By Walter Rodney, November 1971 To most readers in this continent, starved of authentic information by the imperialist news agencies, the name of George Jackson is either unfamiliar or just a name. The powers that be in the United States put forward the official version that George Jackson was a dangerous criminal kept in maximum security in Americas toughest jails and still capable of killing a guard at Soledad Prison. They say that he himself was killed attempting escape this year in August. Official versions given by the United States of everything from the Bay of Pigs in Cuba to . . .
Black August
Huey Newton, George Jackson & What They Mean to Us
This week is quite a historical week as it relates to the African liberation struggle within the confines of the colony known as the U.S. In August of 1971, George Jackson, who was incarcerated in California, was murdered inside prison walls there. As a response to his murder and oppressive prison conditions, incarcerated persons from all walks of life banded together at Attica Prison in New York and staged a rebellion that saw about 40 people slaughtered by prison officials and police. In August of 1989, Huey P. Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and . . .
Black August, Letter Writing and the ‘Harm Reduction’ Administration
There are four major components in the yearly commemorations of Black August: study, fast, train, and fight. People are encouraged to study the works and words of former and current political and politicized prisoners. People are encouraged to fast from sunrise to sunset. People are encouraged to train and become more physically active. People are encouraged to fight against the system. However, one of the lesser centered but equally important aspects of Black August is letter writing. Nearly a half-century ago, Gresham Sykes wrote in The Society of Captives: A Study of a Maximum Security Prison that, “life in the . . .
Black August, COINTELPRO & Learning The Important Lessons
As 2021 moves along, there are a number of things that, like the sun following the moon, remain constant. The international capitalist system continues to utilize its control over our brain waves to promote, institutionalize, and normalize lies, confusion, and misinformation. The masses of humanity continue to resist this oppression in any number of creative and evolving ways. And, the forces attempting to organize against the system continue to claim complete mastery over how the government manipulated our movements in the past while simultaneously and foolishly behaving in the same destructive ways, especially on social media, that sabotaged our work . . .
Kalonji Jama Changa on the Meaning of Black August
Transcript Erica “The ultimate expression of law is not order — it’s prison… The law and everything that interlocks with it was constructed for poor desperate people.” –George Jackson Peace Africans! My name is Erica and I’m an editor at hood communist and I want to welcome you to hood communist radio! State oppression breeds many versions of political activism, but prison activism continues to be a unique form of resistance. In George Jackson’s case, a liberation movement emerged from a space of captivity. The legacy of George Jackson is felt through the continued resistance of prisoners today who, . . .
Black August: Fight, Study, Fast, Train
Black August is an African (Black) institution that is commemorated annually to honor the contributions of our African freedom fighters who sacrificed in order to strike blows against the U.S. capitalist empire on behalf of the African masses. . . .