Monthly Archives: October 2013

University Avenue Cooperative Homes (UACH) is to be leased to Resources for Community Development/UACH, LP, in a “ground lease” agreement with the City of Berkeley for only $1 (one dollar) a year for 55 years. The sweetheart deal will be voted on later this evening by the Berkeley City Council. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Berkeley.

Herman Wallace’s greatest pride was joining the Black Panther Party for Self Defense! He believed in duty, honor and dedication. He never broke the faith of the party, his comrades or the people. As I bent to kiss his forehead, my heart said, “Goodbye, I love you forever”; my soul said, “Separated but never apart, never touching, but always connected.” He was the best of us. As long as we remember him, he lives on.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture Juan E. Méndez today called on the United States to immediately end the indefinite solitary confinement imposed on Albert Woodfox since 1972. Mr. Woodfox was convicted of murder together with Herman Wallace, who was released last week when his conviction was overturned on appeal. A day later, Mr. Wallace died after battling cancer, having spent 41 years in solitary confinement.

Ghetto Girl Blue aka Jessica Holter, founder of the Punany Poets, is a legendary fixture in the pantheon of Bay Area adult edu-tainment. After 19 years, the internationally renowned Punany Poets are still pioneering in their technique of using explicit material to teach about self-love, AIDS awareness, safe sex etc. On Saturday, Oct. 26, at 5 p.m. at the Black Repertory Theater, Jessica Holter will be performing her one-woman show.

Brother Compeer Herman “Hooks” Wallace was a legendary figure throughout the Louisiana state prison system. Myself, Compeer Herman and Compeer Albert “Shaka” Woodfox established the Angola Prison branch of the Louisiana Chapter of the Black Panther Party. I say that the legendary figure is also a hero. Compeer Hooks set a standard for prisoners in particular and all human beings in general.

Abdul Olugbala Shakur (s/n James Harvey) has been condemned to solitary confinement for over 30 years. In the aftermath of the latest hunger strike, which he participated in for the entire 60 days, his heart may have been permanently damaged, but he can’t be sure because the medical staff at Pelican Bay refuses to run the tests. Now he reports an even more alarming health threat: poisoning.

On Oct. 3, 2013, the U.S. State Department announced sanctions against Rwanda because of its support of the M23 militia that uses child soldiers in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Rwandan President Paul Kagame has used child soldiers known as Kadogo ever since he invaded Rwanda from Uganda with his refugee Rwandan Patriotic Army in 1990, beginning what came to be known as the Rwandan Civil War.

This next phase of the struggle will require the power of the people more than ever. We have to work with and urge our representatives in the legislature to ensure changes are made in the interest of imprisoned people, their loved ones, their communities – in the interests of humanity. We must put an end to solitary confinement. There is no place for indefinite solitary confinement in a civilized society. Let the Department of Corrections know torture will not be tolerated here.

California’s use of indefinite solitary confinement and the devastating physical, mental and public health impacts of the notorious practice was at the center of today’s three hour hearing by a rare joint session of the California Senate and Assembly Public Safety Committees to address demands made by prisoners during this summer’s massive hunger strike, the largest in U.S. history.

We went to court today to bring Bandile home. We had to leave without her. She was denied bail. Thembinkosi Qumbelo is dead. Nkululeko Gwala is dead. Nqobile Nzuza is dead. Nkosinathi Mngomezulu is in hospital. Luleka Makhwenkwana is in hospital. Our members have been beaten during evictions, during protests and in the police stations. Our homes have been destroyed again and again.

The protest was staged in response to practices permitted by the San Francisco 49ers and the Santa Clara Stadium Authority and executed by Turner Construction and its joint venture partner Devcon Construction, to intentionally and systematically exclude Black and minority contractors from participation on the $1.3 billion Levi’s Stadium project.

Tracy Rosenberg is the executive director of Media Alliance, an action and resource organization in Oakland advocating just, accountable and diverse media. She has been a listener representative on the KPFA Local Station Board since 2007 and a member of the Pacifica National Board of Directors since 2010. We asked her to comment on the situation from her perch as an insider. Here’s what we talked about.

This morning we lost without a doubt the biggest, bravest and brashest personality in the political prisoner world. On Oct. 4, 2013, Herman Wallace, an icon of the modern prison reform movement and an innocent man, died a free man after spending an unimaginable 41 years in solitary confinement. Herman spent the last four decades of his life fighting against all that is unjust in the criminal justice system, making international the inhuman plight that is long term solitary confinement and struggling to prove that he was an innocent man.

Black Mobilization Organization Education Richmond (BMOER) is a Black organization founded in 2007 by Jovanka Beckles to fill the void she saw in Richmond, California, of organized progressive social activism in the Black community. Like most other Black organizations in Richmond, we want more jobs, a better economy and improved health for our community members.

The 18th Annual Maafa Commemoration Ritual is Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, predawn. We meet at Ocean Beach, Fulton at the Great Highway. The ritual is for people of African Descent (Black people from throughout the globe). There are so many great events this month, but not enough space to list them all.

All too often, apologies are just empty words that aren’t worth the air they ride on. But there are times when an apology actually has meaning and impact. That was the case on Saturday, Sept. 22, 2013, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Chief Chuck Jordan of the Tulsa Police Department apologized to the Black people of the city for the 1921 attack on “Black Wall Street.”

The founder of Jawaiian Reggae and Urban Reggae, Rankin Scroo, is one of the elders of the Bay’s current Reggae scene. He has been around for decades and worked with artists as diverse as Black Uhuru and Keak Da Sneak. He has a new album that has been driving people at KPFA radio station crazy called “Love Zone” where he continues to feature a lot of musical talent besides his own.

When Malcolm Latif Shabazz was assassinated on May 9, 2013, in Mexico City, it was a devastating blow to people all over the world, but it was especially catastrophic to those of us who knew “Young Malcolm.” I thought that it would be important to bring the thoughts of Mutulu Olugbala aka M1 on the life and assassination of Malcolm Shabazz to our readers, because this chapter of Young Malcolm’s life has never been told.

The attack on low-income families in the Section 8 voucher program (Housing Choice Voucher Program) in Oakland, Berkeley, San Francisco and across the nation intensified Sept. 27 when the U.S. Senate voted to continue with the catastrophic across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration with their vote for the Reid-Mikulski Amendment No. 1974 to House Joint Resolution 59.

Gov. Jerry Brown, good ol’ boy of the 21st century prison industrial slave complex, your silence does not excuse you for your crimes against our humanity. You are an overseer of CDCr prisons and we have evidence that clearly shows prisoners have been murdered, beaten and tortured throughout these solitary confinement units by CDCr officials who are subordinate to you.