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KPFA’s Townhall on Racism: General manager asked to step down
May 2, 2013
On April 11, a large number of people affiliated with KPFA radio station convened at Laney College in Oakland to discuss a number of issues that have been plaguing the station for decades and are threatening to rip it apart with a race and class civil war. Unaddressed racial and class disparities at KPFA have caused a number of Black broadcasters to abandon ship.
Wanda’s Picks for March 2013
March 8, 2013
Back when Mumia was a member of the Black Panther Party, he traveled west to work with the Oakland chapter – an important time in his evolution as a radical journalist. Now the story of his life and revolutionary times comes to The New Parkway Theater. Read about it and all of Wanda’s Picks for March 2013.
Political prisoner news briefs
August 10, 2012
Black August is a time to remember and recommit to freeing our political prisoners who were targeted by COINTELPRO and similar schemes and have been imprisoned ever since – many for more than 30 years.
Still all eyes on us
August 2, 2012
The concept of Black August grew out of the need to expose to the light of day the glorious and heroic deeds of Afrikan women and men who recognized and fought injustice. We consecrate this month to those who have been taken from us but who will never be forgotten – for the love of freedom which their lives were dedicated to.
In the true spirit of Black August resistance
July 31, 2012
CDCR state operatives have criminalized the historical-cultural legacy of Black August under the false pretense of it being a BGF (Black Guerrilla Family) prison gang concept that promotes violence against CDCR’s state operatives. Black August is not a prison gang concept, and it definitely does not entail the promotion of any violence!
Hugo Pinell: Is 42 years in isolation about to end?
May 17, 2012
If we would have been self-transforming for the last 60, 50 years, there would not be millions of new slaves today and we would have the power to be making an impact and difference toward the building of the New World. Our teachers kept saying: “No matter what, we gotta keep pushing and growing. It’s the only way to continue our growth and become free.”
Fly Benzo is free, so why is Mendell Plaza a no Fly zone?
May 6, 2012
DeBray “Fly Benzo” Carpenter. He was busted on Oct. 18, 2011, by two of SFPD’s finest, John Norment and Joshua Fry, for (gasp!) participating in a community organized rally while playing a boom box in Mendell Plaza in the heart of Bayview Hunters Point. For speaking out against police brutality, especially the SFPD murder of Kenneth Harding last July, he was brutally arrested, tried and now is barred from Mendell Plaza by order of Judge Jerome T. Benson.
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.
Abolition key to new justice system
February 21, 2012
Everyone knows the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, higher than China’s with four to five times our population, and it continues to spiral. One in 100 adults is locked up in this police state, now totaling 2.4 million. Just as chattel slavery produced abolitionists, this new form of slavery must generate prison abolitionists.
Georgia prisons on fire
December 6, 2011
On Nov. 25, Hancock State Prison in Sparta, Georgia, erupted into a full scale riot, as prisoners ran off the guards in several of the cell houses (euphemistically called dormitories, as though this was a college campus) in protest over abuses by guards and grievances unresolved by administrators.
Soledad Brother: Memories of Comrade George
October 16, 2011
“Most people realize that crime is simply the result of a grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth and privilege … an aspect of class struggle from the outset. Throughout its history, the United States has used its prisons to suppress any organized efforts to challenge its legitimacy,” wrote George Jackson in “Blood in My Eye.”
Cisco Torres is free of all charges in the SF8 case
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.”
Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Comrade George Jackson
August 4, 2011
“Imprisonment is an aspect of class struggle from the outset. It is the creation of a closed society which attempts to isolate those individuals who disregard the structures of a hypocritical establishment, as well as those who attempt to challenge it on a mass basis.” – Comrade George Jackson, field marshal of the Black Panther Party
Letters from Hugo Pinell and other hunger strikers – Rally to support the hunger strikers
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 …
California SHU prisoners begin hunger strike July 1
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.”
Geronimo ji-Jaga: Tributes from Black Panther comrades and current political prisoners
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.
Protest retaliation against Georgia prisoners
February 20, 2011
The U.S., with 4.5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, is the world’s first prison state. Too long have we tolerated this backsliding from the great advances of the ‘60s. When we are presented with a clear case of retaliation, we must protest.
The people have won!
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.
Revolution has come!
January 31, 2011
Hallelujah! Revolution has come! The political miracle spreads as the power of the people manifests all over North Africa, particularly Tunisia and Egypt. This could very possibly be the beginning of a global revolution that would free the people of the world from the tyranny of the 1 percent who own 80 percent of the world’s resources – and initiate real democratic self-determination. As Frederick Douglass noted: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” We must collectively and globally demand our human rights, human equality. All power to the people! People of the world, unite! – Kiilu Nyasha
Abolition key to new justice system
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.