Yearly Archives: 2016

After a combined total of over 65 years in the SHU, our brothers Zaharibu, Heshima and Kambui, after surviving decades of unprovoked torture, have been released to general population. This is in fact proof that through agitation, small victories can be won. It is not by mere coincidence that the administration all of a sudden decided to release all of us freedom fighters to GP so abruptly after the assassination of our beloved Hugo Pinell on Aug. 12.

As union members gathered in the nation’s capital over the Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend, some of the country’s top labor leaders faced tough questions about how the movement can reconcile its support for racial justice with its embrace of police unions. Over the last year, the AFL-CIO, America’s largest federation of unions, has faced calls from some in its membership to end its affiliation with the International Union of Police Associations.

Often, women’s experiences are less present in the stories of how violence has decimated lives, families and communities. From these women writing from inside, we learn of remarkable efforts by families to resist police violence and terror, confront criminalization, and refuse state efforts to turn communities against each other. These stories are critical to the histories emerging from Compton and other sites of ongoing struggle.

Some of the most important Black cultural work coming out of San Francisco is coming from the organizing of Naomi Jelks at the San Francisco Main library. Naomi is one of the few within the City who are bringing us a lot of the local, national and international voices that we need to hear. Check her out as she describes what the library has in store for February and celebrate the SF Bay View’s 40th anniversary at the SF Main Library, 100 Larkin St., on Feb. 21, 1-5 p.m.

Lennar’s track record in Bayview Hunters Point and on Yerba Buena Island clearly demonstrates a pattern of offering assurances they will provide poor, Black and Brown people affordable housing, then finding ways to renege on their promises and kicking them out. Join the protest by residents of Bayview Hunters Point, the Mission and Treasure Island at Lennar’s sales office at 645 Howard St., between Second and Third in downtown San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 28, at noon, for a rally and a quick march to US EPA headquarters.

On Tuesday, federal Judge Claudia Wilken approved the final agreement to end indefinite solitary confinement in California, calling it humane, innovative and fair. Prisoners celebrated the settlement agreement, whose terms were agreed on last September, claiming it as a victory that bolstered their struggle for human rights. Anne Weills pointed out that “what was missing from the courtroom were all the prisoners who risked their lives in the hunger strikes of 2011 and 2013.”

Mama “E” was a well-loved woman who changed California, San Francisco and Bayview Hunters Point forever. With Bible scriptures, fearlessness, faith and divine love planted in her huge heart, chosen and powerfully guided from above, she set out to make changes, for justice and equality. A memorial service will be held on Thursday, Feb. 4, 5:30-7:30 p.m., at Grace Tabernacle Community Church, 1121 Oakdale Ave., and a homegoing service on Friday, Feb. 5, 12 noon, at Providence Baptist Church, 1601 McKinnon, off Third Street, both in Hunters Point, San Francisco.

The tiny East African nation of Burundi remains unbowed despite pressure from Western officials. Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza, speaking to the press yesterday, remained firm in his rejection of a proposed African Union peacekeeping force in his country. U.N. Ambassador to the U.S. Samantha Power expressed her disappointment. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has more.

I talked to the founder of Cultural Links to Academic and Social Success (CLASS), Andrea Lee, about her experience falling in love with traveling, then yearning to take others abroad to learn what life is like in different parts of the world. Andrea is the head of the Dance Department at Laney College and has been taking people all over the world for many years.

“This conference that we are picketing ... is an obscene reflection of the reality of this country today, that the most important thing is money and profit and not human needs!” – Carole Seligman, speaking at the demonstration - It was in their fancy tailored suits and with suspicious eyes that big pharma CEOs and investors got interrupted by protestors and speeches such as the above as they came and went from the too-big-to-fail JP Morgan-sponsored conference on “health care” (read: profit care) at the elite Westin St. Francis hotel on Union Square in San Francisco on Monday, the 11th of January, 2016.

Virtually every person shot to death by police handguns in the U.S. in the last 20 years has been killed with a bullet that international law has declared to be a war crime. By challenging the police dum-dum, the Black Lives movement could assert, even by implication, that Black people, under assault from racist police and the white supremacist state, should be entitled to at least some of the protections of international law.

Observers have an eye on the U.S. government’s response to Uganda’s presidential election coming up on Feb. 18. President Gen. Yoweri Museveni began his 30th year in power in 2016, and he is running for his fifth term. Uganda’s Parliament abolished presidential term limits in Uganda to enable him to remain in power in 2005. Ann Garrison spoke to Milton Allimadi, Ugandan American Editor of the Black Star News, about what to expect.

Today our guest on Block Report Radio is Bomani, formally known as Keith LaMar. He is an Ohio death row political prisoner and survivor of the Lucasville Rebellion 23 years ago. He will talk to us about the history of that rebellion, his recent hunger strike, the state of Ohio planning to set his execution date and more. It’s on honor to have you on, my brother. Can you tell the people about the Lucasville Rebellion?

The title of this article is a quote on a large billboard in a municipality of Habana. The citizens of the U.S. must end the embargo against Cuba, the longest trade embargo in the history of the world, in spite of an indifferent and uncaring U.S. Congress. We will also take back our constitutional right to travel to Cuba at prices more reasonable than the prices I paid a charter air line service.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry on Jan. 21 expressing deep concern that the electoral process in Haiti has sharply deteriorated and been rejected by most sectors of Haitian society. Presidential run-off elections in Haiti are currently scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 24. She warns that forcing demonstrably flawed elections on unwilling voters risks disaster for Haiti and discredit for the United States.

This report reveals the failure of CDCR’s efforts to sustainably reduce incarceration and resolve the humanitarian crisis of its prisons and instead outlines a concerning vision for an expanded and more powerful prison system. We must begin making investments that will sustainably reduce incarceration, close prisons and provide true opportunities for people in low-income communities to thrive.

The deliberate lead poisoning of the people of Flint, especially its children, babies and those still in their mothers’ wombs, likely ranks among the greatest genocidal crimes in the U.S. in the 21st century, an act of domestic terrorism comparable only to the thousands of murders of unarmed Blacks, Latinos and poor people by law enforcement since 2000. Direct action by the people can be the only appropriate response.

On Friday night, Jan. 15, many young people gathered outside of the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church for the start of the “Reclaim MLK” weekend, a 96-hour action dedicated to non-violent protest against police terrorism and gentrification. During rush hour, “Reclaim MLK” protesters shut down the major intersection of Geary at Webster in the Fillmore, once San Francisco’s Black heartland.

The title of my book, “Annotated Tears: America’s Auschwitz,” came from one of the poems inside. It’s a socio-political piece geared toward unveiling California’s injustice system, with specific reference to its treatment of juveniles, which upon reflection resembles Hitler’s Germany. The piece, entitled “America’s Auschwitz,” begins: Everybody’s a victim -- Sick depictions of pain ... Gestapos lurking through the ghettos -- Trailed by a bag of chains ...

Three of the largest churches in Los Angeles County – First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles (FAME), Faithful Central Bible Church and City of Refuge Church – joined forces with Covered California over MLK Jr. Day weekend to reach the African American community with a message that health insurance is now a right that is available to everyone, and it is time to exercise that right by enrolling and getting family and friends to enroll.