"Safeguard the Flame" took place in the Houston community space WonderlikeWander on March 21, 2025. A collaboration between organizations Palestine Solidarity TX, Al Awda Houston, and the All-African People's Revolutionary Party, the event drew on lessons from political prisoners in the U.S. and Palestine. It made clear that in all revolutionary movements, political prisoners are leaders, the beating heart of resistance—and their liberation is tied to ours.
"The name itself—drawn from Ahmad Sa'adat's words in his preface to Huey Newton's Revolutionary Suicide—was a call to action: Just as political prisoners safeguard the flame from their cells, we must carry it forward in our streets, our workplaces, our movements. When Palestinian prisoners smuggle manifestos out of prison or Panthers like Jalil Muntaqim organize and help build institutions like the Jericho Movement from within their cells, they're not just surviving: they're mapping the path to our collective liberation," Palestine Solidarity TX organizers told Shift Press.
Attendees engaged with the Political Prisoner and Martyr Wall, which highlighted the enduring spirit of resistance, the crucial role of intellectuals and leaders in shaping revolutionary culture, as well as historic prison revolts and prison breaks. Explore the Wall in its entirety below.
"Prison Revolt"—Political Prisoner & Martyr Wall. This piece situated the prison as a central site of collective struggle and the prison revolt as "an interruption of the colonial order." From the Attica revolts to the hunger strikes of Palestinian prisoners, these are seen as life-affirming acts of resistance, a "revolutionary choice: freedom or death."
Houston organizer Steph Sanchez is on the campaign to free political prisoner Xinachtli, a Chicano prison abolitionist organizer currently serving a 50-year sentence in Texas, with over 20 years in solitary confinement. In a letter, Xinachtli wrote: "In 'building a revolutionary culture of resistance,' our diverse, but united, movements such as the Black Liberation Movement, the Chicano Liberation Movement, the Indigenous Native American Indian Movement, and other ethnic movements that seek to free ourselves from colonialism and imperialism, must settle our differences, and function as a truly revolutionary internationalist movement against imperialism."
The Palestinian Youth Movement's campaign, Cut Ties With Genocide, is demanding that Maersk, a major shipping and logistics company, halt the transportation of military cargo that enables Israel's genocide in Gaza. The campaign also demands that Maersk end all contracts supporting war and genocide, including its contract with the U.S. Department of Defense and the Israeli Ministry of Defense. Just last year, Maersk shipped millions of pounds of military cargo from the U.S. to Israel. The Cut Ties With Genocide campaign is also a reminder of Texas's role in the genocide of the Palestinian people, as the Port of Houston has long been used to facilitate weapons and military cargo shipments to Israel.
Zines on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s relationship to the Palestinian people, the connection between U.S. prisons and the Palestinian liberation struggle, the October 7 Al-Aqsa Flood as a historic prison break, martyr George Jackson, and women political prisoners in Palestine.
"We are in the belly of the beast, the head of the empire—and the world is waiting on us. Our silence is complicity, our failure to act is complicity," said Jalil Muntaqim, a former political prisoner of war and veteran member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA). "Safeguard the Flame" was born out of a collective study of Muntaqim's book, We Are Our Own Liberators, a collection of more than 36 years of his prison writings on the struggle for Black liberation and an independent New Afrika.
Revolutionary elders and attendees came together in an open discussion circle, grappling with urgent questions: How do we resist the ongoing genocide in Palestine? How do we build a revolutionary culture? The dialogue spanned intergenerational struggle with youth, transforming rage into organized action, and developing conflict resolution practices.
dequi kioni-sadiki—organizer and former leader in the Sekou Odinga Defense Committee, which successfully campaigned for the release of her late husband, BLA freedom fighter Sekou Odinga—spoke fiercely about imperialism and the U.S. as a settler colony built on genocide. "The U.S. is a vast propaganda campaign," she stated. "What I admire about the Palestinian resistance is that they recognize they are colonial subjects. We think we live in a land of freedom and democracy, but once you recognize that you're a colonized subject, you resist in all the ways—whether it's through art, dance, or an organization. Wherever we are, we must recognize the commonalities of our struggles and make commitments to each other."
Ashanti Alston, former political prisoner, veteran member of the BPP and the BLA, and current board member of the National Jericho Movement, urged attendees to act in solidarity with Gaza and to consider what we in the imperial core are willing to sacrifice. "The struggle is not over, and if Palestinians can continue resisting under such conditions, what are we doing?"