Black Looks

I had the honor of joining radical women of color (many of who are your favorite bloggers, BrownFemiPower, Black Amazon, Little Light, Mamita Mala, Sudy, Nadia, and sooo many more) in putting together an amazing album that chronicles experiences around struggle, love, motherhood, redemption, healing and community. You can cop the CD in January, along with a zine and listening party curriculum, so be prepared! More details to come soon but stay on this— there are only 200 copies currently available. This is an effort towards sustainability and self-funding and all proceeds from this album will go to supporting mamis wanting to attend the Allied Media Conference next summer. Album will be offered on a sliding scale.

Via Flip Flopping Joy

Radical Women of Color

2,200 women from across the world gathered together in Cape Town last month for the AWID conference [Association for Women's Rights in Development]

South African feminists attending AWID strategised for several hours, facilitated by Pregs Govender, and resolved to build a stronger women’s rights movement in South Africa by reaching out to other feminists and womens rights activists and holding a SA feminist forum or a women’s convention to further strategise. All Photos by Zanele Muholi

More AWID photos here by Zanele

Links: Zanele Muholi @ Michael Stevenson Gallery

Tags:
South Africa + Women
AWID
Zanele Muholi

Miriam Makeba, the world-renowned South African singer, has died at the age of 76 after being taken ill near the southern Italian town of Caserta.

Makeba died on Monday after taking part in a concert for Roberto Saviano, a writer threatened with death by the mafia, an Italian news agency said.

“I’m not yet absolutely certain of the causes of her passing, but she has had arthritis, severe arthritis, for some time,” her publicist told an Italian radio station.

Makeba was best known to her fans as ‘Mama Africa’ as she became the distinguished voice of Africa and a symbol of the fight against apartheid in her home country.
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Everyone called her Mama Afrika. Her voice was like a bird singing in a cage. Many of us grew up listening to her proud music. She was a steady fighter against racism and discrimination in her native South Africa. I will miss Miriam Makeba, as will a lot of other people in the world. Words escape me.

I was not here in the 70s so no, I don’t remember Olive Morris but do remember the Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) in the early 80s which she was a founder member. Morris was part of the Brixton Black Panther Party and early post -WWII Black struggle in Britain.

Olive Morris was a key figure in Lambeth’s local history. She worked with the Black Panther movement; set up Brixton Black Women’s Group, was a founder member of The Organisation of Women of African and Asian Descent (OWAAD) and was central to the squatter campaigns of the 1970s. She died tragically young in 1979 at age 27.

The aim of this weblog is to create a collective portrait of Olive Morris, bringing together the personal memories of those who knew her, and publishing online information and materials relating to her life and work. Lambeth Council has one of its main buildings named after her and yet there is very little information about Olive Morris that is publicly available, especially on the Internet.

By the mid 80s police racial harassment along with the “sus – stop and search” laws contributed to the Brixton riots of 1981 and 1985; the Handsworth riots of 81 and 85 and Broadwater Farm riot in 1985. .

Tags:

Black Britain
Brixton Black Panthers
Brixton Riots

Miriam Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg in 1932. Her mother was a Swazi sangoma and her father, who died when she was six, was a Xhosa. Her professional career began in the 1950s with the Manhattan Brothers, before she formed her own group, The Skylarks, singing a blend of jazz and traditional melodies of South Africa.

In 1959, she performed in the musical King Kong alongside Hugh Masekela, her future husband. Though she was a successful recording artist, she was only receiving a few dollars for each recording session and no provisional royalties, and was keen to go to the US. Her break came when she starred in the anti-Apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959. When the Italian government invited her to the premier of the film at the Venice Film Festival, she decided not to return home. Her South African passport was revoked shortly afterwards.

Makeba then travelled to London where she met Harry Belafonte, who assisted her in gaining entry to and fame in the United States. She released many of her most famous hits there including Pata Pata, The Click Song (Qongqothwane in Xhosa), and Malaika. In 1966, Makeba received the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording together with Harry Belafonte for An Evening With Belafonte/Makeba. The album dealt with the political plight of black South Africans under Apartheid
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What I personally remember of Miriam is the voice, and the way she was beloved. My folks listened to her at the same time as they listened to Jim Reeves (go figure), and the two form the basis of my pre-teen musical heritage, together with my mother singing around her chores, around her cooking, singing Sesotho traditional songs or Miriam’s Xhosa songs: The Click Song, or Khawuleza. Beautiful woman. Happy birthday to her.

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Today in 1855, an enslaved 19 year old Black girl and mother named Celia was executed for murder after being found guilty by a jury of 12 white men. Melton McLaurin’s book Celia: A Slave is the story of her rape by her master and her trial for his murder. (Via Marian’s Blog)

The State of Missouri vs. Celia: A Slave officially began on June 25, 1855. Celia was charged with murdering her master and the father of her children; furthermore, she disposed of his body in her fireplace. In 1850, Robert Newsom, a widower, of Calloway County, Missouri, purchased Celia for the purpose of being his concubine. Newsom was 60 and Celia was 14. Five years and two children later, Celia wanted to end the relationship; of course, Newsom would not allow it. Therefore, Celia took matters into her own hands and struck Newsom over the head until he was dead. Despite the fact that she was pregnant again and ill, she dragged and shoved Newsom’s body into the fireplace in her cottage and destroyed the evidence of her crime. However, another slave with whom Celia was involved led the investigators to Celia’s door. Intense and lengthy interrogation followed, and Celia confessed to murdering Newsom. She was tried and sentenced to death by hanging. After exhausting the appeals process, she was executed in Calloway County, Missouri, at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, December 21, 1855. Celia was 19 years old. There are no records of where she was buried or what became of her children or other members of the Newsom family.

I just finished reading “I, Tituba” by Maryse Conde. Tituba was among the many women of Salem who were accused of witchcraft in 1692. The difference is that Tituba was a Black woman, a slave from the Caribbean who was like millions of other slave women, is lost to memory. Rescued by Maryse Conde from “historical silence”, Tituba comes back to life as the slave girl/woman who will not compromise. Though she spends much of her life chained and shackled, Tibuba remains persistent throughout in her refusal to be bound by the chains of mental slavery, racism and puritan ideals of sexuality.

Links:
A Citizen’s Reflections on Race, Violence and Power by Cynthia Boaz
Remembering Celia, 19 & enslaved: hanged Friday 21st, 1855

Tags:
Slavery
USA
Afrodescendant

A tribute to Sajida Khan, who fought against global capitalism at the continent’s largest rubbish dump – a fight that cost her life. Sajida was a key activist against carbon trading and died as a direct result of the toxins emitted from illegal medical waste in an incinerator and waste from a nearly paper mill and sugar factory on her doorstep. The landfill site will continue to emit toxins for the next 27 20 years.

Below is the Google Earth rendition showing the landfill and the surrounding houses in Durban including her family’s.

Sometimes when lives are judged by visual victories, we see failures, and after all, the dump remains right outside Sajida’s front door after her 14 year fight. But on the other hand, if a life is judged by a legacy that endures and is built upon, hers is one of multiple larger victories: of a woman standing against male domination of nationalist politics, of knowledge about global capitalist ecology over amnesia, of ordinary people harnessing the most incredible forms of expertise so as to enter forums usually dominated by people with multiple degrees, and of a political ecology that is a politics of all the people. Whatever you might say about her race and class privilege, the final denominator is that she’ll die fighting the cancer infection, and fighting the dump that gave her that cancer. This was not a death of privilege, it was murder Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada [Ashwin Desai]

The government had repeatedly broken it’s promise to close the dump and the practice continued unchecked in the post Apartheid period. In 1996 a landfill in Umhlanga, white suburb in the north of Durban, began closing down. And where did the waste previously destined for Umhlanga go? To Bisasar Road.

According to Carl Albrecht, research director at the Cancer Association of SA,

‘Clare Estate residents are like animals involved in a biological experiment.’

Sajida Khan documented 70% of Bisasar Road households with tumor cases, not to mention severe respiratory problems. Bisasar Road toxic dumps are replicated across the continent and no one knows how many poor people, many unaware of the dangers of the air they breathe, have died and continue to die from this practice.

Sources:
see CCS also for an interview with Sajida and more on her work as an eco-feminist activist.

“Trouble in the Air: Global Warming and the Privatised Atmosphere” A Civil Society Energy Reader edited by Patrick Bond and Rehana Dada.

Links: South Africa: Durban’s perfume rods, plastic covers and sweet-smelling toxic dump

Tags: Sajida Khan; Africa; Carbon Trading; Toxic Waste; Durban + South Africa

Today is the anniversary of the death of Kimpa Vita who together with her baby (Kembo Dianzenza va Kintete) and her boyfriend, were burned to death on July 2nd 1706 by the Catholic church. I only just found out about Kimpa Vita – there is so much of our African and Diaspora history that is unknown to the majority of African people. Who was Kimpa Vita? Information is scarce but Kimpa Vita is one of a long lines of courageous politicised Queens of the Kongo (parts of present day Angola and Congo) who fought against slavery and colonialists as early as the 15century. Women such as Ndona Nzinga, Ndona Mafuta and Ndona Dondwa. The importance of Kimpa Vita is that she fought against slavery and exposed the racism and misogyny of the Catholic church and also incorporated traditional religions with Christianity.

The 17th century gave birth to an icon called Kimpa Vita Dona Beatriz. She concerned herself with the restoration, spiritually and politically, of the Kongo Kingdom. Born in 1684 Kimpa Vita worked as a religious actor[kp1] and was mostly isolated from the rest of her peers. At the time when the Kongo was dominated by political unrest and civil war. Therefore Kimpa Vita’s religious ideology came as an answer to the prayers of many Kongolese people. In her message she combined traditional Kongolese culture with Christianity.

Today she is remembered in “Kanda commune, northern Zaire Province” of Angola

Tags: African Queens; Kongo; Kimpa Vita ;

I would really be interested in finding out more about these African Queens so if any one knows anything please do leave a comment

UPDATE:

Tribute to Dona Beatrice Kimpa Vita

Since April 21st Egyptian women working in the Mansoura-España Garments Company in Egypt have been on a sit-in strike protesting against unpaid wages. The strike is now in its 26th day and the 284 workers 75% who are women are being intimated by the owners who are refusing them any facilities with little food or water and sleeping on the floor. The company is now threatening to close down leaving the workers with no employment and possibly no compensation.

The United Bank (Al-Masraf Al-Muttahid) has notified the Mansoura-España Garments Company workers it will liquidate the firm, diregarding the agreement reached between the government and the parliament, as it decided the fate of the company already, without showing any signs it is interested in holding the agreed meeting with representatives from the Factory Union Committee, the General Federation of Trade Unions and Labor Ministry.

3arabawy has researched into the background of the bank involved in the liquidation which has direct links with the Central Bank of Egypt. For more on the strike and social movements in Egypt checks Hossam’s excellent blog.

The strike is significant because it shows how dire the situation is that women especially have chosen not only to strike but to occupy the premises, leaving their families, their children and husbands so far for 26 days. In taking the action the women are directly challenging the repressive regime of Hossain Mubarak (supported by the US), corporate exploitation as well as cultural and religious norms in defence of their jobs and right to work.

Links: Middle East Report; Infoshop News

Tags: Egypt; Strike; Mansoura-España Garments Company;

Gege Katana, a human rights defender for 25 years from the Democratic Republic of Congo has been awarded this year’s Front Line Defender Award in Dublin. Gégé Katana founded the “Solidarity Movement of Women Human Rights Activists based in Uvira in South Kivu province. She has been prevented from travelling, arrested and received death threats over the past 25 years of activism.

Gégé Katana, 42, is a leading human rights defender working in Uvira, eastern DRC. She is the president of SOFAD, an organisation that works through a grassroots network of 625 women to research and campaign against sexual violence, and provide counselling and help to rape survivors. SOFAD also educates local communities on women and children’s rights, and lobbies the government to deliver justice and reform discriminatory laws.

Gégé Katana has worked with several non-governmental organisations including; IDEA/Afrique – Institut pour le developpement et l’education des adultes. She is a network member of the Global Fund for Women and Coordinator for the Synergie des Femmes Defenseurs des Droits de le l’Homme du Sud-Kivu en RDC (SYFEDH).

The scale and horror of sexual violence against women and girls in Eastern DRC prompted Gégé Katana to work with SOFAD and the lack of existing structures for combating gross violations of human rights, especially perpetuated against women was a significant motivating factor in her fight for women’s rights and human rights. The principal violations of human rights in the region are, forced displacement, arbitrary arrests, torture, rape and pillage.

“For me, winning the award is a recognition of my work as a human rights defender and gives me the strength and encouragement to pursue my struggle in the area of human rights. I cannot fully express my joy in receiving this award, nor my gratitude towards Front Line for supporting and helping me in my work.”

Video: Her work with Women in the DRC

All the nominees for Human Rights Defenders at Risk: Akifa Aliyeva, Gégé Katana,Jackeline Rojas,Radhia Nasraoui,Riza Fanilag

Tags: Human Rights; DRC; Front Line; Gege Katana;