eldridge cleaver on north korea

 At Pyongyang, North Korea, Madame Kim II Sung, wife of Premier Kim II Sung, gave birthday party for Maceo Cleaver, one year old. Madame named Cleaver daughter Joju, born while the Cleavers were visiting North Korea.

 

Joju Cleaver, age one.

Monday, 13 January 2014

ELDRIDGE CLEAVER's SUPPORT FOR DPRK / SOCIALIST KOREA

North Korea and the American Radical Left

By

Benjamin R. Young

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Thanks to the courageous stand taken by brothers including Dennis Rodman, the legacy of Afro-Asian Unity in Struggle, or/and the support of the Black / Afrikan Liberation Movement in north amerika and Africa is seeing a rejuvenation. I say courageous, because it is on a number of levels - 1, cos it defies, and constructs a positive Resistance in the face of the MASSIVE anti-DPRK/Socialist Korea imperialist propaganda (much of which is repeated in empire-left circles), and 2, Because doing so means getting 'witch hunted' by the white imperialists and their echo chambers. Here is a piece outlining Black Panther Leader's Eldridge Cleaver's support and admiration for Socialist Korea.  - Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm
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In NKIDP e-Dossier no. 14, "'Our Common Struggle against Our Common Enemy':  North Korea and the American Radical Left," Benjamin R. Young introduces ten recently obtained documents from the personal papers of Eldridge Cleaver, a former Black Panther Party leader, which describe Cleaver's fascination with and travels to the DPRK during the "long 1960s." 

To view the ten documents, please click here to be redirected to the collection on "North Korea and the American Radical Left" in the Wilson Center Digital Archive or see the links below.

***

"Our Common Struggle against Our Common Enemy": North Korea and the American Radical Left

Introduced by Benjamin R. Young

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and the Black Panther Party (BPP) came together under the rubric of “our common struggle against our common enemy.” The Black Panther, the official organ of the BPP, produced a steady stream of commentary favorable to the DPRK, Kim Il Sung, and the Juche ideology. Eldridge Cleaver, the leader of the BPP’s international affairs sector, often lauded the DPRK as an “earthly paradise” and stressed that the North Koreans were “the first to bring the U.S. imperialists trembling to their knees” (Document No. 8). Though other American leftist groups were drawn to North Korea during the “long 1960s,” the BPP established perhaps the most firm connection with the North Koreans.[i] The DPRK’s links to the American radical left have long been known, but the motivations behind this alliance—both those of Pyongyang and the BPP—have never been clear, and a deeper analysis of this relationship has long been absent.[ii] The documents introduced here and presented below, gathered from the personal papers of Eldridge Cleaver, demonstrate that the American radical left regarded Pyongyang as an important alternative from Moscow and Beijing. Likewise, these materials also show that North Korea regarded the American radicals as a cherished ally in its worldwide struggle to create an anti-imperialist front against the United States and to reunify the Korean peninsula.

The available documentary evidence, pieced together from the archives of the University of California, Berkeley, and Texas A&M University, revolves around Cleaver’s two trips to North Korea in 1969 and 1970 and his representation of the country “as a beacon in the vanguard of the struggling masses of the world” (Document No. 7). These documents also capture Cleaver’s fascination with the “Juche spirit.” Cleaver defined Juche as being a “creative stand, mean[ing] to develop and apply Marxism-Leninism to one’s own revolutionary conditions” (Document No. 3). The BPP hoped to adopt the “Juche spirit” for the eventual revolution inside of the United States and regarded Kim Il Sung’s ideology as a potent tool for the international communist movement.

In September 1969, Eldridge Cleaver travelled to Pyongyang along with the BPP’s deputy minister of defense Byron Booth for the “International Conference on Tasks of Journalists of the Whole World in their Fight against U.S. Imperialist Aggression.” This conference signaled the beginning of the BPP’s relationship with the DPRK. During the conference in North Korea, Cleaver kept notes on what he witnessed and heard from both North Korean spokespersons as well as other delegates from the communist world (Document No. 1). Cleaver, explaining why the BPP was eager to establish linkages with “revolutionary” countries such as North Korea, recorded to himself that, “the revolutionary forces inside the United States must be supported by the revolutionary peoples of the whole world because the people outside of the United States will slice the tentacles of the hideous octopus of U.S. oppression. The revolutionaries inside the United States will cut out its imperialist heart and give the decisive death blow to U.S. fascism and imperialism” (Document No. 1). Publicly, Cleaver and the BPP praised the DPRK as a socialist paradise and stated confidently that North Koreans “have no worries about food, clothing, lodging, education, medicine” and that they “work til [sic] hearts content leading a happy life” (Document No. 4). In his 1978 retrospective work, Soul on Fire, Eldridge Cleaver explained that “at first” he “was amazed at the grit and zeal of the young communists of North Korea” and that “some of the most zealous had entered into a compact or vow that they would not marry or have sexual relations until their country was united with South Korea.”[iii]  North Korea, despite its “subtle brainwashing and unsubtle racism,” had clearly impressed Eldridge Cleaver.[iv]

In addition to solidifying its own ties with the DPRK, the BPP also tried to rally other revolutionary organizations to the North Korean cause (Document No. 2). In a letter (written September 5, 1969) to the BPP’s Chief of Staff, David Hilliard, Eldridge Cleaver explained that the Panthers shall “call upon all revolutionary organizations to also send telegrams to express their solidarity with the fighting Korean people in the face of new aggressions being plotted against the Korean peoples by the imperialists” (Document No. 2). Moreover, in 1970, Cleaver invited white radical Robert Scheer to attend another anti-imperialist journalist conference in Pyongyang (Document No. 5). Cleaver and Scheer organized a delegation to represent the United States at the conference, bringing with them ten members of various leftist organizations, including the Movement for a Democratic Military, San Francisco’s Red Guard, and an activist film collective, NEWSREEL (Document No. 4). In May 1970, Eldridge even sent his wife, Kathleen Cleaver, and their son, Maceo to North Korea. In Pyongyang, Kathleen gave birth to a baby girl, Joju Younghi, on July 31, 1970.[v]

What is perhaps most interesting about the documents is that they reveal how North Korea, despite persistently targeting the United States as its main enemy and denouncing the presence of US troops in South Korea, was able to establish a clear division between the so-called U.S. imperialists and U.S. allies. Cleaver himself was emphatic that “the BPP joins hands with the 40 million Korean people in our common struggle against our common enemy- the fascist, imperialist United States government and ruling class” (Document No. 7).  North Korea regarded the American radical left as an important partner during this period and believed the BPP could help sway U.S. public opinion in favor of the DPRK. While the North Koreans ultimately failed to capture the hearts of the U.S. masses, these documents shed light on a forgotten chapter in the history of relations between the United States and North Korea.

Because Cleaver often repeated what he had read, heard, and seen during his travels to the DPRK, the documents provided here also offer a glimpse into North Korean state propaganda during this period. For example, Cleaver stated that, “Comrade Kim Il Sung is the most relevant strategist in the struggle against U.S. fascism and imperialism in the world today and he has put the correct tactical line for the universal destruction of fascism and imperialism in our time” (Document No. 1).  Similar statements could be found in North Korean propaganda during this period.[vi]While these documents may seem to be a simple reproduction of North Korean rhetoric, they also depict how North Korean propagandists attempted to establish Kim Il Sung as a leading Asian communist and theoretician.[vii] From 1966 through 1976, the Cultural Revolution had engulfed Communist China and, to some degree, isolated Mao Zedong from the international communist movement. As a result, U.S. radicals accepted, to a certain extent, Kim Il Sung’s status as the new leading Asian communist and theoretician. North Korea, and in turn the BPP, elevated Kim Il Sung to the level of renowned socialist theorists such as Engels, Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. Cleaver typed in his notes that, “Comrade Kim Il Sung is one of the outstanding leaders of [the] world revolutionary movement.” (Document No. 3). In addition to situating Kim Il Sung as a prominent socialist thinker, Cleaver also believed that the, “Motherland of Marxism is Germany; Motherland of Leninism is Russia; Motherland of Marxism-Leninism in our era is Korea” (Document No. 3). In the face of Sino-Soviet rivalry, the Cultural Revolution in China, and Soviet revisionism (Document No. 1), North Korea was a figurative escape valve for the BPP and other revolutionary organizations searching for communist leadership.

While most of these documents focus on the BPP’s depiction of the DPRK, a 1970 welcome message from the “The Committee for the Peaceful Unification of the Fatherland” also demonstrates how the North Koreans regarded their American friends. In a message addressed to Robert Scheer, Eldridge Cleaver, and Kathleen Cleaver, an anonymous North Korean speaker explained that “the struggle of the Black people and progressive people in America against U.S. imperialism is an important link in the chain of the anti-imperialist struggle of the peoples across the world and a great assistance to the revolutionary cause of the Korean people” (Document No. 6). Despite the relative dearth of scholarship on North Korea’s internationalism, Charles K. Armstrong has previously argued that “the late 1960s and 1970s were a time of unprecedented outward expansion for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”[viii] Similarly, during this period, North Korean officials viewed the American radical left as an important ally in their worldwide fight against the U.S. imperialists.

The documents presented here demonstrate that the Black Panthers regarded North Korea as an “earthly paradise” and “Comrade Kim Il Sung” as a “genius” (Document No. 9). In an attempt to spread the Juche ideology and promote the North Korean cause for reunification, the BPP promoted the reading of the “political, theoretical, and philosophical writings of Comrade Kim Il Sung” in the United States (Document No. 9).  Most significantly, the BPP’s fascination with North Korea reveals that Cold War international history cannot be understood merely in terms of nation-states alone. Non-state actors, such as the BPP, need to be given greater agency in the complex history of this era, and the documents presented here are among the first resources which allow us to do so.

***

Benjamin R. Young is a Master’s degree student in world history at The College at Brockport, working on his thesis, “Juche in the USA: The Black Panther Party’s Experiences and Relations with North Korea, 1969-1971,” and intends to continue at the doctoral level. His main interests are Cold War international history with a focus on North Korea, Maoist China, the Black Power movement, the radical 1960s, and Marxism in the Third World. He can be reached at byoun3@brockport.edu. 

---

[i] Despite controversy surrounding the definition of the “long 1960s,” in this introduction I will be using Arthur Marwick’s definition of the “long 1960s” as being from 1958-1974. See Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958 to c.1974 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 7.

[ii] For works that have noted the American radical left’s connection to North Korea in the late 1960s and early 1970s,  see Curtis Austin, “The Black Panthers and the Vietnam War,” in America and the Vietnam War: Re-Examining the Culture and History of a Generation, ed. Andrew Wiest, Mary Kathryn Barbier, and Glenn Robins (New York: Routledge, 2010); Elaine Brown, A Taste of Power: A Black Woman’s Story (New York: Pantheon Books, 1992); Eldridge Cleaver, Target Zero: A Life in Writing, ed. Kathleen Cleaver (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Fire (Waco, TX: Word Books Publisher, 1978);  Kathleen Neal Cleaver, “Back to Africa: The Evolution of the International Section of the Black Panther Party (1969-1972), in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered, ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998); Committee on Internal Security, House of Representatives, Gun-Barrel Politics: The Black Panther Party, 1966-1971(Washington, D.C.: Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971); Floyd W. Hayes, III, and Francis A. Kiene, III, “‘All Power to the People’: The Political Thought of Huey P. Newton and the Black Panther Party,” in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered; G. Louis Heath, Off The Pigs: The History and Literature of the Black Panther Party, (New Jersey: The Scarecrow Press, 1976); David Hilliard and Lewis Cole,  This Side of Glory: The Autobiography of David Hilliard and the Story of the Black Panther Party (Boston: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993); Timothy Leary,Flashbacks: A Personal and Cultural History of an Era: An Autobiography (New York: Putnam, 1990 [1983]); Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Frank J. Rafalko, MH/CHAOS: The CIA’s Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011);  Nikhil Pal Singh, “The Black Panthers and the ‘Undeveloped Country’ of the Left,” in The Black Panther Party Reconsidered; Jennifer B. Smith, An International History of the Black Panther Party (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc.,1999).

[iii] Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Fire (Waco, TX: Word Books Publisher, 1978), 121.

[iv] Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Fire, 122.

[v] There is some debate as to if this baby girl was the child of Eldridge Cleaver or Rahim Smith. “Several weeks after Cleaver’s return from North Korea [in 1969], there was a rumor that he killed Rahim Smith and buried him in some unknown location. Cleaver discovered that Smith had sexual relations with his wife Kathleen while he was visiting North Korea.” See Frank J. Rafalko, MH/CHAOS: The CIA’s Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers(Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2011), 115-116.

[vi] See Robert A. Scalapino and Chong-Sik Lee, Communism in Korea (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 865-869. 

[vii] Since “Kim Il Sung clearly lacked international credentials…Beginning in the early 1970s, therefore, the DPRK took to placing large advertisements in leading Western newspapers such as The London Times and The Washington Postfeaturing extended extracts from Kim Il Sung’s major speeches (though the practice soon ceased as it became clear that it was making Kim into a figure of fun).” See Adrian Buzo, The Guerilla Dynasty: Politics and Leadership in North Korea (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 265.

[viii] Charles K. Armstrong, “Juche and North Korea’s Global Aspirations,” NKIDPWorking Paper No. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center, April 2009).  For Armstrong’s forthcoming book on North Korea’s internationalism, see Charles Armstrong, Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the Modern World, 1950-1990(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013). 

space is the place--marvin x notes on sun ra arkestra at sf jazz center, aug 3-6,2017

The Sun Ra Arkestra is the highest expression of Black Classical Music known as jazz. From August 3 thru 6, 2017, the Sun Ra Arkestra performed at the San Francisco Jazz Center. Minus the Black Arts Movement mysic, philosopher, poet, arranger, producer, piano and synthesizer master Sun Ra, the Arkestra was conducted by Marshall Allen, the 93 year old alto sax player.  Under Maestro Marshall Allen, the Arkestra sounded smoother than when Master Sun Ra was present. The transitions were tighter, the costumes more glamorous and elaborate than maybe Sun Ra was able to afford or even cared about.  Of course we missed the presence of Sun Ra, although we heard a recording of his voice speaking to us from his land of Infinity. The Arkestra is a most beautiful expression of eternity. For sure, the Sun Ra sound shall be around forever.

My association with Sun Ra and his Myth-Science Arkestra began in Harlem, 1968, at the formation of the Black Arts Movement, of which we were co-founders, along with Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Last Poets, Barbara Ann Teer, Ed Bullins, Mae Jackson, Haki Madhubuti,
Woody King, et al. I performed my poetry with the Arkestra in Harlem and Philadelphia. Sun Ra perfected the Black Arts Movement concept of Ritual Theatre, i.e., the notion derived from aboriginal communal art that connects the socalled audience with the performers by destroying that fourth wall allowing the performers and people to become one. Indeed, the performance transforms into a church or spiritual experience. This ritual theatre was attempted at the New Lafayette Theatre under director Robert Macbeth, at the National Black Theatre of Barbara Ann Teer and by myself at our Black Arts West Theatre, 1966, Black Educational Theatre,  and Recovery Theatre, 1996. At my theatre, people did indeed get the holy ghost and faint. At the production of my docudrama, One Day in the Life, a woman cried like she was at her mama's funeral. When Sun Ra and his Arkestra performed at my Black Educational Theatre, a member of the "audience" danced so hard her wig fell off!

Today, Sun Ra is called The Father of Afro-futurism, Octavia Butler, the Mother. In 2015, we participated in the Sun Ra Conference at the University of Chicago and we were overjoyed to be on the panel with young hip hop scholars discussing Sun Ra and his philosophy.

At the San Francisco Jazz Center, we were happy to be in the presence of the few surviving members of the Arkestra, e.g., Marshall Allen, Danny Thompson, Noel and Wisteria, the dancer from San Francisco. Yes, Space is the Place!

We hope you enjoy the beautiful photographs of Adam Turner, photographer and design editor of the Movement Newspaper.
--Marvin X, Black Arts Movement
8/9/17

State of the Black World Progress Report by Ron Daniels

It’s Nation Time Again Progress Report on State of Black World Conference IV The Follow Up Dear Friends in the Struggle: State of the Black World Conference IV (SOBWC IV), November 16-20, 2016, was one of the great gatherings of people of African descent, Black people, in recent history. People are still buzzing about the richness of the interaction and networking, the powerful information and spirit of unity/togetherness that was experienced. Equally important, the Declaration of Intent and Call to Action from the Conference laid out the Institute of the Black World 21st Century’s (IBW) priority action-items for follow-up/implementation. As we cautioned at the Conference, the ability to do effective follow-up/implementation would very much depend on having sufficient human and material resources. Candidly, the lack of resources has hampered our ability to move forward as quickly and successfully as we would like. Nonetheless, we have made incremental progress. What follows is a brief Progress Report on implementation of the action-items in the Declaration of Intent and Call to Action: Report Card on President Trump: The First 100 Days As a follow-up to the Town Hall Meeting on the Impact of the 2016 Presidential Election on Black America and the Pan African World, April 28, 2017, IBW convened a Town Hall Meeting at the historic Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. to evaluate the first 100 days of the Trump administration. The event was Moderated by Mark Thompson, SIRIUSXM and Verna Avery Brown, WPFW, Pacficia, Washington, D.C. A stellar Panel consisting of Ben Jealous, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Atty. Barbara Arwine, Ron Hampton, Symone Sanders, Jamira Burley, Bill Fletcherand Dr. Elsie Scott conducted a very lively and informative discussion on the causes, effects and impact of the election of President Trump. The Town Hall Meeting was broadcast live by SIRIUS XM Progress and WPFW, Pacifica Washington, D.C.  It can be viewed in its entirety on the IBW website ibw21.org –  Click here to watch video Intensifying the U.S. and Global Reparations Movement At the encouragement of the National African American Reparations Commission (NAARC) and strong support of the NCOBRA Legislative Committee, in January, Congressman John Conyers re-introduced HR-40 as the Commission to Study Reparations Proposals Bill. This marked a decisive shift from simply studying whether Reparations are due African Americans to examining and recommending remedies for enslavement. An effort is underway to encourage 100% of the Congressional Black Caucus to sign-on to the Bill as Co-Sponsors by the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference in September. March 20 – 23, Dr. Ron Daniels, Convener of NAARC, attended an International Reparations Conference in Cali, Columbia. The invitation was extended by Esther Ojulari, the Afro-Descendant leader from Columbia who participated in the Reparations Town Hall Meeting at SOBWC IV. Dr. Daniels joined Danny Glover, Mirielle Fanon-Mendes France and James Early as Presenters at the Conference. Information was shared about NAARC and the CARICOM Reparations Commission as a basis for encouraging leaders and organizations to establish a Reparations Commission in Colombia. Dr. Daniels’ participation fulfilled a commitment made at SOBWC IV to support the development of Reparations Commissions among Afro-Descendant people in Central and South America.  As a result, representatives of Afro-Descendant organizations are expected to attend a NAARC area/regional reparations gathering and strategy session in New Orleans in December. Towards A Domestic Marshall Plan for Black Communities Since SOBWC IV, the National Urban League has issued a Call for a “Mainstreet Marshall Plan”. The Center for American Progress has also joined the call for a Domestic Marshall Plan. Accordingly, IBW has assembled a Task Team with representatives from the Office of Mayor Ras J. Baraka, the National Urban League, the Abbott Leadership Institute, Rutgers University, the African American Leadership Project and the IBW Research Consortium to plan a Symposium on The Case for a Domestic Marshall Plan at Rutgers University this fall. Urban policy experts, a selected list of Mayors, elected officials and scholars will be invited to participate in the Symposium. The goal is to clearly articulate the urgent need for a Domestic Marshall Plan to build and sustain wholesome Black neighborhoods and communities, and to devise strategies to mobilize national support for the concept. Newark as a Model City Initiative The goal of this Initiative is to mobilize maximum human and material resources from Black America and the Pan African World, e.g., urban planners, community economic development specialists, entrepreneurs, investors to support the planning and development goals for the City of Newark under the leadership of Ras J. Baraka, a progressive African American Mayor. We are delighted to report that Mayor Baraka has endorsed the concept and appointed a Liaison to work with the IBW Task Team. IBW will be relying heavily on Dr. George Fraser, President/CEO of FraserNet, to identify a select number of leaders to participate in an Economic and Community Development Planning Summit in Newark to launch this Initiative. Continuing Cross-Generational Dialogue and Engagement IBW is actively engaged in conversations with the Movement for Black Lives to move forward with a follow-up to the Cross-Generational Dialogue at SOBWC IV. Two specific action-items are being discussed for implementation: Establishing safe “Teaching Spaces” for frank/honest cross-generational learning, sharing, exchange of perspectives, constructive critique and devising strategies to strengthen cross-generational engagement; and, convening a session on the implications and lessons of Cointelpro for the current generation of activists/organizers associated with Black Lives Matter, Movement for Black Lives and similar formations.  We will be convening these sessions by the end of the year. Addressing Key Issues in Africa, the Caribbean, Central and South America The New York based Pan African Unity Dialogue (PAUD)is developing a campaign to expose President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda as Africa’s U.S. backed “Destabilizer-In-Chief” for his destructive covert and overt interventions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and South Sudan. These interventions have resulted in the loss of millions of lives and contributed to chronic instability in the region. The campaign will be launched in the next 60 days. PAUD is an Initiative of IBW. IBW has also committed to giving greater exposure to the plight of Afro-Descendants in Colombia where corporate backed militias and death squads are terrorizing Black communities and assassinating their leaders in an effort to push them off mineral rich and valuable lands. Building Labor/Community Solidarity As a follow-up to the Labor/Community Solidarity Breakfast at SOBWC IV, with the support of 1199 SEIU in New York, IBW will convene a Labor/Community Solidarity Summit this fall to discuss strategies for strengthening labor/community engagement in support of unions and Black families and communities. Shortcomings and Weaknesses While the progress on follow-up/implementation cited above is meaningful, the major goal of enabling the Issue Area Working Groups to continue after the conference is a decided shortcoming. We applaud Sister Nataki Kambon, Co-Founder and National Spokesperson for Let’s Buy Black 365 for continuing to convene interested persons from the Economic and Community Development Working Group.  There was also an effort by volunteers from the Education Issue Area to continue engagement with interested persons in that Working Group. The leadership of IBW is deeply disappointed in our failure to facilitate the ongoing engagement of the other Issue Area Working Groups. For this we apologize. Our inability to follow-up on this commitment is due to our lack of staff and internal capacity. We simply do not have the human and material resources to effectively service the Working Groups to continue engaging post-conference. IBW urgently needs help/support to overcome this weakness. The Road Ahead There was an overwhelming sentiment that IBW not wait four years to convene State of the Black World Conference V. The leadership of IBW would certainly like to return to Newark in November of 2018 for SOBWC V.  However, as stated in the Declaration of Intent and Call to Action from SOBWC IV, that decision is totally contingent on IBW increasing its capacity not only to convene another conference, but to more effectively follow-up, particularly in terms of continuing the engagement of the Working Groups. As of this Report, we are not there yet. IBW needs more major donors, grants and sponsors to build our capacity. And, equally important, we need much more support from our friends/allies and interested parties who would like to experience SOBWC V in Newark. In that regard, we are profoundly thankful to those who responded to Haki Madhubuti’s appeal that participants at the Conference commit to contributing at least $25.00 a month to support the work of IBW. Twelve people out of the hundreds who attended SOBWC IV responded and IBW is receiving monthly tax-deductible donations of $10.00, $25.00 and $50.00 from this group of Gregory Griffin Sustaining Contributors. What if IBW had one hundred supporters donating $25.00 per month. A substantial increase in the number of Gregory Griffin Sustaining Contributors would enhance our capacity to follow-up/implement the action-items in the Declaration of Intent and Call to Action from SOBWC IV.  More Sustaining Contributors plus major donor, sponsorship and foundation support would ensure the return to Newark for SOBWC V.  Accordingly, we appeal to our friends, allies and concerned Black people to help IBW achieve this goal by making a sacrificial tax-deductible donation and encouraging family and friends to follow your lead.  In the words of the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. “Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will.” Dr. Ron Daniels, President Institute of the Black World 21st Century

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Join us for Camp HOPE 2017!

Camp HOPE is for children who have been exposed to family violence and either they or their parent(s)/guardian(s) have received services from the ACFJC.
Ages 7 - 11: July 30 - August 4
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For information or to register a child, please contact stephen.murphy@acgov.org.

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Welcome to the Alameda County Family Justice Center (ACFJC), a one-stop center, with 30 onsite and over 50 offsite agencies and programs, for individuals and families experiencing domestic violence, stalking, sexual assault and exploitation, child abuse, child abduction, elder and dependent adult abuse, and human trafficking.
Our ACFJC Client Navigators (on-site consultants) will link you to the services you request.
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The Alameda County Family Justice Center (ACFJC), envisioned by Alameda County District Attorney Nancy E. O’Malley, began as a simple concept; to create a 1-stop location that would provide effective, comprehensive services to victims of interpersonal violence in a collaborative and coordinated way.
The ACFJC is a Division of the District Attorney’s Office and provides visitors with legal, health, and support services and the opportunity for physical and psychological safety, recovery and well-being.

Alameda County Family Justice Center 470 27th Street Oakland, CA 94612 (510) 267-8800 • info@acfjc.org

the meaning of black august by bro zayid

Black August 2017-With Love to Bre' and Fidel!

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 9^th, 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 14^th, 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 25^th!...

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..