“All the bucking, protesting, resisting, fighting, starving, struggling, had all led to this. When they can’t handle your presence, they bury it.”

Powerful: “These cells had held Tom Manning and Ray Luc. They held Mutulu Shakur and Oscar López Rivera. Now I joined my elders in maintaining my resistance while buried in the Rockies,” he writes in his newest book, A Clean Hell: Anarchy and Abolition in America’s Most Notorious Dungeon.

Yet, there was no regret for Barka, stating, "no — I have regrets that they didn't pay me my money — cheap criminals. I have regrets about that. But I don't have regrets about writing the poem. Because the poem was true." Indeed, truth spoken to power can never be dissolved.

Revolutionary renowned poet, the late Amiri Baraka's poem "Somebody Bl*w Up America," just following 9/11 evoked rebuke even amongst his supporters. In response to the content of the poem, Baraka's role as Poet Laureate of New Jersey was dissolved.

To honor him we share the lyrics to 'The Creator Has A Master Plan,' one of his favorite compositions by infamous jazz musician, Pharoah Sanders. To view his memorial service today in ATL, please tune in to Black Power Media www.youtube.com/live/LoguKf7...
@blackpowermedia.bsky.social #freeimamjamil

So, each Sunday, in collaboration with Black Power Media's 'AFROPIQ' we will share poetry, art, or other inspired works curated by our staff members that we find nourishing and comfort. Together, hate can not annihilate us. Love fiercely. @blackpowermedia.bsky.social

Researchers have found that present in every African culture, is the belief that we share a common collective unconscious in which certain symbols and images are universally understood amongst all human beings, demonstrating perhaps, the unity of our collective consciousness.

Serving as a blueprint, it traces the onslaught of the colonial carceral and military state in which citizens, civilians, captives, and organizers transform sites of war, plantations, and enslavement into places of liberation—or the fire next time.

In this age of mounting repression, it is both a prophetic work and constant companion.