The Devil Wears Dashikis: An Exposé on the Black Hammer Cult (Pt. 1)

by Red Voice Staff (Marcus Sundjata Brown, Shupavu Wa Kirima, Nsambu Za Suekema, Kylie Marsh)

Editorial Note: Red Voice News is publishing this exposé in response to a cyber-attack perpetrated against our website, which our tech team was able to trace, with mad receipts, directly back to a member of the Black Hammer Organization, who goes by the initials "DP." It is believed that this crime was greenlighted when one of our staff was seen interacting with alleged victims of the cult leader called Gazi Kodzo. The attack is itself compelling evidence that Gazi and Black Hammer feared what might come from those interactions. As principled communists, we refuse to back down from fascist assaults, especially one as cowardly and poorly executed as this. Though we had no plans to do so originally, we are therefore using this platform to denounce Gazi Kodzo as an enemy of the people, and to elevate the voices of these brave comrades, who have accused Gazi's self-styled “dictatorship” of serious counter-revolutionary crimes, that include but are not limited to: racketeering, domestic violence, reckless endangerment, sexual harassment, routine physical and emotional abuse, threatening comrades with deadly weapons, blackmail, coercion, destruction of property, labor exploitation, and kidnapping.

Red Voice is a prison abolitionist publication. We are categorically opposed to carceral or state solutions to the acts that are alleged herein, though we do know that Black Hammer itself is quite comfortable with calling the police (which in this case would be an even bigger mistake than the initial attack). We also cannot speak on behalf of any of Gazi’s alleged victims about what should happen to this individual, so that justice can be served. Our aim is simply to let the victims' voices be heard; to alert the Black liberation movement to the clear danger of this social media cult for Black and all colonized people; and to get the remaining members of BHO to a place of safety, far beyond the grasp of Gazi Kodzo, their alleged abuser.

Pictured: "Commander-In-Chief" Gazi Kodzo, a.k.a. Augustus Romain, Jr., along with two members of the Black Hammer Organization, who like so many others have since left Gazi's side

Introduction (Marcus Sundjata Brown)

It’s early May, 2021. The Black Hammer Organization, “the baddest anti-colonial organization on the planet,” has just reportedly purchased 200 acres of land in the Colorado Rockies--“ten thousand feet in the air with RICH soil!”--on which to build a communist utopia, complete with “indestructible” huts and an underground farm. No rent, no ‘rona, no cops, no whites. A TikTok video shows an enthusiastic young person sitting at a nearby stream, shouting “Land Back Yall!!” with performative rolls of the neck (the video will later be taken down). Printouts booming the phrase “BUILD HAMMER CITY” appear on lamp-posts and bus shelters in major cities across the US, where they vie for space with promo stickers for drill rappers, and fliers for tenants' unions. Portentously, the Black Hammer website speaks of the need for “dictatorship over the lives and labor” of colonized people.

Maybe in other circumstances, this moment might be seen for what it really is: the determined drive to Black freedom that moves each generation, crashing right into a dangerous scam. Instead, in the post-Floyd, post-Breonna mood of white panic, the story of the Hammer City “ethnostate” is picked up by Fox News, Newsmax, and other right-wing news sites with mainstream traffic. The leadership in Colorado is visibly hype. They even set up a press conference to flaunt their newfound fame to the world. Increasingly for far-right groups like the Proud Boys, Hammer City is seen as the legitimate program of a growing, mass-based movement to the immediate left of Black Lives Matter.

In the hands of the capitalist press, Black Hammer becomes an ink blot for white anxieties around Black revolt, immigration, overseas communism. It seems to small sections of the paranoid right like the long-awaited and tightly planned race revenge of Black and colonized people on the US.

But the reality of this organization is far more horrific for Black and Third World people, than it could ever be for white viewers from their great remove. Despite the best intentions of many comrades at the beginning, Black Hammer has essentially become an anti-democratic, destructive cult, centered on a deeply disturbed YouTuber and professional scammer known as Gazi Kodzo.

The announcement, months later, that “Hammer City Colorado” fell through, is just the first public sign of the rot that had set into Black Hammer from the beginning, that is now eating at its base. Now come the mass defections, the dissolution of entire chapters; now come the accusations of life-endangering abuse, of labor exploitation, of Gazi’s wild misappropriation of funds.

Then the victims start talking publicly, and shit gets worse. Like horror movie worse.

Many details of daily life at the core of Black Hammer Organization (BHO) sound unbelievable, like a bad movie script around a New Age cult from the Sixties, only updated with Gen-Z communist slogans, and some of the worst features of “left Twitter”. But that’s only because of the dramatic bent of “Commander-in-Chief” (CIC) Gazi, who seems to know no limit when brutalizing “comrades” with tested cult techniques; as long as it means more clout, more money, and a good show for the Tube.

For example, there are reported “soul contracts,” that are exactly how they sound, and are signed in a special room at gunpoint. Legal names, addresses, workplaces, social security numbers--all are extracted by the same violent means, since owning somebody’s soul is not enough. There is exploitation of members’ sexuality for financial gain, and to build up the org’s membership (known in cult studies as “flirty fishing”). There are shroom-induced journeys in the “spaceship,” a room where live-in cult members receive mandatory instruction in the “Commander’s” plagiarized and disordered worldview. There are hallucinatory camping trips to “Hammer City” in the Colorado Rockies, smeared across with hunger and frostbite, with poisoning, with gun threats from whites; and all of it inspired by naive group screenings of ”Wild, Wild Country” on Netflix.

More troubling is a young Black woman’s account of escaping by night from an armed compound, where she once had to defend herself with a knife from multiple cis male attackers; where she now felt her life would end if she stayed. Then there is the threat against the lives of Black trans activists, casually issued by “Commander,” so as to enforce transmisogyny in the ranks. There’s the overwork and starvation, the doxxing, the blackmail, the financial exploitation; there are the divided relationships, and trespasses of physical and sexual boundaries. Even here there is profound anti-blackness, and the theft of Indigenous identities and movement slogans. There is privilege for key leadership, and coerced hard labor for everyone else. In short, there’s everything that made the Colony unlivable for Black and Third World people. But now it got a cute doggie, dreads, and a dashiki. Now, in a cloying and relatable Black voice, it commands us through smartphones to work ourselves to death.

These are just some of the more startling accusations made by four prominent ex-members of Black Hammer--Savvy, Pat and Jack, and Xiuh--who were recently interviewed by Red Voice News. In our conversations I found these to be sincere, talented, hard-working, and courageous comrades. They are funny too, and likable as hell. They all believe in anti-colonial revolution, even now. They still show the undying love for their people that must have got them through the darkest moments of their time in Black Hammer.

The organization as they describe it is a tragedy of the people’s talent and good faith, wasted in the hands of an entitled and highly disagreeable cult leader; who goes by the title “Commander,” yet is unable to function as an adult. Who relies instead on a succession of (usually Black femme) “chiefs” to cook, clean, and plan their day, essentially to baby them; so that they can carry on with their true work--barking senseless orders, showing off cute 'fits, tweeting taunts and threats, berating and gaslighting comrades on endless group calls, and spending the org’s money as soon as it pours in, with casual swipes of their exclusive red debit card.

It is alleged by a confidential source that there are victims who have suffered far worse abuse from Gazi than anything we can responsibly print here. Without going into more detail, we can only say it is extremely urgent for the physical and psychological safety of remaining “Hammers,” that the Black left loudly denounce this warped scam on our people; that we demand the immediate release of its remaining “Hammer House” captives to their families; that we warn any prospective Black Hammer recruits of the pure evil for which they are signing up.

That is why Red Voice is publishing this comprehensive, three-part exposé on Gazi Kodzo and the Black Hammer Organization. Our report is based on the first-hand testimony of some of Gazi’s most trusted former collaborators, and on the personal experience of several of our writers with “Gazi”. It is also based on an extensive trail of antiblack, queerphobic, pro-capitalist, and pro-police statements made by Gazi themselves, and by some of their subordinates, any one of which would be a proverbial death sentence in most communist and anarchist circles. We have tried to be as detailed as possible, so that no reasonable doubt can remain about the dangerously toxic character of Black Hammer as it stands today; nor about our duty as revolutionaries to stop it.

The last section features an extended discussion of the theoretical and practical lessons around issues of gender, sexuality, hierarchy, and power for the Black left; lessons that appear more relevant now than ever, during the collapse of Black Hammer. Gazi Kodzo is truly a monster, there's no denying that. But we strongly feel that it won't be enough to admit this fact, and carry on with organizing as usual. After all, as a former cult member, Gazi could only build their own cult by throwing all the blame for their actions on their old leadership. The Black left really has to ask itself how somebody so politically shallow yet self-assured, so proudly anti-intellectual, and reliant for their "mass base" on social media "likes" and "follows," had managed to hide themselves among serious revolutionaries for long enough to cause all this hell. When we can hardly see what was clear before in our established practice, it becomes a problem for theory.

For the readers' convenience we have outlined a schedule of content for this series, along with the writers' names and organizational affiliations:

I. Send in the Clown: Augustus Romain, Jr., The "Main Character" (Marcus Sundjata Brown/Shupavu Wa Karima, Third World Peoples' Alliance and Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party)

II. Clout Culture and the #2BFrank Moment (Kylie Marsh, freelance journalist and former BHO member)

III. Gussy Unmasked: The Decline of Black Hammer Org (Marcus Sundjata Brown)

IV. Theoretical and Practical Lessons for the Movement (Nsambu Za Suekema, Anarkata and Black Anarchic Radical Movements/Third World Peoples' Alliance)

I. Send in the Clown: Augustus Romain, Jr., The “Main Character”

Augustus Romain, lifelong performer and fool, is not a Black revolutionary; as we will see, they do not care about Black people at all. Instead they are a profoundly damaged personality, with strong delusional and sadistic traits; one whose main talents seem to be for lying and manipulation. This has led to highly inconsistent accounts of their age, their upbringing, and political activity prior to assuming their latest ridiculous role as “Commander-In-Chief” (CIC)--the so-called “main character” in the Black liberation movement. In this section we will try to separate some fact from fiction, and paint a truer picture of the person who has damaged so many Black and colonized lives

No Cap to the Cap: The Inconsistent Past of Augustus Romain, Jr.

Pictured: the deluded self-concept of "Commander-in-Chief" Gazi Kodzo; who is willing to take credit for "anti-colonialism," "colonized people," "decolonization," and many other concepts that have been around for decades upon decades, as any serious Black revolutionary should know. Check how Gazi refers to themselves as the "main character" of Black struggle, and bases that on having quotes in the mainstream (i.e., the white capitalist) press. Notice too that they claim to be the "VANGAURD" (sic), yet their main project (Hammer City) failed to materialize because they fell behind the basic details of a capitalist land purchase. All bad.

For a famous "main character," there are very few credible sources on the internet about the life and career of "CIC." A Wikitia article that was last updated in June 2020, that was most likely prepared by Black Hammer themselves and then forgotten, is one of the only linear accounts that we have of the life of “political activist” Gazi Kodzo. It claims that Gazi, an “African Fundamentalist,” was born June 23, 1990, in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and raised in Atlanta. It portrays Gazi as a young Black liberation fighter in the tradition of Marcus Garvey; one who spent most of their twenties steeped in anti-colonial politics and commentary, and in organizing for African liberation. In their mid-twenties, after several years of prior organizing and study, Kodzo joined the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), an all-Black revolutionary formation, whose aim is continental unity and socialism for the African working class. The Chairman of the Party is Omali Yeshitela, a charismatic and controversial political organizer, based out of St. Petersburg, FL.

Black Hammer’s “founding myth,” from June, 2020. According to cult experts, marginal sects often create exaggerated or outright false narratives around the founders of their movements, in order to enhance their prestige with new recruits (Tourish and Wohlforth, On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left, 7)

In the YouTube video “Why I Left the Uhuru Movement,” Gazi describes how they rose to the office of Secretary General--second-most powerful position in APSP, after the Chairman--due to their tremendous work ethic, and especially their expert use of social media for reaching the African masses. (In private conversations, Gazi would sometimes credit their rapid rise to their superior social skills. Instructively, they like to refer to themselves as a "lovable" tyrant.)

Then Gazi resigned from the Party in disgust, after learning that APSP was really an abusive and exploitative cult--the front for a multi-million dollar business, built by unpaid Black labor, yet controlled by wealthy whites in the “subordinate” Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM). The USM leadership, it was claimed, had for decades exploited the free labor of APSP members in many Uhuru enterprises, such as “Uhuru Furniture” and “Uhuru Pies.” They had used their financial power to control the Party bureaucracy since the Eighties, had shaped it into an effective dictatorship in the hands of Yeshitela, who secretly was in on the con.

So along with other defectors from the Party, and with stray elements from Black Lives Matter and the New Black Panther Party, Gazi co-founded Black Hammer Organization in February, 2019. According to the date of birth provided in the Wikitia document--June 23rd, 1990--Gazi Kodzo would have been around 28 at the time. And it really is an impressive achievement, for someone so young to have built the premier revolutionary movement for the African and colonized masses.

These two accounts taken together leave us with the impression that Gazi has a deep and abiding love for their people, that tried to express itself in different forms of anti-colonial activism throughout their early and mid-twenties; until at last they had learned enough to strike out with their own strategy for Black liberation.

What the Wikitia page and YouTube testimony both leave out, though, is Gazi’s legal name. That is probably deliberate. Augustus Romain, Jr. of Stone Mountain, GA--the only person in the United States with the name--is not really 31 years of age (as of September 2021). A casual Google search reveals that they are, in fact, 35:

This could simply be an error in the online record. But Comrade Savvy, Gazi’s former chief of staff (COS) and one of our main sources for this story, claims to have seen Gazi’s birth certificate, and asserts that this is in fact Gazi’s actual age. Interestingly, another source, Comrade Xiuh, claims that she was told directly by Gazi that they are 40 years old. In spite of the discrepancy, it is possible that both accounts are correct. As we will learn later from Savvy’s testimony, Gazi Kodzo appears to have unsteady and possibly dangerous beliefs about their own real age.

Inconsistencies and cover-ups in Romain’s background don’t stop there. In fact, the age discrepancy only raises further questions about Black Hammer’s founding myth, and about its founder’s real motives.

In the Wikitia article, for example, we never meet with “Smiletone,” Romain’s previous online persona: a driven, yet spastic and unappealing YouTuber, an aspiring actor who was based not in Atlanta, but in Hollywood.

Pictures from the “Smiletone” blog (smiletone.blogspot.com) depict the lifestyle of a pseudo-celebrity in “Hello Kitty” glasses; a person who feels entirely at home with the rich and powerful glitterati; who is more than comfortable in all-white spaces. Mansion-party schmoozing and run-ins with celebs take up most of the blog’s space, which spans from 2011-2013, that is, through much of Romain’s mid-twenties (based on their real age, as established above):

Pictured: “Anti-colonial activist Gazi Kodzo” in their mid-twenties, gushing over the mansion party they put together with their boss, who runs the Blaze Modeling Agency

Pictured: “Anti-colonial activist Gazi Kodzo” in their mid-20’s, when they were “sharpening their politics” by deeply inhaling the essence of “bleach demon”

Pictured: “anti-colonial activist Gazi Kodzo” in their mid-twenties, feeling good/feeling great after the mansion party, shouts “God bless America!” to all the viewers who attended

Pictured: “anti-colonial activist Gazi Kodzo” in their mid-twenties, sharing a quote from the imperialist mass murderer, Winston Churchill, that helps them out when they’re feeling down. Sadly for many Hammers, “if you’re going through hell, keep going” still works well as an organization slogan

This bougie blog tells a very different story from the “African Fundamentalist” journey on Wikitia, where it was claimed that the entirety of Gazi’s political work prior to Black Hammer revolved around anti-colonialism, and that they began sharpening their political skills and outlook in their early twenties.

Yet this would mean that by the time of the mansion party, Gazi was already an experienced anti-colonial activist. In that case we would have to believe that an African revolutionary was coordinating Beverly Hills mansion parties with their ex-model boss, then squealing because it landed them on television. That this activist somehow felt that imperialist America is blessed, because their YouTube views have grown. Unless Smiletone was the spook who sat by the mansion door, this Wikitia entry is clearly a tissue of lies.

Maybe the lies can be excused as the products of simple embarrassment? After all, sometimes folks do lie on their age on dating sites; and most people have pictures at periods of their lives they would rather forget. But why pretend, when launching a revolutionary movement, that your early and mid-20’s were dedicated to Garvey, to prison abolition, to African liberation; when really they were dedicated to party mansions, to “Drunken McNugget” challenges, to degrading, head-petting videos like “The Common White Girl Tag” (at the conclusion of which, two white hosts call Romain the biggest white girl out the three)?

A “revolutionary” who cannot be honest about their age, their prior locations and activities, or their real level of political consciousness before joining any movement, is easily an agent for chaos. They could be a police or fed plant. They could be a con artist, looking to bite strategies and slogans, and claim them as their own. They could be lying on their age to more easily manipulate young folks, for any number of unsettling reasons. They could be covering up histories of abuse or wrecker activity in other cities and states, in other years or decades. But there are still more dangers locked in that back room with old Smiletone.

For instance, there is testimony from several former Black Hammer members (including both Savvy and Xiuh), that within the organization Gazi would openly discuss their former life as a “Hollywood pimp”--less glamorously, an exploiter of others’ sexual labor. Then there is Romain Sr.'s bourgeois class position, and dangerous ties to the state: the fact, as Gazi sometimes boasts with typical lack of awareness, that “my daddy is friends with George Bush!” (This should be a highly alarming claim to any security-minded organizer with past or present ties to Gazi’s activities.)

And then there is the pitiful eyewitness truth about Gazi’s arrival in Florida to advance the African Revolution, as recounted by one of our authors, Cmde. Shupavu Wa Kirima, who served for a time with Gazi on the Central Committee of the APSP.

Who is Augustus Romain Jr., For Real??

So who really is Augustus Romain Jr. better known as Gazi Kodzo? And how were they able to position themselves as the Commander-In-Chief of Black Hammer Organization, an organization that enjoyed a momentary flash-in-the-pan type success, before devolving into one of the most damaging and abuse-filled cults in recent memory?

Gazi, in large part, has Omali Yeshitela, Chairman (for life) of the African People's Socialist Party, to thank for their meteoric rise to national prominence on the Black Left. It was Omali Yeshitela, who back in 2015, found Gazi's reactionary anti-white rants on YouTube and decided that Gazi and their social media antics could be put to better use within the ranks of Yeshitela's party. Let's be clear, Yeshitela's no fool and saw an opportunity in Gazi. He recognized that with a more polished and coherent political line and a pinch of "party discipline," he could mould Smiletone into Gazi Kodzo--a young, black, militant, and most importantly, gay/same gender loving revolutionary. This would be a boon for APSP's membership and would check more than a couple boxes in lending credibility to APSP's "inclusive of all Africans" image that Yeshitela was working to create.

According to Gazi's claims, they were living the high life in Los Angeles as a big-time modeling agent by day and high-end pimp by night. They lived in a $2,500/month beachfront property, drove a luxury vehicle, and had built up a sizable enough following on YouTube that the residual income from that alone would have been ample to sustain them. Basically, if we are to believe Gazi's story, then they had all of the trappings of a successful capitalist stooge/sellout.

However, the truth of the matter is that when Yeshitela flew Gazi out to St. Petersburg, FL, which at the time was the party's headquarters, for that first meeting in which Gazi was recruited into the party, the person that got off of that plane was a far cry from any Hollywood big-shot. Gazi was completely strung out on pills and coke. They were literally homeless. Fragile and skittish to the point that they had to undergo a two-week process of "drying out" before they could even begin receiving structured political education on the APSP's political and ideological line.

Gazi has often referred to Yeshitela as their "revolutionary father," and in many ways this is true. It was Yeshitela who Gazi wanted so desperately to impress, who they tried to emulate. It was even Yeshitela's guesthouse that Gazi sobered up in, and continued to reside in, during the course of their time in the party. While Yeshitela was congratulating himself on having secured the new young queer face of the party, Gazi was in fact a neurotic, chemically dependent, highly toxic 30- year old maniac that was playing Yeshitela right back, and had a lot less to lose.

After barely two weeks clean and completely dependent upon Yeshitela for food, clothing, and shelter, Gazi was made into the Director of the National Office for Recruitment and Membership (NORM) for the APSP. Along with a salary, one of the precious few salaried positions within the party, Gazi was allowed to live rent- free in Yeshitela's two bedroom guesthouse and given virtually free rein over the party's membership. Gazi, who describes themselves as a "stunt queen from Atlanta," immediately set about to alternately manipulate the membership numbers, and relax the rules for membership, in an effort to make it appear as if their presence alone had caused prospective candidates to flood in.

Cmde. Shupavu's account does not tell the full tale of Gazi's time in APSP. More details and testimony on specific abuses by "SecGen" Gazi are forthcoming. From what our writers have already heard, they do establish a definite pattern of official misconduct and abuse that has sadly followed Gazi into Black Hammer.

But her account does give us key features of Gazi's psychology and behavior--the compulsive lying about their lifestyle and sources of income; the deluded sense of self-importance, even of celebrity, that is unsupported by real achievements; the unhealthy appetite for party drugs, as evident in Atlanta today as in Hollywood back then; the casual way of conning and manipulating comrades, in order to advance to powerful roles in a revolutionary organization.

This is a dangerous enough profile. But under "Chairman's" wing, Gazi would build up a repertoire of tricks for group control that would later serve them well, when it came time to found their own political cult. Importantly for Gazi, who is an "entertainer" and not at all a thinker, Yeshitela would also give instruction in the ideology of the African working class--"African Internationalism"--which seemed to simplify and make sense of Black and colonized people's poverty and despair, in a capitalist world clearly set up for whites.

This background, and not the "founding myth" peddled by Black Hammer, explains how the petty-bou, dysfunctional partier "Smiletone" made their full transition to Gazi Kodzo, the African freedom fighter and "revolutionary leader" who now claims to lead hundreds of Hammers.

But did Gazi really believe in all this? They apparently knew the Party line well enough; but then, they had just come on their knees from Hollywood, where knowing your lines was the whole industry--an industry that desperate and drug-addled "Smiletone" had failed to get their foot in.

Myth of Gazi as "Revolutionary Leader" and "Proud African"

The “African Fundamentalist” Gazi Kodzo is not only ignorant of African history. They really despise our ancestral homeland, and mock it in ways that would only occur to white racists to say; as can be seen in this screenshot from their early “anti-colonial” years

The overt politics of Black Hammer Organization are anti-colonial, revolutionary, and communist in their aim. But beyond that it is hard to pin their members down to any one clear political tendency, since the org seems to borrow ideas and imagery from everywhere--as long as it's not white.

Elements of Third World communism are there, and BHO claims to support socialist states, like DPRK and China. But there are also cultural nationalist moments, as when Gazi rejects Karl Marx and other communist figures simply for their whiteness, or ascribes special powers to melanin. The highly bureaucratic, paper-pushing style of organization is straight out of Yeshitela's handbook; while the...celebration--some say fetishization--of colonized working-class culture is right out the Black Twenty-Something side of TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter.

More recently, pseudo-shamanism has been added to that gumbo--though this is apparently less inspired by traditions of African and First Nations people, than by Gazi’s own magical thinking, and frequent abuse of psychedelics.

There’s some Christian seasoning off in there, too. Lately the cult lectures are rebranded as “sermons.” Gazi’s tirades are suddenly being delivered in a bad Pentecostal style. They are received with awkward “amens!” and “that’s rights!,” shouted by a literal captive audience in the Hammer House. Bodyguards wielding small bats flank “the Commander” on each side, while they rant excitedly, like a scene from a Jim Jones biopic. And like the People’s Temple, there doesn’t seem to be anything tying these many threads together into a coherent worldview, except the cynical hope of gathering the biggest flock for the leader’s hidden purpose.

And what is that purpose? Is Gazi just playing dress-up here? What does Gazi really believe? Are they an African Internationalist and dialectical materialist, or are they some kind of Social Gospel minister, or what?

It seems that the major political contradiction in Black Hammer, that will probably contribute to its death in a matter of months or weeks, is that its membership understands itself to be a communist organization; but its "Commander" has no principles at all--political, ethical, or otherwise. Gazi likes to dress up for an audience, they like to be seen and heard, and admired; Gazi likes money and sex, and going to the club, and humiliating and wielding power over others. Gazi likes to inflict pain and to be feared. And these appear to be the real reasons behind their hard-nosed "Commander" image, and their calls for dictatorship--not communism, not national liberation.

In fact, Gazi's nearest ideological affinity is with fascism, as can be seen in countless screenshots of private conversations that reveal Augustus as, among other things, an anti-African, an ableist, a misogynist, a transphobe, an anti-Semite. Consider the following screenshots (Gazi's favorite form of proof):

Apart from the clear antisemitism of this status, there is the added insult to the Palestinian people, since no responsible communist would advocate for Palestine's liberation by recommending Jews go "back to the oven." Statuses like these show that Gazi only engages with politics in order to draw attention to their own odious personality, not for colonized liberation

Here is Gazi telling a nonblack Hammer that they will kill Black trans women for being oppressive "neocolonial puppets" who engage in "trauma porn" by raising awareness to transphobic murders. This is clearly a "revolutionary leader" demanding that their nonblack membership ignore the call to defend Black trans lives, and accentuating their point with a death threat to trans activists

Here is the "Garveyite" Gazi Kodzo, saying that they would not even send $20 to continental Africans if it meant they would die. This person clearly does not love African people, but crassly employs pro-Black rhetoric and African aesthetics to garner support

We can reproduce horrible statements like these ad nauseum. But at a minimum, it's clear that no individual like this should have "command" over an organization dedicated to the liberation of African and all oppressed people, to the liberation of trans folks from murderous phobic violence, to the relentless fight against the fascism that murders Black and white Jews alike.

Given all that we have said about Augustus Romain so far, one would have to question whether they can be trusted in any position of responsibility at all, let alone in politics. Yet as we will see in Part 2, detailing the rise of Black Hammer and the #2BFrank scandal, Gazi was not only entrusted with leadership; they were enabled in some of their most pathological tendencies, at a decisive moment for the fate of Black Hammer--and not only by individuals within the organization.

For Pt. 2 of this series, please click here