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Akron Community Outraged Over Yet Another Police Lynching

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

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

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

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.

The Problem With Juneteenth

"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere." General Order Number 3, June 19, 1865 *The fact that members of the United States Senate voted unanimously to make Juneteenth a federal holiday proved that the commemoration is of no political value.

Landmark California Task Force Calls For ‘Comprehensive Reparations’

California is the first state in the U.S. to establish a reparations task force for Black Americans. On June 1, the Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans issued a 500-page document that traces the history of white supremacy from slavery to Jim Crow through the present. It calls for “comprehensive reparations” for Black people harmed by a historical system of state-sanctioned oppression. “Segregation, racial terror, harmful racist neglect, and other atrocities in nearly every sector of civil society have inflicted harms, which cascade over a lifetime and compound over generations,” the report says. “The California Reparations Commission’s first report is historic,” Chris Lodgson, Lead Organizer with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, told Truthout.

BLM Leader In Court To Challenge Racist And Retaliatory Charges

Tristan Taylor, a co-founder of Detroit Will Breathe (DWB) and a Left Voice member, is defending himself in court on Monday, May 23, against felony charges for protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020. Taylor is one of the Shelby 5, a group of protestors facing felony charges for demanding that Robert Shellide, the Chief of Police in Shelby Township, Michigan, be fired for posting violently racist remarks about the mass protests. Several additional protestors were charged with misdemeanors. On Taylor’s court date, Monday May 23, Detroit Will Breathe, an organization which was born in the heat of the Black Lives Matter movement, is calling their supporters to mobilize in support of a motion to get the felony charge thrown out. 

Laboring Beyond Black Representation

Because most of what passes as Black thought nowadays has been criminally captured by white capital (philanthropic foundations, corporate advertising, government funding, academia, business roundtables etc.) it was inevitable that the recent union victory against Amazon would fail to trend in the same spellbounding way as recent stories have in the Blacksphere. As a consequence, a feeble smack from one rich negro onto another and a token "First Black " woman judge appointed to a supreme court that regularly rules against (Black) labor is naturally lifted above the story of the first union to form against the insidiously hostile employer, Amazon, that was led by a working class Black man, Chris Smalls .

Minneapolis Teachers’ Strike Is A Struggle For Black Lives

The Minneapolis teachers’ strike kicked off this week with a huge turnout. Over 4,000 teachers and Educational Support Professionals (ESPs) are on strike for the first time in 50 years. The teachers are demanding smaller class sizes, increased wages (especially for ESPs who are mostly people of color), increased mental health support for students, and retention of educators of color. Students, parents, and community members have joined these educators in this strike. The Teachers’ Demands Are Anti-Racist With the George Floyd uprising, Minneapolis saw the rebirth of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. The police violently repressed community members and people burned down the 3rd precinct. A few months later, on November 4, 2020, over 600 community members and BLM activists were arrested during a protest on the 1-94 freeway, the largest mass arrest in Minnesota’s history.

‘Justifiable Police Homicide’ And The Ruse Of American Justice

Tamir Rice was one of several names that made international headlines in 2014. He was a 12-year-old Black boy murdered by Cleveland police within seconds of their arrival at Cudell Recreation Center. His mother, Samaria Rice, has since worked long, hard, and tirelessly to get some inkling of justice for her son. As a part of that work, she has been challenging the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on its 2020 decision to close the civil rights investigation into the murder of Tamir Rice by former Cleveland Police Department Officer, Timothy Loehmann. Here, Samaria Rice, Da'Shaun Harrison, and Joy James offer three separate responses to the DOJ's refusal to convene a grand jury for the prosecution of Timothy Loehmann.

An HBCU Roundtable On Violence And Accountability

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, most of which are concentrated in the South, hold contrasting legacies as both safe havens for Black students and frequent targets of violence. Last week, Scalawag hosted a live Twitter conversation with journalists who are both current and former students of HBCUs to discuss the broader contexts they have experienced and written about around student safety. This is a conversation with renewed urgency: As panelist Adam Harris, a staff writer at The Atlantic and the author of The State Must Provide, pointed out, there hasn't been a week in February this year without a bomb threat at an HBCU. The latest string of threats began in January at some schools, with at least 14 HBCUs reporting bomb threats on the first day of Black History Month. Two weeks ago, the FBI identified as many as six suspects—all juveniles—but no one has yet been publicly charged in connection with the threats, and no explosives found.

Jury Finds Ahmaud Arbery’s Murderers Guilty Of Federal Hate Crimes

On Tuesday, a 12-person jury found the three white men that chased down and murdered Ahmaud Arbery two years ago guilty of all charges in their federal hate crimes trial. With its guilty verdict, the jury agreed with the US Justice Department that the men pursued the 25-year-old African American Arbery through the streets of their neighborhood just outside Brunswick, Georgia, and shot him because he was black. Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, told reporters outside the courthouse, “Ahmaud will continue to rest in peace. But he will now begin to rest in power.” She also said, “We as a family will never get victory because Ahmaud is gone forever.” Marcus Arbery Sr., Ahmaud’s father, said his son used to call every day, even if it was just to tell his family that he loved them.

Every US President Has Worked To Uphold White Supremacy

For President's Day week, Clearing the FOG brings back this 2020 interview with Margaret Kimberley of Black Agenda Report. She is the author of "Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents" that chronicles how every president, even the 'good ones,' has upheld the white supremacy upon which the United States was founded and how social movements have been the only effective tool to bring about meaningful social change. Kimberley also urges Black America to break with the Democrats in order to build political power. In addition to current news and analysis, this program contains a segment by Paul Tulloch of Ottawa who describes what the trucker convoy is about and who is behind it.

The Political Violence Of National Oppression

Jacksonville, FL - Throughout the months of January and February, there were over 20 bomb threats directed towards historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and Black churches, most of which were in the South. These concentrated actions over the last few months are a microcosm of the extensive history of racism and national oppression that Black people have faced within the United States, particularly its southern region. In general, all Black communities within the United States face systemic racism. The evidence is in the economically depressed ghettos of every city (big and small), riddled with deprived schools and social organizations, and lacking any significant political power. But racism alone cannot explain the particular violence that Black people face within the United States.

High School Students Organized Thousands To Walk Out For Amir Locke

More than 3,000 high school students from across the Twin Cities metro area in Minnesota walked out of class February 8 to march to the governor’s mansion and demand justice following the death of Amir Locke. Locke, a 22-year-old Black man, was shot and killed February 2 by a Minneapolis Police Department SWAT officer during a no-knock apartment raid. Locke was neither named in the no-knock warrant nor a resident of the apartment. In an area beset by the police killings of Black residents — including 46-year-old George Floyd in May 2020 — Locke’s death sparked marches and car caravans across the Twin Cities. Twin Cities high school students organized quickly through social media to demand the demilitarization of the Minneapolis Police Department, the resignation of those culpable in the killing of Amir Locke, and a ban on no-knock warrants.
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