A Citypaper.net exclusive:Remembering fallen activist Kuwasi Balagoon.

http://www.citypaper.net/articles/2006/12/21/free-at-last

by Jessica Loughery

Published: Dec 21, 2006

Candles burned and the scent of incense flowed as talkative activists squeezed chairs around small tables at Saturday’s Kuwasi Balagoon Memorial Dinner. Photocopies of a largely unavailable collection of writings by and about Balagoon titled A Soldier’s Story were passed out and read. Former Black Panthers, younger anarchists and socially minded students met and spoke of change.

Philadelphia Anarchist Black Cross (ABC) organizer Nicole Roskowski recognized this spectrum of individuals in her opening speech. Encouraging disregard for divisions of race, economic upbringing and even political views, she underlined the point: celebrating the life, work and writing of anarchist Kuwasi Balagoon.

Born in Lakeland, Md., in 1946, Balagoon dove headfirst into radical politics as a 17-year-old American soldier in Germany fed up with racism. He formed a collective on his base called the De Legislators. Back in the U.S., he joined the Black Panthers, then the Black Liberation Army and the New Afrikan Anarchists. Spending much of his last 20 years in jail for rebellious and radical activities — including his part in the expropriation of an armored car in 1981 — he died of an AIDS-related illness during his final 75-year sentence at Auburn Correctional Facility in Auburn, N.Y.

While in prison, Balagoon married his devotion to direct action with anarchist ideas, producing essays that speak to anarchists like the members of Philly ABC, who focus on connecting political prisoners with their families and communities. The organizers hoped this memorial dinner would raise awareness of Balagoon’s thoughts on creating effective counter cultures.

Held at Lava on Lancaster Ave., the evening commenced with an ancestral libation ritual conducted to underscore the importance of ancestors to today’s collective efforts. Sharifa Malik, a Yoruban spiritual guide known by her spiritual name Sha’Ifa Ma, dimmed the lights, lifted a pitcher of water and asked everyone to voice the names of those who had died in revolutionary struggle.

Balagoon’s name was offered first and water was poured for him, followed by Nat Turner, W.E.B. DuBois, Tupac Shakur and others. Each name brought murmurs and nods, along with a chant of “ashé,” a Yoruban word meaning “so let it be done.”

Balagoon’s fearlessness provided a common thread among the speakers that followed. Graduate student and writer Dan Berger, anarchist and former Black Panther Ashanti Alston, activist and poet Walidah Imarisha and writer Kazembe Balagun offered poetry, essays and general commemoration that centered on Balagoon’s determination — in the face of prison, illness and finally, death — to free his people from an oppressive system.

Alston, co-chair of the Jericho Movement, a Jamaica, N.Y. organization similar to Philly ABC, spoke as a comrade who shared goals with Balagoon. “If we’re going to be free, we have to take risks,” he said, noting that Balagoon would have gotten along with Harriet Tubman. He said as humans we all experience fear, but Balagoon’s life teaches us to move forward for freedom, concluding, “I wouldn’t be who I am today without Kuwasi Balagoon.”