A Reminiscence of Safiya Bukhari from the PGRNAOn Sunday morning, 24 August 2003, the New Afrikan Independence Movement experienced the departure of one of our most gifted, stalwart fighters for our freedom and, particularly, for the freedom of our prisoners of war: Sister Safiya Bukhari Alston. She departed this phase of life at North Shore University Hospital, Forest Hill, Queens, succumbing to heart failure. She was 53. This beloved sister, for many years a resourceful worker at Brooklyn Legal Services, was also a caring mother (of) a daughter, Wanda White, and granddaughter, Shylis, and several godchildren in New York. She remained always involved with family – sisters Lavella Jones and Patricia Khaliq in New York and seven other siblings in North Carolina and Georgia. Barely two weeks before Safiya's transition, on the night of New York's historic power failure, her mother Evangelina had preceded her, with Safiya at her side. Many who know and love Safiya knew her best in one of her several family and movement roles, glimpsing only as time passed the fuller stature of this great woman. For she was one in whose heart and mind burned Malcolm's instruction: free our people by any means necessary. One might have known her as i first did: Bernice Jones, the young sister who - as i visited New York in early 1971 and as the Panther 21 were defiantly enduring many months of unjustified imprisonment - operated the Black Panther's Harlem office with one quiet, determined older brother and several youth. They would not let the Panther presence evaporate. Safiya also had another role. We learned this when, not long afterwards, she and Brother Massai Ehehosa, armed conscious citizens of the Republic of New Afrika, were jailed in Virginia but gave only their New Afrikan citizenship and the fact that they were members of the Black Liberation Army to the u.s. police and courts. During nearly nine years of imprisonment, this resolute sister fashioned her own escape and eluded capture for several months, lending a hand to movement work as she moved clandestinely in the eastern United States. When finally released from prison she was elected a Vice President of the Republic of New Afrika (PG-RNA) and served in this role until the year 2000. She also served as the PG-RNA's Minister of Defense. Her passion was to achieve independence and power for the oppressed New Afrikan nation and she saw as an essential part of this work the raising of public consciousness and support for New Afrikan and other "prisoners of the war waged against us by the United States." Out of this passion grew the Jericho Movement. This movement still continues and her death has strengthened the obligation of her fellow freedom fighters, especially in the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, but also beyond, to free all prisoners-of-war and political prisoners and win New Afrika's independence. Safiya was a one-star general in the Black Legion, the uniformed military arm of the Provisional Government, at the time of her transition. Peace, Blessings, and
Farewell, Good Sister! From: "Pan-African News Wire", 31 August 2003
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