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Cynthia McKinney tours Cali wit’ her new book ‘Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom’
April 16, 2013
Six term congresswoman, ‘08 Green Party presidential candidate and international peace activist Cynthia McKinney has been willing to risk her life to represent for Black people, fearlessly investigating such hot issues as Katrina, Haiti, the Congo, Libya and more. Currently she is writing her Ph.D. dissertation on President Hugo Chavez and attended his recent funeral in Caracas. Meet this warm and courageous woman at Bay View fundraisers Wednesday, April 24, at the Laney College Forum, 900 Fallon St., Oakland, at 6:30 p.m., and on Thursday, April 25, at the Arlene Francis Center, 99 Sixth St., Santa Rosa, at 7 p.m.
So much is at stake in Venezuela’s presidential election
April 13, 2013
In tomorrow’s special election for president of Venezuela, it’s not just the revolution in Venezuela that’s at stake, but also the fate of the socialist and revolutionary movements currently flourishing throughout Latin America. The Bolivarian Revolution is just that important. Nicolas Maduro understands that his challenge will be to live up to the legacy of President Hugo Chavez. Tomorrow, Venezuelan voters will almost certainly give him the opportunity.
10 things you should know about slavery and won’t learn at ‘Django’
February 4, 2013
Much hullabaloo has been made recently about slavery as entertainment in movies like “Django Unchained.” But lost in the discussion is slavery as history. Though sadistic and macabre, the plain truth is that slavery was an unprecedented economic juggernaut whose impact is still lived by each of us daily. Here’s my top-10 list of things everyone should know about the economic roots of slavery.
Wanda’s Picks for January 2013
January 5, 2013
This year, on the 150 anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, we all need to heed the words of Sister Jayne Cortez: “And if we don’t fight / if we don’t resist / if we don’t organize and unify and / get the power to control our own lives / Then we will wear / the exaggerated look of captivity …” And don’t miss Wanda’s excellent, no holds barred reviews of “Django Unchained,” “Lincoln and “Red Hook Summer,” plus Dr. King birthday events listing and much more
‘Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo’ by Paul S. Flores at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre Sept. 6-16
September 10, 2012
Paul S. Flores’ new play, “Placas: The Most Dangerous Tattoo,” is riveting. I was sitting on the edge of my seat all through intermission; the drama was that intense and unsettling. Fausto, Edgar’s father, spends nine years in prison and upon release decides to have his tattoos removed for his son, whom he doesn’t want to follow in his footsteps.
Our next guest is the legendary African researcher Runoko Rashidi, from the United States
February 8, 2012
“We need a knowledge of self in order to counter the negative imagery and influences … People who know their history are in a better position to defend themselves and advance their own interests than people who do not,” says historian Runoko Rashidi, who discusses the strong Black influence on Europe.
Georgia prison strike, one year later: Activists outside the walls have failed those inside the walls
January 25, 2012
A year ago this month, Black, White and Brown inmates in a dozen Georgia prisons staged a brief strike. They put forward a set of simple and basic demands – wages for work, decent food and medical care, access to educational and self-improvement programs, fairness and more.
Carnegie Mellon professors question university president over planned campus in Kagame’s Rwanda
September 29, 2011
Faculty members at Carnegie Mellon University’s Marianna Brown Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences have signed a petition questioning the university’s partnership with Rwanda’s president, Paul Kagame, as they plan to open a branch campus in Kigali in 2012. The petition cites charges that his government has committed gross human rights violations in Rwanda and in the Congo. It also cites increased repression of the press and political freedoms.
Imperialism will be buried in Africa
September 20, 2011
The North Atlantic tribes, under the banner of NATO, and their Arab flunkies are lining up for a showdown in Sirte. Muammar Qaddafi and the Al Fateh revolutionary forces remain defiant and have issued statements saying that they will never surrender.
Prison Literature Project: Help them help prisoners hungry for knowledge
August 8, 2011
The Prison Literature Project has been sending free books to prisoners all over the country since the 1980s. The prisoners are sophisticated readers. They read philosophy, history and anthropology. They study the Black Panthers and foreign languages. There is a hunger for knowledge.
In Miami, 12 officers shoot Haitian man over 100 times
August 5, 2011
Not one word has yet been published by the international press agencies, which are so prone to broadcasting the minor incidents that happen in countries who confront the American imperial power, about the execution in Miami of a 22-year-old-Haitian man by 12 police officers who fired on him 100 times while he was unarmed in his car.
Race and immigration
June 20, 2011
Within the U.S. immigration movement, leaders often do not clearly understand racism as it impacts upon immigration legislation on local and national levels, nor do they seem to clearly understand why, generally speaking, African Americans tend to be their most reliable allies.
Remembering Geronimo
June 9, 2011
Political activists around the country are still absorbing the news of Geronimo ji Jaga’s death. His commitment, humility, clear thinking as well as his sense of both the longevity and continuity of the Black Freedom Movement in the U.S. all stood out to those who knew him.
Haiti: The emperor has no votes
June 6, 2011
On April 4, the Haitian government announced that Michel Martelly won the recent fraudulent “elections” imposed on Haiti by the United States, France and Canada, the so-called “international community,” and sanctioned by the United Nations. Haiti now finds itself at a crossroads.
Living on this earth 95 years!
June 6, 2011
I was born on June 11, 1916, in Lake Charles, Louisiana. My parents were Mr. Thomas Alfred Nisby (born August 1886) and Ms. Lillian Lumpkin Nisby (born June 1892). To this union, there came a family of six girls and two boys, 10 all together when we would sit at the table.
Black Congress members outraged over camp destructions by Haitian police
May 26, 2011
On Monday, May 23, 2011, our offices were alarmed at the startling news that three camps of internally displaced persons in the Delmas neighborhood of Port-au-Prince were effectively destroyed – at least one at the hands of the Haitian police under direction of Mayor Wilson Jeudy.
Pierre Labossiere on welcoming Aristide home to Haiti
April 10, 2011
“I was at his (President Aristide’s) house, we heard a roar of shouts of joy, and then over the walls people started coming in, pouring into the courtyard of the house when they saw the car. People were accompanying the car as many as three miles from the airport to his house,” relates Pierre Labossiere of the jubilant welcome that greeted the Aristides on their return to Haiti ending seven long years of exile for them and brutal repression of the people they had to leave behind. Pierre tells the story of the Haitian people and how their never-say-die spirit continues to inspire the world.
Haiti on our minds
February 5, 2010
Haiti, once the colonial-era “Pearl of the Antilles” (Caribbean), then the “Mother of Revolutions,” has suffered for nearly two centuries for daring to fight for – and win – its freedom from European colonialism, slavery and plunder. If it hadn’t been bled and exploited for centuries, Haiti would’ve had the wherewithal to protect its people.
California’s mean streak, from Native annihilation to Oscar and Lovelle: Ishmael Reed on history
September 7, 2009
Ishmael Reed is one of the most read writers of his generation, along with Toni Morrison and Amiri Baraka, living in America. In 1962, Reed co-founded “East Village Other,” a well known underground publication at the time, and was a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop, which helped to give rise to the Black Arts Movement. He has published nine novels, four collections of poetry, six plays, four collections of essays and a libretto. He currently lives in Oakland, and I approached him one day while he was visiting KPFA’s studios to ask him what he thought about the state of affairs between the police and Oakland’s Black community, with the backdrop of the police murder of Oscar Grant and, in a separate incident, the police murder of Lovelle Mixon, after Mixon allegedly killed four Oakland police officers.