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Wanda’s Picks for April 2012
April 4, 2012
The Oakland International Film Festival is Friday-Sunday, April 6-8, at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Street, Oakland. Visit http://www.oiff.org/2012schedule.pdf. This year’s headliner is one of the most controversial independent films ever made, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” Watch it again here.
Imam Jamil Al-Amin on El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X) – Rally Monday to bring him home
March 17, 2012
Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) is one of the most revered Black revolutionary leaders from the ‘60s who is alive today. He was a legendary organizer with SNCC and briefly with the Black Panther Party, then later in an Islamic community in the West End of Atlanta, Georgia. This is one of the true fathers of rap music. Atlanta will rally Monday, March 19, 3-5 p.m., at the Georgia Capitol, 206 Washington St., to bring Imam Jamil back to Georgia from federal prison in Florence, Colo.
Wanda’s Picks for March 2012
March 7, 2012
When the Occupy San Quentin rally ended, San Rafael police followed us to the Richmond Bridge. I don’t know if it was Jabari Shaw’s orange CDCR jumpsuit that kept them wondering – Is he an escapee, one of ours? – or if it was the sheer magnitude of fearlessness represented by women like Kelly, a former prisoner who would not let her traumatic experience silence her. One brother got so full looking at the guards on the other side of the gate watching that he looked like he was going to leap the gate and hurt someone as he recalled the violations of his person over and over again. Members of All of Us or None dropped everything to embrace him when he left the stage.
Carl Ray’s HBCU tours motivate students to succeed
December 28, 2011
Arriving at Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport from cities throughout America, aspiring college students were excited. The tour would visit Spelman College, Morehouse College and Clark-Atlanta University in Atlanta, also Alabama State University and Tuskegee University in Alabama.
Malik Rhasaan: Expanding occupation to the hood
December 23, 2011
When Malik Rhasaan first visited the Occupy Wall Street park at Liberty Square, he noticed that there was a lack of people of color. “Something needed to be done and I started the hash tag #occupythehood and from there it kind of swelled,” said Rhasaan, getting support from everyone from “professors down to cats who just got out of prison.”
Black bankers aim to empower communities through ‘People’s Economic Movement’
August 10, 2011
In his last public message the day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called on Black people in Memphis to support Black banks. “We’ve got to strengthen Black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank,” he said …
The story of the Omaha Two
June 25, 2011
Third-party presidential candidate George Wallace, the former governor of Alabama, was in Omaha in March 1968 to qualify his American party in Nebraska. Wallace had arrived in Omaha on Sunday, the day before, and held an angry news conference to provoke a large turnout at his rally.
‘I Twirl in the Smoke’: an interview with independent author Meres-Sia Gabriel
June 20, 2011
“I Twirl in the Smoke” is a new collection of writings by Meres-Sia Gabriel, the daughter of two Black Panthers, most notably former Minister of Culture and internationally known artist Emory Douglas.
Exonerated Death Row survivors urge Georgia to stop the execution of Troy Davis
June 12, 2011
In a letter to the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, former death row inmates who have been exonerated ask that the execution of Troy Davis be halted due to serious doubts about his guilt.
Remembering Geronimo
June 9, 2011
Political activists around the country are still absorbing the news of Geronimo ji Jaga’s death. His commitment, humility, clear thinking as well as his sense of both the longevity and continuity of the Black Freedom Movement in the U.S. all stood out to those who knew him.
Living on this earth 95 years!
June 6, 2011
I was born on June 11, 1916, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. My parents were Mr. Thomas Alfred Nisby (born August 1886) and Ms. Lillian Lumpkin Nisby (born June 1892). To this union, there came a family of six girls and two boys, 10 all together when we would sit at the table.
Police training exchange compounds US, Israeli racism
May 6, 2011
The racism of the American “war on drugs,” especially in the South, is notorious. So is the racism faced daily by Palestinians. In Atlanta, a university program allows these two manifestations of racism to feed off each other and community activists are organizing to shut the program down.
Georgia prisoners’ strike: What would Dr. King say or do?
December 24, 2010
Eight days after the start of Georgia’s historic prisoners’ strike, advocates met with state corrections officials and visited a prison. “The prisoners have done all they can do now. It’s up to us to build a movement out here that can make the changes which have to be made,” said Rev. Kenny Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples Society (TOPS).
An epidemic of brutality: Oakland filmmaker feels police wrath
November 15, 2010
Hours after San Francisco Bay Area radio show host JR Valrey screened his documentary film, “Operation Small Axe,” about police brutality at a university in Philadelphia, daily newspapers in that city carried articles about two separate lawsuits filed against Philly police alleging brutality. “Police brutality is definitely not ‘isolated incidents,’ as officials always say after each new killing or beating by police,” said Valrey, host of the Block Report, a program aired on KPFA-FM, the Pacifica station in the Bay Area.
Shirley Sherrod and the dark history of Baker County
August 6, 2010
It was cowardly and wrong for the U.S. government to force Ms. Sherrod to resign without hearing her side, without understanding the whole story, without showing the slightest interest in fairness or due process. Here was Baker County rearing its ugly history all over again, 70 years later.
Taking back homes from the banks: Exercising the human right to housing
June 5, 2010
Foreclosures are soaring. Some housing experts say 4 million foreclosures are possible in 2010. To fight back, organizations across the U.S. are engaging in “housing liberation” and “housing defense” to exercise their human rights to housing. Here are a few examples.
Cynthia McKinney: My visit to Cape Town, South Africa
October 16, 2009
At the Cape Town film festival, Cynthia McKinney debuted Minister of Information JR’s “Operation Small Axe,” a film that will get folks ready for the venue change in the Oscar Grant killer cop case. It’s screening Saturday, Oct. 17, 1:30 p.m., at the West Oakland Library, 18th & Adeline, for Black Panther History Month and Thursday, Oct. 22, 7 p.m., SF State Student Union for the Black Student Union.
The world is watching India: an inner-view of singer India.Arie
June 15, 2009
One of the definite queens of soul music, folk guitarists and amazing song writers of our time is India.Arie. She has been nominated numerous times for Grammys, but more importantly she has been one of the symbols, within this decade, of dark skinned talented Black women musicians rising to prominence. Mainstream media in America, since its inception, has been about destroying the image of African people.
Shell agrees to pay for Ken Saro-Wiwa’s death but denies complicity
June 11, 2009
“Have you forgotten the holocaust? Have you forgotten the gulags in Russia? Communism, nazism, fascism did not come from Africa. … A Western country was the first to use weapons of mass destruction in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those countries have been able to rise. Africa, there is hope,” Bishop Tutu assured.
No evictions: Gulf Coast residents can keep their FEMA trailers
June 10, 2009
The move by FEMA to enforce the June 1 eviction date for Gulf Region residents who live in temporary trailers not only lacks basic compassion but is also a derogation of the government’s responsibilities to uphold fundamental human rights.
