Tag: Malcolm X

Moved to our own educational critical thinking by Joe A’Jene Valentine’s critique of F.M. Shabazz’ story in SFBV’s May 2021 issue, another gift of shared humanity from the inside expands the view.

Love and care for each other proves once again to bring unity and well-being in place of fear and division.

As Ethnic Studies morph at the hands of the powerful, students are being force-fed whitewashed education by teachers without choices.

“I freed a lot of comics … if I never would have done comedy, it would’ve been a different art form … I’m sure of it.” – Paul Mooney

Kwame Shakur skillfully documents an unfolding roadmap in revolutionary movement for self-determination, liberation and freedom building substance and solidarity among the people.

Through Black labor, Black love, Black life and Black presence, Wanda Sabir presents jewels for honoring, learning, enjoying and discovering, by enticing our exploration in this month of Women’s History Day, International Women’s History Month, the still unfolding of story of Malcom X and struggle for liberation and self-determination through writers like Walter Mosley, theater from Oakland Theater Project, a cross-country experience with the Diamano Coura West African Dance Company and more.

Wanda Sabir opens the door to the abundance of February with the gifts of Black History Month, observations on today’s Jim Crow, stories and people we may not know about like Adam David Miller (A.D.) and young Amanda Gorman, who’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” breathed hope and vitality into a weary country at the Inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Victor Wallis remembers his friend, Hugh Lyons, incarcerated numerous times in IDOC’s Pendleton Correctional Facility. Lyons’ humanity, buoyant spirit, sensitive, compassionate and gifted aspects, seen also in so many other prisoners, are today even more systematically discounted and disregarded by the Indiana Department of Corrections.

Rope, bullet or knee. Rand Gould gives us a clear and present opportunity to digest the story, the players and the possibilities, to take charge, to identify and build our communities to join the movement and feel the strength of unity to actualize the change we demand.

Kevin Cooper, still caged in San Quentin after 37 years, 35 years on Death Row, speaks with KPFA’s Flashpoints Dennis Bernstein in an exclusive in-depth interview. Cooper talks about simultaneously surviving Death Row and the COVID-19 pandemic, the blues and highlights the opportunity for Governor Gavin Newsom to order an Innocence Investigation, which will shine direct light on prosecutorial wrongdoings and new DNA evidence to support his innocence.

Another star shines in the night sky. Ronnie Goodman passed away in early August this year. He died on the street, just after his 60th birthday, on the same corner where he’d been living for more than a year. We stood around waiting for the medical examiner to come and take him. The cops had put a sheet over him.

I was startled momentarily while driving down International and 87th Ave as I noticed a mural being drawn on the opposite side of the block from the East Bay Dragons Motorcycle Clubhouse. The faces of Marcus Garvey, Huey P. Newton, Malcolm X and others were being painted back to life.

No justice, no peace! These are the words that are filling streets around the world. This is a cry out from a people who are fed up.

It’s been quite some time since I last chimed in, I know. Sitting in this cell, I sometimes forget that being a voice in this world requires speaking out about who (and where) you are from time to time, and reporting truly what you see and feel. Truth be told, I stumbled a bit and lost my footing after receiving an execution date at the end of 2018. It made me so mad: having an expiration date attached to my existence! Days, weeks, a whole year slipped into the future.

To understand the story of Jesus is to understand that he lived in a time when there was class warfare between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, the oppressor and the oppressed, much like it is today.

David Gilbert has paid a heavy price for his crime. Granting him clemency would allow him to contribute his many talents to his family, friends and the community at large, and his release would send a message of hope to the many elders serving lengthy sentences.

“Jazz,” adapted by Nambi E. Kelley from Toni Morrison’s novel, is a tragic composition. Performed across a series of lyrically connected (woven) tapestries: colors, sounds, fractured memories … missing people, guns (bullets) falling tears, treetops, wild woods, sharecropped promises, fire terror, unclaimed bodies … too many bodies to count … love.

May our Divine Mother-Father Creator of and in All – and Beloved Ancients and Ancestors from yesteryears and yesterdays – find you and (y)our extended Family in sacred Spirit, healing and thriving. WE are hoping to be in the magnificent presence of those of you around the Bay Area soon … possibly, at upcoming events like International Workers’ Day on 1 May (at the Port of Oakland); the 19th Annual MALCOLM X Jazz & Art Fest on 18 May (at San Antonio Park, Oakland); African Liberation Day on 25 May (in Oakland); and other venues. Asé.

Since I became “woke” about the true level of racism and injustice in this country, it has become easier to recognize the proverbial “house negro.” One of them recently commented to another prisoner, “He thinks he’s Black,” referring to my constant defense of Black people and anti-racist views and loud comments about that racist pig in the White House. Of course, he didn’t say this to my face.

On Oct. 4, 2015, at the McConnell Ad-Seg Unit located in Beeville, Texas, prisoner Jarvis Dugas, No. 1386881, was preparing for a visit with his mother. Dugas, who is known to his friends as “Homestead,” is a Black man who is mentally handicapped and physically dis­abled. He walks with a pronounced limp. Dugas’ mother, Regina Strange, is a former employee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. She is all too familiar with the overt tactics of mistreatment, abuse and degradation associated with the corrupt prison agency and because she knows that, she regularly visits her son Jarvis.