Cynthia McKinney: That Audacious Black Woman Standing With The People

Published in Issue 278 of The Black Commentator on May 22, 2008
Republished in allthingscynthiamckinney.com on May 22, 2008
Listed in the Power to the People Committee Cynthia McKinney for President Weekly Update, Issue #9, May 26, 2008, and republished by onthewilderside.com on May 28, 2008

By Larry Pinkney

There are very few these days who demonstrate that all-too-rare quality of telling the narrative of the people’s struggle as it really is while simultaneously struggling to bring about real systemic change with and for Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples. Cynthia McKinney is audaciously doing just that.

Cynthia is running for President of the United States of America, not as a Democratic or Republican Party [i.e. Republicrat] hustler, but as the real people’s candidate. She is not embraced, funded or backed by Wall Street, Lockheed, or any other entity of the corporate / military / prison apparatus as are the candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties. The Cynthia McKinney campaign is about so much more than merely a presidential run for office. It is about building an ongoing, well-honed, politically conscious people’s movement with a view toward bringing about systemic change. It is about the continuous hard work of building political parties and organizations that are not beholden to the Republicrats [i.e. the Democratic and Republican Parties]. This is precisely why her organizing activities are correctly and succinctly referred to as the “Power To The People” Campaign. It is about building, supporting, and nurturing the people’s struggle, not corporately blood-sucking them in the name of some kind of illusively abstract and ultimately dangerous feel-good rhetoric.

Indeed, “Sister Cynthia McKinney is the ONLY one who seriously and fundamentally addresses our issues – the concerns of Black America: self determination, reparations, judicial equality, police brutality, COINTELPRO, political prisoners, employment, decent housing, environmental justice, educational parity, and the absolute end to unjust wars at home and abroad…She is one of US. She does not pretend that the legacy of slavery is in the past. She makes it clear that jobs, justice and equality are more important than ever before. She is bold about the fact that Black Liberation is a very important and serious ongoing struggle in the United States of America…By supporting Cynthia, we support ourselves and our humanity…” [Reference: An Open Letter Re Cynthia McKinney To Our Politically Conscious Sisters And Brothers Of Black America].

Cynthia McKinney is not a member of the posh millionaire or billionaire clubs as are the U.S. Presidential candidates of the Democratic and Republican Parties [i.e. the Republicrats]. Cynthia is no smooth talking, half-stepping, opportunist. Cynthia is for-real, which is yet another reason why this former U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia, boldly and courageously left the politically bankrupt Democratic Party.

This is May, 2008; and it was in this very month in the year 1925 that our beloved warrior and Black prince – Malcolm X was born. Despite every effort by the 21st Century Amerikkkan power structure to distort and sanitize the words of Brother Malcolm, the fact is that Malcolm X was uncompromising in the struggle for justice and Black Liberation. It would have been utterly unthinkable for Brother Malcolm to have figuratively thrown Rev. Jeremiah Wright under the proverbial bus and then backed up to run over him again and again at the behest of the racist U.S. corporate, military, and prison industrial apparatus. As Malcolm X repeatedly said, “No sell outs!” Brother Malcolm made it crystal clear that the Democratic and Republican Parties [i.e. the Republicrats] are “foxes and wolves.” Their ultimate objective is to keep Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and yes even White peoples – disempowered while pretending to be doing the opposite. Their actual masters are the elite of the corporate / military / prison apparatus.

Just as Malcolm X was and remains, in the words of the late, great Ossie Davis, “Our own shining Black prince;” so it is that we have been blessed to currently have our own shining Black princess in the person of Cynthia McKinney. She is of us, and we of her.

The “Power To The People” Campaign is about all of us. Our love and respect for Malcolm X, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Assata Shakur, Martin Luther King, Jr., Huey P. Newton and so very many others; is alive and well in the person Cynthia McKinney and the “Power To The People” Campaign.

This is not only about the United States of America. This is about the peoples of the entire world. This is about our Mother Earth. This is about political, social, and economic justice in South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Mexico, and every nook and cranny on this planet. This is about US – the people – everywhere.

Get involved now. Make it real! Onward then…. Let’s get busy.

Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities, Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour, and more recently on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones Show. Pinkney is a former university instructor of political science and international relations, and his writings have been published in various places, including The Boston Globe, San Francisco BayView newspaper, Black Commentator, Intrepid Report, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), 107 Cowgate (Ireland and Scotland), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). He is in the archives of Dr. Huey P. Newton (Stanford University, CA), cofounder of the Black Panther Party. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.)