An Aging Black Freedom Fighter Needs Your Help!

Dr. Muhammad Ahmad (also known as Maxwell Stanford, Jr.) is a living legend of the Black freedom struggle whose impact and critical role has been all but erased from history. As a protege of Black radical luminaries like Queen Mother Moore, Malcolm X and Robert Williams, Ahmad not only helped shift the aims of the Black struggle from civil rights to Black Power. Like the best Black youth of his generation, he risked his life and freedom to overthrow the most blatant forms of white supremacy and faced the State violence suffered by many Black freedom fighters – including imprisonment, physical attacks and unrelenting police surveillance. Today Dr. Ahmad, who is affectionately called "Doc" by his family and friends, is engaged in a far more personal battle against numerous health crises and financial distress. His family, friends and supporters are making a call for financial assistance for a number of health-related, home improvement and book publishing initiatives aimed at improving his health status and quality of living and cementing his legacy as a key Black liberation theoretician and strategist.

Dr. Ahmad has been hospitalized numerous times over the last several years after suffering a stroke and experiencing kidney malfunctions which have repeatedly resulted in severe water retention known as edema. In addition, Doc suffers from gout, arthritis and high blood pressure. One key goal of this fundraising drive is to raise $3195 needed to equip his home with a stair-lift allowing him to move upstairs and downstairs without the risk of falling. In addition to this, Dr. Ahmad is pursuing a parallel herbal treatment for his condition in tandem with his current conventional medical regimen which has produced limited results. The cost for his initial herbal treatment is $300.

Another aim of this fundraising drive is to help finance a book publishing project which will feature some of the insights this legendary freedom fighter has about the current upsurge of Black resistance and its place in the historical and global contest between the forces of liberation and oppression. Assisted by his long-time comrade and collaborator Dr. John H. Bracey, this book project does not have a major publishing contract and is being handled by an independent publisher. The estimated remaining cost for this project is $600.

Finally, we are asking for help in supporting a major vision of Dr. Ahmad’s – securing and transforming his personal 6,000-plus volume book collection – which specializes in rare and classical books on Black history, socialism and world civilization – into a publicly accessible library. The first part of this effort will require the transport of his book collection from his home – which has suffered some flooding damage – to a temporary storage place until a permanent location can be found which can serve as a library. The estimated costs for storage and maintenance is $1500.