Uhuru readers of The Burning Spear newspaper,
In our December 2019 issue, The Burning Spear newspaper’s print edition published a story on the police murder of a young African man in Huntsville, Dana Fletcher. On the cover on a teaser that lead readers to this news story, the teaser read “Dana Wilson”, which is completely incorrect.
The Staff of The Burning Spear newspaper are self critical to our international readers, the family and friends of Dana and black community of Huntsville, Alabama for this misprint. We are serious about overturning the colonial conditions of our people and do not take this mission lightly.
To reconcile this error, The Spear will send the family of Dana Fletcher issues of our monthly newspaper for no charge and continue to publish their articles here on our online and print editions.
Thank you for Keeping The Spear Burning!
Long live Dana Fletcher!
Uhuru!
On October 27, 2019, in Madison, Alabama, the Madison Police Department killed Mr. Dana Fletcher, a family man, in cold blood in front of his wife and 8-year-old daughter.
I would like to first send my condolences on behalf of the Huntsville, Alabama local Party unit and the overall African People’s Socialist Party.
We stand in full unity with the family of Dana Fletcher in this fight for justice.
Five officers and a police dog surrounded the Fletchers’ vehicle and attacked the family, leaving Mr. Fletcher dead and his wife and daughter bruised and traumatized.
This is a routine experience for the African community; from dogs being commanded to bite little children during the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham, Alabama, to biting Mr. Fletcher only seconds before they tased and murdered him.
It is this antagonistic relationship that the African working class has had to the State since being kidnapped and brought to what is now known as America.
This relationship throughout history has murdered black people and blamed us for being murdered.
It was the State that legalized slavery, lynching, Jim Crow, the murder of Emmitt Till, Mike Brown, Crystal Ragland and now Dana Fletcher.
The evidence has shown time and time again that the State cannot investigate itself.
The black community is tired of hearing justifiable homicide and must organize to take power to render justice for our community.
This type of execution happens so frequently it must be characterized as genocide and police containment of the black community.
The State legalizes itself
The strategy that the State uses in cases like Dana’s must be clear.
The State deploys two types of cases to defend their crimes: a political one and a legal one.
The political one is waged through media with propaganda to influence public opinion.
The narrative is typically the same. The person had a gun and/or the cop(s) feared for their life even if there was no weapon involved.
The pigs have been known to plant weapons on the victims to support their narrative.
The media practically functions as a branch of the police that plasters the news with any criminal background that the victim has, sometimes even resorting to grade school referrals or mug shots whether the person was convicted or not.
In this narrative they raise up the cops as good, law-abiding citizens and talk about how good and brave they are.
They repeat it enough to where every question or thought is a derivative of this narrative.
This is so effective that even if it makes it to a trial, public opinion has been so influenced that a jury can’t hear the evidence without tainted ears.
The other campaign is a legal one that is carried out in court or through some court process, another function of the capitalist-colonialist State.
Again, by this time public opinion has been inundated with the State’s narrative, which is supported by the propaganda imposed repeatedly through our lives through every other facet of society from schools to movies to newspapers.
It is a narrative that defines African people as inherently criminal and police as heroes who protect society from this criminal element. With these narratives, the outcome is all but guaranteed.
We must have power to get justice!
We must organize to take power so that we are able to control and write our own narrative.
We must seize power to carry out the legal campaign as well.
We must have Black Community Control of the Police and conduct our own independent investigations.
We must erect our own courts to guarantee justice for our people.
Lastly, we must organize in the way that the State has for it, to enforce the verdicts that come from our courts.
We must have this type of organization and clarity of Black Power to get justice.
We should be clear that the State and all of its tools—the courts, police, media, etc.—will not work in the interest of our people.
The Uhuru Movement and its mass organization, the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM), have a history of building dual and contending power to resist the State and take power into our own hands.
We must raise up Dana Fletcher and others in Huntsville, Alabama, who have been murdered by the police, as heroes/heroines and African Martyrs.
We must fight for justice, not in an abstract sense, but by organizing to take power that allows us to stand by the mantra, “Not one more African life!”
Justice for Dana Fletcher, justice for Crystal Ragland, justice for Haraesheo Rice and the countless others murdered by the Huntsville and Madison Police Department and upheld by the DA, Courts and media.
Below are the demands that we put forth:
1. All officers involved must be indicted for the murder of Dana Fletcher
2. Reparations to Mr. Fletcher’s family
3. Black Community Control of the Police
4. A transparent investigations for the family and community
Black Power Matters!
Black Community Control of the Police!
Fight for freedom, join InPDUM!
