Bob Brown-Longtime organizer for the AAPRP GC and SNCC, On Ward Churchill’s Misrepresentation of the Truth in Regard to AIM and the African Liberation Movement

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Bob Brown. I am an organizer for the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC). I have had the honor to serve in and support the student and youth, civil and human rights, Black Power, national liberation and unification, Pan-African, socialist, peace, anti-repression and other movements since 1963, almost three-fourths of my life. I have also had the privilege to work with Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) from 1967 to 1998, as a member and/or supporter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party (BPP), the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG), the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (South Africa) and a host of other movements and organizations throughout Africa, the African Diaspora and the World. Click here, for more information.

It is with extreme sadness that I write this open letter to SUNY Press. Our allies in the American Indian Movement have requested that I do so. I hope that it is taken with the honest and sincere intent in which it is written. I was contacted recently by Dr. Charles Jones (University of Cincinnati) and Dr. Akinyele Umoja (Georgia State University) regarding a manuscript that they are producing about Kwame Ture. They informed me that SUNY Press was interested in publishing a book about him, and had requested that they submit a manuscript for review and possible approval. We thank you for your interest. Please understand that Dr. Jones and Dr. Umoja enjoy our warmest respect and highest regard.

They asked me to submit a chapter on “Ture and COINTELPRO,” and to possibly serve as one of the co-editors. After much discussion with the A-APRP (GC), Kwame’s Family, the leadership of the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council, and several academicians and organizers whom I respect, I declined to participate in this Project.  I had several reasons for doing so. Frankly, the proposed chapter outline and list of presenters presented too many challenges and land mines, and few, in my view, had any real substantive knowledge about Kwame Ture. The most important reason was because Ward Churchill had been asked to write a chapter on “Kwame Ture and AIM.”

To his credit, Churchill allegedly asked the editors if they had talked to me about this Project. To his discredit however, he failed to tell them why he thought it necessary for them to do so. Perhaps he hoped that I had some how mellowed after our previous confrontations; had some how forgotten or misplaced my letter to him dated March 4, 1994; or forgiven what I considered then and now to be his “factual, legal and historical inaccuracies” regarding his misunderstanding—to put it diplomatically and mildly—about several projects that the A-APRP and AIM worked on jointly. See the links below to my 10-page letter to Churchill and Russell Means in 1994. It is posted on the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council’s website:

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Churchill has never apologized for nor corrected these lies, this slander, libel and defamation despite repeated offers on my part to produce uncontestable proof of their inaccuracy. I can forgive his ignorance about AIM’s and the A-APRP’s affairs, but I can never forget, nor forgive his arrogance and COINTELPRO-like behavior, especially from one who purports to be an expert on COINTELPRO.

I cannot perpetuate, or aid and abet in the perpetuation of the lie that Ward Churchill knows about, or will correctly portray the truth about Kwame Ture’s relationship to the American Indian Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King is right, “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for me once again. I could never lend my name or credibility or silence to Ward Churchill’s lies. He knows little or nothing about Kwame Ture’s and our relationship to the American Indian Movement, and cannot be trusted to write it truthfully or with the integrity and dignity that it deserves.

As a historical and continuing victim of COINTELPRO and academic censorship, I do not ask that SUNY Press refuse to print this book, or whatever rubbish Churchill might write. I do expect however that you will uphold your legal, ethical, moral and academic obligation to review it, especially Churchill’s chapter, seriously, and vet it legally, before publication.

Our thirst for “academic freedom” and for more information about the history of the 1960s cannot be misused to peddle fiction and lies, or miseducate generations of youth, many of whom are as yet unborn. The historiography and iconography of Kwame Ture is encumbered with enough myths and errors—omissions, half-truths and lies. We do not need or want anymore of Ward Churchill’s lies!

This open letter has been sent to several Indigenous and African media outlets and webpages, and will be posted publicly, worldwide! It is circulating on the Internet and various social networks. I am sure that you will hear from members and the leadership of several Indigenous and Chicano Nations and organizations soon!

Again, we hold Dr. Jones, Dr. Umoja and SUNY Press in the highest regard and thank you for your efforts to “give voice” to Kwame Ture.

Sincerely,

Bob Brown

paroots02@yahoo.com

(202) 239-1651

The Ghost of Christmas past- Mankato Executions, mass slayings, and family fun! by Thomas Pearce

As my late friend  Aunt Becky Canales and my friend Dave Larson told me years ago, on Christmas Eve Day in 1862, 38 Dakota men and their families were marched from Fort Snelling in Minneapolis MN to “Mahkato” or as it is called today Mankato MN to be hung to death on the day after Christmas before a crowd of celebratory onlookers who ate picnic meals as the men were hung. These hangings were carried out to exact revenge on the Mdewakanton for the killing of an “US Government Indian Agent” Andrew Myrick, who after complaints were lodged against him for stealing food stores that were to be given to the 1600 people confined under the watchful gaze of Fort Snelling. The agent responded “Let them Eat Grass”, shortly after the agent was found stuffed with grass. The hangings were a reaction to the people’s response to being starved.

For years a group of indigenous people in Minneapolis have gathered at the dark foreboding fort formerly known as Fort Saint Anthony, that towers over the Mississippi River atop a cliff and would silently run the roughly 82 miles in relay to Mankato, to remember these ancestors. They have done no press conference, nor have they sought white recognition of their effort. This is not done for show but so we never forget what happened at Fort Snelling or the ancestors who died there.

Happy Fourth of YOULIE By Thomas Pearce YEAH I SAID IT!! If it fell tomorrow it would be 235 years too late!

“Picture us goin out on the fourth of July and if you heard we were celebratin that’s a world wide lie” Chuck D

Yes, Yes it is that time again. GEGINAWISCIKID-LIAR, GEGIBINGWED-BLIND MAN 

As we sail into the 235th year of the occupation of this hemisphere and the world wide domination of the US military industrial complex that lords over the 3rd world as slaves. the inhabitants of this continent and those brought here against their will mourn the hundreds of millions who died in resistance to this government and who died on slave ships being brought here against their will.

I would ask this question. Why should any of us celebrate? Unless your name is Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, or you are a relative of George Washington. Celebrate what? Really. Poverty, rape , genocide, and theft? The 2 million people in prison? The monuments all over this country to the murderers who took the land?

This world will never be safe while this corporate state stands to occupy every oil field, knock down every mountain, kill every form of resistance. You will never let anyone sleep a night of peace that has truly stood against you. 

So in the name of every woman, child , and man in South Dakota, New Mexico, and Colombia that has been murdered and raped. In the name of every Palestinian pushed off their land and made refugee by way of your gun ships. In the name of Harriet Tubman, Geronimo, Techumseh, Sandino, Davis, Newton, Nat Turner and every freedom fighter everywhere?

I say if it fell tomorrow it would be 235 years late. This system of government is the best money can buy. Always has been. So have your hot dog, and shove your rocket and red glare where the sun don’t shine. Take your religious repression of everything not Judeo-Christian back to England. Capitalism is as Malcom X once said a “rotting fish”.

To every indigenous person South of the imaginary border? I wish you the creator’s blessing as you repopulate this land. Welcome home. To every person living under occupation I wish you learn the will of Gitche Monitou and resist and resist and resist.

Happy Fourth of YouLIE!!

Remembering Vernon Bellecourt, Strategist, Diplomat, Warrior,Uncle,Teacher and Friend by Thomas Pearce

Vernon Bellecourt providing strategic counsel to Warriors at Falls of the Ohio Occupation, In Picture Chico Dulak, Vernon Bellcourt, the late Mike Ford, , Myself Randy Medrano

“You kids have bitten off more than you can chew said he man at the table in the coffee shop outside the Democratic convention in 1988 in Atlanta”. I turned to look at who was speaking to me. It was Vernon Bellecourt, one of the brightest minds to ever come from Indian Country. I was speechless of course. What were the odds that he would be here where a large group of radicals and militants were about to have a confrontation with police outside the Omni? Well of course, where else would Uncle be. It is amazing he passed on the day after Columbus day, one of his strongest efforts to oppose racism was his effort to counter the celebration of 500 years of genocide since Columbus.  It is also not surprising he was in Venezuela meeting with Hugo Chavez negotiating for cheap heating oil for Indian nations in the USA shortly before he died.

He asked me what our demands were. I responded “break down this evil government”. He said “you look outnumbered and you look frantic, and you look like you are about to get your butts kicked and no one will ever know you existed.” “What do you think?” I looked out the window. We had running confrontations with the Atlanta police for days. They had taken all the homeless people out of the parks downtown and pushed them elsewhere. We had been retaking the parks. We had disrupted Good Morning America broadcasting live in Woodruff Park, and the cherry on top? We had carried out a citizen’s arrest on Randall Terry the Operation Rescue terrorist on his way to shut down an abortion clinic. We had also closed Georgia Power in the name of the people and we had gotten the police damn mad at us. Us being a ragtag group of Anarchists, African American militants, No business as Usual, the RCP, AIM youth, and if I left anyone out tell me I will add you in. We were drawing attention to the Democratic Party and its shabby treatment of Jesse Jackson’s candidacy (Jesse took 7 Southern States and was not invited to be VP).

Remembering Mike Haney- A life of resistance with a smile by Thomas Pearce

There we were hurtling through the snow on a cold night down Interstate 74, my eyes wide, I was slumped into the red leather back seat of the massive Cadillac crammed full of fugitives heading toward Indianapolis on the way to Cleveland for the opening day of Baseball to protest the Wahoo or as Mike Haney and Vernon Bellecourt liked to call them “the Cleveland Franchise”.

On the radio a voice was saying “Illinois State Police are looking for a group of American Indians who broke into (lie) the Dixon Mounds Museum today and tried to rebury the remains of American Indians on display there. Mike looked back at me from the front seat and with a wink said “good one huh” and then “how does it feel to be an AIM gangster on the run?” I looked back all wide-eyed gulped and said “great” shakily. He and Vernon cackled and laughed and started making fun, “yep you’re in it now, you can never get out”. I look back at that night one of many and smile deep in my soul. Mike Haney and Vernon Bellecourt were two of the most important influences on my life.

Mike Haney speaking to an African-American Congregation at Chestnut Baptist Church about racist mascots as Jessie Jackson, Alderman Paul Bather, Dennis Banks, and myself look on.    

In Love with the People! My declaration of Love

In Love with the People

There is something about the people, who against all odds gather to meet the storm, with all their strengths and weaknesses, and against all odds,

Wounded Knee | We Shall Remain | American Experience | PBS

“I was ready to do whatever it takes for change. I didn’t care. I had children, and for them I figured I could make a stand here.”— Madonna Thunder Hawk (Two Kettle Lakota)

Wounded Knee | We Shall Remain | American Exper…, posted with vodpod

Trail of Tears | We Shall Remain | American Experience | PBS

“The people were herded into wooden stockades, into staging areas around the Cherokee Nation, in what were literally cattle pens.”— Gayle Ross (Cherokee)

Trail of Tears | We Shall Remain | American Exp…, posted with vodpod

Tecumseh’s Vision | We Shall Remain | American Experience | PBS

Tecumseh’s vision

Tecumseh’s Vision | We Shall Remain | American …, posted with vodpod

The Fourth of YOU LIE: of the Foundation of American Democracy! Daniel Boone, Thomas Jefferson, Davie Crockett, Sam Bowie, Kit Carson, Abraham Lincoln? INDIAN KILLERS!! By Thomas Pearce

In 1992 Native people in KY and allies during the 500th anniversary of Columbus decided to correct local historic monuments to alleged heroes of colonialism in the Ohio Valley. The picture you see above is one example. It was a statue of Daniel Boone at the entrance to? “Cherokee Park”. There are 4 parks in Louisville named after the people driven from this land. Cherokee, Shawnee, Chickasaw, and Iroquois. Of course there are monuments all over this city to Confederate Generals, Indian killers, slave owners, and the like. There are absolutely none to Tecumseh, Blue Jacket, Harriet Tubman, or any native or African-Americans. A couple of streets that is it. So as I was watching Tecumseh’s vision, the PBS special last night, I was reminded of several things that deserve exploring. So once again I am going to  poke holes in “American History” and saw the legs off of statues to genocidal murderers. Sorry.