Tag: COINTELPRO

Since our historical release from solitary confinement, many of us have been bombarded by the same question: How did you (we) survive decades of being in solitary confinement? This is not a question of simplicity, it is only a quali­tative and quantitative prelude into an analysis rooted in a historical mater­ial construct which would require a compartmentalization of the particulars which are conducive towards providing an accurate response to the above quest­ion with both clarity and purpose.

Buried in the Federal Bureau of Investigation file of deceased Black Panther leader Wopashitwe Mondo Even we Langa (formerly David Rice) are secrets still hidden. Mondo was deputy of information for the National Committee to Combat Fascism in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1970 when he was accused of murdering a policeman with a bomb. The NCCF was a Black Panther affiliate organization targeted by the FBI under an illegal and clandestine counterintelligence operation dubbed COINTELPRO.

Fascism has been thrust into the mainstream political vocabulary of the United States since the election of President Donald Trump on a platform grounded in xenophobia, corporate dominance and right wing white nationalism. If the growing resistance movement to Trump’s fascism is to realize its potential for societal transformation, it must draw from the deep well of Black anti-fascist resistance.

When FBI director James Comey dropped a propaganda bomb that blew up the 2016 presidential election and probably changed how the U.S. will be governed for some time to come, he wasn’t acting for the Russians. Comey wasn’t acting as an individual rogue actor either. He was acting in the tried and true tradition of the FBI as a political police agency that uses its authority – legally, illegally and effectively – to intrude into the political processes of our country. One hallmark of what we like to think of as our great democracy is the separation of the police and military from our political processes.

We call upon ALL people to sign and ACT on the Call from RefuseFascism.org which appeared in the Jan. 4 edition of the New York Times and the following week in the Washington Post. Today the Fascist pig Trump, his pick for attorney general Jeff Sessions and the rest of those who make up the Trump-Pence regime – this whole legion of doom is shouting: “Law and Order!” as they threaten to force people to respect the police – respect their whole way of governing and ruling ... or else.

The 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party Conference, Oct. 20-23, held at the Oakland Museum of California and in Bobby Hutton Grove at deFremery Park, was a huge success. To see the Vanguards of the Revolution saluted in such elegant surroundings at the banquet Saturday evening was certainly a fitting tribute to the legacy their lives concretely represent. Hats off to the committee that organized the conference.

Perhaps the reason why Nat Turner is almost completely buried within documented and oral histories is connected to the fear his rebellion caused in the Southampton and by extension the Southern antebellum community. Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation” visits this story as Donald Trump draws a white male constituency very much in keeping philosophically with the angry mob who tear the flesh from the iconic Prophet Nat Turner’s body.

We, the community of writers, artists, contributors and readers outside and behind the walls, collectively condemn the ongoing attacks, censorship and banning of our San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper. For many years, officials in several prison systems, including the state of California, have from time to time taken away our incarcerated family members’ “freedom of speech” and rights to information, education, communication and connection with our broader community by denying them their Bay Views. Defend and support our San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper!

She was born Alice Faye Williams in the dusty little town of Lumberton, North Carolina, on Jan. 10, 1947, a dimpled little Black girl, who grew into a petite young revolutionary known as Afeni Shakur, mother of a young rap icon and actor, Tupac Amaru Shakur. Like many country people – and far too many Black people – she looked down on herself for years, as not smart enough, not pretty enough – you know: too Black. Afeni Shakur, after 69 springs, returns to the infinite.

For us to make sense of the relentless, 400-year-long onslaught of racist violence against New Afrikans and other nationally oppressed people in Amerika and the absence of a collective program of comprehensive self-defense and secure communities among the majority of the New Afrikan population in the U.S., it’s important we first grasp the origin of this contradiction, as all other points of contradiction and irrationality flow from it.

On April 7, 2016, the U.S. Federal Parole Board continued its blatant violation of the human rights of Dr. Mutulu Shakur by refusing to release him from federal captivity after 30 years of time served, even though he is up for “mandatory parole release” based on the guidelines under which he was sentenced. We must stand and defend our political prisoners and POWs and declare them to the world without submitting to the state’s intimidation!

He was born David Rice and, in his youth, he joined an offshoot of the Black Panther Party, a decision that would change his life’s trajectory. For, when he and another young man, Edward Poindexter, joined the National Committee to Combat Fascism (NCCF), they walked into the crosshairs of the state. Political prisoner Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa died March 11 at the maximum-security Nebraska State Penitentiary.

One more political prisoner has died in custody. Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa passed away from complications of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Friday, March 11, 2016, at 11:55 p.m. He was not alone and was loved until the very end. With the exception of two visits to an outside hospital in Lincoln, Mondo spent the last six months of his life in the Nebraska State Penitentiary infirmary.

Nelson’s film documents what those who lived through it already know – that the Panthers quickly became a mass movement throughout the country. Their message of unqualified resistance to racism, armed self-defense and anti-capitalist revolutionary politics galvanized the creation of chapters of the Party in nearly every city and state of the U.S. Much has been written by and about the Panthers. But Nelson’s film is the best short introduction to the Party to date.

“The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution” by Stanley Nelson is a documentary about a Black revolutionary organization in a revolutionary time. It is one of the best documentaries that I have ever seen that intends to tell the history of an organization that shook the world and fundamentally changed the way that Black people in the United States have looked at themselves for nearly half a century. It’s screening in San Francisco, Berkeley and San Rafael on Oct. 2. The Oakland screening is Saturday, Oct. 3, 1 p.m., Piedmont Theater, 4186 Piedmont Ave., followed by Q&A with Stanley Nelson and former Oakland Panther Steve McCutchen.

Directed and performed by Dr. Ayodele Nzinga and The Lower Bottom Playaz, “King Hedley II” is the ninth of the late Afrikan playwright August Wilson’s American Century Cycle, a 10-play docudrama of Afrikan life in the U.S. during the 20th century. This all Afrikan theatre company is on its way to performing the cycle in its entirety, a feat unparalleled in world history, and delivers a riveting performance. Hurry! The play closes Sunday.

These are letters recently received from the writers by the Bay View. Guards seemed to be in a celebratory frame of mind -- Since prisoncrats could not break him, they set him up -- Hugo Pinell was locked up longer than any other SHU prisoner -- This is a revolutionary time; the pig is in a panic as prisoners show humanity, restraint and intelligence --

Graduating from Antioch University’s PhD program in Leadership and Change on Aug. 1, 2015, Cynthia McKinney fulfilled a lifelong dream to complete her education with a terminal degree. In keeping with her interests in U.S. policy, Dr. McKinney wrote her dissertation on the leadership challenges faced by President Hugo Chavez as he asserted the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela’s right to sovereignty.

Some of the important rewards about being a former member of the Black Panther Party include opportunities to pass on our history and legacy to the next generations and to learn what young activists in other communities are accomplishing. This give and take of information is vital to continuing the struggle for human rights and against this oppressive “injustice” system which exists here and worldwide.

I caught up with Aaron Patterson’s lawyer, attorney Demitrus Evans, to get the story firsthand. This will be the first in a series of stories that I am working on to expose the cases of current day Black political prisoners in this country, because it is very important that our people know the truth about how this government deals with the people who truly do work on behalf of our empowerment.