on cultural work & cultural resistance

"We, as cultural workers, people who labor in paintbrushes, camera lenses, Photoshop, song, pen and paper, and other forms of artistic labor, have to see ourselves and our work as weapons in a war for liberation. Our task is heavy: to create a culture of revolution. We should not bare this task lightly, nor should we carry it alone; our role is to work alongside organizers, unions, the Third World, political prisoners, immigrants, the incarcerated, Palestinians, political parties, and all others who share in a struggle for creating a better world, and assist. We have to create proletarian art, workers art, peasants art, and infuse it into a culture that, like Walter Rodney said, encompasses a total way of being."

-- Musa D. Springer, Cultural Worker, Not A Creative, October 2018



"Malcolm knew that the revolution would not be televised by its enemies. It will be documented, curated, and broadcast by its own people. It will be written in our poetry, sung in our music, and captured in our photos. The war is over the truth. And the truth, when forged in the fire of cultural resistance, becomes a weapon that is impossible to put down.

It becomes, as Bambara commanded, irresistible."

-- Ekundayo Igeleke, A Shooter In More Than One Way, Black Men Build's Wartime Issue No. 7, Fall 2025

on image-making

"In my opinion, one of the sciences used and misused today is this science of image-making. The power structure uses it at the local level, at the national level, at the international level. And often-times when you and I feel we've come to a conclusion on our own, the conclusion we've come to is something that someone has invented for us through the images he has created."

-- Malcolm X, Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 1964

"The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make the criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal. This is the press, an irresponsible press. If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."

-- Malcolm X, Audubon Ballroom, Harlem, New York, December 1964