Habari Gani? Imani! (What’s the news? FAITH!)

2017 marks the centennial of the bloodiest race riot in the twentieth century of this nation in East St. Louis, Illinois.  Migrant black people were hired to work as miners to replace striking white workers at the Aluminum Ore Company. The white workers stormed city hall demanding redress from the mayor. Shortly thereafter, news of an attempted robbery of a white man by an armed black man set off the reign of terror in downtown East St. Louis in which unarmed black men, women and children were pulled from trollies and street cars and beaten and shot down in the street. Governor Frank O. Lowden, Illinois, called in the National Guard to quell the disturbance through June 10., yet when the National Guard left the white workers were without jobs security and their union unrecognized.

Let’s just say, the animosity was on simmer, the flame turned up once again July 2. In July, the white mobs burned down the houses of black residents, and killed unarmed black men, women and children. Lynchings also occurred. The violence was so intense, East St. Louis police and National Guard were reported “fleeing the scenes of murder and arson” and/or not responding to black calls of distress at all (blackpast.org).

From its onset May 28 to July 2, such travesties of justice were revealed in published report: “Massacre at East St. Louis,” by W.E.B. Dubois and Martha Gruening for the NAACP, and a year later by an independent investigation initiated by a Special Committee of the United States House of Representatives (blackpast.org).

The Hon. Marcus Mosiah Garvey stated: On July 8th, 1917, the UNIA’s President, Marcus Garvey said “This is a crime against the laws of humanity; it is a crime against the laws of the nation, it is a crime against Nature, and a crime against the God of all mankind.”  He also believed that the entire riot was part of a larger conspiracy against African Americans who migrated North in search of a better life: “The whole thing, my friends, is a bloody farce, and that the police and soldiers did nothing to stem the murder thirst of the mob is a conspiracy on the part of the civil authorities to condone the acts of the white mob against Negroes” (blackpast.org).

The City of East St. Louis has a series of events planned for this centennial year to honor the lives of these innocent black victims of hate crimes. Visit http://www.estl1917ccci.org/
One of the key architects of the Centennial Commemoration is East St. Louis Poet Laureate and Scholar, Eugene Redmond.

Watch this coverage where Father Joseph Brown speaks of his father mentioning hiding people under beds during the violence: http://www.bnd.com/news/local/article118063163.html

A Memory Poem
by Eugene B. Redmond (eredmon@siue.edu) 12/8/2016 1:11PM:

Spoken Birds Fly Outta East Saint Louis, Illinois: 1917-2017 (variant of collage poem)

(Blues-ode for Mr. & Mrs. ‘Sippi, King & Queen of Nineteen Seventeen)
as century-aged ancestors-in-the-flesh,

we’re East Saint, Kinlock, Ferguson & Kush:

ridin’ ash-borne flights of Sankofa-woke words,

re-risen, Phoenix-like, as hip Spoken Birds:

flyin’ straits outta these Flaming Racial Quakes

that shake DuBois, Garvey, Ida B. & Faiths . . .

 

now, in hatred’s one-hundred-year-old wake,

hate again combusts as hatred incarnate–

in spates of urban slaughter at epidemic rates.

but we’re still our own keepsakes

who fly, who row, who chart our hearthwork’s flow:

&, as all y’all know, with history ahead of us,

Tomorrow’s Soular Trove’s in tow

This commemoration of the ancestors who died violent deaths is necessary for the healing of not just black souls, but the soul of the nation. Similarly, Bryan Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative, has started documenting lynchings and has plans for a memorial in Montgomery, AL (2018). There will be 4000 names listed.  Stevenson says in a Newshour interview: “We are really burdened by this legacy. And I don’t think we have acknowledged it adequately. We terrorized African-Americans at the end of the 19th century and through half of the 20th century. The demographic geography of this country was shaped by this era of racial terror and lynching.  The black people who went to Cleveland and Chicago and Detroit went there as refugees and exiles from terror. And we haven’t owned up to it. And I think we need to. It took us 15 years to build a 9/11 memorial here in New York.”

Stevenson says our freedom is linked to this silence.

Events
In the Name of Love

Martin King is known as the man of love, love as a weapon for peace. However, his association with this term has been seen as both a strength and a weakness. King is best known for his “love ethic,” something bell hooks defends in an essay by similar title. In the essay hooks, cultural critic and scholar, states: “It is truly amazing that King had the courage to speak as much as he did about the transformative power of love in a culture where such talk is often seen as merely sentimental. In progressive political circles, to speak of love is to guarantee that one will be dismissed or considered naive. But outside those circles there are many people who openly acknowledge that they are consumed by feelings of self-hatred, who feel worthless, who want a way out. Often they are too trapped by paralyzing despair to be able to engage effectively in any movement for social change. However, if the leaders of such movements refuse to address the anguish and pain of their lives, they will never be motivated to consider personal and political recovery. Any political movement that can effectively address these needs of the spirit in the context of liberation struggle will succeed.”

“Choosing love we also choose to live in community, and that means that we do not have to change by ourselves.  . . . African American theologian Howard Thurman believed that we best learn love as the practice of freedom in the context of community. ‘Truth becomes true in community. The social order hungers for a center (i.e. spirit, soul) that gives it identity, power, and purpose. America, and all cultural entities, are in search of a soul’”(Smith).

January 20 this country steps into a new paradigm, one unanticipated, certainly not expected, yet seen as an opportunity, the Trump paradigm is an opportunity for those people whose work honors this legacy to move from the philosophical to the practical. As millions of women and girls plan to show up at the inaugural festivities to put the new administration on notice, all Americans are called to step it up, be actively engaged rather than passively along for the ride.

The 15^th Anniversary of In the Name of Love, A Musical Tribute Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is Sunday, Jan. 15, 7 p.m. at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Drive. January 15 would have been King’s 88 birthday.

The theme is Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? With special guests Kenny Washington, Terri Odabi, Will Russ, Destani Wolf, and Luq Frank,Tammy Hall, pianist, Marcus Shelby, bassist, Sly Randolph, drummer, John Santos, percussionist, and Teo Avery, saxophonist are the house band. Other guests are the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Living Jazz Children’s Priject with the Oakland School for the Arts Ensemble. Dana King is Mistress of Ceremonies and will present the Humanitarian of the Year Award to Glen Upshaw, Violence Interrupter, Youth Alive.

The program is a benefit for Living Jazz Children’s Project, a free music education for Oakland public elementary schools. For tickets and information: 510-858-5313 or mlktribute.com Tickets are $25-$40; children $8-$12.

Other MLK Jr. Programs and Activities

Dance Brigade in association with YBCA presents: Gracias A La Vida: Love in a Bitter Time
“Your silence will not protect you”—Audre Lorde.

With “Gracias a La Vida: Love in a Bitter Time,” Dance Brigade celebrates 40 years of activism through the arts, this program, created by Krissy Keefer opens Friday, January 13, 7:30 p.m., and continues the Sat., Jan. 14, 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theatre. 700 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA. Tickets are $10-$40. The Saturday matinee is $5. Get tickets at ybca.org or (415) 978-ARTS. For information visit DanceMission.com or call (415) 826-4441.

MLK Jr. Day 2017: Justice in the Beloved Community
Northern CA MLK Community Foundation in its MLK 2017 calendar lists many activities from Freedom Breakfasts to concerts, to lectures.

Perspectives at OMCA | Two Generations of Black Struggle

Saturday, January 21, 2017, 2 pm

The day after the new US President is sworn in, Bobby Seale, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, will share his stories, his reflections, and his strategies of the politics of the revolution with Oakland poet, educator, playwright, and screenwriter Chinaka Hodge. Hear from these two speakers whose experience includes a range of cultural and political work as they share their perspectives on the past and present iterations of Black struggle in the US and Oakland.  Tickets are $18 (OMCA members) and $20. Seating is limited.  Advanced tickets required. http://museumca.org/2016/perspectives-omca-two-generations-black-struggle

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Theatre

The Lower Bottom Playaz proudly present, Mama at Twilight: Death by Love, written and directed by Ayodele Nzinga at The Flight Deck, 1540 Broadway, Oakland, CA. It will preview on January 12, 2017 and runs through January 29, 2017. .

Mama at Twilight: Death by Love is a love story that offers a frank examination of family life in the inner-city as it intersects mass incarceration, poor access to health care, religious taboos, and struggles under the burden of imposed tropes of man and womanhood. The Jefferson family is an American family trying to find their way into the American dreams with a closet full of family secrets that make love a difficult and bruising task. This is the story of their roadblocks, the societal obstacles, and the burden of their undying love for one another.

The Lower Bottom Playaz traditionally offer works that interrogate the experience of being human thru the lens of the North American African experience.  Mama at Twilight: Death by Love, follows this tradition and closes the Playaz, Season17: Ubuntu.  This is a reprisal of the work that toured Northern CA in 2009 to enthusiastic audiences and was produced by the City of Oakland as a part of National Aids week to draw attention to the necessity of testing to prevent the spread of HIV.

For a list of shows times and ticket prices visit the website: www.lowerbottomplayaz.com  Box Office: 510-332-1319.

Events at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline Street, Oakland, for January-February

27th Annual Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry

Please join us for the 27th Annual Celebration of African American Poets and Their Poetry, Saturday, February 4, 2017 – 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline Street, Oakland. Community members of all ages are invited to participate by reading poetry, performing, dancing, or/and displaying works of art. This year’s theme is The Crisis in Black Education although all themes are welcome. If you’re interested in being featured in this program please call 510-238-7352 to register.  (There will be a rehearsal January 28, 10 a.m. to 12 noon at the Library).

Lawyers in the Library @ the West Oakland Branch Library
First Tuesdays each month from 5 – 6:30pm. Advance sign ups begin at 4:30pm.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017 – 5:00pm – 6:30pm

Tuesday, February 7, 2017 – 5:00pm – 6:30pm

Veterans Town Hall @ the West Oakland Branch Library

Join THE VETERANS COMMUNITY MEDIA NETWORK for their monthly townhall meeting. Learn about your benefits and resources with representatives from the VA and community veteran organizations, Saturday, January 7, 2017 – 10:30am – 1:00pm.

How to Publish Your Own Novel Workshop @ the West Oakland Branch Library

Author King William says of his workshop: “While I am sure that everyone has their own method, as an author and publisher of four books, I have a tried and true technique to share with you to get you started on your literary career.” Join us for this special workshop!
Saturday, January 14, 2017 – 3:00pm

For teens @ the West Oakland Branch Library “Let’s Meet in the ‘Zone!”

Do you like to play games or make crafts? Want to tell us about your favorite manga series?  Head to the TeenZone every fourth Wednesday of the month from 3:30-4:30PM. We will be making Mini Resolution Notebooks in January, Wednesday, January 25, 2017 – 3:30pm – 4:30pm

Remembering Fidel Castro in Berkeley, CA

¡VIVA FIDEL! The Struggle Continues/La Lucha Continúa, Saturday January 14, 2017 at La  Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, $10 general entrance (no one turned away for lack of funds). Door opens at 6:30pm, program will start at 7:00pm. There will be a photo exhibit, live music, poetry and a panel discussion. Visit lapena.org

Independent Lens 2017 Winter Spring Season

Titles include two films that explore tragic incidents of gun violence that shook the nation: Newtown, about the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, and TOWER, about the 1966 mass shooting at the University of Texas.

The Witness offers a fresh look into the notorious 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, which quickly became a symbol of urban apathy.

Race and identity – both cultural and personal – are explored in several films including Accidental Courtesy, a profile of an African American musician on a quest to fight racism by befriending members of the KKK; Best and Most Beautiful Things, about a young blind woman’s journey of self-discovery;Birth of a Movement, about the racial uproar that surrounded the 1915 release of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation; What Was Ours, about Native Americans seeking to reclaim lost tribal artifacts; and Real Boy, the story of a transgender teenager on a journey to find his voice. Visit http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/ /

Independent Lens airs Monday nights at 10:00 p.m (unless indicated otherwise below) on PBS and all films are available for free online streaming the day after broadcast on the Independent Lens  website. Independent Lens will also stream a selection of some of the most popular and award-winning films from previous seasons in the weeks leading up to the new season launch on December 26.

West Coast Premiere: Native Son

’”Native Son” by Nambi E. Kelley, adapted from the novel by Richard Wright, directed by Seret Scott has its West Coast premiere at Marin Theatre Company, January 19-February 12. MTC is located at 397 Miller Avenue, Mill Valley, (415) 388-5208. Visit marintheatre.org

Bigger Thomas is reminds us of Malcolm Little. Both boys wanted more from life then white America allowed. Bigger wanted to be a pilot, Malcolm wanted to be an attorney—life served them a different meal. Nambi E. Kelly’s “Xtigone,” directed by Rhodessa Jones for African American Shakespeare Company met with critical acclaim by San Francisco audiences. It was the story of Antigone and her brother set in the present. Now the playwright tackles the story of dreams deferred—does the dream shrivel . . . run syrupy sweet or does it explode? (Hughes). When I was teaching a composition class at Contra Costa College we cast Bigger Thomas as OJ Simpson to explore options for black men when all seem exhausted.  Listen to the interview with director, Ms. Jones and principal performer, Ryan Nicole Austin (Tig) on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show, February 11, 2015.

Hubert Collins Washington (May 2, 1939-Dec. 13, 2016)

Hubert Collins Washington says he first me at La Peña Cultural Center at a performance of Black Poets with Attitudes. I recall the interview he granted me when I was completing an Oral History class. It was over chicken and waffles at a black restaurant by the same name. My project was interviews with veterans, WW2, Hubert was a Vietnam veteran. He served as a Chaplin’s Assistant in Louisiana. He came to Oakland when he was 19 or 20 and stayed with his uncle and aunt. While studying to be a doctor, he took a class with Huey P. Newton. It was an accounting class. Hubert says he was closer to Huey’s older brother, Melvin.

Hubert shared this story with us at the Iconic Black Panther Exhibit. It was the last exhibit he attended before he got too sick to leave the rehabilitation hospital. I’d wanted to take him to the All Power to the People exhibit at the Oakland Museum but his health wasn’t up to the excursion.

A great storyteller, Hubert was also a great illustrator—his block prints of Gwendolyn Brooks (he tells me) were stunning. He also took photos of most of the poets in the early San Francisco black arts scene, especially writers like Bob Kaufman, devorah major, Opal Palmer Adisa, Reggie Major. When President Obama was elected to office Hubert attended both inaugurations. For the second one, he didn’t even have a place to stay and spoke about how cold his feet were. He said he was there for the ancestors. He kept a tablet and drew a sketch each day of the president’s term. It was one of many losses when his house was repossessed. He was in the hospital recovering from prostate cancer when the locks were changed and his possessions thrown away. He never fully recovered from the blow and started talking about leaving California long before the cancer returned with a vengeance ten years later (this summer).

A founding member of the Community Reform Church of Oakland, he taught many Sunday School children in his 50 year tenure, like Rev. Gladion Carney (Alabama) and his brother Kenneth Carney (Sacramento). We listened the evening before he died to messages from friends and relatives like Ann (his elder sister Marie’s daughter), Barbara (Evelyn’s mom), Luella, Dave Holly, Helen, Tony, me, Joe Lucas, Jean Livingston, Joanne Lucas, McBain, Lettie, and Carol. As the messages played Hubert smiled as he listened to their prayers and good cheer. I waved goodbye as he looked at me, more alert than previous evenings. He even thanked me for visiting. I told him I’d come by after work the next day, and I was getting ready to do just that when I got a call from Mr. Holly, that Hubert had made his transition that afternoon about 2:50 p.m. It was less than an hour after Oliver left.

A lifetime seems endless while we are on the road.

Hubert loved his family and told me how he went to Detroit to celebrate his niece’s graduation by taking her to meet the poet Laurette of Detroit, Naomi Long Madgett (93), founder of Lotus Press, Godmother of Poetry. Hubert says of the visit that Mrs. Madgett was generous with her time. Hubert loved literature and always had a book by a black author in his hands. The book was often wrapped in a paper bag, he also had the latest black papers. When I visited him, I always took him something to read, the San Francisco Bay View, the Oakland Post, and that last weekend, the program from the Oakland East Bay Symphony’s Lest Us Break Bread Concert. Hubert retired from Social Security after working as a mail man.

He taught art classes at Arroyo Viejo Park in Oakland, and received first prize for his ceramic sculptures in the Emeryville Art Show two years in row. He graduated from Cal State Hayward where he took studio art classes. It was there he met Arthur Monroe, painter, arts administrator, and architect of the black artists’ contingent from the West Coast to the Second World Festival of Black and African Culture (Lagos, 1977). Little would I know that I would attend the Third World Festival of Black and African Arts and Culture (widely known as FESMAN) in Dakar (2010).

Hubert was so encouraging and full of great ideas. I hadn’t known he played the mbira, the Shona harp. I had one made for him in Zimbabwe a couple of years ago when I was there. Hubert introduced me to the black arts scene 15-20 years ago. I had been a sheltered house wife, now liberated collegiate with weekends free—at least two a month (smile). My sophisticated freind knew all the black writers like devorah major, Opal Palmer Adisa, Mona Lisa Saloy and others. He would tell me who to ask for an interview, like Raymond Saunders (smile). He always thought about legacy and whose legacy needed preserving. I couldn’t keep up and some of these tips went unanswered.

His people were in high places. I remember when Hubert left town to attend the inauguration of his nephew into a mayoral office in Louisiana somewhere. The first black man in such a position.  But back to Ray Saunders, I had no idea that the famous artist would end up being my younger daughter’s teacher at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA).  I still have the photo Hubert took of TaSin and me outside the Oakland Museum one Sunday, in front of the sign which announced Saunders’s retrospective exhibition. Talk about foreshadowing. TaSin went to visit Hubert that last weekend. She got him a burger and a vanilla milkshake. He ate a bit of the burger for her and drank half the milk shake. I think this was his last meal.

Hubert is survived by his friends in Oakland and Detroit, Oliver Wendell Holmes, David Holly, Tony Thompson, Wanda Sabir, two sisters, Marie and Esther, a brother, a sister-in-law, nieces, cousins, and of course lots of friends. He also has other relatives in the central valley.

There was no service for Hubert (he was cremated, his ashes sent to Detroit)– long story, so we would like to have something for him this month. Please send Hubert stories to info@wandaspicks.com If you have any photos, especially of his art, send that too.

. .

Cuba 13/8/1926 – 25/11/2016

Oh Cuba

Los derechos se toman, no se piden;

se arrancan, no se mendigan.

                                        José Martí to Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruiz

                        Death came to the old revolutionary
put out what was left of his cigar
leaving him his military cap
so they would not place laurels
that would bother him.
It is no little thing to confront the empire
& survive its rage of a mad dog
from which a bone is taken.
Oh Cuba of the bitter history,
of palms, dances, songs,
of the drums of Alegba & Yamayá,
of the cane made sweet by blood & sweat
mourn & remember, sing, dance, work

for justice & never return to slavery.

© Rafael Jesús González 2016

This year has been a long one. It was amazing to have traveled to President Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana this summer and to England for the first time. In Ghana, it was the rainy season, yet I was able to get to many places of interest. I was tracing the trade—slave trade and traversed the country in trotros and by hired car and by chartered bus to see those places where African ancestors were traded like commodities. We saw pools where the captives had their last baths, hollowed trees where Africans hid and houses constructed to keep families save and ensure a head start if they needed to evacuate. Though I started by journey in the mountains a few miles outside Accra, it was the travel north toward Wa and Burkina Faso, where countryside opened up and the stories and hikes to sacred spaces in the mountains were shared. Familiar with the Ndebele woman from South Africa, it was interesting to meet women in Ghana in a rural community located between Bolgatanga and Navrongo, Sirigu where the Sirigu Women’s Association of Pottery and Arts (SWOPA), continue a tradition begun by the grandmothers and great grandmothers.  The patterns and designs are seen in the historic cathedral, Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Minor Basilica, where angels and saints are painted in red, white and black.

With yet another stolen election in Haiti (October 2016), Jean-Yvon Kernizan, a Fanmi Lavalas activist, said such blatant tampering with ballots, delayed counts from precincts under the eyes of skilled international voter efficacy teams—means the People are at War. Such can be said for questioned outcomes for the US elections both local, state and national with Trump this country’s recent President Elect. However, in California housing initiatives to safeguard renters and neighborhood integrity passed in Oakland, yet did not pass in Alameda where homelessness is becoming an issue. The state ballot initiative which speeds up death penalty cases vies with another initiative passed in earlier which guarantees youth sentenced to life without the possibility of parole to a hearing and perhaps early release.

It is grave now for black people, others too; however, black people specifically need to get in better physical shape, mental and spiritual shape to tackle the battle which continues to rage against us. Immigrants are being targeted, so are Muslims; however, black people are in all stated populations and whether American born or immigrant, we all look the same in the eyes of white supremacists and racists who now control the federal system. It is as if the north pulled out of the south, Obama representing the short-term presence of the Union during what was called Reconstruction a farce if one looks at W.E.B Dubois’s classic, The Souls of Black Folk, the chapters which look at how it feels to be a problem in a nation [which has not] found peace from its sins [nor] the freeman his promised land” (1, 4). Dubois critiques the Freeman’s Bureau, the Freeman’s Bank and “Negro suffrage” (23).

Even if Trump disavowals his relationship to the Klan, it doesn’t matter, because his presence has allowed the anger and xenophobia public free reign. All of a sudden, people who are not black feel what black people have felt, black women have felt, black men have felt during what was supposed to be a time of celebration—Emancipation in the guise of Abraham . . . Barack, no Lincoln Obama – 1863 and 2009. Perhaps the laisser faire which greeted Obama’s reign dissipates in light of Trump; however, the pressure and absence of censure which greeted Obama’s term was misplaced, which is how a Trump could become president. People were voting for Trump, because he represented a different view for America–White Anglo Saxon Protestants. This Thanksgiving was a return to the Puritans whose Thanksgiving Feasts referenced the successful massacres of indigenous people. President Lincoln made these successive massacres, Thanksgiving Day. The first day of the new national holiday, was also the day Lincoln “ordered troops to march against the starving Sioux in Minnesota” (Susan Bates). We should be mindful of the elders do not want to be here when Donald Trump takes office. Let them know that we are getting stronger, forming coalitions, making plans, working smart. The 50^th anniversary of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was a brilliant philosophical synergy of multiple movements: UNIA, NOI, SNCC, NOI, UNIA. . . . The work of the Hon. Marcus Garvey who was inspired by Booker T. Washington and Nobel Drew Ali who also inspired the Hon. Elijah Muhammad. Garvey inspired the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. There is a black star at the center of the Ghanaian flag. Of all the countries I have visited in Africa, Ghana and Zimbabwe were the most welcoming. However, Ghana, has so many black people living there from throughout the African Diaspora. Most are business persons who contribute to the economy, even though they cannot become citizens.

Interpretations of the BPP state that it was a multiracial movement, and that might be true; however, the way it played out was police brutality in black communities—black men killed, black youth tracked, targeted and killed and if we look at surveillance and intelligence in major cities across the nation, those targeted and profiled are majority black. This is illustrated in Craig Atkinson’s film, “Do Not Resist” (2016).

It is a black-thang, so to act as if organizing within communities most affected leaves unspoken the privilege attached to other communities is a waste of precious time, because as Kernizan stated on Flashpoints, “We are at war.”

So while I count my blessings and thank the creator in all his and her illumination which my comprehension barely touches for this year and this moment and perhaps other days to come to do necessary work for black liberation, I know we will not be successful in the battle unless we organize. It doesn’t have to be grandiose. Start with friends, get together regular and pour libations, share a meal, develop a project, complete it and then start another one. Be active, because the opposite is certain death.

Alex Haley’s “Roots” is 40 years 2017. Bounce TV aired the series in November. Sankofa, the turn back to fetch a legacy within reach— is a powerful move. Sankofa teaches us to remember the ancestors, this is where our strength lies. This is where the answers are found, this is where the spirit of the yet to be born gather to meditate.

Don’t forget to breathe through the journey. Black people have been here since the beginning; we will be here when this episode passes. Stay the course and do not give up or think a few victories mean the war is over. In 1948 a Universal Declaration of Human Rights were adopted by most members of the United Nations. At that time, Egypt, Ethiopia, Liberia and Haiti were among the 48 countries in favor of the UDHR. South Africa voted against it. Noticeably absent were the voices of the colonized African nations and those still economically shackled in the Global South, so this declaration omits the voices of the majority population on the planet earth. Marcus Garvey became aware of this as a union organizer when he petitioned the Queen of England on behalf of the workers in Costa Rica and Panama. Later, in 1928 after losing his case and having to leave the United States, Garvey travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to present the Petition of the Negro Race to the League of Nations (from George G. Johnson’s “Profiles in Hue”).

“This statement outlined the abuse of Africans around the world. In September 1929, he founded the People’s Political Party (PPP), Jamaica’s first modern political party, centered primarily upon workers’ rights]], education, and aid to the poor. However, prior to all of this at the first National Convention for African Peoples of the World in 1920, Garvey crafted and ratified the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World. There is a preamble, twelve complaints and 54 declarations. This document was signed by 122 delegates from the convention, including Garvey who was nominated the Provisional President of a United States of Africa. It was also signed by Henrietta Vinton Davis, Arnold Josiah Ford, and Garvey’s two secretaries, Janie Jenkins and Mary E. Johnson (from “Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey” (1925).

Not specific to the rights of black people, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights nonetheless states every human being has a right to freedom of person and mobility, housing, health care, education, economic justice, safety, the right to representation in a court of law (and the presumption of innocence as well). . . . Human Rights Day was concurrently established December 10, 1948 at that same meeting in Paris. Not all countries agreed to all 30 declarations, and so abstained. In the past 60 years there have been attempts to revise the document; however, no revisions have amended the original document despite its Eurocentric or western orientation.

When the Dust Clears . . .
A Review of Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust”

25 years ago, Julie Dash made history with her film “Daughters of the Dust” (1991). When it opened theatrically, the first film by a black woman director in US history to have major distribution, the long lines were evidence of a shift in the dominant narrative.  The film opens nationally Dec. 2, locally in San Francisco at Landmark Embarcadero, with a brilliant 2K restoration print— It will look as Dash and Director of Cinematography, Arthur Jafa envisioned, yet could not afford to print.

Most Black women in their 40s-50s have a Julie Dash, “Daughters of the Dust” tale. I do. I was my younger daughter’s age in 1991 when the film screened in Oakland.  Summer Williams, MD, who presented the MVFF39 Award to Ms. Dash with rising star, Ta’Naejah Reed, (14) as the youth looked in awe with tears in her eyes at the iconic woman, had Dash stories – that moment on stage another in the making, while Ashara Ekundayo, Chief Creative Officer at Impact Hub Oakland’s Dash story was her graduate thesis. Dare I mention Queen B—Beyoncé’s homage to “Daughters” in “Lemonade,” what Dash said in the Q&A is the ultimate compliment. Dash’s cinematic reach into a feminist Diaspora arch is unparalleled when juxtaposed to colorfast whiteness. With “Daughters of the Dust” the director gives black women agency, an agency previously denied, silenced, and certainly ignored if not forgotten by those with the mic. Not only does she amplify the voices of the three generations of the Peazant women: Nana Peazant (Cora Lee Day), Eula (Alva Rogers) and her unborn child (Kai-Lynn Warren), the film shifts from normed patriarchal aegis to an African sensibility where women are seen as the “sweetness of life.”

A love song to her father—a Geechie man who raised his children in the projects in Queens, New York, this work is perhaps the highest accolade a daughter could offer a parent. To make a film about her dad’s people, a people who are still African and American, says a lot for the cultural retention and integrity present in this society. The isolated coastal islands, from the St. John’s River in Florida to the Cape Fear River in North Carolina preserve this cultural worldview, however, once the Peazants, Dashes . . . migrate north, the dominant narrative all but silences them. “Daughters” unearths those voices. We have to pay attention and listen really carefully, as vocal nuances and linguistic rhythms sound strange to acculturated or assimilated ears. Dash said it is time for audiences to acknowledge and struggle as she did with Chinese, German, Spanish. . . . Gullah, a Bantu language which uses English words, is America too.

Dash says, “I set out to make a foreign film about an American family. I like the experience of going into a theater and being taken somewhere you’ve never been,” Dash, 53, [at the time] said. “That was what I was trying to do rather than just tell a Southern story.”  It was her association with the other creative minds, such as Charles Burnett and Melvonna Ballenger together known as LA Rebellion (1967-’89) which allowed her a space to grow and express her voice.

Dash’s film stylistically utilizes a new form to tell the Peazant story, that of the griot or djeli. If D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915) stands as the norm for feature films in Hollywood, a film rift with images which demean and dehumanize black people, “Daughters of the Dust” is Dash’s emblematic protest. “Daughters” shifts the American gaze perceptively into a dialogue about black humanity, black agency and the worthiness of black lives.

The story takes place on sunny summer day, the day most of the Peazant family plan to move to the north. Everyone dresses their best for photographs, a great meal, and fond farewells. Matriarch Nana Peazant great grandmother of the Peazant family, is the link between the old and the new. Nana represents a traditional African based socio-cultural belief system that must come to grips with a westernized belief system in this contentious post-Civil War New World. Nana represents Obatala, a Yoruba deity, who is leader of the orisa for its great age and wisdom.

The Peazant family and its Gullah community are juxtaposed to an industrialized and ever encroaching “northern state,” the north a place absent trees, absent saltwater ancestors, absent Nana’s presence—a situation devoid of geography or invitation. A people, without rights, now that slavery is over, the idea that freedom has a reality the government feels obligated to recognize proves dubious to Nana who states she doesn’t know what freedom means to Negro people in the north.

In Cora Lee Day’s Nana Peazant (1914-1996) we witness an African woman who has examined then discarded European spirituality for what works, ancestral rituals. The songs of protest live within the sinew of the born and yet to be born. The beauty of Dash’s “Daughters” is an alternative legacy.

Keith Josef Adkins’s “Safe House” continues at the Aurora Theatre through Dec. 4

When Keith Josef Adkins, playwright, Cincinnati native, was growing up he recalls his grandmother saying that their people in antebellum Kentucky were not enslaved. He didn’t pay her words any mind while a youth, after all weren’t all black people’s ancestors former slaves? Well not really. In his family case, a white women ancestor named Elizabeth Banks had a black husband and despite the whippings she received when bearing the three black children, the children were born free because their mother was free. This is how free black people were born and stayed free as they married other free black people or purchased enslaved black people, married and then freed them

The family we meet in “Safe House,” two brothers and their aunt, are one of two black families in this fictional town. The other free blacks are run out of town when the family that remains is caught trying to help an enslaved black person escape. The escapee is caught and the family is put on a curfew for two years. When we meet the family, the two years are almost up and the younger brother is excited about being free again. It is hot and humid and he wants to take a dip in the river, off limits to black people. His more conservative brother is a cobbler and is making big plans to expand business and open a shop in his family’s home when something happens which ruins his hopes and dreams and shatters the already shaky relationship between brothers.

Free black people have to carry passes and though they have rights, the law does not have to respect them and in this town, does not.
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“Safe House” looks at black people with privilege and the relationship between this family and the other black people who live on the plantations nearby. Whenever something happens, because they are black, the sheriff (whom we never see) assumes this family knows about it, even when denial is on the tip of their tongues. Addison (David Everett Moore) wants his younger brother to act right, do right but Frank (Lance Gardner) is his own man and feels a sense of obligation to his people who are not free. His Aunt Dorcas (Dawn L. Troupe) supports him, but is not willing to risk her freedom again.

Another character is the deputy (Bracken) who is an ally. His role (portrayed by actor Cassidy Brown) in the story, shows how infectious the disease of white supremacy is and how crippling it is to everyone without power. Just as one gets used to the idea of free black people, Adkins hits his audience with a jaw breaker, whole mouth full in the person of spunky Roxie (actress Jamella Cross), an escaped slave looking for sanctuary and freed woman Clarissa (Dezi Soléy). Clarissa bakes cakes and loves one of the brothers enough to slip a rod into the batter. Adkins further tangles a web America has yet to unravel in the excellent production of “Safe House,” directed by L. Peter Callender at the Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St. in Berkeley through Sunday, Dec. 4. For tickets call: 510.843.4822  or boxoffice@auroratheatre.org

The Last Tiger in Haiti closed at Berkeley Rep

So human rights abuses continue, none more prevalent than the illegal institution of slavery, especially the sexual enslavement of children. In a play at Berkeley Rep this fall season, “The Last Tiger in Haiti,” the characters look at the power of story in self-actualization. How does story revive or find within what has been crushed embodied soul? Jeff Augustin, playwright, looks at the Haitian tradition of indentured servitude, that involving children sent to live and work for more wealthy or elite Haitians—the youth, Max (18), Emmanuel (15), Joseph (17) and Laurie’s (17) treatment, is as unsteady as their drunken master searching for home in a darkened ally. We meet his daughter, Rose (11), who hangs out with the servants, and pretends to be one of them.  The term restavek (“staying with”) is how the practice is innocently described. However, “Tiger” exposes the underside of such beast. I first learned of this child servitude or enslavement from a pamphlet published by Mildred Trouillot-Aristide, former First Lady of Haiti. Set in Port-au-Prince in 2008 just before the earthquake, “Last Tiger” is a story of exploitation and abuse. The abuse is subtle, not solely what one would expect from a system of economic enslavement which cause rupture between a parent and child. No, the true violence is interpersonal; it lives between the hearts, gets into the sinew and bone where trust and love lie. It is the betrayal Max feels when his little sister, Rose whom he cares about and loves, Rose steals then pawns his soul.

She thinks she has gotten away when 16 years later Max shows up on her figurative doorstep. He has read her book and wants his story returned. The fact that “The Last Tiger” is told from the perspective of this privileged child “Rose” (actress Brittany Bellizeare), is disturbing. Rose (11) is like a virus which undermines Max’s ascension. Seemingly innocent, Rose steals the older youth’s savings to keep him from leaving. She turns the money over to her father, whom she pretends to hate. Max (Andy Lucien) is trapped and eventually runs away. Rose also steals from Laurie (actress Jasmine St. Clair) who befriends and protects Rose from the other boys, Emmanuel and Joseph, who are suspicious of this rich child. The two boys question her presence and the trust Max and Laurie give her. Then Rose steals something precious – a doll Laurie’s mother gave her; it is all that Laurie had left from her mother. Without shame Rose puts her version of the truth in her bestselling memoir. Max tracks the author down to reclaim his tattered life, to bury the dead. The monster she portrays him as in the memoir is Rose, not him. He wants her to recant and admit she fabricated the tale.  Max says how he worried that she had been killed after the earthquake; however she survived adopted by an Irish missionary family.

Max knows the potential for betrayal in his adoption of Rose, the master’s daughter, yet in the Diaspora now, Rose is clueless as to her crime. Max asks her: “Did you think we were volunteers?”

Rose responds, “All the kids at school had ‘restaveks,’ I thought it was a part of life. But once I understood – I snuck you all food, clothes, hugged you. Made you human. And Joseph didn’t say [he hated me]. He said it about my father. I was there. . . .” She says she embellishes his life to “make it better.” She projects the evil of enslavement on the youth her family owns as if Max, Joseph, Emmanuel, and Laurie benefit from the masked artifice. She ignores her father’s sexual perversions and Joseph’s repeated rapes. She makes Max into a murderer though she is the killer; she kills their dreams, appropriates their stories and then does nothing to find the four youth (even now) who allowed her into their world.

Her published words destroy Max. How could she forget the power of story to manifest what is hidden? How could she forget the power of story to transform? How could she forget the power of story to imagine something greater than what one is given? Max says, “You have taken my life and made it into a fable.”

Max says with resolve to Rose when he sees how tainted she is by her circumstances, empathy a gift absent from the worldview of exploiters: “I was born a slave, I could never have a story. A narrative. We spent all that time in that tent telling other people’s stories, a countries stories cause we – Laurie, Joseph, Emmanuel – we never had choices. Our stories were already written, by your parents, by you, by people like you.”

Ghosts? Yet, nonetheless, Max, Laurie, Joseph and Emmanuel exist. How do we make the lives of those erased from history real when the bodies cannot be located, their stories cloaked in silence? This is the challenge faced by those outside the dominant narrative structure. Rose is published. Imagine all the stories she missed once the well ran dry. She tells Max he is the best storyteller she knows, there is a market for his stories, that she can help him publish; however, Max is not interested in opening new wounds to other wolves or insatiable hungry tigers.

An alternative ending perhaps lies in our ability to trust, let go and keep moving. Max is disappointed in Rose, but now surprised. She is a product of her people, of what author Edward P. Jones calls, her known world.  How could he have expected her to walk straight when her shoes were designed by crooks?

To help with the recent hurricane and the continued Cholera pandemic, visit Haiti Emergency Relief Fund 100 percent of the funds goes to grassroots organizations in Haiti.

On the Fly:
Film Screening
“Daughters of the Dust” (112 mins.) opens December 2, at Landmark Opera Plaza in San Francisco; The Laney College Dance Department presents its annual showcase: “And Still We Dance. . . Promoting Resilience, Determination, & Pride”, Friday-Saturday, December 9-10, 8 p.m. at Laney College, 900 Fallon Street, Oakland,. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door; Z Space and Word For Word present: “All Aunt Hagar’s Children” by Edward P. Jones, directed by Stephanie Hunt, Assistant Director, Margo Hall, Thursday-Sunday, through Dec. 11, at Z-Space. Listen to an interview with one of the cast, Velina Brown; Gala Thursday, December 1, 7 p.m. with the author, Edward P. Jones in conversation with the Legendary journalist Belva Davis at Z-Space, 450 Florida Street in San Francisco. Listen to an interview with the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward P. Jones. Also at Z Space, Dec. 15-17, KMLZ: The Lobster before Christmas.  Visit www.zspace.org or call (415) 659-8134. “Safe House” by Keith Josef Adkins, directed by L. Peter Callender, at the Aurora Theatre Company Tuesday- Sunday, Dec. 4. There is a talk back on Dec. 1. Visit https://auroratheatre.org/  Listen to an interview with the Adkins on Wanda’s Picks Radio Show. TheatreFIRST presents VS. by Cleavon Smith, Directed by Rotimi Agbabiaka at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, Thursday – Saturdays, 8 p.m. – Sundays, 2 p.m. through Dec. 17.  Tickets available through our website: www.theatrefirst.com and at the door.  Listen to an interview on this same show with Cleavon Smith, playwright, whose play, “VS” looks at the story of a black general who served in the Revolutionary War, commander of mixed race troops. It is a commission of TheatreFirst.

Brava Center Picks

Flash Plays
Bay Area Playwrights’ Flash Plays Dec. 3, 8 p.m., Dec. 4, 5 p.m. 40+ Playwrights, 70+ Plays, 80+ Minutes of Fast and Furious Fun!  FlashPlays is Playwrights Foundation’s 7th annual winter festival featuring newly penned micro plays (one minute or less!) that together evoke love for our city by the bay.

After Orlando @ Brava
Brava Studio Sessions in association with NoPassport Theatre Alliance and Missing Bolts present AFTER ORLANDO theater action An Evening of Short Plays in Response to the Pulse Nightclub Shooting, Directed by Vidhu Singh, Tuesday | December 6 | 7pm. This event is free. Donations will benefit a LGBQT group in our community. Playwrights: Eric Ehn, Dipika Guha , Jessica Litwak, Lisa Schlesinger, Chiori Miyagawa, Rohina Malik, Deborah Zoe Laufer, Mando Alvarado, Migdalia Cruz, Andy Field, Caridad Svich. Closing ritual led by activist and writer, Ed Wolf.  Please note each piece is 3-5 minutes in length.

AFTER ORLANDO is an international playwright driven theater action including over seventy playwrights from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Africa and Australia. Plays have been specifically written and curated in response to this tragic event and will be read at over 40 venues across the country and in the UK throughout the fall.  “As theatre-makers, we have the ability to bring together many singular unique voices toward a common goal. We feel it is necessary to give artists a place to respond to the tragedy in Orlando and the current state of the world.”  – Missing Bolts Productions

Kwanzaa 2016 in San Francisco
The Village Project presents its 11th Annual City-wide Kwanzaa Celebration in San Francisco

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE & OPEN TO THE COMMUNITY

Kwanzaa 2016 Schedule

UMOJA (unity): To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race. Monday, Dec. 26th: 12 Noon – Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission Street @ 3rd; 7 pm, African American Arts & Culture Complex, 762 Fulton Street @ Webster

KUJICHAGULIA (self-determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves. Tuesday, Dec. 27th: 12 Noon – City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton Goodlett Way, Rotunda; 2 pm, Hamilton Rec Center/MoMagic, 1900 Geary @ Steiner; 6 pm, Bayview Y. 1601 Lane @ Revere

UJIMA (collective work and responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brother’s and sister’s problems our problems and solve them together. Wednesday, Dec. 28th: 1 pm, Western Addition Senior Center/Western Addition Family Resource Center, 1390 Turk @ Fillmore; 4:30, OMI Family Resource Center/IT Bookman, 446 Randolph @ Arch

UJAMAA (cooperative economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together. Thursday Dec 29th: 1 pm, Western Addition Senior Center/Western Addition Family Resource Center, 1390 Turk @ Fillmore; 4:30, OMI Family Resource Center/IT Bookman, 446 Randolph @ Arch

NIA (purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness. Friday, Dec. 30th: 1 pm Boys & Girls Club, 380 Fulton @ Gough; 4 pm – Glide Memorial, 330 Ellis

KUUMBA (creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it. Saturday, Dec. 31st:: 1 pm, Success Center, SF, Jazz Heritage Center, 1330 Fillmore; ; 4 pm, Bay View Opera – Ruth Williams Memorial Theater, 4705 Third Street

IMANI (faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle. Sunday, Jan. 1st: 1:00 pm, Third Baptist Church, 1399 McAllister @ Pierce

About Kwanzaa

Created by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966, Kwanzaa is celebrated annually by more than 30 million people worldwide, over seven days from December 26 to January 1. The values of Kwanzaa, Nguzo Saba (The Seven Principles), are critical tools for addressing the issues facing the African-American community. Ceremonies will be led by Brotha’ Clint Sockwell and Malik Seneferu. There will be a candle lighting & pouring of libation ceremony, live entertainment & a feast at each event. For more information visit:

 

 

 

 

Sankofa Moves

Nate Parker’s “Birth of a Nation” Inspires and Empowers Black People
By Wanda Sabir

Thursday, Nov. 10, Nate Parker visited historic McClymonds High School for a screening of his film, Birth of a Nation (2016).  His visit and the screening were a part of Supervisor Keith Carson’s Community Empowerment Forums which, hosted that evening by Ms. Elaine Brown, former Black Panther Party Chairman, are to create spaces for public discourse and problem solving. In this case, the topic was the importance of knowing one’s history. Two days after the elections, while most of the nation was left reeling, the auditorium was full—parents with children, teens and elders cheered Nate Parker’s Prophet Nat as he organized and resisted the enslavement of his people. The message is clear: we are not victims then or now.

Ms. Brown said “This is my first time seeing the film and I can hardly breathe at this point. I am so amazed that such a beautiful thing has been done for our people.” She then turns to Parker seated next to her as asks him to “tell the people why [he] did it and how [he] did it.”

Nate Parker: “Thanks for having me here at such a wonderful school in a wonderful city. Sister Brown reached out to me a few days ago and said ‘I’d like to bring [your] film to our young people.’ And I said, let me see what I can do. No one had a copy of this film, except you all right now. (Applause). This is where the film needs to be seen. I am not going to go as far as say, go bootleg when it comes out. What I will say is this, if you’ve got to see it, see it. This comes from a person who raised the money to make is. I am not tripping on no money. This is legacy, (inheritance, Black Power!). This is for our children and our children’s children.

“What inspired me to make the film?

“I grew up in Norfolk, Virginia. Although it’s considered the south, many people would consider Oakland the South considering the way we are treated sometimes.  And the miseducation goes from coast to coast in this country. It’s not specific to any particular place. If you are a person of color in this country it means that you are being miseducated.  Education is a defining characteristic of your growth. I did not have Nat Turner. I had Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry.  I had Eli Whitney, and the cotton gin.”  Parker said none of these men or these histories spoke to his ancestry or to his roots in this land or to the cultural narrative that addressed his peoples’ liberation and freedom.

So when the director learned about Nat Turner as an adult, he says it was uncanny considering he grew up 42 miles east of Southampton County. “I grew up within a 35-40 minute drive from where this revolt happened, yet never heard of Nat Turner until I went to college 2000 miles away.  Parker continued studying and says, “I learned about (Haitian General) Brother Toussaint. I learned about Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, David Walker’s Appeal. I felt so misguided. [This education] gave me a real aversion to patriotism in this country. I can sing many songs about America, that’s what we’re taught. I put my hand over my heart to say the Pledge of Allegiance. We didn’t have a choice; it was a conditioning forced or instilled in me. I didn’t know anything about anyone who looked like me. I definitely didn’t know anything about the continent (Africa) or the Diaspora.

Dr. Amos Wilson affirms, Parker’s feelings when he writes in “The Falsification of the Afrikan Consciousness,” “[Black people] must look at the lessons that history teaches us. We must understand the tremendous value of the study of history for the regaining of power. If our education is not about gaining real power, we are being mis-educated and misled and we will die educated and misled.”

Parker says that with knowledge came responsibility. He said when he “learned about this history and became an artist, [he] made a decision to only participate in the types of projects that did not denigrate [black] people. Naturally when I wanted to tell the Nat Turner story no one wanted to help,” he says.  “I was very clear to say this is not a slave film, not at all— this is a story about liberation and freedom. This was about self-determination. This was about not waiting for anyone to liberate you. It’s about becoming the liberator in the name of God. So, I asked everyone who looked like me in Hollywood. No one responded, so I had to go on this begging tour around the country.  It was humbling. I had to run a legacy, rather than profit margins funding campaign, if that makes sense. You can’t sit in front of people that don’t look like you and say hey you’re probably not going to make a lot of money for this film, you’re probably going to be attacked – the film project labeled dangerous, but we should make it, because our children need it. It’s a hard pill to swallow. I asked my investors: what do you want your children to think about you when you’re gone?

“It’s like when you ask your uncles: where were you guys during the Civil Rights Movement and they just give you that blank stare. When my kids think about me and what I was doing I want them to say: my dad made the Nat Turner movie.

The brand name of Sildenafil citrate was then cute-n-tiny.com achat viagra pfizer. Albert Maysles is the master of letting the true personality of his subjects shine through, as is the desire to http://cute-n-tiny.com/tag/foal/ viagra 20mg india indulge in sexual activities with your partner and offer some medicines like Aurogra, Lovegra, Kamagra, Caverta, Super P Force available in the market in order to augment the strength for having a satisfying sex. Penis Pumps are an instrument to scuttle and eradicate erectile viagra 5mg top website dysfunction and for enlarging the higher airways. These make them fall prey to issues that are unseen but problematic such as ED. cheapest cialis 20mg “I am a filmmaker I feel really blessed to be at the make films. I hope you have an opportunity to see this film, you know, again. I had an opportunity to write it and there was no one over my shoulder telling me what I could and could not do. That’s the problem, right? People who want equality, but only to a point, it seems. People want freedom, but only to a point, right? Someone has to have the audacity to step over that line and say: it’s okay I’m good. I’m bringing it to the people whether you like it or not. My hope is not for an award.  My hope is that this film stands the test of time, not because it’s a classic in the traditional sense, but you can say: ‘man I can’t wait for my kid to turn 11 so I can show him or her this film.’

“Explain police brutality in the context of Nat Turner. It’s a whole different meaning. When you talk about liberation theology and Christianity, or whatever your faith, within the context of Nat Turner, it takes on completely different meaning;  it’s hard to understand liberation theology, real liberation movements, like the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which started in Oakland, within the guise of the miseducation of the oppressor.” He told the youth in the audience that it is the artist’s job to articulate this unspoken reality.

If Ms. Brown was speechless, one can imagine the children impacted by the images on screen that evening, yet there was no mention of the trauma experienced by our ancestors and the impact such trauma has on all present, particularly after reliving the tragic and horrific events that shaped black consciousness then and now. Dr. Wilson continues to point out in “Falsification,” “. . . simply because we choose not to learn of a traumatic history and a history that may make us feel ashamed does not mean that that history is not controlling our behavior. Simply because we don’t know our history, and may not have heard of it, does not mean that the history does not control our behavior.”

How had the absence of this knowledge affected the trajectory Parker’s life took? How is lack of knowledge of self, impacting black youth today? Hopefully, “Birth of a Nation” will spark within viewer’s minds a desire to know more.  However glorious Prophet Nat’s few days of fame, the brutality of enslavement paints the horror vividly, the teams uneven, if body count is any indicator. Profit over morality set the ethical tone then, and continues to set the tone now. Trump is antithetical to Obama. It is as if someone died, perhaps her name is democracy, and the mirrors have been turned over.

A nation now mourns.

Present within the audience that evening at the high school were healers who could have led the assembly in meditation or breath work which would have been the first step in releasing the anguish, fear, rage and other emotions seeing ancestors gang raped, whipped, and otherwise tortured incites. I hope at other screenings Parker supports, the mental health of those present is considered. In the hallway there were many people who chose to skip the film for these reasons. I saw other people leave. I wondered why one father took his infant into the auditorium to the screams and cries of characters suffering. The trauma experienced during the preverbal stage of development lodges in psyche, yet since it is preverbal, the person is often unable to locate what is shaping his or her behavior because there are no words for it. We have to be careful what we expose ourselves and our children to.

Nate Parker’s “Birth of a Nation” is an ashay moment—the screening a visual libation for an ancestor and ancestors who dared demand justice. On the 185th anniversary of insurrection leader, Nat Turner’s state sponsored execution, Nov. 11, 1831, Black Oakland considers its past, as a way to better move in the present and future.

The director (36) whose birthday was just a week later, Nov. 18, remained fired up seated between panelist, Min. Christopher Muhammad, Nation of Islam and moderator, Ms. Brown. Mr. Bernard McCune, Deputy Chief, Post-Secondary Readiness, Oakland Unified School District and Ms. Jumoke Hodge, Oakland School Board member to their left and right.

“Birth of a Nation” released on Nat Turner’s birthday (Oct. 2) also celebrates the 40^th Anniversary of “Roots,” the 1997 mini-series based on Alex Haley’s family, which is going to air Nov. 16-20 starting at 9:00 p.m. ET on Bounce TV each night. The complete mini-series will air for an all-day binge-watching marathon on Fri. Nov. 25, the day after Thanksgiving, beginning at 11:00 a.m. ET.

Clearly moved, Oakland Unified School District officials: Mr. McCune and Ms. Hodge stated that they would make a commitment to developing curriculum for black empowerment starting with “Birth of a Nation.” The Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School, and other Independent Black Schools, like Muhammad University and Sister Clara Muhammad School, are models for a public education where children are encouraged to think, to challenge and to actively dismantle systems of power which do not best serve their needs.

Young Gifted and Black, a poetry ensemble, performed before the panel discussion. Afterward, Mr. Parker was quite charming as he took pictures with audience members, answered questions and gave information about his foundation: http://www.nateparkerfoundation.org/

 

 

The 50^th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party Conference, Oct. 20-23, held at the Oakland Museum of CA and in Bobby Hutton Grove at deFremery Park, was a huge success. To see the Vanguards of the Revolution saluted in such elegant surroundings at the banquet Saturday evening was certainly a fitting tribute to the legacy their lives concretely represent.  Dressed in formal attire, Party members and their guests, along with supporters, were awed by the resiliency and tenacity these men and women and their biological and movement children whose lives continue to be shaped and influenced by the work the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense represent. Hats off the committee which organized the conference.

From the free breakfast programs to the Community Learning Center, free medical clinics, mobile sickle cell testing units, Elder transport, food giveaways – not to mention the iconic blue and black cool represented by the buoyant Afro, chic leather jacket, and fist up for black power—the Black Panther Party is renown worldwide for its fearlessness in the face of a monstrous enemy. The enemy then, is the same enemy now, perhaps bolstered by legal loopholes which continue to snare black people.

A highlight of the 50^th Anniversary was the dedication of Bobby Hutton Grove at deFremery Park, where the trauma experienced in the park can now dissipate.  Lil’ Bobby (April 21, 1950-April 6, 1968), the youngest member of the party was killed at 17 by a hail of bullets police bullets as he surrendered stripped to his underwear, his hands up, just two days after Martin King was assassinated. Even though one officer stated it was an execution, the City of Oakland never apologized or compensated the Hutton family.  48 years later, Lynette Gibson McElhaney, Oakland City Council President, said at the dedication that through the City of Oakland didn’t admits its failings then, she felt honored to be able to in this small way acknowledge the debt to the Hutton family and to its community. Overwhelmed, Robert James Hutton’s elder brother, Mr. Jay Hutton Sr., said that he never imagined that the City would ever honor the family’s desire to name the park after their loved one. It was a long and protracted effort headed by Hutton’s niece and Terry Collins.

Craig Atkinson’s film, “Do Not Resist” (2016), released the 50^th Anniversary weekend, speaks to the militarization of the police. Opening scenes are of Ferguson, Missouri, as the community grapples with the death of Michael Brown. The child of a former policeman and SWAT officer just outside Detroit, Atkinson’s film gives his audience a history lesson and tour of police departments from inside, as the directorial team ride along with a South Carolina SWAT team. The film takes us inside a police training seminar where Dave Grossman teaches law enforcement the importance of “righteous violence”.  The LAPD SWAT team and the BPP and Richard Nixon’s War on Drugs is highlighted, along with Congressional Hearings questioning the wisdom of allowing cities to acquire surplus military tanks and arsenal. These police missions, based on assumptions of guilt, terrorize elders and children, innocent people who live in these homes and neighborhoods.  New laws allow police to confiscate money from suspects and keep it, even when charges are dismissed.  We watch this happen to a young man. The policeman then lies to the suspect’s grandfather as he pockets the funds– $800 (which was to pay for a lawn mower for the young man’s business). The suspect’s home is damaged, yet the police department finds little to no evidence after ransacking the house – scant marijuana debris in the suspect’s backpack. The young man is later released on insufficient evidence, yet his money is not returned nor is the home repaired.  We see his family standing bewildered in the front yard as they look at the external damage while a young woman rocks her baby from under a nearby tree.  We wonder about the effects of police violence on the psyche of the preverbal infant not to mention the entire family. This can happen again; there is not safety for black citizens in this war.  The film opened Oct. 21 weekend at The Roxie in San Francisco and at the Elmwood in Berkeley. “Do Not Resist” shows how little has changed in the 50 year history which sparked a global movement.

50^th Anniversary weekend, there were so many excellent panel discussions, among them: Self-Defense against Police Brutality and Murders moderated by Malik Edwards, who was on Wanda’s Picks Tribute to the BPP, Oct. 22. Also on the show were Rev. M. Gayle (Asali) Dickson who moderated the “Liberation Theology—The Black Panther Party and the Black Church,” Aaron Dixon, BPP chairman of the Seattle Chapter, who moderated the panel, “The Real Rainbow Coalition: Black, Red, White Brown Revolutionaries,” Melvin Dickson who presented a photo essay: “The 1968 Trial of Huey P. Newton.” These former BPP members, Rev. Gayle, Comrade Aaron and Comrade Melvin were all a part of the Seattle Chapter of the BPP, the first chapter established outside of Oakland. Comrades Vanetta Molson and Elmer Dixon also joined us. Listen: http://tobtr.com/9553449

It makes sense that the BPP would inspire other social justice movement for Native peoples, like Lenny Foster, American Indian Movement, poor whites, Hy Thurman, Young Patriots; Jose (Cha-Cha) Jimenez, Young Lords, and Stan McKinney, BPP Chicago; Rabab Ibrahim Abdullah, Ph.D.; Harvey C. Dong; Pam Tau Lee.

Aaron Dixon’s workshop was well attended. Many had questions about a Rainbow Coalition, we hadn’t known existed. The only rainbow we’d heard about was Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH, however, this alliance predates the other and had more far reaching outcomes for social justice. Pam Lee, Chinese woman, spoke about learning about the Red Book from Chairman Seale. In 1969 in San Francisco Chinatown she hosted the Bobby Seale Study Group. One of the organizers for Yellow Seed, Red Guard and Asians for Black Lives, Ms. Lee said that she would like to add to the 10-Point program an 11^th point: We demand the US government halt the rape of the land.

Dr. Dong spoke about a recent incident at UC Berkeley where a class was canceled that he and other organizers had reinstated. Dr. Abdullah at SF State, spoke about growing up under Israeli occupation in Palestine and the persecution she experiences here as an academic whose work is inspired by Muhammad Ali, who stood up against the US. However she is also inspired by her mother who told her daughter when Angela Davis was on trial that she was being framed. Dr. Abdullah’s work is with the Palestinian Political Prisoners and she took a delegation of activists and former political prisoners to Palestine this year to meet with PP and POWs there. Among those who went were Emory Douglas, Hank Jones, Claude Marks and Diana Block.

Mr. Foster, whose dad was a Navaho Code Talker in WWII, shared his story of how he became politicized when he left the sheep farm for college in Arizona. He shared how he felt when he saw an Indigenous man marching with Dr. King 1968-1969. However when he heard Power to the People, Down with the Pig at the Utah Migrant . . .

Besides the workshops hosted by these former BPP members that Saturday morning and afternoon, on Thursday, I attended marvelous workshop hosted by Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture: Polynesian Panthers with Tigilau Ness, Minister of Fine Arts, Miriama Rauhihi Ness, Minister of Culture, Betty Sio, Black Women’s Movement, Túulenana Inlí, with comrades: Chris McBride, curator/producer The Kauri Project and Roger Fowler, The People’s Union.  Polynesian Panthers Tigilau Ness and Miriama Rauhihi Ness closed the Oct. 22 Wanda’s Picks Special broadcast. I had heard so much about the PP from Emory over the years. Who would have known the reach of the BPP? However, just with the warm reception the BPP received in Algeria and Tanzania, Cuba and elsewhere points to the relevance of this revolutionary movement which imagined a world, as Kathleen Cleaver, JD, states beyond racism and white supremacy. When my younger daughter, TaSin and I were in the mountains of Madagascar, we saw Tupac on the tee-shirt of a youth panning for gold dust. Malcolm X was on the shirt of a brother I met in Tamale, Northern part of Ghana this summer. Later on while at a hearing, I met a sister who wore a “Black Lives Matter” tee-shirt into superior court in Accra where a man confessed to killing her friend.

The legacy of the Black Panther Party and its relationship to the Nation of Islam was the topic of a well- attended workshop: The FBI’s “Black Hate Group” COINTELPROs: The Murder of Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam with presenters: Elaine Brown, former Chairman of the BPP and Min. Christopher Muhammad, the Nation of Islam.

The sessions were informative and enlightening, the panelists conversant on their topics whether this was Dr. Charles “Chappy” Pindershughes, Essex County College, on Marxism or Kumasi, Black August and Folsom Manifesto, sharing his experiences with Comrade George Jackson at a panel that same afternoon, with Jerry Elster, Co-founder No More Tears, and Dr. Greg Thomas, Tufts University, Author of The Immortal George L. Jackson, the entire conference and related activities were all pretty amazing.
It was hard to keep up (smile).

Many new books capitalize on this 50^th Anniversary occasion, such as the phenomenal anthology of narratives, edited by Bryan Shin and Yohuru Williams:  “The Black Panthers: Portraits from an Unfinished Revolution,” and “Revolutionary Grain: Celebrating the Spirit of the Black Panthers in Portraits and Stories,” edited by Suzan Lucia Lamina, however, there is nothing to compare to sitting in the room and hearing from these men and women. We could feel the love between these men and women who had sacrificed so much for “the people.” We were all in awe. I am still in awe. (Both books have exhibitions, Shih’s art is at the OMCA through Feb. 12, 2017, Lamina’s is at the African American Museum at Oakland through Feb. 28, 2017).

Co-editor Williams states in the chapter, To Live for the People: The Rank and File and the “Histories” of the Black Panther Rank and File (46), “how he came to know the work and lives of the BPP members through his father’s art and then through the stories his parents shared about the volatile events in New Haven, Connecticut and later as a researcher.

He writes: “I came to appreciate the muted voices of ordinary members of the party and how documenting their stories and experiences both complicated and deepened the party’s history. I became convinced that the best way to understand the Black Panther Party was through the perspectives of these members, not the party’s founders. For me, the question is how we might glean from the individual stories of the Panthers a more nuanced portrait of the party than the one featured in the dominant narrative. Such a portrait would balance the fear the Panthers inspired with the complex mix of trauma and love that drove their activism—a nonidealized or vilified history that would reflect conflicting portraits of the party that could incorporate the experiences of an Ericka Huggins, a Huey P. Newton and a Lawrence Townsend” (49).

This by no means lessens the role of the founders, Comrades Newton and Seale, whom we missed at the Conference. However, just as the signature exhibition “All Power to the People,” at the Oakland Museum attests, the reason the party was as great as it was rests on the legacy of its many unsung heroes, the rank and file. These heroes bagged the groceries, drove the vans and took the bullets. Many of these men and women and allies, languished until death behind bars. There are still members incarcerated, legally buried or entrapped by a judicial system which has not an ounce of compassion; however, the warriors are not forgotten. In fact, Robert H. King and Albert Woodfox (A3) are headed to Europe for an advocacy tour to free all Political Prisoners and POWs. This campaign is an extension of the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Peoples and Families Movement (FICPM) platform, shared at the conference held in Sept. 9-11 in Oakland. The Friday afternoon workshop: “180 Years of Incarceration with Black Panthers Party Political Prisoners” with Eddie Conway, Former Deputy Minister of Defense, Baltimore, Black Panther Party; Sekou Odinga, Brooklyn Branch, BPP; Robert King and Albert Woodfox, New Orleans Chapter of the BPP at Angola State Prison, Louisiana, was the continuation of a larger conversation, one that looks at the New Jim Crow and Mass Incarceration or enslavement of black people. The hunger strike and work stoppage at prisons throughout the country, its nexus those in the south like Alabama where the Free Alabama Movement takes the lead in calling for the end of slavery in this country once and for all. Listen to an interview: http://tobtr.com/s/9262791 with Kinetik Justice Amun, one of the founders of FAM sponsors of the Sept. 9, 2016 Fast and Work Stoppage to end prison slavery. https://freealabamamovement.wordpress.com/f-a-m-pamphlet-who-we-are/ 

At the time of the Black Panther Party’s greatest impact, other movements were also active, like the Nation of Islam, yet the BPP was a different front. Actively engaged in armed struggle in a way the NOI was not, the BPP suffered casualties and victories which were unprecedented. As the “Trail of Tears” scrolled on screen projections at the Gala Dinner Saturday evening in the Museum Gardens — we saw the faces of the young comrades, men and women killed by the state during 1968, 1969, 1970 and 1971—evidence of an interrupted or ruptured spaces, their bodies stopped or prevented from realizing the completion of an alternative worldview or reality antithetical to the dominant disorder then and now.

From the workshop on Marxism, I learned that the BPP mission or goal was a complete overthrow of this government, to be replaced by a new face, reflective of values which support life and freedom for everyone. Comrade Elaine Brown said at the panel with Minister Christopher Muhammad that the Wants and Beliefs on the Muhammad Speaks are reflected in the 10-point platform. Minister Christopher speaks to the synergy of the BPP Movement and the encouragement and inspiration founders and laity drew from the work of Minister Malcolm X, El Hajj Malik El Shabazz.

Gala
Elaine Brown, former Minister of Information and the only woman to lead the Party at a time when the leadership was being locked up or killed, looked anything but 70+ as she called the names of comrades who were able to join us who had been behind enemy lines.  I met an elder just the evening before who had just been released in Detroit. He was down 42 years. He spoke about the difficulties adjusting, but he was here.

The gala dinner, October 22, opened with Charlotte O’Neal, Kansas City and Tanzania, inviting everyone to call their ancestors names as she hit a resonating vessel. The entire evening welcomed, saluted and mourned the presence of the ethereal or nether Black Panther bodies, those martyrs and those still behind enemy walls.  The week and evening were representative of the motto: All Power to the People.

October 22 was also Chairman Bobby Seale’s birthday, which was celebrated that afternoon at a parallel event hosted by the Black Panther Party Alumni Association from New York. At the luncheon, Albert “Shaka” Woodfox and Robert H. King were presented with plaques.

That evening at the gala in the Museum Gardens, Eddie Conway, former PP, POW, producer, Real TV, introduced Danny Glover, who delivered a warm key note address. In his introductory remarks Comrade Conway suggested in the second leg of the struggle warriors “put aside differences, unify and show by example of how to go forward from here.” He stressed the importance of “getting our political prisoners out. The young people are [the next wave] of such. We have to let them know that even the insidious programs like COINTELPRO [which along with other government programs took our lives], ran us out of the country, caused us to be in the middle of [state sponsored] warfare—[none of the counterinsurgency work by the enemy was allowed] to stop our work. The work continued all across the country,” he said to applause. “Our work continues behind the wires, behind the walls, so it is important that [the youth] see that not only can we survive that, they can survive it in the future if they have the right consciousness, the right education, and they organize and they build – and I do not mean protest. Protest is good, but they need to organize and build. It only takes a couple of people to start something. Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, two people. That was enough to trigger this. So any two people, any one person can get with a trusted friend or family member and do the work. That’s all I am asking: unify, and be the example we claim we are.”

In his introduction of Danny Glover, Conway said it was easy to introduce his friend, perhaps because of the profound impact Glover has had on history. In his remarks he mentioned a few accolades I was not aware of such as Glover’s doctorate in theology and also the fact that he is also a Nigerian chief.  I know of his work in housing development following his graduation with a degree in economics from SF State. Theatre is his second career. Most of us also know of the activist’s involvement in the successful student strike at SF State for Black Studies.

Glover says the “The legacy of the Black Panther Party (BPP), its vision, its courage left a permanent impact on the world. Those of us who can remember that time in history know the chronology, legends and truths that gave rise to this organization. We are not gathered here for the sake of nostalgia, but rather to commemorate and renew the legacy of the Panthers for present and future generations. 50 years have passed, half a century since the BPP was founded right here in Oakland with a vision that was as timely as it was prophetic.

Now, wouldn’t it make more sense to treat the cause first? There is indeed a minority of people suffering from chronic prostatits have problems with semen and sexual ability. cheapest viagra tablets All you need to do is to take action! Search engine optimisation is one of those things get levitra that people in the know talk about a lot. Both of these food sources are ready to accept the fact that they face erectile order levitra online dysfunction in men. An increasing number cheapest prices on cialis of people are turning to this medicine. “[The Black Panther Party] saw the conditions and needs of their local community [and] situated [these issues] within a national and global context and engineered a finely tailored policy platform and organizational structure that was practical, scalable, and portable. They were visionaries without being utopian and as a result communities across the country and the world, communities with various sizes, demographics, historical experiences, were able to look to the Panthers model to plot a course forward.  In providing such a group example the BPP reconfigured, reimagined democracy to work on behalf of oppressed communities, a monumental feat we have gathered to commemorate.

“When Huey and Bobby founded the Panthers, I was 20 years old, born and raised in San Francisco, and immersed in the conditions the Panthers sought to address. Memory has a very important role in the history and why we are commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the BPP. Often what we choose to remember which is most important. I have chosen to remember Sam Napier, dedicated Party member (who was one of three men who formed the National Newspaper Distribution in San Francisco. BJ says, these men were “the heart and soul of the newspaper” (SFBV).

Glover reflects on the Panther office on Fillmore and Ellis at a time when urban removal under the guise of redevelopment was eroding and eliminating black enclaves or spaces to gather in the 1960s. At that time, Glover says he was assigned to open a Black Student Union office off campus which he did around the corner from the BPP office. “[Glover] had been suspended for the semester along with Landon Williams, Clarence Thomas (union organizer), Benny Stewart, George Murray, and four other students for their involvement in a fight at the student newspaper office known as the Gator Incident at San Francisco State College in 1967.

“Sam and I would participate in the most current news and gossip . . . as we ate breakfast at the Soul Food restaurant a few doors down from Party’s office. Always with his BPP newspaper by his side, in hand. I also recall our joint political education classes organized by members of the Black Student Union and BPP during the student strike of 1968 and 1969, which was the longest strike, as Eddie (Conway) said ever on a major college campus in the nation [then and now]. A key to our eventual victory was made possible by the encouragement and participation of the BPP as well as the many members of our respective communities that we were following.

“In our joint political education classes, our book of choice were the Quotations of Mao Tse-tung, the Red Book. I remember most of us trying to remember Mao’s sayings and trying to apply them strategically to our particular dialectics, which was a challenging yet necessary exercise. Even though the Republic of China has now all but abandoned those principles of Mao today and has become the largest economy in the world, surpassing this country’s economic output, I also choose to remember the faces of the young children who were the beneficiaries of the Party’s breakfast for children program with Father Boyle and Sister Margaret at Sacred Heart Church, an initiative that provided a needed service to the community while winning the community’s respect and admiration.

“Even when I looked at the Party’s breakfast for children program, the act of feeding our children was an act of healing in its simplistic and deep and politicized expression. Our self-anointed commune with Terry Collins, Leroy Wade Woods, his brother Dexter Knox, Don Smothers, George Colbert, and myself, we would make our way to Sacred Heart Church in the morning as early as 8 o’clock to feed children of the community two blocks from where we resided.”

Glover reflected on the irony of performing his first play, about Apartheid at the Oakland Community School. Apartheid in South Africa was the same as systemic racism in America, where in cities like Oakland and San Francisco, black populations were being eliminated. Today, there is not much blackness there there.

“I had the privilege of performing with Carl Lumbly at the Black Panther Party School on East 14th Street in East Oakland in 1997. The play was called “Sizwe Banzi is Dead,” by Athold Fugard.  The children were among my first very first audiences in what was my new profession and passion, theatre.  Some years ago I attended an International Arts Festival in Miami, Florida. At that exhibit [were] photographs of young black men, Panthers. In these renderings, the men stood erect, tall and proud with their berets perfectly on their heads. Embellished and immortalized by the artist’s profound imagination, [the] images were such that they might leap off the page coming alive again marching, marching.

“Just as young people reached out to embrace the party 50 years ago, young people are embracing the party again 50 years later.  They’re asking for our wisdom and blessings and the truth of our lessons, and we know who they are and where they are.”

Glover mentions the Occupy Movement which spread to cities throughout the country. Though the organizers used nonviolent tactics, the OM met with violent response from the government similar to what was experienced by the BSU and BPP.  He also mentioned First Nation People in North Dakota and the citizen activists who “live the burden of their previous sacrifice, political prisoners.” He calls some of their names and says: “50 years later we have our work to do.” He also mentioned: Black Lives Matter, The Color of Change, and the Dream Defenders as organizations bringing the violence against black people to national and worldwide attention.

At the 50^th Anniversary Conference at OMCA, a workshop was hosted by #OPEN—Our People Effecting Neighborhood Programs. This collaboration between youth across the country utilizes the principles of the BPP Ten Point Program, the Code of Thug Life and a variety of programs which build and sustain community. I met members from Newark, Los Angeles and Atlanta that week. Jack, Founder and Sham, Youth Coordinator, and I spoke Thursday evening at the Oakland Museum. When I walked up to Haneef Sunday afternoon, he was explaining OPEN, specifically the Code to Asali. She was sitting in the kitchen at deFremery Park/Bobby Hutton Grove. All of them had just finished preparing the 500 bags of food for the giveaway. Contact information is blackpantherpartynj@gmail.com (973) 207-9639.

Nicole Welch, mother of two children and business owner has started Helping Our People to Evolve or HOPE in Los Angeles, an affiliate of OPEN. Nicole says she is inspired by the work of Aaron Dixon former Captain of the Seattle Chapter of the BPP and Jack Jackson, the founder of OPEN, a former 793 blood member that has turned activist. Contract information is for HOPE is (424) 534-HOPE and HOPE2016@gmail.com

Glover says that he and his mentor, Sam Napier never forgot they were foot soldiers. He says within that context, “we were both willing to give ourselves to an idea much larger than we were in our particular environments” – Glover in the BSU, Sam in the BPP. “We put ourselves at the disposal of the mission. I realize now we have to take our collective memories, the ones we want to forget and those memories we want to hold close to our hearts and marshal them up in the service of justice and revolutionary change. This is the decade for People of African descendant. There are more than two hundred million African descendants that live in this hemisphere; 100 million of them living in Brazil. How do we use that as a culling stone, as a way of pushing forward our agendas, and to build new relationships to find new connections?

“Fifty years later all I have to say that I am still a foot soldier ready to march. Power to the people!” Glover lifts his fist to applause.

On the Fly:
MoAD Pop-Up Gallery presents: Celebrating Fifty Years of Black Art in Bayview & Hunters Point, November 3, 2016 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm at Bayview Opera House, 4705 3rd Street, San Francisco. It is a free event. 50/20 Concert – Happy Birthday Destiny Muhammad whose annual 50/20 Concert is much anticipated. This year the date is Sunday, Nov. 13, 3-4:30 p.m. at the Malonga Casquelourd Center, 1428 Alice Street, Oakland. Tickets available at EventBrite.  African Museum and Library, Oakland, events at 659 – 14th Street, Oakland, (510) 637-0200: Festival of Black Dolls Show & Sale, featuring African American Twins Yesterday and Today, Saturday, November 12, 10am – 5pm & Festival of Knowledge Series…#7: “Preserving Our Legacy through Agriculture”, Saturday November 19, 1:30 – 3:30pm Don’t miss the closing exhibitions at: SOMarts Dia De Los Muertos– Listen to an interview with Patricia Montgomery and Michael Ross (two participating artists, second guests); Iconic Black Panther Party (listen to the interview with the curatorial team (last guests), Joyce Gordon Gallery (listen to interview with Duane Deterville (first guest), and Betty Ono. Jeff Augustin’s “The Last Tiger in Haiti” continues at Berkeley Rep. 

Theatre
Word for Word and Z Space stages the Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward P Jones’ Short Story All Aunt Hagar’s Children, opening on November 19 on San Francisco’s Z Space Main Stage. Set in 1950s Washington, D.C. this Noir tale spotlights a young black Korean War vet who sets out to solve a murder and becomes entangled in a web of family history. He is unsettled by another death—a young Jewish woman whose last words haunt him and his investigation. Edward P. Jones evokes a neighborhood of vivid characters, telling a story about the strength of family and the choices that shape our lives.

Directed by Stephanie Hunt; Assistant Director Margo Hall the performances are at Z Space Main Stage, 450 Florida St., in San Francisco, November 16 – December 11 ;  Press night Nov. 19  (Previews Nov. 16-18). Note: No shows 11/23-24 (Thanksgiving). Special event: 12/1 Edward P. Jones, post-show conversation with audience & book signing.

Ticket prices: $33 – $58 with no additional fees; Previews $20. Special event Dec 1 tickets TBA Purchase tickets at: 866.811.4111 or at www.zspace.org

Oakland Public Conservatory presents: Rhiannon Giddens in a Day of Black String Music

Oakland Public Conservatory of Music (OPC) presents members of Grammy Award winning Carolina Chocolate Drops. Fiddler, banjo player, and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens and bandmate, folk guitarist Hubby Jenkins with tap dancer Robynn Watson perform Saturday, November 19, 2016, at 7:00 pm at the West Oakland Youth Center, 3233 Market Street in Oakland.

Prior to the concert Giddens, Jenkins and Watson, will offer free workshops (1:30- 3:30) that explore the Black roots of American Folk music including banjo, fiddle, tap dance, bones, and vocals. They will discuss the history, techniques, and contributions of Black string bands.

With the aid of recordings and films they will break down tunes and give plenty of opportunities for playing music. After the workshops there will be a screening of Jim Carrier’s film The Librarian and the Banjo which documents the 25 years of research by music librarian and musicologist, Dena Epstein, and highlights her contribution to American ethnomusicology.

The movie The Librarian and the Banjo will show from 5:30-6:30pm and the concert begins at 7:00pm. For more info, visit www.opcmusic.org