Tag: South Central Los Angeles

San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin appoints longtime San Francisco public servant David Campos as the new chief of staff for the SF District Attorney’s Office. With a long commitment of service to the Bay Area, David Campos brings deep and personal understanding to the challenges in achieving reform to the drivers of injustice for the most vulnerable in our communities.

A federal jury in San Francisco awarded $25,000 in damages to Jesse Perez, who sued guards for trashing his cell in retaliation for his lawsuit against the prison and for his stand against solitary confinement. Jesse Perez, 35, imprisoned since age 15, was sent to the SHU at Pelican Bay in December 2003 and was held there for 10 years. He took part in all three hunger strikes in 2011 and 2013, protesting prolonged isolation and demanding human rights for prisoners.

Here is the story of two legends who gave everything to their people for decades and continued to their last breaths. Salute to the Freeman brothers, Roland and Elder. Elder Freeman was a mentor and uncle-like community figure at whose feet I sat for half my life, learning from him and his comrades fundamental lessons: true African communalism and how to sincerely love Black people through action

The Leimert Park Village Book Fair, based in South Central Los Angeles, is the main annual literary event for the Black community on the West Coast. A number of authors and screenwriters attend every year to expose the community to their latest work, and thousands of book lovers come to see what all of these writers have cooked up. Check out Leimert Park Village Book Fair founder Cynthia Exum in her own words.

As a people who should be championing the cause of the tired, the poor and the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, we need to first find humane solutions to our social ills. Isolation, incarceration and, yes, LWOP sentences are barbaric and sit in the realm of the lesser of two evils. And that’s why California still has the cruel instruments of death as its solutions.

Unseen scars are what so many of our single parents in poverty are struggling with, living with, pushing through. Add the requisite criminalization of poor parents through welfare systems, child protective services, landlords and school systems and, for immigrant parents, the anti-immigrant hate and racism; it is a constant battlefield.

“The Streetz Gon’ Cry” is a very vivid and descriptive fictional account of life in one of the nation’s gang bang meccas: South Central Los Angeles. This independently published work of literary art was recently authored by Anthony Barrow and Tracey “Big Tray Deee” Davis from Snoop’s group, Tha Eastsidaz, while prisoners at the California Men’s Colony.

“I am attempting to reach Generation Y and show them not only how to become successful but also how to handle success when it becomes overwhelming, because it will. I was always good at humbling myself, and that is a quality I am trying to instill in the youth here at my school.” - YoYo

The fundamental stimulus of the attack on Libya is greed, not the protection of the Libyan people. In fact, the people of Libya have suffered more during this bombardment by Western powers and their allies than during the entire 41 years of the leadership of Muammar al-Gaddafi. We must be clear that the attack on Libya is an attack on Africa. The great danger of the attacks on Libya is that they are being used by the U.S. to test the effectiveness of AFRICOM, the African Command, and this adventure will open the door to direct military intervention in Africa.

If you want to do your part to help our young people, you will vote. You must vote yes on Proposition 19, the marijuana constitutional amendment. The war on drugs is a war on the little dope dealer. Those who profit the most are immune from arrest and prosecution.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who waged a more successful war on drugs than the entire U.S. government, was concerned with people like Ronald Reagan and George Bush, who made enormous profits from this trade by flooding urban America with poison. Her efforts to investigate were suppressed by Porter Goss, who then chaired the House Intelligence Committee. Now Goss heads the ethics office that charged Waters with ethics violations for her legitimate advocacy for Black banks and economic justice for Black and Brown people.

Freeway Ricky Ross was one of the biggest publicly known fundraisers for the U.S. government’s proxy wars against the people of Latin America, specifically in the countries of Nicaragua and El Salvador. He didn’t do it selling candy like school children do; he did it selling thousands of kilos of crack cocaine in the Los Angeles area. After serving over 20 years behind enemy lines, he met with me in Chicago at Mosque Maryam, where he was the featured speaker two weeks ago.