The Spirit of Sonny Abubadika Carson

In celebrating its anniversary each year, the December 12th Movement always honors its founders, Viola Plummer, Coltrane Chimurenga, Elombe Brath, Fr. Lucas and Sonny Carson, whose combined individual strengths made them such a powerful force.
Sonny Abubadika Carson joined the ancestors on December 20, 2002, just 8 days after our 15th anniversary. Sonny was the real OG. A gang leader as he grew up in Brooklyn, he did time in jail and, like Malcolm X, came out politically conscious. Sonny brought his contacts with and instincts for what was happening on the street to the development of D12. It was Sonny’s response to crackheads torturing and murdering his mother-in-law which led to the founding of the Black Men’s Movement Against Crack. In taking the position that we, not the police, are responsible for stopping crack in our neighborhoods, the Black Men’s Movement set an example followed by Black communities across the country. The Black Men’s Movement was the mass formation out of which the December 12th Movement arose several months later. It was Sonny’s street smarts and insights that helped make the December 12th Movement a leading force in addressing the issues that plagued our community – police and white vigilante murder of Black people; gentrification/ethnic cleaning of Black communities; miseducation of our children. These conditions gave rise to a militant and revolutionary response – The Days of Outrage; Preservation of the African Burial Ground in Manhattan; the Renaming of Our Streets after our Heroes; the May 19th Shutdowns on 125th Street in Honor of the Birth of Malcolm X and the successful Campaign to Save the Audubon Ballroom; the physical shutdown of crackhouses.

So the celebration of D12’s anniversary gives us the opportunity to honor the contributions of its founders. Sonny Abubadika Carson lives on in the spirit of the December 12th Movement and in the hearts and minds of the community he fought for.