Malik Rahim

Malik Rahim (born Donald Guyton in 1948) is an American housing and prison activist based since the late 1990s in the New Orleans area of Louisiana, where he grew up.

Born in 1948 as Donald Guyton in Algiers, Louisiana, south of the Mississippi River from New Orleans, he was raised in this industrial city.

He attended Landry High School, but left prior to graduation to join the United States Navy.

He served in the Vietnam War.

A veteran and former Black Panther in New Orleans, in 1970 Rahim moved out to California, working on issues of affordable housing in San Francisco.

After returning to New Orleans, Rahim founded the Algiers Development Center and Invest Transitional Housing, which helped house more than 1,000 ex-offenders after prison.

He also was a founding member of Pilgrimage for Life, advocating an end to the death penalty in the state.

In May 1970, having completed his service, Guyton returned to New Orleans.

He joined in trying to organize a chapter of the Black Panther Party in Louisiana.

They first set up the "National Committee to Combat Fascism," which developed as the state chapter of the Black Panthers.

The group made their base at a house on Saint Thomas Street.

Members conducted political activities, as well as providing free breakfast, tutoring, and anti-crime programs to community residents, especially children.

When the owner learned about their affiliations, the group was evicted.

During this period, Guyton took the name Malik Rahim, which he has kept.

The future Panthers moved into a house on Piety Street, near the Desire housing project.

Served with an eviction notice in September 1970, they refused to move out.

The house was raided by police on September 14, 1970; they were armed with a machine gun and what was called a war wagon.

They used the gun against the house, tearing it up, but none of the Black Panthers was wounded or killed.

Rahim was among the group that walked out and were arrested by police.

They were held on death row at Angola prison pending charges.

More Panthers were arrested after the second shootout in November, too many to be held on death row, and some were put in the dungeon of the prison until the trial.

Several remaining Panthers moved into another house in the Desire project.

Police conducted another raid on November 19, as the owner wanted to evict the group.

After another shootout and brief standoff, thousands of residents of the project prevented the police from entering.

A bystander was killed by police in the shootout.

On November 26, police succeeded in raiding the house and arresting the Panthers present by disguising some officers as priests who had participated in the breakfast program.

Rahim, by then the chapter's defense minister, was among the twelve Panthers charged with attempted murder by New Orleans for the two shootouts.

He and the other eleven defendants were acquitted by a jury.

After being released, Rahim moved out to Los Angeles, California, where he earned a G.E.D. and attended one semester of college.

But he became involved in crime.

He was convicted of armed robbery and served a five-year prison sentence in Los Angeles, which ended in the early 1980s.

By his account, this resulted in his return to political activism.

Initially he focused on rights for prisoners, and programs to assist and house them on their release.

He gradually became involved in more general housing issues.

In the next two decades, Rahim helped to found and operate a number of political and advocacy organizations.

In San Francisco, he led the Bernal Dwellings Tenants' Association from 1995 to 1997.

Rahim ran for New Orleans City Council in 2002, representing the Green Party, but was unsuccessful.

In 2005 Rahim gained national publicity as a community organizer in New Orleans in 2005 to combat the widespread destruction in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; there he co-founded the Common Ground Collective.

In 2008, he was one of four candidates to run for Louisiana's 2nd congressional district seat of the U.S. House of Representatives.

He was a Green Party candidate; Republican candidate Joseph Cao won the election.