Today we are joined by Mukasa Dada formerly known as Willie Ricks, an organizer who served as a crucial bridge between the non-violent direct action of the early 1960s and the more militant, empowerment-focused Black Power movement of the late 1960s and 1970s. As aMobilizer and organizer, he risked his life to challenge segregation in interstate travel in the Jim Crow South - Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi. He is a living epitome of a committed advocate for black liberation and Pan-Africanism. If Kwame Ture / Stokely Carmichael was the national voice that announced "Black Power" to the world, Mukasa DWillie Ricks was the grassroots organizer who lit the fuse.

The California ecological cycle of large fires is the subject matter of this episode, and my guest, Luis Malik, speaks about the profound and unjust double standard in how the capitalist system addresses fire disasters and how wild fires intersect with industrial development. We further discuss the history of wild fires and the political economy of fire in California.

This episode is dedicated to our ancestor, Kwame Ture, who made his physical transition to be with the Ancestors on November 15th 1998. Ahjamu Umi joins me to discuss the teachings of Ture. Ahjamu is a dedicated activist/organizer/author who has engaged in on the ground work throughout Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and throughout the U.S. for 4 decades now. His latest work is "A Guide for Defense against White Supremacist, Patriarchal, and Fascist Violence." It's a manifesto designed to provide guidance for how to organize neighborhoods on a block by block basis. He is an organizer with the AAPRP.

We have chosen 3 sections of his teachings relative to political ideology and African liberation:

1. Organizing, Organization and Unity

2. Love for Your People

3. The Conscious and the unconscious

4. Africa and Africans Will Win (will be liberated) 

Ahjamu Umi, being a seasoned organizer who loves his people, does an exceptional job in interpreting the immortal words of Kwame Ture. The following are some of the teachings/sayings of Kwame Ture

1. You mustn't think that since everybody is against the same thing means that everybody is for the same thing…And unity does not represent what you are against. It represents what you are for. Consequently, when one speaks of unity, one must speak of organization.

2. When you love your people, you must hate the enemies of your people. If you don't hate the enemies of your people, it is because you don't love your people.

3. A people cannot be free unless they are conscious. Irrespective of all the struggle they wage, once they remain unconscious, they shall never be free. No people can be free, no people will ever be free unless they are consciously organized.

4. We are going to win because of our culture.

Kwame Ture’s teachings and service to his people (Africans) and humanity echoes through space and time. His love for his people remains timeless and was shown in his service to them. It can be said of him: He lived for his people and died for his people. 

In this episode we connect with Imani Na Umoja in Guinea Bissau (GB) to talk about the recent political developments in the country. And the center of attention in Bissau is the neocolonial puppet and illegal president, Umaro Sissoko Embalo who is breaking every rule in the book to stay in power and continue selling out the Pan-African project in GB.

My guest, Imani, serves in the Political Beaureu of African Party of Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), serves on the National Secretariat of the PAIGC as a Director of PAIGC Amilcar Cabral Political Ideological Training School. Imani is a member of the Central Committee of  the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP). He also serves on the Coordination Counsel of West African Peoples Organization WAPO, and is a member of the Steering Committee of Black Alliance for Peace US Out of Africa Network. 

Find Imani @ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1000187046523

Sister Assata Shakur transitioned to be with the ancestors on September 25th, 2025 in Cuba aged 78. In this episode we pay tribute to this giant of the African world and our guest is Ahjamu Umi - a dedicated activist/organizer/author who has engaged in on the ground work throughout Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and throughout the U.S. for 4 decades now. His latest work is "A Guide for Defense against White Supremacist, Patriarchal, and Fascist Violence" - it's a manifesto designed to provide guidance for how to organize neighborhoods on a block by block basis. He is also a longtime organizer with the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party (AAPRP). Ahjamu explains who sister Assata was/is, her coming to consciousness, her conflict with the injustice system of the US, her prison life and birth of her daughter while in prison, her unjust conviction in 1973 for allegedly killing a New Jersey state trooper, her 1979 political asylum in Cuba and Ahjamu’s visit with sister Assata in Cuba in 1994. Finally, Ahjamu states: “the revolution as an act of love” - commenting on Assata’s poem on Love in page 130 of her book (Assata: An Autobiography).

“It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains:...” - Assata Shakur

Find Ahjamu's blog where he writes extensively politics and economics at: https://www.abetterworld.me/blog and his weekly YouTube program - Our Ancestors Voices - at https://www.youtube.com/@umifam

Onyesonwu Chatoyer rejoins me for this episode and we discuss Patriarchy. Onyesonwu is A Cadre and organizer with the AAPRP, editor with Hood Communist (an anti-imperialist online publication), on the national coordinating committee of the Venceremos brigade (an organization opposing the U.S. embargo and travel ban, supporting normalized relations and recognizing Cuba’s accomplishments).

We talk about the challenge that silent patriarchy creates a culture of fear in those who have to face it daily; the nature, mechanisms, and manifestations of systemic patriarchy, its structural and ideological force; women trauma and patriarchy; and that the toxic nature of patriarchy and sexism can exist without men being present.

Ogadinma Kingsley Okakpu, PhD’d in Biomedical Sciences, and currently working as a research scientist in the biotech industry joins me to talk geopolitical economics today. We analyze the relevancy of Lenin whose analysis in "The Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism" ( Chapter 8 of Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism) remains deeply relevant today, as many of the tendencies he identified have intensified under neoliberal globalization and financialized capitalism. In this episode we break down 2 of 5 of his key arguments in the chapter and how these apply to the contemporary world: a) parasitism and the rise of the rentier class and financialization, and b) the division of the world into creditor vs. debtor nations. We intend to wrap the other 3 arguments in a near-future episode.

Treasurer General of the People's United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO - one of Swaziland political oppositions) political analyst, and a  vibrant activist, Velaphi Mamba  - Harvard Graduate - joins me in this episode to discuss and analyze the US deportees to Swaziland. The United States sent five immigrants, alleged to have been convicted of serious crimes, to the African nation of Swaziland. These deportees are reported to be from Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos.

We have Part 3 of the history of the All African Women Revolutionary Union (AAWRU), a women’s wing of the AAPRP. Sister Moya Mzuri, covers another 10+ years of the history from the 10th Anniversary of the AAWRU in 1990 and beyond the year 2000. 

Post 1990 the AAWRU created a section on women in cadre political book lists and Integrating readings on women in all sections. Some sisters relocated to the Caribbean to build chapters and organize in the Virgin Islands by 1986-87. Others made the revolutionary leap to live and organize in Azania South Africa to assist in the establishment of an AAPRP chapter.

The AAWRU 20th anniversary Union Conference was held in Guinea Bissau, West Africa in November 2000. And through the chaos of an attempted coup d’etat in Guinea Bissau at the time of the meeting, our sisters and brothers from Azania South Africa, Guinea, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Britain and the Americas, continued to meet and work and pledged that no reactionary force will stop the unity and liberation of African People!

The Union has also supported African people’s struggle for self determination by partnering in agricultural projects in Guinea Bissau and Ghana in the 1990s, and continued to build Africa study programs for African youth. They also established the Miriam Makeba hospital project in the 1980s, and worked on women’s clothing projects in Sierra Leone and the Gambia, supported schools in Sierra Leone and Ghana.

This is Part 2 of the history of the All African Women Revolutionary Union (AAWRU), a women’s wing of the AAPRP. My guest, sister Moya Mzuri, covers 10 years of the history from the inception of the AAWRU to its 10th anniversary. These are the highlights of the record:

•1980 - Central Committee mandates the creation of the AAWRU; Post African Liberation Day Regional Task Force created to found the Union; Union founded in CO, Ohio  and elects Maisha Washington at the conference.

•1982 - Women & Society reading @ January ’82 Central Union & Regional Coord. Mtg; Decision of Union to have Assembly State Structure; Union attends National Women’s Congress in Grenada; AAWRU members elect Mawina Kouyate as AAWRU coordinator and Moremi Hunt to 1st elected CC.

•1985 - 5th Anniversary Union Seminar in NY (Line & Feminism topics); Union delegation attends International Conference on Women in Kenya.

•1986 - Union & Kwame Ture Party delegation to Libya in defiance of Regan’s EO banning travel to Libya; 2 Union members selected for Libya student Scholarship; Union member moves to Bissau, cadre engage in critical ideological work to produce the paper, “The African Mind” calling for Social Revolution.

•1987 - Another Union member moves to Bissau then to VI a few months later

•1989 - Union UK member attends PAC Women’s Conference in Azania; AAWRU reps attend 20th anniversary of Jamahyria in Libya.

•1990 10th - Anniversary of UNION held in London (a call for Social Revolution).

Sister Moya Mzuri of the All African Women Revolutionary Union (AAWRU), a women’s wing of the AAPRP, speaks to me on the general history of the AAWRU. Sister Mzuri joined the AAPRP in 1976 - some 4 years before the establishment of the AAWRU. In this episode, the first of a couple to come documenting the history of the AAWRU, she speaks about the conditions that necessitated the launching of the AAWRU, and why the AAWRU was not formed immediately after the above ground announcement of the AAPRP in 1972. She concludes by highlighting the most noteworthy advocates for the establishment of the AAWRU. Episode 2 will deal with the historical development of the AAWRU to the present day with the crowning event being its 10th Anniversary on February 28th, 1992 at Manchester, England - the same place the 5th Pan-African Congress was held.

Minister Mimut Nuhu of the House of Sankofa, California, and cadre of the AAPRP is the guest in this episode. The subject is Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977), a woman characterised by RESISTANCE,  a prominent civil rights activist, voting rights advocate, and leader in the fight for racial and economic justice in the United States. Born in rural Mississippi to sharecropper parents, she experienced poverty and racial oppression firsthand, which fueled her lifelong commitment to activism. This episode should be listened to together with the previous one on Ida B. Wells.

This episode covers Chpt 2 of the book Appropriate Technology Manifesto. Author, John Trimble, presents historical materialism (HM) as the application of dialectical materialism to society, production and reproduction, i.e., HM offers a materialist theory to examine the socio-economic impact of technology. According to John, those in charge of production guide technology development to maintain and enhance their control over resources. That is, the dominance of the conquest mentality and the capitalist class continues to shape technology policy. By extension, the workers are weakened and continue to be exploited. In all this, the biggest challenge is to overcome the dominance of conquest mentality, so that technology development causes further inequalities and destruction of life and the planet. So, John offers suggestions on how dialectics between forces of production can improve relations of production and empower people through appropriate technology.

From the House of Sankofa California, minister Mimut Nuhu rejoins me today to shine a spotlight on Ida B Wells, an anti-lynching crusader, a civil rights pioneer, a person known for her fearless activism amid systemic oppression, and a relentless advocate for justice. We know so much about lynching in the Southern states such as Mississippi because of our ancestor, Ida - the champion of justice - whose mantra was: "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." Mimut passionately highlights the gruesome and inhumane crimes against people of African descent in North America, particularly in the southern states.

John Trimble joins me to talk about his latest book, APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY MANIFESTO: Shifting the Forces of Production to Empower People and Protect the Planet. With an intention to do a chapter per episode, in this episode we discuss chapter 1. In this episode John gives a critical analysis of the western paradigm of conquest, domination and exploitation which inspires the development of technology. Such technology turns out to be destructive to land, harmful to humanity, and disruptive to ecological systems. He argues that the technology of conquest, oppression and violence has further been developed to suppress all effort for justice and equality and is concealed in the advances of Industrial Revolutions.  In opposition to the technology of conquest, John captures the new paradigm of the oppressed and indigenous people who are most aware of the polluted waters, toxic air, dirty food and decimated forests that are the result of the technology misadventures around the world. Such a paradigm calls for development of technology that focuses on human needs, not profit for the wealthy and corporate owners. A verbatim extract from Chapter 1 states: “We cannot continue to view the planet, its land, its waters, its plants, its animals, its people, and its natural resources as things to be conquered, dominated, and exploited.” 

Find some of John's work at International Network on Appropriate Technology and his book at Africa World Press & The Red Sea Press / APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY MANIFESTO: Shifting the Force of Production to Empower People and Protect the Planet Edited by John Trimble & Mammo Muchie and on Amazon

Mimut Nuhu, minister from the House of Sankofa in California and a cadre of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party, joins me in this episode to pay a respectful tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  King was born on January 15th, 1929, and died on April 4th 1968. Minister Mimut speaks not only of Dr King, but his family too, stating that his brother, Alfred Daniel King, and mother (Alberta Christine Williams King) were assassinated too - something relatively unknown to the public and African community. MLK’s life was an embodiment and manifestation of the laws or principles of Ma’at, namely, Truth, Justice, Balance, Order, Harmony, etc., says Mimut. And these principles are a legacy of our ancestors.

Ahjamu Umi returns to the show to talk about the insurance industry from a Pan-African perspective, at the wake of the killing of the United health care CEO Brian Thompson. Ajamu is an organizer for over 40 years with the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. Ahjamu is an author, and his recent work, which has been gaining more attention and traction after the re-election of Donald Trump is title “A guide for Organizing Defense Against White SUpremacy, Patriarchy, and Fascist Violence” - a manifesto designed to provide guidance for how to organize neighborhoods on a block by block basis.

Ahjamu speaks about the genesis and the historical development of the insurance industry on the backs of Africans. He argues that it is an industry that extorts and exploits the people to make super profits - just as it has been said that all insurance companies have an incentive to chisel their customers in order to increase profits as apparent in the government data below:

• National Health Expenditure (NHE) grew 7.5% to $4.9 trillion in 2023, or $14,570 per person, and accounted for 17.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

• Out of pocket spending grew 7.2% to $505.7 billion in 2023, or 10 percent of total NHE.

• Prescription drug spending increased 11.4% to $449.7 billion in 2023, faster than the 7.8% growth in 2022.

 Ahjamu also speaks about other industries that feed off or support the insurance industry, namely, the Collection Agencies, lawyers, etc. Regulation is not the solution here since these companies outlive regulation, says Ahjamu. In the final analysis, political education and organizing, says Ahjamu, will advance the masses towards liberation not one person shooting another.

To interact with Ahjamu and his writing, go to https://www.abetterworld.me/

Malcolm X is accredited with these words: You cant have capitalism without racism. Joseph Kaluba, originally from Zambia, now living in the US, is my guest today to speak about the challenges of racism in Utah. In recent years, the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney’s Office for Utah had a settlement agreement with Davis School District in Utah - an attempt to address race discrimination in the district’s schools, including serious and widespread racial harassment of Black and Asian-American students.

As a parent, Joseph has children that have been heavily hit by racism, including being called a “monkey.” With such a traumatic experience continuing unabated despite taking the issue to the highest echelons of the school system in the district, a decision had to be made for the best interest of the kids whose mental health was spiraling down. They were sent away from the parents to live in Africa, a mega decision that proved fruitful to both parents and children. Change of environment defined with clarity the effects on the individual of the Western culture of individualism and the African culture of Ubuntu or collectivism.

To realize their growing yearning for a liberated and unified Africa, Africans are organizing themselves throughout the continent and its diaspora. In this episode, John Trimble and Sobukwe Shakura join me to discuss their organizing activities in Southern and East Africa, respectively. They each have been organizing for over 40 years and are a cadre  with the ⁠All African Revolutionary Party⁠

Some of the issues they discuss are land reclamation, the struggle against neocolonialism, the Green Revolution of Multination Corporations and the negative impact these have on the environment, local farmers and over the food sector.

This episode takes us into the success and challenges of organizing in both South and East Africa as the Pan-African project reverberates across the continent and the diaspora.

This is an anthological episode dealing with Black Power and  the intricacies of Pan-Africanism. In this regard we host the voices of Kwame Ture, Ahjamu Umi, and Kwame Nkrumah. Pan-Africanism has come a long way - going as far back as the 1900s or from the days of Marcus Garvey through W.E.B Du Bois who kept the lights of Pan-Africanism burning till the 1945 Pan-African Congress with George Padmore (from the Caribbean) and Kwame Nkumah representing the Motherland. It is a fact that the struggle of Africans in North America produced what is known as Black Power in the 60s of the Civil Rights Movement.However, it is argued that Black Power naturally mutates or evolves to Pan-Africanism.