A Conversation with Reverend Annie Chambers (Big Momma's House)

May 1, 2015

 

Describe the area in which you work.

 

I work all over. Baltimore has changed a lot. They have pushed out a lot of poor people. I work with people on Caroline Street. Also the projects I work in are Perkins, Douglas, Gilmor, and others. They’re taking away public housing. Now people have nowhere to live. We fight for basic things like food and shelter. Shelter is getting to be a real challenge.

I work with a mother with three children. The police came to her house and found a tiny amount of marijuana. As a result, she and her three children are homeless. Average rent in Baltimore is $800 or $900 per month, which she cannot afford. She goes from place to place, depending on family members to take her in. The homeless shelters in the city are a joke. Her sixteen-year old can’t stay with her at a shelter because he’s considered an adult male. She wanted to stay with me, when I have is a one bedroom. She says all she needs is a floor to sleep on.

 

Describe the conditions faced by the young people in Baltimore.

 

I deal with children and people on a daily basis who don’t have shoes. They wear fifty cent flip flops all summer long. And it’s not only that they don’t have shoes. You got parents who can’t get a proper shirt or pair of pants.

 

We dressed the children ourselves, because they don’t have clothes.

                                                                                                                

The children come to me are often hungry. A boy told me ten different ways to fix “Oodles of Noodles.” He wanted to know why I didn’t have “Oodles of Noodles.” I hate “Oodles of Noodles.” One day I made spaghetti, and he had some. He said it was some funny tasting “Oodles of Noodles.” I gave him a cupcake instead.

 

Many of the children we deal with are in a shelter at night. They walk the street during the day. We take them on field trips. We educate them in Black history. We teach them art. Every child who went to Big Momma’s house was one or two grades ahead when they went back into the public school system.

 

Do many of these children have parents who are locked up?

 

If you have ten children, maybe half of those will have parents who are locked up.

 

The education system has failed the children.  The system has failed them. We have failed them. The system thinks nothing of putting them in prison. In fact, they think nothing of putting the children in prison with the older people.

 

If you’re a black male walking down the street, you’re a target. I’ve seen police strip the boys down to their underwear. Even make them take their underwear off. Do a body cavity search. They will grope all over the girls’ breasts. And the children haven’t done anything.

A ten-year old told me: The police better not mess with me. I asked him what he would do if they did mess with him. He said: I will kill the police.

 

Police stomp a man like Tyrone West in the chest. They know what they are doing. Then they say it was okay, the man is dead. But that man was a father, an uncle, a brother.

 

People think children don’t see all these things. They keep telling the children to be peaceful.

 

The children were tired. They were caged. How do you expect them to feel when they keep seeing the police kill us. The officials always come up with some explanation for why they killed us.

 

How do you think Tyrone’s children are going to feel when they see that the police beat their father or uncle to death? So the anger is already there in the children. The powder keg was already there. The children throwing rocks in Baltimore were not thugs, thieves, or soldiers. They did what they had to, and now  the whole world is noticing. I am proud of them.

 

Minister Malcolm told us, never start a fight. But if they bring it to you, make sure you finish the fight.

 

This government goes over the world talking about human rights. We [Black people in Baltimore] ask: Am I not a human?  Just because my skin is brown, or black or red, am I not a human? We have not gotten any human rights yet. We have to pray, get up, and start battling. I’ll be 75-years old in August, and I’ve been praying to see this day.

 

I’m tired of the preachers, faith-based leaders. They keep talking about peace.  We haven’t had any peace since we’ve been here.

 

Those children were doing what we should have done. If you want respect from those devils, you must command it. I understand from people who were in the first march, people were spitting on them. My grandson and other young people told me they were spit on. They were called niggers. The white people who were with them were called nigger lovers. They had beer thrown on them. And they decided they were not going to take it anymore.

 

All the public radio and television personalities were talking bad about the children. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and all the other self-proclaimed advocates came into town, and thumbed their nose at the people. They didn’t march with the people. They met with the mayor.

 

I didn’t see any of these men come out in defense of the children, except [Pastor] Jamal Bryant. And he stayed only five minutes. I prayed that the Lord would smite them. They are part of the problem. Then for [Baltimore Mayor] Stephanie Rawlings Blake to call our children thugs. The next election, everybody who has breath in their body should work to get her out of office.

 

[Police Commissioner] Batts came into  office with the agenda to eliminate our people. His plan was to push Black people out of the city. They got rid of all the Section 8 [subsidized] housing, making it very difficult for poor people on very low incomes to survive in Baltimore.

 

Another problem that arises: If you don’t have water, the government can take your children from you.

 

Why would you not have water?

 

Because you couldn’t pay your water bill.

 

And why would that be? Wouldn’t a water bill be at most $30, 50, or 100? That doesn’t seem like a big deal, considering how high rent and utilities are in Baltimore.

 

The water bill may be $300, $400, or $500.

 

So the pretext of unpaid water bills is one way the System separates Black children from their parents. In what other ways do they attempt to destroy the Black family?

 

The media aired that clip of the woman who grabbed her son out of the protest. She slapped him in the head. They aired that many times. They were gloating over it.

 

But think about it: In the times we live in, if a Black parent beats their child, they’re going to jail.  Parents can’t even holler at their children, because the police will come and take the child away from the parent.

A woman across the street whipped her child for stealing out the Dollar Store. The cops came and locked the mother up.  Next time they try to do that, I’m going to remind them about that woman they put on TV. It was okay for her to hit her son upside the head, because he was part of the Uprising (which they call a “riot”). These people [in government] are liars and connivers.

 

Talk about the terminologies used by the government and corporate media to describe the young people who participated in Monday’s actions.

 

The word “thug” came out of our mayor’s mouth. It got picked up by the media who kept it going. “Hoodlums” came out of the mouth of Dante Hickman who calls himself a minister.

 

Dante Hickman, of the Southern Baptist Convention?

 

Yes. And President Obama called them thieves. The media picked that up and ran with it. These are labels put on the children. If I’m hungry and can’t get food, and I take some, I’m a thief. If I’m oppressed and I strike back, I’m a hoodlum. We didn’t have a riot. I know what a riot is. I’ve seen plenty of them. We had an uprising.

 

The thug is the police department. The hoodlums are those down in City Hall who are doing the master’s will. The thieves are the carpetbaggers in the churches and corporations. Put the labels where they belong.

 

The children struck a match. They lit the fire. Let’s hope the adults have the sense to put some wood onto the fire. Continue to fight.

 

I’m glad the children did what they did because they stood up and said, “I’m human and I want to be treated like I’m human. I’m an instrument and a soldier in the Army of the Lord.” They’re not thugs and thieves. They’re truly soldiers in the Army of the Lord.

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Reverend Mother Annie Chambers is a Black Panther, a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. She’s a fighter for her people, which she considers to be all humanity.

Tyrone West Anniversary Protest

By Nadrat Siddique
Special to the New Trend

July 18, 2014

Baltimore, MD -- Tyrone West was a tall, dreadlock-sporting Baltimore native who grew up on the city's east side. He loved his family, sporty cars, and his artwork, and had a joie de vivre about him. On July 18, 2013, Tyrone's life was snuffed out, when he made one "wrong" maneuver in the vicinity of Kitmore and Kelway Road, not far from Morgan State University. Police noticed him driving under the speed limit as he went over a speed hump on a quiet side street (Kelway), and stopped him. They pulled him out of his vehicle, it is said, by the locks and started beating him. According to the States Attorney's report, they hit him with batons on the knees to get him down. However, eyewitnesses report far greater use of force, saying Tyrone was surrounded by a "sea of blue" and that police continued to punch and to kick him even after he was already down. When it was over, Tyrone lay dead. He had not been charged with a crime, arraigned, tried, or convicted. He was a victim of a police force of control and unaccountable to the People.

Ten to fifteen police officers, including a Morgan State University police officer, were identified as participating in the murder. None of them was suspended or fired. The States Attorney Gregg Bernstein, known for his racially predicated prosecutions--and withholding of prosecutions--did a perfunctory investigation and found the officers had acted according to police protocol. Despite a plethora of eyewitness testimony supporting the view that excess force had been used against Tyrone, not a single indictment of a police officer was handed down in the case, leading many to surmise that the police were above the law in Baltimore (as in many other major cities). When Bernstein was unseated in the subsequent election by a relatively underfunded and lesser known challeger, many said the West case had been a determining factor--one one-sided prosecution too many. In the meantime, Tyrone's murder still went unprosecuted and the medical examiner's office continued to withhold the complete autopsy report.

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On the one-year anniversary of Tyrone's murder, activists and supporters of the West family rallied at the site of the murder. The event was called by the family and facilitated by a local grassroots collective called the Baltimore Bloc. The activists included young and old; Muslim, Christian, Jew, and atheist; Black American, Asian, African, Caucasian, and Native American; students, blue-collar workers, health care workers, attorneys, candidates for office, and even a delegate.

The candidates included David Anthony Wiggins (Baltimore City Sheriff candidate, running on a platform against police brutality and judicial corruption, and for the empowerment of the People); Russell Neverdon, Sr., (candidate for States Attorney); and Duane G. Davis (candidate for Lieutenant Governor). Wiggins, Neverdon, and Del. Jill P. Carter (Maryland House of Delegates) spoke, expressing solidarity with the family.

Wiggins promised that when elected Sheriff, he would prosecute police engaging in abuses such as that against Tyrone West, as this was a power endowed to the Sheriff (Editor's note: Sadly, the standing Sheriff, Anderson, in office for decades, has never employed it in defense of his constituents, who, like West, are brutalized by police or otherwise abused by corrupt government officials).

Several Christian preachers, including Baltimore's social conscience Rev. Heber Brown III (Pleasant Hope Baptist Church), Rev. Kinji Scott, and Rev. C.D. Witherspoon, were present. Masjid Jamaat al-Muslimeen, in Baltimore's Govens neighborhood, sent its imam, Dr. Kaukab Siddique, mosque administrator Ashira Na'im, and a contingent of half a dozen others to "stand with the family of Tyrone West and all victims of police brutality." Red Emmas', a well known Peoples' bookstore, was also well represented at the event.

Baltimore native Abdul Salaam, a Muslim, was beat by police in a manner very similar to Tyrone West just 17 days prior to the latter's murder. Salaam, a soft-spoken, slightly built man, addressed the crowd briefly. He described how he had passed police conducting a stop near his home. The cops followed him home, pulled him out of his car, and attacked and beat him in his own driveway, in front of his 3-year old child. They claimed he was not wearing a seat belt (he has steadfastly maintained that he was wearing one). Salaam was body slammed to the ground twice at the start of the attack, hogtied (with his hands and feet behind his back), and beat further. He was never charged with a crime.

He eventually ran across the West family at one of their weekly protests, dubbed “West Wednesday,” and was shocked to find the similarities between their story and his. Most alarming was the fact that the two police officers who beat him--Chapman and Ruiz--were among those who had participated in the murder of Tyrone West. Both families were befuddled as to why the officers had been allowed to continue on the police force after attacking Abdul Salaam. If normal judicial procedure had been followed, they would have been removed after the attack on Abdul Salaam, and hence been unable to participate in the attack on Tyrone West. Abdul Salaam and the West family have since joined forces and filed a civil suit against the police.

Initially torn by whether or not to hold the event at the very spot where the murder occurred, with all its horrific associations, the West family eventually decided to proceed with it. Despite the emotional toll involved, the family felt they owed it to Tyrone to come together at the very spot where a completely gratuitous act of savagery took his innocent life. They released black balloons, shared Tyrone's beautiful art, received messages of solidarity, said prayers, and marched. They left just before sunset with the awareness that their beloved Tyrone had not been forgotten.

© 2014 Nadrat Siddique

A Day of Amr Bil Mauroof and Nahi Unal Munkari

Muslim Activists and Others Rally at MLK Day Parade, Challenge Mayor, Governor, States Attorney, and Police

By Nadrat Siddique

It was an unusual and thought-provoking day at Baltimore’s MLK Day Parade. As much of the crowd jumped and pranced as if at a football game, an adhoc group of activists, calling themselves the "No More Jim Crow Justice" Contingent, brought attention to critical issues in Baltimore. It was one of the first times that parade-participants and attendees alike were challenged to consider the cynicism of holding a parade in the name of a man who fought for race and class equality--in a city where neither exists. The  activists carried signs bearing messages such as "NO—to Baltimore’s System of Jim Crow Justice” and “King Had a Dream?? Tell That to Baltimore Killer Cops.”

The parade start was announced, and the procession slowly began, led by the Governor, the Mayor, and the States Attorney.  Suddenly, one of the protestors, David Anthony Wiggins, shouted through a megaphone at the smug trio “You have blood on your hands!” He demanded justice for Maurice Johnson, Anthony Anderson, Tyrone West, and other Black men murdered in cold blood by racist police in Baltimore. Wiggins, who is a senior fellow at the Baltimore Black Think Tank and considering a run for Baltimore City Sheriff, told the trio “You have the power to stop police brutality.” His previous run for Sheriff propounded a platform emphasizing accountability for public servants, including police.

Float after feel-good float passed, only to be challenged by the band of committed activists, who were strategically located near the Master of Ceremonies booth.  

Planned Parenthood—known for its racist roots—was challenged for its complicity in population control. More recently, the organization pushed for Norplant, Depo-Provera, and similar birth control devices amongst Baltimore’s Black population on a scale unparalleled in other populations here. White Supremacist organizations, often-times in cahoots with the government have a history of similar practices on Native American reservations, where vast numbers of indigenous women have been sterilized against their will.

The primarily Black drivers of a fleet of corvettes were tossed questions on the infrequently discussed topic of D.W.B. (Driving While Black). The Jerusalem Temple No. 24 Prince Hall masons (Freemasons) were challenged for their grab of world markets.  A Black Motorcycle riders club was asked to "Ride Against Police Brutality."

In a sign that officials are aware that Baltimore—rife with corruption, social inequality, and massive disenfranchisement of the majority Black population—is a pressure cooker, and that failure to allow some dissent might result in a broad scale unrest, a limited number of progressive groups were permitted official participation in the parade. The Workers and Peoples Assembly and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union--both protesting abuses against drivers by Veola;  Healthcare Now;  Veterans for Peace; Community Mediation; and others proudly marched in the parade. The Women in Black, an anti-war group active against the Iraq War since its inception, with its eye-catching props of women in hijab, drew a great deal of attention from the crowd. One of its members carried a sign de-crying the use of drones.

Nearing the end of the parade, a phalanx of police marched down the parade route. Before they could reach the MC’s booth, Wiggins, followed by the growing group of activists, walked up on them. “No more killer cops! Justice for Maurice Johnson! Justice for Anthony Anderson! Justice for Tyrone West,” he shouted via megaphone at the Boys in Blue. Some of the police twittered. Wiggins waxed didactical. “I know you’re not all bad cops,” he said. “If you’re not a bad cop, turn in the bad cops.”

It seemed the phalanx was surprised. With the cushion of a (Zionist) attorney general, Greg Bernstein, ready to exculpate any officer accused of wrongdoing on the wrong side of the railroad tracks, they seemed unaccustomed to any organized challenge.

Activists, whose near and dear ones had been murdered by police, loudly shamed the police contingent, which was now at a standstill. A female activist, whose boyfriend was murdered by police, took the megaphone to chastise them for crimes against the population they ostensibly served. Some of the police appeared embarrassed or chagrined, while others were in denial. A lone Black woman supporter of the police, carrying a placard bearing an American flag, approached the scene, commending the police on their work in the community. Interestingly, as the police phalanx bore down the parade route, the primarily Black crowd thinned, until the few who were left ran off. It was clear they did not view the police as their friend. And—in yet another indication of the deeply compromised state of the local corporate media—Fifth Branch of the Government, some would opine—a major challenge to government officials and police earned scarcely a passing reference, not even for the purpose of selling papers with news of the highly unprecedented action.

In another groundbreaking development, members of Masjid Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a small grassroots mosque in the Govans area of Baltimore’s West Side, attended the parade in force. Clearly identifying themselves as Muslim, and operating on the principles of amr bil mauroof (enjoining the good) and nahi unal munkari (forbidding the evil), mosque members offered strong support to the protestors calling for an end to police brutality. Masjid members held signs saying “Muslims Honor Dr. King” and “Islam Advocated Racial Equality 1400 Years Ago.”