challenged the rac-ist status quo o America by demanding not only the recognition o Black people’s human rights but also our human rights and right tosel-determination, community liberation and the complete restruc-turing o the system through revolution, not integration. Tey didn’twant to accommodate with capitalism, they wanted to destroy capi-talism and build a new community and society based on revolution-

ary values and culture.Tese movements o local resistance in the tradition o Black

Liberation constitute the legacy o not only the BLM but also the leg-acy o COINELPRO, the U.S. government’s internal counterintelli-gence program that systematically destroyed, through assassination,alse imprisonment and disruption, the national Black LiberationMovements o the 1960’s and 70’s that had by 1968 gained legitimacy and mass support within the Black community. Contrary to popularimpression the movements did not gain mass support by shoutingBlack Power or strutting around with guns threatening armed con-

rontation with the police. Tese are images the state publicized tocreate the impression these movements were criminals hell bent on

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possess national structures should allow or autonomy at the localand regional level.

In leading ourselves and developing our own generationalideas and solutions, we should not hesitate to look to other regionso the world that have a history o autonomous struggle. At this mo-ment Latin America is the region with the most dynamic exampleso autonomous movements carving out spaces or themselves withinurban and rural societies traditionally neglected by their govern-ments. A recommended book to read on these movements is Danc-ing With Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin Americaby Benjamin Dangl. Another idea rom Latin America that activ-ists operating within autonomous radical organizations/collectivesin the United States should adopt is networking through an um-brella organization similar to the People’s Global Action network, aglobal network o autonomous movements that shares ideas, tacticsand strategies related to grassroots resistance and activism. Tere

needs to be an autonomous congress or collective within each city that would allow activists and grassroots organizations to networkand share ideas, coordinate protests and, i possible, share resourc-es. Tese grassroots organizations need to break out o their ownspheres o activism, ocusing on their issues exclusively, and developmulti-issue campaigns in concert with other grassroots organiza-tions that would connect antipoverty activists with anti-police bru-tality activists, social justice activists with housing and health careactivists, prisoner rights activists with human rights activists, etc, etc.Alliances o solidarity are important in autonomous movements—it

prevents the movements rom becoming isolated.

Ill. AUONOMOUS CULURE

Autonomous activism and movements also create an auton-omous culture, a revolutionary culture that is directly in oppositionto the capitalist “Me First” culture o consumerism that dominatesthe social, civic and political landscape o our communities. Whenwe are attacking the legitimacy o the state, or rather identiying itsillegitimacy, we are also in the process o developing a revolutionary culture that revolves around a system o values based on camarade-

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violence and destruction. Tese alse impressions allowed the stateto justiy its repressive actions towards the movement, actions whichincluded assassination and alse imprisonment o young leaders o the BLM. In 1968 the Attorney General o the United States statedthat the Black Panther Party constituted the greatest threat to the in-ternal security o the United States. Within two years, by 1970, over28 Black Panther Party members were assassinated by police agen-

cies across the country and hundreds more were imprisoned on ahost o alse charges led to neutralize the strength and popularity o the movement.

Te ocial justication or this massive level o repressive violence against the Black Panther Party and the Black LiberationMovement according to the government was their members com-mitment to violence, however when the COINELPRO papers werereleased by the U.S. Church Committee in hearings on the COIN-ELPRO program in the 1970’s it was revealed the government’s ma-

jor concern with the Panthers was the massive support they gainedwithin the Black community rom their programs that addressedthe needs and service o the people. Te Panthers and by extensionthe BLM was at its peak o legitimacy and inuence in 1968 withinour communities. Te year o 1968 was the high tide o the BlackLiberation Movement as well as Tird World Liberation movementsaround the world. Capitalism and Imperialism was on its heels, any-thing seemed possible in these times as the United States was beingdeeated in Vietnam and urban rebellions were rocking the majorcities o the United States and Europe, while guerrilla movements

and student activists inspired by the Cuban Revolution conrontedU.S. imperialism in Latin America.

Just when it seemed anything was possible and internationalcapitalism was on the verge o collapse, COINELPRO kicked intohigh gear and the U.S. government unleashed its ull inventory o weapons, repression and dirty tricks on the Black Liberation Move-ment devastating its members and organizations until it became ahollow shell o its ormer strength. Tis is where we nd ourselvestoday, sidelined by the civil rights movement and traditional politi-cians interested in business as usual within the Black communities

a.k.a. Black colonies o the empire. Te BLM has been reduced toscattered ormations across the United States’ urban colonies (Black

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For those o us who have been shackled by the outdated poli-tics and rhetoric o the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movementsautonomy should be music to our ears, allowing those o us whowere born in the 70’s and 80’s the opportunity to ashion our ownideas and solutions to the social and racial injustice we are conront-ing. It is our time to rebuild and reashion the movement as Fanon soeloquently puts it: “Each generation must, out o relative obscurity,

discover its mission and ulll or betray it”. In this regard, we are notonly breaking ree rom the political reality the state has imposed onus and our communities we are also breaking ree rom the “mes-siah” dependence that many o our people and communities used tobe trapped in that operated under the assumption Black people mustbe led to the promised land by a Black leader or organization. No,that is not the case, we will lead ourselves. Any leaders or leadershipthat emerges would ow rom an activist’s history and track recordo struggle and uncompromising positions when it comes to con-ronting state injustice as well as commitment to consensus build-ing and new ways o meeting the needs o the community. Also any decisions the leadership arrives at would be the collective decision o the movement afer consensus meetings and debate. So the concepto leadership in autonomous movements does not involve a leaderdirecting—rather she/he is being guided by the inormed decisionso the movement’s members.

Tere are good reasons or stripping leadership o corporate-style decision-making processes. How many times has the commu-nity’s interest been compromised or betrayed by national Black lead-

ers like Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton swooping in to take the leado a protest that local activists initiated only to have them hold aphoto-op press conerence with local politicians, push aside the localactivists and cut a deal that leaves the core grievances in place whilehighlighting themselves as responsible negotiators then they hop in aplane and y o back to their headquarters. Tese great compromis-ers take the steam and the initiative out o local activists campaignsand protests. Tey are more interested in symbolism than substance.Autonomous movements and activists on the other hand ocus onsubstance as opposed to symbolism. Also this critique should not

be interpreted so broadly as to imply that no national movementor national movements should exist but rather that movements that

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communities).Yet as we see today the spirit o the movement lives on as

everyday in every urban colony there are ordinary people o color,activists, organizing and mobilizing their communities around is-sues such as police brutality, political representation, control o com-munity resources, education, mass imprisonment, etc. Te same is-sues that our communities mobilized around in the 60’s and 70’s.

Te potential o Black resistance thereore still remains within ourcommunities. Although these local ormations o activism are notormally connected they are interrelated nevertheless and speak tothe new ethos in the Black liberationist tradition and that is local au-tonomous movements challenging state repression within their ownspaces and with their own ideological positions based on the chal-lenges they ace. Tese autonomous movements constitute a BlackAutonomous Movement, though no one has ormally adopted thatname, their actions constitute such a movement in this phase o ourpeople’s struggle within the United States.

II. AUONOMOUS SRUGGLE

Te concepts o autonmy and autonomous struggle actually are not a new experience within our people’s history o collectivestruggle. Within traditional Arikan society, specically West Ari-kan culture, villages ruled themselves autonomously within largertribal and ethnic ederations. In the United States during slavery es-caped slaves, commonly reerred to as “Maroons” created autono-

mous ugitive communities within the dismal swamps o Virginiaand North Carolina. Autonomy thereore isnothing new within our collective experienceo resistance and struggle. While the origin o the word autonomy has its roots in the Greeklanguage meaning “sel ” plus “law” its conceptis universal and is based on the oundation o all democratic movements: consensus. Anyoneinvolved in grassroots activism understandsthat nothing can be accomplished without

consensus and this is the strength o the Blackautonomous movements in the Black colonies.

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tality that some leader has to swoop into our communities and saveus rom injustice. Autonomy thereore rst starts in the mind, it isthe governing o sel based on the revolutionary ideas and principlesthat the community and I can address and solve our own problems.Tis should not be interpreted as neighborhood separatism or a rea-son to carve our neighborhoods into enclaves, that is not autono-my. Autonomy unshackles the mind rom reliance on government

or outsiders to solve our own aairs. It breeds a condence o sel-determination and creates innovative solutions to problems we areconronted with by placing the people on the rontline in charge o uniting to liberate our own spaces.

Anyone involved in present day community advocacy willrecognize this image o people power in motion. Anyone who hasever been in a community center or neighborhood living room, oreven a prison cell, brainstorming with ellow activists on how tomobilize people, protests and programs with limited resources, vol-unteers and time understands the eelings o empowerment theseexperiences breed. Tis is autonomous struggle that liberates theindividual while he or she empowers the community. It is actualempowerment, it is something tangible that we can eel while trans-orming our lives and communities.

Autonomous struggle thereore removes the “beloved lead-er” and “top down” method o organizing rom the movement. Itpromotes and inspires consensus building thinking and decentral-ized organizations. oo many Black organizations, even ones claim-ing revolutionary politics, have adopted the corporate leadership

structure complete with board o directors or central committeesthat consult amongst themselves and issue directives to the peopleor communities they claim to serve instead o involving these com-munities in the decision-making process, which would empower thecommunity as opposed to the organization. Tis approach is con-trary to autonomous movements which operate rom a decentral-ized posture making decisions rapidly, uidly and at the service o the people and community by directly engaging them in the process.Previous attempts at centralized leadership o the Black LiberationMovement has been met with resounding disappointment and ail-

ure.

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Tese movements are born o local problems and grievances lead by longtime activists who live within the oppressed communities. No“national” or “vanguard” movement is dropping leaders in on thepeople explaining to them the correct political line or how best toorganize within their own territories. Trough consensus these com-munities have developed solutions to conront the problems they areaced with.

It is necessary to clariy that autonomy and autonomousstruggle is about creating alternative and revolutionary systems o community and government within and in opposition to the capi-talist and corporate democracies o Western societies. Te reality isas radical activists we are not presently in a position to, nor are thepeople presently inclined to, overthrow the government. So we mustcarve out our own spaces by meeting the needs o the people withinwhatever spheres o inuence we have within our communities. Indoing this we are creating systems o dual power, which is buildingup autonomous alternatives to the current power structure that con-trols our communities.

Te survival programs o the Black Panther Party are exam-ples o dual power structures created within oppressed communities.In the 60’s and 70’s the Panthers provided ree health clinics, reebreakast programs or children and ree grocery packages to seniorcitizens. Tey also developed independent schools called LiberationSchools that provided students with an empowering education thatinstilled cultural pride and a commitment to community and servicein the name o the people. Te Panthers were able to generate mas-

sive community support around these programs and their politicsbecause they identied a need in the community the governmentwasn’t providing and they stepped in to ll the void. Systems o dualpower within our neighborhoods enable us to rely upon ourselveswhile at the same time developing an inrastructure that would holdrevolutionary potential and experience should one day in the uturethe conditions become ripe or revolution or local, regional or na-tional uprisings. Again this ties in with the concept o the PanthersSurvival Programs. Te Panthers labeled them survival programsbecause they were programs to provide until the revolution while si-

multaneously building community support and empowerment. Tecommunity is relying on itsel, not the state or local government.

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is to exist outside it or preerably, to abolish it.Te concept o autonomy and dual systems o power there-

ore should become more appealing when we consider the real pos-sibility that the nation could go bankrupt or ace nancial collapsebringing on rapid ination and loss o social services. It’s not ar-etched to consider this scenario considering how close the nation’s(and world’s) economy came to collapse during the nancial crisis

in 2008, a crisis that global capitalism has yet to emerge rom as o the date o this writing. In the event o another nancial meltdownand possible government bankruptcy, communities would be lef toend or themselves. I anyone is in doubt about this just consider theabsence o government in New Orleans ollowing hurricane Katrina.Te Black community was lef to end or itsel as police ocers andemergency services pulled out o the city and prevented people ee-ing the ood water rom escaping, in some instances using deadly orce. Te objective o the police was to prevent Black people romentering and overrunning the white, rich suburbs that surround thecity. I the nation aces nancial bankruptcy, we would be derelict inour duty i we believe that the government wouldn’t leave our com-munities to end or themselves. I it ever comes to this we should beprepared, and this is what autonomy prepares and develops us or(i.e. sel-government).

We certainly, however, don’t need a national emergency to justiy sel-government. We ace a state o emergency within our ownneighborhoods every day when it comes to the state o police brutal-ity, mass imprisonment, unemployment, poverty, poor educational

resources and lack o aordable health care. Tese are the range o issues autonomous activists conront everyday within our neighbor-hoods. o quote an activist rom the book We Are Everywhere: Understanding autonomy includes community owned and runhealth care, education and social support, direct democracy in zonesliberated by the people who live in them, not as enclaves to withdrawto, but as outward looking communities o afnity, engaged in mutual cooperation, collective learning, and unmeditated interaction.

Tis is autonomy and every day that we conront injusticeand initiate solutions to our problems, collectively and individually,

we are creating liberated spaces within our neighborhoods and mostimportantly within our minds because we rid ourselves o the men-

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Other examples o dual power and autonomous inrastruc-ture that support community needs are community gardens createdon abandoned or vacant lots/elds within our neighborhoods thatwould develop empowering relations among neighbors and couldalso be used to grow organic ood that could be distributed (ree)to community members. Afer school programs and child care (by responsible community members), ood co-opts that would provide

a space to purchase healthy oods at discount charges (or ree i pos-sible), Adult GED and Adult Basic Education classes, AlternativeSchools (not Charters!) that could operate afer school to oer a ed-ucation that promotes ree thought, cultural/community pride andresponsibility, etc. Another empowering tactic that should be con-sidered is the occupation o abandoned houses—there is no excuseor people to be homeless or neighborhoods lacking community centers when there are so many abandoned houses. Activists shouldseize these abandoned houses and turn them into community centerhubs that provide programs that will unite the community. In turnthe support these programs will generate rom the people will makeit dicult or the city or police to enorce an eviction order becausewe will have turned something that was run down, abandoned andconsidered worthless into a vital component o the neighborhoodthat the people could take pride and collective ownership o.

In developing these autonomous programs it must be em-phasized that the objective is not to secure nonprot unding orcorporate sponsorship, that undermines the purpose o autonomy.Corporate and nonprot unding also ties the organization down in

bureaucratic paperwork that consumes time and eventually burnsactivists out as it turns activists into clerks. Whenever possible und-ing rom corporate nonprots should be avoided, however i it isnecessary, then activists must approach the unding not as sponsor-ship but rather as means to an end otherwise they will surrender au-tonomy to corporate oversight. Tey should also (i necessary) seeknonprot unding rom the most progressive oundations they cannd but again, this option should be avoided i possible.

Another trap autonomous activists and movements mustavoid is electoral politics that consume movements in alse promises

and expectations. A perect example is the Obama renzy. Nothinghas changed under this man, his notable achievement o being the

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rst Black President has brought us the same results the rst Black

mayors brought our cities in the 70’s and 80’s = nothing! Autono-mous movements thereore are not geared toward campaigning orelectoral politics. I movements do decide to participate in electoralpolitics, they should only do so knowing that they are only votingor the lesser o two evils and should understand that autonomy isindependence rom electoral politics that only promote and preservethe status quo. I autonomous activists decide to pursue an electoralstrategy it should be local and concentrated on electing block repre-sentatives (or block captains) within the neighborhood that wouldbe answerable to the needs and concerns o the people in his/her

community while also preserving distance rom the established po-litical machine that runs the city. Tis strategy would not be pursuedto reorm the political establishment but rather to pressure it rombelow and erode its legitimacy. Whatever member o the autono-mous movement occupies the block captain position should donateher/his paycheck towards the programs the movement is runningwithin the community, otherwise he/she would just be another re-ormist politician/activist. Te United States electoral system is mor-ally bankrupt and merely an extension o corporations and interna-tional capitalism. Te extension o corporate power and prots is

more important than people and democracy in this political system,and we should harbor no illusions about reorming it—our objective

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