PROUD FLESH Inter/Views: Dhoruba Bin Wahad

Abstract

It was Black Solidarity Day that brought us Dhoruba Bin Wahad, a former Black Panther leader and political prisoner of nineteen years, live and indirect from Ghana. The late Safiya Bukhari-Alston actually put us in contact with him before her passing on: R.I.P. He would fly across the Atlantic for three speaking engagements, one in New York City and two “upstate,” with its infamous archipelago of prisons. The first was in the name of a solidarity that is Black. For the next, we drove back and forth to Binghamton, from Onondaga County, listening to the Blues blaring in the dark of night. Homeboy gits into some Blues! I said, “Homeboy gits into some Blues!” Despite this “upstate” part of the itinerary, however, our interview had to take place in New York City, on the go. Black Panther-brilliant on top of brilliant, of course, he was commenting on C-SPAN, entertaining Long-time-no-see visitors and communicating with Continental family via text-messages while answering all of our questions—on November 12, 2003, after three magnificent, marathon talks at three different universities in less than a week or so. Whenever, wherever, PROUD FLESH was thrilled to finally get to interview Dhoruba Bin Wahad.