The Non Traditional Approach of Resurrecting Afrikan/Black People and Oppressed Communities
“Their world-view is racist/racism. This is what gives you advantages over others…, your world-view (The NTA) is not their world-view.” Larry “Luqmon” White
In 1979, with the support of social psychologist Kenneth Clark and the Metropolitan Applied Research Center, The Green Haven Think Tank implemented a praxis of Black Liberation science to be empirically investigated: 1) the racial and geographic demographics of people in New York State prison; 2) where people in New York State prison resided before prison and; 3) where do people exiting from New York state prison return following their sentence. The Green Haven Think Tank developed their analysis from the basic question: How is it that although Blacks and Latinos together represent~ less than 28% of the general population of New York State, while at the very same time, they comprise 85% of the total state prison population, and over 75% of this total state prison population comes from New York City? How do we account for this disproportionate representation? How did this happen? What are the future implications? The Green Haven Think Tank’s findings are known as the seven-neighborhood study. The seven-neighborhood study is often referred to as the NTA. The seven-neighborhood study yielded results describing that 96% of all people in prison will return home at some point; 4% of people will die in prison; 92% of those returning home from prison will return home to the very same community in which they lived prior to incarceration. In addition, these findings described that 85% of the entire NYS prison population (during the time of the study) was of African descent coming from six (6) geographic areas in NYS (Five Broughth; and 75% of the entire prison population came from seven neighborhoods in New York City (Harlem, Crown Heights, East New York, Brownsville, South/Central Bronx, South Jamaica Queens, and Bedford-Stuyvesant). These neighborhoods represent 18-24 assembly districts out of New York State's 150 assembly districts (Ellis, 1990, Ellis, 1993; Resurrection Study Group, 1997).
The Non-Traditional Approach to Criminal and Social Justice, is the first ever published research scholarship to collectively study race, geography/local Black/Afrikan communities and the criminal justice (punishment) system simintaneously. The Non-Traditional Approach to Criminal and Social Justice (NTA) like Black Studies was developed by and derives from the intellectual arm of the Black Liberation struggles. The NTA is the practical and theoretical roots for empirical research and practice in the areas of Peacemaking Criminology, Restorative Justice, Transformative Justice, The million dollar block study; Jermey Travis’ analysis of “They All Come Home”, the prison reform/reentry movement, cure violence movement, among others pedagogies we see in local Black/Afrikan communities and within traditional institutions serving Black/Afrkian communities most negatively impacted by the criminal punishment system (Ellis, 1990, Ellis, 1993; Ellis, 1998; Nocella & Anthony 2011; Resurrection Study Group, 1997). The NTA was designed to be an Afrikan Centered framework, Community Specific analysis and critique to traditional systems (such as criminal justice) and social justice policies, programs, and theory.
In the wake of the Attica Prison Revolt in 1971 many questions arose: What are the (her)historical implications that led to Attica Revolt? What were socio-political conditions surrounding Attica, and many other United States prisons and jails that triggered the Attica Prison Revolt? What happened to the men that were in the Attica Prison Revolt? What relationship did Attica have with the local Afrikan/Black communities in NYC and beyond? What echoes of freedom would grow from the Attica Prison Revolt? What vibrations of liberation would be honed by a socially and politically conscious prisoner in the aftermath? The Bedford Hills sisters and Green Haven Think Tank (1971) were such groups of social and politically conscious prisoners that formed.
During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s and so on… woman/queer/gender non-conforming people in Bedford Hill Correctional facility created Non-Traditional Approaches and “resurrection” processes of healing to share personal stories of hurting people and being hurt by people/systems (Bedford Hills, Sister, 2006). Their work has manifested into changes in criminal justice, intimate partner violence, educational, and housing policy changes and community specific program developments for liberation. The Bedford Hills Sisters’ community knowledge and practice of resurrection prepared people in prison (particularly youth) to return back to the community as an asset; people ready to fight along with the community against (her)historical trauma and THE Afrikan Maafa/WAR.
The Green Haven Think Tank (1971) was an intergenerational cadre formation of incarcerated men that developed The Non Traditional Approach to Criminal and Social Justice” (Ellis, 1990; Ellis,1993; White, 2021; White, 2021b; White, 2021) critique of the traditional criminal justice system, youth development framework, and social justice issues, by covering three (3) large areas of analysis, practice and worldview: 1) Historical Perspective, provides contextual and historical account that traces the growth of Afrikan people from plantation life into to be the majority of people in prison system and the institutional racism/failure that produced this phenomena; , 2) The Direct Relationship, establishes the existence Crime Generative Factors, which are factors only found in the communities most impacted by incarceration that produce the Direct Relationship between the criminal justice system and specific Black communities in New York City, & 3) Three Program Components, which outlines three (3) board program components required within an Afrikan-Centered process necessary to transform individuals from social liabilities to community assets (Ellis, 1990; Ellis,1993; White, 2021; White, 2021b; White, 2021c).
The Green Haven Think Tank offered a Non Traditional/Community Specific Approach for combating criminal and social justice for Afrikan/Black youth impacted by Crime Generative Factors and Afrikan neighborhoods targeted by the criminal punishment system. The Green Haven Think Tank’s analyses of Crime Generative Factors and The Direct Relationship (1979) rejected punishment or pathology as the most legitimate and/or procreative strategy for developing, and resurrecting people (Leary, 2017). The Non Traditional Approach employed “resurrection” strategies grounded in Afro-centric Pedagogy (Page & Woodland, 2023; & The Resurrection Study Group, 1997). During the 1970s, within the walls of New York State Correctional Facilities, while serving long prison terms (i.e., 10-25 years to Life), living within harsh prison conditions, The Green Haven Think Tank organized to develop Black youth in praxis of resurrection from the impacts of long term incarceration. The Liberations Study Groups and Resurrection Study Groups (Burton, 2016) were developmental courses, developed and led by people (our ancestors and elders) serving time in New York State prison.
“My major problem with the restorative justice model is that it assumes that there are two classes of people: one class of victims and one class of offenders, and somehow, there needs to be a reconciliation process between those two classes. I have a problem with that model because the people we traditionally call offenders are in fact victims. So what we really have here is not: a victim and an offender, but two victims who have been brought into conflict with each other because of the crime-generative factors, because of socioeconomic conditions. My understanding is based upon work and research we did in prison some years ago. I worked very closely with many people in the Quaker movement who were instrumental in the development of the restorative justice ideas, in the 1970s. And that was about the same time that we were developing our Non-Traditional Approach to Criminal and Social Justice. We had a lot of our workshops and seminars together with the Quakers and tried to merge the two ideas. Ultimately, we were never able to reconcile the question of the victim/offender situation” - Eddie “Kabaka” Ellis .
The NTA laid the groundwork for the most recent movemens of alternatives to the criminal punishment systems to be born (Brotherton, 2023). The Resurrection Study Groups, Black studies programs, and Bedford Hills Sisters’ “What I want my words to do” documentary based stories of shared/mutual vulnerability and personal/collective development (all took place in New York State Prison) teachings have journeyed to shape the development of many community-based organizations, collectives, and institutions, including, How Our Lives Link Altogether! H.O.L.L.A!’s analysis of NTA builds on previous examples of the resurrection processes of remembering. The Institute’s Community Specific analysis is situated within a Legacy of The Green Haven Think Tank, The Bedford Hills Sisters, The Resurrection Study Group, and The Center for NuLeadership - as a process of remembering institutional memory of Non Traditional Approaches of resurrection.
The Green Haven Think Tank and Bedford Hills Sisters’ community knowledge (i.e. knowledge of the oppressed) and practice of Resurrection Groups were designed in human development to prepare people in prison (particularly youth) to return back to the community as an asset; someone now ready to fight with the community against Crime Generative Factors. The Green Haven Think Tank, The Bedford Hill Sisters, and The Resurrection Study Group all organized a practice of Community Specific Programs within and outside the prison system, focused on collective care, personal/community, development and grassroots community organizing.
Community Specific World-Views and Approaches of Resurrection
“Men (and Women) enter prisons and spend years there, yet the root cause of their behavior is never confronted because neither the state or the local administration offers any programs or even a visible theory, which deals with community specific problems. As a results we had to design, develop and implement programs, classes, from our Afrocentric, Non Traditional Approach, which we believe begin to address, values and behaviors and many of the attitudes that lead to internal oppression and our hesitant/fear of our own capacity to heal and be in a healing process” - The Green Haven Think Tank.
There is a demonstrated need in this country for more Non-Traditional Approaches to education, provide Community Specific praxis, and Afrikan-Centered organizing; a need for processes to cultivate Revolutionary Historical Consciousness among Black peoples, as well as all humans as a method of healing historical trauma, both for children and adults.
“That's why I want to change Mississippi. You don't run away from problems - you just face them.”Fannie Lou Hamer
The Community Specific works of Non Traditional Approaches provide a historical and ecological perspective of threats/attacks to Afrikan youth/community development, as stated above (Brave-Heart, 1995; Leary, 2017; Resurrection Study Group, 1997; Hills-Collins, 2000; Collective, 1977). The Non Traditional Analysis of THE WARreveals how the criminal punishment system perpetuates violence on Afrikan communities across generations making obvious the need for healing as a key element of intergenerational/intersectional healing/resurrection. The Non Traditional Approach’s analysis of the criminal punishment system challenges traditional social justice programming and notions of expertise, while pointing to the historical reality of systematic forces and community conditions in which Afrikan youth/communities exist and continue to be ontologically developed by racial, social, political and economic factors (Greene, 2020; Ellis, 1990; Ellis,1993; White, 2021; White, 2021b; White, 2021c; Resurrection Study Group, 1997).
We are intentionally grounded in a “Community Specific Approach”which is defined as a grassroots knowledge system rooted in relationship building, ancestral knowledge and cultural strategy that honors the historical, socio-political, economic and spiritual conditions of the local community - such as the institutional memory of healing from and fighting against state violence. “Community Specific” is an empirical strategy to rescue, decriminalize, and end persecution of communal practices and ancestral knowledge of cosmological systems, and grassroots liberation traditions of care that work outside of the state; it is also a movement building strategy to sustain and fortify the resistance work of local community healers/organizers (Ellis, 1997; Fals-Borda 1979; Freire 1982; Greene, 2020; Page & Woodland, 2023). The Kabaka, Alice and Luqmon Institute of Non Traditional Approaches as Luqmon explains is an Afrikan Worldview. Eddie Ellis, a community organizer of the Green Haven Think Tank and Black Panther Party, in an interview, discussed the significant of a the resurrection programs for developing “new consciousness”:
“What was significant and unique about the BPP (Black Panther Party) and other revolutionary groups during the period was that it ushered in a new consciousness that was brought into the black community. It was not an assimilationist or integrationist consciousness, but rather a consciousness of self-determination, self-reliance, independence. This new consciousness brought a new kind of energy to the black community which ultimately led to a massive uprising of people all over this country (Burton, 2016 p. 4).
A “new consciousness” signifies a shift towards a Community Specific Approach needed to address THE WAR. At this moment in history, there is a need for a “Community Specific” response to institutional racism. The Kabaka, Alice and Luqmon Institute of Non Traditional Approaches are working towards building these aims. There is a need for a “Community Specific” approach to institutional development and sustainability. An approach that creates the foundation upon which structural changes can be built with Black people and all oppressed communities needs as the primary consideration; seeks to combine and activate all of the community elements needed to develop organization and institutional empowerment, and the socio- economic-capacity for community to realize its will even with opposition from outside forces. The concept of "Community Specific" has as its underlying premise that the relationship between the state (and all its institutions) and Black communities is such that the system directly affects the social, economic, political, cultural and even spiritual life of those communities. This is demonstrated by the Direct Relationship. “Community Specific” says that the power in society is ultimately determined by the people’s relationship to the State (and all its institutions) or systems of oppression. The State is defined as the totality of institutions (system of oppression) which facilitate governance and social control. The key institutions are those of dominance, such as the police, courts, and prisons which are coercive; and those of political socialization such as the media, educational system and nonprofit institutions. The latter represent the right and ability to define reality, while the former represent the power to make the definitions acceptable. The essential question then is “how does one check, challenge, seize, control or effectively participate in the system’s decision-making process?” Community Specific means all initiatives are community based in that the needs of the community, defined by them, become the measure for social action and the basis for Human and Healing Justice. Community Specific means, therefore, developing organizational and institutional structures necessary to achieve these goals.
The Non Traditional Approach to Human and Healing Justice Analysis or Community Specific Pedagogy have a long genetic memory within Afrikan communities and empirical literature of collective processes, articulations, and implementation of ideas, strategies, learned lessons, and experiences informed by formerly/incarcerated his(her)tories, and their families/communities; a framework of seeing the world led by those most directly attacked/harmed by THE WAR/the state criminal punishment system. “Community Specific” is an explicit Afro-Centric analysis and praxis that lean on ancestral heritage to heal, resurrct, transform and teach (Brave-Heart, 1995 & Page & Woodland, 2023). “Community Specific” creates pedagogical experiences where individuals, communities and institutions learn with and from each other through political education sessions, individual and group activities which pull on cultural and local community knowledge to resurrect individuals, to energize/sustain grassroots movement and institutions. “Community Specific” plays a key role in facilitating the healing/resurrecting process for Black youth (and the general population) impacted by THE WAR/the state criminal punishment system by connecting youth/people/community to a deep sense of spiritual meaning rooted in cultural history, related to themselves, their community and community organizing for freedom/liberation. “Communal Specific” spaces are outlets to develop care among youth, ancestors, elders, community, and grassroots movement building through ethnic, and moral reflections; and through sharing personal stories with each other as an on-going ritual to support communities as they fight against and heal/resurrect fromTHE WAR/the state criminal punishment system (Greene, Ortega-Williams, Page, & Davis 2021). “Community Specific” aims to address the subsequent energy of hopelessness and/or crime generative attitudes that individual, communities and institutions encounter as a historical-contemporary consequence of the historical condition produced by THE WAR/the state criminal punishment system.
At The Kabaka, Alice and Luqmon Institute we lean on the wisdom of our elders (Green Haven Think Tank, Bedford Hill Sister, Center for NuLeadership) Non Traditional or Community Specific method, which entails a critical framework for self and collective accountability. This methodology is engaged to guide our Non Traditional approach to Healing-Centered praxis which involves fulfilling transformation on three levels simultaneously and integratively: Community, System and Individual (CSI).
Community Empowerment involves directing resources to targeted neighborhoods to achieve sustainable community development, reinvestment and self-determination in the areas of education, economic development, civic engagement and social services. It involves creating a pool of community stakeholders equipped, trained and adequately resourced to interface with system stakeholders and participate meaningfully and equitably in the decision making process.
System Accountability and Realignment is having a principled mechanism of oversight for quality control, data collection, performance, evaluation, feedback and community partnership.It is holding the system accountable, analyzing system behavior and forging system‐community partnerships for arriving at solutions and outcomes that expand and enable Community Development and Empowerment, and Individual Transformation.
Individual Transformation places the person, the human being, at the center of any policy, advocacy, relationship, injustice, practice, program and/or effort to heal and develop that results in expanded and sustainable life improving opportunities and affirmative support.
