When you look for him in the whirlwind, he’s already gone
This collection, translated and published by Terrasses éditions, finally makes the writings of Dhoruba Bin Wahad available in English, French, and German. Included in this book:(in all three languages):
- On the murder of George Floyd
- Toward Rethinking Self-Defense in a Racist Culture
- On Racism, Rap and Rebellion
- Assata Shakur, excluding the nightmare after the dream
- New Age Imperialism
- PROUD/FLESH interviews Dhoruba Bin Wahad
- Postscript by Jann-Marc Rouillan
Dhoruba Bin Wahad (biography from Let Freedom Ring):
Dhoruba Bin-Wahad was born in the South Bronx in 1944. He joined the Black Panther Party in New York City in 1968 and organized chapters along the Eastern Seaboard while working with tenants in Harlem and on drug rehabilitation in the Bronx. He was arrested in 1969 as part of the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case (charged with conspiring to blow up department stores, subway stations, and police stations). While free on bail, and after receiving numerous death threats, Dhoruba fled to Algeria, but returned to New York in May 1971 following the full acquittal of all Panther 21 defendants. A month later, he was indicted for the shootings of two cops guarding the district attorney’s home and the shooting deaths of two cops in a Harlem housing project. He maintained his innocence. The first trial ended in a hung jury. Following a second mistrial in 1973, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life. Dhoruba appealed his conviction and over years of struggle forced the FBI to release thousands of classified documents proving that he had been framed as part of a massive COINTELPRO operation. This finally forced a New York State judge to overturn his conviction in 1990, leading to his release after 19 years of false imprisonment—seven of those years in solitary confinement. The state prosecutors appealed but ultimately lost. Dhoruba later sued the state and in 2000 won a large settlement on the eve of the trial.
For several years, Dhoruba has lived in Ghana, where he has run a nongovernmental organization (ngo) that coordinated expatriate expertise to evaluate policies from a grassroots Pan-African perspective and also edited an e-newsletter, African Chronicles. He has worked with scores of civil war refugees in West Africa seeking asylum in the United States and elsewhere. On several occasions, Dhoruba has appeared before the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the U.N. Decolonization Committee as an NGO representative. He has participated in and organized several international forums and tribunals on political prisoners and human rights violations in the United States. He has also acted as an unpaid consultant to various grassroots Civil Rights campaigns in the U.S.
Dhoruba’s writings have appeared in numerous publications from Covert Action Information Bulletin to various anthologies of African-American activist writers. His work has been published in The Black Scholar and various African and Middle-Eastern journals. He continues to write for various Black publications. He collaborated with Mumia Abu‑Jamal and Assata Shakur on the book Still Black, Still Strong (Semiotext(e), 1993; now distributed by AK Press). Dhoruba’s experiences were featured in two award-winning film documentaries Framing the Panthers in Black & White and Passin’ It On. As a contributing correspondent from Africa to Pacifica Radio station WBAI’s Afrikaleidoscope program (hosted by Elombe Brath), Dhoruba has provided timely insight into current affairs on the African continent from the point of view of a Pan-African. Dhoruba currently lives in the U.S. and West Africa.