The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison & Fighting for Those Left Behind

by Safiya Bukhari

to do was be honest and everything would work...

My friend went to say something and one of the police officers threatened to ram his nightstick up her if she opened her mouth again, and then ran on in a monologue about Black people. I listened and got angry.

After the policewoman searched me, one of the male officers told her to make sure she washed her hand so she would not catch anything.

By listening to the elderly, I learned how they could not survive off their miserly social security checks—not pay the rent and eat, too—so they would pay their rent and eat from the

dog food section of the supermarket or the garbage cans.

I had seen enough of the ravages of dope, alcohol, and despair to know that a change was needed to make the world a better place in which my child could live.

nothing is permanent or secure in a world in which it is who you know and what you have that counts.

The day after my release to general population, I was told that the first iota of trouble I caused would land me back in the maximum-security building and there I would stay.

Inside the prison, I was denied care. The general feeling was that they could not chance hospitalization for fear I would escape; as such, they preferred to take a chance on my life. The courts said they saw no evidence of inadequate medical care, but rather a difference of opinion on treatment between the prison doctor and me.

The whole system is fucked

I decided to use the lack of medical care as my defense for the escape to accomplish two things: (1) expose the level of medical care at the prison and (2) put pressure on them to give me the care I needed.

Because of the negligence of the “doctor” and the lack of feeling on the part of the prison officials, I was forced to have a hysterectomy.

watched the oppressor play a centuries-old game on Black people—divide and conquer. Black women break under pressure and sell their men down the river. Then the oppressor separates the women from their children. In two strokes, the state does more damage than thirty years in prison could have done if the women had supported the men.

The powers-that-be were disconcerted when Black mothers, wives, and daughters and Black women in general stood by and, in many cases, fought beside their men when they were captured, shot, or victimized by the police and other agents of the government. They were frightened of the potential of Black women to wreak havoc when these women began to enter the prisons and jails in efforts to liberate their men. They were spurred into action when they were confronted with the fact that Black women

were educating their children from the cradle up about the real enemies of Black people and about what must be done to eliminate this ever-present threat to the lives of Black people.

Black men and women have fooled themselves into believing we were “making progress” because Patricia Harris, a Black woman, joined the president’s cabinet and Andrew Young became ambassador to the United Nations. They failed to realize that it is simply politics, American style. There is no real progress being made.

Representation isn't the solution to oppression

We, too, can slay the beast (in our case American racism, capitalism, and sexism) and out of the ashes build a true and independent Black Nation in which we can take our rightful place as women, wives, and mothers, knowing that our children will live to be men and women, and our men will be allowed to recognize their manhood—to support and defend their families with dignity.

It seems that the political scene in America has come full circle and Black people are once again the scapegoats for everything that goes wrong in white America. They no longer feel the need to pacify us with poverty programs and token jobs.

freedom will only be won by the sweat of our brows.

Today, this minute, this hour (as Malcolm would say), I have come to realize that picking up the gun was/is the easy part. The difficult part is the day-to-day organizing, educating, and showing the people by example what needs to be done to create a new society. The hard, painstaking work of changing ourselves into new beings, of loving ourselves and our people, and working with them daily to create a new reality—this is the first revolution, that internal revolution.

Some people declare themselves to be revolutionaries, members of one organization or another, i.e., “I was one of the first Panthers,” or “I used to be a Panther.” They only come out when there is a major celebration where Panthers are on display and live off their former glory, not understanding that it is not about what you used to be, but what are you doing now. They ran a quick race, using all for the moment, grew tired, and gave up. It may take a little longer to do it the hard way, slowly and methodically, building a movement step by step and block by block, but doing it this way is designed to build a strong foundation that

will withstand the test of time and the attack of the enemy.

If we truly are to create a new society, we must build a strong foundation. If we truly are to have a new society, we must develop a mechanism to struggle from one generation to the next. If we truly are to maintain our new society after we have won the battle and claimed the victory, we must instill into the hearts and minds of our children, our people, ourselves this ability to struggle on all fronts, internally and externally, laying a foundation built upon a love for ourselves and a knowledge of the sacrific...