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Tag: Civil Rights Movement

Eye on Education

Education Reporter Daphne Young brings 99 percent good news and holiday cheer for the uplift we’ve been craving.

The United Council for Human Services and the Curtis Family: Serving...

Light, hope, COVID-19 testing and new winter coats to warm cold community members are the Christmas version during a brutal pandemic of the ongoing love shared by Gwendolyn Westbrook, Mother Brown’s, the Curtis Family C-Notes and so many others from both in and outside the Bayview neighborhood.

Wanda’s Picks for August 2020

We are losing so many loved ones this year. Beloved heroes like Rep. John Lewis and his friend and mentor Rev. C.T. Vivian and Rev. Joseph Lowery, dean of the Civil Rights Movement. Here in Oakland, we lost Wonder Woman Denise Adele Gums (Oct. 26, 1953-July 22, 2020).

Bay Area teenagers are taking the reins in the midst of...

“We are marching in solidarity and trying to make change. My first march was on the school system. We were protesting Berkeley High school, because we don’t have enough resources for Black students,” said Shayla Avery, a 16-year-old Berkeley High senior due to graduate this upcoming school year.

Am I my brother’s keeper?

To deny with a lie. To not take responsibility. To want to be chosen and resentful when we are not. We as a people today must ask ourselves whether we want to be like Cain, i.e. whether we are willing to let our brother suffer and die because we believe in that moment that we would benefit.

Rev. Jesse Jackson: Let prisoners go during COVID-19 pandemic

Across the globe, prisoners are among the most vulnerable to the coronavirus. Overcrowded facilities, shortages of food and medicine, and inadequate testing expose prisoners who are disproportionately poor and afflicted with prior conditions that render them vulnerable to the disease.

What lessons have we learned from the war in Vietnam?

The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. During the Vietnam War, approximately 4 million Vietnamese were killed and over 58,000 Americans died.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris calls for change – ‘Time to speak...

“In 99 percent of counties, if you are a minimum wage worker working full time, you cannot afford market rate for a one-bedroom apartment” and “Last year, 12 million Americans borrowed an average of $400 from the payday lender at up to a 300 percent interest rate.”

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Remembering Martin King

In the 20th century, few names, especially of Black people, ring louder than that of Martin Luther King. His life, his dedication to the civil rights movement and his martyrdom in April 1968 made him a global icon of social justice. Born in 1929, if he were not martyred, he would be enjoying his 90th year of life. But he was martyred and, too, he was considered an enemy of the state. Why?

Living Jazz presents its 17th annual Martin Luther King tribute in...

Over the past 14 years, Living Jazz has provided FREE music education to Oakland public elementary schools serving high percentages of low-income families (Title One) through the Living Jazz Children’s Project (LJCP). Over 4,500 second and third graders have now benefited from LJCP and, as a result, have had the life changing opportunity to perform as the opening act at “In the Name of Love,” Oakland’s only non-denominational musical tribute honoring Dr. King, one of the many programs Living Jazz has produced since 1984. This year’s MLK Musical Tribute will be on Sunday, Jan. 20, 7 p.m., at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center.

About Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) and the 1968 Olympic protest:...

October 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the historic and remarkable organizing initiative to boycott the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Dr. Harry Edwards led the boycott efforts, as well as the creation of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, in which he involved countless Black activists from throughout the country, including H. Rap Brown. On Oct. 21, 2018, I was fortunate to interview Dr. Edwards about his 1968 organizing efforts and his affiliation with H. Rap Brown (now Jamil Al-Amin) who also played a leading and inspirational role in this historic 1968 event.

‘We love the CIA!’ – or how the left lost its...

On July 22 this year, nearly two years after Trump’s election and the rise of “The Resistance,” I tuned in to KPFA-Berkeley’s Sunday Show and heard host Philip Maldari speaking to The Nation’s national affairs correspondent John Nichols. Philip Maldari: John, just last Monday we had this fabulous press conference in Helsinki, Finland, where these two heads of state [Trump and Putin] had a chance to speak to the world. Do you want to decode what happened there? John Nichols: Do I want to what? PM: Decode – explain.

Medicare and Medicaid, a major gift of the Civil Rights movement

I recently finished reading David Barton Smith’s book, “The Power to Heal, Civil Rights, Medicare, and the Struggle to Transform America’s Health Care System.” It is an excellent history of healthcare in the United States, particularly in the 1950s and ‘60s. For me, as a longtime Medicare for All advocate, the book also provided insight about our continuing struggle to achieve better healthcare in the U.S. at a lower cost for everyone.

How the 1968 uprisings gave us the Civil Rights Act of...

Dr. King’s assassination was the key marker in the transition of a great era of social change, from one where “inclusion” in the broader capitalist system was the general thrust to one where the general focus of the Black fight for equality became a broadly defined “self-determination,” rooted in a recognition of the entrenched nature of racism, not simply as a function of attitudes, but as a method of social control.

Jovanka will bring people power from Richmond to the California Assembly

Two-term Richmond City Councilperson Jovanka is a leading contender for the open California State Assembly District 15 seat being contested by a dozen candidates. Jovanka wants “power to change the laws, to change oppressive, corrupt and racist policies … Politics impacts everything … We have to put ourselves at the table. If you’re not at the table, you’re probably on the menu.” She wants your vote and your support June 5 (and again in November) so she can take your causes to Sacramento.

Mass incarceration for profit: The dual impact of the 13th Amendment...

The 13th Amendment reads in Section One: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, nor any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Understanding this contradictory character of the 13th Amendment sheds light on the utilization of the criminal justice system in the perpetuation of bondage for the purpose of institutional racism and class exploitation.

Black disabled folks have been separated from the Black community since...

Slavery ended in the U.S. after the 13th Amendment was ratified on Dec. 6, 1865. However, disabled slaves were kept on plantations because slavery was connected to the ability to work. Jim Downs, among other scholars, wrote an essay entitled, “The Continuation of Slavery: The Experience of Disabled Slaves during Emancipation,” which explains that disabled slaves were seen as non-workers. Because they could not work, they were kept on plantations to be “taking care of.” But in reality, they continued to work for their “masters.”

Regarding the 2005 photo of Farrakhan and Obama: A gentle scolding...

The problems with Alan Dershowitz’s position regarding Obama’s taking a picture with Farrakhan are two-fold. First, by associating Obama with Farrakhan’s views, he is painting with too broad a brush. The second problem with Alan Dershowitz’s complaint is the static nature of his worldview. We can love our allies, and still have a concern that they do not speak against our interest when our interests diverge from theirs. Alan Dershowitz and others of our allies must come to understand this.

Kwame ‘Beans’ Shakur: Seizing the time

As a nation and as revolutionary nationalists, we must dissect and use the method of scientific socialism in our pursuit of self-determination. We must study and struggle using the New Afrikan revolutionary teachings laid out by our forerunners to raise national consciousness, spark a social revolution and move the RNA toward national liberation. The “New Afrikan Liberation Movement” is not the same as the more narrow “Black” movement in general. We are fighting the U.S. not just as an oppressed “race” or class of individuals, but as a colonized nation that has declared its independence.

How about erecting monuments to the heroes of Reconstruction?

There is an alternative politics of memory that Americans can also practice, and it might help to keep fascists out of public squares and do something concrete, literally at the same time: Honor Reconstruction. Remembering Reconstruction ought not to shunt aside the politics of Confederate memorials. Yet remembering this pivotal era certainly deserves to be built into the new national politics of memory. The sesquicentennial of Reconstruction is September 1, 2017.