April 1, 2011
I am pleased to stand with my colleagues today who are outraged at Nobel Peace Laureate President Obama’s decision to wage war on Africa in Libya. At the outset, let me state that Libya is home to tens of thousands of foreign students and guest workers. The students come from Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia. The messages I have received from concerned Africans state that these young, innocent people, inaccurately labeled by the U.S. press as “Black mercenaries,” have been trapped in hostile territory and are hated by the U.S.-allied Al Qaeda insurgents.
March 16, 2011
Crying “Have a Heart, Save Our Homes,” a large Bay Area coalition marched in a driving rain from City Hall to the San Francisco Federal Building – Causa Justa/Just Cause, San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE and many more.
March 3, 2011
Would you feel like a full citizen if most of your civil and human rights were denied you? If the privileges afforded to community members were withheld from you, would you feel like a welcome member of the community?
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.
January 25, 2011
Across the country organizations and individuals are standing together to protest the United States government’s attempt to silence and criminalize anti-war and international solidarity activists in solidarity with them. Legendary lawyer Lynne Stewart, who is already in prison, and an activist who has been subpoenaed by the grand jury tell why they resist.
January 14, 2011
The People’s Tribunal Against Police Brutality and Misconduct will be convened on Saturday, Jan. 15, 11 a.m., in North Philadelphia amidst a whirlwind of public debate, legal battles and community protest sparked by the upsurge in police brutality there and across the country.
January 11, 2011
Sophia Dawson is an artist I met in Harlem, New York, at this year’s Black Panther Film Fest, where she had a striking painted piece of Black Panther co-founder and Chairman Bobby Seale. I have seen a lot of dope, conscious-minded Black visual artists over the years; she is definitely one of the more talented ones.
January 7, 2011
The death-sentenced prisoners I visit are so desperate that they are going on hunger strike, essentially for the right to be on death row. After Lucasville, the state of Ohio decided that a maximum security prison was not secure enough. They built a supermax prison, OSP Youngstown.
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.
December 24, 2010
Eight days after the start of Georgia’s historic prisoners’ strike, advocates met with state corrections officials and visited a prison. “The prisoners have done all they can do now. It’s up to us to build a movement out here that can make the changes which have to be made,” said Rev. Kenny Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples Society (TOPS).
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.
November 16, 2010
“Equinox” is a ground-breaking film on Black male and female relationships by local director and filmmaker Baayan Bakari. It will be screened Thursday, Nov. 18, 6:30 p.m., at the Black Dot Café, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland. Watch the trailer and learn more about the cast and the film at http://www.equinoxmovie.com.
November 14, 2010
“Unemployed workers are lazy welfare queens,” said Sharon Angle, losing Senate candidate in Nevada under the Tea Party, expressing hate for families living in poverty.
October 25, 2010
A juvenile counselor in New York rapes a teenaged girl while escorting her from a holding area to the courtroom and receives probation. She serves a year for “filing a false police report,” upon telling police she did not know who had jumped and cut her on the way to school.
October 10, 2010
Minister of Information JR speaks with Pam Africa about a secret memo signed by the U.S. members of the Steering Committee of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty that can be summed up as “throwing Mumia under the bus.”
October 13, 2009
I had to publish more of this interview with the legendary Gil Scott Heron because a whole lot of readers personally got at me and told me that it was too short. They told me that they wanted to hear more of what he had to say. If y’all want to read interview installments 3 and 4, y’all are goin’ to have to vote and put your bid in, because I literally had to transcribe this interview that was done for radio by hand. Otherwise you can wait until the Oct. 19, when it will premiere on Greg Bridges’ show, Transitions on Traditions, which airs on 94.1FM in Northern Cali (kpfa.org) at 9 p.m. Enough on that.
October 10, 2009
Jalil is asking that we write letters supporting his 2009 parole, which has been postponed for 30 to 90 days for lack of records. This means the hearing could occur as early as Oct. 22 and as late as the end of December. It is believed that they want a new victim impact statement and the sentencing minutes from California. In the interim he said we need to continue efforts to build support. Please write a letter and urge others to do so, addressing the letters to the Parole Commissioners (Re: Parole application of Anthony Jalil Bottom #77A4283) but send to: NYC Jericho, P.O. Box 1272, New York, NY 10013.
October 4, 2009
Although much of prison health care is inadequate, many of its youthful captives can at least squeak by on what’s presently provided. Not so for those over 50 years of age, most of whom are beset by the common old age infirmities. The smartest and quickest way to begin reducing prison health care costs and prison overcrowding is to release aged and infirmed Lifers and those serving Life Without Parole (LWOPs).
September 15, 2009
As the G-20 summit prepares to descend upon Pittsburgh, the city has been thrust into the spotlight and is being highlighted for its “commitment to employing new and green technology to further economic recovery and development.” It has been and is being denoted as the city that got it right, where pollution has been eroded, the rivers cleaned and the jobs in industry thoroughly replaced.
September 5, 2009
Welcome M-1 of dead prez to the Bay Area – East and West Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento, Sonoma, San Jose, Santa Cruz – for seven days, Sept. 23-29, of sharing his recent experiences in Gaza, Cairo and Europe and comparing them with ghetto life in the U.S., benefiting the SF Bay View and Block Report Radio. Read his own words and hear a KPFA interview.