It was Tuesday evening, two days after Beyoncé’s dramatic halftime
Superbowl Sunday performance, when the Oakland community gathered at
Grand Lake Theater to watch a screening of PBS’s upcoming documentary, Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.
There was a palpable electric buzz (and debate) about what Beyoncé
did in front of nearly 112 million viewers: declaring her love of being a
black woman while dancing with afro’ed backup dancers clad in Black
Panther gear. Beyoncé had managed to create a perfect pop culture segue
for the dialogue slated for this evening, asserting not only the
historical relevance of Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,
but also why the themes that drove the movement then are still so
painfully relevant to our discussions of race relations and gender
today.
The night opened with a powerful musical performance by Antique Naked
Soul, and remarks from Susie Hernandez (KQED, Director of Programming),
Noland Walker (ITVS, Senior Content Director), Maira Benjamin (Pandora,
Director of Engineering) and Lynette Gibson McElhaney (Oakland City
Councilwoman, District 3). Hernandez and Walker both touched on how
public media provides both an opportunity and a platform for communities
to tell and share their own stories in an authentic way. Benjamin
reminded audiences that the theme of the evening was “revolution” and
highlighted her role as a woman of color in technology. Her message,
“Bring revolution to all the spaces you represent,” was met with cheers
and applause from the crowd. McElhaney was hopeful about how elections
and civic engagement can trigger change and she encouraged people to
stay informed and embrace the possibilities.
Next, eight young black women walked in a line to the front of the
theater, wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the words “The Black Woman is
God.” Members of San Francisco-based Youth Speaks, the Black Sheroes
delivered the most rousing performance of the night. The crowds whooped
and hollered and shot their fists into the air. Older generations,
including former Black Panther Party members, nodded and bobbed their
heads as the women made it plain: our people are still in pain, and
injustice is still alive. The performance, a mixture of spoken word and
singing, started with a rendition of “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless
Child” and ended as the women roared out their love of being black
women in the face of police brutality, intolerance and racism.
Left to right: Cat Brooks, Ashara Ekundayo, Ericka Huggins (Photo: Alain McLaughlin)
Just before the film screening, Ashara Ekundayo (Impact Hub, Chief
Content Officer) moderated a dialogue with Ericka Huggins, a former
political prisoner and Black Panther Party leader, and Cat Brooks,
#BlackLivesMatter Bay Area member and founder of the Anti Police-Terror
Project. Ekundayo opened with a brief moment of silence to honored
activists who died after giving their lives to revolutionary causes.
Asked by Ekundayo to describe the Black Panther Party in three words,
Huggins replied: “Commitment. Love. People.” She recalled being a young
girl, attending the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963,
one of the largest political rallies in American history. It was a
life-changing moment that defined her activism.
“A vow arose in my heart,” Huggins recalled, “that I will serve people for the rest of my life.”
In describing her own personal commitment over the years, as a leader
in the Party and an educator in Oakland, she gave a shout-out to a
special audience member that she had met earlier that evening:
7-year-old Vivian, the precocious daughter of KQED’s Hernandez. “When I
meet young girls like Vivian, I realize: I don’t have the right to be
tired.”
Brooks chose her three words carefully: “Power. Passion. Beauty,”
adding, “Black people are damaged, tired, and traumatized.” Her hope
lies in the current wave of activism. For the first time, thanks largely
to the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been “Lots of talk about
self-care in activism.” There is a long journey ahead, Brooks asserted,
and “We’re figuring it out as we stumble along,” adding that progress
can be sustained if activists take time to take to practice self-care as
they fight for their communities.
The unspoken theme of the night, judging by those who were doing the
speaking, was the role of women in activism. Brooks proudly declared
that there was a feminine current running through today’s movements in
the black community. Huggins attributed this to the “legacy of feminine
principles” in the Black Panther Party. As she spoke, Tarika Lewis, the
first woman to join the Party, stood up in the crowd with her fist
raised.
“The FBI destroyed the men in the Black Panther Party – Newton,
Seale, and many others – but they forgot something: us women,” declared
Huggins. She noted the bond shared by the women in the Party, who ran
the revolution from beginning to end, saying, “We were connected by love
and service.”
Before the lights dimmed and the screening of Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution
began, the audience was left with some parting wisdom: Be with one
another. Practice non-judging awareness. Work in coalition and
communion. Think globally. For this community, the evening captured not
only the Party’s legacy but also the demands for justice that are still
painfully relevant today. From a small film screening to the largest
stage in a football stadium, it is evident that 50 years later the
revolutionary spirit of the Black Panther Party continues to live on in
the impassioned communities and people they inspired.
Marvin X speaks at Oakland City Hall Black History Month Reception
Marvin X at Berkeley Juneteenth Festival, 2015
photo Harrison Chastang
Black Arts Movement poet and BAMBD planner Marvin X will speak and exhibit his Black Arts Movement archives. His archives were acquired by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
The Black Arts Movement Poet's Choir and Arkestra at the University of California, Merced
50th Anniversary celebration of the Black Arts Movement, 2014, produced by Kim McMillan
and Marvin X.
BAM poet Marvin X with his Poet's Choir and Arkestra, featuring David
Murray and Earle Davis, all three were associated with San Ra. This
performance is from Oakland's Malcolm X Jazz/Art Festival, 2014
photo Adam Turner
BAM Poet's Choir and Arkestra at Malcolm X Jazz Festival, 2014
Marvin X, Thank you Mr. President for agreeing to meet with me.
Prez, The pleasure is all mine. I've been reading your blogs and find them quite interesting.
MX, I hope you don't say what Minister Farrakhan said about my comments on him.
Prez, What did he say?
MX, He said I raked him over the coals.
Prez, I agree with Minister Farrakhan. You can be quite hard hitting.
MX, They call me the sledgehammer.
Prez, Indeed you are.
MX, Call it tough love.
Prez, OK.
MX,
Furthermore, I supported you wholeheartedly from the beginning. You
obviously haven't seen my book Pull Yo Pants Up fada Black Prez and
Yoself.
Prez, No I haven't.
MX,
But I must agree with our mutual friend Dr. Cornell West. I'm sure you
are aware that he said we must protect you, respect you, but check you.
Prez, Yes, I heard his remarks. And you know what I said, "You brothers need to cut me some slack."
MX, Prez, you don't need slack. You need us riding your back like Roy Rogers on Trigger.
Prez, Don't you think I have enough pressure on me?
MX,
Well, I once forced the resignation of the president of Fresno State
University. Well, actually he said he was pressured from above (Gov.
Ronald Reagan) and below (student protests after the college refused to
hire me). So we see you are the type of guy who must be pressured from
above and below, from the right and the left.
Prez, How much pressure you think a person in my position can take?
MX, You got Mechelle to chill you out!
Prez, You're right about that.
MX, But I wrote about her putting a foot in your ass when you get weak.
Prez, I don't think that's necessary
MX, Well, you seem to capitulate at every turn. You call it the nature of politics, of course.
Prez, Well, I certainly don't call it capitulation. That's a bit harsh. I try to negotiate and compromise with my opposition.
MX, Prez, It seems to me you give in too quickly, sometimes when it ain't even necessary.
Prez, Marvin, it's the nature of the beast I'm dealing with.
MX,
Ever heard of playing hardball? I mean I was happy you got the health
insurance plan through but at what price, selling out to the insurance
lobby?
Prez, I don't call it selling out, it was compromise, the best we could do under the circumstances.
MX, Prez, why have you not created a jobs program? You bailed out the banks and corporations but not the people, why?
Prez, Marv, you know I have a most difficult job and we tried a stimulus package, and it worked to some extent.
MX,
But, Prez, there are still millions of unemployed. Yet at the same time
you are promising terrorist jobs in Iraq and Afghanistan if they lay
down their arms. Should the American unemployed take up arms to get your
attention?
Prez, Marv, please, what are you suggesting, revolution?
MX,
If that's what it takes to get you to consider the consent of the
governed. Is not the first priority of this nation the people, not
corporations and banks?
Prez, Well, corporations are people now.
MX, Prez, you know what I mean.
Prez, Of course.
MX,
How can you provide funds for educating, housing and employing
terrorists abroad but not at home? It just doesn't make sense, Mr. Prez.
Prez, You're right, Marv.
MX,
Now you're getting ready to raise one billion dollars to keep your job,
but you can't find a few billion for the millions of unemployed
Prez, You're right, Marv. I can do better. Let me regroup with my advisers and think about it.
MX,
Yeah, Prez, I want to support you reelection but I find it most
difficult. And the brothers on the street as well. They were happy when
you won, they said it was great to know they could look up to someone
besides a rapper. But lately they are saying fuck you, Mr. Prez.
Prez, I'm sorry to hear that
MX, You should know this is what they're saying, Fuck you!
Prez, I often wonder about the mood in the hood.
MX,
You should wonder before something terrible happens to your country
because of your neglect and misplaced priorities. Can I ask you
something personal?
Prez, Go for it!
MX, Do you feel like a white man or black man?
Prez, Well, when I'm with Mechelle, I feel black. When I'm with my Secretary of State, Hilliary, I feel white.
MX, I thought Hillary was black, along with her husband, Dirty Bill.
Prez, Marv, let's not name call, please.
MX, OK. On a more serious matter, how long did you know Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan?
Prez, We had him under surveillance for some time.
MX, Years, months?
Prez, a long time.
MX, Should I congratulate you for slaying the dragon?
Prez, That's up to you.
MX, Well, you probably deserve a feather in your cap. A couple of Brownie points.
Prez, Marv, thanks.
MX, But, Prez, where's the body?
Prez, We threw it in the ocean.
MX, C'mon, Prez, do I look like Willie Foofoo?
Prez, Marv, we did, trust me.
MX, Prez, I'm an ex-dope fiend. I know how people lie.
Prez, Marv, are you calling me a liar?
MX,
I didn't say that, Prez, but my elder, Dr. Nathan Hare, taught the
fictive theory. Everything the white man (and black man or white/black
man) says is fiction until proven to be a fact. Where are the facts,
Prez?
Prez, Marv, trust me. We thought it best to dispose of the body in the ocean.
MX, But who's going for this, Prez, it sounds shaky.
Prez, We concluded that was the best way to end the matter of a man who murdered three thousand Americans.
MX, Prez, how many Muslims have you murdered since you became President?
Prez, I can't answer that.
MX, Between Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, how many, especially with the collateral damage?
Prez, Can't answer that. It was all in defense of America.
MX, Is a few ignorant men living in mountain caves really a threat to America?
Prez, They can be.
MX, C'mon, Prez. Let's change the channel. What happened with the closing of Gitmo?
Prez, We tried but couldn't pull it off.
MX, What about the secret prisons in America?
Prez, I'm not aware of them.
MX, Maybe you should check with homeland security?
Prez, Our priority is the safety of Americans.
MX, Does this include murdering American citizens rather than bringing them to trial?
Prez, Not necessarily.
MX, What about the man in Yemen you are trying to kill who is an American citizen?
Prez, He's a special case.
MX, But he's an American.
Prez, Marv, don't press the issue.
MX, That's exactly what I'm doing.
Prez, Don't press it, Marv.
MX,
Let's discuss the Middle East for a moment. I've written about your
speech in Cairo and Indonesia. I've imagined what you will say about
Muslims tomorrow, May 19. You know as long as you occupy one inch of
Muslim land there shall be Muslims who view you as a Crusader and they
will vow to fight you to the death.
Prez,
Marv, I'm aware how Muslims feel about us occupying their lands. And we
plan to vacate all Muslim lands at the earliest possible date.
MX, Does this include having your friends in Israel do the same?
Prez, Well, that's a matter for the Israelis, not us.
MX, But you are their very best friend. You support them right or wrong, true?
Prez, I wouldn't say that. But we have an enduring relationship.
MX,
Don't you see the day is rapidly arriving when they cannot claim to be
the only democracy in the area, that they will bow down to the God of
Justice, not peace but justice?
Prez,
Events are rapidly changing in North Africa and the Middle East.
Therefore we must all make a paradigm shift in our thinking and
behavior, including Israel.
MX, What about your friends in Saudi Arabia?
Prez, They will need to make substantial changes as well.
MX, And Bahrain?
Prez, It's a special case. We have strategic interests there.
MX,
You seem to be saying America practices selective suffering. You now
support the Egyptian revolution, the Tunisian, Yemen, but not in Saudi
Arabia or Israel, Jordan, Bahrain.
Prez, Marv, we have our interests that must be secured first.
MX,
What if and when these nations explode in your face, overnight, as is
happening as we speak. Seems like you'll be running after the football
or playing catchup?
Prez, We'll do what we must when we must.
MX, Thank you, Mr. Prez.
--Marvin X
5/18/11
Marvin X Writes Obama's Speech to Muslims As-Salaam-Alaikum I,
Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America, come
before you tonight in the name of Almighty God Allah. We, the America
people, are pleased to see the people of North Africa and the Middle
East rising up against our long time friends in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt,
Yemen and elsewhere.
Of course we instituted a no fly
zone over Libya but it is most difficult to do the same in Gaza. The
recent unity of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority is nice but simply
not in the interests of our dear friends in Israel, nor is it in the
long term strategic interests of America and her friends throughout the
region, especially our brothers in the House of Saud.
While
we endorse the cries for freedom in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, we
cannot support the people in Bahrain. We suspect they are simply agents
for Iran and therefore we cannot support their cries for freedom. We
have no plans of moving our Fifth Fleet from Bahrain, especially since
it is a counterweight to Iranian provocations. We therefore endorse the
sending of Saudi troops to crush the Shia uprisings in Bahrain.
As
per Saudi Arabia, we love democracy but it is simply not in our
interests to have the Saudi regime destabilized because of a few unhappy
citizens, again, many of them are agents of Iran, especially those
Saudi women who want to drive cars.
As per Iran, we
call for democracy in that nation, even though we accept full
responsibility for overthrowing the democratically elected leader,
Mossedeq, and installing the Shah who oppressed his people for many
years.
We know you share our joy with the elimination
of the hated terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Even though we created him and
supported him, the time came for his removal, even though we were aware
he was living in a mansion with his three wives in Pakistan. He served
us well, but the time came for his disposal. You know how we handle
those who outlive our usefulness, e.g., Saddam Hussein.
We
promised a total troop removal from Iraq, but circumstances may prevent
this unless it is expedient for my upcoming election. We hope the
people of Iraq understand, especially that guy Sadr and his army of the
poor in Sadr City who fought with us to no avail.
Our
regional partners, namely the Sunni neighbors of Iraq, have warned us
not to leave Iraq under a Shia regime, again this will only benefit
Iran, the enemy of world peace. Not Israel and certainly not America who
is the champion of world peace as you all know throughout the Muslim
world, not matter that we are now occupying Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and making inroads into Libya. You may be surprised to learn that it is
not the oil we want in Libya but the water. Yes, water will be a
precious commodity in the coming days. We pray to Allah you can
understand why we do what we do.
As per Afghanistan,
we have promised the Taliban if they lay down their arms, we will give
them schooling, housing and employment. We wish we could offer the same
to our boys and girls in the hoods of America who are terrorizing their
communities with drugs and guns, but our budget crisis will not allow
education, housing and jobs for the boys and girls in the hood, although
we can do this for the Taliban. As you know we did this in Iraq and
this was the real cause of the decrease in violence, not the socalled
surge of Baghdad under General Betrayus.
As you know,
General Betrayus will be taking over the Central Intelligence Agency. We
appreciate his role in prolonging the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We
feel he has been successful in routing the 100 to 500 Al Quida in
Afghanistan, especially after we sent him thirty thousand additional
troops.
Finally, our friends in Pakistan may have
some misgivings about the unilateral move we made to eliminate Osama bin
Laden, but we want them to get over it and not make any silly moves
like seeking revenge with their nuclear option.
I close in the name of peace, As-Salaam-Alaikum. President Barack Hussein Obama
Scourge of US elections: Electoral College, hackable voting machines & obscure rules
By
Cynthia McKinney
After serving in the Georgia Legislature, in 1992, Cynthia
McKinney won a seat in the US House of Representatives. She was the
first African-American woman from Georgia in the US Congress. In 2005,
McKinney was a vocal critic of the government’s response to Hurricane
Katrina and was the first member of Congress to file articles of
impeachment against George W. Bush. In 2008, Cynthia McKinney won the
Green Party nomination for the US presidency.
Jesus once remarked to a wealthy man that “it is easier for a
camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to
go to heaven.”
Today, we could amend the words of that Biblical reference with the US presidential race underway: “It
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a
voter in the US to know and understand the rules regulating the
administration of all elections, including elections for President of
the United States.”
Let’s start with the phenomenon of what is called a “minority president.”
No, that is not a president who identifies as an ethnic or racial
minority in the US. A minority president is one who has failed to win a
plurality of the votes cast in the race for president, and yet is still
able to become President of the United States. This is the exact
opposite of what a true democracy would require; perhaps not even a pure
democracy would entertain such a position such as the 'Office of the
Presidency'. But that is an entirely different matter.
Read more
Super-duper-delegates: 'Undemocratic system used by Democratic Party'
The United States has actually had several minority presidents
in its history, while the 21st century began ominously enough with yet
another minority President: George W. Bush, the Republican who failed to
secure the most votes cast by the people [in the 2000 election, the
Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling, decided the victor of the race after
moving to halt the recount process in the state of Florida].
Both the US House and the US Senate are charged with counting the Electoral College
votes, and this is a process in which I have participated. The
constitutionally mandated process was circumvented by the
precedent-setting Bush v. Gore Supreme Court ruling that instructed future Courts not to use the decision as a precedent!
As
this case aptly proved, it’s not the people who have the last word in
US elections. It’s a non-democratic construct called the Electoral
College that does, except in those rare instances when it doesn’t.
The
Electoral College was created by the framers of the US Constitution to
ensure that the votes of the plebes did not supersede the interests of
the landed gentry. That’s not just my opinion. For example, according to
FairVote,
an organization with which I have worked in the 2000 Presidential
election, a whopping 78 percent of the votes cast were rendered
unimportant due to the arcane rules of the Electoral College. They
estimate that in 2008, the figure still topped 70 percent.
Despite Bernie’s landslide victory, Hillary receives more New Hampshire delegates
In order to be declared the winner of the presidency, 270 Electoral
College votes are required. But the process is not what could be called
transparent. For example, veteran Pro Se litigator Asa Gordon has demonstrated
how the Black vote in the US is rendered less relevant by the arcane
apportionment rules of the Electoral College. And when the Electoral
College is deadlocked,
which has happened before, then the matter falls to the United States
House of Representatives to decide who will be allowed to serve in the
White House.
Hacking Democracy
Add to the above debacles,
the US Congress and the election authorities in the 50 states have
authorized and encouraged the use of hackable electronic voting machines
that are used for vote casting and vote tabulation. Bev Harris and her
company, Black Box Voting,
has accumulated horror stories surrounding the non-transparency of US
elections. I have worked closely with Harris because the danger of these
machines is self-evident to everyone except the officials who continue
to purchase them for millions of dollars, putting millions of voters’
most precious political asset at risk.
Bernie
beat Hillary by 22% but she'll break even in New Hampshire because of
SuperDelegates. That is not democracy. The system is rigged.
Such a scenario is what led former President Jimmy Carter to comment he “absolutely” could not be elected today under such conditions, going so far as to characterize the United States as an oligarchy, not a democracy.
‘Hacking Democracy’ is
only one of the many documentaries to expose the fallibility of the
actual voting process in the US. Other documentaries focus on how
private money has corrupted its election process.
In addition to
the insecure hardware, I am sorry to write that the voter list is kept
on an electronic device and if the voter’s name fails to appear on the
list, the voter has little recourse.
In the US, votes and vote
tabulation processes are done without any traceable back-up procedures.
In other words, there is no paper trail - no receipt of a vote, as it
were - whatsoever. In one of my Congressional elections in which the
electronic voting machines “failed,” not only was I unable to
obtain the election data despite a lawsuit having been filed, an expert
witness for the state of Georgia testified that voters have to simply “trust”
that the announced winner is the actual winner. Meanwhile, candidates
have no access to the raw election data because that information is “owned” by Diebold—the company that produced the electronic voting machines and the software used by them (The documentary ‘American Blackout’
tells my own personal story with US elections). It is difficult to
place trust in the US election system when we learn about the number of
votes cast that go uncounted. In the 2000 Presidential election between
Bush and Gore, between two million and five million Americans went to the polls and voted, yet their votes were thrown out, disqualified for any number of reasons. Half of those uncounted votes were cast by Black Americans.
Money, money, money
Add
to these procedural vagaries, the influence of private money in US
elections and even the pretense of holding transparent, free, and fair
elections is stood completely on its head. As I wrote in a previous post,
the rules have given rise to super-wealthy individuals who lurk in the
shadows while becoming the power behind the public faces of candidates:
Marco Rubio has Norman Braman as his closest and most important backer. Hillary Clinton has Haim Saban as one of her top donors; Sheldon Adelson
is a “player” at the Presidential level in US politics. Billionaire
Donald Trump self-finances his Presidential bid and former New York
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is rumored to be willing to spend one billion dollars in his still-to-be-announced independent presidential run.
The
situation is so dire that one wealthy individual could legally bankroll
an entire Congressional campaign and a roundtable of them could do the
same with the US Presidency. So-called campaign finance reform blew the
existing loopholes wide open instead of closing them. The Citizens
United Supreme Court ruling stood the revered Freedom of Speech First
Amendment to the US Constitution on its head by allowing a few wealthy donors to have more 'free speech' than 300 million other Americans.
The
sad truth is that much of what takes place resembles a horse race, or
some kind of political theater designed specifically for public
consumption. Each step of the process, whether it’s the hunt for
delegates in the political party primary or the hunt for Electoral
College votes after nominations have taken place, the real action takes
place in the darkest recesses of the system, out of view. One could go
so far as to say that the real action of US “democracy” takes place in
the shadows.
So, what we are witnessing for public consumption is
the hunt for delegates among the presidential contenders in the
Republican Party and between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in the
Democratic Party. Until February 1, everything was basically kabuki
theatre, advertising in order to lure an ample audience to enhance the
profits of the major television, radio broadcasters and newspaper
publishers. Donald Trump made this point repeatedly just before he
decided to not participate any longer in the pre-February Republican
Party Primary debates. He challenged CNN to donate some of its profits from debate ad sales to veterans’ charities—which, of course, CNN refused to do.
On
February 1, the first popular voting actually took place. The Iowa
Caucuses kicked off the delegate hunt. The Democratic candidates are
trying to garner 2,382 delegates to win the nomination; Republican
candidates need 1,144. Across the state of Iowa, registered voters
gathered to cast their vote for their preferred party primary candidate.
Yet the rules for the caucuses are far from straightforward, as are the
rules for counting of votes and assignment of delegates.
Thus, several results in the Iowa Democratic caucuses were actually decided by a coin toss; one Clinton precinct captain
didn’t even live in the precinct to whose caucus he had been assigned
to manage. As a result of the massive confusion as to who actually won
the Iowa Caucuses, the Sanders campaign has launched a quest to get the
raw vote totals—as yet unavailable from the Iowa or national Democratic
Party that declared Clinton the winner.
The next vote took place
in the New Hampshire primary, which is different than a caucus. And
there, too, the rules change by state for which primary voters are
eligible to vote.
The next round of voting will take place on what
is called ‘Super Tuesday’ when a number of states allow their voters to
express their presidential preferences in primaries. But, that’s only
if your preferred presidential candidate has been able to secure ballot
access. Not all of the candidates are able to run in all states because
each state has its own requirements for gaining ballot access. This is
not a problem for either the Democratic or Republican parties, but is a
huge issue for other parties. Therefore, most American voters don’t even
get to see the full range of candidates and political parties on their
ballots!
All of this popular voting is to assign delegates to each
candidate. Those delegates will represent their candidate at the
political party’s nominating convention. Or at least that’s the way it’s
supposed to work. And so, the candidate with the most delegates will
win the party’s nomination, right? Well, not necessarily, due to
something called “super delegates” who are not bound by the
popular vote. So, theoretically, unless Bernie Sanders wins the popular
vote by a commanding margin in the Democratic Party primary, Hillary
Clinton could actually walk away with the party’s nomination, due to the
power of superdelegates
whose role is similar to that of the Electoral College—to make sure
that the plebes don’t ever really think they are in control. However, if
something like that were to occur, the credibility of the Party might take a beating.
So,
there you have it. When there is no challenge to the shadow players,
everything rolls just fine and the flaws in the system are not clearly
evident. But, for candidates who do not have shadow blessing, the
election process can become a nightmare. Imagine then, America's
increasingly alienated voters trying to overcome all of the information and process hurdles.
And,
by the way, not all adult citizens in the US are eligible to vote. In
some states, people in the criminal justice system with felonies may
forfeit their right to vote altogether. At the same time, some states
require state-issued identification cards in order to vote. Even voting
machines are positioned by precinct history, not by need. Thus, Blacks
voting in Ohio and other places around the country waited for hours to
vote while White majority precincts had no wait at all to vote.
It is little wonder, then, that so few citizens of voting age actually participate in the process. According to one study,
only approximately 55 percent of the voting age population actually
voted in 2012. For citizens tying to unravel all of the rules and
regulations, how a candidate moves through the process to become a
nominee and then incumbent is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”
So
the next time the victor of a US presidential race system says that he
or she will destabilize a foreign government or wage a war against a
foreign country in order to 'fight for democracy', the entire world, led
most of all by the voters of the United States, should greet the news
with a hearty laugh.
The
statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
FYI, the Black Arts Movement Business District has received pledges of support from the following:
KPOO Radio's Donald Lacy
Donald Lacy, KPOO Radio and Love Life Foundation
Donald told BAMBD planner Marvin X, he stands ready to do whatever is necessary to make the
district a success.
Sisters Angela and Fania Davis
Fania E. Davis, Executive Director of Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth
Fania says she will get the youth she works with involved in the BAMBD. Marvin
told Fania, "Please tell Angela we need her support as well."
Margaret Gordon, West Oakland Environmentalist and Social Justice Activist
Margaret Gordon, God Mother of West Oakland, is ready to do all she can to enable
the BAMBD project to succeed. She pointed out several spaces in West Oakland BAMBD
can use. As per the coal train coming to West Oakland, she was critical of certain ministers
who seem more interested in gold dust than coal dust! Margaret Gordon said the BAMBD request for a one billion dollar trust fund is on point.
Another person said she is ready to donate $1,000.00 as soon as the BAMBD legal papers are in order. She added, "If every Black person donated $5.00, the BAMBD can get off the ground."
Marvin X and Bobby Seale discuss their days at Merritt College, how they were self educated into Black consciousness to become the Neo-Black intellectuals; how Bobby performed in Marvin's play Come Next Summer; Bobby recites his favorite Marvin X poem "Burn,Baby,Burn" about the 65' Watts rebellion; how Bobby and Huey evolved into Black Panthers. Interview reveals Bobby's excellent memory of black history down to the minute, second, microsecond. Get it from the horse's mouth rather than swallow revisionist history told by muddle headed academics and intellectuals in perpetual crisis.--Marvin X
www.itsabouttimebpp.com/Media/Media_index.html
Bobby Seale interviewed by Marvin X 2000 [Video: 64 min]
The Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series presents Bobby Seale Founding Chairman & National Organizer, Black Panther Party (BPP) Saturday, February 27, 2016 7:00pm Location: Merritt College, Huey P. Newton & Bobby Seale Student Lounge 12500 Campus Dr., Oakland, CA Co-Produced by the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Merritt College
Featuring fifteen explosive new chapters, this
expanded edition of the classic New York Times million-copy bestseller
brings the story of economic hit men up to date and, chillingly, home to
the United States. It also gives us hope and the tools each of us can
use to change the system.
In this astonishing tell-all book, former Economic Hit Man John
Perkins shares new details about the ways he and others cheated
countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. From the U.S.
military in Iraq and infrastructure development in Indonesia, to Peace
Corps volunteers in Africa and jackals in Venezuela, Perkins exposes the
corruption and failed policies that have fueled instability and
anti-Americanism around the globe, with consequences reflected in our
daily headlines and lives.
He then reveals how the deadly Economic Hit Man cancer he helped
create has spread far more widely and deeply than ever in the United
States and everywhere else—to become the dominant system of business,
government, and society today. Finally, he gives an insider’s view of
what we each can do to change it.
Listen to Part Two of Sistah Q's interview with poet/playwright/essayist/organizer Marvin X on Harambee Radio. He discusses the Black Arts Movement Business District, downtown Oakland CA.
Marvin X interviewed by WURD Talk Radio, Philadelphia, Black Power Babies Conversation,
WHATEVER
YOU DO... DO NOT... I REPEAT DO NOT MISS A SPECIAL 5 HOUR SALUTE TO THE
BLACK PANTHER PARTY AS WE COMMEMORATE THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE
FOUNDING OF THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY BY HUEY NEWTON AND BOBBY SEALE IN
OAKLAND CALIFORNIA.. THE BLACK PANTHERS WENT ON TO BECOME AN
INTERNATIONALLY KNOWN ORGANIZATION THAT CHANGED THE WORLD. SATURDAY
FEBRUARY 20@ 7 AM -12 NOON..PST INCLUDING ARCHIVAL INTERVIEWS FROM HUEY
NEWTON.. LIVE IN STUDIO CO FOUNDER BOBBY SEALE.. LEADER OF THE
BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT PLAY WRITE AUTHOR MARVIN X...BLACK PANTHER MEMBER
AND HISTORIAN BILLY JENNINGS... DOCUMENTARY ON ASSATA SHAKUR ..KATHLEEN
CLEAVER.. AND A SPEECH FROM THE GREAT FRED HAMPTON.. TELL A FRIEND AND
TUNE IN TO THE REVOLUTION WILL BE BROADCAST ON KPOO 89.5 FM AND ALL OvER
THE WORLD ON www.kpoo.com .. #freedomfighters#oakland#revolution#blackpanthers#wakeupeverybody#e14TH
Marvin X interviewed by WURD Talk Radio, Philadelphia, Black Power Babies Conversation,
SNCC: The Importance of its Work, the Value of its Legacy
by Charles Cobb
The time was 1960, the place the U.S.A.
That February first became a history making day
From Greensboro all across the land
The news spread far and wide
That quietly and bravely youth took a giant stride
Heed the call
Americans all
Side by equal side
Brothers sit in dignity
Sisters sit in pride
—Ballad of the Sit-Ins by Guy Carawan, Eve Merriam and Norman Curtis
Greenwood MS, June 1966, on the Meredith March. SNCC Chairman Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) calls for "Black Power."
Beginnings
You can never tell when a spark will light a fire. So, on February
1, 1960 when four Black students attending North Carolina A&T
College sat down at the lunch counter in a Greensboro, North Carolina
Woolworth Department store, ordered food, were refused service and then
remained seated until the store closed, few could have predicted how
rapidly similar protests would spread across the south; or the lasting
impact on the south and the nation of the sudden direct action by these
students.
Over the next two months, student sit-ins spread to 80 southern
cities and were involving thousands of young people, most of them
attending historically black colleges and universities like A&T,
although in several cities high school students launched and led
sit-ins. Two and a half months after Greensboro—the weekend of April
15-17—student sit-in leaders gathered at Shaw College (now Shaw
University) in Raleigh, North Carolina to meet one another, share
experiences and to discuss coordinating future actions.
Ella Baker, one of the great figures in 20th century civil rights
struggle had organized this gathering. She was then executive director
of Rev. Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC), a group she had been instrumental in organizing. In the 1940s
she had been the NAACP’s director of southern branches, and in the early
1950s deeply involved with supporting southern Black community leaders
facing economic reprisals because of their civil rights activities. As
the sit-ins unfolded, she recognized that beyond energetic protests, the
students were bringing something fresh and new to civil rights struggle
and at the Shaw conference encouraged them to consider forming their
own organization. Thus was born the Student Non-violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC, pronounced “Snick”). Her fundamental message to the
students was, “Organize from the bottom up.” She emphasized her belief
that, “Strong people don’t need strong leaders.”
Ella Baker provided a corner of the SCLC office in Atlanta to SNCC.
In this cramped space SNCC’s sole staff member was Jane Stembridge, a
volunteer stirred by the sit-ins who was the white Georgia-born and
raised daughter of a Baptist preacher. A newsletter—The Student
Voice—was created and circulated to student protest groups. It mainly
provided information about what the various SNCC-affiliated campus-based
organizations were doing. The first check to SNCC—$100—in support of
its existence and efforts, came from Eleanor Roosevelt.
Soon, however, discussion among some of the students turned to what
beside sit-ins could be done by young people, especially outside of
urban centers. Within a year of SNCC’s founding, a small group dropped
out of school and became the first SNCC organizers or “field
secretaries.”
These organizers, armed with the names of grassroots contacts Ella Baker
had developed over many years, even decades, began digging into
southern black belt communities. By the fall of 1961 SNCC had
established two significant organizing projects: Southwest Mississippi
and Southwest Georgia. Both regions, rural and containing majority Black
populations, were characterized by violent and vicious opposition to
Black voting rights with terror and reprisal encouraged and supported by
state and local government in response to any civil rights activity.
The Black Organizing Tradition and SNCC
Community organizing is a very old tradition in Black America.
Slaves, after all, were not sitting-in at the plantation manor dining
room seeking a seat at the table; nor picketing the auction block in the
town square. They were organizing—sometimes an escape, or sometimes a
rebellion, and constantly, the ways and means of survival in a new, very
strange and hostile land. Ella Baker, and the community leaders she
introduced them to, brought SNCC field secretaries into this organizing
tradition. And what these Black community leaders wanted help organizing
was voter registration campaigns. Black people had the numbers; if they
could get the vote they could begin to dismantle the system of
oppression that had dominated Black life for all of the 20th century;
indeed, since the abandonment of Reconstruction in 1876. Mississippi
NAACP leader Amzie Moore put this on the table at SNCC’s second
conference in October 1960. And SNCC’s black belt organizing efforts
increasingly revolved around voter registration.
SNCC organizers embedded themselves in rural black belt communities
to work to empower some of the poorest of the poor in America. This was
a relatively new, even radical approach to civil rights struggle. The
ruthless white violence directed at any civil rights effort in the rural
deep south black belt engendered belief that little was possible
through direct organizing efforts. More traditional civil rights
organizations did not concentrate much effort in this geography or among
this category of people, giving priority instead to legal battles to
strike down laws enforcing white supremacy and segregation. So in some
respects, despite the existence of some truly heroic NAACP leaders, SNCC
organizers were also entering virgin political territory. And they were
embraced by local people in these communities; invisible as actors in
the civil rights struggle but who had long desired change. Out of this
work emerged new voices from the grassroots like Mississippi’s Fannie
Lou Hamer, a sharecropper who became a powerful national spokesperson
for civil rights. She was also, at 46-years-of-age in 1962, SNCC’s
oldest field secretary. This kind of close relationship with people at
the grassroots would characterize SNCC during its entire existence.
Youth
No civil rights action in history had ever swept the South the way
that the sit-in movement did; certainly no action driven and led by
young people. SNCC’s youthfulness was important to what it was and what
it became. The number and manner in which young people began emerging as
leaders in the civil rights movement in 1960, was unprecedented. As
Martin Luther King put it at a Durham, North Carolina civil rights rally
less than a month after sit-ins erupted in Greensboro, “What is new in
your fight is the fact that it was initiated, fed, and sustained by
students.” An often ignored effect of this student action was their
making legitimate going to jail for a principle. And this changed the
students, laying the foundation for everything they would do as SNCC
organizers. Charles Sherrod from Petersburg, Virginia was the first of
the sit-in students to postpone his education to work full-time with
SNCC. He pioneered grassroots organizing in Southwest Georgia. But a few
months before going there to begin that work, on the first anniversary
of the Greensboro sit-in, he sat-in and was arrested in Rock Hill, South
Carolina. He refused bail and served a 30-day sentence of hard labor on
a road gang. Upon his release, Sherrod offered a vivid articulation of
how students like himself were changing: “You get ideas in jail. You
talk with other young people you have never seen. Right away we
recognize each other. People like yourself, getting out of the past.
We’re up all night, sharing creativity, planning action. You learn the
truth in prison, you learn wholeness. You find out the difference
between being dead and alive.”
And in a 1962 field report, 22-year-old Sam Block, who was the
first SNCC organizer to begin working in the Mississippi Delta,
demonstrates a courage and commitment that can perhaps only belong to
youth: “We went up to register and it was the first time visiting the
courthouse in Greenwood, Mississippi, and the sheriff came up to me and
he asked me, he said, ‘Nigger where you from?’ I told him, Well I’m a
native Mississippian. He said, ‘Yeh, yeh, I know that, but where you
from? I don’t know where you from.’ I said, Well, around some counties.
He said, ‘Well I know that, [but] I know you ain’t from here ‘cause I
know every nigger and his mammy.’ I said, You know all the niggers, do
you know any colored people? He got angry. He spat in my face and he
walked away. So he came back and turned around and told me, ‘I don’t
want to see you in town any more. The best thing you better do is pack
your clothes and get out and don’t never come back no more.’ I said,
Well, sheriff, if you don’t want to see me here, I think the best thing
for you to do is pack your clothes and leave, get out of town, ‘cause
I’m here to stay; I came here to do a job and this is my intention. I’m
going to do this job.…”
SNCC Organizing Projects
The organizing work was both dull and dangerous, mostly involving
door-to-door canvassing in an effort to persuade legitimately fearful
potential Black registrants to brave the risks of going to county
courthouses to register to vote knowing that the chances of actually
getting registered were virtually nil. Courthouse clerks could ask
anyone attempting to register questions like how many bubbles were in a
bar of soap; or to interpret a complex section of the state constitution
to their satisfaction as a requirement for registration. And almost
always, economic or violent reprisal followed attempts by Blacks to
register to vote. At a deeper level than the immediate political concern
with voter registration, SNCC’s work was also about cultivating new
local leadership and reinforcing existing local leadership. SNCC field
secretaries did not see themselves as community leaders but as community
organizers, a distinction that empowered local participants by
reinforcing the idea at the heart of SNCC’s work in every project that
“local people” could and should take control of their own lives.
Much of
what SNCC organizers did was demonstrate they were willing to stay in
these communities despite the violence; that they could not be run out
by the violence. Conversations on front porches, in dirt yards, amidst
crops in cotton, tobacco and sugar cane fields, in small church meetings
and in plantation sharecropper shacks, explored citizenship and the
idea of gaining control of the decision-making affecting daily life.
Being able to do this on a large scale was uncertain because fear kept
many doors closed, but even attempting to do this sort of work in the
rural black belt south could be counted as a breakthrough, a modest but
important victory of commitment over terror. And though large numbers
did not publically and politically surface in response to SNCC
organizing efforts, a small number of the very brave did, teaching the
SNCC “organizers” how to listen as well as how to talk; how to
understand the communities they were in; and to know when they were in
danger and when they were not. “We were the community’s children,” wrote
SNCC’s legendary Mississippi project director Bob Moses in his book
Radical Equations. “And that closeness rendered moot the label of
‘outside agitator.’”
There is not enough space here to detail every single one of SNCC
organizing projects, but during the eight years of its existence SNCC
had projects in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina,
Virginia, Maryland, and Texas. There were more SNCC field secretaries
working full time in southern communities than any civil rights
organization before or since. And there were two notable organizing
projects that need mentioning here and are important to SNCC’s legacy:
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party: In Mississippi and
throughout the black belt, the savage never-ending oppressive cycle that
kept black people politically disenfranchised had two connected halves.
1) Blacks were deliberately and systematically kept illiterate (and the
public school system was part of this) while at the same time literacy
was the primary requirement for voter registration. 2) Violence and
reprisal was the response to any Black effort aimed at gaining the
political franchise; but because few blacks were willing to brave the
virtually certain terroristic response to seeking the franchise, they
were said to be “apathetic.”
To attack this cycle in Mississippi, SNCC and other civil rights
organizations in the state established in churches, small shops and
other places within Black communities, voter registration facilities;
safe places for voter registration. More than 80,000 people “registered
to vote” under these simpler and more comfortable conditions, thus
arming organizers with concrete evidence that apathy was not the
problem. This “freedom registration” was followed-up with the organizing
of a “freedom party”—the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP).
Unlike the all-white so-called “regular” state Democratic Party, the
MFDP was open to all without regard to race. Carefully following all of
the delegate selection rules for the 1964 Democratic Party national
convention, the MFDP challenged the legitimacy of seating Mississippi’s
official all-white delegation. Although the MFDP lost the challenge in a
still bitterly remembered political fight which brought the weight of
the White House down on them, their challenge forced changes that
dramatically reshaped both the state and national Democratic Party.
The Lowndes County Freedom Organization: When a small group of SNCC
organizers, led by Stokely Carmichael, entered notorious Lowndes County
Alabama shortly after the Selma-to-Montgomery march, not a single black
person in this county, whose population was 80 percent Black, was
registered to vote. In fact, no Black person in this county nicknamed
“Bloody Lowndes” was known to have been registered to vote in the entire
20th century. Remarkably, in less than a year, despite violence that
included the murder and the attempted murders of civil rights
organizers, Blacks were a majority of the registered voters in Lowndes
County. This success in voter registration was assisted by the August
1965 signing into law of the Voting Rights Act. But SNCC’s organizing
here took root around the idea of an independent Black political party.
That party, the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LCFO) pioneered the
development of written and visual materials clearly illustrating
through words and pictures the importance of the vote, or as one
organizer put it years later, “regime change.”
The symbol of the LCFO was a black panther, making it the first
black panther party in the nation. In 1966, the LCFO fielded candidates
for county offices and the party’s instructions were simple: “Pull the
Black Panther lever and go home.” (The symbol of Alabama’s Democratic
Party was a white rooster with the words “white supremacy for the right”
written above it.) Fraud by the county’s white powers denied the LCFO
victory and the election was followed by the expulsion of Black
sharecroppers and tenant farmers supporting the LCFO. Nonetheless, in
1970 the first Black Sherriff was elected in Lowndes County. Meanwhile,
the black panther symbol had leapt across country to Oakland, California
where the now much better known Black Panther Party was formed by Huey
P. Newton and Bobby Seale. Here, too, in Lowndes County are the roots of
Stokely Carmichael’s 1966 call for Black Power as chairman of SNCC.
Greenwood MS, June 1966, on the Meredith March. SNCC Chairman Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) calls for "Black Power."
LEGACY
In the broadest sense, SNCC’s legacy is the legacy of grassroots
organizing. Within this frame, SNCC and the field organizers of CORE,
SCLC and the NAACP are really an interconnected force that in just one
intense decade successfully challenged and changed America for the
better. But there are specific aspects of this broad legacy that belong
to SNCC and justify a formal effort to both collect and create material
that will help future generations understand, draw lessons from, and
perhaps use the SNCC experience in continuing efforts to fashion “a more
perfect union” here in the United States.
First, by putting their lives continuously at risk through
committed grassroots organizing, this relatively small group of young
people broke the back of a racist and restrictive exclusionary order
that was tolerated at the highest levels of government. Much of what
kept white supremacy and segregation in place was the absence of direct
and continuous challenge to it and the undramatic grassroots work on the
back roads and in the towns and villages of the deep south for voting
rights also made it impossible to ignore the will to freedom. And it
needs to be said here that this work liberated Whites as well as Blacks.
Indeed, the MFDP and that party’s 1964 challenge not only led to a
two-party system in Mississippi and the south, but also forced via the
1972 “McGovern Rules” changes in political practices that have
permanently expanded the participation of women and minorities. There is
a straight line connecting the MFDP with the election of Barak Obama to
the U.S. presidency.
Nationwide, student struggle was also inspired by the southern movement
and these movements expanded and accelerated in the decade of the 1960s.
SDS’s grassroots Educational and Research Action Projects (ERAP) in the
North grew out of discussions with SNCC and observation of its work.
The Northern Student Movement (NSM), initially formed in 1961 to aid
SNCC, became an activist organization with nearly 50 campus chapters
taking on welfare reform, dysfunctional schools and other community
organizing projects.
The Mississippi Summer Project of 1964 which brought nearly 1,000
students from around the nation to Mississippi for a “freedom summer”
conveyed the ideas and ideals of the southern freedom movement into a
whole generation from which the future leadership of the country would
be drawn. Most immediately, the free speech movement that erupted on the
University of California campus at Berkeley during the 1964-65 school
year, was initiated by Mississippi Freedom Summer volunteer Mario Savio.
SNCC’s articulation of “Black Power” fostered a new black
consciousness. The Black and Africana studies departments on college
campuses today have roots in the Mississippi “freedom schools” of 1964,
the earlier Nonviolent High School created in 1961 by SNCC in McComb,
Mississippi when students were expelled for protesting, and the general
idea of education for liberation that is taking the form today in the
growing struggle over quality public education as a civil right.
Other movements gained strength from the pool of ideas found in
SNCC: Chicano farm workers, who were facing sheriffs and going to jail
in the late 1950s, invited SNCC workers to help with their efforts in
the late 1960s. Discussion of sexism and women’s rights within SNCC, as
well as SNCC’s real life examples of empowered, respected women who led
local movements and held key positions in the organization, encouraged
and reinforced a burgeoning feminist movement.
But more than anything else, the SNCC legacy is found in the
veterans, many of who have continued to work for “a more perfect union.”
Five SNCC veterans have been recipients of MacArthur Foundation Genius
awards. Former SNCC communications director Julian Bond became board
chair of the NAACP. Former SNCC chair John Lewis is now serving his 15th
term as congressman from Atlanta’s 5th congressional district. Across
the country, and especially in the south, SNCC veterans are influential
leaders and activists. Once young and mentored by “elders” who had long
labored in the fields of social change, SNCC veterans now continue that
tradition and are now, who “they” were. Ella Baker’s words best define
this legacy: “We who believe in freedom cannot rest.”
RECOMMENDED READING FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
On The Road To Freedom, A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail, by Charles E. Cobb Jr.
Hands on the Freedom Plow, Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC, edited by Faith Holsaert, et. al.
Deep in Our Hearts, Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement, by Joan Browning, et al.
Many Minds, One Heart, SNCC’s Dream for a New America, by Wesley Hogan
SNCC, the New Abolitionists, by Howard Zinn
In Struggle, SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s by Clayborne Carson
Ready For Revolution, the Life and Struggles of Stokely Carmichael, by Stokely Carmichael with Ekueme Michael Thelwell
The Making of Black Revolutionaries, by James Forman
The River of No Return, by Cleveland Sellers with Robert Terrell
Walking With the Wind, by John Lewis with Michael D’orso
Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, by Barbara Ransby
Ella Baker, Freedom Bound, by Joanne Grant
The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, by Bob Zellner with Constance Curry
Freedom Song, by Mary King
Letters From Mississippi, edited by Elizabeth Sutherland Martinez
Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt, by Hasan Kwame Jeffries
Radical Equations, Civil Rights From Mississippi to the Algebra Project, by Robert P. Moses and Charles Cobb
Black Power 50th
"THE BLACK POWER CHRONICLES"
2016 to 2018
ANNOUNCEMENT
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Introduction
Black Power! These words shouted out on Mississippi
highway 51 on June 17, 1966 reverberated in the collective soul of Black
America, crystalizing both strength and love. The declaration came from
SNCC organizer, Mukasa Willie Ricks, and SNCC chairman, Stokely
Carmichael, during the Meredith March Against Fear in Mississippi. Young
activists throughout the world embraced the phrase, making it their own
and expanding the dynamic of struggle
Stokely Carmichael
The call led to new goals and redefined the measures of
success, inspiring a new generation of activists who had not previously
been involved in the Civil Rights Movement. It built upon the lessons
learned from the southern civil rights struggle and called for a black
consciousness, establishing new independent organizations and
institutions that were controlled by black people. It shaped personal
transformations as well as political activism and led to the creation of
organizations by those who never found their place in the civil rights
agenda. There is a need to look back at this often-distorted era and in
doing so, to look ahead to the work that still needs to be done. As
Mozambican and Angolan freedom fighters said in their fight for
liberation from Portuguese colonialism: A Luta Continua.
SNCC Legacy Project (SLP)
The SNCC Legacy Project (SLP) is a non-profit,
tax-exempt volunteer organization founded in 2010 following the 50th
anniversary celebration of the founding of the Student Non-Violent
Coordinating Committee. Our mission is to gather, present and interpret
the stories, materials, lessons, ideas and legacy of SNCC and the Civil
Rights Movement for current and future generations of social justice
activists.
Over the past five years SLP's Board of Directors, made up
of SNCC veterans and younger activists, has collaborated with a variety
of academic institutions including HBCUs and majority-serving research
universities, community-based organizations and contemporary social
justice organizations to provide a range of materials and services.
These include oral histories, internet-based educational platforms,
curriculum development, classroom materials, a video documentary,
special events training, and technical assistance.
Our collaborating partners in this regard have included
the following: the Smithsonian Institute, particularly its National
Museum of African American History and Culture; the Library of Congress;
Howard University , Tougaloo College, Albany State College, Brown
University , and Princeton University; The Mississippi NAACP, Veterans
of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement and most recently, Duke
University. (See the attached sheet for a list of programs and
achievements).
Program
In 2016, the SNCC Legacy Project (SLP) will embark on a
multi-year collaborative series of national and international programs,
events and activities commemorating the 50th anniversary of the call
for Black Power and the launching of the Black Power Movement. This
project builds upon the SLP's five-year focus on capture and
interpreting the history, impact and legacy of the Civil Rights Movement
from the perspective of those organizers who worked at the grassroots
in black communities.
Our goal is to organize a comprehensive series of
programs themed on the Black Power Movement that will write new history,
provide a fresh look at the impact and influence of the concept on the
lives and aspirations of oppressed people of color in the U.S. and
throughout the African Diaspora, as well as on other social justice
movements globally. One key feature of these activities will be the
bringing together of 21st-century social justice activists with veterans
of the 20th century Black Power
Movement.
The program will help identify questions and themes
that might inform and guide the development of an inter-generational
collaboration, and further facilitate an ongoing dialogue in this
respect. It is anticipated that the programs will empower the
contemporary social justice movement by sharing organizing ideas,
strategies, practices and models; introducing veteran and contemporary
activists to each other at the local level; and building alliances and
trust across social justice generations. We also expect the program to
generate new creative work about the Black Power era by inviting
contemporary writers, artists, educators, students and scholars to take
part in the activities and the discussions they will engender.
Collaboration
The SLP is now building collaborations with Black Power
veterans and contemporary social justice activists in 15 cities around
the USA, as well as in other countries that are also part of the African
diaspora. Here the focus is on those community-based institutions,
organizations, events and leaders that influenced the development of the
Black Power Movement in their communities, or might do so today.
Each collaborating city or country will form a Host
Committee (HC) consisting of representatives and veterans of the Black
Power Movement as well as representatives from the contemporary social
justice movement. Collaborating municipalities and counties include: New
York City, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Jackson (Mississippi), Newark,
Detroit, Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area, Durham and Orangeburg
(North Carolina), Lowndes County and Fairfield (Alabama), and the Texas
Triangle (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio).
The global conversation will explore the history,
impact and legacy of the Black Power Movement from the perspective of
those who shaped the vision, built the institutions or drew inspiration
from this transformational period of the U.S. struggle for civil and
human rights, thereby empowering activists across Africa, in the
Caribbean, and in Latin America, but also others in places as far-flung
as New Zealand and India.
. .
The Host Committees will bring together representatives
from the following community-based or non-profit entities: HBCUs and
other academic colleges and universities; social justice organizations,
institutions and activists; youth empowerment organizations and
activists; academic and student organizations and associations; cultural
institutions, art centers and art professionals; units of local
government, elected officials and public administrators; religious
institutions and clergy; labor unions and professional associations;
specialty museums, libraries, archives; media outlets, publishers, and
journalists; and other black institutions and associations founded
during or influenced by the Black Power era.
SLP will work with local activists to define broad
guidelines and a framework; help identify community leadership; and
provide organizing, marketing and communications services. SLP will
provide content areas as needed, and provide programming to supplement
the local documentation defined by the HC. Each HC will develop its
own action plan to bring about the designated program outcomes and
provide leadership for the national and global program.
Outcomes
The Black Power Chronicles will illustrate that the
Black Power Movement was a positive force for social and political
empowerment for oppressed people, and not the destructive influence that
has been so often portrayed. Most important, it will enable young
activists to establish working relationships and communications with
Black Power veterans, as well as educate the veterans about the
contemporary social justice movement. We hope to forge new cooperation
and alliances between veteran and contemporary social justice and thus
strengthen the work ahead.
This program will strive to facilitate and encourage
the development of new works about the Black Power era. These may
include, but are not limited to the following: articles both digital and
print; educational curricula, teaching materials and online educational
platforms; video and film documentaries; art and photo exhibits as well
as original music, dance, theater, poetry and literature.
Enjoy this 1966 speech by Stokely Carmichael: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9fyyAnIOQ
