The Uhuru Movement’s position since our inception has been “African women must lead”! African women are leading the worldwide African liberation movement on all fronts, including in the creation of cultural work which delights, amazes, provokes thought and inspires resistance in African people. Read the works of the some of the talented women of the Uhuru Movement.
“The Black Messiah”
Thamanai Justine, InPDUM
The Black Messiah
Is my Messiah
On Most Mondays
He Sings the Blues
I don’t know when or where he sleeps
I don’t know where or when he eats
I don’t know when or where he paints
Yet, the Black Messiah is my Messiah
On Most Mondays
He Sings the Blues
He’s Always loving someone new
With infinite access to a new sweet soul
But I don’t need to know
No Need for information
Maybe a little insight
The Black Messiah Is My Messiah
On Most Mondays
He sings the Blues
And I love him
I love him for no reason
I love Him for every reason
I don’t know how
I don’t know why
And I don’t have to
I just know that I do
And that it’s ok
The Black Messiah is my Messiah
On most Mondays He sings the Blues
“Daughters”
Dzidzor Azaglo, InPDUM
When we first start our journeys as daughters, we soon learn that there is more that is required from us.
We are reminded of the responsibility that we hold at an early stage.
As if becoming a daughter was a curse, we are taught to shrink and hide.
When threatened, we are asked who would accept us if we aren’t good enough? Who would like/love us if we were different?
We start to believe it.
We teach ourselves that we desire to be wanted, liked and similar.
We start to believe our value is weighed by the amount of acceptance that we receive from others. When we are left empty, we question our emptiness.
Make a song with the echos in our hollow spaces and dance to the emancipation of plantation fields we didn’t know we lived on.
Then we ask ourselves: Is it worth it?
To carry the burden of the others while we learn how to balance it all?
“Listen, Jack”
Jenny Vernet, African National Women’s Organization (ANWO)
They got the narrative
Haiti just a place of curses and bad dreams
Big mad cause we were the first to be free
But nah we still aint free
Trujillo still got grandmas cryin
Aint no hearses, or caskets
or holy hymns here
only mass graves
Dominicano, Cubano, Ayiti
Yet they try to divide us
Ya ever heard of
Jean Michel Basquiat?
Toussaint Louverture?
Jean-Jacques Dessalines?
What about Taino?
Murdered, raped and pillaged
Haitian women still bein
Murdered, raped and pillaged
Billions owed
People really think
We asking for favors though
Quick question, Jack
What hand out?
My ancestors
My people
gettin whipped on they backs
Yes, they still whipping my niggas on they backs
They tried to kill us
They still tryna kill us
But We still here
We out here
Yes I’m still here
Best beleive I aint goin no mother fuckin where
Cause this is resilience
And I’m stayin
You and yours couldn’t even dream up
Not even your darkest nightmares
Could get a one up
This is resilience
and that shit runs through me
Best believe my ancestors watching over me
They gathered by a fire
Slit a pig and let it bleed
And that’s how I’m here
A powerful sight indeed
“Sankofa”
Yaasante Owens, InPDUM, African People’s Socialist Party (APSP)
Never do they use colonialism
To describe our condition
Never do they say genocide
A glaring omission
They call it racism
So anti-racist capitalism
Becomes their one true mission
Racism.
That doesn’t begin
To describe our plight
I went back to Africa
Late last night
Chanting down Babylon
With all my might
Then I was a slave
Chained to other slaves
Urging a young boy
To cool down his fright
I held his hand
Strong and firm
Resistance was near
He would learn
What to the slave
Is a flying brick
Hurled at a slaver’s skull
So thick
Hurled at his teeth
Yellow and brittle
If love is a tree
Freedom is whittled
Into an arrow
A burning spear
In through one side
And out the other ear
Of a slave master
Who wouldn’t listen
To the cries of black children
In blood he would christen
That young boy is older now
He was shot in the dark
While his pocket held skittles
He was left on the asphalt
While his skin burned and sizzled
He was killed in the park
For having a toy gun
He was suffocated by the knee
Of a colonizer having fun
From then till now
One thing remains true
The thoughts in their heads
Could never hurt you
It was power in their hands
Not lack of virtues
That made black death
A fact that would urge you
To post black tiles
And sing black songs
And use black hashtags
In a fight that can’t be won
By spontaneous struggle
Tailing tragic events
With an ideology that’s muddled
And no form of defense
Pick a bigger weapon
By now we should learn
Freedom won’t be given
It is something that is earned
InPDUM is building a culture of Revolution. We are creating works of music, writing, poetry and all forms of art that promote the Revolution and the liberation of our people. We are calling on all artists to join today at InPDUM.org and help build the culture of Revolution. If you want to write for African Resistance Now, send an email to info@inpdum.org today!