A Southern Panther: Conversations with Malik Rahim

A dialogue on hope and persistence between a movement mentor and author, educator, and organizer, James R. Tracy.

Malik Rahim served as the chair of the New Orleans Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Since that time he has never stopped organizing. In a series of candid interviews with James R. Tracy, Rahim discusses his involvement in struggles to defend Public Housing, free political prisoners, and rebuild New Orleans post-Katrina. His unique approach to organizing--updating the politics of intercommunalism, rainbow coalitions, and municipalism--offer vital lessons for today’s social movements.

Also includes interviews conducted by Malik Ismail of The Vanguard Show podcast, Jessica Gingrich of the Many Roads to Here podcast, and Mansa Musa of the Rattling the Bars radio show on The Real News Network.

Legacy Left publishes small books interviewing movement elders about the lessons they want to share with the next generations. What radical visions of the past will provide inspiration for today? What old strategies should be jettisoned? How does one maintain their political commitments throughout the decades?

We are nostalgic for nothing, yet against amnesia.

We learn from the past while charting new paths and following new visions.

James R. Tracy is a Bay Area-based author and organizer. He is the coauthor of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Interracial Solidarity in 1960s-70s New Left Organizing, No Fascist USA!: The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements, and author of Dispatches Against Displacement: Field Notes From San Francisco’s Housing Wars. Tracy serves on the Coordinating Committee of the Howard Zinn Book Fair and is the Chair of the Labor and Community Studies Department at City College of San Francisco. He has worked with the Eviction Defense Network, Coalition on Homelessness, Community Housing Partnership, Jobs with Justice SF, the San Francisco Community Land Trust, and various unions.

Malik Rahim served as the chair of the New Orleans chapter of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Since then, he remained in the fray, active in the struggles for the rights of political prisoners, housing, environmental justice and international concerns. He is the cofounder of Common Ground, which conducted grassroots relief campaigns to rebuild New Orleans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. His wealth of experience provides valuable lessons for today’s organizers fighting against climate disaster and for racial justice.