Farrakhan on hateful rhetoric against Obama & his family

Black August

              Ms Autumn Marie: What is Black August? Why is it Important?
Source: Year of the Blacksmith 
By Ms Autumn Marie
         The term Black August has become synonymous with hip-hop concerts and various festivals across the country namely in New York, Oakland, Atlanta, L.A. and Chicago. However, the idea and meaning of Black August goes much deeper than any singular celebration. In the same way that February is recognized as Black History Month, Black August is a month long observation honoring Black people and events that have contributed to the freedom and liberation of Afrikan people. It is a tradition that involves community building, fasting, physical training, reading/studying, reflection, and self-discipline. Started in the prisons, Black August has grown to be respected and practiced by thousands beyond the walls.

         “August,” as Mumia Abu-Jamal noted, “is a month of meaning, of repression and radical resistance, of injustice and divine justice; of repression and righteous rebellion; of individual and collective efforts to free the slaves and break the chains that bind us.”
                                     BLACK AUGUST (Documentary Trailer) Common, Mos Def, & Talib Kweli Performing at the 10th Annual Black August Hip Hop Benefit in NYC

                            THE ORIGINS OF BLACK AUGUST

            Black August originated in the prisons of California to honor fallen Freedom Fighters, Jonathan Jackson, George Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain and Khatari Gaulden. Jonathan Jackson was gunned down outside the Marin County California courthouse on August 7, 1970 as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black Liberation Fighters: James McClain, William Christmas and Ruchell Magee. Ruchell Magee is the sole survivor of that armed rebellion. He is the former co-defendant of Angela Davis and has been locked down for 40 years, most of it in solitary confinement.
            George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards during a Black prison rebellion at San Quentin on August 21, 1971. Three prison guards were also killed during that rebellion and prison officials charged six Black and Latino prisoners with the death of those guards. These six brothers became known as the San Quentin Six. To honor these fallen soldiers the brothers who participated in the collective founding of Black August wore black armbands on their left arm and studied revolutionary works, focusing on the works of George Jackson. In the month of August the brothers did not listen to the radio or watch television. Additionally, they didn’t eat or drink anything from sun-up to sundown; and loud and boastful behavior was not allowed. The brothers did not support the prison’s canteen. The use of drugs and alcoholic beverages was prohibited and the brothers held daily exercises because during Black August emphasis is placed on sacrifice, fortitude and discipline.
            Black August is a time to embrace the principles of unity, self-sacrifice, political education, physical training and resistance. The tradition of fasting during Black August teaches self-discipline. A conscious fast is in effect FROM SUNRISE TO SUNSET (or suggested from 6:00 am to 8:00 pm), this includes refraining from drinking water or liquids and eating food of any kind during that period. Some other personal sacrifice can be made as well. The sundown meal is traditionally shared whenever possible among comrades. On August 31, a People’s Feast is held and the fast is broken. Black August fasting should serve as a constant reminder of the conditions our people have faced and still confront. Fasting is uncomfortable at times, but it is helpful to remember all those who have come and gone before us, Ni Nkan Mase, if we stand tall, it is because we stand on the shoulders of many ancestors.

 BLACK AUGUST DATES:
 August 1619 – Arrival of first African slaves in 13 colonies
 August 21, 1791 – Haiti slave uprising for independence
August 30, 1800 – Gabriel Prosser’s slave revolt discovered
August 21, 1831 – Nat Turner’s slave rebellion
 August 1850 – Underground Railroad
 August 17, 1887 – Birth of Marcus Garvey
August 24, 1943 – Birth of Russell “Maroon” Shoatz
August 30, 1948 – Birth of Fred Hampton
August 8, 1949 – Birth of Dr. Mutulu Shakur
August 1963 – March on Washington
August 1965 – Watts Rebellion
August 25, 1967 – FBI circulates internal order to “disrupt” Black Liberation groups
August 7, 1970 – Courthouse Slave Rebellion
August 18, 1971 – Capital of Republic of New Afrika attacked by FBI and police
August 21, 1971 – Assasination of George Jackson
August 28, 1971 – Jalil Muntaqim and Nuh Washington captured
August 8, 1978 – Police raid on MOVE
August 17, 1995 – Mumia scheduled for execution; stopped by resistance

 BLACK AUGUST DOCUMENTARY BY DREAM HAMPTON (2010) The Movie about George and Jonathan Jackson Black August 1 of 10 Black August 2 of 10 Black August 3 of 10 Black August 4 of 10 Black August 5 of 10 Black August 6 of 10 Black August 7 of 10 Black August 8 of 10 Black August 9 of 10 Black August 10 of 10

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Save the children - Gil Scott-Heron

President Obama: "We've Come Too Far to Turn Back Now."

Gil Scott-Heron "Home Is Where The Hatred Is" (1971)

Gil Scott-Heron (born April 1, 1949 - May 27, 2011) was an American poet, musician, and author known primarily for his late 1960s and early 1970s work as a spoken word soul performer and his collaborative work with musician Brian Jackson. His collaborative efforts with Jackson featured a musical fusion of jazz, blues and soul music, as well as lyrical content concerning social and political issues of the time, delivered in both rapping and melismatic vocal styles by Scott-Heron. The music of these albums, most notably Pieces of a Man and Winter in America in the early 1970s, influenced and helped engender later African-American music genres such as hip hop and neo soul. Scott-Heron's recording work is often associated with black militant activism and has received much critical acclaim for one of his most well-known compositions "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". On his influence, a music writer later noted that "Scott-Heron's unique proto-rap style influenced a generation of hip-hop artists".

Heron's father Gil Heron (1922 - 27 November, 2008) was a Jamaican footballer/soccer player. He was the first black player to play for Scottish club Celtic FC after being invited on a trial in 1951. Heron went on to score on his debut, on August 18, 1951 in a League Cup tie against Morton that Celtic won 2-0.

Home Is Where the Hatred Is" is taken from the 1971 album "Pieces of a Man". It is a melodic, somber composition of the narrator's dangerous and hopeless environment, presumably of the ghetto, and how its effects take a toll on him. Scott-Heron's lyrics demonstrate these themes of social disillusionment and hopelessness in the first verse and the chorus:

Copied from YouTube

Gil Scott Heron - Inner city blues

Gil Scott-Heron Pieces of A Man

Save the children - Gil Scott-Heron

Wake Up Everybody

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The Black Panthers and Young Lords and the Civil Rights Movement

                     The Black Panthers and Young Lords and the Civil Rights Movement

 Steven Sapp and Mildred Ruiz, founders of the 15-year old poetry theater
ensemble Universes, whose works invite old and new generations of theater crafters to create the new stories of today. Join them as they lead a conversation with Miguel Mickey Melendez, former Young Lord and an activist for Latino and Puerto Rican rights, and Billy X. Jennings, Panther historian and primary organizer of the Its About Time BPP/Alumni Committee Reunions.
The Black Panthers and Young Lords and the Civil Rights Movement from International Festival of Arts & on Vimeo.
The Young Lords in Chicago were always a gang and did not start out as a social club or youth group. They quickly sought out reputation walking into enemy territory and picking fights with all non-Latino gangs in Lincoln Park. Soon, they grew into several branches. This included a section in Old Town, another in Evanston and a few women auxiliaries called the Young Lordettes. When the Young Lords were transformed into a political, human rights group, male and female were both called Young Lords. By 1967, the working class section of Lincoln Park became primarily Latino and the Young Lords - in their late teens without a gang war and without organized meetings - ceased to exist, except loosely, as a gang. Some married or were on active Vietnam duty. Many were incarcerated for car thefts, purse snatching, burglaries, armed robberies, drug sales, stabbings, shootings, and other gang-related crimes. Others fell victim to hard drugs. Still others moved to different neighborhoods and joined up with other gangs. Many became heads of other gangs, but never opposed the Young Lords.

 During most of this period, Cha-Cha Jimenez and some remaining Young Lords spent their hours hanging out at the corner of Halsted and Dickens, at George's Hot Dog stand. Here Jimenez also hung out with loose members from the other gangs (some of whom he had spent time with in jails) and within a late 60s drug culture, they took to hard drugs, including: speed, acid, heroin, and cocaine. Cha-Cha Jimenez frequented jail, now more often due to drug related offenses. In the summer of 1968, he was picked up for a possession of heroin charge and given a 60-day sentence at Cook County Jail. An opposing black gang in jail told guards that Jimenez and five other Latinos were planning an escape. All were questioned, strip-searched and transferred to Maximum Security. It was here in "the hole" that Cha-Cha Jimenez read The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton, about a Franciscan monk. It was his first book since dropping out in the second month of his freshman year at Waller High School (now Lincoln Park High). The dropping out of school was facilitated by Cha-Cha Jimenez's deportation to Puerto Rico, due to several juvenile related offenses - plea-bargained by an attorney that was hired with coins saved by Cha-Cha's mother - so that Cha-Cha would not be incarcerated, until the age of twenty one.

 This religious book impacted Cha-Cha Jimenez, and he wrote a letter asking for a priest. Unconcerned with the everyday gossip of prisoners, he knelt down and went to confession between the cell bars of "the hole". Cha-Cha Jimenez then began to read about Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Black Nationalism and the organizing of the Black Panthers for self defense. Rioters were now being brought into the jail after King was assassinated, along with Mexican workers, rounded up in public relations raids by Immigration authorities. As they were being assigned dorms or cells, they passed through maximum security or the North Cell House, for further processing. To prevent the Mexican workers from being pushed around by some white and black guards, Cha-Cha Jimenez requested, and was given permission to translate for the Mexican workers, from his third level cell. These experiences made a secluded and captive Cha-Cha Jimenez realize, a need to fight for social justice. He was determined to duplicate a Black Panther Party for self defense, within the Puerto Rican and Latino communities. It was now also his intention to give up useless gang fighting and time consuming drugs upon his release, in order to devote all of his time to this new People's Movement. During this same period, the Puerto Rican section of Lincoln Park was being stripped of all city services to the poor. The Trina Davila Urban Progress Center was being relocated from the Armitage Avenue Methodist Church (later Young Lord's People's Church and their national headquarters) in Lincoln Park, to the Humboldt Park neighborhood. This was an area in need of services, and now also increasing in Puerto Ricans being displaced from Lincoln Park, as the result of the city's urban renewal program. Young Lords Party

                                 By Carlito Rovira
 JULY 28, 2009
Forty years ago, news headlines focused on a group of Puerto Rican youth in New York City who used daring and unusual forms of protest against racist oppression. These defiant and militant youths called themselves the Young Lords. Their examples, and the mass movement from which they arose, continue to inspire young people, especially today as we see greater proof that the only solution to oppression is organization and struggle. The Young Lords developed in Chicago during the 1950s. They were composed of unemployed students and working-class youth, who were among many street-youth organizations targeted by police and demonized as "gangs" by the capitalist-owned mass media. These youths came from families compelled to leave Puerto Rico between the 1940s and 1960s as a result of the economic hardships caused by U.S. colonialism.

 These immigrants continued to experience oppression but under new circumstances. They became victims of extreme exploitation at their jobs in factories, hotels and restaurants; they encountered greedy slumlords and the violence of police and white racist gangs. The Puerto Rican migration occurred during the same years the Civil Rights movement arose. The struggles of the African American people impacted the newly arrived immigrants who also experienced the vile nature of racism. In many instances, Puerto Ricans identified with the demand for Black Power.

 In 1966, the Black Panther Party was formed. Panther leader Fred Hampton of Chicago sought to politicize the street organizations, particularly the Puerto Rican youths. The BPP’s efforts were successful when, in 1968, the Young Lords became a revolutionary political entity; they then became part of a fraternal alliance known as the Rainbow Coalition (unrelated to Jessie Jackson’s later Rainbow/PUSH Coalition), which also included the Brown Berets, I Wor Kuen, Young Patriots and the Black Panthers. In 1969, the Young Lords opened a chapter in New York City. For many years, Black and Latino people complained about the Sanitation Department’s double standards in trash pick up. White affluent areas were serviced properly with regular garbage pick-ups, while Black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods were left in unhealthy conditions.

 In the summer of 1969, the Young Lords began sweeping the streets and amassing large piles of garbage that were a nuisance to the community. Many people wondered about what the young, seemingly "good Samaritans" were up to. But the mystery did not last long. In August 1969, the Young Lords used the garbage they had collected as the means to execute a political offensive with military tactics. Tons of trash were dumped and set ablaze across the main arteries of Manhattan to disrupt traffic, including on the affluent 5th Avenue. The Lords demanded an end to New York City’s racist municipal policies on sanitation. In neighborhoods where the "garbage offensive" was launched, the Lords galvanized community support; many joined the organization. The mass media’s attacks on the Lords only worked in their favor. Within months, YLP chapters appeared in Philadelphia, Bridgeport, Jersey City, Boston and Milwaukee—cities with concentrations of Puerto Ricans. While mainly composed of Puerto Ricans, the organization also allowed members of other oppressed nationalities to join the Young Lords.

 The YLP had a military-type structure with a process for recruitment and rules of discipline that were strictly enforced. At the height of the YLP’s development, women comprised nearly half the number of its rank-and-file. In the years following the Garbage Offensive, the Young Lords engaged in numerous campaigns that involved bold actions and drew widespread attention. One example was the physical takeover of the First Spanish Methodist Church on 111th Street. The Lords repeatedly pleaded with parishioners for space in order to feed hungry children, but to no avail. This church was closed throughout the week and only opened for a few hours for worshipping by a congregation that mostly lived out of town.

Backed by community sentiment, the Young Lords entered the church during a Sunday mass and expelled the congregation. Using the church as a base, the Young Lords operated a free childcare service, breakfast program and legal clinic. Medical services were also provided. Disease and poor health care have long been an issue in the Puerto Rican community. Other actions taken by the YLP included the seizure of an unused tuberculosis testing truck, equipped with X-ray technology. After the truck was seized, the city was compelled to provide technicians to run the machine. The truck was then taken to East Harlem, where many people were tested for the lung ailment. The Lords demanded that Lincoln Hospital, which served the people of the South Bronx, expand its services. Because this facility originated in the mid-1800s, when it treated even escaped slaves from the South, its facilities were outdated and did not meet the current needs of the people. An infestation of rats and roaches in the hospital further exacerbated the deplorable conditions.

 In the early morning hours of July 17, 1970, about 100 members of the Young Lords boldly seized control of Lincoln Hospital. For 24 hours, the Young Lords and progressive medical professionals in the Health Revolutionary Unity Movement provided free medical services to community people. Today’s modern Lincoln Hospital—with its new facilities—is the result of a community struggle of which the Young Lords were in the leadership. The YLP drew up a 13-Point Program that outlined the group’s political objectives. It included independence for Puerto Rico, as well as liberation for all Latinos and other oppressed people. The Young Lords upheld the struggle against women’s oppression and openly denounced the capitalist system, calling for a socialist society. The Young Lords eventually voiced support for the rights of LGBT people. By all definition, the YLP gravitated towards communism. These young revolutionaries believed that the power of the people would eventually overwhelm the power of the oppressors. In that spirit, the YLP believed in the right of armed self-defense. This became evident in actions they took while patrolling the streets in areas they organized. Whenever the Young Lords witnessed the police arresting community residents, they would intervene to confront the racist cops and often liberated the arrestees. In late 1970, YLP member Julio Roldan, who had been arrested at a demonstration in the Bronx and was pending arraignment, was found hung to death in his cell at the "Tombs" prison facility in lower Manhattan. During this era, many prisoners were found mysteriously dead in their cells, but prison officials always labeled them "suicides."

 The Young Lords responded to Roldan’s death with militancy, accusing the state of murder. Following a procession with Roldan’s coffin through East Harlem, the YLP returned to the First Spanish Methodist Church, which they had seized a year earlier—but this time, they came armed with shotguns and automatic weapons. They demanded an investigation into Roldan’s death. Deeply entrenched community support for the Young Lords prevented a gun battle, as government officials knew there would be an enormous political fallout if they initiated a police onslaught. The Young Lords held the church for three months. There are many examples of heroism among these young revolutionaries—not only in New York or Chicago, but also in other cities where the Puerto Rican people were in struggle. Shamefully, because that people’s movement no longer exists, non-revolutionary interpretations of that period persist, which dismiss the relevance of the Young Lords’ history for the struggle for socialism today. Regardless of what may be argued, the Young Lords openly called for the destruction of capitalism and establishment of socialism in the United States. This is made indisputably clear in the YLP’s 13-Point Program. The Young Lords, like the Black Panther Party, attempted to build a highly disciplined organization. They understood that without the organizational sophistication of a vanguard party, revolution is impossible. It is precisely this lesson that revolutionaries today should embrace and emulate in order to realize the future victory of socialism. Black Panthers (1968) part 1 Black Panthers (1968) part 2 Black Panthers (1968) part 3 Black Panthers (1968) part 4 Black Panthers (1968) part 5 Black Panthers (1968) part 6

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