Creating a revolutionary culture that highlights the sacrifices and achievements of freedom fighters is a vital part of the working class struggle for complete emancipation. These commemorative dates allow us to remember as well as to plan for a future free of capitalist oppression and exploitation. Black August is such a commemoration that deserves the support of the working class. This commemoration was created by revolutionary fighters incarcerated in California.
Each year since 1979, organizers from the Black liberation movement (BLM) have used the month of August to focus on the oppressive conditions inside the state run gulags and concentration camps the U.S. calls prisons. We concentrate our efforts on the fight to free all political prisoners and to abolish the capitalist prison industrial complex. We struggle to expose the forced slavery conditions that our fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and other loved ones who are held captive by the racist legal system. We also celebrate Black August to educate each other about the revolutionaries who have been held in isolation decade after decade.
The historical roots of Black August can be traced to the actions of Jonathan Jackson who was gunned down outside 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.
George Jackson was assassinated on August 21, 1971 by San Quentin prison guards. The assassination was a deliberate move on behalf of the US government to eliminate the revolutionary leadership of George Jackson.
Khatari Gaulden was murdered by San Quentin prison guards on August 1, 1978. Khatari was one of the key intellectual architects of the Black August tradition and a prominent leader of the Black Guerilla Family after comrade George was assassinated. He was murdered to eliminate his leadership and destroy the growing prison resistance movement.
In 1979 the first official Black August took place. Supporters wore black armbands on their left arms and studied revolutionary books, particularly those of George Jackson. During the month the brothers did not watch TV or listen to the radio. The use of drugs and alcohol was prohibited, and they held daily exercises to sharpen their minds, bodies and spirits. They honored the collective principles of self-sacrifice and revolutionary discipline needed to advance the struggle for freedom and self-determination of the Black nation. Black August therefore became a commemorative event urging on the BLM to fight for complete freedom.
It is important that we continue on the revolutionary path set by freedom fighters who made August a month of righteous rebellion. Reaffirm your resolve to struggle until the white supremacist billionaire ruling class is overthrown and the African American Nation is free!
A sampling of the racist oppression and righteous rebellion and resistance to oppression that defines this commemorative month include:
August 1619 – arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Jamestown, VA
August 1791 – start of the great Haitian Revolution
August 30, 1800 – Gabriel Prosser’s Rebellion in Richmond, VA
August 21, 1831 – Nat Turner Rebellion, Southampton County, VA
August, 1963 – March on Washington, DC
August, 1965 – Watts Rebellion
August 18, 1971 – Republic of New Africa shootout with FBI, Jackson, MS
August 8, 1978 – Philadelphia police attack MOVE family
August 9, 2014 – Rebellion breaks out in Ferguson, MO after the murder of Michael Brown
August 2020 – Millions of people in the U.S. follow the lead of rebels in Minneapolis who have sparked a world-wide movement against racist police terror
Gloria Jean Williams, mother of five, has spent 48 years behind bars. Her pardon hearing takes place on July 22, 2019.
By LaVonna Varnado-Brown
Gloria Jean Williams, affectionately known as “Mama Glo,” is Louisiana’s longest serving incarcerated woman prisoner. On May 12, 2019, a clemency campaign was launched to get her released. Postcards have been sent to Gov. Edwards requesting that he use his ability to free this woman from Louisiana’s prison industrial complex.
After 48 years behind bars, Gloria has a pardon hearing, which will take place on July 22, 2019, at 8 am. The request is to give her credit for the time she has served and allow her to return to her family.
“Mama Glo is a confident spirit who uses her wisdom of dealing with a life sentence to encourage other women to not give up,” says Fox Rich, a formerly incarcerated woman who is leading Mama Glo’s clemency campaign. “I know the power of clemency to restore a family. When our system fails us, [actions like] clemency give the system an opportunity to correct its own wrongs.” Fox and her husband Rob, along with Fox Rich Ministries, have been doing the much needed footwork around getting the community both informed and involved in this matter.
Mama Glo left five children orphaned when she was taken into police custody. For almost five decades her children have had to live life without their mother who has nurtured and mentored countless women while incarcerated. There is a record of someone else confessing to the crime for which Mama Glo was jailed. Still, she is in chains. Free Mama Glo and all prisoners who have fallen victim to capitalism’s choking grip via the prison industrial complex.
Speak truth to power
To the things that you seek
Freedom
Will not be handed to us
By our oppressor
Especially, if we are meek
Speak truth to power
To the things that you see and hear
Injustice
That purposefully runs
Through our community
Has no place in
The veins of our street
And I know that it is hard.
I too feel the pain,
That we all breathe
Growing up numb
Taught to be undyingly strong
Fervently brave
Face things that we can’t even
Bear to say
But what they don’t tell
You in any classroom
Is the power of the youngest soul
Hidden information
Nutrients that would make
The revolution grow.
That would remove our oppressor
From the centerfold
Did you hear?
About the action that broke
A chain of tears
Led by the children of Birmingham
in May of 1963?
They organized themselves
Took guidance from their leaders
And peacefully descended in protest
into the streets of their very own city
The government sent in their pigs
Squealing in delight
As they arrested little black bodies
Only armed with their power
And their might for demanding what is right.
As young as seven
And as old as the youth grow
They stood up to the system
Those men in the big houses
That feast on the strife of all our kinfolk.
The pigs sprayed those bright black children
With water from the fire hose
And in response they danced
And they sing song sang
Lyrics of unity and love and life,
Knowing that their undying joy
Would be the greatest ammo
To defeat the piercing knife
It was ingrained in the false power’s minds.
They were so sure,
That no child had the grit
To deliver the blow that they deserved
Imagine the view
Of thousands of young people
Flowing into the city in waves
Of devotion to their freedom
Steadfast in their decision
That their people would live
To breathe the freedom that we all must ring
To smile another day.
Children and youth lead a march organized by Take ‘Em Down NOLA in 2018.
Letter To My Young Brothers and Sisters:
By Enigma E
First off, much love and respect to you, my young brothers and sisters. Secondly f*ck this white supremacist/capitalist system we live under. I know you’re frustrated. I know what it means to not feel accepted in mainstream society. What it means to not be given the benefit of the doubt, what it means to constantly be judged, constantly be thought of as the one that did something wrong and whatnot. This system is set up for us to fail: look at it historically from us being declared 3/5ths of a human being, to chattel slavery, to the convict-leasing system, to Jim Crow, to the mass incarceration state presently.
We have and always will be the biggest threat to overthrowing this system. We have to turn the justifiable rage within us into a mass organized movement. Imagine if we had all the youth from every ward and part of the city clicked up on one page, united under one cause. That’s thousands of us in the street demanding what we deserve from a city that makes over $8 billion dollars annually off the culture and labor of the people that suffer the most. It shouldn’t be that way, where the rich live comfortably, and the large majority of Black and Brown people have to live check to check and never have time to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
We outnumber the police, the wealthy and all the crooked ass politicians. I know we look at those people as having power, but they have a false system-based power. But we the people have a REAL POWER. The power to shut down all factors of production of the system by not participating in it. Once organized, we can decide what we want from the schools rather than these multi-million-dollar charter networks that steal money from us. We can decide what we deserve to be paid for our labor rather than shareholders dictating what we get. We can decide what we want our neighborhoods to look like rather than letting gentrifiers and land consultants decide. Every aspect of life can be radically changed with us being on the same page and exerting our power.
Some ways we can accomplish that is: 1) Reading, writing, distributing this newspaper and joining the New Orleans Workers Group, which organizes to uplift the working class and youth in and around the city; 2) Listening to audiobooks and YouTube speeches of Malcolm X and The Black Panthers as you’re playing video games or simply walking somewhere. You can pay homage and learn from the powerful speeches of the revolutionaries that came before you; 3) Organize people you know already: people around your house, at school and family members. We have to shift conversations into radical political thinking, slowly but surely; And lastly 4) stay committed to the cause. We are in a battle for our livelihood every day. We must stay committed to fighting for the freedom of all poor and oppressed peoples. We are the ones that make up everything around us, so we should be the ones enjoying it, too.
All Power my Peoples! The ancestors live through US!
We as Black folks in this country have lived and survived under AmeriKKKan Apartheid for centuries now. From first being kidnapped from mother Africa and shipped here in chains like an Amazon package, to being declared as 3/5ths of a human being, the Black man in this country has been marked to be the most used and abused commodity in AmeriKKKa. You can look at The Dred Scott Decision, the Fugitive Slave Act, The Civil War, Jim Crow laws, Plessy v. Ferguson, Anti-lynching laws, Miscegenation Laws, Red Lining Laws, “War on Drugs”, “War on Terrorism”, Mass Incarceration, to the white-washed history and curriculum in schools.
Despite any and all that, I am a proud Black man in AmeriKKKa because I don’t conform or assimilate to the white male capitalist standard this country has set before us. I stand strong in the face of adversity and oppression, I fight for my people on a daily basis with the righteous intentions of decolonizing their minds to liberate their body and spirit. I wear my locs proudly, I wear my own clothing line proudly, I speak my native 7th w/d New Orleans dialect proudly, I proudly break down any and all lies the oppressor class has convinced or forced my people to believe. Like I tell folks, the greatest insult I can tell someone of the ruling class is “I can go into your world, you can NEVER come into mine”. That’s because we’ve created something from the funk and hurt we’ve endured as a people. I am proud, proud of the language we’ve created as we were outlawed from being able to read and write. Now EVERYTHING Black folks have created is commoditized or white-washed into the mainstream of society for profits. Whether it’s the music, the artwork, the dances, the slang, the way we greet, style of dress, way we rock our hair, we could go on and on. Under this white supremacy capitalist system, it’s not Black people they care about, it’s the money they can make off of Black people they care about, as it has always been in this country.
Peep game my people, don’t assimilate to the system, be proud of your existence, be proud of your culture, be proud of your creativity, be proud of your endurance, be proud of your uniqueness, be proud as you learn YOUR peoples’ history, and lastly be proud of US. This white supremacist capitalist system has attempted to beat Black folks into submission time after time and still we stand. State sanctioned oppression vs. the power of the people. Proletarian vs. Pig. Soul Brother vs soul sucker. Continue to educate, agitate and organize! And remember, the beauty is in the struggle, and it’s the working class people of New Orleans that make this place so desirable. We are the soul and essence of New Orleans. We are the food, the dance, the music, the rhythm, the talk, the flavor, we are all that and some jazz ya’ dig. Till next time, love & solidarity my peoples. #AllPower
Revolutionary war is fought at the Battle of Ravine-à-Couleuvres, Haiti, 1802. Haitians declared victory on January 1, 1804
By Malcolm Suber
2019 marks the 400th anniversary of the introduction of captured Africans as exploited laborers on present day US soil. For the Black masses it has meant 400 years of vicious white supremacist rule. 400 years of oppression and discrimination. 400 years of exploitation as unpaid and under-paid labor. 400 years of last hired and first fired. 400 years of rape, lynching and police murder. 400 years of denial of the right to self-determination.
Those captured Africans of 1619 on the slave-ship Jesus were sold into indentured service in the Jamestown colony in Virginia. The white ruling class farm owners soon saw an advantage in making the 7-year indenture for the Africans a permanent feature of their capture. The captured Africans were of a different culture and skin color of the European settlers and could be easily isolated. That transition of the captured Africans from indentured servant to chattel slavery almost permanently stained the relationship between Black and white workers.
The large landowners had to create a justification for holding other human beings into permanent chattel slavery. Their ideological champions invented the anti-human concept of white supremacy. The basic proposition was that the Africans and other non-Europeans were a sub-species of the human tree and that Europeans had a God-given right to civilize and make the “inferior” African into a useful being. White supremacy thus became the great divide that allowed for the importation of millions of captured Africans into the new world and the genocide of the indigenous nations who lived in the Americas.
“Harriet” by Elizabeth Catlett, 1975.
Oppression breeds resistance
Those captured Africans, of course, were not robots. They understood both freedom and captivity. Those most conscious fought to the death on the African continent, during the middle passage, and upon arrival in the Americas to regain their freedom and reassert their humanity.
The Africans escaped their masters and created maroon colonies. On the plantations and in the mountains and swamps surrounding the plantations they also organized slave revolts, the most successful of which was the revolution in Haiti in 1791.
Black Union Soldiers at Port Hudson, Louisiana, 1863.
The civil war
Throughout the decades of enslavement brave fighters came forward to combat the slave masters and fight to end chattel slavery. Gabriel Prosser, Charles Deslondes, Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner organized major slave revolts. Hundreds of others built settlements in the swamps and dared the slave catchers to come for them.
When the Civil War broke out, nearly 200,000 Black men took up arms in the Union Army to fight to end chattel slavery. These soldiers were primarily field hands who had been biting at the bit to strike a blow for freedom.
During Reconstruction, Black former slaves, many of them field hands, became representatives of their people on all levels of government from US Senators to local government, championing radical reconstruction, equal rights and the upliftment of the freed people as they transitioned from chattel to wage workers.
The attempts of the freed people to implement their democratic changes were overthrown in 1876 when the Hayes-Tilden compromise allowed the plantation owners to return to political power. The Black laboring people were driven back into virtual slavery through newly created peonage laws and the development of the sharecropping system. Democracy was replaced with the Jim Crow system of racial apartheid that existed in the southern states until the modern civil rights movement.
The possibility that democracy could be established in the Confederate states was defeated when the rapidly developing capitalist regime in the north decided to abandon the battle to establish and defend democratic rights of the freed people. The Black nation in the Black Belt South, instead of developing along bourgeois lines with the right to develop its national economy, became an oppressed nation subject to state oppression meted out by the former plantation owners who now held state power all over the south.
The struggle against Jim Crow segregation and the reign of terror unleashed to roll back all the gains of Reconstruction consumed the efforts of the Black struggle for freedom. The Black bourgeois and petty-bourgeois leaders struggled over the best approach to win equal rights for the Black masses. Two contending trends developed. One view of accommodation to the apartheid conditions was advanced by Booker T. Washington, who argued that Black people should develop a strong economy and the white ruling class would eventually extend equal rights to the Black masses. The other view, represented by W.E. B. DuBois, was that Blacks should never abandon the fight for equal rights and should press the federal government to guarantee equal treatment for Blacks. Both views advanced the notion that the Black bourgeois class should lead the Black liberation struggle.
Black women workers at El Segundo Aircraft Plant in Long Beach, CA during World War II
The Black proletariat strengthens
World War I caused the biggest internal shift and fissure in the Black liberation movement. Thousands of black soldiers were exposed to the war propaganda about fighting for freedom and democracy. This caused them to look at the conditions of the Black masses as a whole and to embrace radical trends developing in the world, especially the earth-shattering victory of the Russian Revolution. Additionally, many Blacks began the great migration to the north and west to take advantage of work in the factories. The Black working class began to see itself as exploited proletarians and part of the world struggle against capitalism. The first Black communist cadre were developed around the African Blood Brotherhood under the leadership of Cyril Briggs. The ABB called for the right to self-determination for the oppressed Black nation and the leadership of the Black working class.
World War II reinforced trends begun during WWI. During WWII there was a need for labor in the factories producing war materials. Black workers were needed in the factories. Millions abandoned the plantations of the South and landed in cities across the country. More Black soldiers fought overseas and came back ready to fight for full and equal citizenship rights. That period saw the growth of the Communist Party USA and the enrollment of thousands of Black workers. There began an effort to organize Black share croppers in the South. The CPUSA also gained wide support by their building support for the Scotsboro Boys, who had been falsely accused of rape. There was an open fight between the CPUSA, which championed the leadership of the Black workers, versus the NAACP forces, who championed the leadership of the Black bourgeois class.
The white supremacist capitalist ruling class promoted the leadership of the Black bourgeois and church leaders. The rulers would rather see a comprador class willing to accept capitalist society rather than a mass base for socialist revolution among Black workers.
By the early 1950s, the Black masses had rallied to the cause of ending racist discrimination and fighting for equal rights. The murder of Emmett Till; the victory against segregation in the Brown decision; and the Montgomery Bus Boycott served as catalysts for the Black liberation movement. This coupled with the awakening of the anti-colonial struggles of people of color worldwide. By 1960 Black student leaders came to the fore with militant actions to force an end to discrimination. Much of the leadership in this phase were church leaders and college students. The Black working class had yet to develop its own voice.
Election Night, Lowndes County, AL, 1966
By 1963 a more impatient mood had developed among the Black masses. Dr. King and the other civil rights leaders developed the March on Washington demanding equal rights and an end to discrimination. In the inner city ghettos, the voice and program of the Black nationalist and Black Muslim leader Malcolm X began to challenge the integrationist, non-violent civil rights leadership. Black rebellions broke out in city after city from 1963 -1970. The Black Panther Party exploded onto the scene, calling for revolution, and held the loyalty of the militant Black youth. The BPP became the target of US government suppression which led to the destruction of the BPP as a revolutionary force by 1970.
Black workers lead
This period also saw the awakening of the Black workers as a distinct voice for Black workers with an anti-capitalist program. In Detroit and rapidly in factories all over the USA, Black workers launched Black caucuses and revolutionary union movement which challenged the capitalist factory owners and the racist union leadership. Hundreds of wildcat strikes were staged. The most conscious elements began studying Marxism and embraced the anti-revisionist communist movement. This movement held that the CPUSA had abandoned the revolutionary road and it was time to build a new communist party under revolutionary leadership. The slogan became “Black workers take the lead”. This spoke to the conclusion that only the Black working class had the interest of completely ending national oppression by the overthrow of capitalism.
This Black working class challenge to Black capitalist leadership came in a period where the US state declared war on the revolutionary movement by jailing some of its best fighters and by introducing crack cocaine in the inner city. The ruling class promoted the leadership of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Black Democratic Party elected officials.
400 years of struggle has shown that the complete liberation of the Black masses will only come about with the destruction of the racist capitalist state. The only class capable of promoting and working for this program is the Black working class. This will happen only if the class-conscious Black worker and communist organizations make organizing and developing the class struggle of Black workers the center of our revolutionary work.
The Chrysler wildcat strike begins in Detroit, MI, 1968 led by the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) an organization of Black revolutionary workers.
“The BPP members made sacrifices for our collective liberation that can never be repaid short of the overthrowing the capitalist ruling class and ushering in the rule of the working class.”
The year 1968 was a high point of the Black Liberation struggle in the USA. The oppressed Black masses had decidedly turned away from the non-violent, assimilationist civil rights movement. The passage of the civil rights bill in 1964 and the voting rights bill of 1965 had to some extent marked the end of civil rights demands. The Black masses were seeking an end to government and extra-governmental oppression characterized by constant police terror. They also wanted better living and working conditions and a brighter future for their children. Especially in the northern, mid-western and west coast ghettos the Black masses were seeking a new vision of what genuine liberation would look like. Desegregation would not satisfy their thirst for genuine freedom and self-determination.
The Black Liberation Movement (BLM) in the early 1960s had been about organizing and mobilizing the masses of Black people and their allies to demand political and social equality for Black people, especially in the apartheid-like conditions of the South. The 1960’s were also the era of the anti-imperialist national liberation movements by the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Countless people were moved to become part of this worldwide fightback. Many of them embraced the clarion call for revolution!
By 1963, the Black masses in the ghettos of US cities began to explode in righteous indignation to the wretched conditions that existed in their neighborhoods. They began to see clearly that the white capitalist ruled USA was not going to own up to its racism and discrimination and voluntarily change these conditions. It would take the resistance of the Black people themselves to force the ruling class to improve their conditions.
The civil rights leaders of the NAACP, the SCLC and CORE had rallied people around the slogan- “free by 63”. They told the masses that it was possible that the formal political and social equality of Black people could be accomplished by 1963, the hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. This was part of the energy that produced the August 1963 March on Washington.
Stepping into the political landscape of the early 1960s were the Black Muslims whose chief spokesman, Malcolm X, challenged the civil rights movement as being too assimilationist and not having tactics that would mobilize the Black working-class masses in the ghettos of America. Malcolm X and other Black nationalists lambasted “non-violence” as a brake on the BLM and instead advocated identifying with national liberation movements that were taking up armed struggle for their freedom.
By 1965 “Black Power” had eclipsed “we shall overcome” as the slogan that captivated the imagination of revolutionary minded freedom fighters.
Stepping into this rapidly developing BLM, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded by Bobby Seal and Huey P. Newton in Oakland, CA in October 1966. They began a campaign of arming themselves and monitoring police activity. They relied on California laws that allowed open carry of weapons. They openly confronted police who were brutalizing Black residents. They modeled themselves after the armed self-defense of Black communities in the South that had been led by Robert Williams in North Carolina and the Deacons for Defense in Louisiana.
The BPP became a fixture in everyone’s consciousness after they marched into the California state capitol bearing arms in 1967. This action shocked the white capitalist government and brought pride to the oppressed Black masses. Finally, an organization was emerging that would stand up to capitalist Amerikkka and organize the Black masses for revolution.
The BPP grew rapidly and had chapters all across the USA. They openly declared themselves to be revolutionary nationalists and elaborated their aims in the famous 10-point program. The BPP characterized itself as an armed propaganda unit spreading revolution in the USA. They took an anti-imperialist stance in support of the national liberation struggles, especially in support of the National Liberation Front in Vietnam.
The BPP created a weekly newspaper that was widely circulated all over the USA. The BPP paper captured the mood of the Black masses. Of special universal interest were the powerful cartoons drawn by Emery Douglas that graphically portrayed the fight for liberation and the oppression of the pigs (the police).
The BPP grew swiftly and soon attracted the ire of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Hoover declared the BPP as the greatest threat to domestic tranquility. All police forces, from the federal to the local level were ordered to harass and eliminate the BPP. Many BPP members were assassinated and many others arrested.
Government repression and the heavy infiltration of agent provocateurs ultimately caused the demise of the BPP as chapters pursued their own agenda. Whatever the shortcomings of the BPP, it was founded as a revolutionary organization and inspired the BLM. The BPP members made sacrifices for our collective liberation that can never be repaid short of overthrowing the capitalist ruling class and ushering in the rule of the working class.
The Bourgeois media is blood thirsty and totally one sided. “If it leads it bleeds” is the motto they subscribe to. They barely come to Black neighborhoods to report on the positive things happening, they only show up after somebody got shot, then deem our neighborhoods as “troubled”.
They use menacing mug shots when it’s black folks accused of a crime, but whenever it’s a white terrorist that has shot up a bunch of innocent people, his mug shot is nowhere to be found and/or he is deemed a victim of mental health problems.
None of the main news stations was around when the Black owned businesses “Jazz Daiquiris” and “Chicken & Watermelon” on S. Claiborne gave out bikes, school supplies, Christmas gifts, health care screenings, a summer youth program, all for free for the kids and families in the neighborhood. But those same news stations were all over those Black-owned businesses once there was a tragic violent shooting. It goes to show just what they think about the Black community. It’s either they are covering crimes that’s happening or politicians talking about how they’re going to solve the crime problem. Black life doesn’t matter to the elitist press, their purpose is to oppress and control narratives.
To quote Doughboy from Boyz-N-Da-Hood, “Either they don’t know, don’t show or don’t care about what’s going on in the hood”.
This is by design. The television and radio stations spew the talking points of the two monopoly political parties in this country, that’s all funded by the ruling class. It’s troubling because most oppressed people in New Orleans just go along with the programmed talking points.
The problem of perception comes into play, because of the fact that other groups that never interact with economically poor neighborhoods deem us as unworthy of a good quality of life. That misconception occurs because the elitist media attacks poor communities and sell-out politicians enact laws or cut programs that cause an even deeper oppression in the community.
We as the working class need to keep communicating with one another, actually speaking and spending time in community, not just on the internet. This is the way we kill off the false narratives the media spews as an attempt to keep the people from uniting. As Brother Malcolm once said, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” Not this newspaper though. We say All Power to the people and continue to Educate! Agitate! and Organize!
One of the least considered, yet most divisive aspects of gentrification is the way it splits communities and pits folks against each other. Quite often this rift results from the mad scramble for dwindling resources in communities under siege by hyper capitalist agendas. Here in New Orleans, we’ve watched public housing transition to “mixed income” housing as the black middle class and a mostly black City Council looked on apathetically displacing their own people. We’ve watched the education system sold off to the highest bidder in the mad rush to privatize schools into charters. And amidst it all, we’ve watched our community institutions get sold from under our feet while we looked on seemingly unable to do anything about it.
The Craige Cultural Center at 1800 Newton St. on the Westbank is one such institution. For 43 years, the community center has served as a hub for black folks on the Westbank (and beyond) to receive community services ranging from chiropractic treatment (the founder was a doctor), to job training (i.e. IT training), to GED Prep, to cultural education events featuring renowned African scholars like Anthony Browder and Professor James Smalls as well as several renowned locals poets, singers, rappers and artists. Founded by Thomas Craige and Loyce V. Craige in 1974, the center has been managed by their two sons Vince and Todd for the last 14 years.
On July 26, 2018, the center was sold behind the owners’ backs in a sheriff sale only hours after a temporary restraining order and only minutes after a preliminary injunction had been issued to have any potential sale stopped. This backdoor deal culminated a year and a half process of shady dealing in attempts to sell the property against the owners’ will. According to the lead curator of the space, Vince Craige, “They must rescind the sale due to negligence and investigate how this horrendous act could have occurred as the injured party had two judges signatures and a court date. The Craige Center could very well be victims of an orchestrated land grab.”
A rally attended by some 100 community members was held on August 3to support the Craige brothers’ center and promote their court date that took place on August 8, Vince’s birthday. The rally ended with the son of the black woman that purchased the center behind the Craige’s backs, making a case for why he deemed his mother’s greedy capitalist land grab to be justified. To follow and support the campaign to “Rescind the Sale!” and keep the Craige Center alive, follow them on Facebook on the Craige Cultural Center page. And most importantly, come out to their court date on September 5 at 1:30pm at Civil District Court at 421 Loyola Ave. Section J, New Orleans, LA 70114. This could be the difference between losing or keeping a cultural institution. COME THROUGH!
Mardi Gras is a Billion-dollar busine$$, but who’s benefiting from it? It’s not the Flambeaux walkers, High school marching bands or Black Mardi Gras Indians. Nor is it any of the working class people that are the lifeblood of the city and the creators of the unique culture that makes New Orleans so desirable. The people that make the big $$ during MG are the big hotel chains, advertisement industry, beer/liquor companies and police/security forces. Progress has been made in the sense we’ve went from Quadroon balls to the modern-day festiveness, but the more things change, the more they stay the same.
I must say that this Mardi Gras season I really learned a lot. It was my first go around marching with my high school’s band & performance groups. The volume of lucid drunken people that’s out in the streets of New Orleans is crazy. I always knew it was bad, but once you out hitting ‘dem streets with yo Squad and all eyes on y’all, then you really feel and take on that “Us against the world” mentality. People tell ‘ya all kind of dumb reckless shit as you diligently pace that pavement, you gotta put in your head that they just full of that liquid courage and don’t respond to the bullshit they say.
There were people that would try and cut through the band, just for their own childish giggles, there were people that would throw those dam beads and trinkets over our heads, which a few hit us, and I would then have to restrain myself from going after them as I saw our students upset by this buffoonery. There is a lot of overt racism during Mardi Gras as well, such as the Krewe of Chaos having anti-Black Lives Matter floats, Endymion handing out sambo dolls to Black kids, and Rex masking in their Klanish masks, robes and horses.
There is a lot of drunken white privilege out there too. The people entertaining and cleaning was Black & Latino, while majority of the people reveling in the festivities was white. This was especially evident as we went into the Convention Center after the Bacchus parade, for their grandiose ball. It costs thousands of dollars to ride on the floats and thousands of dollars to be a tourist down here during MG.
I did love seeing my beautiful Black folk out there and getting some daps & hugs from them. I’m just glad I was able to be out there, because I mean it when I say the Assata Shakur chant and the part about “It is OUR duty to love & protect each other”. The students work hard at their craft and I felt proud to make sure nothing happened to any of them as we marched in them streets.
