“Yeah, we’re Americans for 10 seconds then we’re just “niggers”! a documentary on the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.
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1968 Olympics Mexico
Nehanda Abiodun celebrates her 58th birthday in Cuba. Like her friend and fellow activist, Black Panther Assata Shakur, Abiodun has been living in exile in Cuba where she set up a branch of the Black August Hip-Hop project. Black August was set up to honor Black Panthers San Quentin Six - “honor fallen Freedom Fighters, Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain and Khatari Gaulden”. Today is the 37th anniversary of the assassination of George Jackson. A small group of faithful gathered together outside the US Embassy in London to remember.
On August 21, 1971, three days before I was to go on trial, a guard gunned me down in the prison yard at San Quentin in what officials described as an escape attempt. That was my chance to get out of prison and help the fight on the home front, away from containment. Had I been released, who knows what could have happened. I was first shot in the ankle, which through me to the ground, then, in my own blood was shot again by a sniper in the prison yard…
A tribute by another African, Walter Rodney, also assassinated - in 1980, points to the importance of the prison industrial complex dating back to slavery, in the African independence movements and Black nationalism continuing today as witnessed in New Orleans, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, with prison slave labour and the prison of poverty.
Once it is made known that George Jackson was a black revolutionary in the white mans jails, at least one point is established, since we are familiar with the fact that a significant proportion of African nationalist leaders graduated from colonialist prisons, and right now the jails of South Africa hold captive some of the best of our brothers in that part of the continent. Furthermore, there is some considerable awareness that ever since the days of slavery the U.S.A. is nothing but a vast prison as far as African descendants are concerned. Within this prison, black life is cheap, so it should be no surprise that George Jackson was murdered by the San Quentin prison authorities who are responsible to Americas chief prison warder,
Richard NixonThe President.
IN 2008, the colonial prison returns in the form of the new military high command for Africa, AFRICOM which can also be traced back to slavery and the arrival of Portuguese on the shores of the Gulf of Guinea.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY Nehanda
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Nehanda Abiodun
George Jackson
Assata Shakur
Black Panthers
Black August
AFRICOM
Rethabile remembers Malcolm X on Poefrika. It’s an easy day for me to remember as it’s also my son’s birthday. He spent the day looking at some of his maternal ancestors over at the British Museum in London meanwhile here is Rethabile’s post
For Malcolm X
All you violated ones with gentle hearts;
You violent dreamers whose cries shout heartbreak;
Whose voices echo clamors of our cool capers,
And whose black faces have hollowed pits for eyes.
All you gambling sons and hooked children and bowery bums
Hating white devils and black bourgeoisie,
Thumbing your noses at your burning red suns,
Gather round this coffin and mourn your dying swan.
Snow-white moslem head-dress around a dead black face!
Beautiful were your sand-papering words against our skins!
Our blood and water pour from your flowing wounds.
You have cut open our breasts and dug scalpels in our brain
When and Where will another come to take your holy place?
Old man mumbling in his dotage, or crying child, unborn?
© Margaret Abigail Walker
Malcolm X was born on 19 May 1925. Happy birthday to him.
Links: Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
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Malcolm X
In Prison The Whole Of My Life is a documentary covering the arrest, trial, imprisonment and fight for a retrial for Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia’s is presently undergoing a complex appeal process which focuses on three major trial violations - the racism of the judge who was heard by the stenographer at trial to make a racist comment about Mumia; the racial bias of the jury members; the prosecutor’s direction to the jury which “attempted to reduce jurors’ sense of responsibility by telling them that a guilty verdict would be subsequently vetted and subject to appeal”. Mumia remains on death row and the new trial will is to decide on whether Mumia should continue to face the death penalty or face life imprisonment with no parole. The campaign for a complete new trial on guilt or innocence remains.
Trailer Film in prison my whole life
The film links Mumia Abu Jamal with the many incidents of human rights violations and militarism in the United States such as the Iraqi war, Guantanamo Camp X-Ray, Abu Ghraib , Katrina. It also brings together the racialisation of the US justice system and the “prison industrial complex, the racialised death penalty and overall assault on dissent by the state and the federal government. One begins to see that US foreign policy of aggression actually starts at home.
One particularly obscene example is the bombing of the MOVE community on May 13th 1985. The film includes the actual footage showing the plane flying over the houses and dropping a bomb. Five children and six adults were killed, many injured and their homes destroyed…….more here and here.
More images here including the actual bombing.
How to choose a jury US style:
I also believe the incarceration of Mumia Abu Jamal, the severe irregularities surrounding his trial, the racism and what I see as the US government’s systematic and continuous attack on the progressive and radical Black community are not disconnected from US foreign policy in Africa. For example the support of the continued occupation of the Niger Delta by the Nigerian military to protect US oil interests, the establishment of AFRICOM whether based in Africa or in Europe (deployment is instant either way). I also believe this is a Pan African issue in the sense that Africans and African descendants in the Americas and Caribbean (including and especailly Haiti) are in the words of Angela Davis
“…..have a special responsibility [to each other] not by virtue of their biological connection or racial link, but by virtue of a political identification that is forged in struggle. We should be attentive to Africa not simply because this continent is populated by black people, not only because we trace our origins to Africa, but primarily because Africa has been a major target of colonialism and imperialism. ….” “Abolition of Democracy”
The phrase “No Visible Movement” is taken from the film in a discussion between Angela Davis and the film’s narrator, William Francome, on the differences between the campaign to free Angela Davis and the Mumia campaign. In the case of Angela Davis there was a far more cohesive and much stronger radical and visible movement in the 1970s than we see today.
Links: In Prison video trailer.
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Mumia Abu Jamal
In Prison The Whole Of My Life
USA
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. I hear that Hilary Clinton and John McCain will be in Memphis to mark the day. I am sure Barack Obama will seize the time add his $2 worth. I hear that Democratic and Republican leaders met yesterday on Capitol Hill to mark the day. No doubt the warmongering racist, Mr George Bush will speak to [dis]honour Mr King. Hypocrites everywhere will come out to speak false words and use the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr for their own interest.
They are all liars.
They will not say that the same forces who killed Martin Luther King Jr also killed Patrice Lumumba, Che Guevara, Salvador Allende, Thomas Sankara and thousands of others who refused to be silenced and dared to dream of another world.
They will not say that the same forces who killed civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr are also responsible for the forced removal of President Bertrand Aristide who is still prevented from returning to his home and position in Haiti.
They will not say that the same forces who sought to destroy the reputation of Martin Luther King Jr are the same forces responsible for the disappearance of Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine - a Haitian civil rights leaders who has fought consistently for the dignity and human rights of Haitian people including the end of the UN / US Occupation of Haiti
They will not say that Martin Luther King Jr was killed one year after he began to speak out again the US war in Vietnam [April 4th 1967].
The media will be silent on these facts and Martin Luther King Jr will be whitewashed 40 years after his assassination. Just as the media whitewashed Aristide and are silent today on the kidnapping and whereabouts of Haitian leader Lovinsky.
The media will be silent on the liberties that have been eroded over the past 7 years and are now reduced to the freedom to consume. As we move nearer and nearer to the possibility of a Black man becoming the next US President the media and white people and some Black people will attempt to whitewash the daily realities of race in America.
The realisaton of the dream is still a long way off. But it is only when you dream that you KNOW what is possible, what is real.
UPDATE LINK: Democracy Now
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Martin Luther King Jr
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