Defying the Tomb
Defying the Tomb
Overview from the publisher:
]]>Follow the author’s odyssey from lumpen drug dealer to prisoner, to revolutionary New Afrikan, a teacher and mentor, one of a new generation rising of prison intellectuals. This book consists primarily of letters between Rashid and Outlaw, another revolutionary New Afrikan prisoner, smuggled between the segregation wing and general population over a period of months. These comrades educate themselves – and us as well – on Marxism and Maoism, the Five-Percenters, Dialectical Materialism, Dead Prez, Capitalism, Racism, Imperialism, Class Struggle, Revolutionary Nationalism, New Afrikan Independence, Psychology, and a host of other subjects, as they grapple with how to promote revolutionary consciousness in the most hostile of environments.
Rashid has been in prison for twenty years – the past eighteen of which in segregation (solitary confinement). Shortly after this correspondence between himself and Outlaw, he and his comrade Shaka Sankofa Zulu founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party–Prison Chapter. The NABPP-PC has since developed branches in various prisons across the u$ empire and has its own newsletter, Right On!
A number of Rashid’s essays written as Minister of Defense of the NABPP-PC are also included in this book.What the Comrades Say
“Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson has put together an outstanding compendium of political essays and letters that addresses many of the critical issues of today. His intra-prison correspondences with his comrade, Outlaw, is a rewarding study in the determined and ingenious maneuvers that prisoners have to go through to politically educate and organize themselves – and others around them. As a result, just reading the book itself provides one with the basic foundation of a political education.”
– from the Afterword by Sundiata Acoli, New Afrikan political prisoner of war“Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is to buy multiple copies of this book, read it carefully, and then get it into the hands of as many prisoners as possible. I am aware of no prisoner-written book more important than this one, at least not since George Jackson’s Blood In My Eye. Revolutionaries and those considering the path of progress will find Kevin “Rashid” Johnson’s Defying The Tomb an important contribution to their political development.”
– Ed Mead, former political prisoner, George Jackson Brigade“The correspondence of Rashid and Outlaw, carried on within the tenuous cracks of a supermax prison, offers the reader a compelling blend of psychological insight, political analysis, and passion for learning. Their defiance in the face of oppression is matched by their broad human solidarity. As they grapple with ideas, they also think as organizers, probing the dispositions and motivations of their fellow prisoners. Their struggle for justice is informed by a commitment to reason.”
– Victor Wallis, Professor, Liberal Arts Department, Berklee College of Music