Mike Sannito, applicant for consideration into the African People’s Solidarity Committee, submitted this statement in February of 2023:
I want to use my life and do whatever I can to usher in a new era of socialism on an international scale and fight against colonialism here and everywhere it rears its head. I believe that this organization has the ideological clarity and correct analysis that best equips the people for this battle against colonialism. Most importantly I think this organization as opposed to others has the most advanced position on the national question. By not making any claims to the U.S. land base and standing in solidarity with Indigenous people in their fight against colonialism, the organization takes seriously the settler colonial context that we are operating in here in this country. In trying to join other socialist organizations I’ve realized that sadly this position is not often accepted.
Comrade Onyx, AKA James R. Rose, McCormick Correctional Institution
Uhuru! Peace and blessings to Chairman Omali Yeshitela and APSP. First, I would like to thank you for my monthly subscription of The Burning Spear newspaper. It is very inspirational to me.
I have to admit, every time I view Chairman Omali Yeshitela, I become overwhelmed with excitement because in him I can see the change coming that Sam Cooke spoke about in his song lyrics. I can see the mountaintop that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached about.
I remember when I was like 10 or 11 years old, I was walking to the ice-skating rink in southwest Philadelphia and witnessed all this heavy black smoke coming from a block called Osage Ave. I heard that the neocolonialist mayor, Wilson Goode, bombed the block to force colonized Africans out of their homes.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I know what I saw, and ever since, I considered myself a freedom fighter. However, I never knew who I was or where I came from until I started reading The Burning Spear. I’m 45 years of age, and because of you, I know my identity, as well as my purpose on this planet.
Thank you for never giving up on people like me. I promise to do whatever it is I have to do to help unite us Africans to make one Africa.
Izwe Lethu! i Afrika!
No compromise! No surrender!
Uhuru!
Askari D. Lumumba Greensville Correctional Center
Revolutionary greetings Comrade Matsemela,
I just read your piece, “It is genocide…” and I have to say I completely agree. I’ve been incarcerated here in Virginia for 25 years. I was arrested at age 18 and convicted in 1998 at age 19 of second degree murder. I shot and killed a white man during a drug deal that “went bad.”
The prosecution obtained an indictment for capital murder and I was tried for it. I’ll never forget the prosecution opened his case saying, “This man killed [the victim] in cold blood and he deserves to die!”
After a week-long trial, the jury disagreed and convicted me of second degree. However, because the case was so high profile, the same jury sentenced me to 58 years without the possibility of parole.
The ancestors granted me favor in 2020, however, when the State gave 300 of us still incarcerated based on what we were sentenced by juries between 1995-2000, parole eligibility. I am actually waiting on an answer now.
I have experienced first-hand the genocidal nature of Amerikkka’s criminal/legal system. The law is white as Huey eloquently stated. The cops, lawyers, judges and prison function as colonial officials in this society.
Prison has been a university for me. And I’ve learned who I truly am in here. I changed my name to Askari Danso Mwalimu Sekóu Lumumba: soldier, reliable, teacher, learned, gifted are the translations of those words, in different African languages. Also, I took the names Mwalimu, Sekóu and Lumumba to honor three of my ancestral heroes from Tanzania, Guinea and the Congo! Asé! Their spirits are with me everyday. Asé!
That said, I would like to join the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. I have been doing the work of radicalizing prisoners for years.
I’ve been the victim of some of Virginia’s most severe counterinsurgency techniques, including long-term solitary confinement. If you Google me, under the following names, you’ll get a glimpse of my contributions to the struggle here in Virginia: Dale Pughsley, Askari Danso or Askari Lumumba.
Today, I focus mostly on educating and litigating. I work in the prison law library and help guys obtain some justice with their “wrongful convictions” or “abuse suffered at the hands of prison officials.” I pray that I am finally given freedom by this colonial parole board.
Please tell Chairman Omali I have huge African love for him. I’ve learned so much about the imperialists and their system of imperialism from The Burning Spear and his speeches in them. I also have had Vanguard for a few years and it’s given me so much clarity. His analysis of fascism as “…the paint when the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie…challenges the veneer of bourgeois democracy enjoyed by white people.” And the contradiction for us to negate colonialism; it was pivotal to my development. So give him my sincere gratitude for his decades of service in our anti-colonial war!
In closing, know that you guys are being attacked by the domestic political police (FBI) because you are effective. They can kill revolutionaries, but they can NEVER kill our revolution! Asé! Uhuru!
In the spirit of Sankofa!
Put the colonial State on trial!
Donate to Burning Spear Media to help fund the Mafundi Lake Prisoner Subscription Program, so that Africans in the prisons can stay connected with our freedom struggle by receiving complimentary issues of The Spear!
