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Memories of Damu
August 21, 2013
Damu’s idea of revolutionary change meant, first, seeing the need for a radical transformation of the world and then having confidence that ordinary people, working people, are capable of making it happen. When they do rise up and try to fashion a new world, with all the mistakes humans are capable of making, he believed you have to support them.
Jean Damu says goodbye to his family and friends
August 5, 2013
Revolutionary journalist, scholar and activist Jean Damu, in his last public event Sunday, July 14, urged about 60 of his family and friends “to keep striving. I don’t have to pontificate; you know what to do,” he said in his usual firm style. The event, previously set for August, was held at the Veterans Administration hospital at Martinez, California.
Robert Chrisman and The Black Scholar
March 21, 2013
Robert Chrisman and the internationally acclaimed The Black Scholar journal (TBS) are principle beacons of achievement and hope within the movement to create Black Studies departments and ultimately Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies departments. Chrisman and The Black Scholar occupied the vanguard of the struggle for recognition of Black Studies as a serious academic endeavor.
Black history maker Esther Cooper Jackson 1917-
February 7, 2013
Esther Cooper Jackson, born in Arlington, Virginia, graduated from Ohio’s Oberlin College, received her MA degree in sociology from Fisk University, then remarkably turned down a scholarship offer to Chicago University to earn a PhD to relocate to Birmingham, Ala., where she became the organizational secretary for the Southern Negro Youth Congress.
Was Oakland police consultant William Bratton involved in the failed Venezuela coup? And if he was, should Oaklanders be concerned?
January 23, 2013
Hundreds of Oakland residents turned out to voice their opinions about the City Council hiring William Bratton as a $250,000 a year consultant to help bring down an escalating crime rate. They accuse him of instituting “stop and frisk,” a program that they say is the blue print for racial profiling. Bratton’s background suggests there may be a lot more to be concerned about than stop and frisk.
White supremacy rising: Monument to KKK founder being rebuilt in Selma, Alabama
August 27, 2012
In Selma, Alabama, no less, scene of historic battles for Black civil rights, white supremacy advocates are re-building a monument to an early American terrorist, war criminal and widely acknowledged founder of the Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest. Selma activist Malika Sanders is angry and she’s fighting back.
Red tails in the sunset
February 8, 2012
“Red Tails,” the new George Lucas film depicting the exploits of the Tuskegee Airmen, is to the history of Black fighter pilots during WWII what a sunset is to a day: It’s pretty to watch but no illumination is forthcoming. However, “Red Tails” is surely a must see.
Race and immigration
June 20, 2011
Within the U.S. immigration movement, leaders often do not clearly understand racism as it impacts upon immigration legislation on local and national levels, nor do they seem to clearly understand why, generally speaking, African Americans tend to be their most reliable allies.
The coup in Cote d’Ivoire
April 24, 2011
Growing evidence suggests the West, led by France, engineered a political and military coup in Cote d’Ivoire to re-colonize that country. The president of Gambia says, “Western neo-colonialist sponsored agents in Africa … are ready to walk on thousands of dead bodies to the presidency.”
Lucy Parsons: ‘Shoot them or stab them’
February 15, 2011
Lucy Parsons is the Haymarket Square widow who internationalized the struggle for the eight-hour day and whose work led to the May Day rallies held around the world, except in the U.S., to celebrate International Workers Day.
Privatizing VA medical care: another Tea Party attack against Blacks, Latinos and poor whites
November 8, 2010
VA hospitals are not only the nation’s best providers of health care, they are also the best argument for a nationalized health care system. Now Republicans vow to privatize the VA hospitals.
Sexism and discrimination in sports: l’affaire Ines Sainz
September 26, 2010
If the “unprofessional” behavior by Jets players had happened to anyone other than Ines Sainz, who markets herself on her looks and sexuality, perhaps aspects of this story would be worth investigating. But because it is Ines Sainz we’re talking about, consider the possibility Sainz is nothing more than an agent provocateur, a bomb thrower if you will.
Good Americans: The dark side of the Pullman Porters Union
September 6, 2010
As we celebrate the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, America’s first African America labor union, let us not forget that African American rail workers were instrumental in organizing not only the sleeping and chair car porters, but the dining car workers as well.
Haiti: Blood, sweat and baseball
January 24, 2010
Major League Baseball in alliance with Rawlings Sporting Goods moved their baseball factories to Costa Rica in the late 1980s, throwing thousands of Haitian women out of work. Its million dollar donation to Haiti earthquake relief should be measured against its long, exploitative relationship with the devastated nation and it should make a much more significant donation to help rebuild the nation from which it made so much money.
How the U.S. impoverished Haiti
January 14, 2010
The horrific disaster that befell Haiti Jan. 12 may have killed hundreds of thousands. According to the media, Haiti’s weak infrastructure and poor quality of construction account for the large number of deaths. Left to their own efforts, however, Haitians would have been more than able to build a reliable democracy with adequate infrastructure. But they have never been allowed to do so.
Wealth care
January 13, 2010
The richest nation in earth’s history can’t agree on how to insure that its citizens get good health care, while one of the poorest nations on earth – Cuba – not only provides free universal health care, but it provides well-trained, humanistic doctors to developing and poor countries all over the world. In fact, there are more Cuban doctors helping people overseas than there are from the U.N.’s World Health Organization (WHO).
Harry Reid and the demagogues
January 13, 2010
The idiotic controversy that is the focus of the nation’s media and which claims Nevada Sen. Harry Reid uttered racist comments is mind boggling in its obtuseness. Democrats and honest Republicans, white and Black, cannot seem to gather the moral energy and mental clarity to call the Republicans who are promoting this issue by their true name: demagogues.
Reverse images: The acrimonious debate on race in Cuba
December 15, 2009
Recently the cold war against Cuba was ratcheted up when an acrimonious debate broke out over the issue of racism in Cuba and for the first time the issue of Brazil was thrown into the mix. The brouhaha began when scores of prominent African Americans, many of whom should have known better, put their names to a petition calling upon the Cuban government to release a dissident from prison.
Shooting at OPD officers’ funeral goes unreported
April 5, 2009
The Oakland Police Department suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot when it further racialized the March 21 shootings by rescinding Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums’ invitation to speak at the public funeral of the four officers who were gunned down.
Notes from the occupied territories: Black America and the police
March 24, 2009
When the full story is finally told and, though not likely freely admitted by many, deep within the spiritual thinking of numerous African Americans, an emotional candle will be lit in memory of Lovelle Mixon.
