Duguma wins major court victory: Without a fight it can’t be no struggle

In: SF Bay View, August 20, 2012

We as New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist Freedom Fighters have won a major court victory toward throwing off the shackles of mental oppression. The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco has ruled in a 3-0 decision that alleged members and associates of the New Afrikan revolutionary leftist organization titled the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) and all New Afrikan prisoners have a First Amendment right to expression of their United States constitutional rights to speak to the New Afrikan nationalist revolutionary man ideology. The California Prison Intelligence Units (PIU), i.e., the Office of Correctional Safety (OCS) and the Investigative Services Unit (IGI), have now been instructed to comply with the ruling by Justice James Lambden.

These are clearly our political beliefs, synonymous with the various ideological developments:

New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalism (NARN),

New Afrikan Nation (NAN),

New Afrikan Nationalist Revolutionary Man (NANRM),

Black Revolutionary Nationalism (BRN),

Revolutionary Nationalism (RN),

Black Nationalism,

New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist Freedom Fighter (NARNFF),

New Afrikan Ethnic Group (NAEG),

New Afrikan Revolutionary Guerrilla Nationalist Resistance Movement (NARGRM),

New Afrikan Socialist Man/Woman (NASMW).

They are stated in the Writ of Habeas Corpus, Case No. HCPB 10-5298, dated Dec. 26, 2010 and the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco’s Case No. A131276. Three justices ruled unanimously against Pelican Bay State Prison and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation personnel G.D. Lewis, K.L. McGuyer, J. Silveira, G. Wise, K.J. Allen and D. Foster.

Yes, my Brothers and Sisters, we have only begun to struggle for our ideological beliefs on all fronts. Therefore, file your grievances, complaints and direct your claims to the state and federal courts forthwith!

Following is a declaration that I personally believe was very instrumental in winning this case due to James T. Campbell establishing clearly our New Afrikan struggle here in Amerika since 1619.

I can only hope that this ruling can allow the many New Afrikans throughout this nation, held in these prisons, general populations as well as solitary confinement torture units, to express our New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist ideology free of any attacks by overzealous prison intelligence units.

United we stand!

Mutope Duguma

Declaration of James T. Campbell

1. I am over 18 years of age and fully competent to make this declaration. I have personal knowledge of the matters described here unless otherwise noted.

2. I am currently the Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History at Stanford University. My research focuses on African American history and the wider history of the black Atlantic. I am particularly interested in African American intellectual and political history, including the long history of interconnections and exchange between Africa and America.

3. In my quarter century teaching at Stanford University, Brown University, Northwestern University, and the University of the Witwatersrand I have taught the following courses: Slavery and Freedom in American History; The Politics of Retrospective Justice; The Harlem Renaissance; History and Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement; The Life and Work of W.E.B. Du Bois; Celluloid America: History and Film; as well as survey courses in American and South African history. My curriculum vitae is attached as Exhibit A.

4. I was contacted by the Prison Law Office to review a letter dated April 11, 2010, written by James Crawford, along with some of his other writings. I was asked if I could determine whether the contents of the letter and, in particular, the terms “New Afrika” and “New Afrikan Nationalist Revolutionary Man” communicated genuine political ideas about Black Nationalism in the context of African American history, which is an area I have studied extensively.

5. After reviewing the letter carefully, I reached the conclusion that Mr. Crawford is rooted in a political tradition with deep roots in African American intellectual and political history, a tradition that stretches from the first African emigration movements in the era of the American Revolution, through the classical Black Nationalist tradition of the nineteenth century, and extending through the twentieth century in such incarnations as Marcus Garvey Universal Negro Improvement Association, the Black Panthers, and the Republic of New Afrika. The language that Mr. Crawford uses to communicate his ideas reflects a thorough immersion in and understanding of this history and ideological tradition.

6. Mr. Crawford’s use of the terms “New Afrika” and “New Afrikan” are consistent with the movement in the 1960s and 1970s to allow African Americans the right of self-determination to decide whether to form a Republic of New Afrika in the South. The Republic of New Afrika was one of the movements that popularized the usage of Afrika with a “k.”

7. As is characteristic of Black Nationalist thought in American history, Mr. Crawford’s letter does not appear to trace back to a single source but rather reflects a synthesis of a range of ideologies and movements stretching over the entirety of American history, with particular emphasis on the Black Nationalist movements of the 1960s and early 1970s.

8. Although I have no personal knowledge of what Mr. Crawford was trying to communicate in his April 11, 2010, letter apart from reading it, in my judgment he is a serious political thinker using terms such as “New Afrikan” and “New Afrikan Nationalist Revolutionary Man” that were ubiquitous in Black urban life in the 1960s and 1970s and that to my knowledge have no particular connection to prison gangs.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed July 3, 2011, in Palo Alto, California.

Mutope Duguma, a frequent contributor to the Bay View, is the author of “The call: Hunger strike to begin July 1,” “Pelican Bay SHU prisoners plan to resume hunger strike Sept. 26,” “We are willing to sacrifice ourselves to change our conditions,” “They took the 15 of us hunger strikers to ASU-Hell-Row,” “We’ve taken their power away by uniting as one,” “The solitary confinement profiteers“ and many more. Send our brother your congratulations and some love and light: Mutope Duguma (s/n James Crawford), D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532.