Black America

FBI Spied On And Harassed Black Revolutionary Who Was Killed

September 21, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. Resistance Report Black Activists, Black America, FBI, Ferguson, Surveillance

Seals was shot to death in 2016, then set on fire in his car in an unsolved murder. Local St. Louis media outlet the Riverfront Times obtained a declassified copy of the more than 900-page FBI report on Seals. The FBI fully redacted approximately 860 of the pages, and partially redacted parts of the remaining roughly 45 pages. In the report, the FBI called Seals “a self-described revolutionary who has espoused somewhat militant rhetoric and has access to weapons.” The Riverfront Times article shows how the FBI used local police to harass Seals. In June 2016, the activist was “investigatively detained” by local police who pulled over Seals in his car on FBI orders. Seals had proudly described himself on his Twitter account as a “Revolutionary, Activist, Unapologetically BLACK, Afrikan in AmeriKKKa.”

Laundering Black Rage

September 18, 2022 Too Black, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black America, Black Rage, Capitalism, White Supremacy

For stolen lands to remain colonized, for investments to remain profitable, for white capital to remain ruthless, Black Rage must be neutralized. Black Rage—the omnipresent force radiating throughout the anxieties of the State—is a boundless threat to the capitalist order. Like a Big Bang, Black Rage began its expansion into colonial existence at the exact moment the first African was plucked from their roots and cast down into the sunken dungeon of the European slave ship. Its expansion is the survival of the human spirit, serving as a potential death knell to oppression—ringing its bell with smoldering waves of resistance quietly hissing in infamy. Black Rage finds expression in the assisted asphyxiation of the slave trader (accompanied by the seizure of their ship), the alleviation of the slave master's heartbeat (seasoned by the enslaved maid), the transformation of the settler city-state into a community fireplace (the riot of the unheard).

Reimagining Reparations As America’s Marshall Plan And Not Just A Payday

September 15, 2022 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. Create! Black America, Finance, Human Rights, Reparations, Systemic Racism

Congratulations Fam, I hear that you’ve finally secured the bag, otherwise known as reparations. A cool $800,000 to be paid in eight annual installments, the first $100,000 of which arrived in your bank account today. Well, maybe not quite $100k, but about $75,000 after taxes. Still some nice coin. So, how should we get the party started? You say you want to finally buy a house for you and your family? Seventy-five grand is not gonna get you that deluxe apartment on the upper East side, but it’s a nice downpayment on a three-bedroom condo in Teaneck or Tallahassee. All you have to do is pop into the bank and sign on the dotted line . . . but wait one cotton pickin’ minute; is that a subprime mortgage? Perhaps America’s worst- kept secret is that usurious, adjustable mortgages were not designed to help African Americans who don’t have money but to exploit those who do.

The Genius Of Ella Jo Baker

September 13, 2022 Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Black America, Cooperatives, History, New Economy

Ella Jo Baker will be inducted into the Cooperative Hall of Fame as an “Unsung Hero” at a ceremony at the National Press Club on Oct. 6 in Washington DC. Ella Baker is well-regarded as a giant in the Civil Rights Movement, known for her unique participatory grassroots organizing style and also for her ability to galvanize young people to bring a militancy in the struggle to end segregation. But Baker is less known for her innovative organizing prowess before the 1960s – forming a network of self-help cooperatives to bring economic relief to black people during the Depression. “Ella Baker was one of the most effective, original and masterful organizers of the 20th century,” one scholar noted about the woman who became a Civil Rights legend (Tutashinda, 2010, p. 33).

Police Lied To Get The Warrant To Search Breonna Taylor’s Home

August 18, 2022 Marjorie Cohn, Truthout. Educate! Black America, Breonna Taylor, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Police, Police abuse

The March 2020 killing of Breonna Taylor, which caused widespread protest around the country, was the result of police lies to obtain a warrant and racist police violence after officers forced their way into her apartment. On August 4, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the federal grand jury indictments of four Louisville Metro Police officers involved in the raid that resulted in Taylor’s death. Three of the officers were accused of violating Taylor’s Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable search and seizure by lying to secure a no-knock warrant. The officers who sought the warrant “knew that the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search Taylor’s home contained information that was false, misleading, and out-of-date; that the affidavit omitted material information; and that the officers lacked probable cause for the search,” the indictment reads.

Black Women Will Face The Brunt Of Abortion Bans

August 10, 2022 Princella Talley, In These Times. Organize! Abortion, Black America, Black Women, Health Care

On July 29, Louisiana reinstated a controversial abortion ban, which led to the immediate cancellation of procedures in the state. Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in late June, a number of states across the country have moved to outlaw abortion, and in Louisiana, women in poverty will bear the worst burdens of the newly reinstated ban. These women are the true experts regarding the fatal risks of taking away reproductive freedom in the state — not anti-abortion politicians. The politicians gutting abortion rights likely don’t understand the pain of holding a friend as she sobs on the bathroom floor, assuming it’s the worst menstrual cycle of her life, only to discover that she is experiencing a missed miscarriage and her life is at stake. But I do.

The International Decade For People Of African Descent

August 4, 2022 Mireille Fanon Mendes France, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Africa, Black America, Racism, Reparations, United Nations

The International Decade for People of African Descent (IDPAD) is coming to an end on December 31, 2024; there are 2.5 years left to bring it out of the invisibility in which those who decided to organize it have kept it. This invisibility can be seen by consulting the website of the decade . Each entry occupies barely a page in the 7.5 years of its existence. The way it has been treated is a symptom of a structural racism that refuses to tell its name; for this reason, it has not been able to go beyond the boundaries imposed by the international community, some of whose members have shown real opposition to it, on the pretext that their state is free of racism, even if they concede some racial discrimination, but that is where it ends.

The History Of African American Cooperative Eco-Systems

August 3, 2022 Workers' Rights Institute, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Black America, Cooperatives, New Economy

This session is the fourth installment of the Black Labor, Solidarity Economy, and Movement Lawyering Series, Co-organized by the Workers' Rights institute and Julian Hill and hosted in collaboration with Coalition for Racial Equity and Democratic Economies (CREDE), the Georgetown Law Socialist Students Union, ONE DC, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), and Claudia Jones School for Political Education. In this session, Jessica Gordon-Nembhard will discuss the history of African American mutual aid and cooperative economics, Black cooperative economic thought, the most prolific periods in the US African American Cooperative movement, and contemporary and previous examples of worker-owned cooperatives, lessons learned, and the way forward.

‘Mothers Of Gynecology’ Monument Exposes Horrors Of Slavery

July 23, 2022 Monica Moorehead, Workers World. Educate! Black America, Health Care, History, Slavery, Torture

A righteous tidal wave of anger followed people seeing the nine-minutes-plus videotaped police lynching of George Floyd in Minneapolis late May 2020. Racist monuments glorifying the slave-owning Confederacy came tumbling down, especially in the Deep South. These acts to take down the statues were part of historic mass protests that swept the country during the summer of 2020 during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Two years earlier the monument paying homage to J. Marion Sims, once praised as the “father of modern gynecology,” was removed from Central Park in New York City, following many years of protest. What led to the removal was a growing understanding and anger that Sims, a 19th century gynecologist in Montgomery, Alabama, used enslaved Black women as guinea pigs, experimenting on them with new medical techniques without using anesthesia or obtaining their consent.

FBI Still Targets Black People For Entrapment

July 15, 2022 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Black America, Entrapment, FBI, War on Terror

Romeo Langhorne is the latest victim of an FBI phony terror entrapment scheme. On July 7, 2022 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for uploading a bomb making video. Langhorne didn’t make a bomb. He uploaded a video while under the direction of an FBI informant. The video had in fact been produced by the government. More than 20 years after September 11, 2001 Americans are still being told that they are at risk of terrorist attacks. The color coded risk assessments, NSA surveillance of all electronic and internet activity continues. The threat of terror attacks is the justification for encroaching on civil liberties and phony terror schemes concocted by informants still get headlines and give legitimacy to the continued violations of our rights. Langhorne is a 32-year old Black man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

White Socialist Left: Seeing A Bleak Future For ‘Black And White Unite’

July 6, 2022 Jon Jeter, Black Agenda Report. Strategize! Black America, Left, Racism, Socialism, White Supremacy

The Red Summer of 1919 put paid to the lie of a monochromatic class struggle as thousands of hysterical white workers took to the streets around the country over the course of the year to lynch, beat, shoot and burn to death more than 250 of their African American coworkers who they feared were replacing them in the workplace. One-hundred and ten years after O’Hare published her racist polemic, another white woman with ties to the political Left in the U.S., Krystal Ball, appeared on the Marxist economist Richard Wolff’s podcast to once again downplay the role that racism plays in the struggle between capital and labor.

Akron Community Outraged Over Yet Another Police Lynching

July 6, 2022 Martha Grevatt, Workers World. Resist! Black America, Ohio, Police, police brutality

Akron, Ohio - Over 1,000 people marched through downtown Akron July 3 to demand justice in the police lynching of Jayland Walker. The 25-year-old Black Doordash driver was riddled with bullets fired by Akron police June 27. Cops purportedly attempted to stop Walker over a traffic violation. A high-speed chase ensued, in which police claim Walker somehow fired at them while driving; the cops fired multiple shots towards Walker’s vehicle. When Walker tried to flee on foot, police fired at least 90 shots at him, hitting Walker at least 60 times.

Protests After Akron Police Murder Jayland Walker

July 5, 2022 Colt Hutchinson, Fight Back News. Resist! Black America, Ohio, Police, police brutality

Akron, Ohio – On July 3, hundreds of people took to the streets and participated in marches demanding justice for Jayland Walker, an African American man who was murdered by Akron police on June 27. Shot over 60 times and then handcuffed after his body was full of holes and bleeding wounds, Jayland Walker was unarmed while murdered by police. The organized protests follow days of sporadic unrest throughout the city. After the seventh day, the Akron Police Department finally held a press conference which released body-cam footage detailing the incident to the public.

Building Black Wealth: Understanding The Limits Of Black Capitalism

June 25, 2022 Robert Raymond, Resilience. Create! Black America, Black Liberation, Capitalism, Socialism

Beginning in the 19th and 20th century, during the United States’ reconstruction era that followed the American Civil War, an important debate emerged in this country. It was during the era after slavery was officially abolished — after Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas on June 19th, 1865 — what we now commemorate as Juneteenth — to spread the word. The debate, that in many ways is still alive and well, went something like this: what is the best way to end class and racial injustice in the United States and what is the role of Black leadership in this? Two leaders of the Black community during this period , W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, can be seen as the two main voices of this debate representing each side.

Juneteenth Is About Black Liberation — Not Union Busting

June 20, 2022 Otto Fors, Left Voice. Educate! Black America, Juneteenth, union busting, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

For corporations, June has long been a time to adopt a facade of progressiveness while profiting from performing inclusivity of LGBTQ+ people. But in the past two years, a new occasion has fallen prey to this co-optation: Juneteenth. June 19 — or Juneteenth — commemorates the day that the final enslaved people in the U.S. were emancipated. On this day in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, a union general announced in Galveston, Texas that “in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” At the time, 250,000 Black people were still enslaved in the state. While Juneteenth has been celebrated every year since then — Texas was, in 1979, the first state to make it an official holiday — President Biden designated the date a federal holiday in June 2021.

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