Los Angeles Global Marijuana March 2014, 16th Annual

UPDATE:

“DON’T BE SCARED”
SISTER SOMAYAH KAMBUI

16th ANNUAL LOS ANGELES GLOBAL MARIJUANA MARCH & RALLY

When:May 3, 2014, 10a gathering at Leimert Park ’till dusk – Get your smoke on!

Event Highlights:10a-12 Noon: Coffee and Reefer (Mud & Bud) in the morningwith like minded souls – Participants available for press interviewsHigh Noon: March Starting at and returning to the park(Construction on Crenshaw Subway makes original route inaccessible)1p: Speakers & Music & Crafts & Foods & Fun & Great Marijuana4-5p: 4:20 Ceremony & Positive Vibes to Achieve Hemp For VictoryEvent Conclusion: Dusk

Why:So we can implement the hemp solution to modern problems.

This year’s historic, 16th Annual Los Angeles Global Marijuana March and Rally is being held on Saturday, May 3, 2014, 10 a.m. – Dusk at Leimert Park.

The last minute change regarding the march was instituted by the City of Los Angeles, who called event producer R. W. Akile on April 30th and said ‘due to construction obstructions caused by building the Crenshaw subway underneath the march route, the traditional path would not be available because of last minute safety issues.’  Their original suggestion was to postpone the march, but the whole purpose is on the same day to unify marijuana activists speaking with one voice about the need to stop the war on drugs so We The People can be free.

So in response, the event is being held at Leimert park starting at 10a with a march in the area beginning at High Noon, returning to the park for part two of the rally.

There is a  Facebook Page for the event in Los Angeles too! As we learn more it will be shared here and elsewhere.

This march is a tradition, a celebration in the greater LA marijuana, hemp, cannabis, pot, weed, ganga, Mary Jane, etc. legalization community.  The event was started and produced by legendary members of the Los Angeles marijuana movement many speaking at the events over the years.

The first Los Angeles Million Marijuana March was produced by the late Sister Somayah Kambui, Richard M. Davis and Jim Rosenfield plus many other activists in 1999. The event itself goes back to the great marijuana and Ibogaine freedom fighter Dana Beal's “Million Marijuana March” in New York City, which in response to the magical events there, expanded in this century to become the Global Marijuana/Cannabis March held in hundreds of locations all over the world on the same day. It was Dana who approached Somayah to do the first of the Million Marijuana March series in Los Angeles. Somayah, Richard and Jim worked for the remainder of their lives to keep the annual event going.  

Because in great part of the tireless activism of many hemp heroes, some of whom will be producing and at the rallies including R. W. Akile, Jeff Clark, Patrick Moore, Jeanette Perez, Melissa Balin and countless others, many to be listed in future blog posts.  We've come a long way hemp babies, and we still have a long way to go.  Which is why now, with the victories in thee pro legalization states, including this, California, one of the first in the nation to legalize medical marijuana it is important to show up, say your piece, and network with like minded souls.

This year's event is ever bigger in a voice so loud 

that as it joins with others around the world 

to blow the lid off the drug war 

so WE THE PEOPLE OF EARTH can live freely to be our best selves.

CALLING ALL LOS ANGELES, CA HEMPSTERS 

BY WHATEVER FORM OF CONSUMPTION!  

Sister Somayah use to open up the rallies with her battle cry 'Don't Be Scared.' Dress up or just be comfortable. Come, and bring your friends and hemp plants if so inclined to the 16th Annual Global Marijuana March in Los Angeles or wherever you are on the first Saturday afternoon in May. Know that to do so is in defiance of a law system that wants so much control over our lives they interfere with our right to safely (as in NON-GMO) interact with plants. March in support of the end of the drug war and other non productive policies. If you can’t walk, cars are allowed, especially the theme on target decorated kind.

As shared joints tend to do, new bonds are formed, old ones secured, fun, knowledge and respect shared. Throughout their multi decade history, the marches and rallies thrived in an air of celebration of hemp in all its forms.

This is just an initial post on this year's events.  Checking in with folks and will be posting a lot more between now and May Day.  Just getting started so check back to this blog page for frequent updates.  This is going to be empowering! Get ready to fix this mess of modern society we have created with the hemp solution. 

Hemp is an awesome, non toxic technology that we should be using on a grand scale. It is imperative that we implement the hemp solution now i.e. Fukushima, fracking, GMOs, illnesses that cannabis cures, industrial uses (not counting 3D printing filament) via over 50,000 items from hemp bio-fuels, building materials, plastics, papers, foods, oils, dyes, fibers, buds (all of which can be used for 3D printing)…so many life improving & saving capabilities…no wonder it’s illegal. We can change this, we must change this now.

This blog coverage is written by J. Nayer Hardin, Computer Underground Railroad Ent. The railroad was informally started in 1984 and a NYS corporation since 1996. CURE's mission is to use computers and other technology to help people be free.’ Working the LA march blog which will be updated soon.  

Los Angeles Global Marijuana March - Part 2 - Saturday, May 8, 2010

Press Release - For Immediate Release

The 12th Annual Million Marijuana March will take place Saturday, May 8, 2010 at 12:00 Noon from the Corner of Adams and Crenshaw.

Joining us in this year's march will be the Wu-Tang Clan, appearing in a follow up performance during the activities that will take place in Leimert Park following the March.

The Global Marijuana March is a world wide event that takes place over the first two weekends in May.  Founded by Dana Beal in New York City, the Global Million Marijuana March takes place in over 300 Cities.  The Los Angeles Edition was started by the late great hemp activist Sister Somayah Kambui, founder of the Nigritian Kief Society and Crescent Alliance Self Help for Sickle Cell Project Hemp is Hep and Kwanzaa People of Color. Using hemp as a cornerstone in her treatment, Sister Somayah was able to double her life expectancy plus eight years while overcoming sickle cell and other health issues.

This year's event is co-sponsored by the Moorish Science Temple and for the very first time takes over two weekends.  We combine the issue of Marijuana and our right to use this sacred herb with supportive "innerattainment" designed to whet our thinking caps and intellectual dexterity.

This years March will stat at Adams and Crenshaw and proceed South bound on Crenshaw to Leimert Park where it will end in a Teach-in and Information giving event.  The famous Wu-Tang Clan with their supportive elements will grace the consciousness of Leimert with their presence.  For information and participation please call (33) 799-8409 or (626) 324-8378.

Contact Person

Akile - 323 799-8409

Jack Herer Is In The Hospital

It is difficult to find a hempster whose life has not been touched by Jack Herer.  His book, THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES is legendary. The USA Hemp Museum's founder and curator Richard M. Davis credits Jack Herer and Willie Nelson as his museum's inspiration, showcasing the work of both men in his HEMP FOR VICTORY book series.

Without a peep in mainstream media, social media like Twitter, Facebook and Youtube this weekend was the best source for news about 'what's up with Jack?'.

420 Magazine reports:

"Emperor of Hemp' Jack Herer Fighting For His Life After Heart Attack At Hempstalk

Noted activist and author Jack Herer, "The Emperor of Hemp," is fighting for his life after giving an impassioned speech at the Portland (OR) HempStalk festival Saturday, Sept 12. Herer left the stage and collapsed with an apparently serious heart attack, according to fellow activist Chris Conrad, who was one the scene."

From salem-news.com.

"Ironically, Jack told our Doctor Phil Leveque, an old friend of his in the fight to legitimize and legalize marijuana, that he was feeling better Saturday than he had, "In...ten years."

Event staff came together quickly and called in the paramedic crew that treated Jack in the area backstage where he fell ill. Madeline Martinez, Executive Director of Oregon NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says Jack didn't look like he felt well after the well received speech, and she told him he should get some water. Shortly after that he apparently collapsed where he was sitting, and the emergency crews were called in."

The blog Reality Checker reminds us that Jack Herer has come back from another health crisis.

"In July 2000, Herer suffered a minor heart attack and a major stroke, resulting in difficulties speaking and moving the right side of his body. He mostly recovered, and said in May 2004 that treatment with the psychoactive mushroom amanita muscaria was the secret."

Below is a piece from the USA Hemp Museum of Herer after his July, 2000 stroke speaking with passion at the late Sister Somayah's Los Angeles Million Marijuana March.

If anybody can come back from a massive heart attack, it's Jack Herer.  Please, come back Jack.

For more on hemp please visit Jack Herer's site  and the USA Hemp Museum .

Sister Somayah Performing At Her 10th (Final) Global Marijuana March

The above webeo is from Youtube's 420sage and it's of Sister Somayah Kambui performing at her 10th Annual Million Global Marijuana March in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA - May, 2008.

Sister Somayah is now a spirit not a ghost. Her voice, love and work live on. Thanks 420sage for recording and posting the piece. WOW!!! What a treasure.

Eulogy for Sister Somayah Kambui by Dr. Jeri Rose

This eulogy was written by Dr. Jeri Rose, who was Doctor of Chiropractic for Sister Somayah and for the Crescent Alliance Self Help for Sickle Cell before she moved to Hawaii. She asked me to read this for her here today.

On November 10, 2008 Miriam Makeba, Mother Africa died. On Dec. 3, 2008 Odetta Holmes died. Miriam was there to help Somayah home and they both welcomed Odetta. These great three singing women who sang for the African Nigretian people passed together. The other two were in their 70’s; Somayah was the baby twenty years early and not nearly adequately recognized and celebrated for her creative and beautiful songs.

She was Herowese Moore, Sister Somayah, Queen Negus; three names because this was one intense, complicated woman of whom we can say that she has died, passed over, will never visit Africa. Her death ends the possibility of her letting us see her do more. What she did not do, she did not get Cannabis legalized federally, but she did get to grow the plants in her yard for her own health. She did not go to Africa, but she did uplift those who were descendants of those who came here unwilling stolen from Africa.

She was not easy and she deserves a novel to illuminate her. I will try to avoid writing a novel here, but she was so much like all of us that she irritated us, and she was unique and fascinated us. Each person decides at some critical point in life how true to themselves they will be. Some give it all up to what society demands, some turn their back on that siren call of the herd and strike out on their own path. At every crucial turn, the decision is bartered and renegotiated. Every time Sister Somayah went to the VA hospital she went against her own path. She tried to create a community out of her own concern for her community. She was generous and yet she needed a similar generosity that she did not demand. Most of us learn a selfish survival skill to take care of ourselves and then if we also have heart and spirit, we look around to help those we can. This was not Sister Somayah’s way. She gave until she could give no more and then in her need she was invisible because she did not know how to ask for help.

She had acceded to society by joining the air force. That society owed her, so she felt no shame; she could go to the hospital it provides.

She had grown to support her people, joined the Black Panthers and served the children breakfast and survived the societal onslaught of the police attack on that group because of the wisdom of Geronimo Pratt. He had learned in the same war how to stop bullets with sandbags. They were prepared and that house was protected as no other Black Panther house. Geronimo Pratt went to jail on a false charge that was known to be false by the government that hid the evidence of his innocence.

That same government knows that the herb that could have saved Sister Somayah is innocent of harm, yet it continues to tell lies and cover up the truth about it because of power and greed. Every time Sister Somayah had to go to the VA hospital and get hooked again on morphine because she did not have enough herb to make her butter, she felt that she had failed her community and she felt a lack of love from that community that did not support her.

The truth is we loved her and could not love her enough. Perhaps only the mother she was calling upon in her last days could love her enough. However, we can leave here; leave this gathering knowing that we need to do more for each other to enable us to live our true path because it gets very lonely walking alone trying to live a personal truth. I know I am speaking a harsh truth, but it is one we need to all hear because the herd is stupid and the powerful are greedy stupid.

The planet is at risk because we use oil instead of making our fuel from hemp. A sick planet, the LA smog that poisoned Sister Somayah’s lungs, poisons all trying to breathe free in this place and we are all sick and need herbal medicine and clean air so we will not need so much herbal medicine and will be naturally healthier. The government sent me a pamphlet that said that 114 million tons of toxic pollution is put into the LA air basin each year. Only 9 million of those tons are smog, so even on a clear day, you are being poisoned and the government knows and allows it. Alcohol, commercial tobacco laced with 400 toxic poisons including uranium, are legal. The government knows and if it can keep you at your daily struggle for rent and food money, quietly getting sick and dying in its hospital temples of poison pandering to corporate greed, then it has won. Sister Somayah fought in the revolution that was not televised and there were no cameras there to tell the world of her death.

The corporations own the airwaves and pollute the air so they own the air. They own the water and food that supplies your bodies and alters your minds. Sister Somayah’s death might liberate you if you can learn to turn your back on the siren call of the herd concerned with fashion, cars, television, gadgets and goods. They are so busy that they can not find the meaning of their lives or have an inkling of being individuals. Until you examine the beliefs that you take for granted, thinking they must be true since they guide everyone you know, you are not a free person capable of knowing yourself.

Sister Somayah knew more than most that the society she was in was stacked against her. She lived in the light of that truth. She fell into despair and stopped eating and she was human and afraid of pain. She checked into the VA and allowed herself to be obliterated by morphine. That ending does not define her life.

Her songs, her art, her tenacity and love define her life. She was a glory to know, but she was like all of us mortal and frail. She needed us to help each other, and sometimes she was one of the others. She created the Crescent Alliance for Self-help for Sickle Cell. The Crescent of her cells and the Moslem crescent that engaged her loyalty did not prevent her from helping others outside of that narrow concern. She embraced everyone. She held hope for everyone until she lost that hope for herself. Her legacy is in her life. She calls us to find a way to keep ourselves loving and hoping together. She lived to see a president elected that signaled the end of the old racism.

Obama knows the consequences of the old racism. He is not black enough to know about the new racism. The new racism will eradicate the human race unless we stand up against it. We vote with our dollars and our awareness. The powerful only respect the dollar. The awareness turns away from the power that does not create a caring society. Stop bowing to the money the powerful offer for your allegiance to them. That allegiance will kill you. Find a way to live healthy and get out of Hell A. I don’t like the way sister Somayah did it, but she finally did leave it.

I know she is not lost to us; her heart left a large wake of love.

Peter Gorman on Sister Somayah

Peter Gorman is a brilliant journalist and photographer who was instrumental in implementing the wisdom of the hemp fields into the mainstream. He wrote at least two articles on Sister Somayah Kambui.

High Times Magazine
Sister Somayah Kambui Burning the Bush For Sickle Cell
December 17, 2002
By Peter Gorman

Med Pot Activist Sister Somayah Kambui In Hot Water Again
Wed, Jun 12, 2002 12:00 am
By Peter Gorman

Here's an email from Peter Gorman learning about the passage of Los Angeles' hemp pioneer and hero Sister Somayah:

Wednesday, December 3, 2008, 5:13 AM

"I am so sorry to hear this. She was an extraordinarily courageous woman and the person who brought awareness of marijuana's help for sickle-cell to the world."

"You know, she first got in touch with me in the middle of the night nearly 20 years ago.

The phone rang, I answered, and someone was screaming at me. I hung up. Two weeks later or so it happened again. And again.

I kept trying to find out who the person was and what they wanted, but l I got were names hurled at me.

I had no idea what I'd done or to whom I'd done it. But someone was sure angry with me.

It probably took six months before I could get her to slow down and take a breath and tell me what as wrong, and why she had to keep waking me at 3 AM and 4 AM.

She said she called when the pain from her sickle-cell got unbearable. If she was going to suffer, others were too. As I wrote for High Times on medical-marijuana, she took my not writing about sickle-cell as a racist thing. Therefore I had to pay with her tirades.

I told her I knew nothing about sickle-cell--didn't even know what it was, and so surely didn't know marijuana could help. Then she schooled me. She had me look up articles, call hospitals to see how it was treated, that sort of thing.

And with that information, we were able to begin including sickle-cell in the disease categories that could be managed/treated with cannabis.

I'm guessing she's arguing with St. Pete right about now. And I'm going to bet she gets in as well.

Good for you Sister. Good for you Sister Somayah Kambui."

There is much courage to be found in the life of Sister Somayah Kambui, who is a USA Hemp Museum designated Hemp Hero because of her work in the fields of medical hemp and sickle cell, her agricultural skills, her roles in both the language and passage of Prop 215, America's first state to pass legislation legalizing the nation's #1 cash crop, and producing the first ten Million Global Marijuana Marches in Los Angeles. In one of the marches she is seen carrying a live hemp plant down the parade route with a full police escort.

We'll be posting today, her funeral, and as pieces come in, remembrances of how she (and others) helped change and empower the modern hemp movement.

Sister Somayah Kambui Funeral Arrangements

The Queen Negus
Somayah Kambui Harawese Rhanea Peaches Shurumi Moore-Khaliq

Sunrise: 5 April 1950 Sunset: 28 November 2008

She Met Marcus Garvey in the Whirlwind

58 Years of this life
38 Years in Service to her people

Black Panther Party for Self Defense
Crescent Alliance Self Help For Sickle Cell
Nigritian Kief Society
Community Activist
Successfully helped Free Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt

Pioneer
ALWAYS In the Eye of the Struggle

Ile Sheshat was re-established on her watch.
She treated sick people all over the country
with her hands on assistance, advice,
and products.
Established the first Weusi Oil Press

Celebrating of Her Life
December 8, 2008 10:00 AM til 12:00 Noon
Harrison Ross Mortuary
4601 So. Crenshaw Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90008

Repast:
Celebration Continues
1:00 PM til 6:00 PM
Consolidated Realty Plaza
3725 Don Felipe
Los Angeles, CA 90008

Candle Light Gathering in Her Honor
8:00 10:00 PM
Leimert Park

In Lieu of Flowers Please make a contribution to
Kwanzaa People of Color
c/o Sis. Somayah Memorial Fund
3716 So. Arlington Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90018
kwanzaagwaride@gmail.com

Correction: Sister Somayah Passed 11/28/08

I have a correction to report. I said in earlier blog entries that it was Thanksgiving Day that Los Angeles' Sister Somayah Kambui pass.

The family has released the final details of her passing and she passed the day after Thanksgiving, 2008.

Forgive me. I still can't comprehend not being able to hug her again.

Akile is sending the arrangements.

Keep Somayah in the light. The divine syncronicity of pro hemp President Elect Barack Obama, Sister Somayah's passing, and the oldest hemp stash, 2,700 years old, being found in China.

Akile sent the information about the arrangements and stats on her life

The Queen Negus
Somayah Kambui Harawese Rhanea Peaches Shurumi Moore-Khaliq

Sunrise: 5 April 1950 Sunset: 28 November 2008

She Met Marcus Garvey in the Whirlwind

58 Years of this life
38 Years in Service to her people

Black Panther Party for Self Defense
Crescent Alliance Self Help For Sickle Cell
Nigritian Kief Society
Community Activist
Successfully helped Free Geronimo Ji Jaga Pratt

Pioneer
ALWAYS In the Eye of the Struggle

Ile Sheshat was re-established on her watch.
She treated sick people all over the country
with her hands on assistance, advice,
and products.
Established the first Weusi Oil Press

Celebrating of Her Life
December 8, 2008 10:00 AM til 12:00 Noon
Harrison Ross Mortuary
4601 So. Crenshaw Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90008

Repast:
Celebration Continues
1:00 PM til 6:00 PM
Consolidated Realty Plaza
3725 Don Felipe
Los Angeles, CA 90008

Candle Light Gathering in Her Honor
8:00 10:00 PM
Leimert Park

In Lieu of Flowers Please make a contribution to
Kwanzaa People of Color
c/o Sis. Somayah Memorial Fund
3716 So. Arlington Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90018
kwanzaagwaride@gmail.com

Sister Somayah Kambui Articles

Photo By Peter Gorman For High Times Magazine

My childhood favorite film is THE SONG OF BERNADETTE. It's a story about a girl who was jailed for praying and making the lives of those around her better. Sister Somayah was Los Angeles' Bernadette. Her use of hemp and prayer in healing set new standards as she fought the system for the right to grow and consume hemp...though, unlike Saint Bernadette, she did not go quietly, and we are all so grateful for that. Somayah was a champion and her spirit still is. She too is now a spirit and not a ghost.

Below are a few articles about the work of Sister Somayah Kambui, a hemp hero whose soul moved from life to beyond life on Thanksgiving Day, 2008. Somayah lived twice plus 8 years the average life expectancy of a person with sickle cell. Hemp, her strain was known as Nigritian Keif grown with sickle cell in mind, was her foundation healing medicine.

Sister Somayah was an evolutionary researcher in the field of hemp medicine. She worked on the language and passage of Prop 215 that for the first time voiced the will of the people to legalize hemp, and produced the first 10 Los Angeles Million Global Marijuana marches.

Somayah lived dedicated to the struggle to remove all restrictions from the hemp plant so it can grow its role in healing ourselves, our relationships and our environment.

High Times Magazine
Sister Somayah Kambui Burning the Bush For Sickle Cell
December 17, 2002
By Peter Gorman

Med Pot Activist Sister Somayah Kambui In Hot Water Again
Wed, Jun 12, 2002 12:00 am
By Peter Gorman

LA Jury Acquits Sister Somayah of Medical Marijuana Charges
CA NORML News

Sister Somayah hospitalized,
a Peter McWilliams sequel?
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 18:18:00 -0800
Drugwar.com From: "David Crockett Williams" "D. Paul Stanford"

Her site is still up, www.geocities.com/sistersomayah. Geocities has frozen her account for non use so updates on arrangements are being posted asap here at the USA Hemp Museum's blog HEMP FOR VICTORY NOW. Check back for lastest updates and pass on the good she did to those who need it.

TELL OBAMA, LET MY HEMP PLANT GO!!!