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Title: Black Capitalism
Author: Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin
Date: 2001
Language: en
Topics: race, capitalism
Source: From http://libcom.org/library/black-capitalism-lorenzo-ervin

Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

Black Capitalism

Part 1

Some — usually comfortable Black middle class professionals, politicians

or businessmen who rode the 1960s Civil rights movement into power or

prominence — will say there is no longer any necessity to struggle in

the streets during the 1990s for Black freedom. They say we have

“arrived” and are now “almost free.” They say our only struggle now is

to “integrate the money,” or win wealth for themselves and members of

their social class, even though they give lip service to “empowering the

poor.” Look, they say, we can vote, our Black faces are all over TV in

commercials and situation comedies, there are hundreds of Black

millionaires, and we have political representatives in the halls of

Congress and State houses all over the land. In fact, they say, there

are currently over 7,000 Black elected officials, several of whom

preside over the largest cities in the nation, and there is even a

governor of a Southern state, who is an African-American. That’s what

they say. But does this tell the whole story?

The fact is we are in as bad or even worse a shape, economically and

politically, as when the Civil rights movement began in the 1950s. One

in every four Black males are in prison, on probation, parole, or under

arrest; at least one-third or more of Black family units are now single

parent families mired in poverty; unemployment hovers at 18–25 percent

for Black communities; the drug economy is the number one employer of

Black youth; most substandard housing units are still concentrated in

Black neighborhoods; Blacks and other non-whites suffer from the worst

health care; and Black communities are still underdeveloped because of

racial discrimination by municipal governments, mortgage companies and

banks, who “redline” Black neighborhoods from receiving community

development, housing and small business loans which keep our communities

poor. We also suffer from murderous acts of police brutality by racist

cops which has resulted in thousands of deaths and wounding; and

internecine gang warfare resulting in numerous youth homicides (and a

great deal of grief). But what we suffer from most and what encompasses

all of these ills is that fact that we are an oppressed people — in fact

a colonized people subject to the rule of an oppressive government. We

really have no rights under this system, except that which we have

fought for and even that is now in peril. Clearly we need a new mass

Black protest movement to challenge the government and corporations, and

expropriate the funds needed for our communities to survive.

Yet for the past 25 years the revolutionary Black movement has been on

the defensive. Due to cooptation, repression and betrayals of the Black

Liberation movement of the 1960s, today’s movement has suffered a series

of setbacks and has now become static in comparison. This may be because

it is just now getting its stuff together after being pummeled by the

State’s police agencies, and also because of the internal political

contradictions which arose in the major Black revolutionary groups like

the Black Panther Party, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC

or “snick’ as it was called in those days), and the League of

Revolutionary Black Workers. I believe all were factors that led to the

destruction of the 1960s’ Black left in this country. Of course, many

blame this period of relative inactivity in the Black movement on the

lack of forceful leaders in the mold of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King,

Marcus Garvey, etc., while other people blame the “fact” the Black

masses have allegedly become “corrupt and apathetic,” or just need the

“correct revolutionary line.”

Whatever the true facts of the matter, it can clearly be seen that the

government, the Capitalist corporations, and the racist ruling class are

exploiting the current weakness and confusion of the Black movement to

make an attack on the Black working class, and are attempting to totally

strip the gains won during the Civil rights era. In addition there is a

resurgence of racism and conservatism among broad layers of the white

population, which is a direct result of this right-wing campaign.

Clearly this is a time when we must entertain new ideas and new tactics

in the freedom struggle.

The ideals of Anarchism are something new to the Black movement and have

never really been examined by Black and other non-white activists. Put

simply, it means the people themselves should rule, not governments,

political patties, or self-appointed leaders in their name. Anarchism

also stands for the self-determination of all oppressed peoples, and

their right to struggle for freedom by any means necessary.

So what road is in order for the Black movement? Continue to depend on

opportunistic Democratic hack politicians like Bill Clinton or Ted

Kennedy; the same old group of middle class sellout “leaders” of the

Civil rights lobby; one or another of the authoritarian Leninist sects,

who insist that they and they alone have the correct path to

“revolutionary enlightenment”; or finally building a grassroots

revolutionary protest movement to fight the racist government and

rulers?

Only the Black masses can finally decide the matter, whether they will

be content to bear the brunt of the current economic depression and the

escalating racist brutality, or will lead a fight back. Anarchists trust

the best instincts of the people, and human nature dictates that where

there is repression there will be resistance; where there is slavery,

there will a struggle against it. The Black masses have shown they will

fight, and when they organize they will win!

A Call for a New Black Protest Movement

Those Anarchists who are Black like myself recognize there has to be a

whole new social movement, which is democratic, on the grassroots level

and is self-activated. It will be a movement independent of the major

political parties, the State and the government. It must be a movement

that, although it seeks to expropriate government money for projects

that benefit the people, does not recognize any progressive role for the

government in the lives of the people. The government will not free us,

and is part of the problem rather than part of the solution. In fact

only the Black masses themselves can wage the Black freedom struggle,

not a government bureaucracy (like the U.S. Justice Department),

reformist civil rights leaders like Jesse Jackson, or a revolutionary

vanguard party on their behalf.

Of course, at a certain historical moment, a protest leader can play a

tremendous revolutionary role as a spokesperson for the people’s

feelings, or even produce correct strategy and theory for a certain

period, (Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, and Martin Luther King, Jr. come to

mind), and a “vanguard party” may win mass support and acceptance among

the people for a time (e.g., the Black Panther Party of the 1960s), but

it is the Black masses themselves who will make the revolution, and,

once set spontaneously in motion, know exactly what they want.

Though leaders may be motivated by good or bad, even they will act as a

brake on the struggle, especially if they lose touch with the freedom

aspirations of the Black masses. Leaders can only really serve a

legitimate purpose as an advisor and catalyst to the movement, and

should be subject to immediate recall if they act contrary to the

people’s wishes. In that kind of limited role they are not leaders at

all — they are community organizers.

The dependence of the Black movement on leaders and leadership

(especially the Black bourgeoisie) has led us into a political dead end.

We are expected to wait and suffer quietly until the next messianic

leader asserts himself, as if he or she were “divinely missioned” (as

some have claimed to be). What is even more harmful is that many Black

people have adopted a slavish psychology of “obeying and serving our

leaders,” without considering what they themselves are capable of doing.

Thus, rather than trying to analyze the current situation and carrying

on Brother Malcolm X’s work in the community, they prefer to bemoan the

brutal facts, for year after year, of how he was taken away from us.

Some mistakenly refer to this as a leadership vacuum.” The fact is there

has not been much movement in the Black revolutionary movement since his

assassination and the virtual destruction of groups like the Black

Panther Party. We have been stagnated by middle class reformism and

misunderstanding.

We need to come up with new ideas and revolutionary formations in how to

fight our enemies. We need a new mass protest movement. It is up to the

Black masses to build it, not leaders or political parties. They cannot

save us. We can only save ourselves.

What form will this movement take?

If there was one thing learned by anarchist revolutionary organizers in

the 1960s, you don’t organize a mass movement or a social revolution

just by creating one central organization such as a vanguard political

party or a labor union. Even though Anarchists believe in revolutionary

organization, it is a means to an end, instead of the ends itself. In

other words, the Anarchist groups are not formed with the intention of

being permanent organizations to seize power after a revolutionary

struggle. But rather to be groups which act as a catalyst to

revolutionary struggles, and which try to take the people’s rebellions,

like the 1992 Los Angeles revolt, to a higher level of resistance.

Two features of a new mass movement must be the intention of creating

dual power institutions to challenge the state, along with the ability

to have a grassroots 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 town all over North America, which are, in fact, liberated

zones, outside of the control 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.

So how would Anarchists intervene in the revolutionary process in Black

neighborhoods? Well, obviously North American or “white” Anarchists

cannot go into Black communities and just proselytize, but they

certainly should work with any non-white Anarchists and help them work

in communities of color. (I do think that the example of the New Jersey

Anarchist Federation and its loose alliance with the Black Panther

movement in that state is an example of how we must start.) And we are

definitely not talking about a situation where Black organizers go into

the neighborhood and win people to Anarchism so that they can then be

controlled by whites and some party. This is how the Communist Party and

other Marxist groups operate, but it cannot be how Anarchists work. We

spread Anarchists beliefs not to “take over” people, but to let them

know how they can better organize themselves to fight tyranny and obtain

freedom. ‘We want to work with them as fellow human beings and allies,

who have their own experiences, agendas, and needs. The idea is to get

as many movements of people fighting the state as possible, since that

is what brings the day of freedom for us all a little closer.

There needs to be some sort of revolutionary organization for Anarchists

to work on the local level, so we will call these local groups Black

Resistance Committees. Each one of these Committees will be Black

working class social revolutionary collectives in the community to fight

for Black rights and freedom as part of the Social revolution The

Committees would have no leader or “party boss,” and would be without

any type of hierarchy structure, it would also be anti-authority. They

exist to do revolutionary work, and thus are not debating societies or a

club to elect Black politicians to office. They are revolutionary

political formations, which will be linked with other such groups all

over North America and other parts of the world in a larger movement

called a federation. A federation is needed or coordinate the actions of

such groups, to let others know what is happening in each area, and to

set down widespread strategy and tactics. (We will call this one, for

wont of a better name, the “African Revolutionary Federation,” or it can

be part of a multicultural federation). A federation of the sort I am

talking about is a mass membership organization which will be democratic

and made up of all kinds of smaller groups and individuals. But this is

not a government or representative system I am talking about; there

would be no permanent positions of power, and even the facilitators of

internal programs would be subject to immediate recall or have a regular

rotation of duties. When a federation is no longer needed, it can be

disbanded Try that with a Communist party or one of the major Capitalist

parties in North America!

Revolutionary strategy and tactics

If we are to build a new Black revolutionary protest movement we must

ask ourselves how we can hurt this Capitalist system, and how have we

hurt it in the past when we have led social movements against some

aspect of our oppression. Boycotts, mass demonstrations, rent strikes,

picketing, work strikes, sit-ins, and other such protests have been used

by the Black movement at different times in its history, along with

armed self-defense and- open rebellion Put simply, what we need to do is

take our struggle to an new and higher level: we need to take these

tried and true tactics, (which have been used primarily on the local

level up to this point), an utilize them on a national level and then

couple them with as yet untried tactics, for a strategic attack on the

major Capitalist corporations and governmental apparatus. We shall

discuss a few of them:

A Black Tax Boycott

Black people should refuse to pay any taxes to the racist government,

including federal income, estate and sates taxes, while being subjected

to exploitation and brutality. The rich and their corporations pay

virtually no taxes; it is the poor and workers who bear the brunt of

taxation. Yet they receive nothing in return. There are still huge

unemployment levels in the Black community, the unemployment and welfare

benefits are paltry; the schools am dilapidated; public housing is a

disgrace, while rents by absentee landlord properties are exorbitant-all

these conditions and more are supposedly corrected by government

taxation of income, goods, and services. Wrong! It goes to the Pentagon,

defense contractors, and greedy consultants, who like vultures prey on

business with the government.

The Black Liberation movement should establish a mass tax resistance

movement to lead a Black tax boycott as a means of protest and also as a

method to create a fund to finance black community projects and

organizations. Why should we continue to voluntarily support our own

slavery? A Black tax boycott is just another means of struggle that the

Black movement should examine and adopt, which is similar to the peace

movement’s “war tax resistance.” Blacks should be exempted from all

taxation on personal property, income taxes, stocks and bonds (the

latter of which would be a new type of community development issuance).

Tax the Rich!

A National Rent Strike and Urban Squatting

Hand-in-glove with a tax boycott should be a refusal to pay rent for

dilapidated housing. These rent boycotts have been used to great effect

to fight back against rent gouging by landlords. At one time they were

so effective in Harlem (NY) that they caused the creation of rent

control legislation, preventing evictions, unjustified price increases,

and requiring reasonable upkeep by the owners and the property

management company. A mass movement could bring a rent strike to areas

(such as in the. Southeast and Southwest where poor people are being

ripped of by the greedy landlords, but are not familiar with such

tactics. Unfair laws now on the books, so-called Landlord -Tenant (where

the only “right” the tenants have is to pay the rent or be evicted)

should also be liberalized or overturned entirely. These laws only help

slumlords stay in business, and keep exploiting the poor and working

class They account for mass evictions, which in turn account for

homelessness. We should fight to rollback rents, prevent mass evictions,

and house the poor and the homeless in decent affordable places.

Besides the refusal to pay the slumlords and exploitative banks and

property management companies, there should be a campaign of “urban

squatting” to just take over the housing, and have the tenants run it

democratically as a housing collective. Then that money which would have

gone toward rent could now go into repairing the dwelling of tenants.

The homeless, poor persons needing affordable housing, and others who

badly need housing should just take over any abandoned housing owned by

an absentee landlord or even a bearded-up city housing project.

Squatting is an especially good tactic in these times of serious housing

shortages and arson-for-insurance by the slumlords. We should throw the

bums out and just take over! Of course we will probably have to fight

the cops and crooked landlords who will try to use strong- armed

tactics, but we can do that too! We can win significant victories if we

organize a nationwide series of rent strikes, and build an independent

tenants movement that will self- manage all the facilities, not on

behalf of the government (with the tricky “Kemp plan”), but on behalf of

themselves!

A Boycott of American Business

It was proven that one of the strangest weapons of the Civil rights

movement was a Black consumer boycott of a community’s merchants and

public services. Merchants and other businessmen, of course, are the

“leading citizens” of any community, and the local ruling class and boss

of the government. In the 1960s when Blacks refused to trade with

merchants as long as they allowed racial discrimination, their loss of

revenue drove them to make concessions, and mediate the struggle, even

hold the cops and the Klan at bay. What is true at the local level is

certainly true at the national level. The major corporations and elite

families run the country; the government is its mere tool. Blacks spend

over $350 billion a year in this Capitalist economy as consumes, and

could just as easily wage economic warfare against the corporate

structure with a well planned boycott to win political concessions. For

instance, a corporation like General Motors is heavily dependent upon

Black consumes, which means that it is very vulnerable to a boycott, if

one were organized and supported widely. If Blacks would refuse to buy

GM cars, it would result in significant losses for the corporation, to

the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Something like this could

even bring a company to its knees. Yet the revolutionary wing of the

Black movement has yet to use boycotts, calling it “reformism” and

outdated.

But far from being an outdated tactic that we should abandon, boycotts

have become even more effective in the last few years. In 1988, the

Black and progressive movement in the United States hit on another

tactic, boycotting the tourist industries of whole cities and states

which engaged in discrimination. This reflected on the one hand how many

cities have gone from smokestack industries since the 1960s to tourism

as their major source of revenue, and on the other hand, a recognition

by the movement that economic warfare was a potent weapon against

discriminatory governments. The 1990–1993 Black Boycott against the

Miami Florida tourism industry and the current Gay rights boycott

against the State of Colorado (started in 1992) have been both

successful and have gotten worldwide attention to the problems in their

communities. In fact, boycotts have been expanded to cover everything

from California grapes, beer (Coors), a certain brand of Jeans, all

products made in the country of South Africa, a certain meat industry,

and many things in between. Boycotts are more popular today than they

ever have been.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recognized the potential revolutionary power

of a national Black boycott of America’s major corporations, which is

why he established “Operation Breadbasket” shortly before an assassin

killed him. This organization, with offices in Chicago was designed to

be the conduit for the funds that the corporations were going to be

forced to pour money into for a national Black community development

project for poor communities. And although he was assassinated before

this could happen, we must continue his work in this matter. All over

the country Black Boycott offices should be opened! We should build it

into a mass movement, involving all sectors of our people. We should

demonstrate, picket, and sit-in at meetings and offices of target

corporations all over the country We must take it to their very doorstep

and stop their looting of the Black community.

A Black General Strike

Because of the role they play in production, Black workers are

potentially the most powerful sector of the Black community in the

struggle for Black freedom. The vast majority of the Black community is

working class people. Barring the disproportionate numbers of

unemployed, about 11 million Black men and women are today part of the

work force of the United States. About 5 -6 million of these are in

basic industry, such as steel and metal fabrication, retail trades, food

production and processing, meatpacking, the automobile industry,

railroading, medical service and communications. Blacks number l/3 to

l/2 of the basic blue-collar workers, and 1/3 of clerical laborers.

Black labor is therefore very important to the Capitalist economy.

Because of this vulnerability to job actions by Black workers, who are

some of the most militant workers on the job, they could take a leading

role in a protest campaign against racism and class oppression If they

are properly organized they would be a class vanguard within our

movement since they are at the point of production. Black workers could

lead a nationwide General Strike at their place of work as a protest

against racial discrimination in jobs and housing, the inordinately high

levels of Black unemployment brutal working conditions, and to further

the demands of the Black movement generally. This general strike is a

Socialist strike, not just a strike for higher wages and over general

working conditions; it is revolutionary in politics using other means.

This general strike can take the form of industrial sabotage, factory

occupations or sit-ins, work slowdowns, wildcats, and other work

stoppages as a protest to gain concessions on the local and national

level and restructure the workplace and win the 4-hour day for North

American labor. The strike would not only involve workers on the job,

but also Black community and progressive groups to give support with

picket line duty, leafleting and publishing strike support newsletters,

demonstrations at company offices and work sites, along with other

activities.

It will take some serious community and workplace organizing to bring a

general strike off. In workplaces all over the country, Black workers

should organize General Strike Committees at the workplaces, and Black

Strike Support Committees to carry on the strike work inside the Black

community itself. Because such a strike would be especially hard-fought

and vicious, Black workers should organize Worker’s Defense Committees

to defend workers fired or black listed by the bosses for their

industrial organizing work. This defense committee would publicize a

victimized worker’s case and rally support from other workers and the

community. The defense committee would also establish, a Labor strike

and defense fund and also start food cooperative to financially and

material support such victimized workers and their families while

carrying on the strike.

Although there will definitely be an attempt to involve women and white

workers; where they are willing to cooperate, the strike would be under

Black leadership because only Black workers can effectively raise those

issues which most effect them. White workers have to support the

democratic rights of Blacks and other nationally oppressed laborers,

instead of just white rights campaigns” on so-called “common economic

issues,” led by the North American left. In addition to progressive

North American individuals or union caucuses, the labor union locals

themselves should be recruited, but they are not the force to lead this

struggle, although their help can be indispensable in a particular

campaign. It takes major organizing to make them break free of their

racist and conservative nature. So although we want and need the support

of our fellow workers of other nationalities and genders, it is

ridiculous and condescending to just tell Black workers to sit around

and wait for a “white workers vanguard” to decide it wants to fight. We

will educate our fellow workers to the issues and why they should fight

white supremacy at our side, but we will not defer our struggle for

anyone! WE MUST ORGANIZE THE GENERAL STRIKE FOR BLACK FREEDOM!

The Commune: Community Control of the Black Community

“How do we raise a new revolutionary consciousness against a system

programmed against our old methods? We must use a new approach and

revolutionize the Black Central City Commune, and slowly provide the

people with the incentive to fight by allowing them to create programs,

which will meet all their social, political, and economic, needs. We

must fill the vacuums left by the established order... In return, we

must teach them the benefits of our revolutionary ideals. We must build

a subsistence economy, and a sociopolitical infrastructure so that we

can become an example for all revolutionary people.”

— George Jackson, in his book ‘BE’

The idea behind a mass commune is to create a dual power structure as a

counter to the government, under conditions, which exist now. In fact,

Anarchists believe the first step toward self-determination and the

Social revolution is Black control of the Black community. This means

that Black people must form and unify their own organizations of

struggle, take control of the existing Black communities and all the

institutions within them, and conduct a consistent fight to overcome

every form of economic, political and cultural servitude, and any system

of racial and class inequality which is the product of this racist

Capitalist society.

The realization of this aim means that we can build inner-city Communes,

which will be centers of Black counter-power and social revolutionary

culture against the white political power structures in the principal

cities of the United States. Once they assume hegemony, such communes

would be an actual alternative to the State and serve as a force to

revolutionize African people-and by extension-large segments of American

society, which could not possibly remain immune to this process. It

would serve as a living revolutionary example to North American

progressives and other oppressed nationalities.

There is tremendous fighting power in the Black community, but it is not

organized in a structured revolutionary way to effectively struggle and

take what is due. The white Capitalist ruling class recognizes this,

which is why it pushes the fraud of “Black Capitalism” and Black

politicians and other such “responsible leaders. These fakes and sellout

artists lead us to the dead-end road of voting and praying for that

which we must really be wilting to fight for. The Anarchists recognize

the Commune as the primary organ of the new society, and as an

alternative to the old society. But the Anarchists also recognize that

Capitalism will not give up without a fight; it will be necessarily to

economically and politically cripple Capitalist America. One thing for

sure we should not continue to passively allow this system to exploit

and oppress us.

The commune is a staging ground for Black revolutionary struggle. For

instance, Black people should refuse to pay taxes to the racist

government, should boycott the Capitalist corporations, should lead a

Black General Strike all over the country, and should engage in an

insurrection to drive the police out and win a liberated zone. This

would be a powerful method to obtain submission to the demands of the

movement, and weaken the power of the state. We can even force the

government to make money available for community development as a

concession; instead of as a payoff to buy-out the struggle as happened

in the 1960s and thereafter. If we put a gun to a banker’s head and said

“Yore know you’ve got the money, now give it up,” he would have to

surrender. Now the question is: if we did the same thing to the

government, using direct action means with an insurrectionary mass

movement, would these would both be acts of expropriation? Or is it just

to pacify the community why they gave us the money? One thing for sure,

we definitely need the money, and however we compel it from the

government, is of less important than the fact that we forced them to

give it up to the people’s forces at all. We would then use that money

to rebuild our communities, maintain our organizations, and care for the

needs of our people. It could be a major concession, a victory.

But we have also got to realize that Africans in America are not simply

oppressed by force of arms, but that part of the moral authority of the

state comes from the mind of the oppressed that consent to the right to

be governed. As long as Black people believe that some moral or

political authority of the white government has legitimacy in their

lives, that they owe a duty to this nation as citizens, or even that

they are responsible for their own oppression, then they cannot

effectively fight back. They must free their minds of the ideas of

American patriotism and begin to see themselves as a new people. This

can only be accomplished under dual power, where the patriotism of the

people for the state is replaced with love and support for the new Black

commune. We do that by making the Commune a real thing in the day-to-day

lives of ordinary people.

We should establish community councils to make policy decisions and

administer the affairs of the Black community. These councils would be

democratic neighborhood assemblies composed of representative elected by

Black workers in various community institutions-factories, hospitals

schools-as well as delegates elected on a block basis. We must reject

Black Mayors and other politicians, or government bureaucrats, as a

substitute for community power. We must therefore have community control

of all the institutions of the Black community, instead of just letting

the State decide what is good for us. Not just jobs and housing, but

also full control over schools, hospitals, welfare cents, libraries,

etc., must turned over to that community, because only the residents of

a community have a true understanding of its needs and desires.

Here is an example of how it would work: we would elect a community

council to supervise all schools in the Black community. We would

encourage parents, students, teachers, and the community at-large to

work cooperatively in every phase of school administration, rather than

have an authority figure like a principal and his/her uncaring

bureaucratic administration run things as are done at present. The whole

Black community will have to engage in a militant struggle to take over

the public schools and turn them into centers of Black culture and

learning. We cannot continue to depend on the racist or Black puppet

school boards to do this for us.

The local council would then be federated, or joined together, on a

local level to create a citywide group of councils who would run affairs

in that community. The councils and other neighborhoods collectives

organized for a variety of reasons would make a mass commune. This

commune would be in turn federated at the regional and national level

the aim being to create a national federation of Black communes, which

would meet periodically in one or a number of mass assembly meetings.

This federation would be composed of elected or appointed delegates

representing their local commune or council Such a national federal of

communes would allow community councils from all over North America to

work out common policies and speak with one voice on all matters

affecting their communities or regions. It would thus have far more

power than any single community council could However, to prevent this

national federation from bureaucratic usurpation of power by political

factions or opportunistic leaders, elections should be held regularly

and delegates would be subject to recall at any time for misconduct, so

that they remain under the control of the local communities they

represent.

The Black community councils are really a type of grassroots movement

made up of all the social formations of our people, the block and

neighborhood committees, Labor, student and youth groups, (even the

church, to a limited degree), social activist groups, and others to

unite the various protest actions around a common program of struggle

for this period. The campaigns for this period must utilize the tactics

of direct mass action, as it is very important that the people

themselves must realize a sense of their organized power. These

grassroots associations will provide to the usually mass spontaneous

actions, a form of organization whose social base is of the Black

working class, instead of the usual Black middle class mis-leadership.

The Anarchists recognize these community councils as being a form of

direct democracy, instead of the type of phony American “democracy,”

which is really nothing but control by politicians and businessmen. The

councils are especially important because they provide embryonic self-

rule and the beginnings of an alternative to the Capitalist economic

system and its government. It is a way to undermine the government and

make it an irrelevant dinosaur, because its services are no longer

needed.

The Commune is also a Black revolutionary counterculture. It is the

embryo of the new Black revolutionary society in the body of the old

sick, dying one. It is the new lifestyle in microcosm, which contains

the new Black social values and the new communal organizations, and

institutions, which will become the sociopolitical infrastructure of the

free society.

Our objective is to teach new Black social values of unity and struggle

against the negative effects of white Capitalist society and culture. To

do that we must build the Commune into a Black Consciousness movement to

build race pride and respect, race and social awareness and to struggle

against the Capitalist slave masters. This Black communalism would be

both a repository of Black culture and ideology. We need to change both

our lives and our lifestyles, in order to deal with the many

interpersonal contradictions that exist in our community. We could

examine the Black family, Black male/female relationships, the mental

health of the Black community, relations between the community and the

white establishment and among Black people themselves. We would hold

Black consciousness raising sessions in schools, community centers,

prisons and in Black communities all over North America-which would

teach Black history and culture, new liberating social ideas and values

to children and adults, as well as counseling and therapy techniques to

resolve family and marital problems, all the while giving a Black

revolutionary perspective to the issues of the day. Our people must be

made to see that the self-hatred, disunity, distrust, internecine

violence and oppressive social conditions among Black people are the

result of the legacy of African slavery and the present day effects of

Capitalism. Finally the main objective of Black revolutionary culture is

to agitate and organize Black people to struggle for their freedom.

As Steve Biko, the murdered South African revolutionary, has been quoted

as saying:

“The call for Black consciousness is the most positive call to come from

ally group in the Black world for a long time. It is more than just a

reactionary rejection of whites by Blacks... At the heart of this kind

of thinking is the realization by Black that the most potent weapon in

the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed Once the latter

has been so effectively manipulated and controlled try the oppressor as

to make the oppressed believe that he is a liability to the white man,

then there is nothing the oppressed can do that will really scare the

powerful masters... The philosophy of Black consciousness, therefore

expresses group pride and the determination by Blacks to rise up and

attain the envisaged self.”

By the “envisaged self,” Biko refers to the Black self, a liberated

psyche. It is that which we want to rescue with such a Black

consciousness movement here in America. We need to counter Black

self-hatred and the frivolous “party mentality. We also want to end the

social degradation of our community, and rid it of drug addiction,

prostitution, Black-on-Black crime, and other social evils that destroys

the moral fiber of the Black community. Drugs and prostitution are

mainly controlled by organized crime, and protected by the police, who

accept bribes and gifts from gangsters. These negative social values,

the so-called “dog-eat-dog” philosophy of the Capitalist system teaches

people to be individualists of the worst sort. Willing to commit any

kind of crime against each other, and to take advantage of each other.

This oppressive culture is what we are fighting. As long as it exists,

it will be hard to unify the people around a revolutionary political

program.

Building A Black survival program

But there must also be some way to ensure their economic survival, in

addition to providing new cultural role models. It is then when the

Commune, a network of community organizations and institutions, assumes

its greatest importance. We will build a sociopolitical infrastructure

to intervene in every area of Black life: food and housing cooperatives,

Black Liberation schools, people’s banks and community mutual aid funds,

medical clinics and hospitals, rodent control and pest extermination

programs, cooperative factories, community cultural and entertainment

centers, the establishment of an intercommunal electronic communications

network, land and building reclamation projects, public works brigades

to rebuild the cities, youth projects, drug clinics, and many other such

programs.

All these programs satisfy the deep needs of the Black community, but

they are not solutions to our problems, because although we can build a

survival economy now, we have to realize it will take a social

revolution to overthrow Capitalism and obtain full economic

self-sufficiency. But they will help us to organize the Black community

around a true analysis and understand of their situation. This is why

they are called survival programs, meaning surviving under this system

pending a social revolution.

Building consciousness and revolutionary culture means taking on

realistic day-to-day issues, like hunger, the need for clothing and

housing, joblessness, transportation and other issues. It means that the

Commune must be in the vacuum where people are not being properly fed

clothed, provided with adequate medical treatment or are otherwise being

deprived of basic needs.

Contrary to the rhetoric of some leftist groups, this will not make

people passive or just dependent on us. Rather than struggling against

the government and demanding those things, it inspires confidence in the

revolutionary forces and exposes the government as uncaring and

incompetent. That is more of an incentive for the people to revolt and

overthrown the government than balding political pep rallies, giving

speeches, running for public office, and publishing manifestos and

resolutions or party newspapers and other garbage (that no one reads but

their own members), like most Black and radical groups do now.

We need a new way of confronting our oppressed situation. We need to

unite out people to fight, and to do that we need to educate, agitate

and organize. That’s the only way we’ll win a new world. What follows is

an example of the and of survival program I mean:

• We must have community control of all businesses and financial

institutions located in our communities, and for those businesses not

working in our best interests or not returning some of its revenue back

to the community, we will seize said businesses and turn them into

community cooperatives and mutual aid banking societies.

• We must have community control of all housing and major input in all

community planning of Black communities. If a piece of property or house

is owned by a slumlord (either a private Realtor or government agency),

we will seize it and turn it into community housing cooperatives. We

oppose Urban Renewal, spatial decomposition, yuppie gentrification and

other such racist schemes to drive us out of the cities. W must have

complete control of all planning boards affecting and concerning the

Black community. To enforce these demands, we should lead rent strikes,

demonstrations, armed actions and urban squatting to drive landlords out

and take over the property.

• We must have an independent self-sustaining economy to guarantee full

employment for all our people. We demand that the U.S. government

provide massive economic aid to rebuild the cities. The government

spends billions per year for the Pentagon killing machine. At least that

amount should be redirected to meet the needs of America’s oppressed

communities. Ghetto housing must be rebuilt and turned over to the

occupants. Adequate jobs and services must be provided to all community

residents including first preference for all construction jobs in the

Black community, when public works brigades are assigned to rebuild the

cities. We must fight for Black grassroots control of all government

funds allocated to the Black community through a network of mutual aid

banking societies, community development corporations, and community

development credit unions.

• Reparations: the Big Payback. The United States government and the

rich class of this country has stolen and oppressed Africans in this

continent for decades. They worked our ancestors as slaves, and after

slavery they continued to oppress, murder and exploit our people, on

down to the present day. We must build a mass movement in our

communities to compel the government and the rich to provide the means

for our community redevelopment. They owe us for centuries of abuse and

robbery! We must demand that reparations, in the form of community

development money and other funds, be provided and placed in credit

unions, cooperatives, and other mutual aid institutions in the Black

community, so that we can start to obtain some measure of economic self

sufficiency. Yet we know that they won’t give the money to us. We must

fight them for it, just like we must struggle to overturn the system of

wage slavery today.

• End police brutality. We must organize self-defense units to protect

the Black community and its organizations, and remove the State’s police

farces. We demand criminal prosecution and jailing of all brutal or

killer cops. No jurisdiction for the State’s judicial system in Black

liberated zones.

• We must undertake a large-scale program to train Black people as

doctors, nurses and medical paraprofessionals in order to make free

quality medical and dental care available to Black people. We must

demand that the government subsidize all such medical and dental

training, as web as for the operation of clinics, but Black people

themselves must establish and run the free medical clinics in all Black

communities whether urban or rural. This would include community

anti-drug programs and drug rehabilitation clinics.

• We must establish a Black community-controlled food system for

self-sufficiency and as a way of fighting to end hunger and

malnutrition, including a trucking network, warehouses, communal farms,

farmers’ cooperatives, food cooperatives, agricultural unions, and other

collective associations. This will include a protest campaign

challenging the theft of Black farmland by agribusiness corporations and

rich white “land barons” and reclaiming it for our projects. This is

especially important now that the U.S. has entered an economic crisis

that will not be able to provide for our needs. We must force the

government to provide the money for many of these projects, to be

administered under our total control, instead of by a government agency.

• The Black community must have control of its entire educational system

from the nursery school through college. We must establish a Black

Liberation educational system which meets the training needs of Black

children, prepares them for job training and future economic security,

service to their community, and gives them a knowledge of themselves and

an understanding of the true history and culture of African people; as

well as a program of adult education for community people whose earlier

educational opportunities have been stunted We should demand free higher

education for Blacks and other minorities at full government expense,

including remedial training programs for all who wish to qualify.

• We must demand and fight for the release of all Black political

prisoners and victims of racial injustice, we must investigate and

review the cases of all such prisoners who are the victims of government

political repression and racist frame-ups, and lead a mass campaign for

their release. Some of our best revolutionary organizers are rotting

away in the prison houses of this land.

• The central demand is for Black control of the Black community, it

politics and economy. We have to take over the cities, establish

municipal communes, and exercise self-government, as a vital step. We

are the majority in many of the major cities of this country and we

should be able to control our own affairs (or at least obtain some

autonomy), but as we should now be aware we won’t ever get this

community social power by voting for some Black Capitalist politician,

or from passively depending for “salvation” on leaders of one sort or

another. We have to do it ourselves if we are to ever get on the road to

freedom.

The Need for a Black Labor Federation

The demand for Black labor has been the central economic factor in

America; it was Black labor that built the foundations of this nation.

Beginning with slave labor in the Old South on plantations, then with

sharecropping and other farm labor after the Civil war, successive

migration to the North and working mills, mine and factories during a 40

year period (1890- 1920), and on down to the present day, Black labor is

important to the functioning of the Capitalist economic order. Almost

from the beginning, Black workers have organized their own Labor unions

and worker’s associations to represent their interests: the National

Colored Labor Union in 1869, the national Colored Farmer’s Alliance

(Populist) in the same year, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in

the 1940s, the league of Black Revolutionary Workers in the 1960s; the

United Construction Workers Association and the Black and Puerto Rican

Coalition of Construction Workers in the 1970s, and on down to the

present day with such unions or associations as the Black Workers for

Justice and the Coalition for Black Trade Unionists. Some of these were

unions, some were just associations of Black workers in existing unions.

(NOTE: In addition to Black organized or led labor federations in the

1870s, there were 90,600 Black workers in the Knights of Labor in the

1880s and at least 100,000 in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

in the 1900s.

In fact, the trade unions would not even exist today if it were not for

the assistance and support of the Black worker. Trade unionism was born

as an effective national movement amid the great convulsions of the

Civil War and the fight to end slavery, yet Black workers were routinely

excluded from unions like the American Federation of Labor. Only

militant associations like the Knights, IWW and the Anarchist-initiated

International Working People’s Association (IWPA) would accept their

memberships at all. This continued for many years, until the founding of

the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) began its campaign of

strikes, sit-downs, and other protest actions to organize the unskilled

industrial workers. Black labor was pivotal in these battles, yet has

never fully reaped the benefits. In fact, the Labor bosses betrayed them

when the CIO was beaten down in the 1950s.

You would think that American labor movement would see it as criminal or

racist to ignore these fellow workers today in that fashion. But even

now there is no labor organization in the U. S. which gives full

representation and equal treatment to Black workers. The fact is that

even with some Black Labor officials in office, Black workers receive

far fewer union benefits than white workers, and are trapped in the most

low-paid, tedious and dangerous jobs, even though they made substantial

economic gains during the 1960s.

The majority of the Black masses are in the working class. Because of

the role they play in production, Black industrial and clerical workers

are potentially the most powerful sector of the Black community in the

struggle for Black liberation. As the victims of inequality in the

economy, Black workers have already begun to organize for their

interests and protect their rights on the job, even if the union is

conservative and won’t fight the boss. They have formed union caucuses

and even independent labor unions where necessary. Of course, the unity

of Black and white workers is indispensable to combat and overthrow

Capitalism. But where white workers are now privileged and Black workers

are penalized, Black unity and struggle must precede and prepare the

ground for any Black-white unity on a broad scale. Black caucuses in the

Unions can fight against discrimination in hiring, firing, and

upgrading, and for equality of treatment in the unions, now, while white

workers still have yet to widely support democratic rights for Black and

other oppressed nationalities. Black Caucuses are important. Where they

are part of organized labor, they should strive to democratize the

unions, regenerate their fighting spirits, and eliminate white job trust

practices. These Black caucuses in the unions should demand:

• Rank and file democratic control of the union.

• Equal rights and treatment for all unionists; eliminate all racist

practices in the labor movement.

• Affirmative action programs to redress past racist employment

practices, end racial discrimination based on seniority and other ploys.

• Full employment for all Blacks, women, and other non-white workers.

• A 20–30 hour workweek with no reduction in pay.

• The right to strike, including wildcat strikes without union sanction.

• Speedier and fair grievance procedures.

• An escalator clause in all union contracts to ensure automatic wage

adjustments to keep up with the rising cost of living.

• Full payment of social security by employer and the government. Full

unemployment compensation at 100 of base pay.

• Minimum wages at union scale.

• Prevent runaway shops, phony bankruptcy, or “strategic plant

shutdowns” by companies without notice to union or to gain advantage in

contract negotiations.

• A public works program to rebuild the Black and other inner-city

communities, and to provide work for Black workers.

• Worker’s self-management of industry by factory committees and

worker’s councils, elected by the workers themselves.

In addition to the union caucuses, Black working people need a national

Black workers association, which would be both a revolutionary union

movement to do workplace organizing, but also would be a mass social

movement for community organizing. Such a movement would combine the

organizing tactics to both the labor and Black Liberation movements. It

is not designed to drive Blacks out of those unions where they are

already organized, but would rather serve as a tool to multiply their

numbers and strength, and turn their unions into militant, class

struggle instruments.

The League of Revolutionary Black Workers, which organized Black auto

workers during the late 190s provides an example of the type of

organization needed The League, which grew out of its major affiliate,

the Dodge Revolutionary Movement (DRUM), was undoubtedly the most

militant Black Labor movement in American history. It was a Black labor

federation which existed as an organized alternative to the United Auto

Workers, and was the inevitable step of taking the Black Liberation

struggle to the industrial shop floor, the point of production, and

Capitalism’s most vulnerable area.

The League had wisely decided to organize in the Detroit automobile

production industry. This was an industry where its workers were an

important part of the workforce and also in the Detroit Black community,

where the League united the struggle in the factories with that of the

Black struggle as a whole. It quickly became a major force in the

workplace and in the streets as many of its cadres organized on college

campuses and in the Black inner-city areas. It had the potential to

become a mass nationwide Black working class movement, but this

potential was stifled through political faction fights among the

leadership, lack of a solid organized base in the factories;

company/UAW/and State repression, organized racism and lack of

cooperation among white workers, and other such reasons. Eventually the

League split into mutually hostile factions and died, after less than

five years of existence.

Even though the League was at best a revolutionary syndicalism

organization, and later a rigid Marxist-Leninist organization, (and

their adoption of this later authoritarian ideology, with its ideas of

purges and unquestioned leadership, directly lead to its demise), there

is much that Anarchists and radical Black labor activists can learn from

the League. The main thing is that Black workers can and should be

organized into some sore of independent labor association, in addition

to or even in lieu of, their membership in organized labor unions and

especially where the unions are of the sellout type and discriminates

against Blacks. Also it is much easier for Black workers to organize

other Black workers and their community in support of strikes and

workplace organizing. That is precisely why we need to establish a group

like the League today, but as an Anarcho-Syndicalist organization, so as

to avoid the past pitfalls and ideological squabbles of

Marxism-Leninism- Simply stated what would be the program of a newly

formed National Federation of Black Workers?

• For class struggle against the bosses.

• To organize the unorganized Black workers ignored by the trade unions.

• For workers solidarity among all nationalities of workers.

It should be an International Black Labor Federation!

From Detroit, Michigan to Durban, South Africa, from the Caribbean to

Australia, from Brazil to England, Black workers are universally

oppressed and exploited. The Black working class needs its own world

labor organization. There is no racial group more borne down by social

restraint than Black workers; they are oppressed as workers and as a

people. Because of these dual forms of oppression and the fact that most

trade unions exclude or do not struggle for Black laborer’s rights, we

must organize for our own rights and liberation. Even though in many

African and Caribbean countries there are “Black” labor federations,

they are reformist or government-controlled. There is a large working

class in many of these countries, but they have no militant labor

organizations to lead the struggle. The building of a Black workers’

movement for revolutionary industrial sabotage and a general strike, or

organize the workers for self- management of production, and so

undermine and overthrow the government is the number one priority.

What would an international Black labor federation stand for? Firstly,

since many Black workers, farmers, and peasants are not organized at all

in most countries, such an organization would be one big union of Black

workers, representing every conceivable sill and vocation. Also such an

organization means the worldwide unity of Black workers, and then,

secondly, it means coordinated international labor revolts. Capital and

Labor have nothing in common.

The real strength of workers against Capital and the imperialist

countries is economic warfare. A revolutionary general strike and

boycott of the multinational corporations and their goods by Black

workers all over the globe is how they can be hurt. For instance, if we

want to make Britain and the USA withdraw financial and military support

from South Africa then we use the weight and power of Black Labor in

those countries to wage strikes, sabotage, boycott and other forms of

political and economic struggle against those countries and the

multinational companies involved. It would be r power to be reckoned

with. For instance, coordinated actions by trade unions and political

action groups in that country have already causes major-policy changes,

a full-fledged general strike would likely lead to the total economic

collapse of the racist South African state, especially if such strikes

were supported by Black workers in North America.

In addition to asking the Black workers to form their own international

labor federation and to organize rank-and-file committees within their

existing trade unions to push them into a class struggle direction, we

also invite Black workers to join Anarcho-Syndicalist labor

organizations like the IWW and the Workers Solidarity Alliance, the

American section of the International Workers’ Association, which is

based in Paris, France. But, of course, it is not intended to drive

Black workers out of those unions where they are already active, but

would rather serve as a tool to multiply their number and strength in

such unions, and make them more militant.

Unemployment and Homelessness

In the first three months of 1993, the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of

labor Statistics listed official unemployment rates at about six million

persons or just seven of the labor force. Under Capitalism half that

figure is “normal” and nonsensically is considered by Capitalist

economists as “full employment” even though this is millions of people

consigned to economic poverty of the worst sort. But the government

figures are intentionally conservative, and do not include those who

have given up actively searching for jobs, the under employed (who can’t

make enough to live on), the part-time workers (who can’t find a full

time or steady job) and the homeless of which them are now between 3–5

million alone.

Of the 6 million people that the government does count as jobless now,

less than 3 million are given any unemployment compensation or other

federal or state aid; the rest are left to starve, steal or hustle for

their survival. A person without a job under the Capitalist system is

counted as nothing. Every worker has the human right to a job; yet under

Capitalism, workers are dismissed form employment in times of business

crisis, overproduction, depression or just to save labor costs through

less workers and more speed-up. And some workers cannot find jobs in the

Capitalist labor market because of lack of skills, or racial or social

discrimination.

But the government’s figures lie, private researchers state that the

total number of people who want full time jobs and thus cannot find them

amounts to nearly 14.3 million persons. Clearly then this is a crisis

situation of broad proportions, but all the government is doing is

juggling and hiding figures. But the figures do show that Blacks,

Latinos, and women are bearing the brunt of the current depression The

National Urban League in its “Bidden Unemployment Index” (included as

part of its annual “State of Black America” report) reports levels of

15–38 percent for Black adults 25 and older and incredible levels of

44–55% for teens and young adults 17–24 years. In fact, Black youth

unemployment has not declined at all since the 1974–1975 recession. It

has stayed at an official level of 35–40 percent, but in the major

cities like Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, the real

unemployment rate is more like 70 percent. For Black youth the

unemployment rate is three to five times higher than that of white

youth. Capitalism is making economic exiles of Black people as a whole.

The fact is that unemployment is concentrated in the Black and Hispanic

communities, and is greatly responsible for the most destructive

tendencies inhuman relations and deteriorating neighborhoods. Crime,

prostitution, suicide, drug addiction, gang fighting, mental illness,

alcoholism, and the break up of the Black family, and other social

his-all are rooted in the lack of jobs and the denial of essential

social services in their communities. It is actually racial genocide in

the form of social neglect.

Unemployment is profitable for the bosses because it drives down the

wages of workers and helps the employers to keep the workforce under

control through this “reserve army of labor,” which are allegedly always

ready to scab. Because of pervasive discrimination against Blacks,

Latinos and other nationally oppressed workers, including higher levels

unemployment-the jobs they do get art generally on the bottom rung. This

is also profitable for the boss, and divides the working class.

Homelessness is just the most intensified form of unemployment, where in

addition to loss of job or income, there is loss of housing and lack of

access to social services. There are now millions of people homeless

since the last 15 years, because of the Capitalist offensive to destroy

the unions, beat back the gains of the civil rights struggle, and do

away with the affordable housing sector in favor of yuppie

gentrification in the cities. You see them in cities, big and small, and

what this reflects is a total breakdown in the Capitalist State’s social

services system, in addition to the heating up of the class war waged by

government and the major corporations, It shows, more than anything,

that Capitalism worldwide is undergoing an international financial

panic, and is really in the beginning stages of a world depression. In

addition to the 90 million persons who live below the poverty line and

three to five million homeless in the U.S.; there are another 2.7

million homeless in the twelve nations of the European community, and 80

million people am living in poverty there, with millions more in the

Capitalist countries of Japan, Korea and other parts of Asia. So

although Black workers must organize and fight against homeless and

unemployment in the U.S., clearly there must be an international

movement of workers to fight this economic deprivation, as part of the

overall class struggle. In every city in North America, the Black

workers movement should organize unemployment councils to fight for

unemployment benefits and jobs for the jobless, the building of decent,

affordable low-income housing and an end to homelessness, as well as

against racial discrimination in jobs and housing. Such councils would

be democratic organizations, organized on a neighborhood basis, (to

ensure that it would be under the control of the people, and against

infiltration and takeover by liberal or “radical” political parties, or

co-optation by the government), which would be federated into a

citywide, regional, and national organization. That organization would

be a national Black unemployment league, to create a mass fight back

movement in this depression. It would be made up of Black community

unemployed councils from all over the country, with delegates elected

from all the local groups. Such a national organization could meet to

map out a large-scale attack on unemployment, as well as serve as a

national clearinghouse on Black unemployment conditions.

On the local level in the Black neighborhoods, it would be the community

unemployment councils which would establish food and housing

cooperatives, lead rent strikes and squatting, initiate land and

building reclamation projects, establish producer and consumer

cooperatives, distribute food and clothing, and provide for other

services: they would establish neighborhood medical clinics for free

treatment of the homeless and unemployed, rodent control programs, etc.,

and they would deal with community social problems (brought on by

unemployment), and other issues of interest They would build hunger

marches and other demonstrations and carry the people’s wrath to various

government offices and to the businesses of the rich. Not only would the

unemployment councils be a way of fighting for jobs and unemployment

benefits, but also the councils would a way to a obtain a great deal of

community self-sufficiency and direct democracy, instead of totally

depending on city hall, Congress or the President, and helps lead to the

kind of confidence among the masses that a Black municipal commune

becomes a serious possibility.

One of the most important functions of an unemployment movement is to

obtain unity between the employed and unemployed or homeless, and

workers solidarity across race lines. The employed and unemployed must

work together to struggle against the Boss class if they are to obtain

any serious gains during this period of economic crisis. Workers who are

on strike or protesting against the boss would be supported by the

unemployed, who would even man the picket lines with them and refuse to

scab. In turn the workers would form unemployed caucus in their trade

unions to allow union representation of these workers and also force

such unions to provide food and other necessities, make funds and

training available to the unemployed, as well as throw the weight of the

unions in the fight for decent jobs and housing for all workers. The

Capitalist bosses will not be moved otherwise. MAKE THE BOSSES PAY FOR

THEIR ECONOMIC CRISIS!

Here is what a united movement of workers and homeless must demand:

• Full employment (zero unemployment) for all workers at union wage.

• Establishment of a shorter workweek, so that workers would be paid at

the rate for 40 hours of work for 20–30 hours a week on the job.

• End homelessness, build and make available decent affordable housing

for all. Repeal all loitering, anti-panhandling and other laws against

the homeless.

• End the war budget, and use those funds for decent, low-income

housing, better schools, hospitals and clinics, libraries, parks and

public transportation.

• End racism and sexism in job opportunities and relief benefits.

• Jobs or a guaranteed income for all.

• Full federal and state benefits for unemployed workers and their

families, including corporate and government funds to pay the bills,

rents and debts for any laid off worker, and unemployment compensation

at 100% of regular paid wage, lasting the full length of a worker’s

period of unemployment.

• National minimum wage set at prevailing union entry wage.

• Government and corporate funds to establish a public works program to

provide jobs (with full union rights and wage scale) to rebuild the

inner cities and provide needed social services. The program and its

funds should be under the control of committees democratically elected

from poor and Black neighborhoods, so as to avoid “poverty pimps” and

rip off job agencies, or government bureaucrats.

• Free all persons in prison for crimes of economic survival.

These, and the demands previously mentioned, are merely a survival

program and agenda for unemployed workers; the real answer is Social

revolution the elimination of Capitalism, and workers’ self-management

of the economy and society. This is a vital first step however. Them

would be no unemployment or social need for wage labor in an

Anarchist-Communist society.

Crimes Against the People

It is the rich who decide what is or is not a crime; it is not a neutral

designation. The laws are written to protect the rich and those who act

as agents of the State. But most personal crimes art not committed

against the rich, they are usually inaccessible. It is poor and working

class Black people who are the major victims of violent crime. The Black

female is the primary victim of rape and abuse by the Black male in this

country. The Black male himself is the leading homicide victim in the

U.S. by another Black man like himself, and sadly our children are among

the leading victims of child abuse, many times by his or her own

parents. We do not like to think of these things in the Black community,

but we are battering and killing ourselves at an alarming rate. This is

not to deny that the Capitalist social system has created frustrating,

degrading conditions of life that contribute to this brutality and

fratricide, but we would be lax in our humane and revolutionary duty if

we did not try to correct this problem on the short-term, and also make

Black people assume responsibility for our actions. I am not talking

some Black conservative or “law and order” garbage here, but rather

recognition of fact that we have a problem.

We have an external and an internal crisis situation facing us in our

community. The external crisis is racism and colonialism, which works to

systematically oppress us and is responsible for whatever internal

crisis there is. The internal crisis is the result of an environment

where drugs and violence (both social and physical) are rampant, and

life is sometimes considered cheap. Black-on-Black crimes and internal

violence are destroying our community. It is undoubtedly self-hatred and

the desperate economic and social conditions we live under which makes

us prey on each other. Drugs, frustrated rage, prostitution and other

vices are symptoms of oppression.

We kill, beat, rape and brutalize each other because we are in pain

ourselves. Thus we are acting out anti-social roles defined for us by

someone else, not ourselves. In our pain and confusion we strike out at

convenient and familiar victims; those like ourselves Them are ordinary

Black people who steal and rob just to survive under this system,

because of that unequal distribution of wealth. Further, for same of us,

in our desire to “make it” in Capitalist society we will stop at

nothing, including murder. And finally, there are those who do whatever

they do because of drug addiction or mental sickness.

Whatever the reasons, we have a serious problem that we must remedy

because it is tearing away at the moral and social fabric of our

community. It will be impassible to unite Black people if they are in

fear and hatred of one another. It is also obvious that the police and

government rectify this problem and that only the Black community can do

so. The courts and prison prevent the situation from recurring.

Therefore what can we do?

It is the community, through its own organizations of concern, which

will have to deal with this problem. Community self-managed programs to

work with Black youth gang members, (a source of much violence in the

community), rather than the military approach of calling in the cops,

empower the community rather than the racist prison bureaucracy and the

cops. Also, the community-run drug rehabilitation groups, therapy and

counseling groups, and other neighborhood organizing help us to

effectively deal with the problem of internal violence and hopefully

defuse it. Most importantly it involves the community in the effort.

But we cannot totally depend upon counseling or rehabilitation

techniques, especially where them is an immediate threat of violence or

where it has occurred. So, to insure peace and public security, a Black

community guard service would be organized for this purpose, as well as

to protect against the white Power structure. This security force would

be elected by local residents, and would work with the help of people in

neighborhoods. This is the only way it would work. It would not be an

auxiliary of the current colonial occupation army in our community, and

would not threaten or intimidate the community with violence against our

youth. Nor would such a community guard protect vice and organized

crime. This community guard would only represent the community that

elected it, instead of city hall. Similar such units would be organized

all over the city on a block-by-block basis.

Yet the Anarchists go further, and say that after a municipal commune is

set up, the existing courts must be replaced by voluntary community

tribunals of arbitration, and in cases of grave crimes, connected with

murder, or offenses against liberty and equality, a special communal

court of a non-permanent nature would be set up. Anarchists believe that

antisocial crime, meaning anything that oppresses, robs, or does

violence to the working class must be vigorously opposed. We cannot wait

until after the revolution to oppose such dangerous enemies of the

people. But since such antisocial crimes are a direct expression of

Capitalism, there would be a real attempt to socialize, politically

educate and rehabilitate offenders. Not by throwing them into the white

Capitalist prisons to suffer like animals and where, because of their

torture and humiliation, they will declare war on all society, but by

involving them in the life of the community and giving them social and

vocational training. Since all the “criminology experts” agree that

crime is a social problem, and since we know that 88 percent of all

crimes are against property and are committed in order to survive in an

economically unjust society, we must recognize that only full

employment, equal economic opportunity, decent housing and other aspects

of social justice will ensure an end to crime. In short, we must have

radical social change to eradicate the social conditions that cause

crime. An unequal unfair society like Capitalism creates its own

criminal class. The real thieves and murderers, businessmen and

politicians, are protected under today’s legal system, while the poor

are punished. That is class justice, and that is what Social revolution

would abolish.

But understandably, many persons want to end the rape, murder, and

violence in our communities today, and wind up strengthening the hands

of the State and its police agents. They will not get rid of crime, but

the cops will militarily patrol our communities, and further turn us

against one another. We must stay away from that trap. Frustrated and

confused, Black people may attack one another, but instead of condemning

them to a slow death in prison or shooting them down in the streets for

revenge, we must deal with the underlying social causes behind the act.

Anarchists should begin to have community forums on the cause and

manifestations of crime in the Black community. We have to seriously

examine the social institutions: family, schools, prisons, jobs, etc.

that cause us to fuss, fight, rob and kill each other, rather than the

enemy who is causing all our misery. While we should mobilize to

restrain offenders, we must begin to realize that only the community

will effectively deal with the mater. Not the racist Capitalist system,

with its repressive police, courts and prisons. Only we have psychology

and understanding to deal with it; now we must develop the will. No one

else cares.

Instead of eye-for eye punishment, there should be restitution to the

victims, their families or society. No revenge, such as the death

penalty will bring a murder victim back, nor will long-term imprisonment

serve either justice or the protection of society. After all, prisons

are only human trashcans for those that society has discarded as

worthless. No sane and just society would adopt such a course. Society

makes criminals and must be responsible for their treatment. White

capitalist society is itself a crime, and is the greatest teacher of

corruption and violence.

In an Anarchist society, prisons would be done away with, along with

courts and police (except for the exceptions I have alluded to), and be

replaced with community-run programs and centers interested solely with

human regeneration and social training, rather than custodial

supervision in a inhuman lockup. The fact is that if a person is so

violent or dangerous, he is probably mentally warped or has some

physical defect anyway, which causes him to commit violent acts after

social justice has been won. If such people are mentally defective, then

they should be placed in a mental health facility, rather than a prison.

Human rights should never be stripped and he should not be punished.

Schools, hospitals, doctors and above all social equality, public

welfare and liberty might prove the safest means to get rid of crimes

and criminals together. If a special category such as “criminal” or

“enemy” is created, then these persons may forever feel an outcast and

never change. Even if he or she is a class enemy, they should retain all

civil and human rights in society, even though they of course would be

restrained if they led a counter-revolution; the difference is we want

to defeat them ideologically, not militarily or by consigning them to a

so-called reeducation camp or to be shot like the Bolsheviks did when

assuming power in Russia in 1917.

There are two major reasons why activists in the Black community as we

move to change society, its values and conditions, must immediately take

a serious look and act to change the political debate around crime,

prisons and the so-called criminal justice system. Those two reasons hit

right home! One is because during any given year, one out of four Black

men in this country is in prison, in jail on parole, or probation,

compared to just one of every fifteen white men. In fact Blacks make up

50–85 percent of most prison populations around the U.S., making a

truism of the radical phraseology that “Prisons are concentration camp

for the Black and poor.” It may be your brother, sister, husband, wife,

daughter or son in prison, but I guarantee you we all know someone in

prison at this very minute! The other primary reason Blacks have a

vested interest in crime and penal institutions is because by far, most

Blacks and other non- whites are in prison for committing offenses

against their own community.

Prisons are compact duplicates of the Black community, in that many of

the same negative and destructive elements that are allowed to exist in

our community and cause crime, especially drugs, are in poison in a more

blatant and concentrated form To call such places ‘correctional” or

“rehabilitative” institutions is a gross misnomer. Death camps are more

like it. These prisons do not exist to punish everyone equally, but to

protect the existing Capitalist system from you and I, the poor and

working class.

The high rate or recidivism proves, and the so-called authorities all

agree, that the prison system is a total failure. About 70 percent of

those entering prison are repeat offenders who commit increasingly

serious crimes. The brutality or prison experience and the “ex-con”

stigma when they are finally released make them worse. Basic to solving

these crucial problems is organization. The Black community and the

Black Liberation movement must support the prisoners in their fight for

prisoners human rights They should fight far the release of political

prisoners and victims of racial injustice. They should also form

coalitions of groups in the Black community to fight against the racist

penal and judicial system, and especially the unequal application of the

death penalty, which is just another form of genocide against the Black

race. And finally, and maybe most importantly, local community groups

must begin programs of re- education with brothers and sisters in prison

because only through planned, regular, and constant contact can we begin

to resolve this problem that so directly touches our lives. Abolish

prisons.

The Drug Epidemic: A New Form of Black Genocide?

One of the worst forms of criminality is drug dealing, and it deserves

same separate comments all its own. There is a negative drug subculture

in the Black community that glorifies, or at least makes acceptable,

drug use, even though it is killing us and destroying our community. In

fact, every day we read of some junkie in our communities dying over an

overdose of drugs, or of some street corner drug dealer dying from a

shootout over a dispute or tip-off during a drug deal “gone sour.” The

tragedy of the latter is that, these days, innocent victims — children

or elderly people — have also been gunned down in the crossfire. The

drug addict (the new term seems to be “crack-head”) is another tragic

figure; he was a human being just like anyone else, but because of his

oppressed social environment, sought drugs to ease the pain or to escape

temporarily from the “concrete jungles” we are forced live in the urban

ghettos of America.

With the introduction of crack, a more powerful derivative of cocaine,

which made its appearance in the 1980s, even more problems and tragedies

of this sort had developed — more addicts, more street gang killings,

and more deterioration of our community. In the major urban areas there

have almost always been drug uses, what is new is the depth of

geographical penetration of crack to Black communities in all areas of

the country. But the spread of crack is just a follow-up to massive

government drug peddling that began at the end of the decade of the

1960s. The white House is the “rock house,” meaning the U.S. political

administration is behind the whole drug trade. The U.S. government has

actually been smuggling drugs into this country for many years aboard

CIA and military planes to use as a chemical warfare weapon against

Black America. These drugs were mostly heroin imported from the

so-called “Golden Triangle” of Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War.

But with the introduction of crack cocaine, there was no need to import

drugs into the country at the same extent as before, because it could be

chemically prepared in a mainland lab, and then distributed immediately.

Crack created a whole new generation of drug clients and customers for

the drug dealers; it was cheap and highly addictive.

Crack and other drugs are a huge source of profits for the government,

and it keeps the Black community passive and politically indifferent.

That is the main reason why we cannot depend upon the police force and

or the government to stop the drug traffic or help the victims hooked on

drugs. They are pushing the drugs to beat us down, on the one hand, but

the State is also made more powerful because of the phony “war on drugs”

which allows police state measures in Black and oppressed communities,

and because of millions of dollars in government monetary appropriations

made of “law enforcement” agencies, who supposedly are putting down the

traffic in drugs. But they never go after the bankers or the big

business pharmaceutical companies who fund the drug trade, just the

street level dealers, who are usually poor Blacks.

Unemployment is another reason that drug trafficking is so prevalent in

our communities. Poor people will desperately look for anything to make

money with, even the very drugs that are destroying out communities. But

if people have no jobs or income, drugs look very lucrative and the best

way out of the situation. In fact, the drug economy has become the only

income in many poor Black communities, and the only thing that some

people perceive will lift them out of lives of desperate poverty.

Clearly, decent jobs at a union wage are part of the answer to ending

drug trafficking in our community, rather than a dependence on police,

courts and the State. The cops are not our friends or ally, and must be

exposed for their part in protecting the trade, rather than suppressing

it.

Only the community can stop drug trafficking, and it is our

responsibility however you look at it. After all, those junkies are our

brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, neighbors and friends; they

are no strangers. We must organize to save their lives and the life of

our community. We must establish anti-dope programs in Black communities

all over the country. We must expose and counter the government’s role

as pusher of dope, along with that of the police as protector of the

drug trade. But also we must be prepared to help the drug victims with

street counseling, street clinics (where they cab clean-up and learn a

trade and the sociopolitical reasons for drug use), propaganda against

drug use, and other activities.

Junkies are the victims of the drug society, which thinks its cool to

use drugs. Children are some of the biggest victims of drug dealing,

when they are tricked or forced (by economic necessity) into using or

selling it. The users and dealers both are victims, but the dealers are

something else than entirely innocent Even though that Black on the

corner selling dope bags is a victim himself of the economic and

political system which makes him do it, dope dealers are a corrupt,

dangerous breed who must be stopped Many people have been killed or

seriously injured for naively trying to oppose dope dealers, and make

them leave their neighborhoods. Therefore, whereas the policy with

junkies would be more benevolent and understanding, with dope dealers we

must be cautious, and even ruthless when it is called for. We need to

try to win them over first with an economic and political program to

draw them away from the (hug trade, but many of the dealers are so

violence prone, especially the “big shots” (who are also protected by

the cops) they must be opposed by both military and political means.

We are not advocating the summary murder of people, but we are saying if

it takes death to bring about a change in the community, so be it! The

issue of death is essentially an issue of who is doing the dying. It can

be direct and exercised against the death merchant, or it can be

indirect and exercised against our youth-if we let it. To be aware of a

dangerous situation and not move to change it is to be as responsible

for that dangerous situation as those who created it in the first place.

Listen, I don’t want to simplify this problem by saying that just kill a

few street-level dealers and that will end it. No it won’t, AND WE DON’T

WANT TO DO THAT ANYWAY! They are just poor people trying to survive this

system, just pawns in the drug game whose lives don’t matter to the big

Capitalists or government. When they say so these street level dealers

will be killed or imprisoned, but the drug peddling system will go on.

This is a sociopolitical problem, which can best be addressed by

grassroots organizations. But it’s the corporate and industrial backers

of the drug trade (not just the comer dealer) that not only must not

only be exposed, but must be moved on. In addition to educational,

agitation and other action, there must be military action by

revolutionary cells.

The underground actions which we are asking people to move an can be

carried out by a relatively small group of dedicated people, a

revolutionary cell of armed fighters, who have been trained in guerilla

tactics But even these small groups of people must have the support of

the neighborhoods in order to function, otherwise people will not know

it from another violent gang. Once this social cohesiveness exists among

the community, then we can begin to put this proposal into action

against the most violent, high-level drug dealers. We are addressing

ourselves to what can be more or less be considered to be guidelines for

dealing with the problem on a neighborhood or community-wide level then

at a national level:

• Set up drug education classes in the community, for the youth

especially, to expose the nature of the drug trade, who it hurts, and

how the government, banks, and pharmaceutical companies are behind it

all.

• Exposure of the death merchants and their police protectors. (Photos,

posters, fliers, newsletters, etc.)

• Harassment of the dealers; i.e., threatening phone calls, knocking the

drug “product,” have citizens marching inside their “place of business,”

and other tactics.

• Set up drug rehabilitation clinics so that junkies can be treated, can

study the nature of their oppression, and can be wan over to

revolutionary politics. We must win people away from drug use and to the

revolution.

• Physical elimination of the dealer; intimidation driving him out a

neighborhood or out of town, beatings, and assassination, where

necessary.

DOPE IS DEATH! WE MUST FIGHT DOPE ADDICTION BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY! DO

ALL YOU CAN TO HELP YOUR PEOPLE IN THE ANTI-DOPE WAR!

African Intercommunalism

The Anarchist ideals lead logically to internationalism or more

precisely trans-nationalism, which means beyond the nation-state.

Anarchists foresee a time when the nation-state will cease to have any

positive value at all for most people, and will in fact be junked. But

that time is not yet here, and until it is, we must organize for

intercommunalism, or world relations between African people and their

revolutionary social movements, instead of their governments and heads

of state.

The Black Panther Party first put forward the concept of

intercommunalism in the 1960s and, although slightly different, is very

much a libertarian concept at its core. (This used to be called “Pan

Africanism,” but included mainly “revolutionary” governments and

colonial or independence movements as allies). Because of the legacy of

slavery and continuing economic neocolonialism, which has dispersed

Blacks to every continent, it is feasible to speak of Black

international revolutionary solidarity.

Here is how Anarchists see the world: the world is presently organized

into competing nation-states, which though the Capitalist Western

nations have been responsible for most of the world’s famine,

imperialism and exploitation of the non-white peoples of the earth. In

fact, all states are instruments of oppression. Even though there are

governments that claim to be “workers states,” “Socialist countries” or

so-called “Revolutionary governments,” in essence they all have the same

function: dictatorship and oppression of the many over the few. The

bankruptcy of the state is further proven when one looks at the millions

of dead over two world wars, sparked by European Imperialism, (1914–198

and 1939–1945), and hundreds of “brush wars” incited by the superpowers

of the West or Russia in the 1950s and continuing to this day. This

includes “workers’ states” like China-Russia, Vietnam-China,

Vietnam-Cambodia. Somalia- Ethiopia, Russia-Czechoslovakia and others

who have gone to war over border disputes, political intrigue, invasion

or other hostile action. As long as there are nation-states, there will

be war, tension and national enmity.

In fact, the sad part about the decolonization of Africa in the 1960s

was that the countries were organized into the Eurocentric ideal of the

nation-state, instead of some sort of other formation more applicable to

the continent, such as a continental federation. This, of course, was a

reflection of the fact that although the Africans were obtaining “flag

independence” and all the trappings of the sovereign European state,

they in fed were not obtaining freedom. The Europeans still controlled

the economies of the African continent, and the nationalist leaders who

came to the fore were for the mast part the most pliable and

conservative possible. Tire countries of Africa were like a dog with a

leash around its neck; although the Europeans could not longer rules the

continent directly thorough colonial rule, it now did so through puppets

it controlled and defended, like Mobutu in the Congo, Selassie in

Ethiopia, and Kenyatta in Kenya. Many of these men were dictators of the

worst sort and their regimes existed strictly because of European

finance capital In addition, there were white settler communities in the

Portuguese colonies, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, who oppressed the

African peoples even worse than the old colonial system. This is why the

national liberation movements made their appearances in the 1960s and

70s.

Anarchists support national liberation movements to the degree that they

struggle against a colonial or imperialist power; but also note that in

almost every instance where such liberation fronts have assumed state

power, they have become “State Communist” parties and new dictators over

the masses of the people. These include same who had engaged in the mast

epic struggles, but also include many based on the most obvious military

dictatorship from the start. They are not progressive and they tolerate

no dissent For instance, no sooner had the MPLA government been in power

m Angola, than it began to arrest all its left-wing ideological

opponents (Maoists, Trotskyites, Anarchists, and others) and to forcibly

to quell strikes by workers for higher pay and better working

conditions, calling such job actions “blackmail” and ‘economic

sabotage.” And with the Nito Alves affair and his alleged coup attempt,

(Alves was a hero of the revolution and a popular military leader),

there was the first party purge of opponents in the new government.

Something similar to this also took place when the Sandinista National

Liberation movement took over in Nicaragua in the 1980s. None of this

should seem strange or uncharacteristic to Anarchists, when we consider

that the Bolshevik party did the same thing when it consolidated state

power during the Russian Revolution (1917–1921).

Countries such as Benin, Ethiopia, the People’s Republic of the Congo

and other “revolutionary” governments in Africa, are not in power as the

result of a popular social revolution, but rather because of a military

coup or being installed by one of the major world powers Further; many

of the national liberation movements were not independent social

movements, but were rather under the influence or control of Russia or

China as part of their geopolitical struggle against Western imperialism

and each other. This is not to say that revolutionary movements should

not accept weapons and other material support from an outside power, as

long as they remain independent politically and determine their own

policies, without such aid being conditional on the political dictates

and the “party line” of another country.

But even though we may differ with them politically and tactically in

many areas, and even with all their flaws after assuming State power,

the revolutionary liberation fighters are our comrades and allies in

common struggle against the common enemy — the U.S. imperialist ruling

class, while the fight goes on. Their struggle releases the death grip

of U.S. and western imperialism or as Anarchists more precisely call it

Capitalist world power), and while the fight goes on we are bound

together in comradeship and solidarity. Yet we still cannot overlook

atrocities committed by movements like the Khmer Rouge, a

Marxist-Leninist guerilla movement in Cambodia, which just massacred

millions of people to carry out rigid Stalinist political policies and

to consolidate the country. We must lay this butchery and other crimes

committed by State Communism bate for all to see. We do not favor this

kind of revolution, which is just sheer power seeking and terrorism

against the people. This is why Anarchism has always disagreed with how

the Bolsheviks seized power in Soviet Russia; and Stalin’s butchery of

the Russian people seems to have set a model for the State Communist

movements to follow over the years.

The national liberation fronts make one basic mistake of many

nationalist movements of oppressed peoples, and that is to organize in a

fashion that class distinctions are obliterated This happened in

America, where in the fight for democratic rights, the civil rights

movement included Black middle class preachers, teachers and others, and

every Black persons was a “brother” or” sister,” as long as they were

Black. But this simplistic analysis and social reality did not hold for

long, because when the Civil rights phase of the American Black struggle

had spent itself, class distinctions and class struggle came to the

fore. They have been getting sharper ever since. Although them are Black

mayors and other bureaucrats, they merely serve as pacification agents

of the State, “Black faces in high places.” This neocolonial system is

similar to the type of neocolonialism which took place in the 3^(rd)

World, after many countries had obtained their “independence” in the

1960s. Europe still maintained control through puppet politicians and a

command of petty bourgeois class, who were willing to barter the freedom

of the people for personal gains. These people merely preside over the

misery of the masses. They are not a serious concession to our struggle.

They are put in office to co-opt the struggle and deaden the people to

their pain.

So while Black revolutionaries generally favor the ideas of African

intercommunalism, they want principled revolutionary unity. Of course,

the greatest service we can render the peoples of the so-called “Third

World” of Africa, Asia and Latin America, is to make a revolution hem in

North America-in the belly of the beast. For in freeing ourselves, we

get the U.S. imperialist ruling class off both out backs. We wish to

build an international Black organization against Capitalism, racism,

colonialism, imperialism, and military dictatorship, which could more

effectively fight the Capitalist powers and create a world federation of

Black peoples. We want to unite a brother or sister in North America

with the Black peoples of Australia and Oceania, Africa, the Caribbean

and South America, Asia, the Middle East, and those millions of our

people Living in Britain and other Western European countries. We want

to unite tribes, nations and Black cultures into an international body

of grassroots and struggling forces.

All over the world, Black people are being oppressed by their national

governments. Some are colonial subjects in European countries, and one

or another of the African States exploits some. Only a Social revolution

will lead to Black unity and freedom. However this will only be possible

when there exists an international Black revolutionary organization and

social movement. An organization which can coordinate the resistance

struggles everywhere of African peoples; actually a network of such

organizations, resistance movements, which are spread all over the world

based on a consensus for revolutionary struggle. This concept accepts

any level of violence that will be necessary to enforce the demands of

the people and workers. In those countries where an open Black

revolutionary movement would be subjected to fierce repression by the

state, such as in South Africa and in same Black puppet dictatorships in

other parts of Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia, it would be necessary to

wage an underground resistance struggle. Further, the state has grown

more and more violent, with widespread torture and executions, prisons

and maximum police controls, spying and deprivation of democratic

rights, police brutality and murder. Clearly such governments-and all

governments-must be overthrown. They will not fall due to internal

economic or political problems, but must be defeated and dismantled. So

we call for an international resistance movement to overthrow

governments and the system of Capitalist world government.

But even in the Western imperialist countries, we must recognize the

legitimacy of revolutionary violence. When such forms of revolutionary

action are required, however, a clear difference should be seen among

revolutionaries between simple terrorism without popular support and

coherent political program and guerilla warfare arising out of the

collectively felt frustrations of the common people and workers. The use

of military methods would be necessary in a case where the violence of

the state made it imperative for Black revolutionaries to defend

themselves by taking the armed offensive against the state and the

ruling class, and to expropriate the wealth of the Capitalist class

during the Social revolution.

The Black liberation movement needs an organization capable of

international coordination of the Black liberation struggle, a world

federation of African peoples. Although this would not just be an

Anarchist movement a federation like this would be made effective than

any group of states, whether the United Nation or the Organization of

African Unity, in freeing the Black masses. It would involve the masses

of people themselves, not just national leaders or nation states. The

military dictators and government bureaucrats have only proven that they

know how to spend money on pomp and circumstance, but not how to

dismantle the last vestiges of colonialism in South Africa or defeat

Western neocolonialist intrigues. Africa is still the poorest of the

World’s continents, while materially the richest. The contrast is clear:

millions of people are starving in much of Equatorial Africa, but the

tribal chiefs, politicians and military dictators, are driving around in

Mercedes and living in luxury villas, while they do the bidding of West

European and American bankers through the International Monetary Fund.

They are part of the problem, not part of the solution!

Our ideas about the importance of intercommunalism am based an a firm

belief that only a federation of free peoples will bring true Black

power to the masses “Power to the people” does not mean a government or

political party to rule in their name, but social and political power in

the hands of the people themselves. The only real “people’s power” is

the power to make their decisions on matters of importance, and to

merely elect someone else to do so, or to have a dictatorship forced

down their throats. True freedom is to have full self-determination

about one’s social economic and cultural development. The future is

Anarchist Communism, not the nation-state, bloody dictators, Capitalism

or wage slavery.

Armed Defense of the Black Commune

“Our insistence on military action, defensive and retaliatory, has

nothing to do with romanticism or precipitous idealist fervor. We want

to be effective. We want to live. Our history teaches us that the

successful liberation struggles require an armed people, a whole people,

actively participating in the struggle for their liberty!”

— George Jackson, quoted in Blood in my Eye

We must organize self-defense units to protect the Black community and

its organizations. It is the police and the government who are the main

perpetrators of violence against Black people. Every day we read of the

police murdering and maiming the people in our community, all in the

name of “law and order.” This police brutality has included the use of

deadly force against children as young as five years old and elderly

persons over 75 years old! We must disarm and demilitarize the police,

and force them to leave our community. Perhaps this can be done after a

rebellion or insurrection drives them out, or perhaps they will have to

be driven out by a street guerilla force, like the Black Liberation Army

tried to do in the 1970s. I have no way of knowing. I just know that

they have to go. They are an oppressive occupying army, are not of our

community, cannot understand its problems, and do not identify with its

people and their needs. Further, it is the corruption of the cops that

protects organized crime and vice in our community, and Capitalism with

its exploitative economic conditions which is responsible for all crime.

Existing police forces should be replaced with the Black community’s own

self-defense force, made up of members of our community elected or

appointed by their neighbors to that position, or from an existing

street guerilla force or political organization if the people agree.

They would be subject to immediate recall and dismissal by the Community

Control boards of an area. This is only so that we will have community

control of the self-defense farce, begin to deal with fratricidal

Black-on-Black crime, and be able to defend ourselves from white racist

or police attacks. With the increase of white racist violence today, and

the possibility of white mob action in the future, usually in the name

of “law and order,” this community self-defense force is most important.

The only question is: can we do this now?

We exist now under conditions of nominal legality and civil rights, but

at some stage in the process of building up our farces, his inevitable

that the white power structure will recognize the danger to itself

represented by such a free Black commune, and will then try to forcibly

repress it. We must have the self-defense capability to resist. This

concept of organizing a self- defense force accepts any level of

violence that will be necessary to enforce the demands of the people and

workers. Yet these self-defense forces would not a ‘party vanguard,” a

police force, or even a standing army in the Statist or usually thought

of sense; they would be a Black Peoples’ militia, self-managed by the

workers and community itself: in other words, the people-in-arms. These

militia organizations will allow us to engage in offensive or defensive

actions, either in general community defense, or as part of an

insurrection or underground resistance.

But what do we do right now in conditions of legality, to reclaim our

community from violent racist cops? Do we sit around and debate the

appropriateness of military preparation, when the enemy is our community

now, committing rape and murder of Black people or do we hit back? How

do we even get the idea across to our people and start to train them for

paramilitary operations? On a mass scale, I advocate the immediate

formation of defense and survival skills study groups, under the guise

of gun clubs, martial arts societies, wilderness survival clubs or

whatever we need to call them. A thorough understanding of marksmanship,

ammunition fabrication, demolition and weapon manufacturing is minimal

for everyone. In addition, we should study first aid pertaining to the

rather traumatic injuries sustained from gunfire and explosives, combat

communications, combat weapons, combat tactics for the small group,

combat strategy for the region or nation, combat intelligence of police

and military activities among other subjects. These subjects are

indispensable if am live underground or during a general insurrection.

We should put emphasis on the purchase, collection, duplication and

dissemination of military manuals, gunsmithing textbooks, explosive and

improvised demolitions manuals, police and government technical manuals,

and pirated editions of right-wing manuals on the subject (since they

seem to write the best material in this area), and also begin the study

of how to build intelligence networks to collect information on the

rapidly growing Skinhead and other totalitarian racist organizations,

along with intelligence and counter-intelligence information on the

government secret police and law enforcement agencies, like the FBI,

CIA, ATF, etc., and on any and every other subject which could be of use

to us in the coming struggle.

Even though in the United States, development of military skills and

self defense is simpler than many other countries because arms and

ammunition are widely available, it is logical to assume that the arms

situation will soon be so tight so as to make firearms virtually

unobtainable, except through an expensive Black market because of the

government’s “war an drugs” and other proposed gun control legislation

to prevent street violence,” or so they say (Do you think the sporting

goods stores will be open during an insurrection?) Therefore we should

learn to use machine tool technology to produce our own weapons.

Perfectly adequate firearms may be produced using a minimum of machine

teals, providing the individual or group is willing to do the necessary

studying and preparation. It is not enough to know a little about these

subjects; it is a matter of future survival — of life and death that one

be highly proficient.

I am not advocating the immediate waging of urban guerilla warfare,

especially where there is no mass base for such activities. What I am

advocating at this stage is armed self-defense and the knowledge of

tactics to resist military aggression against the Black community. It is

a foolish and unfortunate trait among Anarchists, the white left and

sections of the Black movement to condemn the study of military tactics

as premature or adventuristic, or an the other hand, to cast oneself

into a blind fury of bank expropriations, kidnappings, bombings or plane

hijackings. Too many people in the movement have a death trip approach

to guns — they assume if you are not “fooling around,” then you should

prove your convictions via a suicidal shootout in the streets. It

doesn’t have to be that way.

But the Black movement doesn’t even have the luxury of such tepid

debates, and must have an armed defense policy because America has a

long tradition of government political repression and vigilante

paramilitary violence. Although such attacks have been directed

primarily at Blacks and other oppressed nationalities in the past, they

have also been directed at labor unions and dissident political groups.

Such violence makes it absolutely necessary to acquire familiarity with

firearms and military tactics. In fact, the Black Resistance movement

that I spoke of earlier should think of itself as a paramilitary

movement, rather than a strict political association.

We must assert our rights to armed self-defense and revolution, even

though it is true that there is a lot of loose talk about guns, self

defense, revolution, “urban guerilla warfare,” etc., in the Black and

radical movements, but with very little study and practice in handling

and using weapons. Some of the same folks think “picking up the gun”

means that you pick one up for the first time on the day of an

insurrection or confrontation with police. This is nonsense and is the

real “revolutionary suicide,” you could get led not knowing what you are

doing. But many instances attest to the fact that armed community self

defense can be carried out successfully, such as the MOVE resistance in

Philadelphia, the Republic of New Africa armed resistance in Detroit and

Mississippi and the Black Panther cases. Even as important as the act of

defense itself is, is the fact that these instances of successful self

-defense have made a tremendous impact on the Black community,

encouraging other acts of resistance.

Insurrection

But what is a rebellion and how does it differ from an insurrection? An

insurrection is a general uprising against the power structure. It is

usually a sustained rebellion over the course of days, weeks, months or

even years. It is a type of class war that involves a whole population

in an act of armed or semi-armed resistance. Sometimes mistakenly called

a rebellion, its character is far more combative and revolutionary.

Rebellions are almost totally spontaneous, short-term affairs. An

insurrection is also not the revolution, SINCE REVOLUTION IS A SOCIAL

PROCESS, RATHER THAN A SINGLE EVENT, but it can be an important part of

the revolution, maybe its final phase. An insurrection is a planned

violent protest campaign which takes the spontaneous revolt of the

masses to a higher level Revolutionaries intervene to push rebellions to

insurrectionary stage, and the insurrection an to a social revolution.

It is not small, isolated pockets of urban guerillas taking actions,

unless those guerillas are part of a larger revolt.

The importance of recognizing the true differences of each level can

define our strategy and tactics at that stage, and not lead us

prematurely into a full offensive, when the enemy is not yet weakened

enough by mass action or political attacks. The importance of also

recognizing the true causes of the revolt cannot be understated

Anarchist revolutionaries intervene in such struggles to show people how

to resist and the possibilities of winning freedom. We want to take the

people’s rebellions against the state and use them to weaken the rule of

Capital We want to create resistance on a longer term and to win

liberated zones To disconnect these communities from the state means

that these rebellions will assume a conscious political character like

the Palestinian Intifada in the occupied territories controlled by

Israel in the Middle East. Creating the possibility of a Black

insurrection means popularizing and spreading the various rebellions to

other cities, towns and even countries, and increasing them in number

and frequency. It also means consciously nullifying the power of the

state, instead of temporary revolts against it, which ultimately

preserves its power. There must be a deliberate attempt to push the

government out of existence, and establish People’s Power. This has not

yet happened with the various Black revolts we have seen since 1964,

when the first such modern revolt erupted in Harlem, NY.

In the 1960s, the Black communities all over the U.S. rose up angrily

with massive rebellions against the state demanding racial justice.

After the Harlem revolt, for the next four years major rebellions shook

the U.S. in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, and

hundreds of other North American cities. Isolated acts of police

brutality, racial discrimination substandard housing, economic

exploitation, “the hoodlum element,” a breakdown in family values, and a

host of other “explanations” have been put forward by liberal and

conservative sociologist and others commissioned by the state to

whitewash the true causes. Yet none of these revealed this as a protest

against the Capitalist system and colonial rule, even though the social

scientists “warned” of the possibility of a new outbreak of violence.

Once again in the Spring, 1992, we saw a massive revolt in Los Angeles,

whose immediate causes were related to the outrageous acquittal of 1

Angeles policemen who had brutally beaten Rodney King. But there again

this was just an immediate cause acting as a trigger; this revolt was

not a sympathy revolt on behalf of Rodney King personally. The cause of

this rebellion was widespread social inequality in the Capitalist system

and police terrorism. This time the rebellion spread to 40 cities and

four foreign countries. And it was not just a so-called “race riot,” but

rather a class revolt that included a large number of Latinos, whites

and even Asians. But it was undeniably a revolt for racial injustice

first and foremost, even if it was not just directed against white

people in general but the Capitalist system and the rich. It was not

limited to just even the inner city in the Las Angeles area but spread

even to white upper crust areas in Hollywood, Ventura, and beyond This

was the beginning stage of class warfare.

If an underground military force existed or a militia was assembled, it

could have entered the filed of battle with more weaponry and advanced

tactics. As it was the gangs played that role, and played it very well.

Their participation is why it took so long to put the rebellion down,

but even they could not prevent the reestablishment of white power in

South Central Los Angeles. Not just because of being militarily out

gunned, but because they had no revolutionary political program despite

all their rhetoric of having been radicalized Also the state came down

extremely hard on the rebels. Over 20,000 persons were jailed, 50 were

killed and hundreds wounded.

Could a liberated zone have been won, so that dual power could have been

established? That possibility existed and still does exist if the people

are properly armed and educated Mass resistance with heavy military

weaponry may have won serious concessions, one of which is to pull back

the cops. We don’t know that, this is purely speculation. We do know

that this is not the last rebellion in L.A. and other cities. They may

come much quicker now that the genie of urban revolution of the bag

again. We can only hope and prepare. ONWARD TO THE BLACK REVOLUTION!

Part 2

Thank you for responding to “Black Capitalism” pt. 2. I am glad to see

us really discussing these matters, which are not in any way mere

abstract questions, but rather go to the fundamental question of what

kind of society do we really want? One which has classes of desperately

poor and excessively rich, one which has all economic power in the hands

of a white [or some day Black] elite, or one where the needs of the

people are met and we are all on the same economic level.

I do not accept elitist arguments of a “talented tenth”, “better class

of Blacks”, or the “incorrigible poor”. This type of argument shows that

it is only thinking “within the box”, that is within the confines of the

present capitalist system, which creates crime and deprivation.

Capitalism creates inequality, and poverty creates a lack of culture.

Somebody said to me a long time ago, ignorance is merely lack of

knowledge, while stupidity is total foolishness. Many of our people are

politically ignorant to the workings of this system, and they are being

debased, but they are not stupid. Ain’t no mystery to this ya’ll, don’t

get to think that you are something special, you could be the same as

any of the least of our people.

Remove the conditions of oppression, and any of our people in the most

degrading of conditions, can ascend to any social station in life, even

higher than many of you looking down your noses at the poor. They can be

the next Malcolm X, Martin Luther King or whomever we exalt as Black

leadership. Middle class Black people have got to put aside their own

class blinders and prejudices against their own people. It is

oppressive, plantation thinking (“house nigger vs. field niggers”), and

keeps us from accepting our people where they are.

Seems to me, our task as Black activists, people who say they love Black

people, is to fight for the uplift of all our people, not feed them to

the white government and its prisons and graveyards. We cannot get our

liberation without fighting for the liberation of the poor, so let’s

organize the ‘hood.

Part 3

You know, everybody looks down their noses at poor Black people. They

fault them for their own poverty, suffering and even deaths. They “lie,

cheat and steal,” both the smug well-to-do whites and suburban upper

class Blacks say about the poor. They, of course, feel themselves every

bit superior to “those people.” If they hear about the mass of Black

youth now gone off [or going] to prison, if Black people are homeless

and living in the streets, or if they are slain by a racist cop, then

good enough for them! “They deserve it” say the Black bourgeoisie, “they

are incorrigible” say the white politicians, or they “sell drugs” say

the Uncle Tom preachers. To all these folks, the cops are “just doing

their jobs” to stop crime and keep them safe in their middle class

enclaves. They feel that “tough policing” is the way that you have to

handle poor folks. “Come and get ‘em, boss!”

Black TV commentator and conservative spokesperson Tony Brown even says

that the Black upper class has “no responsibility” for the plight of the

urban poor and Black working people, and that we “cannot save them.”

He also says it is “useless” to fight racism, that Black people should

be working on Black economic empowerment [most likely provided by his

“Buy Freedom” investment plan]. He further says, [as do many Black and

white conservatives] that two-thirds of Blacks living in America are now

in the middle class, living comfortable lives “much better than our

parents ever did.”

But think about this: today’s Black middle class is really equivalent to

the lower or middle levels of the traditional white working class of the

1960s. I mean, just check it out: A Black man with a college degree

still makes only 75% of the salary of a white male high school or trade

school graduate, and Black women only make 50–60% of that. Hey, some

middle class Black folks are now so poor or severely experiencing the

economic downturn due to the capitalist economy that they may actually

be back living with their parents! After all, we are living through some

seriously hard times, which even affects the lower and middle Black

middle classes, along with the Black poor.

In fact, if any of the folks in the lower middle class lose their weekly

paycheck, they will likely find themselves in the same place Black poor

folks are: the sidewalk. People are barely making a sustainable income

off what in an previous economic period would be a decent middle class

income. Even $50,000 does not go very far these days for a family of

four [!].

Because of the transformation of the capitalist economy and more

poverty, we have to rethink many of these economic issues instead of

just accepting Tony Brown’s, the white conservatives’, or the

government’s own arguments as to who is in the Black middle class and

therefore “doing good.” Brown claims that Black people have “hundreds of

millions of dollars” coming through our hands each week, and that all we

have to do is save it and use it for his “Buy Freedom” plan. He

chastises us for “blowing the money”, which could be used for racial

uplift.

Well, most Black people don’t have any disposable income. It goes for

rent or mortgage, food or clothing, or other expenses to survive in a

modern society. Most people are not “living large,” certainly not enough

where they have money to contribute to Tony Brown’s [or anybody else’s]

flawed “vision.” The thing about Black capitalism [and capitalism

generally] is that it uses myths, lies, scapegoating, confusion, and

even our own racial loyalty to scam us and pick our pockets.

Like the old 19^(th) century Black leader, Booker T. Washington, Brown

claims that we don’t have to engage in grassroots political struggle

against racism or the capitalist system. He and other Black capitalist

pitch-men in this period seem to feel that if we all just work to get

rich, then we will automatically get respect from the white power

structure and thus end racism, [and by extension, poverty itself]. It’s

not going to happen that way.

The answer is not Black capitalist entrepreneuralism. We will not get

free by “buying into” [or out of] the capitalist system, no matter how

many times Tony Brown or some other capitalist scam artist says it. But

unfortunately, until this system completely caves in or we wake up and

take action to eliminate this corrupt system, many Black folks will be

fooled by the idea that we can become capitalists ourselves to employ

one another or trade among ourselves as a viable “Black market,” and

thus buy our way free of this system. But it ain’t happening. It defies

the laws of economics, politics, and even common sense. It’s opportunism

and demagoguery for people like Tony Brown to stand up and say this just

to get our money. We are going to have to fight this white system, and

nothing will change that. There is no easy way out.

But then I believe that Black radicals have to start to speak up against

such nonsense, when we know it misleads the masses of our people, and

provide an alternative, a transitional program for survival pending

social revolution. I will begin to do that in my next series of columns.

I hope it will spark discussion like these articles on Black capitalism

have done. More important is that I hope it will start more grassroots

organizing in the hood.