rigorousintuition.ca

Operation Storm of White Tears

Goal: Manufacture a controversy around Black Hammer to popularize our narrative. By “emotionalizing” an old post or video, we lay down a political line we’ve already united around, meaning we control the flow of the narrative, and we get the masses to deepen their engagement with our brand.
Phase One: Ride the Wave
Summary: The beginning of OSWT was long before some white women dug up our dirt. The beginning IS the dirt. We must dig up our own dirt, stances we’ve ALREADY made, and hold the anti-colonial political line. These stance must agitate around “hot topics”, and individual members must be drilled in the correct political line to present a unified response. Kanye West is a beast at this game. Black Hammer should emulate the Kanye’s of the 24 hour news cycle.

This phase unfolds in two alternating steps: outrage and sympathy. First, we start dropping controversial takes, to spark a conversation. Then we reveal sympathetic details around our persona lives to humanize us, and make us empathetic, thus getting the masses even more invested in our manufactured narratives.

Known “hot takes”:
Anne Frank Incident
Gazi speaking to Kimya about the failure of Feminism as a theory (date unknown)
Alyx argues with a sex worker over porn hub

Known causes for sympathy
Health Issues
Inspirational past
Identity


Phase Two: Hook The Masses
Summary: Once a sizable audience is buzzing around our pages, and engaging with our brand -- whether positive or negative -- we come out with an interview on a broad-based platform. The interview must be secured in advance to ensure Black Hammer enters into a “positive media cycle”. We become famous for being famous, in essence.

Collaborate.
We should be putting out material on which the hottest people are dying to collaborate.
We use the success of individuals to boost our larger projects (think Nicki Minaj’s verse on Monster, by Kanye.)

Land an Interview.
Self explanitory. We need to secure an interview which is centered around the controversy, giving us a platform to double down on our anti-colonial line. He trashier the better. Once again taking inspiration from Kanye, our most solid defense is inspiring “casual dismissal” in our enemies, and rapt attention in our allies.


Phase Three: Destroy Our Competition
Summary: There are two main categories of competitor: the communist type, and the social media brand type. The first we divide by attacking with an aggressive recruitment strategy. Pit leadership against each other, and absorb the people who leave. The second we destroy through protracted war.

Attack the leadership of prominent “revolutionary” orgs.
Pit their mmembership against leadership. Dig up dirt. (We become invincible to counter attack because we already lay out our dirt in phase one. We deprive the enemy of ammunition.)
Pit Leadership against each other. Force them to choose sides.
Isoalte the org from the masses, whereever they interact. Shut down their social media pages, cut their sponsoships, win their audience.
Attack the reactionary social media brands we are copying (Shade Room)
This is a protracted struggle. We must mirror the activity of the enemy as closely as possible so that their audience and our audience become the same. Post what they post, when they post, and how they post. We do not strike first. Wait for the brand to fire the first shots.
Escalate conflict. Return criticism, and ramp up aggression. The enemy cannot do the same because they were designed to destract from struggle, to defuse, and not to be on the offensive.
Weaken the audiences faith in the brand. Lay out material contradictions in their layout, point out the political. (Religious dogma, grift, contraversy)

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.

A Black separatist group’s utopian dream for land near Telluride withered after an armed standoff
The Black Hammer group had $100,000 and a real estate contract for 40 acres where they planned a settlement free of cops, COVID and white people

Grant Stringer
4:39 AM MST on Feb 8, 2022

When Black Hammer came to Beaver Pines, a sparsely populated neighborhood on the high desert about 25 miles west of Telluride, they came for the soil.

They were about two dozen leftist revolutionaries, almost all people of color. In Denver and other U.S. cities, the group’s chapters had spent the pandemic handing out food and personal protective equipment while planning their signature project: Hammer City, a utopian settlement high in the Rocky Mountains free of coronavirus, cops, money and white people. Together they would renounce private property, work the land and build power.

Commenters on Facebook and Twitter widely ridiculed the concept as a “cult” doomed for failure. But the activists raised more than $60,000. On May 3, 2021, Augustus Romain Jr., the group’s commander-in-chief, posted a photo of 10 people standing among sagebrush with raised fists and a declaration on Facebook: Black Hammer had “liberated” 200 acres of land somewhere in Colorado. The soil, they wrote, was rich.


On May 3, 2021, Black Hammer leader Augustus Romain Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo, posted this photo on Facebook declaring they had “liberated” 200 acres of land somewhere in Colorado. The soil, they wrote, was rich. (Facebook)
Black Hammer never said where their new community was. Within weeks, the group suddenly stopped its dispatches from the desert.

But donations continued pouring in, eventually cresting the $100,000 mark, according to the organization’s fundraising webpage. Critics online wondered where the money went when the Hammers left Colorado. Tureyel Quan, the Black Hammer Organization chief of staff, declined an interview for this article, citing bias in media coverage of COVID-19 vaccines, which the group opposes.


After Black Hammer narrowly failed to purchase its land, Hammer City joined the rich history of failed utopian projects in Colorado.

In the Beaver Pines subdivision and the community around nearby Norwood, population 600, the Black Hammer Organization left an impression. When the activists decamped May 17, what remained was a partially built footbridge, a property sign riddled with bullet holes and a local man shaken after an armed standoff.

Undeveloped parcels mostly held by absentee owners
Wildlife photographer Randy Stephens lives in a solar-powered cabin in Beaver Pines. When he’s not tracking cinnamon bears and full moons to photograph, he takes care of his daughter’s horses on his 41 acres or drives the 20 minutes to run errands in Norwood.

The small town can feel a world apart from glitzy Telluride, which is 45 minutes away, residents said in interviews. Norwood offers sweeping views of the Lone Cone, the westernmost peak of the San Juan Mountains, and the land rolling west toward the Utah border. From Norwood, it’s about 6 miles as the crow flies to Beaver Pines, a remote spot that offers the opportunity to live quietly or off-the-grid, said Teddy Berger, a real estate agent based in Montrose. Of the 16 lots in Beaver Pines, many still are undeveloped and held by absentee owners as far away as Los Angeles.

“There’s not a lot going on out there,” he said.


A parcel of land near property the Black Hammer community briefly called home southeast of Norwood. (William Woody, Special to The Colorado Sun)
At 8,200 feet, it’s often frigid in the winter. The temperature was fluctuating wildly in early May, with highs in the 80s and lows in the 30s. That’s when Stephens noticed several parked cars blocking the community’s only road.

It was May 9. Near the cars, he saw a few people he didn’t know on Beaver Pines Lot 11, vacant land listed for sale. According to Stephens, he pulled over twice in the next few days and asked the newcomers to move their vehicles. They refused, saying they had bought the land and could do as they pleased.

A week passed. On May 16, Stephens was frustrated when he found cars still in the road. By then, about two dozen people had congregated on the 40-acre lot, a plain of sagebrush that slopes into a sparsely-wooded valley. They were of many races and ethnicities, Stephens recalled, and they ranged in age from children to adults in their 30s.

Stephens pulled over and began yelling at them.

As he later told sheriff’s deputies, that’s when three armed men fanned out across the pasture and approached him. One of the men drew a handgun. Alarmed, Stephens said he pulled a shotgun from behind his seat and pointed it at the man’s head.

Behind the armed trio, the group chanted “Go!” at Stephens, he told police. The standoff was short-lived. Stephens is adamant he told the men he didn’t want a shootout and they all lowered their weapons.

Stephens, shaken, drove away and called the San Miguel County Sheriff’s Office.

His report kicked off a law enforcement investigation to identify the armed people. That night, Stephens placed another call to Deputy Paula Martinez. He’d seen the group again as the day waned.

This time, two women sat atop a car parked at a different point in the community road, where three men wore bullet proof vests and camouflage and toted what looked like AR-15s. They looked like a “militia,” he told Martinez.

Deputies recognized the group from Twitter
Earlier that day, at the department offices in Telluride, Martinez ended her call with Stephens and briefed two of her colleagues.

One, Deputy Grant Markwell, had seen a post on Twitter that a “militant” group named Black Hammer planned to build a “city” somewhere in Colorado. Martinez found the group’s Facebook page. In a conference call with the FBI and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the sheriff’s deputies were told Black Hammer was a “radical, paramilitary organization” that wants to “take back the land from white people.”

Black Hammer also describes itself as militant, but a “symbol of hope for the colonized poor and working class.” Their presence in western Colorado was key to their goal of liberating Black and brown people by creating a sanctuary, the group says on its blog, The Black Hammer Times.

Chase Robinette, who went by Secretary-General Anco, said in a February 2021 video series that the pandemic, police brutality and other issues disproportionately facing people of color necessitated the construction of Hammer City. “Colonized people,” he said, “need their own land, their own space, their own modes of production in order to advance an anti-colonial struggle any higher.”

The activists dedicate much of their time to posting a near-constant stream of content online. Romain, who uses gender-neutral pronouns, has taken the moniker Gazi Kodzo. Their TikTok page has more than 300,000 likes.

It’s unclear how many members Black Hammer has recruited and where the organization has legitimate chapters. Social media accounts exist for affiliates from Chicago to Kenya, said Rebecca Federman, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League who monitors their social media. Like Romain, other Hammers take noms de guerre.

Mostly, the activists post monologues about leftist theory or livestreams of community events. They sometimes tote sledgehammers but not usually open-carried firearms.

In Denver, a small chapter of Hammers held rallies and candlelight vigils for COVID-19 victims in 2020, often at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Aurora. Michael Diaz-Rivera, a Black Lives Matter 5280 activist, attended a few Black Hammer meetings that year. He remembers donating some small bills toward their project that would be somewhere in the mountains.

But he didn’t join the group. Diaz-Rivera recalled Black Hammer activists arguing Anne Frank didn’t deserve sympathy because she would have become a European colonizer — an oppressor — had she survived the Holocaust. That argument later caused a firestorm on Twitter and became a signature Black Hammer talking point. Before they arrived in Beaver Pines, the activists tweeted they would stay warm in their mountain colony by burning copies of Anne Frank’s diary.

“I definitely get cult-like vibes from that group,” Diaz-Rivera said.


When the Black Hammers tried to purchase a parcel of land in a remote subdivision near Norwood, they envisioned a utopian community . By the time they left the property in Beaver Pines in spring of 2021, all they had built was a footbridge. (Handout)
Black Hammer rolled out its fundraising campaign in July 2020 and released renderings of Hammer City. It would take the shape of a huge, circular structure, as depicted in one image, or a series of dome-shaped homes as shown in another. Hammers would harvest crops and live guided by a constitution.

Black Hammer never said why they chose Beaver Pines, a subdivision with a homeowner’s association and strict limits on land use. Water rights, which have long shaped ambitions to settle in the region, were not available for Lot 11, Berger said.


One plan developed by the Black Hammers called for or a series of dome-shaped homes. (Handout)
Jason Hanson, a historian at History Colorado, said there’s something about the state, perhaps the natural beauty, that attracts people with utopian ideals.

He noted that socialists founded nearby Nucla, just 15 miles from Norwood, as a communal project in 1894. Dearfield, the majority Black settlement outside of Greeley in the early 20th century, was built as a refuge from racism, he said. Persecution also pushed scores of 19th-century Jewish immigrants to Cotopaxi, an ill-fated agricultural community on the eastern flank of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. Its founder also lauded the “rich” soil of southern Colorado. But the community withered away after several seasons of failed crops and brutal winters.

Today, the public usually doesn’t learn about such attempts to build insular communities unless something goes wrong, Hanson said.

Building a bridge over a drainage ditch
After Stephens reported the standoff to the county sheriff’s office, Markwell and another deputy drove out to Beaver Pines. They found several people using lumber and stones to build a footbridge across a drainage ditch.

Romain and other Hammers had been proudly showcasing the bridge, and their land, online.

“We are building the first structures of Hammer City RIGHT NOW!” Romain posted on Twitter the day before, along with three ways to donate online.

But the land wasn’t theirs to develop.


Augustus Romain Jr., left, Black Hammer’s commander-in-chief, poses with people working land they said had been “liberated” and would be the location of a utopian community. The group left Colorado not long after.
Police contacted Lucas and Marcy Pitman, the Utah-based owners of Beaver Pines Lot 11. Marcy Pitman did not respond to an interview request. The land was since sold to a Telluride-based builder.

The Pitmans had been working with Berger, the Montrose real estate agent, to sell the parcel to Robinette – or Secretary-General Anco – for about $100,000, Berger said.

He says Robinette never mentioned his intentions for the land beyond practicing “some high-altitude farming technique.”

TODAY’S UNDERWRITER
Robinette moved through the process and even put $10,000 down for the purchase. But the deal fell apart when, on May 14, Robinette missed a key deadline to sign the closing documents, the Pitmans told police. Then, when they heard that armed people were squatting on the land and wandering the Beaver Pines loop road in paramilitary garb, they refused to sell, Berger recalled.

Near 5 p.m. on May 17, Markwell called Robinette, who apologized to the sheriff’s deputy for being hard to reach; he’d been in and out of cell service while another person handled “construction” on Lot 11.

Markwell told him the bad news: Robinette and his friends were trespassing. They had to leave immediately.

“We will definitely be out tonight and won’t be coming back,” Robinette said.

Stephens had been on edge. That evening, he heard bursts of gunfire coming from Lot 11. Then, it was quiet.

Sheriff’s deputies watched a caravan of cars leaving Beaver Pines at 6:30 p.m. Later, San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters drove to the property and found the footbridge remained unfinished. The real estate sign advertising Lot 11 was riddled with bullet holes, and the road was sprinkled with 4-inch timber screws.

A Sun review of Colorado court records did not find Romain and Robinette were charged with crimes related to trespassing on Lot 11 or the standoff with Stephens.

Black Hammer never told donors why Hammer City was not built. In mid-June, the activists simply posted photos of themselves canvassing in downtown Denver, and at the end of the month, they relocated to Atlanta.

The next month, The Black Hammer Times published a blog explaining why they “ran off with the Hammer City money.” The cash would now be used to fund the construction of settlements “all over the world.” Black Hammer has raised more than $112,000 to date, almost double their haul since the cohort arrived outside Norwood.

The small group of activists in Atlanta has since focused on distributing mutual aid to impoverished residents. Online, Romain is adamant Black Hammer is stronger than ever. But it appears the group is unraveling.

In late July, the organization’s New York chapter accused Romain of manipulating and abusing his acolytes, especially young people “fresh out of high school or college.” The chapter also claimed Romain and Robinette frivolously spent the Hammer City money while rank-and-file members suffered homelessness and abuse.

Romain and the core group of activists now focus on opposition to COVID-19 vaccines. Romain recently forged an “alliance” over the issue with right-wing activists such as Proud Boys co-founder Gavin McInnes. The cohort in Atlanta apparently does not include Robinette, who reportedly left Black Hammer amid internal turmoil at the end of the summer. Romain has also said Black Hammer will change its name.

In Beaver Pines, life is once again quiet, Stephens said.

Sometimes, when he tells the story of his brush with Black Hammer, people ask him why he didn’t shoot them. He’s been offered shotgun shells.

He’s adamant he’s not “some prejudiced, redneck bastard,” and said he would have welcomed the activists as a good neighbor had they treated him kindly. In any event, he’s glad the standoff resolved peacefully — not least because his shotgun wasn’t loaded.

https://coloradosun.com/2022/02/08/blac ... -colorado/

Warrants allege 2 were held against will, 1 raped prior to 911 call from Fayetteville Black Hammer Party home
An 18-year-old was found dead inside the home after police arrived and ordered everyone out.


Published: 6:18 PM EDT July 22, 2022
Updated: 7:43 PM EDT July 22, 2022

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Arrest warrants for the leader of a group that many people have characterized as "extremist" allege that a 911 call leading to a SWAT response and the finding of an 18-year-old dead inside the home was preceded by two group members being held against their will at gunpoint and one of them raped.

The warrants also say the 18-year-old, who police have said died by suicide during the SWAT standoff, was one of two armed individuals who locked the victims in the garage where the rape occurred.

The group, a self-styled revolutionary collective called the Black Hammer Party, meanwhile has said the 18-year-old, who they identified as "AP," was one of its leaders and refutes the claim that he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The group's reported leader, Augusta Romain - known as Gazi Kodzo - is in custody following the incident this week in Fayetteville. He is facing charges including aggravated sodomy, two counts of conspiracy to commit a felony and criminal street gang activity, and two counts each of being a party to aggravated assault, being a party to false imprisonment and being a party to kidnapping.

The arrest warrants obtained by 11Alive on Friday say Romain directed AP and another member, 21-year-old Xavier Rushin - known as Keno - to "point guns" at two other members "and force them to move from the common area of the home into the garage with padlocks on the garage door so that Gazi could commit sodomy."

In the original incident, police said nine people voluntarily came out of the home when officers arrived on scene, with a robot later searching the home and finding AP "unresponsive with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."

The warrants do not make clear what happened during the standoff to the two members who'd allegedly been locked into the garage.

They do identify Rushin as the individual who was earlier reported walking a dog around the Woodbyne Subdivision and then allegedly ran off "when questioned about a kidnapping call we received from the address he lives at."

Rushin faces charges including aggravated assault, kidnapping, false imprisonment, conspiracy to commit a felony, criminal street gang activity and obstruction.

The warrants allege the Black Hammer Party is "an organization documented as a criminal street gang which engages in defined criminal acts."

The Black Hammers group, which orients itself around anti-capitalist and Black liberation themes, has previously announced associations with the Proud Boys and "declared war" against other leftist and liberal groups, such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, on the apparent grounds of being insufficiently revolutionary. It has also published narratives against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Big Pharma" and COVID vaccines.

The group itself claims it was operating as a sort of radical de-colonizing collective out of the house, working to feed and support homeless and poor communities.

11Alive spoke to Romain at the scene Tuesday, before his arrest, and he said, "I came outside, I talked to one of the officers. I told him we have someone in there who is mentally different."

He added at that time the 18-year-old "would never" take his own life.

Both Romain and Rushin are being held at the Fayette County Jail. Police have not yet offered any details about any of the other individuals who were at the home.

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/lo ... 165911e754

Ex-Black Hammer members detail Gazi Kodzo’s abusive ‘cult,’ which culminated in arrests for kidnapping and sexual assault
Black Hammer's Gazi Kodzo was arrested on kidnapping charges. Former members say it's happened to them.

WF Thomas
Posted on Jul 29, 2022

On Tuesday, July 20, police responded to a possible hostage situation in Fayetteville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. According to reports, someone called 911 to say they’d been kidnapped.

At least 10 people willingly exited the home, but one remained inside. Police later found the man dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

Augustus C. Romain and another individual now face multiple charges over the incident. Neither has been charged in the person’s death, which has been ruled a suicide.

Romain, who faces seven charges including aggravated sodomy; conspiracy to commit a felony; false imprisonment; kidnapping; aggravated assault; and criminal street gang activity, is better known as Gazi Kodzo. The address in question is a home to Black Hammer, the organization Kodzo runs that ostensibly fights for the rights of the oppressed.

Those that knew Kodzo accuse them of operating it like a “cult.”

Over the past year, former members spoke out against Kodzo, releasing a Google Drive file with testimonials that allege abuse, manipulation, and other frightening behavior. Their online effort has tried to keep people away from Black Hammer, highlighting the experiences they’ve had that left them shaken to their core.

Black Hammer—which says its goal is to repatriate land to colonized people and supports pan-African ideology—has been better known for its online stunts. It conducted a campaign on Twitter to brand Anne Frank a “Karen” and used social media to live stream its in-person antics.

In the warrant for their arrest, obtained by the Daily Dot, Fayetteville police say that Kodzo ordered individuals to point guns at two people and force them into a padlocked garage. It’s an accusation that matches testimonial from the Google Drive, where a former member says Kodzo and members of Black Hammer forcibly detained her and often brandished weapons.

Fayetteville police, in the warrant, say that Kodzo anally raped at least one person at gunpoint.

While the police were still surrounding the house, but before they were arrested, Kodzo, who uses they/them pronouns, went on Facebook Live, and expressed their excitement at what was occurring. In the live stream, Kodzo claimed:

“There’s a lot of media out here … this is just going to build me up at the end of the day … If you think that I am concerned or anything like that, you’re out of your mind. At the end of the day, there’s still breath in my body, I still run an amazing revolutionary party, our community is … with us, and now all these news channels are going to want to interview us and we are going to get to communicate about all the great work that we are doing here, so this is great at the end of the day.”

Instead, the day ended with someone dead.

Prior to Tuesday’s incident, the group’s history also includes a long string of abuse allegations, a recent “coalition” with the Proud Boys, a commune that fell apart in a standoff, and accusations of harassment across Atlanta’s many college campuses.

Behind all of this is the self-styled “Commander” Kodzo.

The group and Kodzo itself attracted members and gained media attention through its extensive and aggressive use of social media. The organization has an unabashedly confrontational style, using Instagram to directly threaten police officers and call for the Supreme Court to abolish integration.

Just as it has grown online, so too has the backlash. Alongside the Google Drive, campaigns cropped up on Reddit to warn members of the group’s efforts, and several Twitter accounts began documenting concerns over the group,


With Kodzo still now indicted on multiple charges, it’s unclear the future of Black Hammer.

Kodzo is currently awaiting a bail hearing and could not be reached for comments. The Daily Dot was unable to discern if they had legal representation who could speak for them.

Multiple inquiries to Black Hammer, through its social media and contact form, went unanswered for this piece.

. . .
Savvy, who went by that name when she was with Black Hammer, says she feared for her life when she began to leave the organization, which she joined when she was 22. In a video testimonial shared with the public via Google Drive and later in a video interview with the Daily Dot held before the most recent events at the Black Hammer House in Fayetteville, Savvy described her experience.

Savvy joined the organization in March 2020, moving in with a chapter of the group in North Carolina, later moving to Colorado, and then finally Georgia. After beginning as a social media content producer for Black Hammer, Savvy rose through the ranks of the organization. Eventually, Kodzo handpicked Savvy to serve as his personal chief of staff.

Her role as a social media content producer for the group played an essential role in the growth of the group, which attracted members through its aggressive posting.

A year-and-a-half after joining the group, Savvy, who had been growing disillusioned, says she awoke to Kodzo screaming at her, demanding she go outside. When Savvy went outside, she said members of Black Hammer began removing Savvy from the organizational chats and telling her she could no longer live at the Hammer House, what the group called residences in the suburbs south of Atlanta. The Hammer House Savvy lived in was a different rented home than the one where Kodzo was arrested.

Kodzo had forced members of the group to relocate before, according to the testimonials released, and now Savvy was being told she needed to move in with a branch of the group in North Carolina.

She says she picked up a knife and screamed at members, departing the house. Although she wanted to leave the group for good, she eventually relented after Kodzo called her days later and asked her to come back. In her own words, Savvy stayed “in order to save people,” moving in with a chapter of Black Hammer in North Carolina.

Once Savvy arrived in North Carolina, she says Kodzo ordered the group to visit the Atlanta area, bringing Savvy right back to the house she escaped from. There, Savvy says she found a paranoid Kodzo on high alert, closely watching the group and brandishing guns.

Savvy planned yet another escape, this time fleeing the Hammer House in the middle of the night during a thunderstorm in August 2021.

Since leaving Black Hammer for good, Savvy’s said her tires have been slashed. She’s shared images from a targeted online harassment campaign, with her name, address, and Social Security number being spread. Savvy said she was forced to hand over that information at gunpoint.

Solimar said to the Daily Dot that they spent two years in the group and were in close contact with Kodzo, having joined seven months after the group was founded in early 2019. Solimar said they were present for both of Savvy’s escapes and confirmed the story to the Daily Dot. Solimar themselves said they witnessed abuse within the group and had to orchestrate their own escape. In the midst of being moved around the country by the group’s leadership, Solimar organized in secret, coordinating with people they trusted, who booked a flight and allowed them to slip away.

. . .
Black Hammer exists as an extension of their leader, Gazi Kodzo, born Augustus C. Romain Jr. in Stone Mountain, Georgia in 1986. Kodzo has adopted previous personas and identities.

One of the first personas adopted by Kodzo is that of “Smiletone,” a wannabe YouTube celebrity who Cosmopolitan magazine said emailed them and called them Cosmo’s “Self-Proclaimed #1 Fan.

A former member who was Black Hammer’s “chief of agitation” described above all else a desire for internet fame by Kodzo, saying they’d become a “clout demon.”

The mission of the group is ostensibly to repatriate land back to oppressed people, with Black Hammer saying it “represents breaking the chains of colonialism and building a self-determined future for all colonized people worldwide.”

But their social media chief said in a recorded testimonial that the “addiction” to likes and retweets triumphed over any actual mission. And it left him jaded, with Kodzo destroying online partnerships he’d built.

Since Black Hammer began in early 2019, former members said that “everyone” has left the group, although no numbers are available as to how many people remain and how many have departed.

A group of these ex-members (including Savvy) created the video and written testimonials describing the abuse they said they experienced, which was publicly released.

Three of the co-founders also wrote and released a formal disavowment of the group and a condemnation of Kodzo.

In the disavowment, the co-founders highlighted the idealistic vision at the center of the group’s founding and placed the blame squarely on Kodzo for transforming the group “from a vehicle of liberation to one of abuse and toxicity,” motivated by their desire for money and fame.

Throughout the documents, co-founders and ex-members describe the use of control tactics that they say Kodzo adopted in an effort to keep his grasp on the group.

Black Hammer gained its first bit of incendiary fame with Kodzo’s April 30, 2020 tweet attacking Anne Frank as a “Becky” and a “Karen.” This tweet became part of a longer social media campaign by the group to stir up attention.

The group went on to announce their intention to burn The Diary of Anne Frank. As detailed in an extensive expose by Red Voice, the action was part of Black Hammer’s “Operation Storm of White Tears.” An alleged leaked document from the group describes a plan to “manufacture a controversy around Black Hammer to popularize our narrative.”

. . .
According to members, Kodzo’s behavior shifted as people continued to leave the group. One entire chapter of members says they broke off from Kodzo’s central leadership, citing mismanagement of funds and repeated abusive behavior from Kodzo.


According to Savvy, inside the Hammer House, a series of different houses rented by the group in the Atlanta suburbs, a closet full of guns would sit at ready, guns that Kodzo and other members were not shy about showing off online.

Members were not allowed romantic relationships with non-members and Kodzo dictated who would be romantically involved, according to the Red Voice expose. In another former member’s testimonial, they described threats of violence and armed members not allowing people to leave.

Savvy described in an interview how Kodzo, holding a gun and backed up by armed members of his defense, forced other members to sign over control of the group’s bank accounts to Kodzo.

In late 2020, Kodzo launched Black Hammer’s “Revolutionary Church,” where they adopted the persona of a revivalist preacher. The meetings, held in a park in downtown Atlanta, were also live streamed on the Black Hammer YouTube channel.

With the Revolutionary Church, Black Hammer attempted to reach out directly to unhoused individuals in the area, offering them food and second-hand clothing.

But the efforts brought run-ins with Atlanta Police.

Since then, the group has been using Instagram to call out police officers in Atlanta. They’ve shared pictures of a cop who they say unjustly arrested a Black Hammer member and led an online campaign to dox the officer involved, asking the public for information on him.

Black Hammer also began an aggressive campaign of street fundraising, which members claim was to support individuals experiencing houselessness, though ex-members allege the funds went back to Black Hammer.

Black Hammer began targeting college campuses around Atlanta. It did not go unnoticed. Toward the end of 2021, members of the university communities began posting warnings about the group on subreddits for the local colleges.

Students complained that Black Hammer fundraisers followed them and continued to push for donations even after students declined. Some students described insults from the fundraisers when they said no. Others described changing their routines to avoid the group.

Some people who donated to the group expressed regret after learning more about them.

The group’s public Venmo page shows over 100 donations from December 2021 to February 2022 with transfers listed as being for “donation,” “coat,” and “sleeping bags.” Under one transfer, a user asked for the money back.

Dr. Alex Cummings, a professor at Georgia State University, said she was followed and filmed by the group. According to Cummings, the group was asking for donations outside the building she taught in nearly every day. Cummings described to the Daily Dot how the fundraisers would follow her, get in her space, and act “aggressive and hostile.”

Cummings spoke out but was rattled by the event. The whole situation left her feeling paranoid and unsure if retribution would follow. According to Dr. Cummings, other members of her department also felt harassed by the group.

But that isn’t Black Hammer’s only trouble with local communities.

In July 2020, Black Hammer announced a new project: Hammer City, a free utopian commune run by the group on land outside Telluride, Colorado. Black Hammer extensively fundraised for the project.

Before the land deal went through, Black Hammer began occupying the plot. The situation reached a climax in May 2021 when the group allegedly blocked public roads to the community with their vehicles. When one neighbor went to confront the group on May 16, three armed men approached him and one drew a handgun.

The neighbor responded in kind by raising an unloaded shotgun at the group. In a police report obtained by the Daily Dot, Kodzo is listed as the only suspect. It appears charges were never filed.

While Black Hammer had put down $10,000 to purchase the land through a different business, the deal fell through.

Back in Atlanta after the deal fell through, Kodzo’s online persona shifted.

In a video, Kodzo unleashed a screed against “antifa” and “Black Lives Matter” while jumping around in Joker makeup. An inclination toward far-right politics appeared to be manifesting as well. In a live stream with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes, Kodzo claimed Black Hammer and the Proud Boys were forming a coalition. Even before the public coalition, Kodzo threatened members with violence from the Proud Boys.

Although the groups announced their alignment, there is no evidence of actual coordination and cooperation between the Proud Boys and Black Hammer. But Black Hammer has pivoted in its posting to outwardly right-wing politics, endorsement of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and cheering its military victories, while supporting the Supreme Court banning Roe v. Wade.

But regardless of its online persona, it’s a group that exists now only at the whims of Kodzo and what ex-members call their “cult of personality.”

As Kodzo sits in a jail cell, though, there’s no telling where the group might go.

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/black-hammer-gazi-kodzo/

liminalOyster » Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:30 pm wrote:LOL to LAND BACK, Rex. Proof positive you've endured their videos too. I have friends in the Black radical side of DSA who've had run-ins with them in Atlanta. They're doing some weird shit there, ala targeting Black owned natural food stores for "harboring a pedophile." Not sure if the claim is or isn't true but anyone familiar with the subaltern history of post-Panther Black radicalism is likely familiar with the unusually important role natural food stores have played in that movement's survival. Some really weird calculated shit going on. If you really want to get creeped out check out their "reparations corp" where a bunch of zombified white folks play out some strange Maoist submissive role and repeat a little mantra about why they've decided to give monthly donations to BH.

Also, mega Jonestown vibes in the wings: