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<h1 id="reader-title">Saturday’s 21st Annual Freedom Fighter
Dinner Tribute</h1>
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<h6><a
href="http://amsterdamnews.com/staff/nayaba-arinde/"><strong>Nayaba
Arinde</strong></a> | 3/2/2017</h6>
<p>Some grassroots activists had hoped that by January
this year former President Barack Obama would have
addressed, if not released, some of the nation’s
decades-long serving political prisoners on his way out
of the White House. Perhaps the likes of Mumia Abu
Jamal, or the Move 9, or Veronza Bowers, or Seth Hayes,
or Jalil Muntaqim. </p>
<p>Alas, it was not to be, except for a joyous Oscar
Rivera, who was released after spending 35 years and
eight months in U.S. prisons.</p>
<p>Still, the fight continues for dedicated advocates and
supporters of men and women imprisoned, some say,
largely because of their Black Panther, Black liberation
and Black self-determining efforts in the 1960s and
1970s. In that regard, The Malcolm X Commemoration
Committee is organizing the 21st Annual Freedom Fighter
Dinner Tribute in Harlem Saturday, March 4, 2017. </p>
<p>“When we say ‘Black Resistance Matters: No Surrender,
No Retreat,’ it’s because neither our captured freedom
fighters, their families or the Movement lawyers and
doctors we will be honoring have done so,” dequi kioni
sadiki (sic) told the Amsterdam News.</p>
<p>The chair of the MXCC added, “This year we honor a
number of unsung legal warriors who have always been
there in court, representing our freedom fighters to the
fullest: Jill Soffiyah Elijah, Joan Gibbs, Florence
Morgan, Bob Boyle, Michael Tarif Warren, Nkechi Taifa,
Susan Tipograph, Lynne Stewart and Eve Rosahn.”</p>
<p>Panther-Zulu King Sadiki “Bro. Shep” Ojore Olugbala
noted, “In Panther language, these lawyers are
‘people’s’ lawyers, or lawyers who have committed
themselves to serving our struggle for our liberation
and to social justice out of their own love for the
people.</p>
<p>“These cases are not the kind of cases that bring
lawyers celebrity status, wealth or fame to their
profiles and in fact, it is just the opposite. They face
and subject themselves to professional hostility just as
our people face institutional hostility for daring to
challenge unjust manner of this order and their
prosecution and persecution of our freedom fighters. It
can have its own set of dire consequences for them and
we need to appreciate them for that as an oppressed
community.”</p>
<p>MXCC Press Officer Zayid Muhammad stated, “This year’s
dinner tribute not only comes on the heels of the loss
of two political prisoners, Abdullah Majid and Mondo Wa
Langa, needlessly dying in custody while still trying to
clear their names, but it also comes on the heels of
outgoing President Barack Obama deciding not to grant
clemency to federal political prisoners Veronza Bowers
and Dr. Mutulu Shakur and deciding not to posthumously
clear Marcus Garvey, our first political prisoner.”</p>
<p>“Over 150 years has collectively been served by these
brave men thanks to COINTELPRO, and look at how this
ended,” said dequi kioni sadiki. “Facing circumstances
like these are almost impossible without committed
lawyers like those who we will honor.”</p>
<p>Organizers have decried the fact that most recently
Obama and a variety of governors have denied petitions
of the likes of long-held political prisoners such as
Shakur, Leonard Peltier, Jalil Al Amin and Jamal, who is
in poor health.</p>
<p>This dinner (now co-sponsored by the National Alumni
Association of the Black Panther Party), was established
21 years ago by Iyaluua Ferguson, wife of late
co-founder and chairman emeritus, Herman Ferguson. This
year the event will be held at the Adam Clayton Powell
State Office Building (163 W. 125th St. at Adam Clayton
Powell Boulevard, Third Floor). Dinner will be served at
4 p.m., and the libation at 5 p.m. Organizers say that
all proceeds go to the commissary accounts of the
political prisoners represented at the dinner.</p>
<p>The cultural presenters to perform at this year’s
tribute will include Harlem’s own elder musician
statesman of the spoken word Bro. Ngoma and Universal
Zulu Nation DJ and revolutionary conscious hip-hop
artist “Spirit Child & The New Black Arts Movement.”</p>
<p>Tickets for this event are $40 in advance and $45 at
the door. </p>
<p>For more information, call 718-512-5008 or email
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:mxcc519@verizon.net">mxcc519@verizon.net</a>. </p>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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