“Wherever they were gathered, in the slave castles at Youk, or at Cape Coast on Bena Island or at Atim, or in a score of other places, the African captives were a testimony to this multiformity. They had come from the ocean-tempered coastal area as well as the inland forest, from the villages in the mountain shadows, and from the riverside.
Some were the products of peoples and nations with long traditions of strong kings, elaborate courts, and well-defined civil services. As they identified themselves to one another and spoke their names in those dark prison places, the sounds of their tribes and nations must have tumbled like a waterfall out of the river of the past: Bombars, Malinka, Fon, Dinka, Ewe, Bankongo, ibo, Yoruba and hundreds more.”
Vincent Harding-There is a River
As we continue to defend against those who eternally disturb Maat…
There are countless historical events that must be studied between the ancient time periods of Black sovereignty and African world dominance to European world dominance. From the invasions of the Hyksos in 1600 BC to the Arab invasions in 642 AD, our ancestors amassed thousands of victories against the peace breakers.
Sisters and brothers, in the 1400s Europeans elevated their strategies of genocide and mass murder to the most barbaric level recorded in the annals of history. This segment of our fight for survival called the Atlantic Slave Trade, is the largest forced oppression in the history of man.
As long as I am blessed with a platform, I will always use it to remind our people of the cruelties and inhuman practices that our ancestors were forced to endure and courageously overcome.
This article is a reminder of the origins of African imprisonment and the social relation to our communities.
I will continue to remind our people of the long and forced marches from the interior of Africa to the coastlines, where large forts (penitentiaries) awaited them. Almost every white nation had vicious slave catchers and negotiators who continuously filled these forts with beautiful, innocent Black children, women, and men.
By 1482, the Portuguese had begun building the first major prison (ELIMINA) to lock up Africans in colonized Ghana. After the building of this slave fort, many prisons were soon to follow. White invaders would dock their ships and make excursions into the interior of the area to capture innocent Africans from various villages.
Elmina, Cape Coast Castle, Fort Amsterdam, Fort Frederick Hendrik, Le Morne Brabant, Good Hope at Senya Beraku, St. Anthony at Axum, Fort Orange at Sekondi, Meta Cross at Dixcove, Fort William at Cape Coast, St. Jago at Elmina, Christianborg at Osu, Accra, and Winneba at Accra are the names and locations of some of these monstrous self-sustaining penitentiaries.
The modern (prisons) slave fortresses of today are plentiful and represent more than 8,000 prisons in the U.S. This chain of penitentiaries includes district jails, county prisons, state prisons, federal prisons, and an ever-growing private prison industry.
History teaches us that prisons were non-existent within African communities
From a historical perspective, we as Black people must realize that before foreigners came amongst us, there were no Africans in prisons. There were no Black people in prison simply because there was no need to build them. Our great historian, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, taught us that “Africa built a number of civilizations lasting over 1,000 years without a network of jails and without a word in their vocabulary that meant prison.”
Our ancestors lived in peace and harmony with each other and the rest of God’s natural creation. Remember, it was only when invaders came amongst us and wanted things that they didn’t want to trade or pay for that the chaos of wars, prisons, and the oppression of life on this planet began.
Reality of the Relationship
There are over 3.5 million Black people confined in or judicially connected to the Prison Industrial Slave complex. This massive complex can be seen as a microcosm of the societal prisons within the so-called free Black communities.
Some of the basic comparisons can be attributed to the dependency of those who don’t have our best interest.
Today, everything the Black community needs to sustain itself comes from someone or entity outside of our community (food, clothing, transportation, and medical care). The majority of working Black people make just enough to survive, living paycheck to paycheck. The laws that we are forced to obey in society are written and enforced to serve and protect the rights and interests of the people who wrote them. Prison guards attempt to keep order and protect property within the prisons, while police attempt to keep order and protect property within the Black community.
Our Queen Assata Shakur teaches us that “All Blacks in America are prisoners, and we all have the minimum and maximum status.”
Prison issues are related to every other issue in our community. Prison functions relate directly to social media, homelessness, police brutality and murder, drug addiction, materialism, unemployment, fratricide, Black-on-Black crime, and miseducation. Prison issues affect our social, political, and economic status as well as the emotional and psychological stability of our families.
The African community outside of the cement walls, steel bars, and barbed razor wire fences must never divorce itself from the African community within the walls, bars, and fences.
Thousands of Black prisoners are strategically hidden from view in white-populated rural areas to keep their personal pain and hurt isolated.
As this article comes to a close, never forget the racist mindset of many Europeans as it relates to Blacks and prison. Our brilliant historian, sister Charshee McIntyre, reminds us that “To whites, Blacks not incarcerated simply have not been caught, or prisons lack room to accommodate our entire population.”
Khabyr Hadas is a Pan-African Educator, Garveyite, author of numerous books, and teacher of African Studies. khabyrhadas@gmail.com
