By KERRY PATTON
On April 7th, the New Black Panther Party in Florida declares they will conduct “county-wide and state-wide defense training and community patrols to protect against racial violence and attacks.” And the NBPP also declares a call to action slated for Monday April 9th, the day before a Florida Grand Jury will convene on the Trayvon Martin case to decide whether to indict George Zimmerman.
This information comes from The Muslim Street Radio Show hosted by Malik Aziz and Laila Abdelaziz, taped an interview on April 1st with Malik Zulu Shabazz, the National Chairman of the New Black Panther Party. The “Day of Action” has also been advertised at a NBPP website in a poster which states, “No School, No Work, No Shopping… Demand the Arrest of George Zimmerman.” Zimmerman’s face in the poster is overlaid by crosshairs.
During the discussion of the Grand Jury hearing on April 10th, Shabazz speculates, “It should be very easy to achieve this indictment,” giving insight into the timing of the “Day of Action.” This is meant to intimidate those who may contend that Zimmerman acted in self-defense and should not be prosecuted. Shabazz, earlier in the conversation, asserts, “We obey man’s law, but when there’s a conflict between man’s law and God’s law, we are duty-bound to follow the law of God, and God says justice must be done.”
Host Malik Aziz agrees that “action” must be taken against Zimmerman rather than activism, calling the shooting a “lynching”:
Whether you wanna hang somebody from a tree from a rope or shoot them with a gun, a lynching is a lynching. And at some point, enough is enough. And I think there is a large part of the community that not only appreciates some aggressive activism around this issue as opposed to the same old “let’s stand in front of microphones and give speeches and press conferences”–there has to be a call to action.