Melissa Harris-Perry | Aired on August 18, 2012
Refuge for sexual assault survivors
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Foot Soldier: Melissa Harris-Perry highlights the work of Scheherazade Tillet, co-founder of A Long Walk Home, for helping women deal with surviving sexual assault.
Nina Simone's Daughter
on Her Mother's REAL Legacy
Simone and her mother Nina Simone
GATEKEEPER TO THE LEGEND OF NINA SIMONE,
THE SONGSTRESS' ONLY CHILD SPEAKS
ON THE CONTROVERSIAL UPCOMING BIO PIC
AND WHO SHE'D LIKE TO SEE PORTRAY HER MOTHER
For many of us, Nina Simone is nothing less than a goddess. Her music informs our lives (see: "Wild is the Wind," "Feelin' Good," "Pirate Jenny, "Mississippi Goddamn," etc, etc), her courage inspires us, we name our daughters for her, wallpaper our homes with her regal face in profile. The announcement of the casting of Mary J. Blige a few years ago, and more recently of Zoe Saldana, have been met by emotional outrage by those who truly know the meaning and the movement of Nina Simone because for us, she's more than a singer, she's a heroine. And when it comes to our history and our heroines, Hollywood gets it wrong far more often then right.
Nina Simone’s only daughter, an accomplished Broadway actress (Aida, Lion’s King, Rent) and vocalist who goes by simply 'Simone,' has made it her business to be a dutiful gatekeeper to her mother's legacy for many years. She engages with Nina fans via the official Nina Simone website and Facebook page and has lovingly performed her mother's classic tunes across the world. Last week, Simone took to Facebook to reply to the hundreds of concerned fans who’d been asking her thoughts on the recent casting announcement. Here she elaborates on that, the film's problematic script and what it means to be the heir to "the High Priestess of Soul."
EBONY: Can you clarify your feelings about the casting of Zoe Saldana to play your mother?
Simone: I love Zoe Saldana’s work. I’ve seen some of her movies more than once and really enjoy what she brings to the screen. As an actress I respect her process, but I also know that there are many actresses out there, known or not, who would be great as my mother. The one actress that I’ve had in my heart for a very long time, whose work I’m familiar with already, is Kimberly Elise. Many people have spoken to me about Viola. I love her look. I love her energy. Both of the actresses that I’ve mentioned are women of color, are women with beautiful, luscious lips and wide noses, and who know their craft. I also have no problem introducing someone we’ve never heard of before who can play my mother.
EBONY: This project that’s going forward, you’ve talked about having little to nothing to do with it. How does that happen?
S: I’ve been asking myself that question. How does that happen? As I said on my blog, when the announcement came out approximately six years ago that Mary J. Blige had been cast to play Nina Simone, I heard it along with everyone else and I was very concerned. How does someone just decide to do a story about someone and completely bypass family? Completely bypass her representatives? We offered to get involved with all the stuff that we have, from the music, to the pictures, to her writings, to connecting them with the stories of many people who were close to my mother, and we were ignored.
If any of us tried to take the story of Bing Crosby or, Dean Martin, or Frank Sinatra, or Elvis Presley and turn it into something that was a tall tale based on something that never happened, I doubt that we’d get very far.
EBONY: Do you hold the rights to any of your mother’s music?
S: Some of the music. When my mom passed away, as her only child, I had no idea who the heroes were, who the monsters were. I realized just how protected I was when the queen was alive. When I stepped into my mother’s shoes and became the gatekeeper of her legacy, there were many people coming at me with regards to many things. There are some rights that are owned by me. There are some rights that are not.
EBONY: Have you been in touch with Cynthia Mort, the director? I’m wondering if you’ve had any contact with her, particularly in relationship to your concerns about the scope of the script. Your Facebook update said the script focuses on the last 8 years of her life.
S: I talked with Cynthia once, about a year and a half ago. It was very emotional for me to just get on the phone with her because there were so many questions in my mind. So I asked a good friend of mine to join us on the call with me to keep it grounded. I asked her if her mother was still alive. I asked her if she still had a good relationship with her mother and she sounded like a really nice lady. She really, really believes in what she’s doing. I do remember saying to her that if any of us tried to take the story of Bing Crosby or, Dean Martin, or Frank Sinatra, or Elvis Presley and turn it into something that was a tall tale based on something that never happened, I doubt that we’d get very far. My mother’s life was tragic enough. My mother suffered enough. Her life is full of enough wonderful and tragic true things to make a hit movie. You don’t have to embellish her story. I really tried to impress on her how vital it was do a project from a place of truth. If you write something that my mother might’ve said or done that I find embarrassing, I may not like it, but I’d never try to get in the way of truth.
Q: So you’re not a gatekeeper. For instance, there are longstanding rumors that Jimi Hendrix’s family, who holds the rights to almost all of his music, won’t allow his music to be in a film that shows him using drugs. So you’re not someone who’s trying to whitewash your mother’s legacy is what you’re saying?
S: No, not at all. Her life is educational, inspirational, entertaining, and downright shocking at times. My mother was good at shocking people. She enjoyed it and she did it well. So why do we need to embellish, to build a tall tale? That is what Cynthia Mort has done. She has taken my mother’s name and then bought the life rights to her male nurse turned manager, Clifton Henderson’s life. In my opinion, she came in through the back door. I was saying, come in the front door, let’s have a cup of tea, let’s talk about it. Let’s work together. I asked her ‘How did you get in contact with Clifton?’ She said she googled him. I asked her ‘If you googled him, I was starring on Broadway at the time. I’m her only child. I’m not hard to find. Why didn’t you contact me?’ It’s interesting because it took a little while, but the truth finally came out. She told me she was told not to contact me. My mother and I had our ups and downs, like any family, but we loved each other until the end, and I wouldn’t try to edit our troubles out of any project. When Cynthia and I ended the call, we agreed to talk again the next day. I felt like we’d broken some really good ground that we’d created a place from which we could continue to communicate. But when I called into the conference call the next day, I was the only one on the line.
Q: That’s so common and so sad. I’d like to circle back to casting, a final question, also based on something you said about your mother’s childhood. How important was colorism to your mother? You wrote that as a young girl she’d been told that she was "too Black" and her nose was "too wide." Was that an issue throughout her life?
S: I don’t think people told her that throughout her life, but I can guarantee that the sense of insecurity and the questioning of one’s beauty that results from a grownup telling you that as a child you’re too black and your nose is too wide, remained with her for the rest of her life.
Harriet Tubman 
 Image donated by Corbis - Bettmann. 
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 © Jupiterimages Corporation |
BIRTH DATE: c.1820. Because she was a slave, and owners did not record their slaves' birthdates, the exact date of Harriet's birth is unknown -- different accounts list 1820 or 1821.
BIRTH PLACE: Edward Brodas plantation near Bucktown, Dorchester County, Maryland.
EDUCATION: Because of her indentured status, Harriet was denied the opportunity for education -- leaving her illiterate her entire life. Slaveowners did not want their slaves to know how to read or write.
FAMILY BACKGROUND: Born into slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Harriet's ancestors had been brought to America in shackles from Africa during the first half of the 18th Century. Harriet was the 11th child born to Benjamin Ross and Harriet Greene (slaves of Edward Brodas), her given name was Araminta and she was often called "Minty" as a child. But by the time she was an adult, she was calling herself Harriet.
As was the custom for many slaves, Harriet began working at an early age. When five years old, she was first sent away from home, "loaned out" to another plantation, checking muskrat traps in icy cold rivers. She quickly became too sick to work and was returned, malnourished and suffering from the cold exposure. Once she recovered, she was loaned out to another plantation, working as a nurse to the planter's infant child. By the age of 12, she was working as a field hand, plowing and hauling wood. At 13, while defending a fellow slave who tried to run away, her overseer struck her in the head with a two-pound weight. This resulted in recurring narcoleptic seizures, or sleeping spells, that plagued her the rest of her life.
In 1844, at about the age of 25, Harriet married John Tubman, a freeman. She gained permission to marry him from her owners and lived with him in his cabin, but she was required to continue working for her master. When Harriet told John of her dreams of one day gaining her freedom, he told her that she would never be free and, if she tried running away, he would turn her in. On one of her first return visits to Maryland, Harriet went to John's cabin in hopes of getting him to go north with her. She found that he had taken another wife. Later in 1869, she married Nelson Davis. She never had any children.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS: The Biblical story of Exodus in which Moses freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt to freedom in Israel, saw repetition in the years before the Civil War when Harriet Tubman freed over 300 blacks from slavery in the South to freedom in the North. For her commendable work she herself was nicknamed "Moses."
Despite the hardships inflicted upon her and the unfairness of them, Harriet used her labors for self discipline and set for herself the goal of escaping to the North. She accomplished this goal in 1849, when alone and on foot she ran away from the plantation in the middle of the night and followed the north star to free land in Pennsylvania. It came about after her master died and she heard rumors that she and two of her brothers were to be sold to a chain gang. Her brothers left with her, but became scared, deciding not to take the risk, and so returned to the plantation. She traveled only at night, until she knew she had crossed the border between slaveholding and non-slaveholding states. She later said:
"I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was such a glory over everything ... and I felt like I was in heaven."
Harriet had bravely won her freedom, but realizing how alone she was, she made a vow that she would help her family and friends win their freedom as well. She went to Philadelphia, found work cooking, laundering and scrubbing, and saved money to finance rescue trips. She became involved with the city's large and active abolitionist (anti-slavery) organizations and with organizers of the Underground Railroad, a secret network through which slaves were helped in escaping from bondage in the South to freedom in the North and Canada.
Using the Wilmington, Delaware, home of Quaker abolitionist Thomas Garrett (1789-1871) as a checkpoint, Harriet Tubman undertook some 20 hazardous missions in which she covertly journeyed down south, pinpointed slaves, and led them to freedom up north, at times going as far as Canada. In leading these flights, with a long rifle in hand, she warned her escapees that, if any of them even considered surrendering or returning, the penalty would be death. Her persuasiveness was evident in that never on any of her missions did she lose a "passenger" on the Underground Railroad. In addition to her nickname "Moses," for her bravery Harriet was dubbed "General" Tubman by the militant abolitionist John Brown, with whom she worked in Canada. William Still (who recorded activities of the Underground Railroad) described her as:
"a woman of no pretensions, indeed, a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found among the most unfortunate-looking farm hands of the South. Yet, in point of courage, shrewdness and disinterested exertions to rescue her fellow-men ... she was without her equal."
Her name quickly spread throughout the slave quarters and abolitionist societies. All this angered the Southern slaveholders, who offered $40,000 for her capture. But Harriet always evaded slavecatchers and would not quit, even when her illiteracy nearly got her caught when she fell asleep under her own wanted poster. As for her family, Harriet successfully rescued her sister in 1850, her brother in 1851, her other three brothers in 1854, and her parents in 1857. For her parents, she purchased a home in Auburn, New York, from Senator William H. Seward of New York, an advocate of hers. In the 12 years from her escape in 1849 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad became the most dominant force of abolitionism.
Around 1858, Harriet teamed up with John Brown as he plotted a raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to raid the armory there, distribute weapons among slaves and instigate a rebellion. She helped him with fund-raising, and most likely would have participated in the raid had she not been ill. Even in one of her last interviews, in 1912, she referred to him as "my dearest friend."
During the Civil War (1861-1865), Harriet Tubman served with the Union Army as a cook, laundress, nurse, scout, and spy behind Confederate lines. In 1862, she moved to Beaufort, South Carolina (when it was occupied by the Union Army), and with several missionary teachers, helped hundreds of Sea Islander slaves transition from bondage to freedom. She also undertook scouting and spying missions, identifying potential targets for the Army, such as cotton stores and ammunition storage areas. The Boston Commonweath described her efforts in July 1863:
"Col. Montgomery and his gallant band of 800 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed in to the enemies' country ... destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton and lordly dwellings, and striking terror to the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property."
In 1865, Harriet began caring for wounded black soldiers as the matron of the Colored Hospital at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. She continued helping others after the war. She raised money for freedmen's schools, helped destitute children and continued caring for her parents. In 1868, she transformed her family's home into the Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People. She also lobbied for educational opportunities for freedmen. She believed she had been called by God to help her people, and once told an interviewer:
"Now do you suppose he wanted me to do this just for a day, or a week? No! the Lord who told me to take care of my people meant me to do it just so long as I live, and so I do what he told me to do."
Also in 1868, Harriet began working on her autobiography with Sarah Hopkins Bradford, a white schoolteacher in Auburn, New York. It was published in 1868, then later under a revised title in 1886 (see below). In 1869, Harriet married Nelson Davis, a Union veteran half her age who had been a boarder at her house. He died of tuberculosis in 1888.
© Jupiterimages Corporation
Still not finished, Harriet took up the suffragist cause. In 1896, she was a delegate to the National Association of Colored Women's first annual convention. She believed the right to vote was vital to preserving their freedom. Around the turn of the century, she bought 25 acres of land near her home with money raised through benefactors and speaking engagements, and made arrangements for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church to take over the Home. She had worked closely with this church since the 1850s. Through it, she had come to befriend Frederick Douglass, who had briefly published his abolitionist newspaper, The North Star, there.
In 1911, Harriet herself was welcomed into the Home. Upon hearing of her destitute condition, many women with whom she had worked in the NACW voted to provide her a lifelong monthly pension of $25. Living past ninety, Harriet Tubman died in Auburn on March 10, 1913. She was given a full military funeral and was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery. The women of the NACW also paid the funeral costs and purchased a marble headstone. One year later, the city of Auburn commemorated her life with a memorial tablet at the front of the Cayuga County Courthouse. In 1944, Eleanor Roosevelt christened the Liberty Ship Harriet Tubman, and in 1995 the U.S. Postal Service honored her life with a postage stamp.
DATE OF DEATH: March 10, 1913.
PLACE OF DEATH: Auburn, New York.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
-----------------. The Underground Railroad: First Person Narratives of Escapes to Freedom in the North. NY: Prentice Hall, 1987.
Bradford, Sarah. Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. NY: Corinth Books, 1961. (Reprint of second edition originally published in 1886. First edition published in 1868 was titled "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman.")
Clinton, Catherine. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. Little, Brown, 2004.
Commire, Anne, editor. Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Conn.: Yorkin Publications, 1999-2000.
Humez, Jean. Harriet Tubman: The Life and Life Stories. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 2003.
Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
Schroeder, Alan. Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman. Dial Books for Young Readers, 1996.
Siebert, Wilbur H. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. NY: Macmillan, 1898.
Still, William. Still's Underground Rail Road Records, Revised Edition, With a Life of the Author. Narrating the Hardships, Hairbreadth Escapes and Death Struggles of the Slaves in their Effort for Freedom. Philadelphia, PA: William Still, Publisher, 1883.
WEB SITES:
The Harriet Tubman Home - Through New York History Net
Harriet Tubman Historical Society - Wilmington, Delaware
Harriet Ross Tubman Timeline - The African American History of Western New York
Harriet Tubman - Wikipedia
Harriet Tubman - Spartacus SchoolNet, including excerpts from her autobiography
Harriet Tubman : Moses of Her People - Women's History, About.Com
Harriet Tubman - Civil War Home
Harriet Tubman - Africans in America, PBS Series
The Underground Railroad - National Geographic Online
Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad - Links found by a second grade class
QUOTE:
"There's two things I got a right to and these are Death and Liberty. If I could not have one, I would have the other."
-- Harriet Tubman
>via: http://ht.ly/cUkJm#
The King of the Twelve String:
Lead Belly
With his 100th birthday, and the let's-not-call-it-a-depression-because-that's-depressing “economic downturn” there's been a renewed interest in the music of folk legend Woody Guthrie this past year. But hardly anyone's talking about one of Guthrie's biggest influences and collaborators, Huddie Ledbetter. Better known to the world as that original punk rocker Lead Belly.
Words by Nathan Leigh
Each generation has their introduction to Lead Belly. For many of us it was Nirvana's legendary performance of “In The Pines” (also known as “Black Girl” and “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”) on their Unplugged in New York. For our older siblings, it was Zeppelin's re-interpretation of “Gallis Pole” as “Gallow's Pole.” For our parents (or grandparents...I'm pretty sure at least half the people reading this were born in the 90s. You have no idea how old that makes me feel...) it was Pete Seeger's band The Weaver's hit with “Good Night Irene.” And though each of these versions are great in their own right, there is an unmistakeable irony in his legacy being tied to white artists profiting off his songs when that was the major struggle of his career.
Lead Belly was already 45 when the folklorist John Lomax and his son Alan came to the notorious Angola Prison Farm to record folk songs for the Library of Congress. Though they're usually described as having “discovered” Lead Belly, he had been a popular working musician since his teen years at that point. But Lead Belly's early career was punctuated by prison sentences. He was generally friendly and well-liked, but firebrand Lead Belly was never one to back away from a fight. He was imprisoned once for the dubious charge of “carrying a pistol,” but then a second time for the slaying of a relative during a fight over a woman, and a final time in 1930 for stabbing a white man in self-defense during a fight at a party.
Lead Belly's reputation spread out from the prison. He gave weekly performances, mixing his own original songs with regional folk and blues songs he had learned from fellow prisoners. He would prepare two versions of his more politically charged songs. In his song about the sinking of the Titanic, Lead Belly would leave out the verse about African American boxer Jack Johnson being denied passage when he performed it for the white prison staff.During his second sentence in Texas, Governor Pat Morris Neff—a frequent attendant of Lead Belly's Sunday performances—was swayed to issue a pardon after Lead Belly wrote him a song appealing to mercy in 1925. The same story would play out again in 1934 when the Lomaxes brought a petition backed by a recording of Lead Belly's signature song “Good Night Irene” to Louisiana Governor Oscar K. Allen. In addition to a reputation for being tough as lead (one of the many origin myths of his stage name. Other possible options include a gunshot wound to the stomach, his ability to drink large amounts of moonshine, or most boringly and most likely just a tweaking of his last name. There is no scholarly evidence to support my theory that he was some sort of robot made mostly out of lead.), Lead Belly was hyped as the convict who sang his way out of prison.
After his release from prison, Lead Belly went on the road with John Lomax continuing to collect folk songs. Lead Belly was hired initially as driver and primary assistant, while Alan stayed back sick, but later became a performing partner when John gave lectures on folk music. The relationship between Lead Belly and Lomax was a complicated one and the subject of a lot of debate.
For an in depth dissection on their relationship check out: http://www.culturalequity.org/currents/ce_currents_leadbelly_faqs.php
It's on a website run by Alan Lomax's foundation, but it seems to handle the issue with a lot of detail and not much bias.
Financially, their relationship was pretty fair for the time (50/50 manager splits were the norm in the 30s because managers are bastards in every era regardless of race). But Lomax's interest in Lead Belly was less as an artist and more as a living example of southern African American folk music. Though Lead Belly and Alan Lomax became close friends, John Lomax treated Lead Belly as an anthropological study. He was never flat-out racist, but he was paternalistic in everything.It was John who encouraged Lead Belly to perform in prison clothes, and John who suggested Lead Belly sprinkle his performances with historical context of his songs. As a result, Lead Belly became less blues artist and more novelty act during his partnership with John Lomax. His history as an ex-convict was used in promoting concerts. To the media of the day, Lead Belly wasn't a brilliant artist with a unique voice, he was an example of how the prison system could successfully reform a killer. (declaring our massively flawed prison system to be effective is another timeless American classic...) John Lomax treated Lead Belly as a lecture tool, but what Lead Belly sought was artistic and commercial success.
After only 6 months, the partnership began to fall apart. John Lomax didn't believe Lead Belly could be trusted with the money he earned. The meager royalties earned from his recordings for ARC and the more substantial performance fees (about $20,000 in today's money) were controlled tightly by John Lomax and ultimately only paid out to Lead Belly's girlfriend Martha after their marriage in installments. The frustrated Lead Belly resented his arrangement with Lomax and the lack of control he had over his own career. He neither wanted to be the performer Lomax marketed him as, nor did he want to run his career the way Lomax wanted it run. During a two week lecture / concert tour of New England tensions increased, until at a stop in Boston Lead Belly pulled a knife on Lomax, demanding his money. A bitter lawsuit followed with Lead Belly winning the few hundred dollars in royalties he was still owed paid in one lump sum.
The couple returned to Louisiana, but the money dried up quickly. Destitute, Lead Belly and Martha returned to New York in 1936. He became a regular fixture at the famed Apollo Theatre in Harlem, creating a massive stage revue featuring a cast of 65. The show flopped after bad reviews, but Lead Belly maintained aspirations of being a cross-over performer like his one-time opening act Cab Calloway. He continued to look for acting opportunities (because brilliant musicians always make brilliant actors. You know, like Prince in Purple Rain. Oh wait.) but his past as a convict proved an obstacle at every turn. In addition blues was quickly losing ground to jazz and swing in the pop markets. John Lomax's insistence on playing up Lead Belly's ex-convict-bluesman persona proved to be a major roadblock that would haunt his career. Throughout the rest of his career, Lead Belly would return on and off to that image; never fully able to shake it, and never fully sure if it was a good career move to do so.
Though mainstream success was always just out of reach, Lead Belly found a home in the leftist community in New York. Alan Lomax and Lead Belly had maintained their friendship, and Alan was quick to introduce Lead Belly to the progressive community. Lead Belly traded the ex-con image for a straight-laced suited pro. He became a regular in New York's burgeoning folk scene. Starting in the late 30s, Lead Belly wrote some of his best protest songs. While he'd never shied away from addressing racial inequality in his songs, during Lead Belly's protest era he mastered the art of articulating a social position through song. “Bourgeois Blues” is a masterpiece of social criticism about his treatment on a trip to D.C.
Following another stay in prison in 1939 for assault, Lead Belly befriended up and coming folk performers Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger (who it's sort of hard to picture as a young impressionable singer having met—and marched in protest with!!!!—Pete at age 92, but I digress...). Both would later go on to declare Lead Belly to be one of their main influences. Woody and Lead Belly in particular enjoyed a close partnership performing together and collaborating. Some of Lead Belly's most famous recordings come from an interview Woody conducted in 1940. http://www.pigriver.com/woody-guthrie-inte
Throughout the 40's, Lead Belly's career stabilized to a degree. He never achieved the mainstream success he dreamed of, but he enjoyed a strong following, and was a successful regional live act. He continued recording new and old material through the decade cutting over a hundred sides for various labels. His final recording was in 1948. A set of 90 songs, some featuring his wife Martha, on the newly invented magnetic tape. The collection almost didn't see light. Lead Belly died in 1949 of ALS (also known as Lou Gherig's disease), and it wasn't until after the Weavers hit with “Goodnight Irene” a year later, that Lead Belly finally achieved the mainstream success he had chased his whole life, and his final recordings were made public.
His legacy is hard to overstate. Nearly every artist of the last 60 years has covered a Lead Belly song at least once. Lead Belly's trademarked 12-string guitar playing has influenced everything from modern country to metal. His vocal style has had a profound influence on Soul and RnB. His don't-give-a-shit attitude lives on in punk. His criticisms of injustice and bitterness at the American prison system, are sadly as powerful and dangerous as they were 60 years ago. Though he spent the bulk of his career chasing a fame that never arrived, he is now regarded as one of the greatest American musicians of all time.
OFFICIAL VIDEO COMING SOON!
World Premiered by The DJ Booth http://www.djbooth.net/index/tracks/review/awkword-throw-away-the-key/
A Musical Fuck You
to the U.S. Prison Industrial Complex.
Off his 100% for-charity global Hip Hop project, World View, New York City-based Activist/Rapper (and sociologist) AWKWORD's "Throw Away The Key (No More Prisons)" is at once an attack on racism, inequality and the (in)justice system in America and a tribute to the people who live a life in constant defense mode -- from the police, from the courts, from the Man. And it's also quality, entertaining music "that deserves to be heard" (OkayPlayer.com).
REVIEW: 'With Toronto producer L. Ment laying down a pacing and bluesy beat AWK gets right to work with bars aimed at tearing the bars off America’s myriad of prisons: “Born into prisons, most ghetto buildings got bars / when you live without sh*t, go head and worship them cars.' Sometimes it really is bigger than hip-hop" (Nathan S., Refined Hype).
Since it’s release via DJ Booth, the NO MORE PRISONS song from AWKWORD, “Throw Away The Key” has been featured — and critically acclaimed — by the leading Hip Hop sites worldwide, including Wendy Day and Rap Coalition, Okay Player, Hip Hop Wired, 2 Dope Boyz, EARMILK, Go Where Hip Hop and Andreas Hale‘s The Well Versed; major prison (and other progressive) groups such as The Sentencing Project, The Prison Policy Initiative, Prison Reform Movement and USPrisonCulture.com; and leading figures in entertainment and politics, including actor Isaiah Washington and The Nation publisher Peter Rothberg.
Additionally, “Throw Away The Key” made DJBooth.net’s Top 20 Indy Singles chart; landed at number-six on Spellcast Radio’s Top 10 Cuts of the Month list; is on regular rotation on Info Wars affiliate Music Wars Radio; and was featured on buzzing online political talk show Radio Dispatch — during a prisons segment, alongside an exclusive interview with The Nation editor Liliana Segura.
---- BUY NOW, and DONATE 100% to CHARITY (for at-risk youth) ----
http://awkword.bandcamp.com/track/throw-away-the-key-no-more-prisons
---- CLEAN VERSION (for the DJs) ----
http://www.audiomack.com/song/awkword/throw-away-the-key-no-more-prisons-clean-radio
---- LYRICS (via Rap Genius) ----
"born into prisons, most ghetto buildings got bars /
when you live without shit, go head and worship them cars /
the vista from the stoops, Marine billboards, you bored /
and on the block, you got bars, drug dealers and whores..."View ALL: http://rapgenius.com/Awkword-throw-away-the-key-no-more-prisons-lyrics
---- AWKWORD Interview with The Village Voice on Hip Hop & Politics ----
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2012/05/awkword_interview.php
---- More info on AWKWORD's ACTIVISM ----
http://awkwordrap.tumblr.com/on-prisons
---- More info on AWKWORD's World View album & its 501c3 nonprofit recipient ----
http://awkwordrap.com/world-view-project-description
---- CREDITS ----
Song: "Throw Away The Key (No More Prisons)"
Artist: AWKWORD
Producer: L.Ment
Executive Production: AWKWORD
Mix/Master: Trilian [Serbia]
Engineering: Noah Manheimer
Album: World View
Cover Art: ThroatChopU (The Mad Bloggers)Released by: Sub-City Productions / The DJ Booth (DJBooth.net)
Release date: Jul 30, 2012On Injustice & Incarceration[New song, “Throw Away The Key (No More Prisons)”, drops MONDAY, JULY 30, via The DJ Booth! Video to follow soon after!]
There are more than seven-million people incarcerated in the United States. Most are there for drug offenses. Most drug offenses are for marijuana, which is legal or decriminalized, at least for medicinal purposes, in a growing number of states. Plus, conservatively speaking, about 20,000 prisoners — some on death row, some certainly in solitary — are locked up for crimes they did NOT commit.
The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest in the world. While US citizens only represent 5% of the world’s population, 25% of the world’s inmates are incarcerated in the Land of the Brave, Home of the FREE. Approximately 1 in every 32 Americans is currently held by the (in)justice system.
And people who do not have enough money for quality legal representation or are simply not Caucasian, get arrested, sentenced and imprisoned at an alarmingly disproportionate rate.
For example, as reported by The Wall Street Journal:
A new analysis of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk tactics found that officers performed more searches on young black men last year than the total number of young black men living in the city…
The findings, said NYCLU’s Donna Lieberman, “paints the most vivid and damning picture yet” of the stop-and-frisk policy.
That’s up 14% from 2010… In New York City in 2011, there were 168,000 stop-and-frisk searches of black men between the ages of 14 and 24; but, there are only 158,000 black men living in the city. And Latinos did not fare much better. Together, black and Latino men in the 14-24 age group account for 4.7% of my home city’s total population but a staggering 41.6% of the police stops last year.
Need more facts?…
- Blacks comprise 13% of the U.S. population and 14% of monthly drug users; however, they represent 37% of those arrested for drug offenses (Congressional Testimony, Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project, May 2009)
- Blacks are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rate for Whites (Report on Disparity in Drug Arrests, Human Rights Watch, May 2009)
- Once arrested, Blacks are more likely to remain in prison (i.e., get denied bail) awaiting trial than Whites — one study of New York in the mid-90s showed a 33% greater likelihood (Review of Disparities in Processing Felony Arrests, The New York State Division of Criminal Justice)
- The American Bar Association reviewed the U.S. public defender system in 2004 and itself concluded: “All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring…The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the U.S.”
- Blacks are frequently illegally excluded from criminal jury service — in Houston County, Alabama, 8 out of 10 Black Americans qualified for jury service are struck by prosecutors from serving on death penalty cases (The Equal Justice Initiative, June 2010)
- In the Federal system, Black offenders receive sentences 10% longer than White offenders for the same crimes (The U.S. Sentencing Commission, March 2010)
- Blacks are 21% more likely to receive mandatory minimum sentences than White defendants and 20% more like to be sentenced to prison than White drug defendants (Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project)
- Two-thirds of the people in the U.S. with life sentences are non-White. In New York, the number is nearing 85% (The Sentencing Project, July 2009)
- Blacks, who are only 13% of the U.S. population and 14% of drug users, represent 37% of the people arrested for drugs and 56% of the people in state prisons for drug offenses (Congressional Testimony, Marc Mauer, The Sentencing Project, May 2009)
- The chance of a Black male born in 2001 of going to jail is approximately one in three, or 33%; Latino males have a 17% chance; and White males have a 6% chance — thus, Black boys are five times (and Latino boys nearly three times) as likely as White boys to go to jail (The U.S Bureau of Justice Statistics)
- While Black juvenile youth make up only 16% of the population, they represent 28% of juvenile arrests, 37% of the youth in juvenile jails and 58% of the youth sent to adult prisons (Criminal Justice Primer, The Sentencing Project, 2009)
- After imprisonment, significant racial disparities remain in opportunities and treatment — a study by Professor Devah Pager of the University of Wisconsin found that, while 17% of White job applicants with criminal records received call backs from employers, only 5% of the Black applicants received a call; in fact, race was so prominent in the results of this study that whites with criminal records actually received better treatment than blacks who did not have criminal records at all
This issue is important because it is a human rights issue and it represents Modern Day Slavery. While predominantly people of color rot away in cells, big business are profiting, whether its a hotel company providing the food slopped on inmates’ trays or something newer and even more alarming: the privatization of entire prisons.
This is NOT — I repeat, NOT — a post-racial America. It is an AmeriKKKa with institutionalized racism (and classism) that steadfastly remains on the path set by the foremothers and forefathers who brought slaves here with them or had them shipped like chained cattle.
AWKWORD In Prison
I’ve been an anti-racist and prison-reform activist my whole life, inspired by my mother (RIP), who was an incredibly successful environmental, anti-war and women’s rights activist. I believe some of my experiences further illustrate the state of the System.
- In 2000, I worked at a Connecticut city probation office, mainly charged with menial tasks. But I was there to watch, listen and learn. I saw how differently certain ex-cons were treated compared to others, how older White men were respected while younger people of color were talked down to and threatened. I also saw a few of my friends — emcees, b-boys — waiting outside to meet their probations officers. Hip Hop has always been targeted.
In 2000, I began a multi-year ‘field work’ ‘exercise’ at Green Haven Prison, a maximum security state prison in Stormville, New York, meeting with, teaching and learning from inmates working toward their potential parole and transition to society. I’m pretty sure I learned more from the inmates than they learned from me. I also learned from the guards, and from my travels across the prison, through the miles and miles of concrete, metal doors and bars.
Although we are told by our President, our members of Congress, the media, etc., that ‘we’ are doing EVERYTHING we can to prevent another 9/11, security is TIGHTER at Green Haven Prison than any airport to or from which I have ever traveled (including JFK and La Guardia in New York and Newark in New Jersey). I have metal rods/plates/pins/etc. in my left ankle, left arm and right pinky finger — and I set the metal detector off every time at Green Haven, but I have never set off an alarm at an airport. Evidently, it is more important to prevent me from smuggling cigarettes in or letters out than it is to keep a suicide bomber off your or my plane.
While walking through the dark, dingy corridors of Green Haven, I got head nods and even pounds from prisoners. They often moved to the side so I could pass. Meanwhile, the guards mean-mugged me and, to waste my time, locked doors in front of me and gave me bad directions.
The inmates shared their stories with me. They were heartbreaking, endearing, inspirational, frightening. One man, confined for life to a wheelchair, Terrence Stevens was locked away in Green Haven for a crime he really did not commit. He was put in a car that had drugs in it, the car was searched and he was sent away. Fortunately, he is one of the few whose wrongful conviction has been reversed, and he now runs In Arms Reach, a nonprofit organization serving the children of incarcerated parents. (Click here.)
In 2001 or 2002, I co-founded the Vassar College Prison Reform Group, with whom I joined hundreds of others in attempting to lobby New York State Congress for the repeal of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, the racist, classist drug laws (e.g., mandatory minimums sentences; disparities in powder cocaine v. crack sentencing) adopted in 1973 by Nelson Rockefeller, laws that helped lead the charge sweeping the nation of imprisoning anyone who, well, could be considered ‘the other’.
A few other activists and I were able to get into the office of one Congressman, a real tight-ass. He even used the cliched “they should pick themselves up from the bootstraps, like my father did.” And, to better set the stage, we were in his lavish State office, he, of course, sitting back behind his mahogany desk and we, also fittingly, in our ripped jeans, Punk Rock and Activist Hip Hop t-shirts and ratty beards and haircuts… But, it went decently, because, in some small way, with our help, the Rockefeller Drug Laws WERE repealed, at least to a degree.
In April 2009, the Rockefeller Drug Laws were revised to remove mandatory minimum sentences. This change allows judges to sentence individuals convicted of drug offences to treatment or short sentences. Also, the sentencing was made retroactive, allowing prisoners to apply to a court for re-sentencing and possibly release (Dave Canfield, “Drug Law Reforms in Place”, The Record, Troy, New York), October 8, 2009).
- In 2002, I received a fellowship grant to work in Poughkeepsie, New York, with young people at an alternative-to-incarceration center — most, recently out of prison; all, on probation. It was my responsibility to prepare a ‘class’ of about 10 for the GED exam but, though I was never disrespected, I don’t think I taught them a single thing in that setting. Occasionally, when the full-time staff didn’t have the program participants playing basketball, smoking cigarettes outside against the side of the building (shared with a church) or watching Scarface, I was able to connect with a few of the kids — most not much older than me, but with far fewer opportunities growing up. During these one-on-one sessions, I focused on what I do best: writing. I related it to rap. It worked, well. And it felt good. Until the director of the program brought me into his office and told me that I was no longer working there because I had “gotten too close to them”. As it turned out, he would have rather I did what the rest of his staff did: pretty-much nothing, unless I was piss testing a pain-in-the-ass Black or brown person.
- In 2003, I completed my Sociology senior thesis, Arm the Homeless: Homelessness & the Politics of Public Space, which spoke specifically to the criminality of homelessness and the inequality and injustice that predominantly causes it.
What does the geography of incarceration in the United States look like?
A good question, and one that I never even considered until I saw this posted on twitter… And I knew I had to return to the topic and pay particular attention to this new project from a young man studying and living in New York City (my hometown, where 88% of those stopped by police are are innocent, 87% are Black or Latino, and 51% were between the ages of 14 and 24)…
PrisonMap.com:
Prison Map is not a map — it’s a snapshot of the earth’s surface, taken at various points throughout the United States. It was made by Josh Begley, a graduate student studying Interactive Telecommunications at New York University.
The United States is the prison capital of the world. This is not news to most people. When discussing the idea of mass incarceration, we often trot out numbers and dates and charts to explain the growth of imprisonment as both a historical phenomenon and a present-day reality. But what does the geography of incarceration in the US actually look like? Prison Map is my attempt to answer that question.
Josh Begley:
The project came about in a Data Representation class with Jer Thorp at NYU. It begins from the premise that mapping the contours of the carceral state is important. A number of people and organizations have done excellent work in this regard. Among them are the Prison Policy Initiative and Prisoners of the Census. Over the past few years, they have culled together a database of seemingly mundane but hard-to-locate information: the latitude and longitude of every carceral facility in the United States (currently with the exception of WA, WV, WI, and WY). Their locator tool, which aims to identify correctional facilities counted in the 2010 census for the purposes of accuracy and redistricting, is the first database I know of to include state and federal prisons alongside local jails, detention centers, and privately-run facilities…
When using the tool, however, it was hard for me to get a sense of volume — what does it mean to have 5,000 or 6,000 people locked up in the same place? What do these carceral spaces look like? How do they transform (or get transformed by) the landscape around them?
In order to begin answering some of these questions, I started playing with satellite imagery. The Google Maps API allows you to pass any latitude and longitude into its Static Maps service, specifying parameters such as format and zoom level, and it will spit back an image of that particular location. With Jer’s help, I wrote a simple Processing sketch that would grab image tiles at various lat/lons, save them as a .jpg file, and cycle through all 4,916 facilities…
For the sake of user-friendliness, Mr. Begley includes only about 14% (700) of the photos; however, if you want to see the entire data set, you can do so here.
If you have questions or comments for Mr. Begley, e-mail him — I did, about Green Haven, and he sent me the screen shot of the google maps aerial image:
I then zoomed in on the prison entrance, where the mail comes in and gets searched, and where friends, family and people like me enter through the (aforementioned sensitive) metal detector.
In AmeriKKKA, there’s no JUSTICE, there’s just JUST-US.
A lot needs to change about our criminal (in)justice system. And I can only hope that making music (new song coming soon!) and reporting the truth helps lead us in that direction.
Peace to everyone at Green Haven, especially my homies; and, everybody locked up on some trumped-up or otherwise bullshit charges, hold ya head. We tryna get yall out.
[Van Gogh, The Exercise Yard]
We invite you to enter the 2013 William Van Dyke Short Story Prize. Please read the following submission guidelines carefully and let us know if you have any questions.
Guidelines:
- The submission deadline for the short story contest is midnight October 15th, 2012.
- The entry fee is $15 (includes a free copy of the Spring 2013 Issue).
- You may submit one short story per contest entry and it must be 5500 words or less. There is no limit on the number of entries per person.
- $1000 will be awarded to the winner and publication in the Spring 2013 Issue will be awarded to the winning story and runner-up story.
- A blind reading of all entries will be conducted by a panel of RUMINATE readers, who will select 8 short stories as finalists.
- Close friends and students (current & former) of the finalist judge are not eligible to compete. Nor are close friends or family of the Ruminate staff.
- All submissions must be submitted via our online submission form below. We will not accept mail or email submissions. We do not accept previously published entries.
- You may pay online below or mail your payment.
- Winners will be announced in the Spring Issue, March 2013.
- We will be notifying all entrants of submission status in mid-January, 2013.
- Please remove your name, bio, and any contact info from the file that you submit.
Please Note: Ruminate adheres to the following Contest Code of Ethics, as adopted by the Council of Literary Presses and Magazines, of which Ruminate is a proud member: “CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines — defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.”
Ruminate Magazine sponsors four annual writing contests: our art contest, poetry contest, short story contest, and nonfiction contest. We are one of the only Christian-minded literary magazines to sponsor short story contests, poetry contests, and nonfiction contests, and art contests. And while our contests–just like our magazine–are not defined as Christian poetry contests or Christian fiction contests or Christian essay contests, we do strive to provide a forum for the conversation between art and faith to exist and continue. Past winners from the Ruminate Magazine writing contests have been recognized by Poets & Writers Magazine and have received notable mention awards in The Best American Short Stories anthology and Best American Essays anthology. Past finalist judges of our contests include Bret Lott, David James Duncan, Luci Shaw, Vito Aiuto, Greg Wolfe, Al Haley, Stephanie G’Schwind, and Leif Enger. It is our hope our writing contests provide a significant venue for our talented contributors to receive the support and recognition they deserve.
Call for Submissions for
Songs of Sorrow:
Elegies in Honour of
Ify Agwu and Sesan Ajayi
(poetry anthology | Nigeria)
Deadline: 23 September 2012
In memory of two writers who died young (Ify Omalicha Agwu and Sesan Ajayi). We invite Young Nigerian Writers of descriptive and Creative Styles to submit entries mainly Dirge/Elegy for the Society’s forthcoming E-book anthology tagged “Songs of Sorrow” Collection of Elegies in Memory and Honour of Late Sesan Ajayi who was a Poet and Lecturer at Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye and Ify Omalicha Agwu also a Performance Poet who died earlier this year. Ify was a Poet and Lecturer in the Department of Theatre Arts, University of Ibadan. May their gentle souls rest in perfect peace. Amen.
The Anthology is meant to collect, inspire and encourage upcoming Nigerian Writers to appreciate and value the works and talents of each other and to steer-up creative young writers in the appropriate direction for the development of their interests.
SUBMISSION RULES
BENEFITS OF SUBMISSION
- Language Medium – English, Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo.
- Poetry Type – Elegy/Dirge.
- Participants should be between the ages of 10 and 35.
- Poems should be between the minimum of 20 lines and maximum of 35 lines.
- Entrants should include the followings alongside their works – Age, Location, Tel. No., A Sentence of not more than 50 words describing the poem.
- Permission to Publish your work among the shortlisted entries.
- All entries must be submitted by September 31st, 2012.
- Any signs of plagiarism will disqualify the contestant.
CONTACT INFORMATION:
- Award of Certificates of Participation to all Entrants.
- Award of Certificates of Excellence to only the shortlisted entrants.
- Publication of the shortlisted collections in electronic book format which will be found on the Society’s website and blog, obooko website, Amazon Website and takadaonlinemag.wordpress.com
For queries: contact Wole Adedoyin at 08072673852, 08183195486
For submissions: societyofyoungnigerianwriters@gmail.com, societyofyoungnigerianwriters@yahoo.com
Website: http://societyforyoungwriters.webs.com/
Thornton Writer Residency
Deadline:October 15, 2012A fourteen-week residency at Lynchburg College, including a stipend, is awarded annually to a fiction writer for the fall term and a poet or creative nonfiction writer for the spring term. The stipend amount varies annually but has in the past been $12,000. The residency also includes housing, some meals, and travel expenses. Writers who have published at least one book are eligible. The writer-in-residence teaches a weekly creative writing workshop, visits classes, and gives a public reading. Submit one copy of a book of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction, a curriculum vitae, a cover letter outlining evidence of successful teaching experience, a course proposal, and contact information for three references by October 15. There is no entry fee. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Lynchburg College, Thornton Writer Residency, c/o Julie Williams, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, 1501 Lakeside Drive, Lynchburg, VA 24501. (434) 544-8820. Allison Wilkins, Contact.
A HUEY P. NEWTON STORY
Originally born in a small town in Louisiana and later moving with his family to Oakland, California as an infant, Huey P. Newton became the co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for over 2 decades.
Director Spike Lee and Roger Guenveur Smith collaborate for the 7th time to bring Newton's thoughts, philosophies, history and flavour to life in A Huey P. Newton Story.
Produced by Luna Ray Films, A Huey P. Newton Story is the film adaptation of Smith's Obie Award-winning, off-Broadway solo performance of the same name. It was filmed before a live audience and Spike Lee directs the film with his signature mix of film and archival footage to capture the thoughts of this revolutionary political leader.
This website explores many of the subjects only briefly touched on in the film, bringing them into greater focus and creates opportunities for further investigation into the truth behind the man and the movement he founded.
He was a modern day American revolutionary.
DVD Available at Amazon.com
HUEY P. NEWTON
• August 22, 1989 Huey Percy Newton, co-founder and leader of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was fatally shot. Newton was born February 17, 1942 in Monroe, Louisiana, but raised in Oakland, California. In 1966, while at Oakland City College, he and Bobby Seale organized the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Seale became chairman while Newton became minister of defense. In 1968, Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the death of a policeman and sentenced to 2-15 years in prison. In 1970, the California Appellate Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial. After two subsequent mistrials, the State of California dropped the case. In 1977, Newton was acquitted of the murder of a prostitute after two trials ended in deadlock. In 1996, “A Huey P. Newton Story” was performed on stage by Roger Guenveur Smith. The one man play was then made into an award winning 2001 documentary film. Several biographies have been published about Newton, including “Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton” (1970) and “Huey: Spirit of the Panther” (2006).
>via: http://thewright.org/explore/blog/entry/today-in-black-history-8222012
TRIP DOWN THE MEMORY LANE
Celebrating our African historical personalities,discoveries, achievements and eras as proud people with rich culture, traditions and enlightenment spanning many years.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
HUEY P. NEWTON,
THE GREAT CIVIL RIGHTS
ACTIVIST, FOUNDER OF
AFRO-AMERICAN SOCIETY
AND CO-FOUNDER OF
THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY
‘My parents taught me to be unafraid of life and therefore unafraid of death.’
Huey P. Newton (1942-1989) founded the Afro-American Society and was a co-founder of the Black Panther Party, serving as its minister of defense during much of the 1960s. Later he turned to community service for the poor.
Huey P. Newton was born February 17, 1942, in Monroe, Louisiana. The youngest of seven children, Huey was named for former Louisiana governor Huey Pierce Long. The Newton family moved to Oakland, California, in 1945 to take advantage of the job opportunities created by World War II wartime industries.
Huey attended the Oakland public schools where, he claimed, he was made to feel “uncomfortable and ashamed of being black.” He responded by constantly and consistently defying authority, which resulted in frequent suspensions. At the age of 14, he was arrested for gun possession and vandalism. In his autobiography, Revolutionary Suicide, Newton wrote, “during those long years in the Oakland public schools, I did not have one teacher who taught me anything relevant to my own life or experience. Not one instructor ever awoke in me a desire to learn more or to question or explore the worlds of literature, science, and history. All they did was try to rob me of the sense of my own uniqueness and worth, and in the process they nearly killed my urge to inquire.”
According to Newton, he did not learn to read well until he had finished high school. “I actually learned to read—really read more than just ‘dog’ and ‘cat,’ which was about all I could do when I left high school—by listening to records of Vincent Price reading great poetry, and then looking up the poems to see how the words looked.” In order to prove that high school counselors were wrong in saying he was not college material, Newton attended Merritt College intermittently, eventually earning an Associate of Arts degree. He also studied law at Oakland City College and at San Francisco Law School.
Newton claimed he studied law to become a better burglar. He was arrested several times for minor offenses while still a teenager and he supported himself in college by burglarizing homes in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills area and running the “short change” game. In 1964, at age 22, he was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to six months in the Alameda County jail. Newton spent most of this sentence in solitary confinement, including the “soul breaker”—extreme solitary confinement.
While at Oakland City College, Newton had become politically oriented and socially conscious. He joined the Afro-American Association and played a role in getting the first black history course adopted as part of the college’s curriculum. He read the works of Frantz Fanon, Malcolm X, Chairman Mao Tse-tung, and Che Guevara. A child of the ghetto and a victim of discrimination and the “system,” Newton was very much aware of the plight of Oakland’s African-American community. Realizing that there were few organizations to speak for or represent lower class African-Americans, Newton along with Bobby Seale organized the Black Panther Party for Self Defense in October 1966, with Seale as chairman and Newton as minister of defense. Like a wary panther that would not attack unless attacked, so too was the organization regarded.
Cop-haters since childhood, Newton and Seale decided the police must be stopped from harassing Oakland’s African-Americans; in other words, to “defend the community against the aggression of the power structure, including the military and the armed might of the police.” Newton was familiar with the California penal code and the state’s law regarding weapons and was thus able to convince a number of African-Americans of their right to bear arms. Members of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense began patrolling the Oakland police. Guns were the essential ingredient on these patrols. Newton and other Black Panther members observed police procedure, ensured that African-American citizens were not abused, advised African-Americans of their rights, and posted bail for those arrested. In addition to patrolling the police, Newton and Seale were responsible for writing the Black Panther Party Platform and Program, which called for freedom, full employment, decent housing, education, and military exemption for African-Americans. But there was a darker side to the group, described in Former Panther Earl Anthony’s book, Spitting in the Winds a party created with the goal to organize America for armed revolution. Moreover, Washington, D.C., intelligence spent many years trying to bring down what they believed to be “the most violence-prone of all the extremist groups.”
Huey Newton proved to be as violent as the party he helped to create when he was thrust into the national limelight in October 1967; accused of murdering Oakland police officer John Frey. In September 1968 Newton was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to two to 15 years in prison. In May 1970 the California Appellate Court reversed Newton’s conviction and ordered a new trial. After two more trials the State of California dropped its case against Newton, citing technicalities including the judge’s failure to relay proper instructions to the jury.
After his release from prison Newton overhauled the Black Panther Party, revised its program, and changed its rhetoric. While he had been imprisoned, party membership had decreased significantly in several cities, and the FBI had started a campaign to disrupt and eventually bring down the Black Panthers. Abandoning its Marxist-Leninist ideology, Newton now concentrated on community survival programs. The Black Panthers sponsored a free breakfast program for children, sickle-cell anemia tests, free food and shoes, and a school, the Samuel Napier Intercommunal Youth Institute. However, as before, the Black Panthers were not without controversy. Funding for several of their programs were raised as the result of the co-operation of drug dealers and prostitution rings.
Newton tried to shed his image as a firebreathing revolutionary, but he continued to have difficulty with the police. In 1974 several assault charges were filed against him, and he was also accused of murdering a 17-year-old prostitute, Kathleen Smith. Newton failed to make his court appearance. His bail was revoked, a bench warrant issued, and his name added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most wanted list. Newton had jumped bail and escaped to Cuba, where he spent three years in exile. In Cuba he worked as a machinist and teacher. He returned home in 1977 to face murder charges because, he said, the climate in the United States had changed and he believed he could get a fair trial. He was acquitted of the murder of Kathleen Smith after two juries were deadlocked.
In addition to organizing the Black Panther Party and serving as its minister of defense, Newton unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party in 1968. In 1971, between his second and third trials for the murder of John Frey, he visited China for ten days, where he met with Premier Chou En-lai and Chiang Ch’ing, the wife of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. While there he was offered political asylum. Newton studied for a Ph.D. in the history of social consciousness at the University of California in 1978. In 1985 the 43-year-old Newton was arrested for embezzling state and federal funds from the Black Panthers’ community education and nutrition programs. In 1989 he was convicted of embezzling funds from a school run by the Black Panthers, supposedly to support his alcohol and drug addictions. By this time the Panthers had turned to less violent activism. On August 22, 1989, Huey Newton was shot dead in Oakland, supposedly over a drug dispute. ironically in the same city streets of Oakland that saw the rise of the Black Panthers 23 years ago
Source: : http://www.africawithin.com/bios/huey_newton.htm
The young and radical Huey!
As a great inspirational leader of his time,Huey Newton co-founder of the Black Panther Party took opportunity to address the contentious issue of Gay Rights. In August 15 1970he gave this speech:
"During the past few years strong movements have developed among women and among homosexuals seeking their liberation. There has been some uncertainty about how to relate to these movements.
Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about
homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion.
I say ” whatever your insecurities are” because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the
mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the women or shut her up because we are afraid that she
might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start
with.
We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and
feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude
that the White racists use against our people because they are Black
and poor. Many times the poorest White person is the most racist
because he is afraid that he might lose something, or discover
something that he does not have. So you’re some kind of a threat to
him. This kind of psychology is in operation when we view oppressed people and we are angry with them because of their particular kind of behavior, or their particular kind of deviation from the established
norm.
Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever
constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say
offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should
make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women’s right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppresed people in the society.
And what made them homosexual? Perhaps it’s a phenomenon that I don’t understand entirely. Some people say that it is the decadence of
capitalism. I don’t know if that is the case; I rather doubt it. But whatever the case is, we know that homosexuality is a fact that exists, and we must understand it in its purest form: that is, a person should have the freedom to use his body in whatever way he wants.
That is not endorsing things in homosexuality that we wouldn’t view as revolutionary. But there is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot
also be a revolutionary. And maybe I’m now injecting some of my
prejudice by saying that “even a homosexual can be a revolutionary.”
Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most
revolutionary.
When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women’s liberation movement. Some groups might be more revolutionary than others. We should not use the actions of a few to
say that they are all reactionary or counterrevolutionary, because they are not.
We should deal with the factions just as we deal with any other group or party that claims to be revolutionary. We should try to judge, somehow, whether they are operating in a sincere revolutionary fashion and from a really oppressed situation. (And we will grant that if they are women they are probably oppressed.) If they do things that are unrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary, then criticize that action.
If we feel that the group in spirit means to be revolutionary in practice, but they make mistakes in interpretation of the revolutionary philosophy, or they do not understand the dialectics of the social forces in operation, we should criticize that and not criticize them because they are women trying to be free. And the same is true for homosexuals. We should never say a whole movement is dishonest when in fact they are trying to be honest. They are just making honest mistakes. Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake, and we suffer from it. But the women’s liberation front and gay liberation front are our friends, they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible.
We should be willing to discuss the insecurities that many people have about homosexuality. When I say “insecurities,” I mean the fear that they are some kind of threat to our manhood. I can understand this fear. Because of the long conditioning process which builds insecurity in the American male, homosexuality might produce certain hang-ups in us. I have hang-ups myself about male homosexuality. But on the other hand, I have no hang-up about female homosexuality. And that is a phenomenon in itself. I think it is probably because male homosexuality is a threat to me and female homosexuality is not.
We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms “faggot” and “punk” should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people. We should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women’s liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most appropriate manner."As a radical revolutionary civil right activist,Huey was also a crowd puller as his clenching fist was always adored by his admirers.
Here is a video of William Buckley interview with the iconic revolutionary activist on Filing line. It shows that the intellectual hardcore Huey was a shy person.Huey P. Newton, national defense minister of the Black Panther Party, raises his clenched fist behind the podium as he speaks at a convention sponsored by the Black Panthers at Temple University’s McGonigle Hall in Philadelphia, Pa., Saturday, Sept. 5, 1970. He is surrounded by security guards of the movement. The audience gathered is estimated at 6,000 with another thousand outside the crowded hall. (AP Photo)
Newton, right, with Black Panther Party co-founder BobbyIn possibly more ways than not, Newton saw the gun as a vehicle for rhetoric rather than a vehicle for violence. It was supposed to get people looking and thinking. Despite his insistence that violent armed struggle would be necessary for a revolution, as well as his own conflicts with violence, in truth Newton had hoped that the gun itself would be enough to force the oppressors back, not the actions of the gun. Violence was only necessary when in self-defense, not in aggression. Many Americans both within and at large had trouble understanding the true meaning of armed self-defense and the gun was seen and used as a means of violence, not as symbol for empowerment and self-determination.
[To Huey Newton when it comes to the issue of fighting for the freedom of the black people, he was never a "Pacifist." He is one great leader if one likes his him or not, the world ought to pay tribute to him for his brave and selfless fight for racial equality.
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PRELUDE TO REVOLUTION
