Sunday, January 17, 2010

the war before safiya bukhari & video


The War Before
The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, &
Fighting for Those Left Behind
Safiya Bukhari. Edited by Laura Whitehorn.

Preface by Wonda Jones. Foreword by Angela Y. Davis. Afterword by Mumia Abu-Jamal.


In 1968, Safiya Bukhari witnessed an NYPD officer harassing a Black Panther for
selling the organization’s newspaper on a Harlem street corner. The young pre-med
student felt compelled to intervene in defense of the Panther’s First Amendment
right; she ended up handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car.

The War Before traces Bukhari’s lifelong commitment as an advocate for the rights of
the oppressed. Following her journey from middle-class student to Black Panther to
political prisoner, these writings provide an intimate view of a woman wrestling
with the issues of her time—the troubled legacy of the Panthers, misogyny in the
movement, her decision to convert to Islam, the incarceration of out spoken
radicals, and the families left behind. Her account unfolds with immediacy and
passion, showing how the struggles of social justice movements have paved the way
for the progress of today.


"She was a warrior-woman who did everything she could to free her people and to free
political prisoners." assata shakur

http://www.feministpress.org/books/safiya-bukhari/war

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