Mukasa Dada fka Willie Ricks struggles with colon cancer

[Jalili]

The emergence of Black Power as a conscious vehicle to mobilize consciousness among African people has many individuals engineers and authors. First and foremost, the SNCC Chair of the time, Kwame Ture. SNCC's Black Power call was a very effective means to mobilize African people. It changed the whole nature of our struggle. And Mukasa had a significant role in this process.

In fact, Mukasa was so effective and efficient in the fulfilment of his assignment in support of Kwame's call for Black Power that it moved Dr. King to describe it this way:

"As we approached the city, large crowds of old friends and new turned out to welcome us. At a large mass meeting that night, which was held in a city park. Stokely mounted the platform and after arousing the audience with a powerful attack on Mississippi justice, he proclaimed "What we need is Black Power." Willie Ricks, the fiery orator of SNCC, leaped to the platform and shouted, "What do you want? The crowd roared, "Black Power." Again and again Ricks cried, "What do you want?" and the response "Black Power" grew louder and louder, until it had reached fever pitch.

"So Greenwood turned out to be the arena for the birth of the Black Power slogan in the Civil Rights movement. The phrase had been used long before by Richard Wright and others, but never until that night had been used as a slogan in the civil rights movement. For people who had been crushed so long by white power and who had been taught that black was degrading, it had a ready appeal."
Dr. King, "Where Do We Go From Here? Community or Chaos?"


We know that there are many among our own people even who never supported the peoples' revolutionary, militant resistance to exploitation and oppression. The contemporary conditions are in no way different, except for tactical and similar dissimilarities. They want us to shut up and just accept our status as "barely sentient beings"...as Malcolm said don't stop suffering just suffer peacefully.

To the extent that Mukasa has continued to agitate among our people, and especially among our student and youth, Mukasa is once again become a target, if you recall a few decades ago an unarmed Mukasa was shot by the police. I think most of you probably know about Morehouse College police brutally beating Mukasa within the last few years.

Mukasa as you also probably know has been hospitalized for colon cancer.

If you wish to contact him, you can do so you by phoning him at the Decab Medical Center in Atlanta at 678-777-4361 or 404-501-3468. Or write to him, the hospital address is: DeKalb Medical Center, 2701 N. Decatur Road, Decatur, GA 30033.

Sister Najiyyah out of Ohio wanted us to have this additional contact info for Mukasa:webbrother@thetalkingdrum.com

[Jacuma]

I will be visiting Mukasa tomorrow, I just spoke with his Queen who said he was in stage three and that Mukasa is now able to hold down soup, he went in for a routine physical when the cancer was discovered.. Ill update yall tomorrow after I speak with Mukasa and his Doctors... Uhuru!

[MsLioness]

For those of us who have read "Ready for Revolution".....
not on that conspiracy theory stuff...but, Kwame Ture noted how many of our leaders have gotten cancer--prostate or colon...

I will keep brother Mukasa Dada in my prayers.

Again, I am not on that conspiracy theory stuff...
I just don't trust it. We love Mukasa Dada and we are aware of all of the things that these people have been putting him through for no reason at all... just in 2005.

And he is going for a normal check-up and they are telling him that he has colon cancer??? Probably put him on meds...and he isn't even sick.
I do not trust these people.

He is like a groit...he has history to tell so that we can know how things are supposed to run.

He will be receiving letters and phone calls from me.

Forward.

[Jalili]

For those of us who have read "Ready for Revolution".....
not on that conspiracy theory stuff...but, Kwame Ture noted how many of our leaders have gotten cancer--prostate or colon...

I will keep brother Mukasa Dada in my prayers.

Again, I am not on that conspiracy theory stuff...
I just don't trust it. We love Mukasa Dada and we are aware of all of the things that these people have been putting him through for no reason at all... just in 2005.

And he is going for a normal check-up and they are telling him that he has colon cancer??? Probably put him on meds...and he isn't even sick.
I do not trust these people.

He is like a groit...he has history to tell so that we can know how things are supposed to run.

He will be receiving letters and phone calls from me.

Forward.

Very true....

We've all heard the thought "Your fine until you go to the doctor and NOW you have 6 months to live"

It's like we can be healthy one moment then visit the "Doctor" and the fall deathly ill.

I just hate the thought of this but.........it makes you think.

[MsLioness]

Very true....

We've all heard the thought "Your fine until you go to the doctor and NOW you have 6 months to live"

It's like we can be healthy one moment then visit the "Doctor" and the fall deathly ill.

I just hate the thought of this but.........it makes you think.

Yeah brother, I might be over-reacting, but I got reason enough to be this way. We love brother Mukasa Dada and it is heart-throbbing to hear this news...

[Jacuma]

FYI Mukasa is a member of the forum.... check Forum Leaders

[rebelAfrika]

Jacuma, Truth (was that you on the phone Truth?) and most of all...Mukasa...I apologize if I seemed a little bit "stand-off-ish" when yall called. As it say in the Bible "the spirit is strong but the flesh is weak." Yall caught me pretty early in the morning (out here in Cali) and I had been up VERY late the night before and I do not know exactly all the things that I said, but you most certainly got a little bit of my groggy talk. I usually have (and wish to have) more pertinent things to say. Also...when people call and I am sleep and they ASK ME if I am sleep, I tend to say "no" regardless. After I fully woke up, I started to think about my conversation with yall and I don't know if I was fully cognizant throughout the short conversation we had...so I just wanted to apologize for that. I felt like I needed to say SOMETHING to Mukasa though, as he is an inspirational person in my life (more than you know, Mukasa) and I did not want to let that opportunity pass me by.

[Jacuma]

Comrade, Baba Mukasa's whole face lite up while building with you, you were very coherent as to be expected and sharp as a tack, Asante sana for answering the call. I was surprised you answered lol, considering the time difference and Baba Mukasa was clear on what time it was there, so it was sho nuff forward motion, we will keep you updated FTP... FORWARD TO PANAFRICANISM!!!

[Jacuma]

Mukasa Dada fka Willie Ricks
Orator ▪ Organizer ▪ Freedom Fighter


Mukasa Dadais one of the greatest of all activists produced by the turbulent 1960s in the Southern portion of the United States. His activities have carried him all over this country and throughout the African World in an effort to eliminate the misery and suffering that peoples of African descent have been subjected to ever since the slave trade depopulated Africa of million of its sons and daughters.

As the Field Secretary for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Mukasa organized countless sit-ins, marches, demonstrations, and boycotts—all of which ere instrumental in destroying the overt forms of Jim Crow and racial oppression that were so prevalent in the United States less than thirty years ago.

Mukasa Dada was introduced to the Civil Rights Movement in 1960 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the age of 17. For two years he was active in Chattanooga while working with the local NAACP chapter in the sit-in movement. Quickly he became a hero in the African American community and as a result, persons in the white community made attempts on his life and the lives of his family members. Cars were burned in their yard and their neighbors were harassed.

In 1961, Mukasa was contacted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to help voter registration in Chattanooga. Speaking the language of the rural African American community, he became on e of the South’s most powerful organizer’s. Ricks continued organizing in Chattanooga until he was asked to come to Georgia by the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1962. As a result he became a part of SNCC’s first Direct Action Program in Albany, Georgia where he first began to build a long-term working relationship with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mukasa continued organizing for SNCC in Georgia, and then in Alabama, Mississippi and throughout the South. While organizing in Mississippi in 1964, he helped to build the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) along with Fannie Lou Hamer and others. Subsequently, Ricks returned to Alabama and helped to organize the Lowndes County Freedom Organization. This organization became known as the Black Panther Party and was the first group inside the movement to defend themselves with guns.
By this time, Ricks, who was speaking on the same platforms with Dr. King and other important figures, had become one of the leading organizers and speakers for SNCC in particular and the movement in general. Having participated in hundreds of sit-ins, stand-ins, demonstrations, pickets and marches, Ricks paid the price by being jailed, beaten, bitten by dogs and shot. While organizing once in Americus, Georgia, he was shot at by the police which resulted in him being gazed and left with a scare he still has today.

In January of 1966, Mukasa was a key organizer in Tuskegee, Alabama where Sammy Young Jr. was shot in the head with a shotgun for using a “White Only” toilet. During this same year, SNCC put Ricks in charge of organizing students under what was called Campus Traveler’s Program.

Mukasa also traveled extensively with Kwame Ture (formerly Stokely Carmichael) and spoke in the same platforms with him wherever he spoke. In fact, when Ture stepped down as the Chairman of SNCC, Ricks was the leading candidate to replace him but chose to work more quietly in the background. Consequently, when H. Rap Brown was selected as the Chairman of SNCC, Ricks was appointed to travel with Brown in order to show him the ropes.

In February of 1968, when over sixty-nine students were shot in the Orangeburg massacre at South Carolina State College, Mukasa was one of the key organizers.

Mukasa's organizing activities were so effective that the state of Georgia declared him to be one of the ten most dangerous persons in the state in 1973. As a result the police were requested not to approach his house by themselves but, instead, to signal “39” which meant “Police in Stress, Need Help.” It has been documented that they were given orders to shoot to kill!

Mukasa Dada has remained active ever since he first stated out in Chattanooga in 1960. He is one of the most committed activists and charismatic speakers around. The experiences he shares and the message he gives is powerful and needs to be heard by all.

Suggested Lecture Topics
·From Civil Rights, To Black Power, To Pan- Africanism
·Pan-Africanism
·Organizing For Black Power and Pan-Aricanism
·The Revolutionary Potential of Students

[MsLioness]

I got to speak to Bro. Mukasa on the phone. I totally cracked. For me, this is like meeting Michael Jackson; someone very famous and influential. I was really nervous, and brother Jacuma had to stop me from saying "yes sir" and "no sir" and "sir?"

And that just goes to show you the type of relationship we are to have with one another. I am 19 years old, and Bro. Jacuma demanded that I refer to them as "brother(s)." The power structure is all screwed up, in america. Its not being disrespectful to call a person older and wiser "brother" instead of "sir." But we are taught to give ranks, as a sign of respect(in the south, for sure)...
and, age is something we will have to be struggling with one day, as well.

The phone call just blew my mind. This was on christmas day...and I was with my family, but this phone call--confirmed so much. It was a real blessing.

I also got to speak to his son who is 19 years old, also. And the brother said that they would come to Tallahassee to meet me and converse, if I cannot make it up to Atl.

So, twice blessed...for lifetime.

I am really hoping our brother is in good health and spirits, and sure to know that we are keeping him in our closest prayers and thoughts...

[Jacuma]

MsLioness its funny how you shared how excited you were speaking with Mukasa and Beku aka Lil Afrika, Mukasa was probably more excited than you were about the fact that a 19 yr old wanted to speak with him, he went on to lecture us on how we must get our youth into the struggle for PanAfrikanism, when we said " we are doing everything we can think of.. " he said "then double it up Afrikan"

[XXPANTHAXX]

We are pleased to announce Mukasa was able to leave the hospital last week, although he must start chemotherapy next week, he is in good spirits but still desperately needs our support,any Afrikan in the metro who is able to escort him to and from to the chemo sessions please come forward, for more information call Mukasa Dada directly 678 777 4361

[Jalili]

We are pleased to announce Mukasa was able to leave the hospital last week, although he must start chemotherapy next week, he is in good spirits but still desperately needs our support,any Afrikan in the metro who is able to escort him to and from to the chemo sessions please come forward, for more information call Mukasa Dada directly 678 777 4361

Great news

It's only up from here, BEAT THIS ILLNESS DOWN QUICKLY

[MamaDahomey]

Very good to hear of this....Excellent news!

[Jacuma]

He would love to hear from ya'll