Absent the Badge of Honor – Keeping it Real

I humbly also count myself as among the millions whom Césaire’s works inspired. As a former member of the Black Panther Party, I remember having had intense discussions with other party comrades regarding the writings of, among others, brother Aimé Césaire. To the family members of brother Aimé Césaire, the members of his political family, and the Parti Progressiste Martiniquais I extend my deepest condolences and respect. Those who are politically conscious in the United States, know for a certainty that Aimé Césaire’s legacy stands eternally shoulder to shoulder with other women and men freedom fighters including Harriet Tubman, W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah, Amilcar Cabral, Paul Robeson, Huey P. Newton and so many others in this ongoing struggle. Césaire’s sterling example has taught us incredibly valuable lessons, and reminded me, that we can all be giants in humanity’s struggle for justice and equality.

As the imprisoned American Indian Movement (AIM) activist, Leonard Peltier, put it in his recent April 18, 2008, statement of solidarity to and with Mumia Abu-Jamal, “…Given the choice of lying down to die or standing up to live, we chose to live. Standing up and living is our only crime in this, the land of the free and home of the brave. Our dream is still alive, and as hunger striker Bobby Sands once said, you can lock up the dreamer but you cannot place chains around an idea…”