By Chief Oju

On the morning of Tuesday, July 19th, 2022 the Fayetteville Police Department, SWAT and the FBI ambushed the Atlanta headquarters of the Black Hammer Party. By the end of the day, one Hammer was shot and killed by the police. His name is AP, our party’s Minister of Defense. And he was 19 years old. And this isn’t the first time a revolutionary movement was attacked–via mind (propaganda), body (our soldiers), and spirit (the people).

Marcus Garvey was a Jamaican revolutionary who founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (U.N.I.A.). He was responsible for creating the largest African organization in history, having millions of members across the world: Africans in the u.s., Africans in Panama, Africans in Ghana, everywhere. He was a charismatic speaker, stood strong in his beliefs and didn’t budge for anyone, even when he got money from the Ku Klux Klan to get his people back to Africa. One of his biggest detractors, W.E.B. DuBois, used to hate Garvey for his popularity and vigor, even to the point of just calling Garvey ugly, dark and fat. Jealousy a bitch ain’t it? Marcus Garvey wanted to instill pride in African people, and more than that, he wanted to instill a pride that pushed people to work for their liberation and land. This was enough to inspire Earl and Louise Little to be leaders in their local U.N.I.A. chapter, which was enough to inspire their son Malcolm X to become a revolutionary leader, which was enough to inspire Huey P. Newton to become a revolutionary leader. Marcus Garvey, the creator of the red, black and green flag, the PAN-AFRICAN FLAG, despite his petit-bourgeois enemies and kindness and faith in the people that let some snakes come in and foil the Black Star Line, was one of the most important people to pass on the torch of revolution. In 1925, the government and FBI under the new leadership of a young J. Edgar Hoover (who would later work to destroy the Black Panther Party) got Garvey convicted of mail fraud of all things and imprisoned him in Atlanta.

There he wrote to his followers:

“My work is just begun, and when the history of my suffering is complete, then future generations of Negroes will have in their hands the guide by which they shall know the ‘sins’ of the twentieth century. After my enemies are satisfied, in life or death I shall come back to you to serve even as I have served before. In life I shall be the same: in death I shall be a terror to the foes of Negro liberty. If death has power, then count on me in death to be the earthquake, or a cyclone, or plague, or pestilence, or as God would have me, then be assured that I shall never desert you and make your enemies triumph over you. Would I not go to hell a million times for you?”

Hammers will go to hell a million times, but we come back to fight for the people another day! And the colony has tried to bring hell down onto the revolution.

That morning on July 19th, Hammers were descended upon by the Fayetteville Police Department and SWAT who over loudspeakers told everyone to come outside. One comrade was already walking the dog outside and got tackled down by police. Everyone came outside the house, except Minister of Defense AP. Hammers called to him, tried to get him out, but police said they’d go in and sweep the house. This ambush came from a call from someone from the streets that was being sheltered in the house and was starting the work of housing, feeding and clothing the homeless. When he realized he wasn’t down with the mission of serving our poor Black and Brown people during a worldwide food shortage, record unemployment and more, he was asked to leave the house since it is a home for homeless revolutionary leaders and comrades. He became belligerent. It was then he made that call, putting the lives of homeless men and women in danger. Everyone waited outside the house, not knowing what the police were doing or whether or not they were in the house yet and not knowing if AP was safe. Within the hour, several cars of FBI agents arrived at the house. The investigation continued and Hammers waited and waited. And waited. Media came. More pigs came. And as this went on, Commander Gazi stayed live on Facebook to keep the people informed and to keep the people aware because we know PIGS LIE. Anyone who claims to be against this system of oppression should ALWAYS KNOW PIGS LIE. Who believes a pig but a pig? And so the people had to be shown what was happening as comrades waited for answers. The Facebook lives had stopped as FBI agents and other investigators started questioning Hammers each separately inside individual cars without any attorneys present. In mid-afternoon, 11Alive, Atlanta’s NBC-affiliate, did an interview with Commander Gazi. It was in this interview that reporter Doug Richards informed Commander Gazi for the first time that Minister of Defense AP was shot and killed.

Commander Gazi pushed through to talk about the work Black Hammer has done for the homeless of Atlanta and how AP was a part of that work, changing the lives of people fighting addiction, facing horizontal violence, and dying on the streets that Mayor Andre Dickens makes more dangerous every day. A few hours later, Commander Gazi is arrested which is astounding as they were free to walk around for nearly twelve hours before that in front of Fayetteville police, SWAT and the FBI. It is clear that they wanted the day to build up a case, even pitching a tent on the front lawn to work on it. They had nothing at morning and by night they had two leaders of the revolution in custody and one leader bleeding dead on the floor. And like the parasite he is, the one who made the original call to 911 stuck around and ransacked the house to steal whatever resources were left for the homeless people of Atlanta that the pigs didn’t already take. He even stole AP’s chain and Keno’s late grandmother’s watch, flaunting it on social media. He got our revolutionary leaders killed and arrested with the assistance of the colonial state. Colonialism breeds monsters like this, but this monster helped coordinate an attack on the revolution. And that crime is unforgivable no matter how much the colony bred that colonial parasite.

There are only two sides to this: the side of the pig and the side of the people. The side of the pig fabricates rumors, lies, and creates deception. The side of the pig always makes excuses for the police, believes the mass media, and loves the colonizer. Those on the side of the pig tell themselves that the revolutionary had what was coming to them (“Well, Malcolm preached that violence and he got it!”). Those on the side of the pig use the pig for power because they don’t want or don’t see the power of the people. The side of the pig are the petit-bourgeois sellouts, the Black and Brown people who got that degree and are gonna make that bag. The side of the pig is the colonizers who fight to keep the resources of stolen land around the world and the colonizers who steal but claim they will lead a revolution to stop the theft, all while calling the pig on the people they’re stealing from! It’s the useless academics, white anarchists, business people, Black Lives Matter mansion-buying thieves. Those on the side of the pig laugh at a 18 year-old African boy backed into a corner by pigs with guns. Those on the side of the pig are the enemy.

The side of the people builds power and unity among the poor and working class colonized people of the world. The side of the people is love, drops hard truths, does whatever it needs to by any means necessary to work toward liberation. The side of the people works, does labor, dedicates life to survival whether forced to on the streets or forced to by history. The side of the people are the homeless of Woodruff Park who two weeks ago stopped the pigs from arresting a mentally different Black teenager from getting arrested. The people yelled, the people shouted together in UNITY and the pigs backed off! The side of the people is VICTORIOUS. The side of the people loves our people fiercely and with an undying faith that tells us that even though there will be betrayal–we are historical dialectical materialists, we know there will be betrayal–justice will come and victory will be won by the masses of the people. Our people are a good people, and those on the side of the people know that and believe that wholeheartedly. The side of the people is our mothers working three jobs to feed the kids while sick with COVID, the side of the people is that brother in jail because the pigs keep putting drugs in his hood, the side of the people is the woman at the border who got her uterus torn out. Those on the side of the people weep at the fear an 18 year-old African boy must’ve felt when backed into that corner by pigs with guns, all the thoughts in his head of all the African people who die at the hands of these demons. The people mourn a warrior, a king, a revolutionary. The people don’t mourn the pig. The Black Hammer Party is on the side of the people.

Garvey. Malcolm. The Black Panther Party. And now the Black Hammer Party. Regardless of what one may think, historical dialectical materialism (which just means learning from patterns of the past), shows us that Black Hammer is on the trajectory of victory for the people. Nothing happening surprises any of us because it happened before to the very revolutionaries that many of our enemies sanctify. Denying that is just denying the patterns of history which is not a good trait for anyone who wants to change the world. We are on the path of victory, and we will free Commander Gazi, Colonel Keno and get justice for Minister of Defense AP. There is only forward.

Garvey from that Atlanta prison said:

“Again, I say, cheer up, for better days are ahead. I shall write the history that will inspire the millions that are coming and leave the posterity of our enemies to reckon with the hosts for the deeds of their fathers. With God’s dearest blessings, I leave you for a while.”

Well Black Hammer got at least one difference with Garvey. We ain’t leaving. We’re still here.

Call 770-461-6353 to demand the release of Commander Gazi and Colonel Keno. You can donate to $BlackHammerOrg on CashApp to support us through this time so we can make sure we have resources for legal assistance and to continue to give resources to the homeless. Yes the work continues. We are revolutionaries.