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Stories from the block
March 11, 2011
In “Block Reportin’,” Oakland journalist and filmmaker JR Valrey lays bare stories of struggle and resistance through a collection of nearly a decade of interviews with local political leaders, national Black resistance leaders, artists and family members who’ve suddenly seen themselves cast into the spotlight.
Wanda’s Picks for February 2011
February 10, 2011
On Feb. 18, 7 p.m., at Modern Times Bookstore, Krip-Hop Nation will present an author panel of new books by Black disabled writers and friends, including Toni Hickman of Texas, Adarro Minton of New York, Allen Jones of San Francisco and friends of Krip-Hop Nation, DC Curtis and Bones Kendall of Los Angeles.
The People’s Human Rights and Hip Hop Film Festival
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.
NAACP LDF joins Mumia Abu-Jamal’s defense team
February 7, 2011
On Jan. 28, 2011, Mumia Abu-Jamal, the world’s best known death-row prisoner, retained the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund to represent him in the ongoing appeal of his capital murder conviction and death sentence.
Teena Marie
January 7, 2011
The news came as a shock from a phone call with my wife, a die-hard fan, who broke the news that Teena Marie, the best musical half of the Funkster, Rick “Super-Freak” James, had died.
Mumia’s case a lightning rod for police terrorism
January 5, 2011
Today we are going to be talking to Philadelphia Tribune writer and Temple University professor Linn Washington, who is going to give us an update on the case of Mumia Abu Jamal.
Standing on the side of the Black Panthers, not the police
January 3, 2011
Journalist JR Valrey, who was born in 1978, grew up mostly in Oakland, where the legend of the Black Panther Party was all around him. “A lot of the people around here are Panthers, or knew Panthers or are members of the Black Guerilla Family, which was an organization that Field Marshall George Jackson of the Black Panther Party founded. The revolution is very deep in Oakland. It’s not so cosmetic as it is other places. It’s not just about bandannas and t-shirts and concert throwing and posturing. I think it’s more grassroots here and more ingrained in the spirit of the people.”
War against ourselves
January 3, 2011
As the 20th year passes since the West waged war against the late Saddam Hussein and the state of war slips into greater violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is another war being waged today, one which gets little coverage on TV, radio and newspapers. This war has been essentially a class war – a war against the poor and working classes.
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.
Hunger strike of the Lucasville uprising prisoners starting Monday, Jan. 3
December 31, 2010
Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Bomani Shakur (Keith LaMar), Jason Robb and Namir Mateen (James Were) will start a hunger strike on Monday, Jan. 3, to protest their 23-hour-a-day lockdown for nearly 18 years. They were sentenced to death for their alleged roles in the 11-day Lucasville rebellion in April 1993. They are innocent! They were wrongfully convicted! They are political prisoners.
When sentencing Mehserle, judge said race is irrelevant to Oscar Grant case
December 6, 2010
Minister of Information JR talks with Jack Bryson, the father of two sons who were with Oscar Grant the night he was murdered on the Fruitvale BART platform on New Year’s 2009. They discuss Jack’s fight for justice for Oscar, Johannes Mehserle’s sentencing and how Oscar’s murder has affected his family and close friends.
Round 2: 3rd Circuit Court panel re-hears issue of Abu-Jamal’s death penalty on orders of Supreme Court
November 24, 2010
The three-decades-long murder case of Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was back in court Nov. 9 with a three-judge federal appeals court panel. The three judges seemed, in their initial remarks and in their questions, to be leaning towards the defense view.
Mumia must live and be free! End the racist death penalty!
November 18, 2010
Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets outside the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals here and around the world Nov. 9, demanding that Mumia Abu-Jamal must live and be free and that the U.S. must abolish the death penalty and end racist killings and brutality by police.
The many faces of Oscar Grant and Mumia Abu-Jamal
November 18, 2010
We are not fooled by the corporate media hype that criminalizes our righteous struggle. We are not fooled by a prison industrial complexed court system acting to protect its own from criminal prosecution! Did not Malcolm X tell us that it would do no good to take the crimes of the criminal to the criminal’s courts?
Hustlin in the City: an interview wit Frisco rapper Sellassie
November 13, 2010
The Frisco native and conscious rapper Sellassie has to be one of the hardest working men in independent Bay Area rap music. He has been a big promoter of unifying the Bay Area’s rappers and he has started a campaign against “house nigga” rap. He also hosts a regional up and coming artists’ showcase called “We All We Got.”
Two messages from Mumia – from a week ago and from 1981
November 9, 2010
No matter how much you know about Mumia, you’re sure to find something new and exciting here – beginning with an introduction that sets the scene, then Mumia’s latest essay, “The dirty game (POLITICS),” an open letter he wrote in 1981 called “The sting of betrayal,” followed by some “Blackground info” and concluding with “Mumia Abu Jamal Radio Teach-In” featuring the voices of M1 of dead prez and Minister of Information JR, Ramona and Pam Africa and more.
Save KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio, Flashpoints and Full Circle
November 3, 2010
We must protect Hard Knock Radio, Flashpoints and Full Circle from the KPFA chopping block because in essence we are protecting our right to an accessible community radio station, where we can learn, teach and participate in local struggles for community power.
International struggle to free Mumia Abu-Jamal
November 3, 2010
An international defense campaign for both the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal and for the elimination of the death penalty in the United States has grown since the early 1980s. On Nov. 9, 2010, when a critical hearing is scheduled in the case of Mumia, protests will be held around the world.
New test shows key witnesses lied at Abu-Jamal trial
November 3, 2010
The whole prosecution story of an execution-style slaying of the officer by Abu-Jamal would appear to be a prosecution fabrication, complete with coached, perjured witnesses, undermining the integrity and fairness of the entire trial, as well as the subsequent death sentence.
‘The New Jim Crow’
November 2, 2010
Michelle Alexander’s most salient point in her book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” is her finding that America’s Black population constitutes a “racial caste” that feeds and perpetuates mass incarceration.