Blossom of Thought

Sister Assata Shakur transitioned to be with the ancestors on September 25th, 2025 in Cuba aged 78. In this episode we pay tribute to this giant of the African world and our guest is Ahjamu Umi - a dedicated activist/organizer/author who has engaged in on the ground work throughout Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and throughout the U.S. for 4 decades now. His latest work is "A Guide for Defense against White Supremacist, Patriarchal, and Fascist Violence" - it's a manifesto designed to provide guidance for how to organize neighborhoods on a block by block basis. He is also a longtime organizer with the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AAPRP). Ahjamu explains who sister Assata was/is, her coming to consciousness, her conflict with the injustice system of the US, her prison life and birth of her daughter while in prison, her unjust conviction in 1973 for allegedly killing a New Jersey state trooper, her 1979 political asylum in Cuba and Ahjamu’s visit with sister Assata in Cuba in 1994. Finally, Ahjamu states: “the revolution is an act of love” - commenting on Assata’s poem on Love in page 130 of her book (Assata: An Autobiography).

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains:...” - Assata Shakur

Find Ahjamu's blog where he writes extensively politics and economics at: https://www.abetterworld.me/blog and his weekly YouTube program - Our Ancestors Voices - at https://www.youtube.com/@umifam

Onyesonwu Chatoyer rejoins me for this episode and we discuss Patriarchy. Onyesonwu is A Cadre and organizer with the AAPRP, editor with Hood Communist (an anti-imperialist online publication), on the national coordinating committee of the Venceremos brigade (an organization opposing the U.S. embargo and travel ban, supporting normalized relations and recognizing Cuba’s accomplishments).

We talk about the challenge that silent patriarchy creates a culture of fear in those who have to face it daily; the nature, mechanisms, and manifestations of systemic patriarchy, its structural and ideological force; women trauma and patriarchy; and that the toxic nature of patriarchy and sexism can exist without men being present.

Ogadinma Kingsley Okakpu, PhD’d in Biomedical Sciences, and currently working as a research scientist in the biotech industry joins me to talk geopolitical economics today. We analyze the relevancy of Lenin whose analysis in "The Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism" ( Chapter 8 of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism) remains deeply relevant today, as many of the tendencies he identified have intensified under neoliberal globalization and financialized capitalism. In this episode we break down 2 of 5 of his key arguments in the chapter and how these apply to the contemporary world: a) parasitism and the rise of the rentier class and financialization, and b) the division of the world into creditor vs. debtor nations. We intend to wrap the other 3 arguments in a near-future episode.

Treasurer General of the People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO - one of Swaziland political oppositions) political analyst, and a  vibrant activist, Velaphi Mamba  - Harvard Graduate - joins me in this episode to discuss and analyze the US deportees to Swaziland. The United States sent five immigrants, alleged to have been convicted of serious crimes, to the African nation of Swaziland. These deportees are reported to be from Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos.

We have Part 3 of the history of the All African Women Revolutionary Union (AAWRU), a women’s wing of the AAPRP. Sister Moya Mzuri, covers another 10+ years of the history from the 10th Anniversary of the AAWRU in 1990 and beyond the year 2000. 

Post 1990 the AAWRU created a section on women in cadre political book lists and Integrating readings on women in all sections. Some sisters relocated to the Caribbean to build chapters and organize in the Virgin Islands by 1986-87. Others made the revolutionary leap to live and organize in Azania South Africa to assist in the establishment of an AAPRP chapter.

The AAWRU 20th anniversary Union Conference was held in Guinea Bissau, West Africa in November 2000. And through the chaos of an attempted coup d’etat in Guinea Bissau at the time of the meeting, our sisters and brothers from Azania South Africa, Guinea, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Britain and the Americas, continued to meet and work and pledged that no reactionary force will stop the unity and liberation of African People!

The Union has also supported African people’s struggle for self determination by partnering in agricultural projects in Guinea Bissau and Ghana in the 1990s, and continued to build Africa study programs for African youth. They also established the Miriam Makeba hospital project in the 1980s, and worked on women’s clothing projects in Sierra Leone and the Gambia, supported schools in Sierra Leone and Ghana.

This is Part 2 of the history of the All African Women Revolutionary Union (AAWRU), a women’s wing of the AAPRP. My guest, sister Moya Mzuri, covers 10 years of the history from the inception of the AAWRU to its 10th anniversary. These are the highlights of the record:

•1980 - Central Committee mandates the creation of the AAWRU; Post African Liberation Day Regional Task Force created to found the Union; Union founded in CO, Ohio  and elects Maisha Washington at the conference.

•1982 - Women & Society reading @ January ’82 Central Union & Regional Coord. Mtg; Decision of Union to have Assembly State Structure; Union attends National Women’s Congress in Grenada; AAWRU members elect Mawina Kouyate as AAWRU coordinator and Moremi Hunt to 1st elected CC.

•1985 - 5th Anniversary Union Seminar in NY (Line & Feminism topics); Union delegation attends International Conference on Women in Kenya.

•1986 - Union & Kwame Ture Party delegation to Libya in defiance of Regan’s EO banning travel to Libya; 2 Union members selected for Libya student Scholarship; Union member moves to Bissau, cadre engage in critical ideological work to produce the paper, “The African Mind” calling for Social Revolution.

•1987 - Another Union member moves to Bissau then to VI a few months later

•1989 - Union UK member attends PAC Women’s Conference in Azania; AAWRU reps attend 20th anniversary of Jamahyria in Libya.

•1990 10th - Anniversary of UNION held in London (a call for Social Revolution).

Sister Moya Mzuri of the All African Women Revolutionary Union (AAWRU), a women’s wing of the AAPRP, speaks to me on the general history of the AAWRU. Sister Mzuri joined the AAPRP in 1976 - some 4 years before the establishment of the AAWRU. In this episode, the first of a couple to come documenting the history of the AAWRU, she speaks about the conditions that necessitated the launching of the AAWRU, and why the AAWRU was not formed immediately after the above ground announcement of the AAPRP in 1972. She concludes by highlighting the most noteworthy advocates for the establishment of the AAWRU. Episode 2 will deal with the historical development of the AAWRU to the present day with the crowning event being its 10th Anniversary on February 28th, 1992 at Manchester, England - the same place the 5th Pan-African Congress was held.

Minister Mimut Nuhu of the House of Sankofa, California, and cadre of the AAPRP is the guest in this episode. The subject is Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977), a woman characterised by RESISTANCE,  a prominent civil rights activist, voting rights advocate, and leader in the fight for racial and economic justice in the United States. Born in rural Mississippi to sharecropper parents, she experienced poverty and racial oppression firsthand, which fueled her lifelong commitment to activism. This episode should be listened to together with the previous one on Ida B. Wells.

This episode covers Chpt 2 of the book Appropriate Technology Manifesto. Author, John Trimble, presents historical materialism (HM) as the application of dialectical materialism to society, production and reproduction, i.e., HM offers a materialist theory to examine the socio-economic impact of technology. According to John, those in charge of production guide technology development to maintain and enhance their control over resources. That is, the dominance of the conquest mentality and the capitalist class continues to shape technology policy. By extension, the workers are weakened and continue to be exploited. In all this, the biggest challenge is to overcome the dominance of conquest mentality, so that technology development causes further inequalities and destruction of life and the planet. So, John offers suggestions on how dialectics between forces of production can improve relations of production and empower people through appropriate technology.

From the House of Sankofa California, minister Mimut Nuhu rejoins me today to shine a spotlight on Ida B Wells, an anti-lynching crusader, a civil rights pioneer, a person known for her fearless activism amid systemic oppression, and a relentless advocate for justice. We know so much about lynching in the Southern states such as Mississippi because of our ancestor, Ida - the champion of justice - whose mantra was: "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." Mimut passionately highlights the gruesome and inhumane crimes against people of African descent in North America, particularly in the southern states.