The Schomburg Center for Research & Black Culture hosted an event on June 8th with family, friends & comrades of Sekou Mgobozi Abdullah Odinga. It was a memorial tribute to the life and legacy of Odinga who was a devout Muslim, beloved husband, father, third generation grandfather, veteran of the Black Freedom Struggle, and former u.s. held Political Prisoner of War. He was in Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity, a founding member of the NYC branch of the Black Panther Party, and a founder of the Black Liberation Army.
Abdush Shakur:
So far as memories of Sekou; Sekou and I did his last two trips together – one to Philadelphia and one to South Carolina that ended up in Mississippi – he later said after we returned that, of all the trips in his life – and it meant a lot to me when he said it and I really didn’t understand it then – he said that this was the best trip that he’d ever taken in his life. And I’m thinking, wow, you know, after 79 years and you talk about Sekou in his life you’re talking about trips to Cuba. Y’all know he went to Cuba on his own. This is when the United States didn’t have planes flying back and forth to Cuba; he went to Cuba on his own because he took a plane. No, he took a plane! He didn’t talk about it he, wouldn’t talk about it because, even though the statute of limitation had passed, Sekou was always wondering that these folks would try to find a way to double back on him and say, “well, you know, even though the statute of limitations for what they called hijacking at the time, there still might have been counts of kidnapping.”
But he had to go to Cuba in order to get to Algeria. He wanted to get to Algeria because Donald Cox had sent for him, he said I want to see you. Sekou was underground so he made the effort. Sekou was a diplomat for the Black Panther Party in terms of establishing things not only in Algeria, but with Cuba, also with the Palestinian Liberation organizations. Sekou has stories where he – again, these are things that he wouldn’t tell because he didn’t want, as he’s sitting back enjoying himself he got a knock at the door saying “you need to come see u.” Sekou, when he was in Algeria, made his way into the Beqaa Valley, worked with some folks in the different Palestinian Liberation organization freedom fighters there. He wouldn’t talk about it publicly but now that he’s free from the grasp we can share these stories.
He said one day they went out in the Beqaa Valley and he was interested in the RPGs -the rocket propelled grenades – and they said we can take it with us, and so it’s heavy and they’re lugging it along and then they want to fire it and they fired it, but when you fire the RPGs you have to yell in order to maintain your hearing. Because if you don’t yell the noise from the RPG can take your hearing out. So he fires it and yells “AHH” and then he decided, “man I don’t want to fire this no more, this is this is not a good thing to fire,” and so he turns to the section leader and lets him know that “I’m not real thrilled about this.” And the section leader wasn’t real thrilled about that, saying “you made us lug this thing all the way out here.” So they got mad about that, but Sekou was willing to share that story.
In regard to where he traveled; there, the Beqaa Valley, down in Namibia he was there, as we said in Cuba, when he took the plane and he maintained contact with the Cubans so when it was necessary to revitalize that contact. Which is to say that when our sister Assata Shakur needed a place to land he was able to reach out to them and say we have something we want to send your way they said, “look, we can’t help you get her here but if you get her here we got her.” And they were true to that promise and they’ve been true to that promise. Many times when we talk about Sekou and the liberation of Assata Shakur, a lot of times we mention him but I don’t think that we really understand the role that he played. And many times it’s almost like brushed over like it was something that she organized and he participated in. No, it was something that he organized and she participated. He went and got her.
It was a type of thing that the brothers that he was working with – and we can say these things now because most folks that were affiliated with that action have moved on and are free from the clutches – but he said when they were visiting her, when the first folks were visiting her they walked up in the prison in New Jersey just like you walked into this auditorium. You understand what I’m saying? There was not a search, ain’t nobody put no hands on you, no “let me look in your bag”, there wasn’t wanding, there was not a metal detector and they said, “these folks have lost their minds.” They said, “these folks have lost their minds, we got to take advantage of this! Our sisters in here and all they’re going to do is let us walk from the door all the way to the visiting hall and they’re not going to do anything. Man, we got to get em.”
So they sat back and they made a plan. They saw the holding area where they had her at, what they needed to do, they said the only obstacle – well, there was a couple obstacles – was the lady in a booth with glass, thick plastic glass, we got to get her cooperation. How we going to get her cooperation? They looked at the glass and how thick it was, brought a pistol that was able to shoot through the glass, “it’ll take a couple shots but with this 357 it’ll open it up, but we don’t want it to get to that. We’re going to bluff our way through.” So, they took some dynamite in there. Yes, took some dynamite in. Two pistols and some dynamite. Assata got one, he got one, he got the dynamite, they’re talking to the lady in the booth. Assata had been there so long that the people in the prison knew her and they were, you know, having conversations with her. So when Sekou shows up and says “it’s time for you to open this door and let her out” and he’s got the dynamite pressed up against the window, saying “come on let’s go” and they go, “oh lord, lord, Assata, come on honey! I got these grandbabies…” “Well, you better open the door, you got to open the door.” They were bluffing them!
The reason why I say that he had to bluff em is because the dynamite… was three flares. And when I asked Sekou about it he said, “you know, nobody ever asked me about that.” He said, “you the first.” I said, “yeah, that’s some flares isn’t it?” He said, “yep.” He said, “but just in case you didn’t open it, we had the pistol but we didn’t want to make a whole lot of noise.” But it was able to get her to open the door. They had other brothers in the van, other folks in the van were able to jump in and then it became one of those chases, you know? Because now they got to get off of the compound but they were fortunate enough that they had a mental institution at the far end of the compound, that if they got to the mental institution they could get out through there and not have to worry about the guards and the rest is history.
Yeah, “wow!” But these are the stories that shared that that he wouldn’t come out and just say, he would say, you know, “I participated in the liberation of Assata Shakur.” No, they went up there and did what we used to call back in the day, a Steve Brody, for those who are familiar with that term. They did a Steve Brody. They were audacious. This was one of his terms – audacious – he like that term; audacity.
The folks that know, me and Sekou would stay up all night. I used have to do two shifts in regards to watching Sekou. We would do one shift talking all night and then the next shift sleeping after breakfast, so he could get some sleep, I could get some sleep and go on back to where I was coming from. One quick story about Sekou. This goes back to his childhood and in relation to just discernment, because Sekou was a very discerning individual in terms of, as we say, knowing when to hold em and knowing when to fold em. Sekou had three older Brothers and they used to work with their father on a coal truck picking up 100 lb bags of coal. His father was just strong from picking up 100 lb bags of coal. And I’d envisioned his father looking one way then I saw a picture of him and realized that who I envisioned and who his father was were two different people. His father looked like Sr. Walker,. Who’s Sr. Walker? Jr. Walker’s father. He looked like he could have been Jr. Walker’s father, Sr. Walker; big strong man. And his brothers got tired of working for his father and so they devised the plot and said, “when Daddy comes in today and tells us that we need to get on that truck and start working, we ain’t having it. We jumping on him.” That man be picking up 100 lb bags every day.
Sekou thought about it, he said, “no I don’t think it’s a good idea.” They said no you with us tonight. He said, “no.” So his father came in and he told him, “load up the truck and let’s go.” And they said, “no daddy we’re not going.” He said, “what you mean you’re not going? Get on that truck and let’s go.” They wouldn’t go. Father shut the door, they charged their father, the three of them charged the father. Sekou had enough sense to sit that one out. And after the father finished tossing them around like he did the bags of coal; they loaded it up. That discernment stayed with Sekou all of his life, he knew when to go and when not to go.
Alhamdulillah. I give thanks and praise for Sekou and for the opportunity to be with Sekou and I’m glad that you are all here to honor him and remember him, and remember him as a warrior, remember him as your brother, remember him as Baba, remember him for all the good and gracious things that he did. He was a good and gracious brother. I’m going to turn this over, I’ve been on here too long, my watch stopped working.