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AS A COLLEGE FRESHMAN, I attended a 1973 meeting of the Muhammad Ahmad (a.k.a. Max Stanford) Defense Committee (MADC). Police had captured Ahmad, a leader of the Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) and a principal target of the Counter INTELligence PROgram (COINTELPRO). I was asked at the meeting, You ever heard of Queen Mother Moore? After receiving a brief explanation, I was assigned to escort Queen Mother to a speaking engagement. The proceeds of her California talks went to the MADC.
As her driver and security, I accompanied Queen Mother on several speaking engagements in the 1970s. I was later recruited into RAMs successor organization, the African Peoples Party (APP). Queen Mother was mentor to the APP. As the principal female elder in APP, she was commonly referred to as Mother. Queen Mothers speech that 1973 winter day expressed themes that recurred throughout her addresses. I will briefly share some core themes that appeared in Queen Mothers oratory, and reconstruct some of my experiences with her.
We are Africans": The Core Themes of Mothers Message
Queen Mother always emphasized that blacks in the United States were Africans. She believed black, Negro, and colored were not appropriate designations. Mother argued that identity must be tied to a homeland; Chinese from China, Germans from Germany, Japanese from Japan, and Mexicans from Mexico. Where is Colored Land? Where is Negro or Black Land? You can only be Africans! The sojourn of Africans in the United States did not transform them into Americans. She consistently queried, Cats having kittens in an oven, doesn't make them biscuits?" Mother asserted Africans in the US were a "captive nation."
Mother asserted that our oppression had black people in a mental condition she labeled "oppression-psycho neurosis." This "psychosis" led blacks to act against our interests and engendered fidelity to our oppressors. This psychological condition was reflected in our being "denaturized" into "negroes." She described a tamed lion in a circus to make her point. Mother stated the lion opened his mouth and allowed his white female tamer to put her head in it. If the lion had been in "his right mind, he would have torn that white girl's head off."
Queen Mother advocated reparations for enslavement and our colonized psychological condition or "slave...