Tag: Black History Month

COME WALK WITH ME – south, across the busy intersection of Third and Williams to Carroll. FINALLY, A COMMUNITY DREAM REALIZED! Groundbreaking Ceremony, Saturday morning, March 1, kicked off the long anticipated building of the NEW DR. GEORGE W. DAVIS Senior Center and Housing to be completed by 2015. The sight and sounds of trucks hauling material, tractors, drilling. Sounds of PROGRESS – JOBS! JOBS!

Another Black History Month with pomp, circumstance and countless hollow speeches has been taking place all over San Francisco. Does anyone notice it is only a matter of time until Black people living in San Francisco will become history? The 1970 Black population of “everyone’s favorite city” was a hundred thousand, according to city records. The latest census says Blacks account for just under 47,000 of the city’s 825,000 people.

Marcus Book Store is in the midst of a grassroots campaign – from Jan. 20 to Feb. 20 – to raise a million dollars in 30 days. Personally I am committed to reaching out to the people directly. The power is still in the people. Exercise your power. KEEP Marcus Books LIT! For the next 30 days we would like everyone to memorize and repeat the mantra, “Please, donate $20 in your own name and HELP ten others do the same! Thank you.”

Named after the author of the classic “Miseducation of the Negro” and the founder of Black History Week, which later graduated into Black History Month, this bowl is a competition, where contestants are on teams that try to be the fastest to answer questions deriving from Black history. We are taking a minute with the founder of the Dr. Carter G. Woodson Black History Bowl, Yafeu Tyhimba, so that he can discuss the competition’s history and future.

With negative corporate rap taking hold of youth pop culture and our young people’s minds, this Islamic inspired “Karbala Mixtape” is doing its much needed part to fill the cultural void with constructive, meaningful music that pushes one to be a better, more informed person. Imam Hashim Alauddeen helped to oversee a roster of talented artists who have contributed to this project.

KPFA is not living up to its own creed when it ignores the fact that there are more Black people in prison now than were in slavery in 1850. The station is vacillating on whether or not to grant three hours of special coverage to the California prison hunger strike. Pacifica and KPFA are definitely ruining their brand of “progressive” radio with this racist activity. I want to thank all of you who signed the petition to restore me to the airwaves and contacted management at the station and the network on my behalf. But we can’t stop. We must loosen the grip of racism that is killing KPFA.

The Chedepo Grebo Cultural Festival is a major African cultural and social event for families, businesses and the public to come and enjoy great food, educational cultural information and live cultural entertainment. The date is Sunday, July 7, 2013, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. The place is the Tarlesson Family Farm, 7090 State Highway 16, Guinda, California 95637. The festival is open to the public and admission is FREE!

It is time to call for and mobilize “People United to Combat Media and Government Emasculation of Martin Luther King Jr.” It must be recognized that by consistently imposing upon the public the image of a person who had a dream and was essentially innocuous, the U.S. government and the country’s commercial media are emasculating a man in death whom they could not weaken or intimidate in life.

Esther Cooper Jackson, born in Arlington, Virginia, graduated from Ohio’s Oberlin College, received her MA degree in sociology from Fisk University, then remarkably turned down a scholarship offer to Chicago University to earn a PhD to relocate to Birmingham, Ala., where she became the organizational secretary for the Southern Negro Youth Congress.

The 23rd African American Celebration through Poetry is Saturday, Feb. 2, 2013, 1-4 p.m. at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline St., in Oakland, (510) 238-7352. All are welcome and if anyone didn’t hear of the event in time to be a part of the featured program, we do have an open mic at the end of the program.

There are a lot of people out there who are concerned about how you spend your money. Embrace this glorious month of February and our incomparably rich history that extends back God knows where and support the future Gabby Douglases and Colin Kaepernicks and George Washington Carvers of the world by buying Black.

Going back to nature is going back to what’s natural and good for your health and wellbeing and going back to your natural selves. Going back to nature is going back to Black, Mama Nature’s original people. We should teach our children about the cycles of the moon and the difference between planting and harvesting seasons, the ancient Afrikan Sciences of the Years.

The Marcus Garvey Building, also known as Liberty Hall, located at 1485 Eighth Street in West Oakland, is an A-1+ rated national historic landmark that has fallen victim to the mortgage crisis and has been taken from the community through a foreclosure bulk purchase by Citi Property Holdings, Inc., a Florida-based hedge fund. Join the fight to keep Liberty Hall, the Marcus Garvey Building, in the hands of the West Oakland community that it has cared for, loved and served for more than 100 years.

Black August Memorial (BAM) is not about senseless acts of violence or gang activity. Black August was inspired by the death of our fallen Black dragons and includes other New Afrikan freedom fighters who gave their lives to our struggle for freedom, who made that ultimate and unselfish sacrifice in the service of our revolutionary struggle.

When we, Black America’s trillion dollar nation, start circulating our dollars within the community more, more of us will have more dollars in our pockets and purses, and as a result there will be less crime, less violence and a dwindling homicide rate. Happy, prosperous people don’t commit crimes, steal and kill.

The Oakland International Film Festival is Friday-Sunday, April 6-8, at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Street, Oakland. Visit http://www.oiff.org/2012schedule.pdf. This year’s headliner is one of the most controversial independent films ever made, “The Spook Who Sat by the Door.” Watch it again here.

Amoeblog invited author, journalist, broadcaster and activist JR Valrey, aka the People’s Minister of Information, to be a guest contributor. The Oakland-based Valrey, who was interviewed and profiled on the Amoeblog last month, is known for his work on KPFA radio, the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, and his book “Block Reportin’.” The book will soon be available for sale in Amoeba Hollywood’s book section.

Africans in Haiti, by the tens of thousands, broke their chains and though penniless, hungry and scarred by the ravages of bondage, found weapons and the will to fight for freedom against the defenders of slavery: France, Britain, and Spain. They did what no “slave” army had ever done in modern or ancient history. They defeated an empire.

Welcome to the great month of February, my favorite month of the year! And I’m not just saying that because on Feb. 18 my starship landed here. And on the day before that, the 17th, the voice and moxy of the Black Panthers, Huey P. Newton, was born. And on the 14th of this guilded, star-studded month the furious freedom fighter Frederick Douglass hit the earth like a comet!

On the United Nations' “World Day of Social Justice,” Monday, Feb. 20, we are calling a National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners. In the Bay Area we will Occupy San Quentin 12-3 p.m. Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on Death Row, joins the call to Occupy San Quentin and demand an end to capital punishment.