Farewell to Chokwe Lumumba – A Life Lived as a Champion for Social Justice – A Cautionary Tale?
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Chokwe Lumumba, Attorney, Freedom Fighter, Social Justice Advocate and Recently-Elected Mayor of Jackson MS, Passed Away at age 66
Is there a message in his early departure? They say he died of heart failure. He was active, fit and strong. I say he died of a heart too often broken, from the injustice that he witnessed and fought against for the entirety of his life. I want to offer my Farewell comments for the end of the 2014 Black History Month.
Is there a message in his early departure? They say he died of heart failure. He was active, fit and strong. I say he died of a heart too often broken, from the injustice that he witnessed and fought against for the entirety of his life. I want to offer my Farewell comments for the end of the 2014 Black History Month.
I think my message of farewell to Mayor Chokwe Lumumba is actually something of a cautionary tale. Like so many social justice warriors of Black African descent in the U.S. – giants like Frederick Douglas, WEB DuBois, Hajj Malik (Malcolm X) Shabazz, Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, and most recently Imamu Amiri Baraka – Lumumba was engaged in full-time battle.
Lumumba’s battles began with his very early years, while hanging out with his mother, who was an organizer and fund-raiser for the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As a college student, he began building an offensive for social justice for Black Americans with the Black United Front, the Black Panther Party, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (NCOBRA), and the Republic of New Africa. After getting his law degree from Wayne State University Law School, he defended many so-called “Black Nationalists,” social justice fighters who found themselves at odds with the law and political systems. His defendants included Assata Shakur, Tupac Shakur and Geronimo Pratt (a target for the FBI Co-Intelpro initiative). After practicing law in both Michigan and Mississippi (notwithstanding several brief periods where he was sanctioned, and temporarily prevented from practice for contempt of court charges), Lumumba pursued political office. Last year, he won his bid for the mayoralty in Jackson, MS – a place known all to painfully well for its deeply racist past history. His tenure began on July 1, 2013. He died while holding office on February 25, 2014, perhaps fittingly, if not WAY too soon, in Black History Month.
As Frederick Douglas famously stated,
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.”
While I believe this, I am also acutely aware of Dr. Carl Jung’s warning that, “what you resist, persists.” Yet – who can permanently tolerate living in a state of being constantly stressed, if not oppressed, by such conditions as low-wage employment, ineffective education, poor healthcare, inadequate food, poor quality housing, an ongoing, militarized police presence, and the like? People who live under these circumstances are thrown into a continuous state of resistance. When you add RACE to that mix, the typical response is either to surrender to hopelessness, or live in a constant state of emotional upset and rage. And this Community-wide state of emotional affairs may actually be what keeps the injustice and the economic oppression in place!
So I struggle to find the place of balance between resisting oppression and injustice, and embracing freedom and self-determination. This is a difficult balance because the injustices and oppression that serve specifically to enrich “the few,” do so by employing a “divide and conquer” strategy. Messages are sent out that divide communities by race and by class. Those differences are then highlighted as the ‘root cause’ of the troubles that – truthfully – are brought on and aggravated by fear and extreme greed. (I think the greed is actually a manifestation of the fear!)
It saddens me to know that just Lumumba began to formulate strategy for advancing economic justice and economic development, he took in his last breath. His platform to win the Mayor’s office in Jackson was largely based on the pursuit of infrastructure projects which would spur the City’s economy, and provide jobs and business opportunities for local residents. My hope is that whoever assumes his role will continue on this path. Because I think it is THIS path that gets us to that place of balance – between fighting for social and economic justice, and realizing self-determination.
And here lies a paradox: the achievement of real “freedom” – as in, authentic Self-Determination – is, at its essence – an INTERNAL struggle! We each have to overcome our own weaknesses to arrive at the place of real discipline – where keeping our word to our Self is more sacred than anything else in our life!
Lumumba, and those who came before him, surely lived Self-determined lives, notwithstanding all of the opposition that they faced on a daily basis. I think these social justice champions chose to take on the struggle for self-determination on behalf of all so many others who have stepped away from the challenges that I named in earlier paragraphs. In other words, those of us who have NOT taken on this Call, have led to these leaders stepping into the fray, and taking on the challenges in our name. In too many cases, their efforts have cost them their lives.
I say it’s time to Step Up, and take on the Call to Self-Determination by way of economic independence and economic justice. Whether you see an opportunity for social enterprise, or home-based business, or small business ownership – it is time to put away your fears and anxieties, and make a decision to create a life of financial independence.
I’ll enjoy connecting with you on that journey!
Many Blessings!
Together we’ll build the wealth required to Occupy Entrepreneurship and Restore the Middle-Class!