by Nayaba Arinde
NEW YORK—“Fight we must! Fight we will!” Viola Plummer said in a video played at the recent 38th anniversary celebration of the December 12th Movement, held on Dec. 12. This year’s gathering commemorated the longtime human rights activist and the December 12th Movement organization she led until her death in January 2024.
The tribute also honored the “Matriarch of the Movement,” noted activist and clergyman Rev. Herbert Daughtry.
“In recognition of the late Viola Plummer’s special leadership ability in guiding the oppressed masses of Black people and diverse exploited workers to resist, the December 12th Movement presented the first Inaugural Viola Plummer Serve The People Award,” December 12th Movement member Colette Pean said.
The first two recipients were community advocates: Philadelphia’s Pam Africa, the head of International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and New Jersey’s Zayid Muhammad, founding press officer for the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee.
Rev. Daughtry’s House of the Lord Church hosted the evening. “It’s hard to think of an issue when December 12th (D12) was not involved in a leadership role, or part of a collective,” he said. “They kept racism on the front burner with the Durban Conference in 2001, and they have been consistent in the fight for reparations. From police brutality to gentrification, for 38 years they have been there in the critically important times, like when we were reviving the African/Black Liberation Movement and Afro-Centricism, and African Consciousness. They supported President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe,” Rev. Daughtry, who is 94, added.
“When they boycotted the fruit market, they then went into business with a fruit store. It’s important to protest, but also show the people that ownership is vital. Music is a great part of our culture, and they have jazz nights at Sista’s Place. They wanted the people to understand the importance of politics, and they were part of the movement to get Charles Baron elected to the City Council. So from protest, to politics, to business, to the liberation movement, they were there,” he said of D12.
Speakers and attendees of the gathering included former elected city officials and activists Charles and Inez Barron; Dr. James McIntosh of The Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People; Professor James Small; Student Protocol Director Paul Muhammad from Mosque No. 7C of the Nation of Islam; Newark activist Fredrica Bey of Women in Support of the Million Man March, Raymond Duguy from the UNIA, and Cinque Brath, son of global activist Elombe Brath.
Former New York State Assemblywoman and former New York City Councilwoman Inez Barron remembered Viola Plummer as a “cornerstone” for projects like the real affordable Alafia Village. “She did so much. She gave so much. She headed the organization that we’re recognizing today, and was so involved in protests against injustices here in our city.”
Ms. Plummer was the chief of staff for both Inez and Charles Barron. “We give her that honor, and give her that recognition, and pick up the torch and carry on. So, all of the members of the December 12th Movement, led by Omowale Clay, we love you, we appreciate the work that you do, and let us continue to support you as we go straight ahead,” said Ms. Barron.
Citing a Somalian saying as he spoke on legacy, young activist Aidaruss Shirwa, said, “‘It’s not what you lose, it’s what you carry.’… so incredible, so principled, and disciplined to lead this great organization for that long, we understand that we don’t just equate Viola Plummer just to the December Movement—we link her to the Black liberation movement.”
D12’s Jahid Johnson began with the reparations mantra, “‘They stole us. They sold us. They owe us.’ Reparations now!” He mentioned the formerly enslaved African Belinda Sutton’s historic petition filed to the Massachusetts General Court in February 1783 as an example of the first of the many campaigns for recompense for the human rights crime of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
Since 1989, D12 has worked to have it declared “an international crime against humanity with no statute of limitations.” Their work led to 400 participants traveling with them to the Durban, South Africa, World Conference against Racism in August 2001.
“Every step of the way, D12 out-organized the most powerful country in the world,” Johnson said. The work exposed that the “bones at the bottom of the ocean are the foundation of Western capitalism,” he continued.
“The very idea that you had to account for what you did to African people had White supremacy and imperialism in a chokehold.”
Moved and emotional, Pam Africa was gracious in her acceptance of her Viola Plummer award. She and Ms. Plummer had worked for years in many community-centered battles for social and political justice. “I am just so thankful,” said Ms. Africa.
She reiterated her decades-long fight to make the government “back the hell up off Mumia Abu Jamal,” the incarcerated journalist, former Black Panther, and author, as he struggles through health challenges. Institutions are only moved by the masses, she said. It was the people who made the uncertain understand the importance of historic gatherings such as the 1995 Million Man March, called by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, and the 1997 Million Woman March. “The power is in the people,” said Ms. Africa.
Zayid Muhammad praised Viola Plummer, Pam Africa, Ella Baker, Assata Shakur, Safiya Bukhari and her “Black liberation politics,” and Erica Ford and her LifeCamp, “embracing the politics of revolution.”
He mentioned his own “Little Safiya, who just happens to be the great niece of Ella Baker—five generations and a day … . I hope one day she climbs up on her ancestors’ shoulders and finds her voice, and her way, and spreads her wings so she can join us in finding her place in the struggle.”
D12 Chair Omowale Clay closed out the evening, calling the name of the late great Coltrane Chimurenga, who said that “We have to recapture our youth. Looking around this room, I see the spirit of Pam and Zayid. Viola is an expression of our people … . There are people in here who can get the Viola Plummer Award. But it’s not a contest. It’s a mission,” he said.
Nayaba Arinde is a freelance Editor-at-Large and award-winning reporter and activist. Follow her on Instagram @NayabaArinde1