The Revolution will not be suppressed!
Too often, when black people read anything about our history, it is told from a white male point of view, and they are always careful to promote captivity, suppression, submission, docility, and conquest at the hands of white people. White historians love to reinforce the passive narratives of black men, as it relates to their liberation. People like Toussaint L'ouverture are often discussed as the engineer of the Haitian Revolution, because he was undermined and imprisoned in France where he died in captivity. Not much is written about the valor of Jean Jacques Dessalines, who decapitated the plantation owners and slave masters, leaving behind no trace of their dominance over black people in the Republic of Haiti. The same narrative is reinforced in America regarding black liberation. People like John Lewis, Dr. King, and the rest of the nonviolent Negroes are elevated to a status that not only white people prefer, but also to contain the veracity in any black person who dares to think about revolting against the system violently.
You see, this is all done by design, because white men specifically fear black valor. Malcolm X and many others are just footnotes in the fight for black liberation, because they didn't show up empty-handed and never advocated for nonviolent resistance. White people are more interested in having the advantage when it comes to a real revolution, bloodshed, and maintaining the status quo, as it relates to the hierarchy established long ago by them to sustain their delusion of white superiority. I'm fortunate to have minored in Black Studies in college because I met a professor who encouraged me to read about other freedom fighters who advocated armed resistance and who also understood that white people's resolve for everything has always been violence. They've built empires and conquered territories worldwide through violence. Black people must understand that being passive and submissive can only reaffirm their control over us, because white people love to assert control over the world through violence. It is for those reasons that black people must learn the history of Jean Jacques Dessalines, Dutty Bookman, Nat Turner, David Walker, Robert F. Williams, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and Malcom X.
Jean Jacques Dessalines believed in the complete annihilation of the people who oppressed him. Decapitation was his way, and his machete was the means. He wanted to erase the entire history of docility from the minds of those people who wanted to liberate themselves, because he had lived through the cruelty of white people long enough.
Dutty Boukman was Senegambian-born and barely 24 years old when he became one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution. He was a religious leader of the maroons who inspired the enslaved in Haiti to rely on their African spirituality to rise against slavery after he was transferred from Jamaica. His famous ritual at Bois Cayman propelled the Haitian Revolution into the bloodiest battles, where Haitians emerged victorious.
Nat Turner, though a preacher, was inspired by the Haitian Revolution and led a rebellion in Southampton County, VA. He was fearless and determined to fight the cruelty of slavery, even if it cost him his life. His rebellion led to the deaths of 60 white people at the hands of the enslaved. He was feared so much that his body was cannibalized after his capture.
David Walker was a free black abolitionist and writer in Boston who saw his personal freedom as a step toward the liberation of all black people. In his pamphlet, Walker's Appeal... to the Coloured Citizens of the World in 1829, he published the urgency for black people to violently and physically fight back to overthrow the system of American slavery, and radically dismiss the acceptance of enslavement.
Robert F. Williams, as president of the NAACP branch in Monroe, N. Carolina, in the 1950's, advocated for armed self-defense against the Ku Klux Klan. He personally trained and armed his community to fight against white supremacist violence, which was a radical departure from the Civil Rights Movement at the time.
Huey Newton and Bobby Seale founded the Black Panther Party for Self-defense in Oakland, California, and from the onset the group embraced militant Black Nationalism, organized armed patrols to monitor police conduct in black neighborhoods, and advocated for revolutionary violence to curb attacks, and to overthrow capitalist and white supremacist structures in place at the time.
Malcolm X was against integration and the nonviolent ideology from the moment he became the public face of the Nation of Islam. "By any means necessary" was coined by him publicly to put the system on notice, and to let black people know violence was always an option, as it related to self-liberation. Sanctioned violence and police brutality needed to be met with the same ideology, principles, energy, and practice.
To summarize, black people have not risen to meet systemic racism the way it was established through violence. The continuation of the marginalization and subjugation of black people has been enforced through sanctioned violence, and it's about time that black people stop being passive and submissive, to change their fate