We Who Like It Hot Call It ‘Black August’! The 2017 Update!
By ‘bro. zayid’
It is the month when our oppressors have nothing to celebrate.
It
is the month where the nature of our oppression and the boldest
expressions of our resistance to that oppression have been made most
plain.
We who like it hot call it ‘Black August’…
As
a concept of resistance, Black August has its beginnings in the mid
70’s with the prison justice movement. It was inspired by the courageous
legacy of Black Panther prison organizer George Jackson, who was
assassinated on August 21, 1971, one of the hallmark dates for the concept.
Originally,
the concept concerned itself with and confined itself to those hallmark
dates of repression and resistance for this month within the confines
of these bloodsucking united states exclusively.
We
revisit this concept here in a more comprehensive Pan-Afrikan manner to
explore and to propose it having a broader Pan-Afrikan application.
Our ancestors first coming here ‘to work’…the ‘beginning of the end’ of their freedom…can arguably be traced back to August 20, 1619 in
Jamestown, Virginia. Although those first ancestors were actually
considered ‘indentured servants’ in that initial moment, with the growth
of that colony and England’s new stranglehold on the slave trade in
North America, the rights and privileges of Black indentured servants
were legally stripped within a generation and chattel slavery would then
emerge in full gear right from that citadel of settler colonialism!
(There is some new evidence that indicates that the Portuguese in fact
brought the first cargo of Afrikan slaves to what is now South Carolina
in 1526).
In
most recent times, and for the first time in decades since the bombing
of the Congo in 1964 under the so-called liberal rule of Lyndon Baines
Johnson, u.s. forces, demonstrating unchallenged New World Order
military supremacy, bombed our Afrika when they bombed the Sudan, the
land of the earth’s oldest civilizations, under the most bogus of
pretenses, ‘CounterTerrorism,’ on August 20, 1998.
Ironic
coincidence you think? This beast was trying to bomb us outta our land,
outta our minds and outta our hearts!… on the anniversary that brought
us here!...Hmmm!
Self-critically
we should also acknowledge the recent betrayal of Pan-Afrikan potential
in Central Afrika too. Just as were gearing up here for the heroic
Million Youth March, the u.s. covertly sponsored an attack on the
recently liberated Congo on August 2, 1998,
using Rwanda and Uganda as proxy forces. To the honor of our ancestors,
however, that betrayal has been checked and contained in a Pan-Afrikan
manner by a courageous union of forces from Zimbabwe, Angola and
Namibia…
An
important recently declassified FBI memo detailing the scope and the
national coordination of a sinister covert operation, which would
ultimately destroy the Black Liberation Movement known as COINTELPRO,or
‘the CounterIntelligence Program,’ was set in full ‘no holds barred’
motion against the Black nation on August 25, 1967.
Many
conscious of our history know that COINTELPRO was not only illegal,
immoral and absolutely off da hook in its making a mockery of democratic
rights. But have we truly assessed ‘how’ successful it was in disabling
the Black Liberation Movement? Have we truly assessed how that
crippling of our movement left our community wide open for the
unprecedented violent social disintegration we currently face, set off
most insidiously by a heroin epidemic in the early 70’s and the
hoodsplitting crack explosion blowing up in our faces in the awful 80s
and the nasty 90s? The epic Million Man March was the beginning of an
answer, we hoped,…an answer for our times , but it wasn’t enough. And
with Black Panther/BLA political prisoners Albert ‘Nuh’ Washington,
Teddy ‘Jah’ Heath and Bashir Hameed* recently dying in captivity after
being locked down for decades virtually unknown to the community they
sacrificed their lives trying to defend and with that same community in
more disarray now than it was when they were captured in the early 70’s,
we think not.
By
the way, the first of two vicious attacks against those defiant,
dreadlock-wearing pioneers of environmentalism, known to the world
simply as MOVE, also took place in Black August. It was on August 9, 1978 that
500 of Philly’s finest laid siege to the MOVE home compound in Powelton
Village in an attempted massacre. When it was over, the world saw
Delbert Afrika being brutally beaten on national television while
peaceably surrendering. He was beaten with a savagery that anticipated
the videotaped beating of Rodney King. James Rapp, a Philadelphia police
officer was killed from what we now call ‘friendly fire.’ Bro. Delbert
and his surviving comrades are now going on their 38th year of prison
facing sentences that go up 100 years for Rapp’s death!…Two of their
comrades have died in prison, Merle Afrika in 1999 and Phil Afrika in
2015.
Lest we forget, it was on August 9, 1997 that
Abner Louima was sodomized with a plunger up his rectum in a supreme
expression of police brutality by New York City police.
Starting on August 29, 2005,
we faced one of the greatest ordeals and calamities of this time. On
that day, as the bewildering winds of Hurricane Katrina came barreling
down on New Orleans, the world’s 1st Black cultural capital, the
u.s.government decided to abandon the people of that great chocolate
city because the majority of its victims were black and poor! This
genocidal spectacle garnered international criticism and outrage abroad,
but here at home, the national media order just accelerated what the
late Charshee McIntyre called ‘the criminalizing of the race!’
It
must be noted here though for the historical record, that just days
later, while many among our people felt helpless about trying to do
something directly, the New Black Panther Party, under the leadership of
Attorney at War Malik Zulu Shabazz, dared to launch ‘Operation Rescue’!
Defying curfews, roadblocks and government mandates, these brave men,
armed with their God and their gun, rolled into New Orleans, went into
the devastated 9th ward in particular and come out with several hundred
of our people!**
Add
the harrowing “Hands up! Don’t shoot” case of Ferguson, Missouri’s
Michael Brown, killed by Officer Darren Wilson in cold blood August 9th, 2014,
to the litany of oppressive abuses particular to this month. Brown was
then left on the streets dead for hours!...for hours!...as state forces
sought to make a horrific example out of him. To their chagrin,
however, Brown’s slaughter triggered instead an incredible surge in
protest against police brutality all over the country! Three new words
were added to our protest lexicon in that upsurge…‘Black Lives Matter’!
So we must also be very clear here…Black August is also a time of the most heroic resistance to the hottest hell we’ve faced!
On August 11, 1965, a
pivotal, timemarking rebellion took place foreshadowing many more to
come. It was the Watts section of Los Angeles that exploded. Black
youth, tired of police brutality, boldly stepped off from their
perceived limits of nonviolence and went off!… Although casualties in
this uprising were high, after six days of supreme hellraizin, almost
1000 buildings were destroyed and most of those destroyed were
white-owned businesses. Out of the blood and ashes of this rebellion
emerged the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense! It is one of the
hallmark dates of this concept in its origins.
The other of course is August 7, 1970!...On
this day, an incredibly fearless young warrior chose not to wait on the
white man’s courts for justice. He took it upon himself to liberate his
comrades! On this day, the immortal Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson’s
courageous little brother, walked into a Marin County Courthouse locked
and loaded and announced that he was now in charge and he would be
leaving with his comrades who were on trial! He also announced that the
presiding judge would be coming also to secure their exit! He was 17
years old! 17! It foreshadowed the reemergence of the Underground
Railroad in the collective persona known as the Black Liberation Army!
You wanna know why you have to be searched when you go into a courtroom,
you have pay homage to Jonathan for that!
On August 14, 1791,
a fearless Afrikan warrior queen named Cecille called together all the
field slaves of the French sugar plantation island of Haiti ( originally
spelled ‘Ayiti ), to convene the launching of the most successful of
all slave revolts just eight days later!…The Haitian Revolution!
A heartbreaking new Black August story must be told here too: On Sunday, August 14, 2016,
Newark’s art and activist community lost one of its most beloved young
voices. Breya ‘Blackberry Molasses’ Knight, died after losing a
courageous battle with diabetes.
She was only 29 years old!
I
loved Bre’ like she was my own. She shielded her pain from me many
times. This last time was…so painful, it ultimately took her from us.
Bre’ was an engaging multi-dimensional artist who loved her people, who
loved our young and who loved her city, her Newark NJ! Best known as a
young poet who challenged young people on the edge to figure this s*it
out and to use art like she did help themselves, and who challenged her
peers in performance to be about community and struggle too. She created
a collective of young artists called ‘The Breathing Poets Society.’ She
penned a book and a spoken word cd. She was also a brilliant graphic
artist, loctitian, and entrepreneur! She cherished her political baptism
from the Baraka family and political education from ol’ headz like me…
For
all of her fire, and I must add that she was also born on the same day
Nat Turner was born, Bre’ could be amazingly humble and respectful to
those who have ‘put it down.’
So
I know the ancestors blew her powder blue and pink mind with an
incredible love and Alafia (Welcome dance)I know they greeted her with.
Born on October 2, 1987, the same day as the unconquerable Nat Turner, and left us on August 14th, 2016, the same day that the ‘Aytian Revolution was launched…and it also happened to be this Black August baby’s birthday.
I will never know a ‘happy’ birthday ever again…
I
could on for days…Just had to my chil’ a Black August shout out,
because if there was ever a Black August child ever born, it was my
Bre’…
Baba loves u, sweetheart…
Now speaking of Nat Turner…
On August 21, 1831,
Rev. Nat Turner launched his own prophetic answer to the Haitian
Revolution when he led a force of armed field slaves in Amerikkka’s most
famous slave insurrection in Southampton, Virginia. Before his capture,
dozens of the overseer and slave owner class were vanquished by those
willing to pay the ultimate price for freedom!
Last year, saw a powerful film done on him by Nate Parker, a courageous film on several fronts…
First
and foremost, the fact that it gone done and got in the movie houses
was huge!...Even though this incredible uprising took place 186 years
ago, it unnerved the Amerikkkan order of white supremecy like no other
to this day! The fact that it got done and went that far without
dehumanizing him was an incredible feat. This is not to say that there
weren’t efforts to derail the project because there were. To be sure,
Hollywood and the nat’l media order had no problem with the
villification of the filmmaker…unearthing a terrible indiscretion that
has its own problems and issues on its own terms that should be
dismissed. But that story was an ‘old’ story, brought up here and now,
not to condemn the damnable indiscretion…But to undermine the potential
of the volatile content of the film.
Second,
he took Hollywood’s racist racial legacy head on and turned it on its
head when he dared name the film ‘Birth Of A Nation’! For those that
don’t know, one of the most unique contributions to global white
supremecy to come from these racist united states was the far-reaching,
well choregraphed, racist, demeaning and projecting of our very worst
stereotypes to promote the paramount value of segregation as a necessary
tool of white privilege. The first, and still for many, Hollywood
‘model’ cinematic masterpiece was a film called ‘Birth Of A
Nation’!...The film was done in 1915, and it demeaned Afrikan people
like no other with all of the most ugly and grotesque stereotypes our
people have faced, including necessarily, the worst of all of its
cornerstone stereotypes, the perverted ‘Black Buck’! The ‘nigger’ with
an unquenchable, savage appetite for white women!...It demolished one of
the most democratic periods in Amerikkkan history…Reconstruction, and
it glorified and further sanctioned the terrorism of the KuKlux
Klan!...The Nat Turner film is not perfect…Many have some real problems
with how it ended…But the way this young filmmaker dared to take on
Hollywood’s racist legacy in service to our legacy of armed resistance
with the making of the film is something I particularly appreciate…
This is not at all to diss or to minimize nonviolent direct action; For on August 9, 1956,
20,000 Afrikan women fearlessly took to the streets of Pretoria, South
Afrika and defied the vicious ‘Passbook Act of 1956, which made aliens
of Afrikans in their own land during the obscene racist reign of
Apartheid. It is from this defiant act that we get the phrase “You have
struck a rock.”
“Now you have attacked the women! You have struck a rock! You have dislodged a boulder! You will be crushed!” rings the phrase from this heroic expression of Afrikan women defying the bloody teeth of Apartheid.
The March On Washington of August 28, 1963 must
also be acknowledged for Black August in spite of its obvious co-opted
limitations. Not because it was a high point for the legacy of Martin
Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement; We must acknowledge it here
because we understand that the state saw that on its own terms, the
scale of the mobilization made it too successful for their interests
and then marked ‘The Drum Major For Justice’ for death! Declassified
government documents are very clear. COINTELPRO operations escalated
against our movement after that march and escalated against him in
particular! Let the ‘Dreamers’ speak to that!…
On
the eve of that march, the sun set on one of the immortal pioneers of
PanAfrikanism. WEB DuBois died in Ghana at age 97 in service to Ghanaian
independence and PanAfrikanism in Black August on August 27, 1963.
Another
March on Washington note…Malcolm was not the only Black voice on the
‘national’ scene warning America of the limits of our people’s
commitment to ‘Nonviolence.’ James Baldwin, who warned of The Fire Next Time, was
banned from speaking by the white liberal overseers of the March after
having been originally invited to do so!...Baldwin, another fearless
legendary literary ‘son of Harlem,’is also a Black August baby, born on August 2, 1924.
We absolutely must also acknowledge why the date was chosen for that march. On August 28, 1955,
a young man from Chicago visiting his family in Mississippi, was made
missing and viciously lynched. His face and body was so savagely ravaged
by his killers that his mother decreed to have her son’s funeral with
the casket open so the whole world could see what lynching looks like!
That young man was Emmitt Till. It was our people’s last straw under the
terrorism of Jim Crow!
Fannie
Lou Hamer bum rushes the ‘64 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic
City, NJ with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and boldly and
eloquently ‘questions’ Amerikkka on August 22, 1964!
On August 13, 1926,
a man was born who would lead the most enduring revolution against u.s.
imperialism to date! That man is Fidel Castro. That revolution of
course is the heroic Cuban Revolution. No nation, anywhere in the world,
has done more for Afrika, for the PanAfrikan idea, than the Cuban
Revolution under the leadership of the ageless Fidel!
We would lose Fidel after 90 long, hot, heroic years on November 25th!...
It
was under Fidel’s stewardship that Cuba became, and still is, the
world’s most generous and heroic nation. A country not rich in oil or
any of the other precious raw materials to drive the machinery of an
international order, Cuba’s wealth is and has always been its people and
their legendary example of ‘internat’l human solidarity’! No other
nation in the world has given the world more, especially the Afrikan
world more, than the Cuban Revolution! From putting their entire
stability and security on the line going ‘back to Afrika’ to fight in
Southern Afrika against Afrika’s military superpower, the Apatheid
Regime of South Afrika, to sending legions of doctors and medical
professionals checking an Ebola epidemic just two years ago, from
providing sanctuary to the oppressed resisting neo-colonial terror in
their own countries from all over the world, to training over 10, 000
doctors from some of the poorest sectors of the world for ‘free’ in Cuba
under the condition that they return to their countries to serve the
most impoverished among their people, Fidel showed us all what ‘human
solidarity’ looks like like no other!...
Que Viva, Fidel! Que Viva!...Que Viva, la Revolucion! Que Viva!...
On August 26, 1966,
one of the most underappreciated recent people’s victories on the
Afrikan continent was launched in earnest when SWAPO launched the armed
struggle to rid Namibia of the dual scourge of Apartheid and
colonialism!
We
already mentioned George Jackson’s legacy and assassination. We must
also acknowledge that he was also an original revolutionary thinker who
also penned two classic seminal revolutionary works, The Soledad Brothers and Blood In My Eye.
For
those of us who want to see Black August used in its fullest terms, the
ceremonial and ideological center of Black August is, of course, the
birth of Marcus Garvey on August 17, 1887 in
Jamaica. On that same date in 1920, in a packed Madison Square Garden,
Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association gave us our own
flag!…A flag for all of us no matter where we be on this earth!…The
Universal Afrikan Liberation Flag!…The Red, the Black, the Green!…
And you wonder why the state of Pennsylvania sought to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal on August 17, 1995?…Is
it a coincidence that they used the birth date of the Black nation’s
first modern political prisoner to attempt to stage this freedom
fighter’s lynching?…We think not.
On August 16, 1959,
underappreciated Garveyite Carlos Cooks convened a special Afrikan
Peoples Conference in Harlem, which formally called on our people to
drop the term ‘negro’ and to instead use either ‘Black’ or ‘Afrikan’ to
refer to the race. How so many of at this late date are unable to see
ourselves as being nothing more than ‘niggaz’ is a serious expression of
how far we’ve been setback.
Several
nations of the PanAfrikan world stepped forward in this month.
Trinidad, Burkino Faso, Chad, Gabon and Cote ‘d’Voir, each stepped out
on their own and declared their ‘independence’ in Black August.
He
was just getting into another gear on the electoral front when his drum
was sounded in ‘The Land of the Ancestors’ in 2014, but he lived and
died always looking to break, fresh, new ground in struggle…Pioneering
New Afrikan Independence Movement leader and Mayor of Jackson,
Mississippi, the now immortal Fannie Lou Hamer Democrat Chokwe Lumumba
was also born on August 2, 1947.
Edward
Wilmot Blyden, an important forerunner of critical Black nationalist
thought who literally was the bridge between 19th and 20th century
Afrikan nationalism, was born in Black August on August 3, 1832 in
Virgin Islands as was Civil Rights legend, Reparations pioneer and
champion of international human solidarity, the late Rev. Lucius Walker
in 1930!
One
of the important things to emerge from the recent renewed interest in
Black August is practical support of our freedom fighters, our political
prisoners, the real flesh and blood targets of COINTELPRO! One such
freedom fighter, organizing legend Dr. Mutulu Shakur was born of August 8, 1950. Get his address from his website (www.mutulushakur.com) and send him some love! Another is of course the true ‘Maroon’! Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz is also a Black August baby! Born on August 23, 1943,
this ‘Maroon’ of the Black Panther Party and the revolutionary
underground had to endure 33 years in solitary confinement!...33
years!...Before winning his legal battle against being in solitary
forever, this incredible man penned his searing, unapologetic memoir
Maroon, The Implacable! In prison since 1975, the time has definitely
come to free ‘Maroon and of his comrades! Go to his webpage (www.RussellMaroonShoats.Wordpress.com) and become a part of the call to free ‘Maroon and ‘free’m all!...
Speaking
of political prisoners and solitary confinement, Hugo Pinell, the
legendary Panther political prisoner, was assassinated on August 12, 2015,
just after getting out of solitary confinement after 46 years!...46
years!...He was 71 years old!...He shouldn’t been locked up like that
after all these years anyway!
There
is no Panther in the land of the living or the land of the ancestors
closer to me and my heart than the incredible Safiya Bukhari!... I am a
proud ‘cub’ of this incredible Black woman!...Working onThe Black
Panther Party Newspaper under her watch, yes, we had it back out in the
early 90s, was my favorite ‘cub’ experience!...She left us for the Land
of the Ancestors on August 24, 2003 after her ocean-sized heart gave out!
148 years after Gabriel Prosser was going to scorch plantations before being betrayed,
Black Panther organizing legend and martyr Fred Hampton was born on August 30, 1948.
Black
Belt swingers Charlie Parker, Count Basie and Lester Young, giants of a
music which brought us international respect, were all born in Black
August.
May all of our Augusts be fiery hot and holy with resistance!
Keep marching!
All Power to the People! Black Power and Free The Land!
©2017 all rights reserved
‘bro. zayid’ kazi angaza kikongo muhammad
*Since
this was originally written, the Black Panther Party and the Black
Liberation Army lost two more political prisoners in captivity, Abdullah
Majid and Mondo Wa Langa!
**Since
this article first appeared, Malik Zulu Shabazz, to the disappointment
of many, went delusional with his ego. He personally triggered an ugly
split within the New Black Panther Party, trying to hijack their nat’l
elections in order to impose his ‘crew’ on the nat’l body while still
‘calling the shots.’ He then unceremoniously ordered a physical attack
on Black Panther legend Dhoruba Bin Wahad at their so-called ‘nat’l
summit’ in August 2015, claiming he survived an ‘assassination attempt’
by Bin Wahad…
‘bro.zayid’
is the press officer for the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, the
media advocate for the Newark AntiViolence Coalition and a well known
cub of the legendary New York chapter of the Black Panther Party…He can
be reached at babazayid@yahoo.com... 973 202 0745..
