On November 15th, 1998, Kwame Ture (formally Stokely Carmichael) made his physical transition. I remember where I was when we received the news. We were at Sacramento State University, early on a Sunday morning, preparing to begin our work study meeting when one of the members came in and made the announcement. None of us were surprised. Kwame had been ill with the prostate cancer that eventually took his life for quite some time. I remember thinking things were about to change for all of us. [Over] Twenty years later, we have gone through major growing pains as an organization . . .
Black Panther Party
When I Actually Got to Hang out with Assata Shakur
Some folks actually follow celebrities from city to city with the objective of taking pictures with these well known actors, musicians, athletes, etc. You’ll never catch me doing anything like that. I’ve actually had opportunities to meet many people in those fields whose work I admire such as George Clinton, Chris Webber, Forest Whitaker, and Derek Jeter. But I passed on walking up to them because although I respect their craft, I just don’t see what they do as something deserving of that level of adulation. At least not from me. What I mean is, it’s not like Jeter, Michael . . .
55 Years Since the Black Panther Party & We Still Affirm Our Right to Defend our Communities
During a year where so many of our people have been abandoned and are looking for direction, we must ask ourselves how might the Black Panther Party grappled with the coronavirus pandemic? How would an organization that looked at the pandemics of their time— dope, illiteracy, police terror, etc., approach supporting communities who desperately need health care that is being withheld from them. . . .
When You Die, What Will People Say About You?
Get in the practice of periodically asking yourself the same question. If you were to drop dead right now, what would people say about you? The answer to that question will never be provided by how many internet arguments you believe you won. It won’t materialize based upon how many people you overtalked or abusively dominated. And, it won’t be influenced by whatever image of yourself you spent so much time constructing that has absolutely nothing to do with who you really are as a person. . . .
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: 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. . . .
Lessons from Eldridge Cleaver and the Black Panther Party
“Revolutionary or Death” is the 2020 biography written about former Black Panther Party (BPP) Minister of Information Leroy “Eldridge” Cleaver. The book was written by Justin Clifford. Eldridge Cleaver without question was an enigmatic figure within the BPP and Clifford attempts to use this biography to show a balanced view of Eldridge Cleaver as insightful and talented while also displaying Cleaver’s brutality and ruthlessness. Most people engaged in studying the history of African liberation movements in general and the BPP in particular already have some understanding of the contradictions within the BPP. Eldridge personified those contradictions. On the positive . . .
Afro-Pessimism and the (Un)Logic of Anti-Blackness
What, then, are we fighting for? I want to open the door to this critical, but absent, conversation around anti-racist organising – the space for such conversations is desperately needed. Indeed, many of the claims about race that I have challenged created a suffocating climate in the last decade in which dissent from shared assumptions and attempts to develop theoretical grounds for solidarity are routinely characterised as ‘anti-black’. . . .