Tag: Leroy F. Moore Jr.

The bedbug nightmare, it so so wrong, sleeping in the bathtub for way too long.

Oakland in the ‘80s and ‘90s blessed us with the likes of Tony, Toni, Tone, young MC Hammer, Digital Underground, Too Short and Dawn Robinson of En Vogue, just to name a few, at a time when there were only a few home studios. Joe Capers, aka Blind Joe, a blind musician and producer, was one of the creators of the sounds of the Oakland music scene in the 1980s and early 1990s.

On Friday, Aug. 10, Ronald Muwanga, commonly called Ronnie Ronnie, a member of Krip Hop Nation Worldwide and founder of the Krip Hop chapter in Uganda, was arrested, beaten and tortured with a colleague, Herbert Zziwa, he works with at NTV Uganda, a national television station. The duo was covering the scene where a driver for a Member of Parliament was shot dead by presidential security personnel.

There we were – the unhoused, the evicted, the displaced, the disabled, Black, Brown, Indigenous, poor white, youth and elders on one accord, all colors, all nations, all cultures, all ages, all abilities. The 2018 Poor Peoples March on Washington was originally launched by impacted poor, houseless and formerly unhoused people from the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign 15 years ago. Poor folks walked in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor Peoples March on Washington in 1968.

Slavery ended in the U.S. after the 13th Amendment was ratified on Dec. 6, 1865. However, disabled slaves were kept on plantations because slavery was connected to the ability to work. Jim Downs, among other scholars, wrote an essay entitled, “The Continuation of Slavery: The Experience of Disabled Slaves during Emancipation,” which explains that disabled slaves were seen as non-workers. Because they could not work, they were kept on plantations to be “taking care of.” But in reality, they continued to work for their “masters.”

When I started Krip-Hop Nation 10 years ago, the first artist I met online and face to face was Rob “Da Noize” Temple of Brooklyn. Since that time, Noize Studio has become a second home for Krip-Hop Nation and the studio that professionally produced and mixed most of my spoken word mixtapes and Krip-Hop Nation’s songs on our six CDs. Now Temple, his studio and family are being evicted as the forces of gentrification are burning and privatizing Brooklyn at a fast pace.

In the mid-‘80s, before computers, Black and disabled teenager Leroy F. Moore Jr. was very interested in the welfare of people with disabilities in South Africa. Leroy tried to write a paper on that subject at the time but, due to lack of accessible public information, the paper ended up being only two pages. That is when he knew that he had to visit South Africa. His research was later enhanced by the advent of computers and the internet.

Cleve Bailey has taken the story of his great uncle and aunt, George and Kathy Eames, and created a screenplay entitled “A Small Temporary Inconvenience,” which chronicles the lives of this interracial couple who dedicated their lives to civil rights activism and fighting against racism in the Deep South. I caught up with Cleve, who now lives in the Bay Area in Hayward, to get his take on the film project.

I’m used to reading about and advocating for adults with disabilities, but today our Black and Brown youth with disabilities are increasingly targeted for police brutality and incarceration. Everybody cares about kids, so when will disabled and Black community activists focus more on stopping state violence against youth with disabilities and providing programs after the tragedy?

A lot of activists in the U.S. joke during election times or when things get hot that they will move to Canada, but Canada is no utopia and can be rough living especially for people of color with disabilities, just like the U.S. There have been several cases of police brutality against people with disabilities, especially in Toronto. I spoke with Somali-Canadian singer and activist Sulekha Ali about her autistic brother’s run-in with the police on June 3, 2015, in Ottawa.

Devaughn Frierson Jr., better known as Bo, endeavors every day to protect his community and, like the Black Panthers, he doesn’t turn his back to abuse by police. As a community journalist who is a Black disabled man like Bo, I wanted to get to know what drives this activist, who is a hero to his neighbors but was treated abominably by San Francisco police.

Ronald Galiwango and Krip-Hop Nation teamed up in 2013 to write articles, published in the SF Bay View newspaper, about a single father raising two daughters with disabilities who needed wheelchairs to get around. The campaign turned into a two-year effort with two goals 1) wheelchairs and 2) education. Here is Ronald's update on this successful campaign with pictures of Atim at school.

I hope the Black community in the Bay Area will share their stories of that time to finally tell the full story of our key involvement in the 504 sit-in and what came out of it that helped the Black disabled community and the Black community, covering all sides of the story – racism, ableism, a sense of accomplishment, self-pride, empowerment, frustrations etc. I’ve provided below some ideas on how to help with this exhibit.

Community Empowerment Programs Incorporated will be working extensively with Leroy F. Moore Jr., founder of Krip Hop Nation, on programs that empower people with disabilities in arts, self-advocacy and music. The partnership will start working on its first annual activism, music and arts event facilitated by African American leaders hosted in Albany, N.Y., and a location to be determined in New York City shortly thereafter.

The 18th Annual Maafa Commemoration Ritual is Sunday, Oct. 13, 2013, predawn. We meet at Ocean Beach, Fulton at the Great Highway. The ritual is for people of African Descent (Black people from throughout the globe). There are so many great events this month, but not enough space to list them all.

The story of the late Joe Capers continues to unfold with help from Naru Kwina, Krip-Hop Nation and Joe’s family. Joe Capers, aka Blind Joe, changed Oakland’s music sound in the ‘80s and early ‘90s with his talents in engineering and playing musical instruments. He came to Oakland by the way of Texas with his family.

My youngest of two sons was diagnosed with Down syndrome. I’ve been advocating through projects for over seven years. “Then You Stand”, a play on Down syndrome starring an all-Black cast, is a production that anyone will be able to relate to. I hope people walk away with the feeling that no matter what they face in life, they can and will rise above it.

Lisa Alexander, the mother of a young man with autism, Reginald "Neli" Latson, has been fighting for justice and her son’s freedom from wrongful incarceration since May 24, 2010. Lisa was convicted on Jan. 10, 2012, of a misdemeanor and jailed by the same district attorney who prosecuted Neli.

When Martin Luther King was killed in Memphis, he was about to join the sanitation workers in their protest for a union and more decent wages. The movement for civil rights was taking hold in the North and America didn’t like it – so off with King’s head.