I'm 57 Today. The Same Age Kwame Ture was when He Left Us

1968 Birthday party commemoration for Huey P. Newton after he was imprisoned for the death of a corrupt police person. From left to right, the late Bunchy Carter of the Los Angeles Black Panther Chapter. Seku Neblett - former BPP Field Marshall and current A-APRP member living in Ghana. Kwame Ture. Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), Bobby Seale. And, unidentified young Black Panther

And this is significant to me because Kwame Ture (formally known as Stokely Carmichael) has been a primary role model in my life for the last 40 years.  Outside of Malcolm X, there isn't another figure who has had more influence on my life and I actually got the opportunity on numerous occasions to even work with Kwame in person.  Thus, verifying his legitimacy as a revolutionary of impeccable integrity and commitment.  

I honestly doubt I will ever come close to emulating the real life organizing work of Kwame Ture.  His actual life would be a best selling motion picture without having to exaggerate at all.  His work alone with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964 and the Loundes County Freedom Organization in Alabama in 1965 are pinnacle works that helped shape the social landscape in this country.  He made major contributions to expanding the Black Panther Party into a national, and international, organization.  And all of that important work doesn't even compare to the groundbreaking work he contributed from 1968 to his transition in 1998, where he helped build the All African Committee for Political Coordination (A-ACPC) - the strategic vehicle to achieve revolutionary Pan-Africanism ("The Handbook of Revolutionary Warfare" Kwame Nkrumah) along with the All African People's Revolutionary Party.

While Kwame's comrades/contemporaries in the 1960s, people like Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Marion Barry, Andrew Young, went on to gain prestigious personal positions of power (while the conditions of the masses of African people have digressed significantly).  Meanwhile, those 60s warriors like Kwame Ture, Jamil Abdullah al-Amin (H. Rap Brown), and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., all people who lived by principle and integrity while dismissing personal wealth and privilege, all ended up in different places than the Jacksons and Youngs.  al-Amin has been in prison for the last 13 years on trumped up charges connected to his community work in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., where he was wrongly convicted of killing police.  Dr. King of course, was assassinated 51 years ago in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.  For Kwame Ture life after the 60s meant spending those last 30 years of his life doing the grueling on the ground, day to day, organizing work from Guinea-Conakry, West Africa.  By choosing this path, he willingly took himself out of the spotlight that some of those others utilized to individually advance themselves.  He opened himself up to endless scrutiny and criticism for leaving the U.S.  And, with rampant confusion apparent about Pan-African work, which is still dominant today, there is this ridiculous narrative that Kwame really didn't accomplish much during those last 30 years.  Some of this analysis, whether intentional or not, even infers that Kwame's focus on the African revolution during those last 30 years (and his work from Africa) may reflect declining mental health on his part (which by extension would mean the same for the rest of us).  This is sad indeed and to me is comparable in trauma in some ways to the fates our other freedom fighters who were physically attacked/liquidated had experienced.  The end results are always the same.  Discredit our independent, militant, movements for self-determination.

In other words, this man who could have been governor of any state, mayor of any city, chancellor of any large university and/or foundation, stayed committed to revolution and the construction of Pan-Africanist socialist development, spending the last year of his life in overwhelming pain. Yet, continuing to engage the work of our glorious revolution right down to his last breath.

As I reflect on being 57 today, as I already said, I know my life and contributions aren't going to match what my big Brother contributed.  In fact, I use his massive contributions to continue to inspire me.  Whenever I get down, discouraged, depressed, or uninspired, I intentionally think of Kwame Ture and what he worked through.  That approach has helped me stay on track for years.  What that approach does for me today is push me to think in terms of what else I can do.  I may never have the level of impact that Kwame had, but I can certainly continue to push, push, push, to get as close to that contribution as is humanly possible.  I cannot predict the future, but if I'm fortunate enough to continue to live on for a while longer, that just means I have that much more time than Kwame was granted to do even that much more.  

In African culture, particularly Revolutionary African Personality (RAP) culture - the culture of the African revolution - we don't view our personal born days as days of personal attention like is done in Western societies.  Instead, another day you experience on this earth reflects more gratitude one must have for the masses of the people because it is the masses who created and maintain the conditions from which all of us exist today.  So, for me, birthdays mean reflection on what we can do to continue to struggle relentlessly against our enemies.  I'm 57 today.  Kwame Ture didn't live past 57, but I'm here.  My people are still here.  We are in position to continue his work.  And, you better believe that's exactly what we are going to do.