Tag: Black Panthers

The Los Angeles Richard Aoki Commemoration Committee will acknowledge the life and legacy of San Francisco Bay Area activist and organizer Richard Aoki, member of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), on Sunday, Sept. 16, at 4 p.m., at Centenary United Methodist Church in Little Tokyo at 300 S. Central Ave., Los Angeles.

The New York Times published a piece called “Oakland, the Last Refuge of Radical America” that pretty much had everyone in Oakland scratching their heads and mouthing a collective WTF? Is Oakland the last refuge for radicalism where outsiders are invading the city? No, Oakland is a city where people are not shy about fighting for and demanding justice.

Aoki NEVER was an agent. The over-emphasis upon Aoki providing the Panthers their first firearms is sensationalist fodder. What is conveniently ignored is what he contributed most to the Panthers and to the legacy of the U.S. revolutionary movement: promoting revolutionary study, ideology and disciplined organization. That’s why he was field marshal – because the cat could organize and tolerated no indiscipline and lack of seriousness. To the end of his life, Aoki could go toe-to-toe with any intellectual, theorist or organizer on the complexities and challenges of revolutionary theory.

The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco has ruled in a 3-0 decision that alleged members and associates of the New Afrikan revolutionary leftist organization titled the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) and all New Afrikan prisoners have a First Amendment right to expression of their United States constitutional rights to speak to the New Afrikan nationalist revolutionary man ideology. These are clearly our political beliefs.

An estimated 80,000 men, women and even children are being held in solitary confinement on any given day in U.S. prisons. If the struggle to end inhumane treatment inside prisons is to become anything more than a largely apolitical movement for so-called “civil rights,” it must put two long-ignored points back on the agenda: race and revolution.

Although Ice T is mostly known for his pimp and gun talk, his most threatening lyric was “my lethal weapon is my mind.” That still holds true today, as, although white mainstream Americans profess to hate violent, misogynist rap music, the reason why they back it financially and give it a platform is because of their fear of the alternative: music that will inspire Black people to challenge the status quo.

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!

Is the Occupy Movement against slavery, or is it that some people are just mad because they never get to hold the whip? Do you not see racism? Can you see it in this movement? Where is the support for justice for Raheim Brown in Oakland and Kenneth Harding in San Francisco?

I am trying my best to help myself, but I am greatly suffering from traumatic psychological emotional breakdowns. Sometimes I have to stop doing everything and sing to myself for an hour or I break down and start crying or I start eating when I do not want to eat. I do not have anyone to help me do my suit and I wrote you this letter asking if you can get one of the smart people you have there to help me.

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.

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.

Dhanifu Karim Bey, an elder in Los Angeles’ conscious community, a former Black Panther and a long time school teacher, is being forced to fight for his life unjustifiably in court in a three strikes case. Pack the courtroom Friday, Aug. 5, 8 a.m., Norwalk County District Court, Department J, 12720 Norwalk Blvd., in Norwalk.

“I Twirl in the Smoke” is a new collection of writings by Meres-Sia Gabriel, the daughter of two Black Panthers, most notably former Minister of Culture and internationally known artist Emory Douglas.

In “Block Reportin’,” Oakland journalist and filmmaker JR Valrey lays bare stories of struggle and resistance through a collection of nearly a decade of interviews with local political leaders, national Black resistance leaders, artists and family members who’ve suddenly seen themselves cast into the spotlight.

My comrades, Hajj Malcolm Shabazz and Ra'Shida, and I (Minister of Information JR) were invited by international peace activist Cynthia McKinney to participate in the historic Conference of African Migrants in Europe held from Jan. 15-17 in Tripoli, Libya. Malcolm spoke at a televised event and got a standing ovation.

Journalist JR Valrey, who was born in 1978, grew up mostly in Oakland, where the legend of the Black Panther Party was all around him. “A lot of the people around here are Panthers, or knew Panthers or are members of the Black Guerilla Family, which was an organization that Field Marshall George Jackson of the Black Panther Party founded. The revolution is very deep in Oakland. It’s not so cosmetic as it is other places. It’s not just about bandannas and t-shirts and concert throwing and posturing. I think it’s more grassroots here and more ingrained in the spirit of the people.”

No matter how much you know about Mumia, you’re sure to find something new and exciting here – beginning with an introduction that sets the scene, then Mumia’s latest essay, “The dirty game (POLITICS),” an open letter he wrote in 1981 called “The sting of betrayal,” followed by some “Blackground info” and concluding with “Mumia Abu Jamal Radio Teach-In” featuring the voices of M1 of dead prez and Minister of Information JR, Ramona and Pam Africa and more.

Hard Knock Radio is a must-listen show broadcast weekdays on KPFA 94.1 FM at 4-5 p.m. On Oct. 26, the show kicked off with this historic conversation between host Davey D, Minister of Information JR and Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of Malcolm X.

Just as Hurricane Katrina revealed racial inequalities, the recovery has also been shaped by systemic racism. According to a recent survey of New Orleanians by the Kaiser Foundation, 42 percent of African Americans – versus just 16 percent of whites – said they still have not recovered from Katrina. Thirty-one percent of African-American residents – versus 8 percent of white respondents – said they had trouble paying for food or housing in the last year.

Marilyn Buck was a former political prisoner and prisoner of war. Along with Mutulu Shakur, she was responsible for the liberation of Assata Shakur from prison in 1979. She later went underground and spent 25 years in prison. She was released July 15, 2010. Then suddenly, only 19 days later, she was gone.