August 19, 2011
“I just got a call from a very happy Cisco who got the news yesterday that the case against him was dismissed,” writes Kiilu Nyasha. “The San Francisco 8 case dragged on for over four years while we struggled to mount a campaign to free them.”
July 15, 2011
I got a letter today from Yogi Bear, Hugo Antonio Lyons Pinell. As most of you know, Yogi has been tortured in the Pelican Bay SHU since 1990 and in other California gulags since the early 1970s. He began his incarceration in 1964 at age 19. He has joined the hunger strike and writes …
June 30, 2011
Prisoners in the Security Housing Units, SHUs, at Pelican Bay and Corcoran state prisons in California are beginning an indefinite hunger strike on July 1, 2011, to protest the cruel and inhumane conditions of their imprisonment in what is being called “an unusual show of racial unity.” Breaking news: Prisoners at Centinela have joined the hunger strike. A prisoner there reports: “Only a few inmates are walking the yard. No Blacks or Hispanics have left their cells. No one has gone to work. He said all the races are united in this fight.”
June 29, 2011
A number of trees have fallen in the forest this past month and we want to acknowledge the huge spaces their absence brings: Geronimo ji jaga Pratt, Black Panther, decorated veteran of multiple wars …
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.
June 20, 2011
On Thursday, June 2, 2011, came word that former Black Panther leader, Geronimo ji-Jaga (née Elmer G. Pratt) died in exile in Tanzania.
June 13, 2011
The lyrics to B.B. King’s classic “The Thrill is Gone” was the first thing that ran through my head when I showed up at both of the rallies that were held to “protest” the release from jail of Johannes Mehserle on Sunday, June 12. The speakers seemed to be a tad bit angry but not focused enough to do anything significant that would put police murders on the national radar. JUST ADDED: Minister of Information JR leads a full hour of debate on issues swirling around the murder of Oscar Grant by Johannes Mehserle broadcast on KPFA Wednesday morning.
March 13, 2011
Bay Area journalist JR Valrey, the voice behind Block Report Radio on KPFA and associate editor of SF Bay View, known as the Minister of Information, reports vital news about the struggle against oppression. In the 31 interviews in his new book, “Block Reportin’,” he shows what he calls the “big gap between what is going on in the world and what is being reported. I want to inspire people to become their own media and to truly speak on behalf of the people.” Meet JR at his first book signing Saturday, March 19, 6:30 p.m., at Marcus Books, 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland.
February 11, 2011
This people’s victory in North Africa, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt, is OUR VICTORY TOO. We, the people of the world, must move forward toward global revolution that will liberate the entire global community.
February 10, 2011
The People’s Human Rights and Hip Hop Film Festival is a four-day event that will be kicking off on Friday, Feb. 11, at the Twinspace, 2111 Mission St. in San Francisco, that captures the aura of the Bay, politics and young people’s art.
January 2, 2011
Few people in America, especially the underfunded, don’t have a friend, relative, classmate or colleague in prison. We also know that most prisoners are there for non-violent, often drug related issues. Yet we keep silent. “Your silence becomes approval,” wrote our brilliant journalist and revolutionary, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
December 6, 2010
On Black Friday 2010, at 16th and Mission in San Francisco, Creative Housing Liberation held a “Housing Harvest” rally with songs and speeches followed by a tour of four vacant neighborhood properties. Creative Housing Liberation would like to invite “all kinds of folks, including families,” to be involved in future housing occupations and demonstrations.
July 6, 2010
The vicious, premeditated and illegal attack on the six-boat Freedom Flotilla by Israeli Zionists on May 31 in international waters left nine humanitarians shot dead – one of whom was an American citizen – and over 40 wounded on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, as well as many others traumatized and injured from being badly beaten, jailed and/or hospitalized.
December 8, 2009
President Barack Obama has clearly stated, “We don’t torture.” Oh, yes we do. Big time. A myriad of studies have clearly shown that human beings are social creatures – making prolonged isolation torture.
September 17, 2009
Welcome M1 of dead prez to East and West Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Sonoma, San Jose, Santa Cruz – 7 events in 7 cities on 7 days, Sept. 23-29, comparing his experiences in Gaza, Cairo and Europe with ghetto life in the U.S., benefiting SF Bay View and Block Report Radio. Check out new M1 interviews, with Min. of Info JR and KPFA Morning Show.
June 16, 2009
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from death-row journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet, Nelson Mandela and numerous others. Now Abu-Jamal’s international support network is calling for a federal civil rights investigation into his case.
May 9, 2009
On a windy April 24th, hundreds gathered into Humanist Hall on the periphery of downtown Oakland to celebrate the 55th birthday of Mumia Abu Jamal, a former Black Panther who has been a political prisoner for the last 28 years, as well as celebrate the release of his newest book, “Jailhouse Lawyers,” published by City Lights (www.citylights.com).
April 5, 2009
Don’t miss this review of Mumia’s new book by one of his closest friends, Kiilu Nyasha. Kiilu fell April 2 and broke her hip. She’s recovering from surgery at CPMC Davies Campus, Castro at Duboce St.,
North Tower, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94114. Send this great warrior (armed only with love and a laser-keen intellect) some love and early birthday greetings; she turns 70 in May!
December 10, 2008
In Omaha, Nebraska, the leaders of a Black Panther group, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice), were the targets of a clandestine operation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation code-named COINTELPRO.
December 1, 2008
Protest to free Mumia and Troy Davis, two innocent men facing execution, Tuesday, Dec. 9, 4:30pm, at the Federal Courthouse, 7th & Mission, San Francisco. Mumia and Troy are challenging the “law of the land” that says, “Innocence is no defense.” Pennsylvania and
Georgia seek their execution. We demand their freedom.