In the Name of the Father - Page 7

The trial lasted more than two weeks. Kofi was convicted on all counts and given three life sentences—same as Adams and Walls. But when the state Supreme Court found insufficient evidence that Kofi had had intent to kill, his judgment was reduced to a 240-year term, which he is currently serving at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle, Indiana.

As the courtroom cleared, a Black Panther Militia supporter told the press, “There is a price to pay on the head of Kofi Ajabu, and we will begin to collect on it.”

Ajabu said nothing.

While he was consumed by his son’s trial, Ajabu’s life was falling apart.

In January 1994, he was arrested for illegally carrying a handgun while on work assignment with PSI Energy. The company later fired him. In May, a fire started in Ajabu’s northside home. Police initially suspected arsonists, but insurance attorneys later suggested that Ajabu might have set the fire himself to collect money for Kofi’s legal fees or to prevent foreclosure. That August while Ajabu was being indicted on the intimidation threats, he was also being accused of inciting members of an Alabama Black Panther militia to burn down a high school after the administration threatened to prevent interracial couples from attending prom. That same month, dissenting members of his own Indianapolis Panthers released a statement claiming that Ajabu had been voted out because of his overly violent rhetoric and the recent negative publicity. Ajabu and supporters within the group denied the ouster, a split in the party ranks that would eventually destroy the Indy militia. And in December, Jane filed for divorce.

It was this beleaguered Ajabu who fought his way into Light of the World Christian Church on that day in 1995.

But the actual transformation of Mmoja Ajabu was far from instantaneous. It was as if the bishop had merely shown him the path. In November 1995, Ajabu was convicted for battery when he punched a gas-station manager over a money dispute. The following year, he was taken to jail when, in protest of the impending execution of a man who had shot and killed a police officer, he and two other Panthers attempted to burn an American flag during a 1996 Olympic-torch event on Monument Circle. (Ajabu was acquitted of disorderly-conduct charges.) Ajabu ran against Julia Carson for Indiana’s 10th District Congressional seat in November 1996—while on house arrest for intimidation. He garnered only 4 percent of the vote.

After the election, he served the remainder of an eight-month sentence for the gas-station battery. Then in May of the following year he lost his appeal on the intimidation charges and was sent up for another year. During those months in prison, Ajabu weighed his troubles and his relationship with Christ. He read constantly, though not a single word out of the Bible. “I already had too much on my mind,” he says.

But God was one of his preoccupations. When he emerged from his cell in 1998, he had resolved not only to commit his soul to his father’s savior, but also to dedicate his life to his father’s calling. In 2001 he left for seminary in Atlanta.

Growing up, Nzinga says her father never hesitated to speak to his children against the church, even though they were raised Christian, like their mother. And Ajabu hardly ever spoke of his father at all. All Nzinga knew of her grandfather was an old portrait of a man in a military uniform that sat on a table in her grandma’s bedroom. She had no idea her grandfather was a minister. So when Ajabu told his daughter of his desire to join the clergy, she was skeptical. “We were all stunned,” she says. “But when I saw the heart he put into his preaching, I was convinced. I saw him cry in the pulpit. He never cried in public. He always had to be the masculine leader.

“But, he’s still a revolutionary—don’t be fooled,” Nzinga says. Even while in seminary, Ajabu made national headlines for leading a protest when President Bush came to Atlanta to lay a wreath on the grave of Martin Luther King Jr. Ajabu received his master’s in divinity in 2004, and after a short stint as pastor at a couple of churches in Georgia, he returned home to Indianapolis to be ordained at Light of the World. Ajabu was home, and his reputation was waiting for him.