I’ll be back in a couple of days with new posts. Please be patient… I’m an artist and I’m senstive about my shit.. ya heard?

this is a test image, with text alongside the image.

By Kazembe Balagun

On December 16, 2006 over 75 people gathered at LAVA in West Philadelphia. The crowd was a mix of Black liberation movement veterans (young and old), anarchist punks and white queer activists from ACT UP. They came together to pay homage to the late Kuwasi Balagoon, who would have turned 60 years old this year. Balagoon is not an immediately recognizable name in the pantheon of revolutionaries, yet he has developed into an underground hero 20 years after his death. This is due in large part to the maze of contradictions that constructed Balagoon’s life.

As a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, he was the quintessential outlaw, escaping prison twice and leading units in the expropriation of banks, including the infamous Nyack armored car heist in 1983 (an incident that served as a basis for the film Dead Presidents). Balagoon was also a humanist, who enjoyed painting, writing poetry and baking for his fellow inmates. However, it was Kuwasi’s identification as a queer anarchist that has sparked renewed interest in his life. “He was an anarchist in a black nationalist movement, he was queer in a straight dominated movement, he was a guerrilla fighter after it was “chic,” and he never backed down from his ideals, his beliefs, the struggle or him self. And he demanded to be seen not as a revolutionary icon, but as a person, beautiful and flawed,” said Walidah Imarisha, poet and one of the presenters at the Balagoon memorial.

Early Life

Kuwasi Balagoon was born Donald Weems in Lakeland, Maryland on December 23, 1946. He was the youngest of three children and his parents were both employees of the federal government. Kuwasi was influenced early on by a deep maternal instinct, primarily through his grandmother (“Mama Shine”) and Miss Reed, his elementary school teacher for whom he described having a fleeting crush. Kuwasi was a self-described “wild child” who had once jumped out of the second story window of his house in imitation of Superman. For the most part, Kuwasi had a comfortable childhood, where he played high school football (he missed the March on Washington for practice) and wanted to become a veterinarian.

Two major events lead to Kuwasi’s political awakening. The first was the rebellion in nearby Cambridge, Maryland. In 1963, the local Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (under the leadership of Gloria Richardson) led a series of sit-ins aimed at desegregating public facilities. The sit-ins brought national attention to Cambridge, a town that prided itself on being able to maintain “racial peace.” Nevertheless that peace was exploded when two young students were arrested for staging a pray-in. Their indefinite incarceration angered the Black community. For two days, white businesses were fire-bombed. On the Maryland Governor’s request, the National Guard entered and occupied Cambridge’s Black community for a year, leading to more rebellions. The event shook Kuwasi’s consciousness, even as he was debating the tactics espoused by Dr. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, “[The rebellion] that took place [in] Cambridge, Maryland showed a far better action for Black people to take even then.”

The other event was more personal in nature. Kuwasi’s eldest sister, Mary, began to date Jimmy. Kuwasi describes Jimmy as a [cool guitar] player and was like a big brother to me.” The two ran the streets together, sneaking drinks and enjoying life. As a truck driver for a local department store, Jimmy also played the role of Robin Hood, often expropriating merchandise from the store. “The Christmas I was thirteen was a super Christmas for a materialistic youth…Good God he liberated, we couldn’t get everything under the tree.” Kuwasi’s friendship with Jimmy only ended with Jimmy’s arrest for raping a white woman. A typical charge leveled against Black men in the south, the case was flimsy but within fifteen minutes an all white jury convicted him. Jimmy would spend seven years in the state penitentiary before he escaped. Jimmy’s expropriations and prison escape would serve as a template for Kuwasi’s life. Read the rest of this entry »

here is some test audio: