Safiya Bukhari - The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, and Fighting for Those Left Behind

EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY LAURA WHITEHORN

FOREWORD BY ANGELA Y. DAVIS

AFTERWORD BY MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

"And that is why ... the youth were so important, for they would prove to the ancestors that it had not been foolish to fight for the right to be free, to be human."

-Toni Cade Bambara, The Sea Birds Are Still Alive

of until my mother passed did I realize how important she was-how hard she worked, how many people admired her and looked up to her. It took me years to understand that although she wasn't around for me when I wanted her to be, the things she was doing instead of raising me made life a little safer for my daughter and other kids. If my mother and the rest of the Panthers hadn't done their work, we wouldn't have seen the gains made in Black civil and human rights. For instance, I think of sickle-cell anemia testing. Although common today, testing for sickle-cell anemia was virtually nonexistent until the Panthers set up programs to go door to door testing for the disease. The Party founded health clinics and organized hospitals in some cities to cooperate with the testing and to hold blood drives.

I got to know my mother when I began to understand her political life and work. That's why I wanted to publish her words. To let her speak so you could understand that too.

For much of my childhood, my mother was in prison. When I was eleven years old-a few years before my mother was released-I found out a lot about her. Until then, I thought my grandparents were my parents-even though I'd been visiting my mother in prison. Finally, an uncle told me the truth, and I began to come to terms with the new facts of my life.

I learned that if it hadn't been for my godmother, Safiyas sorority sister, Wonda (my namesake), I probably would have become a child of the system shortly after I was born. But my godmother called my grandmother, and she came to get me from the Panther headquarters just a few hours before the police raided those headquarters.

I was lucky. I've talked with a lot of Panther cubs who weren't as fortunate. They were hit with police sticks or had the cops put guns to their faces when they were discovered at a raid of Panther offices. I was lucky in that way. But in another, I was less lucky. They grew up with their parents, and I didn't. I lost my father in March of 1971. Robert Webb, a member of the Black Panther Party, was found dead on a street in New York City. Police never investigated nor was anyone ever charged with the murder. Then, for years after, my mother was on the run or in prison, and my grandparents and other family members raised me.

With all that, I didn't have the worst childhood. In fact, it felt like an ordinary life to me. At home, all I heard about was the church, and heaven and hell. I never heard about the Panthers.

My mother came home from prison when I was fourteen and in the midst of teenage rebellion. I didn't want any part of her or her life. I gave her hell. I gave Ashanti Alston hell, too. Ashanti had married Safiya in 1985 and helped raise me.

Despite all this, we developed a good relationship in time. She worked at it. When I got pregnant, my mother supported me. The first time she heard my daughter's heartbeat, she cried. She said, "I can be here for her childhood like I wasn't for yours:" All the attention she hadn't been able to give to me, she poured into my baby Shylis. That's when I understood that my mother did regret not having been there as a parent for me. And that's when I forgave her.

Tragically, my mother died at the young age of fifty-three. After I got over the fury at her death-at the people whod known she was in bad health but hadn't helped her slow down and heal-I began to step back and look at it all. I saw that we all make choices in life. She wanted to fight for all the people, to make sure that everyone, including me, had a better future. So she made a choice, sacrificing being a mother to be an activist. I'm not going to say I wouldn't have loved for her to have been there for me when I was a child, but she wanted more in life.

When I first read these essays and speeches, I felt she was alive again. I could feel her power, see her hands moving, hear her voice full of determination. I realize that her legacy is living on. If it wasn't for the speeches of Malcolm X and Dr. King, some kids wouldn't know who they were or what they stood for. Or why they made the choices they did. My mother's writings do that for me, too. I have learned from her that anyone who wants to make a change has to make choices. Those who are most serious about change often make the biggest sacrifices. No matter how I felt as a child, I respect her decisions now.

So finally the two parts of my mother-the mother and the activist-are coming together. After she died I started a foundation to help the families of political prisoners. The Safiya Bukhari-Albert Nuh Washington Foundation provides funds for those families to visit their loved ones. This is my way of carrying on the work my mother began.

Thank you for reading this book, for getting to know my mother, and supporting her at the same time.

Rest in peace, Black warrior queen. We love you.

Wonda Jones

New York City

2009