Tag: Dr. Martin Luther King

At Dr. King’s funeral, Stevie Wonder learned of John Conyers’ bill to make his birthday a national holiday. To overcome the resistance of conservative politicians, Wonder put his career on hold, led rallies from coast to coast and galvanized millions of Americans with his passion and integrity. But it took 15 years.

At a time when ignoring the planet and its species hastens the end of life as we know it, Graves’s work poses options, some involving magical thinking. The artist illustrates across multiple compositions how powerful Black people are.

Early Saturday, Jan. 12, activists and artists gathered in a theater at the historic Redstone Labor Temple to advocate for the preservation of one the largest community centers for justice organizing in San Francisco. The Mission Economic Development Agency placed a bid of $18 million in December to purchase the Redstone and allow the current nonprofits to operate in the area. If the current owner accepts the MEDA bid, the building could be preserved as a place for low-budget nonprofit organizations in the Mission for the foreseeable future.

As white fists swung at me and dirty cheap boots kicked me, Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Fred Hampton, Nat Turner, Gabriel Prosser and many other influential Black figures flashed across my mind. It was like a revelation or a spiritual awakening advising me that this racially motivated attack by white cowards, as Black cowards shielded witnesses from seeing the volley of punches thrown, is how agents of repression respond to resistance.

October 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the historic and remarkable organizing initiative to boycott the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Dr. Harry Edwards led the boycott efforts, as well as the creation of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, in which he involved countless Black activists from throughout the country, including H. Rap Brown. On Oct. 21, 2018, I was fortunate to interview Dr. Edwards about his 1968 organizing efforts and his affiliation with H. Rap Brown (now Jamil Al-Amin) who also played a leading and inspirational role in this historic 1968 event.

To the republic: This is a demand letter on behalf of the peoples known in the United States of America as African Americans, Blacks. As you know, we suffer from a mental disorder called Mental Slavery, which starts in early childhood and ends at death. Some of the symptoms of this mental disorder include, but are not limited to, the acceptance of an inferior status, severe ignorance and the dismantling of self, family and community.

President Donald Trump’s comments regarding the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi aptly reflect the true nature of the power brokers that he represents. Instead of the usual “Empire-speak” statements, hypocritically condemning Khashoggi’s murder, followed by a pep talk on the values of “democracy” and “freedom of speech,” Trump is basically saying, as the leader of one rogue state to another, that was the “worst cover up ever,” boys, and heads should roll.

After gracing the planet for 76 years, Aretha Franklin joined the ancestors Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. President Obama: “Aretha helped define the American experience. In her voice, we could feel our history, all of it and in every shade – our power and our pain, our darkness and our light, our quest for redemption and our hard-won respect. May the Queen of Soul rest in eternal peace.”

Internationally recognized psychiatrist, management consultant and author of the classic book “Black Rage,” “regarded as one of the most important books on blacks” by the New York Times, Dr. Price M. Cobbs passed on June 25, 2018, at the age of 89. York Times, Dr. Price M. Cobbs passed on June 25, 2018, at the age of 89. His book was the first book written that revealed the full dimensions of the inner conflicts of the desperation of Black life in the United States.

Introduction: Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran, revolutionary journalist and mother of every movement, joined the ancestors on April 10, and just three days later, Bay View Arts Editor Wanda Sabir opened the phone lines on her morning radio show for tributes to our revered comrade. To listen to the entire show, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/wandas-picks/2018/04/13/wandas-picks-radio-show-special-tribute-to-kiilu-nyasha or listen here. – Editor

Las Vegas cops jumped NFL star Michael Bennett, held a gun to his head and threatened to blow it off. How else could they have chosen the perfect target to prove that the U.S. is a racist police state? How else could their police union have followed up with a letter imploring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to investigate Bennett for defaming them by telling his story and claiming that the LVPD had racially profiled him? You can’t make this stuff up.

Don’t forget the legacy of the Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey (Aug. 17, 1887-June 10, 1940) this Black August. There is an annual program at Marcus Books in Oakland, Sunday, Aug. 20, 12:30-3:30 p.m. Happy Birthday to Karla Brundage (8/29), Cousin Jeffery Lewis (8/29), Gene Howell Jr. and to all the ancestors lost in the Great Storm – Katrina (8/29/2005), and to those still swimming home on rafts and other flotilla. Follow the light.

On July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was shot driving while Black outside of St. Paul, Minneapolis. Officer Jeronimo Yanez shot him five times. Philando’s murder was witnessed by his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter in the back seat. Fast forward to June 16, 2017. A Minneapolis jury acquits Officer Yanez of Philando’s murder. On July 15, 2017, barely a month later, Minneapolis police officer Mohammad Noor shoots Justine Damond, a White woman from Australia.

I left CDCr wondering how PBSP could remain in shambles after 22 years of court oversight. As I started educating myself about prison reform, I stumbled upon Keramet Reiter’s 2016 book, “23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement.” Within those pages, I found validation and some disturbing answers. I wish this book had been available to me before I started working in CDCr.

In the film “Accidental Courtesy: Daryl Davis, Race and America,” the activist quietly befriends the philosophical offspring of the white supremacists who made Dr. King’s job so hard from Bombingham to Selma. Daryl Davis, Black man, holds the unique distinction of being an expert on the Ku Klux Klan. We get to travel across the country with Davis as he introduces us to his people – white supremacists and racists. The question he poses, “How can you hate me when you don’t even know me?”

The reverberations. Not the rumbles, the reverberations. The death of Muhammad Ali will undoubtedly move people’s minds to his epic boxing matches against Joe Frazier and George Foreman, or there will be retrospectives about his epic “rumbles” against racism and war. But it’s the reverberations that we have to understand in order to see Muhammad Ali as what he remains: the most important athlete to ever live.

This article was prompted by the unrelenting campaign by friends and associates of the late Dr. Walter Rodney, to maintain the false accusation that Forbes Burnham ordered Walter Rodney’s assassination. Many of these academics and commentators are not Guyanese and do not fully understand the circumstances in 1980 that led to Walter Rodney’s demise. The adage, chanted by Bob Marley, that “half the story has never been told” is 100 percent correct.

2015 was a historic political year for the African continent because one of the continent’s most radical anti-imperialist leaders chaired the African Union, and I am talking about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. I talked with Obi Egbuna, the U.S. correspondent for the Zimbabwean national newspaper, The Herald, about what President Mugabe accomplished leading Zimbabwe and the African Union in 2015. Here is what he had to say.

On Monday, June 29, over a hundred working class families of Midtown Park Apartments were joined by community activists, concerned citizens and legal advisors for a rally in support of over 55 households whose rent increased 300 percent. The only such property that is owned by the City, Midtown’s original intent by then Supervisors Diane Feinstein and Ella Hill Hutch was to transform this complex into an equity cooperative – a promise that never materialized.

Over the weekend the organization Friends of Victoire hosted an international webcast to strategize about how to free Rwandan political prisoner Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza. Ingabire has become an icon of freedom, democracy and peace since returning to Rwanda in 2010 to attempt to stand for the presidency against incumbent Rwandan President Paul Kagame.