One of the most memorable interviews from THE BLACK PANTHERS: VANGUARD OF THE REVOLUTION came from Wayne Pharr, a founding member of the LA chapter of the Black Panther Party. He passed away last year shortly after giving his truthful and powerful account of being a Black Panther.
We know that times are tough so we are offering great rewards as thanks for your generous support. For less than $100 you can get:
Tickets to the see actor Wendell Pierce (Selma, The Wire, Treme) in the acclaimed play, BROTHERS FROM THE BOTTOM when it premieres at the Lupin Hall in his hometown of New Orleans
A signed DVD of the finished film
Private link to watch the film online followed by an online Q&A with myself and former Black Panthers
Black Panther t-shirts, tote bags and official posters from the film
Tickets to theatrical premieres in Seattle, Baltimore and Maryland
Rare, signed photo of Kathleen Cleaver from a 1978 rally in San Francisco
And
for the budding filmmakers out there, I will review your rough cut or
screenplay and offer detailed advice and feedback. Think of it as a
virtual mentorship!
Have you already donated? Thank you! Please share this newsletter with your family, friends and colleagues and encourage them to make a donation and own a piece of their history.
Remember, even though we've raised over $33,000 in 15 days, we will LOSE IT ALL if we do not reach $50,000 by May 5. Your donation of any amount moves us further from that possibility - and closer to our goal.
"I Ain't Got No Quarrel With The VietCong...
No VietCong Ever Called Me Nigger"
— Muhammad Ali, 1966
On August 23, 1966, Muhammad Ali embarked on the biggest "fight" of his life when he
applied with the Selective Service for conscientious objector status on religious grounds
(as a minister with the Nation of Islam). In what became an extensive
legal, political, professional, and personal battle, Ali was convicted of draft
evasion, stripped of his boxing title, and became a lightning rod — and a voice —
for opinions on the Vietnam War. Muhammad Ali's willingness to speak out against racism in
the United States, and the affect it had on domestic and foreign policy, earned him many
supporters and detractors. In 1971, nearly five years after it began, Ali's legal
battle finally culminated with a unanimous decision (8-0 with Thurgood Marshall abstaining)
by the United States Supreme Court overturning his draft conviction. The following
resources document his struggle, his views, and his influence.
Clay, aka Ali v. United States 1966-1971
Click here for resources detailing Muhammad Ali's fight against induction into
the U.S. Army — from 1966 to 1971. It includes the full text of the Supreme
Court decision (Clay, aka Ali v. United States), a 1967 CIA document describing
a pro Ali rally, editorials and coverage from the Nation of Islam
publication, Muhammad Speaks, and more.
Ali's Vietnam Legacy
Muhammad Ali's stance on Vietnam inspired admiration and hatred among many. Click here to find
resources describing Ali's Vietnam legacy, including reactions to his being named
"Athlete of the Century" by USA Today in late 1999, an Ali interview
with National Public Radio from December 2001, in which Ali answers his critics, and more.
"No, I am not going 10,000 miles to help murder kill and burn other
people to simply help continue the domination of white slavemasters
over dark people the world over. This is the day and age when such
evil injustice must come to an end."
—Muhammad Ali
Source: "Muhammad Ali — The Measure of a Man." (Spring 1967). Freedomways, 7(2), 101-102.
- Ho Chi Minh addressing the anti-war movement in English
Ho Chi Minh led the anti-colonial struggles against the French and the US. He was the first President of modern Viet Nam, declaring independence on September 2, 1945.
- Madame Nguyen Thi Bình appeals to the US Congress
Madame Binh served as Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Government and negotiated at the Paris Peace Conference. She has also been Vice-President, Minister of Education, and held other posts as one of the leaders of Viet Nam.
(1972) - Vietnamese Students
Protest demonstration by Vietnamese students, including US representative of the National Student Union of South Viet Nam, protesting repression in the southern part of Viet Nam under the Thieu regime. (1972)
- Dao Interview
One of the members of the Union of Vietnamese in the US, who were very active in the antiwar movement. (1976)
- Robert and Mabel Williams on Viet Nam
Leaders of an armed self-defense movement against the Klan in North Carolina, the Williams were forced into exile, first in Cuba, then in China. For more on their story and struggle, see here. - H Rap Brown - selections from a speech in 1967.
H Rap Brown (now Imam Jamil Al Amin) was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s. - Huey Newton on the Black Panther Party and Viet Nam
Huey Newton was a founder and first Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party. (1970)
- Martin Luther King, Jr Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam. (1967)
- Geronimo ji Jaga on Viet Nam and Detroit
A leading member of the Black Panther Party in Los Angeles, Geronimo was a Viet Nam war veteran. He was falsely imprisoned for 27 years in a frame-up engineered by the FBI as part of their counter-intelligence (Cointelpro) program. For more, see here.
- Chican@ Moratorium Speech on Viet Nam War
The Chicano Moratorium was a broad-based coalition of antiwar Chican@ groups throughout the Southwest that organized a march of more than 30,000 in Los Angeles on August 29, 1970, in which four were killed by police. Rosalio Munoz speaks.
- Chican@ Moratorium Press Conference on Viet Nam War - Native Americans on Viet Nam
A solidarity statement that emphasizes anti-imperialist commonalities between the Vietnamese and Native American struggles. John McClain speaks for the Bay Area chapter of AIM. (1975)
- Attack the Water - Janice Mirikitani
A San Francisco poet who often read at antiwar events, and brought forth her childhood experience in the concentration camps in the US during World War II that imprisoned Japanese-Americans. (1973)
The Long Haired Warriors from mel halbach on Vimeo. They were soldiers, activists and tortured as prisoners of war. This is a film trailer about Vietnamese women who struggled against American occupation and the South Vietnamese government during the war in Vietnam.
April 30, 2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the victory of the people of Viet Nam over the US military. The Vietnamese national liberation struggle moved the entire world and is one of the most important historical events of the 20th century.
The people’s war waged by the people of Viet Nam, reaching a peak in the Tet Offensive of 1968, demonstrated that a united people, even in a poor and underdeveloped nation, could defeat the most powerful military and economic power on earth.
In an era when national liberation struggles surged in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the struggle of the Vietnamese people provided an inspiring example to solidarity movements around the world and inside the US. The movement against the war in Viet Nam in the US was inextricably tied to the early anti-imperialism of the civil rights/Black liberation movement, and many other movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
The victory of Viet Nam is a living examplethat holds lessons for the ongoing struggle against US imperialism today. We are creating this online tribute, much of it drawn from the Freedom Archives, to help illustrate and pass on these lessons.
From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country-and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won.
- Howard Zinn from A People's History of the United States
The Chican@ Moratorium marches against the Vietnam War played a decisive role in ending that conflict (poster: Malaquias Montoya)
Colonialists, International Traitors, Think Carefully Before You Take Vietnam - To Lien (1978)
Women played a powerful, absolutely crucial role in Viet Nam’s liberation struggle, from the Trung Sisters leading ancient struggles against Chinese domination to the courageous participation of millions of women from north and south in the people’s war against the US Empire. Prominent leaders include General Nguyen Thi Dinh, a commander of the National Liberation Front, and Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, who led the delegation for the Front at the Paris negotiations. There were a number of meetings between Vietnamese women with women from North America and other nations during the war; the example of women in Viet Nam’s independence struggle had a profound impact on the antiwar and then resurging women’s liberation movements—and in fact inspired women all over the world. In her book, Women and Revolution in Viet Nam, Arlene Eisen quotes Bui Thi Me, then Minister of Health of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Viet Nam, as saying, when welcoming her to a liberated zone: “We are part of the worldwide family of militant women. The oceans cannot dampen our feelings of solidarity and love.”
One of the most powerful and often understated components of the movement against the war in Viet Nam was the unprecedented wide-scale revolt inside all branches of the US Armed Forces that essentially led to the breakdown of the military’s ability to wage war—the US military in all branches became unmanageable. At its height, the GI movement involved nearly half of all enlisted personnel. There were 300 antiwar GI newspapers, and many antiwar GI coffeehouses near bases throughout the US. For soldiers of color, who were predominantly fighting and dying on the front lines allegedly for “democracy” the contradictions were even greater, as activists inside the US struggled and sometimes died for a democracy that had so long been denied. On the battlefield itself, there were numerous incidents of rebellion, including “fragging”—the killing of officers by enlisted men. Even official statistics record hundreds of successful fraggings—and those only include incidents using explosives, not rifles or other means, nor the many threats of fragging that curtailed officer orders. By 1970, the US Army recorded 65,643 desertions, roughly the equivalent of four divisions. There were also many thousands of draft refusals and an active draft resistance movement, including demonstrations such as Stop-the-Draft Week in Oakland, California and the public burning of draft cards in many cities. http://depts.washington.edu/antiwar/gi_mvmt.shtml https://libcom.org/history/1961-1973-gi-resistance-in-the-vietnam-war
We will fight and fight from this generation to the next - 1969.
May 19: Birthday of Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, two great revolutionary fighters for social justice and national liberation.
NOTE: MARVIN X ENDURED EXILE AND FEDERAL PRISON OPPOSING THE VIET NAM WAR
By the late 1960s Marvin X was a central figure in the Black Arts
Movement in coast to coast and had become part of the Nation of Islam,
changing his name to El Muhajir and following Elijah Muhammad. Like the
heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, Marvin X refused his induction
to fight in Vietnam. But unlike Ali, Marvin X, along with several other
members of the Nation of Islam in California, decided to evade arrest.
In 1967 he escaped to Canada but was later arrested in Belize. He
chastised the court for punishing him for refusing to be inducted into
an army for the purpose of securing “White Power” throughout the world before he was sentenced to five months’ imprisonment. His statement was published in the journal The Black Scholar in 1971.
Despite his reputation as an activist, Marvin X was also an
intellectual, and a celebrated writer. He was most concerned with the
problem of using language created by whites in order to argue for
freedom from white power.
Mumia
is still in medical danger. He is weak, in the infirmary, and still
needs a wheelchair to come out to visits. In a phone call on Monday his
voice was hesitant and lacked its usual vibrancy. Yesterday, the PA Department of Corrections notified Mumia’s Attorney Bret Grote (of the Abolitionist Law Center) that it would:
Not allow Mumia to be examined by his own doctor;
Not allow Mumia to be examined by a endocrinologist (diabetes specialist);
And they denied access for the doctor to communicate with prison medical staff to assist or direct Mumia’s care; and the Prison
has refused to provide for regular phone calls between Mumia and his
doctor. Currently, Mumia can only use the phone every other day for only
15 minutes, as the infirmary does not have phone access.
Mumia
is being held in the very infirmary that caused his chronic conditions
of eczema and late-onset diabetes to become life-threatening.
The medical personnel on site were prevented from ordering tests when
he was ill in mid-March, and are under the same prison/corporate
restrictions today. One postive note, at this time Mumia is being
allowed to monitor his own blood sugar multiple times a day, and he is
receiving insulin. Since Mumia was hospitalized in ICU on March 30th with
life threatening complications from chronic conditions we have been
advocating for his treatment. We have to step up our efforts.
Take Action Now!
Demand that the Department of Corrections permit Mumia to have an examination by his doctor! Click here to call and fax the Prison and State officials and state our demands.
Pam Africa, Abdul Jon, and Johanna Fernandez visited with Mumia at SCI Mahanoy.
We have 11 days left to reach $40,000 for Mumia
In just 20 days, 465 supporters from around the world have defended Mumia's life by raising $24,837! Now, with 11 days left, we need to reach $40,000 to get Mumia the care he critically needs!
Have you given yet? Now is the time.
We are pursuing every step necessary to get a medical care team to see Mumia.
Please join us by
helping Mumia’s medical fund reach $40K now! We're asking you to
contribute $1,000, $250 or even $8 to the medical fund that will save
Mumia's life. bit.ly/rise4mumia#DefendMumiasLife
The father of Afrofuturism and onetime local is having a big influence on six artists’ upcoming projects. What gives?
By Matthew Hendrickson
Published April 30, 2014
The artist Nick Cave models a Sun Ra-influenced Soundsuit on March 20Photo: Brian Sorg
May marks the centennial of the birth of Herman Blount, the father of
Afrofuturism. Born in Alabama, Blount moved to Chicago in 1946, claiming
that aliens from Saturn had told him to quit school and take up music.
He changed his name to Sun Ra, and by the 1970s he was at the helm of a
cultural movement that was a bizarre concoction of science fiction,
African American history, magical realism, and free jazz. Twenty years
after Blount’s death, interest in Afrofuturism is surging.
“Part of what’s appealing about Sun Ra to artists is the fact that he
was not constrained to a single medium,” says John Corbett, co-owner of
Corbett vs. Dempsey, a gallery in Wicker Park that collects Blount’s
early work. “[It’s] a sensibility that’s very current.”
To meet six innovative Chicago artists with new projects influenced by Sun Ra, see below.
The Guru
Sun Ra, 1914–1993
Photo: Chris Felver/Getty Images
Six Other Afrofuturism Acolytes Worth Checking Out
The Sax Man
David Boykin, 44
Photo: Scott Strazzante/Chicago Tribune
On any given Sunday, you can find multi-instrumentalist David Boykin
jamming with other free-jazz aficionados at the University of Chicago
Arts Incubator in Washington Park. “Sun Ra was among some of the first
records I heard, it was totally an awakening,” says the Greater Grand
Crossing musician who started playing jazz in college. “[Sun Ra’s] music
always sounded like it was happening right now. No one else sounded
like that.” On Sun Ra’s birthday, May 22, Boykin plans to invite 100
saxophone players to salute to the musician at the Arts Incubator (301
E. Garfield Blvd.). They’ll kick things off with “Happy Birthday,”
naturally.
The Performance Artist
Nick Cave, 55
Photo: Ratko Radojcic
Walking into Nick Cave’s South Loop studio—a behemoth of a loft
littered with piles of branches, neon-dyed hair, and thousands of
vintage tchotchkes—is like entering a wacky, warped world that is at
once tribal and futuristic. Famous for his wearable Soundsuits (opulent
assemblages that are part sculpture, part dance performance), Cave has
long said he culls inspiration from Sun Ra’s eccentric rhythms and
choreography. “I think we just need to keep everything funky and keep it
moving,” says the artist, who, like Sun Ra, often performs in costumes
that play off ritual African dress. Cave will perform on May 2 in
Millennium Park at the School of the Art Institute’s annual fashion
show. For tickets, saicfashion.org.
The Rapper-Writer
Lupe Fiasco, 32
Photo: Paul A. Hebert/Invision/AP
This South Side hip-hop artist known for polarizing public appearances
is also a burgeoning author. Last December, he began writing a
noir-Afrofuturist novel on Twitter about Teriyaki Joe, a Harlem
detective. The blaxploitation–meets–Double Indemnity project
has 1.3 million followers, who get frequent updates such as “.45 on the
desk. Digital cigar burning. Sun-Ra coming out the speakers. Antique
Rick Ross poster on the wall.” The account is private, so you’ll have to
request access to @LupeFiasco.
The Sound Artist
Jamal Moss, 40
Photo: Celeste Sloman
A musician who uses the stage name Hieroglyphic Being, Jamal Moss has
recorded over 300 experimental electronic tracks and outlined another
3,000, all rich with spiraling, atonal melodies inspired by Sun Ra’s
1967 album Strange Strings. In March, Moss recorded an album
with Marshall Allen, the sax player who has led Sun Ra’s band, the
Arkestra, since its leader’s death. “[Sun Ra] stuck to his guns . . . no
matter how many people might have ridiculed him,” says Moss, whose new
untitled record is set to hit the shelves this fall. “He carved a niche
for himself on this planet.” For a taste of Moss’s music, hear the song “A Synthetic Love Life.”
The Guitarist
Jeff Parker, 47
Photo: Jim Newberry
This seasoned avant-garde guitarist and backbone of the band Tortoise says the 1970 album My Brother the Wind
“opened my mind to a lot of experimental stuff.” His side project
Isotope 217 also pays homage to Sun Ra with a noisy synth-heavy sound
that Parker says is influenced by the Afrofuturist’s 1974 film Space Is the Place.
“He is a very important musician to me conceptually, just in terms of
having a more metaphysical, spiritual connection through your music. . .
.[Afrofuturism] is a cultural reflection of what African Americans are
dealing with in their art.”
The Filmmaker
Cauleen Smith, 46
For this Kenwood artist and experimental filmmaker, inspiration struck
while standing in line at the DMV. “There was one song in particular,
called ‘Love in Outer Space.’ I just listened to it over and over and
over. I was like, I should be wanting to kill myself right now, but I
feel great,” says the artist. Smith became a Sun Ra scholar of sorts and
has spent the past four years knee-deep in his archives at the
University of Chicago and the West Loop gallery Threewalls. Recently,
she has been weaving his writings on American politics and the black
diaspora into multimedia installations, including the one on view at the
McKinney Avenue Contemporary in Dallas through May 3. Bonus: Here’s a behind the scenes look at the photo shoot with Nick Cave, as he tries out the Soundsuit in our lead photo.
Marvin X and Sun Ra at Marvin X's Black Educational Theatre, Fillmore District, San Francisco, 1972. Sun Ra and Marvin X both lectured in the Black Studies Department, University of California, Berkeley during this time. Marvin performed coast to coast with Sun Ra's Arkestra, reciting his poetry. Sun Ra arranged the musical version of Marvin's play Flowers for the Trashman, retitled Take Care of Business. They produced a five hour concert at San Francisco's Harding Theatre, with a cast of fifty, including the cast of TCB, Arkestra, Ellendar Barne dancers, Raymond Sawyer Dancers.
Bay Area Asian Coalition Against the War
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