Safiya Bukhari - General Defense Committee

Day 15 of the 28 Days of Black Liberation 2024 series

Safiya Bukhari is legendary in the movement to free Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War. When she transitioned to the ancestors in 2003, Mumia Abu-Jamal referred to her as the Lioness for Liberation. She was a leader in the Black Panther Party (BPP) , the Black Liberation Army (BLA), and the Republic of New Afrika.

Safiya volunteered to serve food for the BPP Free Breakfast program. While she was initially turned off by BPP politics, she stepped in to defend a Panther selling the newspaper that was confronted by police. This would be the first time she was arrested. After this she joined the Black Panther Party.

When the BPP split, she was put in charge of much of the East Coast BPP while many comrades went underground in the Black Liberation Army. Ashanti Alston recently spoke of the important role she played as a conduit between the movement above ground with the movement underground. She was a lifeline of support, but due to police harassment in the wake of intensified BLA resistance, Safiya herself became part of the BLA underground. During this period she also became a Muslim under the guidance of Albert (Nuh) Washington.

In 1975, her two comrades from the BLA were attacked while they were shopping for food in Virginia. Store owners murdered her comrade, shot another, and Safiya was arrested. While in prison she became ill and did not receive adequate treatment – so she escaped. She was recaptured months later. While imprisoned, Safiya organized a group called Mothers Inside Loving Kids to help long term prisoners regain custody of their children.

When she was eventually paroled in 1983 she reconnected with her daughter and immediately got to work organizing and supporting Political Prisoners (PP). At the time of her release there were 40 PP’s and by 1998 that number would double. Safiya once again was the lifeline for so many incarcerated activists & warriors from the Black Liberation and Anti-Imperialist struggles.

In 1998, along with Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Ferguson, she founded the Jericho Movement – which sought political prisoner status for those locked up during the course of the struggle for Black Liberation in the United States.