Black Panthers

Proposal For A Monument To Huey Newton

August 20, 2014 Creative Resistance, www.creativeresistance.org Create! Arts, Black Panthers, California, Creative Resistance

This article is from our associated project, CreativeResistance.org. This is a bronze sculpture of a wicker fan back chair that rests on a square steel base with a mirrored surface. The chair refers to a famous portrait of Huey Newton, one of the founders of the Black Panther Party. This picture shows Newton seated in a rattan chair that Sam Durant’s sculpture replicates. The title, “Monument for the Alameda County Courthouse” directly relates to the Oakland Museum’s proximity to this building across 12th Street where many of the Black Panther trials were conducted in the late 1960s. With this sculpture, the artist is proposing that there be a tangible recognition of the legacy of the Black power movement. This work is also interactive since it is intended to be used by the public. Viewers are encouraged to sit in the chair to metaphorically set themselves in and consider the history that the work alludes to. Visitors are allowed to sit in the chair.

McCulloch Blasts Nixon For Replacing St. Louis County Police

August 15, 2014 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, www.stltoday.com Educate! Black Panthers, Missouri, Police

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch Thursday night blasted the decision by Gov. Jay Nixon to replace St. Louis County Police control of the Ferguson situation with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. “It's shameful what he did today, he had no legal authority to do that," McCulloch said. "To denigrate the men and women of the county police department is shameful." McCulloch noted that no one was seriously injured in the effort led by County Police Chief Jon Belmar until Nixon handed control of the Ferguson over to the state agency on Thursday. “For Nixon to never talk to the commanders in the field and come in here and take this action is disgraceful," McCulloch said. "I hope I'm wrong, but I think what Nixon did may put a lot of people in danger."

Panthers In The Hole: US Prison Crisis

July 31, 2014 Angola 3 News, www.angola3news.blogspot.mx Educate! Black Panthers, Black Power, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Interview, Prison

Amnesty International France and La Boîte à Bulleshave published a 128-page French language graphic novel entitled Panthers in the Hole. The book's co-authors David Cénou and Bruno Cénou present with visual art what Amnesty France describes as "la tragique histoire des Trois d'Angola" (the tragic story of the Angola 3). Robert H. King, Herman Wallace, and Albert Woodfox are the trio of Black Panther political prisoners known collectively as the Angola 3. On October 1, 2013 Herman Wallace was dramatically released from prison after 41 years in solitary confinement. At the time of his release, he had been fighting terminal liver cancer for several months. Three days later, on Oct. 4, Herman was surrounded by loved ones as he passed on at a friend’s house in New Orleans, Louisiana. Albert Woodfox remains in solitary confinement to this day and with only temporary respite from routine body cavity searches pending an upcoming ruling by the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On April 17, 2014, marking 42 years since Albert Woodfox was first placed in solitary, Amnesty International renewed its call for his immediate release (view Amnesty’s statement and essay) and today continues their online campaign (sign the petition here).

What 43+ Years Of Prison Mean To Eddie Conway And Paul Coates

June 23, 2014 Susie Day, www.truth-out.org Educate! Black Panthers, FBI, Prison

Marshall Eddie Conway and Paul Coates talk about how they met in Baltimore's Black Panther Party and maintained solidarity and friendship for 43 years after Conway was framed, convicted and jailed for murder. Marshall Eddie Conway was born in 1946, grew up in the low-income racial segregation of West Baltimore, and joined the US Army at 18. Paul Coates, "a little bit older," grew up in a similar neighborhood in West Philadelphia, also enlisting in the Army as a youth. Sometime in the late 1960s, they met in the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party. Although both men yearned for racial justice, neither could have known at the time the dimensions of injustice they were to face. It's well known that J. Edgar Hoover directed his FBI to "disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize" African-American organizations and leaders in general. But the FBI unleashed its worst on the Black Panther Party, which, from its 1966 start in Oakland, California, Hoover saw as "the single greatest threat to the internal security of the country."[1] By 1968, when activists in Baltimore began to form a Panther chapter, there wasn't much that the feds didn't know about them or couldn't "neutralize." The FBI often worked with the local police force to do it.

Black Radicalism Is Critical To Understanding Race In The US

February 16, 2014 Adam Hudson www.truth-out.org Educate! Black Panthers, Race

Through surveillance and infiltration, the FBI and its counterintelligence program, known as COINTELPRO, severely repressed the black radical movement. The FBI spied on and amassed long files on black leaders such as King and Malcolm X. Black political groups like the Black Panther Party and black student unions were infiltrated by FBI spies. Agents wiretapped phones and sent false letters to those in the movement, including one to King encouraging him to commit suicide. Informants and provocateurs sowed division, distrust and paranoia among black radical groups. Government surveillance covered the entire African-American community, including even the study of what music black people listen to.

Mass Dragnet Surveillance: We Are All Black Now

February 11, 2014 Kymone Freeman, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Black Panthers, MLK, NSA, Racism, Surveillance

On October 26, 2013 I had the pleasure and honor to host the Stop Watching Us Rally against NSA surveillance on the National Mall. It was an honor to have had an opportunity to speak truth to power on national TV and it was a pleasure to see a massive sea of white faces respond to the provocative assertion that ‘we are all black today.’ I told them that ‘equality has finally come to the shores of America: it is called surveillance and it is for everyone.’ The often ignored truth is that surveillance is nothing new for African Americans. From the times of slavery that made it illegal for the enslaved to congregate without a European American present, to the modern US intelligence agencies who have historically engaged in political repression, black people have always been closely monitored. Due to the peculiar institution of the white supremacist policies of the U.S. government, this repression and surveillance have disproportionally targeted people of color. With mass dragnet surveillance, equality has finally come to the shores of America in the form of surveillance. We are all in the same boat now and when the lights go out, we are all black.

How The FBI Conspired To Destroy The Black Panther Party

December 9, 2013 G. Flint Taylor, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! Black Panthers, FBI, Police abuse, Racism

The FBI had, in fact, played a central role in the assassinations, and Hanrahan’s initial lies were only the top layer of what proved to be a massive cover-up. On Dec. 4, it will have been 44 years since a select unit of 14 Chicago police officers, under the direction of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, executed a predawn raid on a West Side apartment that left Illinois Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead, several other young Panthers wounded and seven raid survivors arrested on bogus attempted murder charges. Though Hanrahan and his men claimed there had been a shootout that morning, physical evidence eventually proved that in reality, the Panthers had only fired a single shot in response to approximately 90 from the police. In the wake of the raid, Illinois BPP Minister of Defense Bobby Rush stood on the steps of the bullet-riddled BPP apartment and declared that J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were responsible for the raid. At the time, Rush had no hard proof to back up his claims. Over the course of the next eight years, however, activists and lawyers, myself included, would eventually discover the truth: The FBI had, in fact, played a central role in the assassinations, and Hanrahan’s initial lies were only the top layer of what proved to be a massive cover-up.

New Book Documents Black Panther’s Fight for Free Health Care

October 29, 2013 Eleanor J Bader, www.truth-out.org Organize! Black Panthers, Health Care

It is well-known that the Black Panther Party's [BPP] rallying call was "serve the people, body and soul." According to sociologist Alondra Nelson, the phrase was far more than a rhetorical flourish. In fact, Panther co-founder Bobby Seale made sure it was taken literally when, in the spring of 1970, he ordered all party chapters to create free breakfast programs for children and health centers to serve the medically needy. It was a tall order, born of the belief that theory and practice need to work in tandem, with tangible benefits being given to under-resourced communities.

«1 2 3 »

Daily movement news and resources