Tag: Frederick Douglass

The Bay View must become the people’s voice, The Bay View speaks to our culture of resistance, justice and freedom. A voice for the unheard. The solutions and proposals we develop cannot serve our community trapped in this concrete hell with us. But the Bay View will serve as that bridge. Community activists, parents, students and youth can tap into our think tank via the Bay View. This is why it is imperative for our people and community to subscribe to the Bay View, the only national newspaper that provides lifesaving and life-sustaining service to the New Afrikan community.

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!

We are committed to contributing to meaningful and lasting change. And this is part of what keeps us amongst the sane. We understand, and always have, that the price that we will pay for this is the efforts to silence us, to isolate and destroy us!

Will two little girls from the future manage to save Frederick Douglass and his mission to ensure the emancipation of millions of enslaved Africans? If all children read and discuss this book, racial justice will be achievable as soon as they are old enough to lead. This is a book that will light up the life of every child.

“I Am America: Black Genealogy Through the Eye of An Artist” will run from Nov. 5, 2011, through Feb. 2, 2012, at the San Francisco Main Library African American Center. A reception with the genealogists and artists will take place on Sunday, Nov. 20, 1-2 p.m. A program follows from 2 to 3 p.m. in the Latino Hispanic Room.

Like the country it governs, Washington is a city of extremes. In a car, you can zip in bare moments from northwest District of Columbia, its streets lined with million-dollar homes and palatial embassies, its inhabitants sporting one of the nation’s lowest jobless rates, to Anacostia, a mostly forgotten neighborhood in southeastern D.C. with one of the highest unemployment rates anywhere in America.

The new book by Manning Marable, “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention,” will help us to get a deeper understanding of Malcolm X and the times we’re living in now. This will not be a direct result of what Marable has done, but rather of what needs to happen now because of what he has done.

Ask anyone who has ever been on a hunger strike; the process of intentionally starving oneself is a very painful ordeal. And yet, there are places on this planet where the idea of death is preferable to continuing down a path that offers no hope or relief from suffering. I live in such a place; I know.

Invariably around this time of the year, the Fourth of July, you’re likely to hear somebody talking about how great this country is. And it is, but so was the Third Reich.

"I was at his (President Aristide's) house, we heard a roar of shouts of joy, and then over the walls people started coming in, pouring into the courtyard of the house when they saw the car. People were accompanying the car as many as three miles from the airport to his house," relates Pierre Labossiere of the jubilant welcome that greeted the Aristides on their return to Haiti ending seven long years of exile for them and brutal repression of the people they had to leave behind. Pierre tells the story of the Haitian people and how their never-say-die spirit continues to inspire the world.

Hallelujah! Revolution has come! The political miracle spreads as the power of the people manifests all over North Africa, particularly Tunisia and Egypt. This could very possibly be the beginning of a global revolution that would free the people of the world from the tyranny of the 1 percent who own 80 percent of the world’s resources – and initiate real democratic self-determination. As Frederick Douglass noted: “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” We must collectively and globally demand our human rights, human equality. All power to the people! People of the world, unite! - Kiilu Nyasha

July brings to mind many historic events, such as Frederick Douglass’ speech at an event July 5, 1852, commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity ..."

On July 5, 1852, the great orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglas delivered an electrifying speech where he posed what was possibly the most significant question of his time; “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” He received a thunderous round of applause. Today I still ask, Why do Black folks feel obligated to dress up in red, white and blue top hats and sing the Star Spangled Banner to commemorate a day when our ancestors were picking tobacco in the hot Carolina sun?

Time is of the essence in Haiti, yet the international response has been painfully, tragically slow. Would this pace of rescue – where every minute counts in digging people out of the wreckage – have been the case if the earthquake victims were European?

"The Other America" by Martin Luther King Jr. "is a chilling, troubled speech made with the background of urban riots, pleas for Black Power and the Vietnam War." - Ishmael Reed

The thing that most threw me off about this East Oakland native is that she loves opera. She has been singing longer in her life than she hasn’t been, and seems to be able to hit notes that makes glass break. She has recently been cast in a Black opera called “Dark River,” which tells the story of legendary Civil Rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. It opens at the Oakland Metro Opera House on Nov. 12 and runs until the 22nd.

Paul Robeson was an extraordinary and versatile individual, world famous during his lifetime, who has been deliberately erased from the dominant myth of U.S. history for speaking the truth about conditions both domestic and abroad – his opposition to racism, fascism and colonialism and his support for civil and human rights, democracy, national liberation, socialism and the day-to-day resistance of working people of all lands to oppression, knowing that his fame would allow these messages to be more widely heard.

In many ways, Black August, at least in the West, begins in Haiti. It is the Blackest August possible — revolution and resultant liberation from bondage. From its earliest days, Haiti was declared an asylum for escaped slaves, and a place of refuge for any person of African or American Indian descent.

Black August begins with a campaign for the acquittal of Francisco Torres, the only member of the San Francisco 8 still charged. Go to www.freethesf8.org for messages to phone or fax to Attorney General Jerry Brown, urging him to drop the charges. Cisco’s hearing is Aug. 10 if the charges aren’t dropped.

What was amazing about the hearing Monday was the prosecution’s admission that it didn’t have enough evidence to convict these men. As attorney Daro Inouye said of Jalil Muntaqim, who pled no contest to the prosecution’s charge of conspiracy, his client picked up a loaded grenade to save his brothers, his friends, his fellow defendants, and he didn’t plead guilty. That language did not pass his lips.