{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/ng4gm83n29/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Ashanti Alston: \"[We have to be] involved in a total struggle\""]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/778/original/Untitled_design.png?1768849407","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Duration"]},"value":{"en":["03:18:52"]}},{"label":{"en":["Publisher"]},"value":{"en":["Grassroots Thinking"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright © Community Movement Builders\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Alston, Ashanti (Interviewee)","Rollins, Dartricia (Interviewer)","Veal, Erica (Editor)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2025-07-13 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English (primary)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Audio"]}},{"label":{"en":["Holding Repository"]},"value":{"en":["Community Movement Builders"]}},{"label":{"en":["Genre"]},"value":{"en":["Oral history interviews"]}}],"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCopyright \u0026copy; Community Movement Builders\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Grassroots Thinking"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Grassroots Thinking"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/778/original/Untitled_design.png?1768849407","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/297/401/small/Ashanti_Hero_8.png?1772823453","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - 2025-07-13-Ashanti_Alston-Oral_History.wav"]},"duration":11932.78984,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/297/401/small/Ashanti_Hero_8.png?1772823453","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-grassrootsthinking.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/297/401/original/2025-07-13-Ashanti_Alston-Oral_History.wav?1763142814","type":"Audio","format":"audio/wav","duration":11932.78984,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Ashanti's Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Ashanti Alston - Oral History","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=0.0,0.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e All right. My name is Dartricia Rollins, and I am interviewing Ashanti Alston for an oral history project on behalf of Community Movement Builders, a member based collective of Black people creating sustainable, self determining communities through cooperative economic advancement and collective community organizing. Today is Sunday, July 13th, 2025 and we're conducting this oral history in a not-yet named community center in Providence, Rhode Island. The purpose of this oral history collection is to document and preserve the life histories of veteran members of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army. By sharing about their lives and experiences in political organizing, narrators will contribute to a collective memory and reflect on the similarities and differences in the landscape today and how they have remained committed to movement work over decades.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=0.0,56.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Now, Ashanti, can you please introduce yourself by saying your name, age and any work that you're currently involved in.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=56.0,65.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e My name is Ashanti Alston. I'm 71 years old. I live here in Providence, Rhode Island, and my present work is as advisory board member for the National Jericho Movement, which continues to fight for the freedom of political prisoners, prisoners of war in the United States. I'm also a board member of the Grassroots Movement Center in Vermont. And I am a part of this informal collective here in Providence that has no formal name, working on this space here in South Providence, which is primarily Black and Brown folks, to turn this space into a movement community center. That's the basis of my work right now, and that also involved working with the Building Circle, which our goal is to help find housing for people that need housing, especially by helping families turn certain spaces in their homes into living spaces that would directly work to provide housing for people that need it, particularly movement folks who been doing the work and may find themselves homeless, houseless, etc.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=65.0,153.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you for the introduction.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=153.0,154.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I should probably add too, that I am a part of another informal circle of Black anarchists and anarchists of color, where we're trying to figure out ways to be more effective as anarchists in these different movements. So that– I mentioned that too, because that becomes very important, because I think that we have ways to help confront some of the internal difficulties that our movements have around sexism, hierarchy, and just trying to envision what this life could be like here, without capitalism, without all the negative isms, we need to envision more.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=154.0,209.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you, and I need you to introduce yourself. Your name again the way that you said it to me earlier.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=209.0,217.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, okay. Well, you know, Ashanti Alston, Michael Maurice. People from my hometown know me as Michael. Outside of my hometown, they know me as Ashanti, but my hometown, Plainfield New Jersey, is known as the land of Parliament Funkadelic.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=217.0,239.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Alright.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=239.0,239.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And it's important that people know that, because we are the funk, and everybody got funk. That revolution must have that kind of spirit. So, proud to say, Parliament Funkadelic is a part of my background.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=239.0,256.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dartricia Rollins \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI love it. Alright. So to kind of ground us, I would like you to– Say, who would you like to dedicate your oral history to?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=256.0,272.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, my God. I heard that question. I hear it. It makes me think of all my comrades who are no longer here with us physically, who are either killed in battle or died in prison, or, you know, just life, but that memory of how we fought together, so definitely for them. It’s particularly comrades like Kimu Olugbala, Seth Hayes, Albert Noah Washington, Martha Pitts. So many I could just go on and on. So, me still doing this work now, and it's like they're constantly with me, you know, and hopefully in that ancestral realm, they okay with me that I'm meeting some approval, because I am definitely trying to carry on in that spirit. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=272.0,339.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Alright, so we're gonna start early on. And, can you tell me when and where were you born and who raised you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=339.0,352.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, well, Plainfield. Plainfield, New Jersey. It's between Newark and New Brunswick, a small city, and so the Black community is small. There's particular areas where most Black folks live. I was born in Muhlenberg Hospital and was raised in the West End, which is the main area where most Black folks live in Plainfield. I have two brothers, two sisters. I am the baby, and when we are together they still treat me like the baby in the family. My father was a minister– Baptist minister. But it's interesting that before he became a Baptist minister, we all belonged to what is known as the Church of God and Saints of Christ, which is a Hebrew Israelite church. Not to be confused with those individuals, organizations that dress in all the flamboyant stuff, with the spike belt buckles and the different things and may be very insulting on certain street corners to people going by. We are– that is not us. And I say that because sometimes when you say Hebrew Israelite or Black Hebrew Israelite, that's the association that people makes. But our church was founded in the late 1800s by an African who had escaped from slavery, joined the Union Army, made his way out West and– at the Midwest, and at certain point had a revelation that he said God told him to bring your people towards prophetic Judaism. So right now it's, it's, if it's not the oldest Hebrew Israelite church or church that follows a prophetic Judaism it's one of the oldest, and that's what my family comes out of, and my mother's side is still members, and I actually rejoined the church maybe bout 10-15, years ago.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=352.0,495.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=495.0,495.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=495.0,501.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e What's your date of birth?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=501.0,504.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e February 16, 1954","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=504.0,507.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dartricia Rollins \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAlright. So tell me about your parents and what it was like growing up.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=507.0,515.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Like I said, my father was a– my father was a minister. He– after a certain point that they moved, they moved towards the Baptist church. My father was also a former boxer, so his sons in particular had to learn how to fight, you know, but it was never– what the fighting was like, it was really like self defense. But we were also very athletic, and that was definitely from my father. He still had weights around. He still had, you know, things like that. And he made sure that we knew how to use the weights and the stuff like that. So we also got good in certain sports, especially track and field, you know. As far as the church, you know, he was never like that strict religious parent, like we had to go every Sunday. We didn't, and it didn't seem to have been a problem. But you know, we was definitely part of that Baptist church. I know I liked it. My mother, at a certain point, my father had his own church. Of course, she's the first lady, and she liked that title. And I– so I grew up with that. Always, they always serving. Whether it's my father preaching or the community activities that the church does, you know when the congregation, you know, comes in and they're serving food and, or whatever the event. So I'm growing up with that sense that you're serving people. This is the thing I liked about the Black Panther Party, that we're servants, right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=515.0,621.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So this is coming up, I mean, this is like the 60s. When it gets to the 60s, there's all the Civil Rights movement stuff. You see it on the television. And I tell people, you know, back then, it was Black and white television. There ain't that many channels, maybe six, but you're going to get the news and you're seeing, you know the sit down strikes, or they're occupying some restaurant to demand service. You hear the voice of Martin Luther King [Jr] and other people. And it's not like I understood it all, but as I'm, this is maybe like 10, 11, 12, the older I get, I am starting to understand more. So, you know, this is important.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=621.0,669.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e There was at some point that my, I remember with my mother, we went to, me and her, went to some demonstrat– It was a march to city hall. I don't even remember what it was about, but it was the whole experience, like you're marching with other people for something. I don't even remember what the issue was, but it just felt good joining this march with these other people for some purpose that was really important by the next year or two maybe, the '67 rebellions happened, you know, and each year, I mean, I'm understanding more. But when them rebellions jumped off, man, I'm like, whoa. Plainfield. H. Rap Brown's book, Die Nigger Die. He said that Plainfield had the most successful rebellion in the United States because no Black people got killed, only a white cop. But the circumstances around it was the Black folks in the Black community had raided a gun manufacturing place right outside of Plainfield. Brought back crates of M1 rifles. They ran the police out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=669.0,755.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e 13 years old I'm watching this, and in my area, it was like the center of the fighting was maybe a half a mile or so away, but we could still hear it. And then, and at a certain point, there was a car, and I've talked about it in other other talks, but everybody's on the porch. This is that thing too about the community, everybody is on their porches or in the streets and they're talking about what's going down. And this black car pulls up almost right in front of our house, and the thing that stood out about it had \"Black Power\" written on the top of the car. I'm like, holy shit. I was proud. They had opened up the trunk and they'd given out stuff from their trunks and stuff, goods that they done took from the stores, you know, democratic shopping, as we call it, in anarchist movement, you know. And I'm like, I want to fight like that. I want to serve my people like that. We all respect the Martin Luther King, Civil Rights movement and stuff, but we had already been hearing about this \"Black Power\" thing. So then you start hearing that name, H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, SNCC [Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee], you know. And then later, not even then, Panthers, later Panthers. But during that time, there was a thing about wanting to fight back, and it was like my age group and the other ones, that's what I think many of us wanted to do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=755.0,853.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So what had happened was like, for six days, and it wasn't but six days, but significant, because it wasn't until the National Guard came in with the tanks, the armored cars and the soldiers, that they was able to retake the Black community, you know. And of course, the main search was, get them guns. Get them guns. So a book like Negroes with Guns by Robert Williams becomes important, you know. But this whole thing around, don't let them– can I say niggas?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=853.0,892.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yep.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=892.0,892.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you. Don't let them niggas get guns, you know. Especially if they're going to organize, you know. And we had heard little stories about the Deacons for Defense and stuff like that. But Robert Williams was making it clear. We have the right and we have the ability to do it. We must defend ourselves. So me seeing that, and seeing what the police, and not the police, the National Guard, was doing. They had cordoned off certain areas, and at a certain intersection just right up the street from where we lived, every black car that was coming through, they would stop. They would make them get out the car. A lot of times, they would not only harass them, but throw them up against the car and maybe arrest them. And we're watching, and I remember one particular time, everybody was just getting really tired of how they was treating Black people.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=892.0,951.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e My brother Joe, who's my oldest brother. So Joe is like six, seven years older. Him and his crew, they started moving in a certain direction. And of course, I want to be moving with my brother. My brother just had to give me a look, though. You know how we are right. Like, no, you stay there. But it was that sense, they getting ready to join this fight. So it so, of course, you know we obey my brother, me and my brother Wayne. He's a year older than me. But I know me and one of my friends, who we called monkey, we would just get our rocks and we get to a certain location and so now every white car we see we like we're trying to pelt them white cars, so we feel like this is our part in the struggle, you know. But then after that, you know, of course, they was rounding up people and because a white cop had got killed. But after that, the community center, which was another few blocks away. We– I know I would find myself going to the community center, because here there's people not only talking about what happened, but what we going to do now, Black people, you know, and I think it was more folks who was leaning more towards the Black Power movement, you know, rather than NAACP [National Advancement for the Association of Colored People], Urban League, stuff like that. It was people that want a much more radical fight back, you know. So I found myself going there and then going to the Nation of Islam. I never joined, but just being in a space where there's like Nation of Islam, they're talking like the anti-racist critique, they just didn't bite their tongue, and they put it into, you know, them terms, \"the devil,\" \"the white man,\" all like that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=951.0,1079.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e That was good enough for me, and that was– and it helped to shape me, you know, because, now I'm trying to read Die Nigger Die. Now I'm trying to read Malcolm's [El Hajj Malik El Shabazz] autobiography. And I was not a reader, not a heavy reader, so I would struggle. But the more that I could get I also saw that I was beginning to understand even more about what this struggle was that we were in, and how long it had been going on. Yeah. And so all of that– my family, like, I don't know if at first they paid much attention to me, but I think– this is so interesting, because I think this is all memoir stuff too at some point I'll get to. But, before all of this, we would all watch television, [The] Ed Sullivan Show, all of the cartoons, and the I Love Lucy and all these, this was like family times, but now Michael is sitting with a book.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1079.0,1151.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And I remember one of them was not the autobiography, but Malcolm's– What was Malcolm's book other than the autobiography? Malcolm X Speaks? I think it was Malcolm X– yeah, because it had the speeches. So at a certain point my father would be like, \"Why you got that book? Put that book down. Get out of here.\" I couldn't sit in the living room no more because, and you know, okay, I get it. He's the minister, but I don't think I understood until later that seeing me read Malcolm and all this other stuff, they like, oh, where is this boy heading? He's going to head to prison or he's going to head to an early death. But that part didn't really register until I was sitting in jail, you know, later on and stuff. It wasn't that they were against me, it was that they was worried about their baby boy, you know. So that was all so at this time, by this time, this was up to, like, 16, 17, 16, at least, because after that, then it was the Black Panther Party. Yeah. But my brother– I think, I actually think the autobiography that was in the house was probably been my brother Joe's. But it was like I would, after that I would just go to the library and take books, which I regret. You know anything that was dealing with Black people, I'd be like, I'm taking it because I want to read more. I want to know more now about Africa. I want to know more about our struggles here. Yeah, tell me more about Nat Turner. Tell me more about Harriet Tubman. Tell me more about the ways we fought back. You know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1151.0,1268.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, yeah. I think that also around this time too– we're in junior high school still, and– two junior high schools, one high school. That's the size of Plainfield, and somehow there was a call put out for Black students from the two junior high schools and high schools to coordinate a march to city hall. And on the day that it was supposed to happen you had people like me and Jihad [Abdulmumit], you know, we going around to the classrooms. We already done left the junior high school. We're on the outside of it, but we at the windows like, “Come on, y'all, come on, y'all, we marching down to the city hall,” and some came. I mean, some didn't, but enough came so that with the other junior high school and the high school, we are now in this march down to city hall to demand Black history.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1268.0,1329.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And that was like my first, personal example of being involved with something that showed the effects of organizing and coming together. So all that about Black Power became real. Like, yeah, we can take over. We can demand and get demands met, you know. But it has to be done in that organized way. Otherwise, you're no threat, you know. So it's like the Panthers and especially Dhoruba [Bin Wahad] would say, you know, “you have to be able to either present a political consequence, or at least let them know that if demands is not met, other things can happen,” you know. So– but then that was Panther Party kind of clarified and helped advance that kind of understanding and whatnot. But that gave me the first personal experience, like we can organize, we can take over. Black history– and when the school year started, we had Black history.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1329.0,1396.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e That's Right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1396.0,1396.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, it was a success, yeah. So if we can do that. What else? What else? You know? The sky is the limit. As we would say, the sky is the limit. So, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1396.0,1409.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Tell me what you were like as a child.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1409.0,1414.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Shy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1414.0,1417.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Could be quiet, except around my friends, that might be when I open up a little bit more. But other than that, shy but very curious, loved sports. Always at the playground. Playground was the place, you know, whether you going to play basketball, softball, football, different things like that. I loved being able to just go around the community, you know. You know everybody in the community, you know, and or in the neighborhood, which could be four or five blocks this way, four or five blocks that way, behind you, whatever you know, everybody, because they either going to be from school, from church. My mother, my mother bowled. She liked to bowl. And a lot of times I'd go bowling. And one of them was, you know, you run into your sixth and seventh grade teachers who were Black, so, you know, you can't act up too much in the sixth and seventh grade, because they know your mama. And when bowling night comes they gone let your mama know how you were, you know. So it was still that kind of relationship, too where folks in the neighborhood could help you to be cool, behave yourself, be respectful, and all like that. That was still there, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1417.0,1515.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And I say that now because I got a 15 year old, 14 year old me and my wife, you know– the neighborhood, we don't let them go around the neighborhood and do all this stuff like we did, you know, on their own. You know, it's like we could do that. And now there's so many restrictions, or many different concerns, but I miss that community part, you know, where you know so many people, and it's all a part of your development, man, you know. I mean, I miss that, but so that was me back then too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1515.0,1552.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e We just explored so much right in the neighborhood, and sometimes, especially me and Jihad would walk–. Jihad was from the East End. I'm in the West End. So there were certain Black areas in the East End too, but the main, the largest Black neighborhood was the West End. Sometimes he would walk to the West End. Sometimes I walk to the East End. Sometimes we just back and forth. And it's all the in betweens and getting to know more of the neighborhood, just exploring. That was a part of the growing up process, man. Today, not so much. And I wish that my kids could– would be able to experience something like that. But it's, yeah, we got to figure out other things to do. But them things become very important. You want to pull your people together you got to be in your community. You got to get to know– they got to get to know you. You know so, but so I was that type like, if it was around my friends, I'm as loud as whatever. If I didn't really know you, I'm quiet. I'm still that bashful person. I just, I'm just, I know how to put that to the side, if I'm doing an interview, if I'm doing a talk, but in other ways, it's still there. It's still there. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1552.0,1641.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e So, I know that Jihad is one of your longest and best friends. I could just be putting that on you. When did y'all, when did y'all meet?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1641.0,1657.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, it had to be Maxson Junior High School. And because we were both on the track team. But I think it was between that, the sports, and those of us who were starting to get this political consciousness that we kind of found each other. Because there was another brother named Bill Davis, who was also that same kind of consciousness. We– at that time, to wear an afro was a big deal. It wasn't yet even like the norm. So if you wore an afro you like– people are still looking at like, whoa. My father did not want me to have an afro, you know, like. But it was a statement, and definitely in support of the movement, you know, and definitely being proud of who you are. So you had people like me, him, Bill Davis with the afros and stuff, and I think that that's a part also how we found each other, and then the track and field, and then I think later, maybe high school was the wrestling. I think maybe– I think Jihad wrestled too, but once we discovered the Black Panther Party that was it. I think that just tied us together for life. And plus the fact that his father was just as curious too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1657.0,1756.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e You know how I don't, I'm not even sure how he remembers this. So this is how I remember it. We were walking like I said we'd be walking anywhere. But it was, it was one street we was on, and the store had the magazine rack on the outside. I don't even know if they do that anymore, but it was a magazine, I don't know if it was Newsweek or Life or one of them, that had a picture of Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, or at least two Panthers on the front. I think it was Huey Newton and Bobby Seale and we looked at it and like– we want to know about them. And I know we shared that with his father. And so his father was just as curious, too. So you know, it was like, “Well, can we go check em out?” And so we– his father just said “hop in the car,” because we knew that they, found out that there was chapters in Jersey City, in Newark, Atlantic City, and this was just New Jersey. But we also knew that, of course, Harlem and Harlem had a chapter, the Bronx had a chapter. There was probably two or three chapters in Brooklyn, you know, and then some Upstate, too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1756.0,1833.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So we went– I remember, we went to the Newark office, Jersey City, Harlem office. I think maybe the Bronx. Every one was them opportunities to ask questions. Every one was an opportunity to pick up literature and to a certain point, you know, allowing us to even sell the newspapers. And I think when they saw that, oh, I think they really want to do this. So when we ask, could we start a chapter, you know, is when they felt like, yes, we'll help you do a chapter. And from there is– particularly comrades from New York would come and just walk us through what it meant to be Panthers. And it was really great, because it's like one, they from New York, you know. So for us, even in this New York, New Jersey thing, you always still kind of see New York as really cool, you know. So the comrades they would come from New York, man, they dressed in that lumpen style, you know, they carried themselves in that lumpen style. And that's how they taught us. And it was like relating to folks in the street, you know, or just people in general. There was a way that you carried yourself.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1833.0,1922.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e This was introducing us to the red book, Quotations of Chairman Mao Tse-Tung. The good thing about the quotations was that there was a whole thing in there about how do you relate to people, how do you treat people? And so this is a part of the study groups and everything. So, in Mao's thing, which the Panther Party adopted, was real basic shit. You don't talk down to people, you treat people with respect. You don't take a needle, a piece of thread from the masses. That is something like the direct language that I'm sure Jihad too will never forget. So it's like, you meet people in their communities, and there was a certain way that you were supposed to like be able to build a relationship with them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1922.0,1972.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And of course, we want to be good Panthers, but it was like with Kimu, who I mentioned before, Twyman Myers. Jihad remembers Twyman much more than me. But they would just like walk with us through the certain neighborhoods. And one of them was where the main area where the rebellion happened, because I used to live in the projects right there, and then we moved a little further up. And so here's the hustlers, here's the working folks and everything like that. And we watched them how they talked. It was cool. It was Panther politics in a language people could understand. It wasn't all them highfalutin words and stuff like that, you know. And so we want to be like them. And they would show us that, yeah, you can talk to anybody, you know. And it was funny because when, when they would go back to New York– so now that's me and Jihad, and a few others we're on our own, so we want to be like them. For some reason, the words didn't necessarily come out as cool as theirs, but we'd be trying, and it was just that it took us doing it more, to get more comfortable and to kind of find your language, you know, and it's so funny, because we know we fumbled with them, words and everything. But the whole thing was around, like, communicate.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=1972.0,2071.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And so after a while like our friends, our high school friends, we were the main ones joining this chapter. And at a certain point we had a storefront. And at this point, so it was mainly high school students and about three, maybe four adults, including Jihad's father. And we established that storefront. We started in, as I remember we started in, the summer. This is where I would want to check with Jihad too. Because I remember starting in the summer, because it wasn't a free breakfast program. I remember starting a free lunch program. And we had this one brother named Blue, who was just back from Vietnam, and he was a chef, so anything we brought him, he turned that into a, just like a gourmet meal for these kids.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2071.0,2127.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But it was also in how we raised the monies to get the food. Was not necessarily Panther approved behavior. Me and Jihad and another comrade, kind of became burglars. So we go to the white folks neighborhoods, which is always better, and we would break in, do our business, and we take stuff out of theirs, take it to the fence and get money, and then we go off to the supermarkets. So that would be like how we would get the foods and stuff and plus, like, selling newspapers and stuff like that. But that almost became the main way we did it. And that and the reason I say it wasn't Panther approved was be wasn't supposed to do stuff like that. Panthers was supposed to, like you stay above, stay in there so you can do the work in the community. Don't be doing no risky stuff when you don't have to. We were young. But in the process, the kids was coming in, you know. And then at a certain point we got another storefront was the free clothing program. Then when school started was me and Jihad and our crew all through the high school doing our stuff.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2127.0,2207.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e At some point, I ran– This is our junior year. I ran for vice president of the student council. Jihad was already one of the leaders of the Black Student Union. I had an Eldridge Cleaver speech that I borrowed from. Didn't think I was going to win this thing. The next day, you had people coming up to us saying, “You won the Vice President, you won the Vice President.” I'm like, “really.” But the sister that was the president, she was, she had politics too, so it was like, wow, we are really in charge of the student thing here from that student council body to the Black Student Union. But there was points where if a comrade got captured or arrested in New York– One time me and Jihad just went into the cafeteria, jukebox, pulled the plug, pulled the tables together, and we standing up on the table like, “We got to support this brother. The police has arrested him on false charges.” We did not care, man, you know, I don't know that. Didn't no security or anything come out, you know. But that's how we were. It was just like we gonna do it, the same way our comrades in other places we heard they would do things, we gonna do it, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2207.0,2301.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e People listened to us, like. I laugh about it now because we was just like off the hook, man. But we were that motivated, and so were other people so it didn't seem to be too strange. We had a 50th anniversary few years ago, and there was people there who remembered when we took over the cafeteria. There was people there who remembered all other kind of things that we did in organizing. It was, it was something because some of some of them were saying like, though they wasn't out there with us, they supported us, you know, and all like that. They understood because by that next school year too– this is all going into the senior year, where the vice president my term and others will start, we wasn't about a month into senior year, and then we got arrested.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2301.0,2367.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e We were going for a burglary. We had got caught in one of our burglar things, but there we got to the courtroom for that. And as soon as we walked in to the court building– we walked into two separate times, but police was waiting, and they charged us with this cop that had got killed in our hometown. And my mother brought me to court, and she just freaked out. I'm like, you know, “Mr. Alston, you're charged for the arrest (sic) of officer so and so and so and so.” My mother just lost it, and then when Jihad came in, the same thing. But the thing was, it's like you just got the two main organizers. And the same thing happened with Panthers in other places. We both were clear why it's happening. But if it wasn't for the fact that we had some decent lawyers there's no telling how that was going to turn out, you know. So one of the lawyers– Jihad had a public defender. My family– the first lawyer that my family contacted was Leonard, I want to say Leonard Weinstein. He was one of Bobby Seale's lawyers, and he got back in touch with my family. He said he couldn't do the case because he had these other cases. Otherwise, he would come.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2367.0,2465.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So then my family was able to get this Black lawyer that had a well known reputation in New Jersey as being one of the top Black lawyers, and one from his firm came to be my lawyer. He was sharp as hell. He was sharp. And so when we had the trial– even though me and Jihad is still clear, like, “Man, they gonna find us guilty.” The death penalty was still in effect, so the prosecutor was clear, if found guilty, I recommending the death penalty. But that lawyer, our lawyers together, but mainly my lawyer, was able to just show this was a classic frame-up. They was using our literature, our books. Man, they had my shit. This is why, even if I highlight something today, I'm very careful about what I highlight, because they had took my shit. They raided our house and took the literature and shit. I had books on guerrilla warfare and all this other stuff. I highlighted this or underlined, that's what they were showing the jury.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2465.0,2539.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So the prosecutor's thing was state of mind, you know, and so me and Jihad is still like, “Man, we are not sitting around waiting for this. We getting out of here.” I don't even remember how we got a hacksaw blade, but we was already cutting the windows, the bars. We not waiting around. But it just so happened that it didn't work. So the day that it went to the jury I'm even telling my girlfriend, she had came up to visit me, this I'll tell you a little bit about her later. I'm telling her, like, “Listen, [I] might be going away for a while.” During that course of that– this was like 14 month period, the Supreme Court had knocked down the death penalty thing. So if found guilty we facing life and all. I'm telling my girlfriend like, “Yo–” I don't know what I told her, but my sister, who was there with her, my sister said, “Shut up.” My sister said, “Shut up. You don't know what's going to happen. We praying for you, you know.” So then after that, it was like a few hours later they came back with a not guilty. Surprised me– all white jury, you know. So you know. We got out. Soon as we got out there was threats coming from the police, you know. So my family sent me to Greensboro, North Carolina. That's my mother's side of the family.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2539.0,2632.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Jihad’s family sent him to Upstate New York. His son still lives. They're known for Kodak. I want to say not Roxbury.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2632.0,2649.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Is it Rochester?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2649.0,2650.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Rochester, Rochester. So he went up to Rochester. His family sent him. He was working with this other revolutionary group. But we just, man, listen, we are tied at the hip, man. So we just stay in touch, you know. So he's working with a group up there. I'm in Greensboro– a certain point I bring my girlfriend down, but I'm only there for about six months, me and her, and then I'm back in Jersey. And then once back in Jersey, we’re regrouping. We're getting that chapter started again. But me and Jihad are always stay in touch, and at some point I go up there to visit to see what they're doing up there. The group he was working with was a really revolutionary group too. Their name was K.N.O.W. Knowledge Needed to Organize Workers. Black group. Very sophisticated. They had businesses. They had community organizing. They had businesses that allowed them to be able to give stipends to their members and stuff. They had– in Jersey, they had a gas station, and I think a store. In Rochester they had a store, I believe, a liquor store, and something else. They was really working. And I've never seen a group able to have that kind of financial basis, like with stores and stuff to help support their members. But the main person, the main– the leader of the group, his name was Bob, forget his last name, but Bob was sharp. He was sharp.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2650.0,2766.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e They had it, I think, in either Jersey or Rochester, they even had a judge supporting them that if any case went before this judge, they ain't had to worry about it. That judge was going to let him go. Because that's how they were working. But then at a certain point, there was a social party. There was a party, and one of the members, if I remember right– one of the members got to drinking too much and got drunk and was acting a little crazy and was waving his gun. Bob takes him outside to kind of cool him out, and he ends up accidentally shooting and killed Bob, you know. And I think that might have been, I'm sure that it hurt the organization a lot, but they were still, Jihad and them, was still doing the work. They was doing gardening. They had community garden stuff going. They had– kept developing the youth group and all like that. And at the same time that they're doing that, I'm still doing my thing with the Panther chapter, but working more out of the Harlem office, as much as in Plainfield. So we were in different places, but we were all– it was just this whole thing about we are still in this together. We're just going to figure out how to pull it together. And at a certain point things will lead up to me going underground, and then finding out that they had already started moving underground too, you know, all that other stuff. I think I might have been a little all over the place, but I'm sure you'll–","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2766.0,2873.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e No, this is perfect. This is perfect. So tell me what it was like for you, organizing in the Harlem chapter and in between?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2873.0,2883.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, the Harlem chapter is where Safiya [Bukhari] comes into play, right. So, the time that I'm back in Jersey and we getting our chapter going we– this is also after the split in the Panther Party. And which is a whole nother story too, because this is even before also the frame up in Jersey happened, because we are all maybe– to go back there. So there's things happening in the Black Panther Party. There's some internal contradictions going on all around democratic centralism, as they was calling it. And people were getting expelled, and me and Jihad, was like we're good Panthers, and we read all the literature and stuff. But there's also you finding that some things wasn't matching up. How are you going to expel Geronimo Pratt? How are you going to expel the Panther 21? You know, how you're expelling these people? And you come to find out that there was, you know, there was Panthers who were being critical of the direction the leadership was going, or the lack of democracy. And every time they go through the channels to raise it, nothing, nothing. The leadership was always Oakland, California and those who were, who were around Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Mainly Huey, because even in comparison with Bobby Seale, like Huey was the person. So, at certain points, both of them in prison, and Eldridge [Cleaver], at another point, and him and Kathleen [Cleaver] was in exile. So a lot of the leadership decisions was being made by David Hilliard and crew, but mainly David Hilliard. But you’re beginning to understand, especially when talking to your comrades close to you, that shit ain't going right out there. And they're not responding to criticism. They're not responding to any effort to have conversations. And folks was already seeing that this was going to lead to something not too good.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=2883.0,3043.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Huey gets out. Shortly after they're putting Huey up in a penthouse. Comrades from New York who would go to Oakland, a lot of it was just to see with their own eyes what was going on, they found like the monies that they were getting from us selling the newspapers all over were being used to not only support Huey, but there was some drug use in here too starting to increase and people were seeing it with their own eyes. Afeni, you find out that Afeni Shakur and others would go to Oakland and they would see it, and then they would come back with the information, because it was clear you couldn't give the criticisms anymore. And their efforts from Oakland would be to send someone from Oakland out to New York to like pretty much take over the chapter. And the New York folks was like, “Uh uhh, You're not taking us over,” you know. So the tension increases, and the kicking people out and all this other stuff. And then Eldridge and Kathleen, the role they played was as the most public, well known figures, were the only ones speaking towards many of our criticisms, you know. And then when it got to that point of this national conversation over the phone between Huey and Eldridge. They fall out over the phone like niggas on the street. They start calling each other names, threatening each other. Next thing you know, there's the split.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3043.0,3156.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And one comrade gets killed on the corner of 125th and Adam Clayton Powell. About three blocks from the Panther office. Next thing you know, one of Huey and them’s people gets killed. He gets killed in New York too, because Huey and them had sent him out to the east coast to get control of the newspaper. He becomes a victim in retaliation for them killing– the Panther who they killed first on 125th is Robert Webb, who was a San Francisco Panther, but was also critical of what's going on with Huey and them. But so he was on the east coast because he pretty much supported some of the voices coming from the east coast. The brother who was killed from Huey's, he was in charge of the newspaper. I'm trying to remember his name now. Anyway, lot of respect, well respected as well. And he gets killed. Now we're like, everyone is armed, the paranoia, everything. So sometimes we got to go to New York for certain meetings, and there was one in particular where they had hooked up with some way where we was in direct contact with Eldridge, Kathleen, and a few other Panthers who was in Algiers [Algeria]. So they're pretty much laying down like we're split. We are still the Black Panther Party, because they like expelling us, and we're like, we're expelling you, you know. But we're going to carry on the work. And the main thing that separated us from Huey's group was that we're going to still do the survival programs. We're going to still do that community work, but we're going to continue to build the underground. You know, a lot of misunderstandings went on that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3156.0,3288.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Because some of the things I read was giving this impression like we all was just going to build the underground. No, we were all going to continue with the community programs and stuff like that. But we were not going to give up on the underground. Whereas, Huey and them was getting– moving more into the electoral politics, kind of reformist stuff, you know. But we was just clear, like, how we're going to proceed, no more central committee. We will just try to figure out something that seems more collective, or what we call Coordinating Committee rather than Central Committee because our experience with even that term, you know, was Huey, and that leadership solidified all that power and was not sharing it. They were supposed to. Jalil [Muntaqim] might even remember more of that, because at a certain point– and Dhoruba speaks to it a lot too, at a certain point, they were supposed to open up that central committee so that Fred Hampton would be on there. I think either Zayd [Shakur] or Lumumba Shakur was supposed to be on there, possibly Afeni and others. But it never happened, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3288.0,3369.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And so just like it wasn't East coast, West coast, it was all about democracy and lack of democracy. You know, the newspapers made it east coast, west coast, you know. But we understood it, and we always had comrades that– because we like, still 17 and all this other stuff, they was still, you know, telling us no one is above criticism. No one is above criticism. And I remember like Abdul [Abdullah] Majid, who we knew as Nicki [Anthony] Laborde– all of them older, been through a lot. Nicki would say to me, “No one is above criticism. Read your red book, read your read your criticism/self criticism doc. No one.” And the whole thing was– not even Huey Newton, you know. So when it happened like we was all paranoid, yes, but all very clear, like this little war might go on. We all need to be able to defend ourselves, but we want to keep this work going.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3369.0,3437.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And I bring up all that because all around this time– I mean, we knew Safiya, we knew she was in that office, but it wasn't until, like after these things, that you begin to see the role that Safiya is beginning to play as basically the person in charge of the Harlem office. And her title was Communications Secretary. So now, when I'm coming to New York, I'm working under her leadership. And it's interesting too, because, you know, I want to be a good Panther. I want to be a good Panther. And part of that was like we were supposed to combat sexism. Now I ain't saying we did a great job, but it's really funny when you look at it, like some people might do better in that than others, but you can still see, like it's still a much male led group, but you can also see that there were women who were in leadership positions and for a 17 year old, it meant a lot to me. It meant a lot to me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3437.0,3511.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I had at that point too– me and Jihad and his father too, one time went to the Panther 21 trial and Afeni is the one on the stand defending herself. And so you seen pictures of her, and you knew about her, but then when you see her, and she's elegant, she carries herself, she speaks. This is the new role, you know, of women in the Party. We were seeing it with the Chinese Revolution, the African liberation movements, the Palestinian struggles. Women are in these leadership roles. So for me, like, I want to be good at this stuff. So it was no brainer, nothing, when Safiya is the person in charge. Clearly knows what she's doing. Clearly trained well, you know. But also so when, when I'm back and forth, it's also beginning to understand that she's also the connection between above and under, you know. And so that's who I'm taking my leadership from. And it just got to the point where her and others are like carrying this struggle forward. They make sure that the Panther offices are doing what they're supposed to do, whether it's in Harlem, whether it's in New Jersey, whether it's in the Bronx, whether it's in Kentucky, wherever. All those who are not aligned with Huey P. Newtons, we're staying together, and at the same time that this underground, this BLA [Black Liberation Army] thing, is still developing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3511.0,3617.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So after a point, Jihad's doing his thing in Rochester. We still back and forth. But now, a certain point, Safiya asks, would I be willing to join the ranks of the Black Liberation Army? She's that person. She's that above ground person that is her role. She had that connection where whatever the needs of the underground is, she fulfills that as best to her ability. That underground also includes those captured who were like, we need some help in getting out of here. And so that's when she approaches me, because the specific mission was to get them out of the tombs. The tombs being officially the Manhattan House of Detention, but it was known as the tombs. So at that point, it's less and less the work in Plainfield, more and more the work in Harlem. But that was how that went. One of the other things about Safiya. Safiya would walk– now that I'm in Harlem, I'm meeting everybody who she works with, especially right where the Harlem office is. There was one sister that lived, I think, in the building, either in the same building where the office was or the building right next to it. I think her name was Mamie. But Mamie was just like heavyset Black woman, older. Loved Safiya. Loved the Black Panther Party. She was also one of them, she ain't gonna let nothing happen to Safiya.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3617.0,3739.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e There was one time Safiya takes me up there to meet her, and she's just gonna– Just to let me know she ain't joking, she pulls out her gun, the older woman, like ain't nobody nothing with BJ, because she ain't known as Safiya. It's Bernice Jones, BJ. And that's the relationship that Safiya had. And all that came from just that Harlem office, but she maintained them kind of relationships. She maintained relationships– There was one brother who was an alcoholic, right. And she maintained that relationship with him, because there were certain things that he was good at getting, you know. And that she knows if she calls on him, alcoholic or not, he's going to do his best to get it for her. So there was that understanding that the people you work with– You work with many kinds of different people, everybody ain't going to be straight, clean, proper, all of that. You also remember there was friendship relationships that you came from, that people who hustled, who could get you things, whether you needed IDs, whether you needed a car jacked or whatever. We had that kind of understanding that was so important that I still see lacking today on what it means to be involved with a total struggle, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3739.0,3829.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Safiya would take me around the neighborhood– it would be certain playgrounds, and this is all– ain't no grass in these playgrounds, all pavement stuff. But in certain playgrounds, they would be these large numbers in white. And so I'm like, why these? What are these numbers here for? Oh, when the helicopters come, it helps the helicopters to identify the area. So this is her also letting me know what the system is doing, what the government is doing. Because they're also going to keep updating their plans to put down rebellions. So if they need to identify the area, they know they get the helicopters, they look ohh. These numbers mean that this area is whatever. And so we need to know that in fighting them so that we know how to organize our communities, you know. So it was on all these levels that– Then other Panthers trained her and others to like, know this, be aware of that, pass that information on so that we all know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3829.0,3897.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And it's that type of thing like I still want people to know, stop having this attitude, like we ain't gone fight. Stop having this attitude that we ain't gotta do surveillance ourselves and be able to counter the things that they're gonna do to contain us. Why do you think they got it in these high rises? It's easy if they surround the high rise. You got how many thousands of people just in one block or one area or one building. What are you going to do? So there was Panthers that was already studying that and figuring out ways to counter containment, you know. So that was the type of thinking that she made sure stayed on everybody's mind in that Harlem office, yeah. And I think if people do read her stuff, and there's a few people that want to do some writings on her, they need to know them things too so they don't limit her, you know. Sort of like they limit Malcolm, they limit Martin Luther King, they limit even Rosa Parks and others. They was much more than we're getting. It was much more to them. So, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3897.0,3978.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e I want to check in with you to see, do you need a break?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3978.0,3983.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, no, I'm good.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3983.0,3983.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. Then we're gone keep going. So you kind of started to hint at this, and I think that was an incredible like description. And you really answered one of my questions, which is how you end up joining the BLA. But you, I want to touch back on this understanding of being at war, and how y'all understood yourselves to be at war, and to the point that it was important to build the underground.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=3983.0,4021.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e That understanding of our history, we were very clear that from the moment these Europeans came on them slave ships to Africa, it's war. You know, it's war. Look at what they're doing to us. They are capturing us. They're finding African leaders or whatever to collaborate, kings, queens, whatever you know, but they're the ones who initiated this. So when we would really understand that the fighting happened from the beginning of that on the slave ships, diving into the ocean, landing on these shores, the fighting always continued. There was really never a disconnect, in a sense, you know. And so us seeing that man was like, we're still at war. This is our war of liberation. For them, it's the continuing conquest, you know. I mean I know I started using the word conquest maybe about 10 years ago or something, because I just think it's the same. There– When you're captured and they throw you into this plantation system, it's a continuing conquest. It's a continuing war on you. They're going to keep you in that position, and now they have to institutionalize it. They have to do it in ways that is going to be daily reenactments of who's in power. And I think us seeing that man was like, there's no compromise with this monster. There's just no compromise.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4021.0,4123.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e You see what they did to the Indigenous nations. You see what they– And continue to do to Indigenous nations. You see what they did to us and continue. And it's in the continuation that we see like our liberation has to be total. So it was not only learning about all the rebellions, but then you started to understand, like in between all the rebellions all these different ways that we kept resisting. There's a book called Putting on Ole Massa. And Putting on Ole Massa was one of the first books I read that gave you details on how Black folks resisted in all kinds of ways. You know, whether it was putting ground up glass in the master's food or figuring out ways to steal food to be able to feed their families, or do other things without the master knowing you know, like them type things. And then you get to see like, yeah, the Panther programs. We're going to feed ourselves. We're going to clothe ourselves. We're going to get medical treatment, all like that. We're going to do these things ourselves the same way that– And them hush harbors and other things when Africans was sneaking off the plantation. Yeah, this is what we got to do.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4123.0,4204.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So from– And it's like I said before, like the 13 year old who sees the rebellions and I know I want to fight. Then here's the Black Panther Party that is like saying we gotta organize to fight. One of the main points, one of the rules in the Black Panther Party– I ain't sure if it was eight, you can't join any army other than the Black Liberation Army. That's in the founding documents of the Black Panther Party. And it became clear that from the beginning Panthers was already putting things in place to develop that capacity. You know, there was already folks moving to find training grounds. There was already folks getting sent to China, Cuba, Algeria and a few other places. That's how when we learn the stories of Sekou [Toure] going to Algeria and meeting up with the PLO, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat and all of them and they giving him and others training in guerrilla warfare. Always that capacity was developing, and the only thing that frustrated it a little bit was the split, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4204.0,4292.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But we understood that we were always to develop the capacity to defend ourselves and to be that kind of military force. The readings of Mao Tse-tung was not only his main red book, but was Mao Tse-tung's military writings. We're also reading Che Guevara on Guerrilla Warfare. We're also studying guerrilla movements that were current at the time. You know, we want to be really clear that we are mostly in urban settings. So it ain't necessarily going to be like Che and them did, you know. It might have been Carlos Maragella's writings that became much more relevant, you know, and stuff. But we was clear that this is a continuation from not only the rebellions, but the Civil War you had, oh what's that brother's name he was in the Civil War. He was trying to, to convince, I believe, Abraham Lincoln to allow him to develop a Black liberation force. I got a pamphlet that I used to print.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4292.0,4371.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dartricia Rollins \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI feel like I might, I might say this, and I might be really wrong. Is it Denmark Vesey?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4371.0,4376.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Not? Denmark, No, that was before.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4376.0,4380.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4380.0,4381.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And I might find it somewhere in here before we go, but, but he was trying to convince Abraham Lincoln and them of the need for a Black liberation force. And then here comes Marcus Garvey, and to see Marcus Garvey's– Them disciplined formations, you know, and a lot of us, you know, especially from the New York area, New Jersey, East Coast, very heavy Marcus Garvey people. It becomes clear that it becomes one of the differences between a lot of us and a lot of Oakland folks, but they did– You probably heard this before, but they didn't like the fact that we took African names, because they would put us into the cultural nationalist categories. Well, you'll hear it. The cultural nationalists, the brother that started Kwanzaa.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4381.0,4439.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Ron Karenga.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4439.0,4439.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Ron Karenga. They would put us into there. Huey and them didn't understand like the cultural differences between those of us in like, the East Coast, West Coast, that we were very much into African culture. That's why you got, you know, Sekou Odinga, you got Mutulu Shakur, and you got a lot of us with African names and stuff like that. But so a lot of us saw ourselves as a continuation of these armed formations in defense of our liberation.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4439.0,4476.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And so when we joined them ranks, man that was just, not only carrying on. But I always say, man, when Safiya [Bukhari] approached me, I was proud. Oh, my God, she thought enough, or they thought enough of me that I might be ready to do this. I'm joining the ranks of the Black Liberation Army. Wow. You know. So it's that thing there. It's like, when you start to see the history and how you're connected to it, it becomes clear, like you got to develop this capacity and get yourself ready. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4476.0,4518.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4518.0,4519.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e [inaudible] I'll get it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4519.0,4525.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e So then you joined the BLA.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4525.0,4527.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And then I joined the BLA. So, Safiya put me in touch with folks. And the folks that she put me in touch with, they was obviously, except for one, first time that they was ever approached like that. The one who wasn't had already been a part of the underground, a woman, right. So it's like, again. I feel like we did the best we could on the sexism, and it's one of the things that I felt like impact me a lot was seeing women in these positions. So all of that macho stuff you got to really figure out how to keep it in check the best we could, you know. But we understood what was being brought together for, and it was specifically to liberate them folks from the tombs, comrades from the tombs. Like, we accepted it. And after that, this is what we were working towards.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4527.0,4598.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e We did the research. We did the– make sure that whatever technical stuff we needed we would get. And that's how we approached it. I'm trying to think of some other– Well, it's interesting. What I can say this is that every cell that came together was independent. We worked on a need to know basis. And it was never a thing like everybody would know everything. As far as the Black Liberation Army was concerned several things helped for us to have never been infiltrated, and one is that we tended to know each other, and the folks who didn't know each other, like they say now, was vetted enough to trust in that process and the need to know basis was that there may be one person in there, that if there's other cells, particularly in the area or whatever, there's sure to be one person who knows how to get in touch with so and so, with so and so. But a lot of times, that was another role that Safiya played.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4598.0,4682.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So when it came time for us to like start finalizing some things, it was the communication we had with the political prisoners, prisoners of war inside you talking about Noah, Albert Noah Washington, Herman Bell, Jalil Muntaqim, the Torres brothers, because they were known as the five at first. So these is all guerrillas, you know, and we relied on their information [laughs]. The first time was– They said there was a tunnel from one of the manhole covers that led right up under the tomb. If you ever see a picture of The Tombs, you would just have, you could even look it up. But you see, it's massive buildings all in the same areas, the federal buildings, the city buildings, like the city jail, the federal jail, all these other court buildings, all in the same area, but there was supposed been a tunnel that led up under them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4682.0,4748.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So one wee morning, nighttime, we go in this area and we actually lift up one of these manhole covers. Somebody goes down and there's nothing there, but some John Q citizen somewhere is like, I'm sure. “Oh, what these niggas doing? Yo, come get em,” you know. So next thing we know, here's the police, and they arrest us, take us to Rikers Island, but the only thing they can charge us with is tampering with the manhole cover, right. So when the newspaper comes out the next day, I believe the newspapers called us the city rats, but they was saying that they knew our background. They said that we were trying to find out how to get into the building right across from where the manhole cover was. It was a city government building that one of the offices held all the plans of every prison in New York. So they figured we was going there, and we sitting in there like shit. I wish we had knew that. That would have been the objective that, you know. So thank you for giving up that information. But so we end up being just a few days in Rikers, and they let us go on our own reconnaissance. But they let us go. We like, Okay, we gotta go back to the drawing board because clearly, this plan didn't work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4748.0,4850.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So then the next plan was, like, we talked with them again inside– They're on trial. Every day, we're able to not only go to the courtroom and visit them, but we’re also able to bring them food. So it got to be a regular like when we go to visit them, we pass the food to the guards, and then we go visit them. Got to be a routine. We're watching the patterns. Chit chat, all that stuff. It's just that, well, we figured out that we're gonna get them out from the visiting room. So you can imagine that there's a metal wall here. Glass window. You got a phone. I got a phone. We're going to go through the wall and get them so we had someone that knew how to work the acetylene torch. This is all stuff that Safiya would help make sure happens. And then the rest of us, you know, we had this worked out. How we was going to do it. We was gone cut through the metal wall. They would take care of the guards on their side. We would take care of the guards on the visiting side. It just so happened that the person that was supposed to do the cutting couldn't do it, because, not only coming from another state, he already had some other things he was involved with. He couldn't pull away like that and do it. So I chose to be the one to teach myself how to use this acetylene torch. I got to find some area and like it's secluded, and start testing it out. And I wish I’d knew how to work it better, but got to the point where I said, Okay, I think I got it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4850.0,4973.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So the day that we chose that we going to do this, you know, trial day is over. We got our bag. We're gonna pass the food once we in– Then go visited them. Except this time, when we open the bag before we hand it over, we pull out the weapons, we take the guards, take them to the bathroom. And I'm always very proud to say, we handcuffed them to the toilets. And I say, you know, “because you do a shitty job,” you know. Our mentality like oh this is gone– We doing this, you know. So, and then we proceed up to the floor where we're gonna visit them. And so one guard was there, and then when we go up there, there's a guard that's on that floor. So we have to do the same with that guard. And then there's other visitors, you know. There's going to be about three to four BLA folks, but I'm starting to cut. Everything is set, except that shit. Okay, so it may it may be like I'm cutting [laughs]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=4973.0,5060.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Alright, I'm cutting and I'm cutting through, and it's working. And I can kind of see, though, that sometimes the metal gets so hot that there's little drips. But I'm cutting and I'm cutting, and then I get to, like, right here [gestures], and there's this much to go, and the thing stops cutting.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5060.0,5083.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e No!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5083.0,5083.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Because the oxygen, when the fire is there, it's the oxygen that makes it cut. But the thing I was taking much longer than needed. I didn't know, right. So after that, it would go no more, but because the metal was hot in other places, there'd be little drips. And one of our comrades wondered, \"Can we kick it?\" \"Like, no?\" \"Can we shoot it?\" \"No.\" Because that would, not only would that alert everything, but you probably just get a ricochet, you know. So the only thing we could do, look at our comrades. Power to the People. [holds up fist] We gotta go.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5083.0,5125.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dartricia Rollins \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo you went.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5125.0,5126.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, and as easy it was to do was easy as we had it planned. It was as easy to get away. If it had been successful, we would have not only had them four comrades, but we are sure that some of them other prisoners was gone to come with us. So that was how that went. And it was a little heartbreaking for me, not only cause we didn't get our comrades out, but two of the sisters who was on this mission as well, it was their partners and one in particular, if it had been successful, been– her children was already at a certain place, and they would have been reunited. But you got to make them decisions, you know and you never know how these things are going to go. But our comrades on the outside, they were doing what they supposed to do. They had secured that. So as soon as we came out into the van, we gone.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5126.0,5189.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But, I tell that story for two reasons, main reason because while I was doing– later on getting captured in prison, the state let the time period– There's a certain time period, if you want to try somebody, statute of limitations, they let it run out. My lawyer had contacted me and said they can't try you for that anymore, because they let it run out. So that's one reason I tell the story. The other reason is because I want people to know these are some of the things we do in our war of liberation. We don't sit around and wait for all that legality and all that other stuff like, I tell you what, me and Jihad, we are not sitting around waiting. We are soldiers in this thing. And at that time and Jihad was just Panthers, but we understand, you know, no, we're in this war. It's not rhetoric, you know. It's war, you know. So I want people to know, and I would tell them like you gotta imagine Harriet Tubman. How many times was she back and forth risking her life to free people? She knew that every time she was risking her life. Going, coming, going, coming. Carried a gun, you know. So this is real.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5189.0,5280.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e This is not I'm not entertaining you by telling you this story. I want you to get something from this and some of the things that are also required, so that you do not think that we do this all through all the protests and voting and some magical way the empire just gone fall. No, no. So–","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5280.0,5303.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e You gotta make it fall.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5303.0,5304.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e You gotta make it fall. And I think that many of us, even our folks, are still caught up in that American exceptionalism. No man. And you can always see how this society is always– this empire is the most murderous, vicious, evil thing that has always existed. Do not think that they won't do you the same way they did everybody else that opposed them and will do until they are defeated, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5304.0,5335.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So I tell the story, you know. And I know, you know, like now I'm not telling every story, and a lot of comrades may not tell a single story, but I do think that people need to know. And that's why I like, you know, when you ask me, like who am I doing this in honor of, that's my comrades. You know, we gave it– And they all was like, 20s, you know. Here I am, 71 years old. I want people to know. That's why I can respect, you know, my sister comrades who like I can't do this. I can't talk about it. No, y'all need to stop talking so much. I get it, you know, but things that we can talk about let people know, you know. Because I feel that that day will come again. I say once there was a Black Liberation Army, that day will come again. What are we going to do when that happens, you know. And we can turn our backs. We can like, is that going to be the choice between this nonprofit job and me supporting the underground? What are y'all going to do? Another generation assigned to this hell? Come on y’all, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5335.0,5427.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. So I– Well, one, are there any other stories you want to share? And that's really up to you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5427.0,5459.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Man, I don't know. I think– Are we talking about BLA?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5459.0,5468.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dartricia Rollins \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBLA, or Panther stuff, but one thing I do have a question about is, and I think we'll talk about this more later, is like how did it feel for you? I mean, like emotionally. This is stressful too, and it takes a lot of courage. And so I'm just curious like, I know y'all say y'all were young [inaudible] maybe something young people do. But yeah, I'm curious about like how it affected you.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5468.0,5505.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I think one of the things that, one of the things that made it possible for the Black Panther Party to get that Black Liberation Army off the ground was that many of us were from that group called the lumpen proletariat, because now you– And that is not to be confined to just those who hustle. That's the welfare, folks on welfare. That's the folks are alcoholics, that's folks that in the street, homeless, houseless, you know all of that, right? And what it meant for many people that have already been in and out of the prison, the jails and the prisons and stuff or in them, kind of combative relationships with the state, you know. So that was definitely the ranks of the Black Liberation Army, too. And so I think it made a big difference in how we operated the battles, everything.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5505.0,5577.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But I think that it played a part too in like when we were captured, for many of us, especially BLA folks, if we were captured, it was not waiting around for the court process. We saw ourselves still as combatants and our obligation was to get out, if we could. And so there's all these amazing stories about attempts, especially in New York. Even like, not only the tombs thing, but there was times when folks was on Rikers Island, and at one point we called it the BLA Navy. And it was just really that, working with supporters on the outside, that they were able to get, like life rafts hooked up at certain places off the coast of Rikers Island, and them comrades were successful in getting out through them bars at a certain place, they would get on them life rafts, make it on over to the mainland and be gone. It didn't work, but it was the attempts. There was times in the courtroom where, like BLA folks is on trial and supporters are making sure, like what do you need? You know, and every effort was made to get folks what they needed to break out.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5577.0,5683.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e There was– Some comrades was in the Brooklyn house of detention. You've heard of Yuri Kochiyama?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5683.0,5694.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5694.0,5695.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. Yuri was this fantastic woman. She was one of them that like big supporter, loved Panthers, loved Black Liberation Army. And I'm sure, and I'll just say it from I'm sure, I ain't saying nothing that I know, was helping us in any way she could to get out. She often tells the story about the Brooklyn house of detention because comrades had got that hacksaw blade, and they had already cut the bars, and they was on the eighth floor, and they had built a ladder from the sheets [phone rings]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5695.0,5742.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e That's mine? Okay, I just want to make sure I cut that. It might still ring, but it just won't. No, I don't think it'll ring.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5742.0,5750.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, so Chango, who's still in Brooklyn, I hope that you get a chance to talk to him. Chango, Rema [Olugbala], and who else, okay, well, at least I know Chango and Rema were making– Chango made his way down the rope ladder first. There was already– On the outside they had already had a car hooked up that when they made it down, they would make their way to the car and be gone. Keys, everything would be, all that’d be set. Chango was the first one down the ladder, the rope ladder, sheet ladder. But when Rema came, as he was coming down, the sheet ladder broke and he fell to his death right in front of Chango, right. Rema, from the story we got, which Yuri tells a lot, that Rema knowing that he was falling to his death, was trying to cover his mouth so that it’d be no sound from his mouth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5750.0,5830.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So Chango had to, like, not only deal with his comrade, dead. But now he had to still proceed to the car, but he couldn't find the car with enough time to get away, you know. And that's what happened. So they was able to recapture him, but it was that whole thing about we were not going to stick around. And I think even though that didn't work either, I think it just kept building to our determination that we're going to keep this going. We're going to keep doing it. We're going to keep doing it. We are the Black Liberation Army, you know. But Yuri often tells the story, because even in that tragic incident, how Rema was just going to try to not make a sound that would alert and that Chango would just have to deal with this comrade being dead and still proceed on. Chango is still here. Chango is in Brooklyn, legally blind at this point, but I hope that we can get Chango to share his stories. He's a great storyteller, martial artist, and so also one of them that in prison would train us, you know, in the martial arts, if we didn't know, and whatnot. So there's all kind of stories like that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5830.0,5927.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e There's all kind of stories about Twyman Myers and Shaw, Henry Shaw Brown, how, if captured, they was able to get away, or if cornered in a gunfight, was able to get away, and to the point where the police and FBI inability to catch them, sort of they started, sort of had folklore developing about them. You can't catch them, you know. But when they caught up with Rema, not Rema, Twyman, in the Bronx, they shot him up so bad that– it was his leg. He had one of his legs that was only hanging together by his tendons. They just stood over him. But the story they told was that he pulled out his gun, and it was a fierce battle. Witnesses, and one person in particular called the Panther office, which I was there at the time, they talked to Safiya, though. They told us what really happened. They never gave him a chance to pull out his gun. Their hatred for those of us who they saw as just cop killers and niggers, just shot him repeatedly, repeatedly, just stood over, you know. And they put in the papers that broke the back to the BLA, but then after that our attempt to get folks out of the Manhattan House of Detention, that's when ours– and that became important. Like you ain't broke shit. We’re still here, and we're still going to do this, so you'll see us, you know. So, but it was things like that, that's just our effort to just like we have to continue to build, you know. But then at a certain point, you know, they did have a few more captures. But at that point too, after our thing at the tombs, and then getting captured in New Haven during the bank expropriation, then we found out that Safiya and others had become another cell and eventually got captured in Virginia. Yeah--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=5927.0,6084.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Is the New Haven bank expropriation, is that what led to your capture?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6084.0,6089.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Mm hmm","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6089.0,6092.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e So can you tell me about becoming a political prisoner, and, yeah, what was that time like?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6092.0,6107.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, listen, same thing while we locked up in Connecticut [laughs] trying to get out. Trying not to wait around for these trials and with help often from the outside.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6107.0,6126.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So there was a shootout. It was like from the bank through the streets of New Haven, and it just so happened that some of us was able to get split up, so that everybody wasn't in the car at the same time. So that allowed some folks to actually get away. But me and two others were captured. And it just so happened that we were in the Black community, one Black community in New Haven, which we didn't really know, because a certain point we missed our rendezvous point with the changeover from the car we was in to the van waiting for us. But we had to do that so that we wouldn't be leading them right to the van. Because the police cars were that close on us, and it was back and forth shooting and all this other stuff. But when me and one comrade got out, we ran into a house and had to crash the back window to get the door open, and we go up into this house, and they're hot on us. Come to realize that it's the apartment of this African brother. Dark as us, you or your complexion, and we like brother, you should go upstairs and go in the closet or something, just letting him know. You know, this wasn't about him.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6126.0,6231.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So the police come in. We are now, and we're up on the top floor too. It's so funny. I look at his– he got a little library going on. He's obviously a student, right. I think I see Eldridge Cleveland book. I see some other Black books here. This brother knows kind of like what's going on, but we like letting him know. “Listen, you stay here.” And so now it's like, shoot out. We're shooting from upstairs. They shooting from downstairs. And then it becomes a lull. It's obvious, we ain't getting away. They got us, you know. But it's like, what are we gone do? Interesting the things that go through your mind when you're in this situation. It's me and my comrade. Who you met, Tarik. Tarik is my general. Tarik, not only like born and raised–I don't know about born, but definitely raised in Brooklyn, the streets of Brooklyn. So he know combat from the streets of Brooklyn. To combat in the military, because he was in Vietnam, which I think that's pretty much where Tarik's, like so many soldiers, kind of woke up. And so when he comes back, he's looking for how to join the Black Panther Party, you know. But he learned combat on all these different levels. He was just the most courageous cat. I'm a burglar, basically. But the shootout was like his courage to to combat them was like a soldier.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6231.0,6338.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And I watched him, I'm like, wow. It gave me a sort of I guess a courage I didn't even know I had by watching him. But at a certain lull, we know they got us. And so he's like, “What do you want to do?” And I know the question, the question is probably the same that Jonathan Jackson and all them other ones, how we going to do this? And if I had to said, “Let's go out in a blaze,” he'd have been like, “tet's go.” And so in that– which might have been seconds, I don't know, I said, well, listen, you know if captured, we know we can fight, you know. We can get out. But there was a moment I like, no, let's go out in the blaze. But he gave the decision to me. And I said, okay. But we wanted to make sure that the other comrade who wasn't with us, we had heard that he had got shot, so we said, put us on the phone with him, you know. And they did. And so when we talked to him, he said, yeah, he got shot, but not bad, you know, like a flesh wound, but they but they did have him.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6338.0,6427.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e It's funny, but before that happened we're like playing around. Don't ask me why. We know that we can't get away. But this was also during the time where there was a few other things, like the Symbionese Liberation Army thing happened, or something else happened with the people who was in the situations of demanding a flight to some country. So we like, “Let's tell them we want a flight to Africa or something.” We're playing. Don't ask me why. We're facing death. We like, “We want a plane to Africa.” You know, “I don't think we can do that.” And so, but the important thing was, we want to be on the phone with Walid. And so then that happened, and so we agreed to put our, come down without our weapons. If it wasn't for the fact, and I'm convinced, that we really didn't know we was in the Black community, but there was about 150-200 police, FBI just waiting. If it wasn't for the fact there was a whole bunch of Black people out there also looking they probably would have shot us. They probably– they just could have claimed anything. What anybody know, before we even made it out the door, just coming down the stairs, you know. But we took our chance, and then when we realized, you know, there was too many people watching, that's the only thing that saved us. So after that first day in that courtroom, “You ain't got no right to try us. We're soldiers of the Black Liberation Army.” Yuri claims that we were the first to actually announce it, you know, when captured, you know, the first one to actually just say, This is who we are, and you don't have the right to try us.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6427.0,6543.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e We happen to have had two lawyers who were from Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins trial, so they were both political, or they understood and told us we didn't have to pay them. Who I'm still friends with to this day, especially one of em. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6543.0,6569.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And that's how we did. Walid represented himself, and the other two lawyers represented me and Tarik. The whole thing, on our part, was political. Every opportunity we had, we would bring up the politics, you know. “We're soldiers. We didn't ask to come here. You kidnapped us. We're fighting for our liberation.” And Walid being his own, representing himself too was able to question witnesses, and especially when they were the police and all that stuff in any way he wanted, you know. I mean, we know we get in time, and our lawyers– listen, especially with one lawyer I'm still close to. We know we gone get found guilty. When they did come with it I'm looking at him as he's like, he's crying, you know.  But I'm like, “Yo man, it's alright, we knew it ain't over, you know, we're soldiers,” you know. So the whole thing after that was wherever you sent us. We ain't looking just to do this time you just gave. And it was like five to twenty-five, years plus a ten to twenty, because it was like the bank robbery was five to twenty-five, and two police had got shot. One kind of serious, and it was ten to twenty for that. They couldn't convict us of kidnapping, which they charged us of the brother whose house we went into, Because he said, clearly, “No, they was trying to protect, we were trying to protect him [laughter].” So, yeah, you know, and that was the deal. Then it was, you know, the whole prison time. Yeah--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6569.0,6675.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, imma check in again. Do you feel like you need a break?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6675.0,6679.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I got some more--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6679.0,6680.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Alright.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6680.0,6681.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/126","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e How about you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6681.0,6682.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/127","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e I'm good.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6682.0,6682.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/128","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay, okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6682.0,6683.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/129","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e I'm captivated [laughter]. So how long, how long were you inside for?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6683.0,6695.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/130","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e About eleven and a half years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6695.0,6697.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/131","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. And there was some time where you were, you and Jihad were together?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6697.0,6703.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/132","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e In Lewisburg.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6703.0,6703.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/133","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e In Lewisburg. So you were– y'all, all kind of moved around to different facilities, yeah. And I know when I talked to Jihad, he was like, Yeah, we immediately were trying to figure out how to get out [laughs].","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6703.0,6721.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/134","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Training, every day, because Lewisburg had these high walls. And so it was training like, we trained like, what if we had to figure out a way to scale the walls? That mean we had to do particular kind of exercise to build upper body strength and all like this. What if we had to dig a tunnel? What if we're want to commandeer one of them trucks or vans that come in with supplies? You know, all the time, just just thinking. And every day is like we got it could be PE [political education] class. It could be organizing with other folks, all that stuff. But the attitude was always we are soldiers. We are at war. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6721.0,6767.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/135","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e What were those eleven years like?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6767.0,6771.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/136","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Interesting.Okay, so starting from the first place they sent me was from Connecticut to Oxford, Wisconsin. Even though some of the stops in between– all on the bus, like Lewisburg, I forget one of the other ones, but ending up in Wisconsin. Oxford, Wisconsin was– I think it used to be some kind of college something. So the dorms and everything were really different. It was like they would be turning these places that was used for other things into prisons. So when I got there, I immediately put in for like a request to be closer to home. And that's just something you do. You don't never know if they're gonna honor it or not. But when I got there I looked on– I was going to the medic. You sign up if you want to see the medic, and you sign up on this sheet on the board, and I looked at one of the names, and there was a name of a former comrade that had started snitching. And like, oh, he's here. What do I do? You know? And in my head, I'm like, oh, well, I got to get him. Come to find out he was shipped out a few days before.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6771.0,6870.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/137","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And so then I get into main population, and eventually I find that there was one of the people who was connected to the Republic of New Afrika. They were the Republic of New Afrika 11. So one of their members was there, who I got to know briefly until he was, I guess, got released. But he wasn't– you could tell, like upon release, he's probably not going to be in this movement any anymore. You know, things happen. But then Kamau Sadiki comes and there was already a brother there that was into martial– was a martial arts instructor. So now me, Kamau, are going through martial arts training with this brother from Brooklyn. And you know, you can't do it in the open, so you always gotta find places where you're training. And I mean, we're training, we just like we are kicking each other, we are punching each other, we are learning these blocks and all this other stuff. But this is part of how we do too. What you don't know you learn, or what you do know you will be learning more, and so how you defend yourself and all this other stuff, because you never know. But eventually I had got the permission to get transferred to Lewisburg, and Lewisburg was a lot different. And so some of the things I'm gonna share with you, like I might have mentioned it to Jihad, but not a lot of people, because Lewisburg was rough, especially in the beginning.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6870.0,6972.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/138","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e There were comrades there, Oscar [Washington], Chango, Curley [Raul Estremera]. Oscar, Chango, Curley, a few others, maybe. I was one of the youngest there, and I should have been sticking with my comrades more, but I was like with my comrades, but also hanging out with some of the lumpen hustlers. And it's funny how, when I think back on how people was trying to tell me, like, “Yo you know, one of them guys you hanging with is a booty bandit,” you know. And I'm like, “Oh no, they're cool man, they cool,” you know, so. But after a while, like, you know, some of my comrades, like, “Yo be careful. Just be careful,” you know. And, and I'm not really heeding it, but at one point, like I'm hanging out and we probably drinking hooch, homemade wine and shit. And we go to this one cell, and they turn to me and like, “Yo, you know what it is.” “And I'm like, what you mean?” And I do. Once you say it to me like that, I know. And one of them hauls off and hits me in my mouth. And then we get to tussling, and if it wasn't for the fact that we heard a guard coming, I don't know. I don't know if they got shanks or not. I know I ain't got mine, you know. I don't know, you know, but it was enough for us to like stop and come out of there, because we heard that guard.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=6972.0,7087.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/139","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But they had also convinced me that if I told my comrades, it's going to be my comrades, whose going to get the worst of it. And I'm like, oh shit. So I ended up telling my comrades that I was on the basketball court and got elbowed in my mouth. And they kept– and this is what they do. They kept checking the story out, and it's like, “nobody on the basketball court said they saw anything like that. Are you telling us the truth?” And [I’m] like, “yeah, yeah.” And it wasn't until the point where they– I think they, was getting ready to, like, say, “Listen man, if you ain't gonna be honest with us, then we can't have you, you know, with us.” And it was that that made me tell them what actually happened. And so I know that their next step was to go after. But them other two had already got locked up for something else and put in seg and whatnot. But it made me feel like, oh my god, man, I was getting ready to betray my comrades, you know. And the whole– even them, the one nigga from Atlantic City, he wanted to fuck me, just that and that they was– they was gonna hurt me for it. It fucked me up. It it made me feel somewhat what it must be like for a woman to get raped. I'm like, Oh my god.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7087.0,7193.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/140","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So after that, you know, I'm back with my comrades. And there was one brother who was kind of informally a part of our crew, and me and him was very close. He was from DC named Kareem. Kareem took a particular interest in me like he knew I was like being too naive. And so me and him became very close, and he became very close to my comrades. But it was me from that point learning not to be so fucking naive. Your comrades are your comrades. A lot of the other cats in there were hustlers and man they are hustlers. Some you may be able to work with, but others you cannot trust because they got other interests in mind. So it was me waking up to the realities of what it is to be in prison or would have been the same as in the street. You can't trust everybody in the streets, especially you know, in them areas like that, you know. And some people know what to say to you once they kind of get a picture of you. Oh, we know how to lure him in. So it was me learning from my comrades, and from that one brother in particular, Kareem, like wake up, Ashanti, it's real.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7193.0,7279.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/141","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And so after that, I, you know, I didn't have any problems, and I felt like, also, I want to help other folks I see getting ready to fall into the same trap. So there was one or two times where I saw folks like, oh, wow, this brother just came in. I see who he's hanging with and not even the same ones I dealt with. I didn't see them no more, but it's like I got to say something to him and hopefully they'll hear, because I remember when people were telling me, sometimes indirectly, be careful, and I'm not looking at, oh, they talking about these cats I'm hanging with. So sometimes I found myself trying to let other folks know, you know. And you know, if you don't want to hang for them, you need to pull away and find some other folks to be with, you know. But after that, I mean, you know, it was back to, you know, just being a part of our collective getting back to. I never divorced myself from the collective, from not trying to get out of here. But now it was just straight focus. Focus, learn, focus, yeah. And only time I share it– if I'm at a speaking thing or one on one with someone all this since I've been out, and I feel the story might be important, then I share it. Because I want them to see like sometimes, man, you might find yourself in a situation where you really get hurt, and sometimes it's beyond you being able to stop it, you know. But know what it can do to you, and if you can prevent yourself from being in them type of situations, do. Ain't no guarantee, you know. But know that these are type of things our people have been through a lot. Many of us are like twisted but this is what we're dealing with too. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7279.0,7405.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/142","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So after that, it was then, was like we, some of us who work in industries. We had this one fascist ass Warden that was clamping down on a lot. So some of us decided we gone burn down industries. And me and that same brother, you know, we would–we figured out– and someone else. Another brother who was close to the collective, but not officially, we figured out a way that we gone set this industry on fire and we did. But what happens is, even though they don't know who actually did it, I ended up being one of the ones still picked up and sent to Marion, Illinois along with a couple of other politically conscious folks and one white guy who was like a jailhouse lawyer, very effective. Next thing we know, we on the bus to Marion, Illinois, you know. The most secure prison in the country. You know, then come to find out afterwards that Jihad and others was continuing on the fires and stuff [laughter]. It's so funny. But that was some of the battles inside, because we, like, not only getting out, but like they were making this one Warden was making conditions so fucking terrible. And you know the prisoners sometimes they still taking this shit out on each other, like, come on, y'all, we got to deal with this fucking Warden, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7405.0,7509.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/143","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So from there, Marion, Illinois. Marion was a whole different experience. That was the most electronic prison in the country. Leonard Peltier is there. I still don't understand why Herman was there, but Herman Bell was there. A couple of folks from the Puerto Rican independence movement was there, and there was another comrade, Bobby Holmes, he was BLA, and then a Sicilian comrade named Joe Monaco. Them two was the ones that really started me reading more deeply anti-authoritarian, anarchist stuff. But the experience in– because we were all in segregation. They didn't send me the population. They sent me to segregation, and the word was from them and others don't let them send you to population, because then you're going to have a hard time ever getting out of there. Stay in segregation and make them transfer you out. So the thing was, that's how I got transferred to Lompoc, California. But in there this is my experience. Some of the things I learned.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7509.0,7603.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/144","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e The tier we were on, there was BLA, Puerto Rican and Aryan Brotherhood, other folks. But on that tier, we were all prisoners against the prison administration. You could be on this tier and I get my literature, the AB get their literature, Muslims could be Nation of Islam, or whatever, Muslims get theirs, and it could circulate. That shit was blowing my mind, like I could pass mine if you want to read it, you can read it. If not, keep it going right. So I could get theirs, they could get ours. And there could be some robust conversations going on too. But when it came time to act against the prisons, clear unity. Clear unity. I'm like really? Under certain circumstances you could be united against something. You know it might not be the same at another prison or on the street. But I’m like, really? There was times where we like, if something might happen, we say we all going to flood the place. That means you got to figure out certain things to do with the toilet, and it just floods the whole thing or you're going to burn your mattresses, you know. And it happened, you know. And that's how we will be fighting the thing. But then the ingenuity of this being amongst the prisoners, of this being so electronically controlled– There was prisoners who would somehow develop an electronic device and open up the doors, but– and it's so funny cause one of them actually got to the door that led outside, but got stopped there. But it was just the fact that the ingenuity got them to that point you could really understand why there's nothing that their technology can do that you can't overcome. So Huey P. Newton says, you know that the man's technology cannot defeat the spirit of the people, right. And like, okay. There's nothing they can build that we ain't going to try to figure out a way to get over or to overcome. And like, wow, wow. So that's just like, it just fortifies us.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7603.0,7767.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/145","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But they also had a fantastic prison library. And this was like, all the different political folks have been through there. You could get Marxist-Leninist material. You could get anarchist material. You can get material on all these different struggles. The Black Prisoners Association had this fantastic library that we could get access to. And I'm always reading. So it's not only the anarchist stuff, but I'm still reading about other struggles, and it's just helping me to understand how like, we got to organize differently and take so many other things into consideration, because at this point, I'm reading a lot of radical psychologies, the radical feminisms, and like, wow, if I had these understandings then I wonder– or if others, how different our struggles might have been if we really had done better on like a critique on sexism and then practices on to help us to overcome. Never totally. Because I'm clear, like for men to deal with sexism, and probably for women too, it's a lifetime struggle, because the shit is all deep in us. So the readings I'm doing is helping me to understand how deep. So it can't just be, oh, read this, come to this meeting, this study group. There's gotta be so much more. These are the things that I'm learning in prison.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7767.0,7853.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/146","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And the two individuals I told you about is Bobby Holmes and Joe. They were already there, and then we all end up getting transferred to Lompoc, California. Bobby, Joe Monaco, Leonard Peltier, Curly. Curly was already there, but not coming from Marion. He got transferred closer to where he had– his family was in San Jose, California, even though he's from New York. But when we all out there, here we are again. Lompoc was a medium security prison that because they were sending us and others there, they were transferring it into a maximum which means that it had two fences, but they wasn't even electrified yet, right. So we know we got a short period of time to get over them fences before they do the electronic stuff and all these other things with the beams too, you know, the electric beams and stuff. So while we're there, we are training. You pretty much know who's going to hit them fences, because who's running that track and who's exercising. We ran that track because we always assumed that if we get over them fences, it's going to be a long run. We're training like we know we got to go over them fences. So making sure that we got that upper body strength. The running was going to get our legs and our wind.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7853.0,7960.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/147","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And then Leonard Peltier and his crew hit, no. There was a white guy that actually made it out first. Him and his partner were there. They were known as the Falcon and the Snowman. There's a movie on it too. The Falcon, his father was an FBI agent. But this is like, during that 70s period. He was, like rebelling, you know. He didn't like what the United States was doing. So he wanted to be able to– whatever position he was in he had access to FBI stuff. His friend the Snowman– they might have been lifetime friends, but he was more into drugs. So him getting paid to get these secrets was him to have money, live his life. But when the Falcon came there, the Snowman was already there. They didn't have the fences together yet, and there was a gap that the Snowman knew about. They hooked it up where they put a dummy in the Falcon's bed, right. So when the guard came, the guard just assumed he was asleep, counted him as there. But they had already planned that he had hid in a certain place and at a certain point at night, the gap he was able to get through and get over both fences, and he actually made it out. They got him about a month or two later, though, but he made it out. After that, Leonard Peltier and his crew hit the fence. They made it just on the other side, but they got caught there. They captured Leonard and one of his other comrades, but the young one they shot and killed them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=7960.0,8083.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/148","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Ours was the next one, and we did ours. And we had a whole plan, broad daylight. Man, we planned this thing. We raised our own monies. We had– we sold marijuana. We had visitors bring it in. This was me also learning that I had to put stuff up my butt [laughter] the marijuana, right. Going through the all the fucking ego shit, right. The man, oh, my God, I kind of put this stuff up my butt, but this is how you did, right. You in. You sell it and you use the money to get the things you need to get over. So a part of it was that one of our group was a guy, a white guy, who was out of the special forces. And he still had friends. I forgot what he was doing time for. He still had a friend that he could call and say, hey, we need some weapons placed behind this barn. His friend like, okay, it's going to cost, but we had raised the money. His friend did it. They know how to do this shit. So we knew that the barn– there was a barn right next to the fences.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8083.0,8166.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/149","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I forget how many yards, but anyhow, he placed the weapons. On the day that we went to do it. It was broad daylight, but we watched the sun. We watched how the sun moved and if the sun was in a certain position to be hard for the guards in these towers, certain towers, to be able to pinpoint, shoot and get us, because they'd be blinded by the sun. That shit ain't work. But we had like other things, like to divert their attention and things they didn't know that it was two groups. The first group that was going to hit the fences, they were to go over the two fences, get to the barn, get the guns, pin down the other towers, those of us in the second group would come over the fences. But when they got over the first fence, in between the first and the second fence, when they landed down the ground looks like it's level, but it's really sand and under the sand is hard, like this. So it's designed that if you land hard enough, you're going to break your ankles.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8166.0,8238.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/150","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So, which is what happened, and then them struggling to get to the second one, one got shot, not killed, and the other just couldn't make it, make it over. And they never realized that it was a second group of us. So we had to kind of fade back in with all the other prisoners who are already like, now that they in between the fences and they can't move, we like, “Yo, what are you doing? Take care of them. You know, stop shooting.” And those of us who wasn't able to get, we had just had to fade and, you know, make our way back in. But it for me, it was the two comrades, the one who was the former special forces, we wasn't necessarily close. He was closer to the one that went over the fence with him, but the one that went over politicized him, but the one who politicized him, I was close to, still close to him until this day. And when I seen him in between the fences, I just broke down and cried. My other comrade they had to just take me back in, you know, like you know, and it was just the hope that they going to be all right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8238.0,8327.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/151","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But because they didn't know that we was part, and I was a part– I had a parole hearing coming up a few months or so later, maybe not so, quite a few months. Because in between that time, me and Joe was just picked up by the warden. Warden had orders that just put us in segregation because they heard a gun had got smuggled into the prison. And so for some reason he figured that we knew something about it. So he locked us up in segregation. I don't remember how long was there. It might not have been long, because I know that maybe a month or so later, I went to the parole board for the federal. I still had the state time in Connecticut. Surprisingly, my lawyer comes up. I don't know if he played a part, but he comes from Connecticut to Lompoc to speak in my behalf. And surprisingly, I got parole from the feds, even though I'm going to now to do the ten to twenty, you know. And so when I left from there, you know, I left all of them behind and whatnot. And then eventually, from other comrades on the street, supporters, you find out that everybody's okay. What happened, you know, and all that other stuff.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8327.0,8411.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/152","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But one is still in prison, the white guy, because after he got parole from the feds, he had state time in New York. That's where he's at now, you know. I'm hearing he's not doing well in terms of mental stuff and whatnot. But the other one, Veronza. Veronza Bowers who I hope that at some point you can talk to. He's in Phoenix. I have not seen him, but I know, you know he's– we're very close, you know. And he did 50 years and he's been out a little over a year at this point. But yeah. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8411.0,8471.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/153","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Checking in again to see how you feeling.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8471.0,8473.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/154","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, I'm good.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8473.0,8474.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/155","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Dartricia Rollins \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOkay, so then my next question. Wow. I mean you're a really great narrator. Yes– that, I mean you just took me through you were in like six different prisons?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8474.0,8499.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/156","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I guess, right? Um--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8499.0,8501.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/157","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e I got Connecticut, Wisconsin--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8501.0,8503.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/158","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Connecticut is the– Yeah. Connecticut, jails, yeah--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8503.0,8506.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/159","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Jail, okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8506.0,8507.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/160","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e The last place I got parole from, is from Summer State prison in Connecticut. But yeah, it was Oxford, Wisconsin, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Marion, Illinois, Lompoc, California, and then from there, Summers, Connecticut prison, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8507.0,8528.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/161","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e So tell me about when you came home and what life was like coming home after 11 years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8528.0,8538.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/162","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay. This leads into Safiya again, now. Because now you know Safiya is doing time in Virginia, and we were all corresponding, and we all got ways to be able to correspond, even though technically we're not supposed to. I was just telling the story to someone else. There was this sister doing this– the book, some books she's writing I think she's got a chapter on Safiya. So just maybe a couple months ago. So anyhow, you know we're writing. We all staying in touch. We all trying to what we call consolidation. Consolidation was us trying to figure out how to consolidate from our losses. BLA stuff. How to stay in communication. How to figure out how we want to proceed. So we had a whole thing worked out. So, right. So me and Safiya are corresponding, and at a certain point, it's just political. And at some point it seems to be little bit more intimate, increasingly, right. And it just seemed at some point, whoa, we seem to be liking this little intimacy that we got going on here. And so at some point we doing this, her and that women's prison in Virginia. And I even forget where I was at at the time. I think it might have started when I'm in Lompoc, but definitely while I'm in Summers, Connecticut. And at some point I'm on the phone with her. I know I'm at Summers at this point, and she's out, so she had got out. And we got to talking about, I don't know why we're talking about marriage. So she said, “Are you asking me?” I'm like, “Well, what if I am [laughter].” It was so funny. And so I guess it was like, “Yes, I'm asking you.”","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8538.0,8679.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/163","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And she said, “Yeah.” She said yes. So, –even though she's Muslim. Okay, so the sister whose writing it was writing on Black women warriors. And so we agreed, like, we gone get married, but you know, like she's Muslim. So there's the Imam at the Summers, Connecticut prison, I tell him. And so we arranged to get married at the prison, you know. And the thing is, you know, I'm not Muslim. At this point I am clearly atheist, but I'm, you know, however she works that out, that's on her. I don't, you know, just, I'm not becoming Muslim, you know. And so we had got married, and it was the year before I got out, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8679.0,8731.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/164","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e When was this?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8731.0,8733.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/165","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e This had to have been like '82,'83 and I got the paper somewhere. Somewhere. Yeah, and so we had got married. And before I had got out to this– has they had started trailer visit things and all like that. And so the trailer visit was when we first got together, you know. And it's like really, it was really nice. And surprisingly, again, I went to the parole board and got parole, you know. And so when I'm telling them my plans like to move to New York, come to find out that New York was giving me problems about moving to New York. I'm like I got married, and my wife lives in New York, my lawyer had to go through some hoops to get them to like let me come. In the meantime, my lawyer said, “Well you're gonna come stay with my family,” you know. So I stayed with– and that would that took about maybe three months, and then so finally, heading back to New York. She lived in Washington Heights, and this is when I really get to– was that when I first met Wanda, or did Wanda, no. Wanda did come up on a visit after we were married. But then I really get to know Wanda, her daughter. Wanda had to have been like 11. And did Wanda, she didn't live with us. Wanda still lived with her sister, her aunt, Safiya's sister. But we would see each other often, and so a part of it was like her and Safiya was still building a relationship, because for most of all her life, Safiya's in prison, you know. She's just meeting me, you know. But we really bonded, man. We really bonded.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8733.0,8866.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/166","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But– and me and Safiya, I think it was– we did good at first, but I think that after the first year, two. I think we didn't recognize that both of our stories was going to make this relationship a little difficult. Her traumas, my shit, you know. And I think if we'd have took to more direct, like sitting down with a counselor, it might have worked. It might have worked, but it didn't. It didn't. I feel like we were both unhappy, and I know I was, and at a certain point I'm like, Safiya, this ain't gonna work. And I think the thing that held us together was Wanda, you know. And I mean, we were always still comrades, but Wanda was definitely the main thing. And I think her family too, because I really think that when we got married, I did marry her family. And they just like accepted me. Her mother in particular. Her mother's funny, because when I first met her mother, I go to-- they lived in Queens. Her mother just looked at me and started laughing. You know why?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8866.0,8954.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/167","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Why?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8954.0,8954.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/168","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I'm light skinned [laughter]. And because I think they always felt like Safiya was never gonna come home with a light skinned person. I'm like, oh my– And they all from the South, but her mama was just so great man. And from her, I never used the word– like, if I describe Wanda, I never say that's my stepdaughter. I say that's my daughter, and that's how her mother accepted me, like all that step stuff, yeah, but I don't use it, you know. So from her I don't wanna–. Somebody asked me who's my children? Wanda, Njee [Nzingha], Hakim, Biko and Yasmeen, you know. Where's my–. Hold on. Let me get my [inaudible]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=8954.0,9017.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/169","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e That'd be Wanda.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9017.0,9024.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/170","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e This is Wanda?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9024.0,9025.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/171","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e That's Wanda here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9025.0,9029.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/172","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e This Wanda--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9029.0,9030.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/173","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e That's Njee/Nzingha, Hakim, who's also at home, he's known as Michael, you know. But to others, he's Hakim, yeah. So, after that is like we worked together on the Panther Collective. We worked together when the newspaper started coming out again, the Panther newspaper, all that other stuff. Always political prisoner work. She remained a citizen of the Republic of New Afrika, which I never have been. But I think because of– I'm so close to so many people from the Republic of Afrika, people assume I'm New Afrikan. And I be very clear, I am not a New Afrikan. I am not trying to create a Black state in the South, you know, all that stuff, but y'all my comrades and you know, I got your back, but that's not what I'm, that's not what I'm doing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9030.0,9089.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/174","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, yeah. So, could you tell me about the Jericho Movement?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9089.0,9098.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/175","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So Jericho– Safiya, Herman Ferguson, Jalil came up with the idea to start this different political prisoner organization because it was several before, that they called the National Jericho Movement. And it had a particular– it was going to particularly focus on not only comrades from the Black Liberation Army, but the United Freedom Front, the Weather Underground. And it had a particular leaning towards national liberation movements as an understanding about the basis of this organization, you know. And then eventually, like supporting folks from Earth Liberation Movement, Animal Liberation Movement, stuff like that. When it first started, I wasn't a member, just supported. Safiya and others they would– you know, a lot of speaking stuff, some took her internationally.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9098.0,9170.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/176","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But the day Safiya got out of prison, it was like non-stop work around political prisoners. Her role in that was that she would just start finding all these comrades all around, locked up, doing time that no one knew about, and so the Jericho was that organization that was going to help get them some support. She helped to like, in so many ways for us to find each other, you know, because she would either people she had had some relations with, or she just started asking old comrades, “What happened to so and so and so and so.” Are they locked up here, they locked up there, you know. Mumia's case, you know, in the early years when it wasn't getting no support. You know, being that Safiya and others remembered him and stuff like– start organizing to get him some support. You know, the MOVE thing ain't come till later, you know. Chip Fitzgerald out there in California. Maroon and his crew in Pennsylvania. All these political prisoners in Upstate New York and New Jersey. Like that– through her and the work of Jericho, they got started getting some attention, you know. But it wasn't until maybe a couple years later– was it after. Okay, after her death maybe that Herman Ferguson and his wife Iyaluua wanted me and Kazi to take over the leadership of Jericho. So for a few years, me and Kazi were co-chairs. This would have been maybe early 2000s but it was definitely after Safiya had passed. And that was like, Paulette [Dauteuil]. You met Paulette.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9170.0,9295.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/177","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e I've met Paulette.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9295.0,9296.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/178","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Paulette is a workaholic.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9296.0,9298.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/179","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, she is.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9298.0,9299.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/180","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Workaholic to this day, she'd be on that little walker, just like. To this day. Was really pushing me to like, you know, take the position and whatnot. So it's always like that work of trying to get people to understand the importance of supporting your political prisoners and prisoners of war, and we would be very clear, like, it's political prisoners, there's prisoners of war, and you need to understand both of them, what's the differences, and all like that, you know. And to the point where, like a lot of times, political prisoners are those who are framed. A lot of us who are prisoners of war, we wasn't framed. What a lot of times what they charged us with, that's what we did. If it was a bank expropriation. No, that's what we did. So when you come to support us know that we ain't telling you that we innocent, that they got the wrong people, but we telling you you should defend us, you know. We need to be out to carry on our work, you know. So if it works for some people to claim innocence, right on. But some of us we didn't really care, you know. You had like Dhoruba, you know, like Dhoruba, who's the one of the– I would, I would agree with him when he say he's one of the founders of the Black Liberation Army, as far as bringing an idea to fruition, yes. But he was framed on the initial charges of what, you know, what he got convicted of, but he's always been very clear about who he is and what part he played, you know. And so there's others.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9299.0,9411.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/181","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And I hate to say that we don't get a lot of recognition, man. Them years in prison. There was no hundreds of people writing us. There was nobody sending us monies, except for families in that small circle of supporters. And it's like, well, you know, we didn't come in for that. We came in to be fighting, you know. But it also shows like, man, people still afraid of us. People still don't get that connection. And are we going to do the same thing now? Because people are still– they still kind of wavering, that kind of multi-dimensional understanding of struggle, all levels, you know. All levels, you know. And if so that this– right now, I mean, you already see that there's going to be a slew of new political prisoners, and there may be some prisoners of war too. Are you going to make a distinction? Or you going to support them? You know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9411.0,9480.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/182","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So the work of Jericho– like right now Jericho is like the main political prisoner organization in this country. The Anarchist Black Cross are definitely another one. And then there's– folks have individual committees. I think one of the growing ranks of political prisoners is those we call politicized prisoners. The Pendleton Two being one of the primary examples of that. And then there's other cases too, of folks who are in there for political reasons, but they don't get any support or people that even know about them, and some of that even coming from the George Floyd stuff and other things, you know. We gotta figure out a way to get them support. The Pendleton Two could have been out decades ago. But when they had to take the Attica style, take over that prison just to fight for their survival, they got hit with some crazy prison times. And they really deserve a lot more attention and we're hoping that Jericho starts to get more active attention to it. We sat down with one of their main organizers, support organizers at the Indianapolis.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9480.0,9576.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/183","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Too Black?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9576.0,9576.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/184","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Too Black, and which I need to follow up on because part of it is having a direct conversation with the Pendleton Two. So there's gone be more. And we realize there's some others out there, but it's to get people in these different movements. Y'all need to put political prisoners on your agendas. You cannot just be organizing in your head these revolutions and no one is really doing any political work, you know. How do you do that? And I think that's that exceptionalism, you know. How do you do that? If you know, if Martin Luther King was here they would-- Martin Luther King got arrested so many times. Come on, y'all. What are you doing? Put them on your agenda. Get people to understand the connection, why we need to be there for them. If we need to change the narrative, change the narrative, because sometimes that might be it too, like we ain't being really creative in the narrative that would get people to see.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9576.0,9646.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/185","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e You know, my wife, she's an abolitionist. She teaches at University of Massachusetts, at Dartmouth, and she one time put political prisoners in the framework of– she would draw this picture of the United States as the rapist and we're the victims. But it's been so long and all these other circumstances that we don't know how to break loose from the rapist. And she would say well in the instances where we try, those are your revolutionaries, those are your political prisoners, that they're the ones saying no, no more. And she gave me that idea like, maybe we need to change the narrative to get people to see what's our importance. We ain't telling you that we're going to take you to liberation hilltop, but we're telling you we are crying out in ways that you don't or you can't. But to say that we have got to do better in this struggle, especially in them areas of how we support. When you go– when the Puerto Rican political prisoners get freed, they got parades in Puerto Rico. We get out. We just out and trying to survive as best we can. This is why, you know, like many of us appreciate Community Movement Builders as one group in particular, like they got a little fund for when we need something, we can get in touch say aye, we need a few 100 I need a few $100 because they really putting that into practice, like. Okay, we're the elders now. Thank you, you know. And it feels good.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9646.0,9770.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/186","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Kamau says there is no retirement fund for revolutionaries.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9770.0,9774.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/187","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Yes, yes, yes. That feels good.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9774.0,9777.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/188","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e You know. And I mean, I'm still trying to get used to the elder thing, because sometimes they won't let me get a glass of water. Like, oh, sit right there. I'm like, yo, I can walk right there and get that. The Kentucky thing looks like you had to walk up this little hill where they cooked the food. They wouldn't even let me walk up the hill like, oh, stay right there. We'll bring your food down to you. I'm like, okay, let me walk up this hill just this once. But I get it and I think it is that kind of new practices, them kind of practices that you want to see. I just never really thought that I would be in this position. The way we was–, listen the way we were going. Jihad'll, tell you, man, we this 50 year thing after– we never thought we'd last this long. We was 20, 21, maybe. Just as long we felt like it was going to keep going, we was ready to go, you know. So there's a lot of work to be done.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9777.0,9777.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/189","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9777.0,9847.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/190","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah, yeah. So I have a couple more questions for you. At the top of the recording, you know, I asked you what kind of stuff you're involved in now, but I am curious to know like, what is your life like now? You got out in the 80s, and, you know, continue to live, but also continue to organize. You have more children.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9847.0,9878.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/191","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I do. Well getting out had been not only me continuing to do political activism, but the relationship with Wanda, the relationship with them two. Because when my daughter was born, she's a year older than him– She was one years old. He came eight months or so later. By that time I'm captured. That's the eleven and a half years. I get out they’re 11 and 12 years old around there. So it's learning to be a dad to her and to them two. And after me and Safiya had separated, I had a couple other long term relationships. So one in particular, with a sister named Judy. Judy had two daughters and that was long term. That might have been 11, 12, years too, and I became daddy to them, right. Till today, if they don't hear from me at a certain amount of time, I'm gonna get cussed out. And they got children. And their children know me. Even though some of them may not even really recognize me except for pictures, but because of me and Judy's relationship and my relationship to her daughters, Shantina and Simone, it's like I got all these people in my life that’s just these really wonderful relationships, really wonderful. Me and Judy got a whole story, man, how we met, how we got together, and stuff.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=9878.0,10003.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/192","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So it's like, while I'm doing these, the political stuff. Me getting to Jersey to see family, the kids, my brothers and sisters, my mother and my father. It nourishes me in some really great ways. Back in New York I got Judy and her girls. I'm back amongst my comrades. So it's on both these social and political levels. It just means so much, you know. The father role is definitely new, so I want to know how to be a good father. I also, at some point, was working with Planned Parenthood, so I'm also at– during the time of AIDS, right. So I'm doing workshops in sexuality, safer sex, and all like that. I go to– there might be fundraising party or something, and I'm making sure I bring bags of condoms, you know, and stuff. So it's them type of things where I feel like I'm also practicing a lot of stuff I've been learning. So it's just a lot of good people. Sometimes, when I look back on it, I really, I'm appreciative of so much, you know. I don't even know when my bouts of depression come in, but it was at a certain point, me and Judy's relationship it ends, but we still family. Me and Kai's [Barrow] relationship started. I don't know if you met Kai?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10003.0,10109.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/193","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e No--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10109.0,10110.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/194","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I hope you do at some point. Kai is out of Chicago and she moved to New Jersey because she met one of my comrades from New Jersey. He went to Chicago for some kind of thing and spoke. Next thing, you know they done met and the next month they getting married. But, in a great relationship, something that rarely happens. You hear that like, yo, you don't think that's a little too quick. But he also was HIV positive. So after a few years, he succumbed. And so I'm just like making sure I'm supportive to Kai, you know. And she's already in our same circles and stuff like that. She comes from out of a Black nationalist family, connected to RNA [Republic of New Afrika], too and whatnot. And then at a certain point, it's like our relationship started getting closer and closer. The next thing you know we done hooked up, and that was another 10 to 12 year relationship and whatnot and she's still in my life. And I'm really fortunate with that too that Judy's still in my life. Kai is still in my life. And they've been, they're both people who I care about, and we're still family in that sense. And it means a lot for me in terms of my spirit. Yeah, and so and then, you know, this last relationship with my children's mother with Vivian, ended up being almost 20 years and then we got the 15 year old Biko and Yasmeen.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10110.0,10238.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/195","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So all these other folks– there's so many other folks I can tell you about too that I feel like are extended family. I met them when they was young. Kamau. I've known Kamau when he didn't have all that gray and stuff. But we're so very close, and it's like Kamau, Jihad and– Kamau was the younger crew. He's from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and stuff. If you see the way we interact, it's similar to the same way me and Jihad and some of my other comrades act. We joke, we get on each other. We crack jokes on each other. And I don't necessarily have that with a lot of these younger folks, especially here in Providence. So when we together it becomes very– especially because we can just relax, cut the shit, all that, and it feels so good, you know, because it just brings back so many memories, too, you know, of how we know each other and all that stuff. Me and Jihad, when we interact, we are them, teenagers. We are if you watch, we joke the same way with everything. And then to just sometimes reflect on all the shit that we done been through and still doing this, you know. So all, all of that has really meant a lot for me. And I mean, I've went through a lot of depression, but I think a lot of it when I'm in there I stopped reaching out to folks. I'm not great saying to folks, yo, man, I'm stuck. I need some help getting out of here. I'd just be sitting.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10238.0,10346.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/196","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e This past year, I feel like has made a big difference. A part is because me and my wife ended our relationship. A part of me being here, working with these young folks, I'm like in the community I want to be with if I'm here. My children are here, so I know I ain't moving back to New York. I probably would have if it wasn't, you know, the kids and other things. But no. I'm here. And then I feel like I'm back building with folks, especially young folks and stuff. Sitting here with you, right. This work is very important. We can do this. It keeps affirming to me we can win our liberation. I don't have to have all the answers. That's why I ain't supposed to but together we can figure this out, you know. And that's how I want to go. I want to go with us– I want to go feeling like it ain't over. I have enough people in my life to confirm that for me, affirm that for me, you know. So that's pretty much like how I feel now, and I'm in a good place. I need to get back with my therapist who sent me a text the other day. Guilt is stopping me from texting him back. Like saying, yo, I know I've been missing. I ain't been to church, you know, because I had been working on being a consistent member, which I feel like I've never been. And then this last month, maybe two, either something comes up, I got a speaking gig or something, but times where I haven't, the guilt stops me from– and they know me by now, because I'll get calls like, and I ain't picking up the phone like, oh, I gotta pick up the phone and tell them what's happening. You know, I'm back in that space.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10346.0,10462.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/197","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e But I want that church part back too, because that is a spiritual part for me that I'm glad that I've returned to and that I want other people to see too. Like we all need some place, whether it's a religion or not. Have that place that you can go to when you feel like, I don't like the way this feels, I'm not feeling too optimistic. I need to be reminded. You know, of all that's there, whether it's God's promise. Our connection to all that is that no system, no nothing can ever stop that, you know. So think about your comrades who are or were Muslims or Indigenous folks. What holds them together? What– think about them, Palestinians, man like, what is– God, what are they going through? But somehow, when you do hear them talk, man, they use religious words that connects them. I'm like we have got to figure out some way to do that, because otherwise, when it starts affecting our spirits, man to a certain degree, you're dead. Social death, spiritual death, whatever you wanna call it, but man, let's not go there. Let's figure out how we can get that part too. We can respect, you know, our differences. It's really great that we have em, you know. But I think that's what makes all this still important to me, that I want us to do this for everyone and everything. That's why I love the emphasis people will put down on ancestors. I love how certain of the spiritualities will say, like you're connected to the earth, to the air, to the sky, to the planets.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10462.0,10583.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/198","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh yeah, that's right, man. No, let's not forget all of this. You know, we're just not materialists. You know this– which is why I may have a problem with those who into the Marxist-Leninist, class analysis stuff so much that it's just about the materialism. Like no man. We're humans. We're much more than that. So all of this just, you know, that's what I want. That's what I want to feel all of this stuff. And I want people to recognize that you too, have all these connections too, you know. I think about my grandmother. If you get me talking about my grandmother, tears are going to start coming. But even her, man, I want to do this, they all wanted something better for us. you know. It's great to feel like their voices are still there. We just gotta really call on them. Feel it. Come on, y'all. They haven't defeated us. I know it feels like that sometimes, but yeah. So all them things kind of hold me together.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10583.0,10651.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/199","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e And I still feel like, on a spiritual level, I am still trying to kind of– I want some kind of practices. I do get up in the morning and I make a prayer, you know. I love it when I can go outside and do it at sunrise as a reminder that all that we're connected to. All that. Even if, from the religious terminologies, God promises, you know. But I feel like I want to do more. So to– even with me doing that, it helps me to just stay together, you know. I don't want to feel like I'm just going through the motions. I don't want to feel that, and I do want to continue to feel like I'm hopeful and hopeful for good reasons. So the turnout at the National Black Radical Organizing Conference was great. The older folks that was doing the performance, oh shit. You feel that shit. Man like, yes. Yes, you know. Let's go there. Let's make sure we get that, you know. So all them things keep me hopeful. Yeah, keep me hopeful, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10651.0,10734.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/200","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Thank you. Thank you for spending this time with me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10734.0,10739.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/201","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Oh, this has been great. No, we're not done. Are we?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10739.0,10741.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/202","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I'm checking in with you. We're about at the three hour mark.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10741.0,10751.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/203","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10751.0,10751.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/204","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Do you need to stretch your legs? You need any water?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10751.0,10755.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/205","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e No, I got water right here. I'm good,","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10755.0,10757.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/206","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10757.0,10757.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/207","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e How about you?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10757.0,10758.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/208","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e I'm good--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10758.0,10759.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/209","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Okay–","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10759.0,10760.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/210","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Something you said earlier, which also I really love– I'm going to sit with that. What you just shared. Yeah. We talk about revolutionary optimism and, you know, always thinking about sometimes we do feel defeated. But, you know, I think for me, especially in doing like these oral histories, I can't, because I talk to people who just have kept going on. And I get to come back and I get to listen to it, and that is that's kind of like my hope, in like preserving these stories that we have people with us at all times.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10760.0,10804.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/211","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e All times. Yeah--","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10804.0,10806.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/212","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. And something you said earlier brought up a really– you brought up a kind of statement that I want to turn into a question. We were talking about– it was when we were starting to talk about you joining the BLA and you were talking about the way that Safiya maintained relationships. The quote that I wrote down that you said,you is, it's what it means to be involved in a total struggle. And I'm curious if you can expand on that. Like, what does it mean to be involved in a total struggle?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10806.0,10857.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/213","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e I think what I mean by total struggle is that it's not just a political struggle. It's not even just an economic struggle. That when you become a part of this struggle, this movement, it is really your whole being that's coming into it. It'd be great if you see that it's also an opportunity for your whole being to possibly be changed, right. So that, for example, like, okay, I'm coming into this to this movement stuff, at a young age. I'm learning what Black Nationalism mean, what Black Power means. It's helping me to know more about myself as an African person in America. Learning more about my history here and what our history in the motherland. But it's only a certain part of me that is really getting excited about it. What does it mean later on when I start reading more of the feminisms and the things like that?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10857.0,10933.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/214","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Now, now it's like, it's not only like I'm fighting for– to get, you know, liberation from this empire. But there's an internal thing too, now that I got to see. What does it mean, now that I got to deal with sexism? You know, that's some deep shit, you know. And so, but when I see it, I'm like, oh, man, even I can be different inside. I don't have to be this motherfucker that's so macho and, you know, so rigid and just rah, rah, rah. I might actually be open to being– feeling freer and being able to see more and experience more. Do I want to be open to that? That's a part of this struggle too, right. And then, when I when you start reading more, you know, like Fanon and beyond, and I think it is the spiritual part, you know, what does it mean to be really open to a liberated spirit? What does it mean for somebody to come up as a cis male to at some point realize that this cis male thing was what was imposed on me in this society. Maybe I'm not a cis male. Maybe I want to be something else. Maybe I feel something else. That movement gave me a space to access some courage to say I am not going to be this anymore. That them feelings I had or have for others that may be like me look like me, sexually and all that no more. You know, that's liberating.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=10933.0,11044.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/215","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So and so it's more than just, I want to know my history, my African history. And now it's like, I want to know what those things are inside of me that also yearns to be free. It's all still connected to fighting this monster. But now I have to have the courage to like, follow that spirit, follow that thing here. So it is much more total. And the things that I think that it's all connected to, is like this, society has its own cultural ways of trying to reel you back in, trying to order. Just to keep you in that locked up part of you. Like, how do we stop that? From the media to the movies, the news, the books we read and all that other stuff. Your son wants to join the Cub Scouts or the baseball team and all other stuff. Everything is just to keep you corralled. All those should be seen as a part of the struggle. Like we gotta combat these things that keep us corralled, even in our spirit. There's one– I don't even know who wrote the essay, but it was dealing with the Spirit and it was saying, it was almost like saying that this is the last frontier of the empire. If they can corral your spirit, they're going to continue to win. But that spirit for me is like manifesting, like the entry of women and queer folks in our movement. That's why, one of the reasons why the Indianapolis thing was really important for me, because I just already assumed that ain't nobody really going to speak to what we do in the Black movement still that narrows the voice of women, that won't even see our queer folks. And so in a sense you don't really get the gifts of women. You don't really get the gifts of queer folks. And what it means, especially with queer folks, to say you're not going to determine my body anymore. What does that mean? Then that throws all the concepts of male and all that other stuff to the wind. So you're willing to say we'll figure this, but I'm let my spirit guide me, but I know that I don't want no more of that old shit.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11044.0,11205.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/216","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e That means the old concepts of even Black nationalism gotta be challenged. We gotta look at like all the Black men who have led that and continue to lead that, the harm it does. It's harm. Our struggles are really total and it means that even the stuff that we thought we believed and understood, it's on shaky ground now. So why don't we figure this out as we go? But be clear that we should not be excluding each other, because the exclusions are harmful. The people that came up to me after that plenary, I was on, man. People came up to me and was just like, thank you for seeing us. And these were it was mainly women who, some were lesbian, some were queer. It was two who were ministers. And I'm like– and they and they said they came to the conference– and would be my critique that I've that I want to share with Kamau too. Like they said they came there not expecting to be seen. My nervousness is I know I'm gonna speak to that, but I don't want to be the spokesperson for the queer women and women. I just want to be able to speak to it so that that space is there and they and they more like, put your voice in there. Don't let no one tell you that you don't belong or that your voice can only come in certain ways. So I might even at that point where, as the cis male, I don't want to be your spokesperson. I'm not a– but I am going to speak to it if I get them opportunities. And I know that one of the main reasons I get it is because of my background. It gets some cultural capital because BLA, Black Panther, former political prisoner, and I just came to say, oh, that's what you're doing now. I'm going to use it. I want us to win. I want us to see all of our beauty, and not just the way we've been doing. It's just crazy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11205.0,11353.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/217","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e My [son], I haven't talked to him yet, right. He's in Alabama, Birmingham, but my– his sister has already told me he's into that hyper masculinity stuff, right. I'm like, Oh no, not my son. So I'm like, Okay, I gotta have to talk with him. Whatever good it do. Maybe it won't do none. Though he's a conscious– he's a conscious brother too, but that hyper– so I say that because I was in Houston last year, and the people that brought us, they always take care of the elders, but they also took us to some Black men healing session at a Hotep center, right. And the Hoteps man is like, they talk about the Black man regaining his rightful place. I'm talking about what the fuck he talking about. There ain't no rightful place. They ain't never been. And if that's what we're bound to, you talking about stepping back into some madness that sets us back. So I know I want to, as a Black male, speak to other brothers about that. But if I don't hear it being brought up in the other spaces, you know, revolutionary nationalists, whatever we're calling ourselves, then at least I'm going to bring it up, you know. So in that sense, that's why, like that total thing for me is like, how much is our thinking still caught up into Western or Eurocentric thinking? Why ain't we learning from what Indigenous people have been telling us? Even if you read Muhammad Abdul's book, Islam and Anarchism, It is a very holistic interpretation of even Islam that is such a connection with everything, just like the Indigenous one. How come we're not learning from them?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11353.0,11476.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/218","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e We give like this lip service solidarity, but not– I think we’re still so sure that we are fighting this class struggle for socialism or communism, we ain't talked to the Indigenous folks. This is Turtle Island. We ain't talked to them. And my one of the sisters from Guatemala who I'm close to, Kiki say you ain't talked to the trees. You ain't talk to the grass, you ain't talk to nothing. And somebody might look at that and like, oh, yeah, that's cute, but this is that, this is how they see the world that has so many rich lessons in it that those of us who are stuck on the political theories and stuff like– no there's something missing that you can't see, that what you want to build here, no consultation with those whose land this is. And then all the other things you ain't, you know, the stuff around race, the stuff around sex, the stuff around abilities, and there's so much we got to learn. So there's gotta be something different. It cannot follow from something that somebody laid down 100 years ago.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11476.0,11557.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/219","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So I'm smiling now, because I often imagine that at some point me and Jalil are gonna come to a head [laughter[. I know we will, but we're comrades, so I know it'll be okay. But I imagine because the anarchist thing he's like mm mm [laughter], but that is my anarchism, and it's basically we got to be open to doing this differently. There ain't no proven path towards this. So I don't. No. I don't care what Marx and all them other ones– I don't even care what Marcus Garvey and them others– I love them. They're our ancestors, but it ain't now, you know, what are we doing? How do you think we should do this? Let's pull together some fresh thinking on this, you know. Otherwise, ion know. I'm not fighting for that Republic of New Afrika. You ain't talked it– or if you have, you should be in constant dialogue with the Indigenous nations, Indigenous peoples instead of deciding that these states is yours. I want them kind of robust conversations. And I'm like, let's not avoid it. Let's have it, you know. So we can't be conflict avoidant. We can't let egos govern the way. We got to figure it out. So, that be me.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11557.0,11659.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/220","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah. Yeah. Well, that is the end of the questions I have. While you got the mic, the recorder. Is there anything else you would like to share?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11659.0,11669.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/221","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Ooh. I don't know if I think I've shared that this is the most– Oh, my God!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11669.0,11674.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/222","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e I told you we would be thorough.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11674.0,11677.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/223","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Well, I well one just truly appreciate that you're doing this and I'm hoping that you can get to more. Even some of those who are resistant to it, because man, I want people to know, you know, like what we tried to do, you know. And take from it what you will. But if we don't tell it, others will. And it ain't going to be good, you know. There's already been– there have been some individual writers who have come to former members and that they're gonna write a book like say, on the BLA or Panthers, and convince the people participating in it that it would be fair, and then when their book came out, that shit was fucked up. It was not honest or anything. And they knew that from the beginning they gone give their twist on this. That was their whole what they had convinced comrades, and then them comrades might have pulled others in naively, you know. So it just makes it more important. No, we got to tell this story as much as we can, because I am a firm believer that we will be confronted with the question of a Black Liberation Army again, you know. And we want to have to figure this out, because our people are in such a crazy situation, you know. We're in solidarity with everybody, but we have really got to be concerned with what's in our best interest first.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11677.0,11787.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/224","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e My comrade in Brooklyn, Brother D is always a very strong proponent of what's in our best interest. Because we know situations historically when we thought we had the white workers support that shit didn't work out. Sometimes in multi-national things, it's like we get lost in the shuffle, and we just expected to support all this other stuff and realized that we was just, in a sense pawns, because it just looked good to have Black people in this to legitimize it. We have really got to be concerned with political power. This is point number one of the Black Panther Party. We want power. We want the power to determine the destiny of the Black community. This is why I tell people I am always a nationalist. I'm a revolutionary nationalist. I tell that to the anarchists. If you don't like it, that's okay. My number one concern is always going to be the liberation of Black people, you know. Panther experience, we will work with anybody else that's for liberation, but that is the core, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11787.0,11854.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/225","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e So I hope people listen. I hope people continue to read. I hope people continue to experiment with ways of uniting, organizing, that gets us beyond our own mistakes, our own shortcomings. Also allows us to combat as best we can what the counter-insurgency programs are going to do. And like other groups are doing, which I love about Community Movement Builders, build in your community those kinds of institutions that will help sustain our struggle to victory. Do that. The primary emphasis cannot be the demos, the marches. They have their place. But if we don't learn how to take care of ourselves, if we don't learn how to support ourselves, look at the alternative ways that we're already developing amongst ourselves, from health, to food sovereignty, and all these other things, come on, y'all. We can do this together! And that's where I'm at.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11854.0,11927.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/226","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eDartricia Rollins:\u003c/strong\u003e That's right.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11927.0,11928.0"},{"id":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401/transcript/88750/annotation/227","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"\u003cstrong\u003eAshanti Alston:\u003c/strong\u003e Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://grassrootsthinking.aviaryplatform.com/collections/3503/collection_resources/163309/file/297401#t=11928.0,11932.78984"}]}]}]}