September 2, 2012
This year marks the 33rd anniversary of Black August, the annual commemoration of the liberation struggle of African people inside the United States. The month of celebration and reflection was initiated by political prisoners, many of whom were members of the Black Panther Party and the Republic of New Africa, two of the main revolutionary organizations that emerged during the late 1960s.
June 29, 2011
A recent evening at the African American Museum and Library in Oakland was special. The line wrapped around the corner of 14th Street at Martin Luther King Jr. Way as people lined up to hear Isabel Wilkerson talk about her book, “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”
January 14, 2010
Once the French army had subdued L’Ouverture and his rebel force, Napoleon intended to advance to the North American mainland, basing a new French empire in New Orleans and settling the vast territory west of the Mississippi River. By 1803, a frustrated Napoleon – denied his foothold in the New World – agreed to sell New Orleans and the Louisiana territories to Jefferson.
August 10, 2008
In Haiti, they have a name for hunger. It’s called Clorox hunger – meaning something that eats you from the inside. But it’s an imposed hunger, an imposed starvation on the people of Haiti. It has a history. Until the 1980s, Haiti was self sufficient in rice production. But with the lowering of tariffs, Haitians got what we call “Miami” rice. Haiti was flooded with cheap rice imports and Haitian peasants couldn’t compete.