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Baltimore City Paper

Watch activist PFK Boom tell Pastor Jamal Bryant to get out of Baltimore

Last night, the 148th West Wednesday—an indefatigable weekly event put together by the family of Tyrone West, a man who died in police custody in 2013—took place at the Tubman House, a vacant house slated for demolition near the spot where Freddie Gray was arrested which the group Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle have illegally occupied and turned into a community center. In effect, last night's event was a gathering of many of the city's most effective and consistent grassroots activists.

Also present at this West Wednesday was Pastor Jamal Bryant, of the People's Empowerment Temple, who arrived and Periscoped some of the event (which he labeled "community outrage rally"), who is in many ways, the opposite of a grassroots activist. Eventually, Bryant, a very loud national voice when it comes to Baltimore and police brutality but someone who is often met with plenty of skepticism from those here on the ground, like the West family and LBS, was confronted by activist PFK Boom and others connected to Baltimore Bloc, including MC Shy Lady Heroin.

PFK Boom, a persistent presence at protests and other activist events and a member of Out For Justice and 300 Gangstas, quite loudly and unabashedly told Bryant what many have murmured about the pastor since the first days of the uprising: That as far as a lot of people here are concerned, he is not really welcome here and his methods ring insincere (though PFK doesn't say it quite like that).

In the clip below shot by Baltimore Bloc, you can watch a deeply humbled Bryant (who recently half-addressed allegations that he fathered a child out of wedlock and earlier pressured the mother to have an abortion; who does misogynist sermons with titles such as "These Hoes Ain't Loyal"; who as City Paper observed and the Baltimore Brew reported, organized an opportunistic, seemingly "scripted" clusterfuck of a "Unity Rally" complete with police escorts that seemed more in service of political cults of personality than political change) endure a takedown from PFK Boom.

Among other things, PFK Boom asks where Bryant has been when it comes to Tyrone West over the past two, almost three years, tells Bryant that he works with "oppressors" such as Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and asks him to "get the fuck out the whole city." And then as Bryant sadly walks away like David Banner at the end of the 1978 "Incredible Hulk" television show, Shy Lady Heroin freestyles about Bryant, the uprising, Baltimore's government officials, and lots more. Watch the clip below:


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