From Queen Nanny and Ida B. Wells to Martin Luther King Jr. and Black Lives Matter, liberation has always required the organized masses.
Melina Abdullah La Progressive
For the last week, Black Lives Matter Grassroots organizers met and convened in Los Angeles for our 13th birthday. Black Lives Matter was birthed in its grassroots form on July 13, 2013 in AfricaTown/Leimert Park the night that George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of our collective son, #TrayvonMartin. Every year we gather.
This year, for an entire week more than 80 frontline organizers from 56 chapters from around the world commiserated, mourned, raged, celebrated, healed, restored ourselves and each other, radically imagined, visioned, set goals, outlined objectives, built skills, shared, created, played, laughed, grounded, communed, and prayed. There were stumbles: dinner showing up two hours late, instances of misgendering and ableism, derailed timelines, high heat with no air-conditioning, and technological snafus. But mostly, there was love.
The first morning of full programming fell on the shared birthday of revolutionary leaders and movement mothers, Ida B. Wells and Assata Shakur. We poured libation in their names and in the names of those on whose behalf we struggle, righteous warrior Ancestors, and ones in our own bloodlines and spiritlines who power us forward.
Then we rose as God sang through the personage of Tiffany Rachal – mother of #JalenRandle and co-founder of BLM Grassroots Houston. This was the first convening without Andrew Joseph, Jr. – our champion and coach, founding Rapid Response Coordinator, and father of #AndrewJosephIII, who died suddenly two months before.
As my eyes surveyed the room, they landed on the perfect smoothness of Sister Aysha’s skin, the glistening silver of Brother Taft’s beard, the miracle of Baby Randy’s bounce, and the palpable wisdom and commitment of Baba Akili’s being against the radical exuberance embodied in young Mikayla’s presence. As I stepped forward, called Andrew’s name and announced as his successor Deanna Joseph – his beloved wife of 28 years and partner in all things, I was overcome. These are my people: young and old, educated and streetwise, from across oceans and down the street, all genders, sexualities, religions, shapes, sizes, and abilities, every shade of brown. We are a we.
There is no such thing as individual organizing. In a world that exalts false prophets and celebritizes so-called leaders, we must reject notions of movement messiahs. No matter how great the beings that constitute the collective, transformative change has only ever come through the hands of the many.
Queen Nanny, fought alongside brothers Quaco and Cudjoe and also the hundreds and thousands of those who made the British tremble with fear, cede to their demands, and ultimately retreat that Jamaican Maroon society would be birthed and built in the 1700s and endure as the sovereign state of Accompong Town. Louverture and Desalinnes overthrew French colonizers and enslavers because of the brave commitment and sacrifice of the African masses in Haiti, ultimately winning the first free post-colonial Black nation in 1804.
Nat Turner was visited by God and then staged the most successful rebellion of enslaved people in American history with hundreds more brave souls, inspiring uprisings throughout the South that ultimately toppled chattel slavery.
We speak the name Ida B. Wells…and the antilynching crusades were powered by Black clubwomen, journalists, and armed freedom fighters throughout the North and South.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was never a solitary leader but spoke at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement as Ella Baker organized masses, Bayard Rustin strategized, and our own mothers and grandmothers sacrificed their bodies and safety.
Black Power was not realized only because Comrades Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale visioned it. Nelson Mandela didn’t take his “long walk to freedom” alone.
Each of the names mentioned and many more are owed our undying gratitude and deference; there is no doubt that Mama Harriet spoke directly to God or that Zumbi was divinely anointed. There are special ones…and the movement has always required the masses.
Individual organizing is a lie and a losing strategy. Oppressors intentionally miseducate, feeding falsehoods of messianic leaders in order to dupe everyday people into believing that we have no role in making revolution, to diminish our collective power, and to advance approaches that ensure their continued rule.
It is the power of the people that will win. Group-centered movements expand our capacity, reach, and impact, making full use of the gifts, skills, tools, resources, and relationships of its members. When we make it bigger than one person…or even a few, we shore ourselves up, making the movement less vulnerable to attack through assassination, criminalization, and discreditation.
This sort of intentional building also requires that we do the internal work of killing our own egos that seek and are often fed by individual recognition and reward. We guard against individual operators and false prophets and submit ourselves to an accountability structure that is not always easy but is absolutely necessary.
As Black Lives Matter Grassroots comrades return home, with minds, bodies, and souls fed, we pledge ourselves to the beautiful struggle that (God-willing) will avenge our Ancestors, win justice for our people, and build a world of freedom for our children and future generations. We seek not a comfortable place in oppression, but affirm our right and sacred duty to be free…together. Only through collective organizing will we realize collective liberation.
Melina Abdullah serves on the leadership team for #BlackLivesMatter and is committed to ending state-sponsored and police violence towards all people, and especially Black people. She has been particularly active in the resistance movement that emerged following the killings of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown in California as well as in Ferguson, Missouri. Professor Abdullah emerged as a national leader in the effort to advance ethnic studies.
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