By Malcolm Suber
August has been the month when the Black resistance to national oppression has been expressed most sharply going back to the days of enslavement.
August 2017 marks the 50-year anniversary of the widespread Black rebellions against racist national oppression in the USA. The Black masses came out into the streets of America to challenge state enforced segregation, poverty and police terror. Detroit, Newark and more than 180 cities and towns went up in flames representing the fire in the belly of the black masses for freedom and liberation. Unfortunately, conditions for the Black masses have not fundamentally changed since the 1960s. Poverty and police terror are still rampant.
The response of the US state to these righteous Black rebellions was the creation of the FBI’s COINTELPRO whose aim was to destroy the Black revolutionary leadership by murdering many leaders such as Fred Hampton and jailing many others. The ruling class feared that the Black rebellion would spread and allies would join the liberation struggle to overthrow the racist capitalist government. There are still dozens of political prisoners in the United States, many of whom have been incarcerated for more than 40 or 50 years. They have become elders inside prison- Black, Puerto Rican, Native, Chicano/Latino and white revolutionaries who have dedicated their lives to the freedom struggle.
The New Orleans Workers Group supports the commemoration of Black August as a time to recognize the life, work and struggles of these revolutionary fighters who have been held as political prisoners. The NOWG is composed of workers and the oppressed that consciously call for and organize toward ending the rule of the billionaire capitalist class. We see ourselves as part of the revolutionary heritage of resistance that harks back to the founding of this racist settler country. From the resistance of indigenous tribes against the settler-colonialists to the first flight to freedom by the enslaved African captives, there have been outstanding leaders and organizers who have fought for the freedom and liberation of the oppressed.
In 1979, revolutionary captives in the California prisons began to call on revolutionary supporters to commemorate Black August to focus on the fact that the US capitalist state had many political prisoners in its gulags. They called on supporters to begin the necessary work of exposing the capitalist state and working to free our heroes and sheroes from imprisonment.
Black August, as noted by one of our most famous political prisoners, Mumia Abu-Jamal, is “a month of divine meaning, of repression and radical resistance; of repression and righteous rebellion; and collective efforts to free the slaves and break the chains that bind us”.
The triggering event for contemporary Black August can be found in the actions of Jonathan Jackson who was gunned down at the Marin County courthouse on August 7, 1970 as he attempted to liberate three imprisoned Black liberation fighters: James McClain, William Christmas, and Ruchell Magee (still imprisoned), the sole survivor of the August 7th rebellion.
George Jackson was assassinated on August 21, 1971, a deliberate move by the US state to eliminate his revolutionary leadership. Three prison guards were killed in the rebellion sparked by George’s assassination. The government charged six Black and Latino prisoners with the guards’ deaths. These six brothers became known as the San Quentin six and were later acquitted of all charges.
Black August is a time for revolutionaries to rededicate themselves to struggle and to study the revolutionary history of the Black Liberation Movement. A brief listing of Black struggles in August include:
• The arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, VA in August 1719
• The start of the Haitian revolution in August, 1791
• Gabriel’s rebellion of August 30, 1800 • Nat Turner’s rebellion August 21, 1831
• The Watts Rebellion of August 1965
• The Detroit rebellion August 1967
• The RNA 11 shootout with the FBI in Jackson, MS on August 18, 1971
• The bombing of MOVE by Philadelphia police August 8, 1978
Long live the spirit of Black August! Free all our political prisoners!