Troy Davis One Year Later: Execution Fuels National Movement to Abolish Death Penalty

Democracy Now 

We speak with three people who joined us for our special live broadcast on the night Troy Davis was executed in Jackson, Georgia, including his sister, Kimberly Davis. "This is a tough time both for me and my family, but as my brother said, he always wanted us to continue the fight and to keep the faith, and that's what we've been doing," Kimberly Davis says. As Texas executed its eighth prisoner of the year on Thursday, Californians are set to vote this November on abolishing capital punishment. We discuss the legacy of Troy Davis and how his case has fueled the anti-death penalty movement with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and Laura Moye of Amnesty International USA. "We know that Troy Davis was not the first person who had not killed anybody to be put to death in this country, and he won't be the last," Jealous says. Moye also gives us an update on the case of Missouri death-row prisoner Reggie Clemons, whom many are comparing to Troy Davis.

From the Digital Crate: "What if the Greensboro Four had Twitter?"

From the Digital Crate: What If the Greensboro Four Had Twitter?

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

February 1^st marks the anniversary of what I like to refer to as one of the greatest days in American History.  On that day in 1960, four young Black men—Joseph  McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and David Richmond—all first year students at HBCU North Carolina A&T, sat at a Whites only lunch counter at a  Woolworth’s department store in Greensboro, North Carolina.  

This protest—formally known as a sit-in—began weeks of similar protests, that went viral throughout the American South in ways that mirror the functions of today’s social media.  The Greensboro sit-ins are widely remembered as the moment of activism that gave renewed energy and vigor to a Civil Rights Movement that was sputtering after the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

The Greensboro Four, of course, did not have access to social media such as Twitter and Facebook, but nevertheless utilized what would have been the accessible technology of the days like land-lines, good-old fashion word of mouth, and what was really the cutting edge technology of the day: a mimeograph machine.  Those young folk, who would months after Greensboro, go on to create the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), under the watchful eye of Ella Jo Baker, understood technology, including television, as simply one of the tools they employed to make their case.

Civil Rights activist brilliantly exploited television cameras, helping to bring the marches in the streets straight into the living rooms of average Americans, whether they wanted to see it or not.  Many activists from the era point to the role that televised footage of young Black Americans being hosed down and attacked by police dogs played in generating sympathy for a nation that had been largely indifferent.

The spirit of the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s and the role that technology played during that time has been recalled in the last year with regards to the Georgia Prison Strike, the Arab Spring, the #Occupy Movement and the State murder of Troy Davis. 

Whereas prisoners in Georgia State prisons used disposable cell phones to organize non-violent protest via text messaging, Twitter and Facebook have been critical tools for the largely young folks taking to the streets in the Middle East.  In these cases, the ruling governments responded by shutting down internet access and eventually cell phone and traditional land-line coverage when protestors resorted to old-school forms of communication.

Among Black social media users in the United States, Twitter and Facebook were utilized by those  who created on-line petitions to protest an Ohio court decision to convict Kelly Williams-Bolar of “fraud” in response to her attempt to establish a second residency in a better school district for her two daughters, as was also the case with the highly visible efforts to save Troy Davis’ life  The efforts among, Black “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” (like myself) mirror recent advocacy efforts for the Jena 6, the Scott Sisters, and Haitian Earthquake relief—efforts that challenge perceptions that social media only  has a mind-numbing effect on young people.

Recalling the efforts in support of Williams-Bolar, critic and scholar  Kyra D. Gaunt acknowledged that “Twitter came along it felt like a change to me.”  Still it’s important to remember that, Social Media is simply a tool that connects to the long established human desire to resist oppression and suppression. 

As young folk, in particular, find more innovative and effective forms of Social Media, there will be those who seek to co-opt it for other designs.  50 years ago, Black radio was an important cog in the ability for organizers to get their message out to the Black masses, yet one would be hard pressed to think of Radio One—the largest Black-owned radio company—playing such a role in this environment. 

As the events quickly unfold throughout the world, it will become clear that many are looking at Social Media in a new light, whether its Twitter, Facebook or the memories of four young men sitting at a lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. 

***

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking for Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities (New York University Press) and Professor of African & African-American Studies at Duke University. He is founder and managing editor of NewBlackMan and host of the weekly webcast Left of Black. Follow him on Twitter @NewBlackMan.

The Year in ‘Race Matters’

The Year in ‘Race Matters’

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackman

Colorlines recently published a 90 second video summarizing the year in race, an amazing feet given what has happened over the year.  Statistical measurements define 2011, in many ways:

·        45 percent of the 131,000 homeless veterans in America are African-American

·        26 percent of African American families earn less than $15,000

·        1 in 9 African Americans live in neighborhoods where 40%+ of its residents live in poverty

·    Black women earn 68 cents for every dollar earned by men; for Latinas this number is 59 centers

·        16.2 percent of African Americans are unemployed

·        17.5 percent of black males are unemployed; 41 percent of black teenagers are without a job

·      11.4 percent of Latinos are unemployed; 21.3% of Alaska Natives and 19.3% of members of Midwest indigenous communities are unemployed

·        In 2011, blacks and Latino were twice as likely to face home foreclosures

·    “Between January and June of 2011, the United States carried out more than 46,000 deportations of the parents of U.S.-citizen children”

Yet, meaning of this year transcends these numbers.  We have seen ample intrusions of blatant racism into the public square.  I recently wrote about this, arguing:

In Two-Faced Racism, Leslie Picca and Joe Feagin explore the ways in which racial performances are carried in both the frontstage (integrated and multiracial public spaces) and the backstage (those private/semi-private all-white spaces where race talk and racist ideas reveal themselves in profound ways).  Their research found that the backstage offers whites a place to “perform, practice, learn, reinforce, and maintain racist views of and inclinations toward people of color.  These views and inclinations play a central role in generating and maintaining the overt and covert racial discrimination that is still commonplace in major institutions of this society” (27-28). 

Increasingly, however, the frontstage is replacing the backstage whereupon whites are publicly performing, learning, reinforcing and maintaining their racist views toward people of color.  Evident in college students donning blackface and then putting pictures online, evident in Gene Marks, Newt Ginrich, Donald Trump and their reactionary pals lamenting the laziness of black youth, evident in the usage of the N-word, evident in white-only movie screenings and white-only swimming pools, the lines between the frontstage and the backstage are blurring before our eyes.   In other words, the frontstage is now the backstage, leaving me to wonder what sorts of ideologies, stereotypes and racial talk is transpiring in backstage.  Or maybe, in a “post-racial America,” widespread racism has returned (did it ever leave?) to the frontstage thereby illustrating the importance of challenging and resisting in each and every location.

From Rep. Doug Lamborn referring to President Obama as a “tar baby” and Brent Bonzell describing President Obama as “a skinny, ghetto crackhead” to Fox’s headline for President Obama’s birthday party –“Obama's Hip-Hop BBQ Didn't Create Jobs” and Eric Bolling “criticizing” President Obama for “chugging 40's in IRE while tornadoes ravage MO,” there have been ample examples of the ways in which public expressions of racism have defined the 2011 political sphere.  The racism and sexism directed at Michelle Obama (just one example) and the astounding types of political commercials (just one example) are also evident of the ways in which violent rhetoric has dominated the public square.

Not surprisingly, Rush Limbaugh (calling President Obama a “oreo cookie” and Michelle Obama as “uppity”), Ann Coulter (“our blacks are better than theirs”), Pat Buchannan (“Blacks bought a lot of propaganda of the liberal plantation”), amongst others, all illustrate the ways in which racist language and ideologies define the nature of political discourse during 2011.  Beyond the ample instances of racism, it is important to see beyond the starling ease that racism operates within the public square to look at the ways race plays out within the deployed narratives and ideologies. 

Take Pat Buchannan, who reminisced for Jim Crow during 2011: “Back then, black and white lived apart, went to different schools and churches, played on different playgrounds, and went to different restaurants, bars, theaters, and soda fountains. But we shared a country and a culture. We were one nation. We were Americans.”  In language and the vision for America, race defined the past year (and the years before).

The last year has also seen quite a bit of recycling.  From the Moynihan Report and culture of poverty, to bootstraps ideology and efforts to blame the poor, 2011 has seen a comeback (not that these racist narratives ever went away) of these troubling ideas.  Two of the most illustrative examples were Newt Gingrich and Gene Marks.  Gingrich, who has made a career of race baiting (calling President Obama a “food stamp president” and one defined by a “‘Kenyan, anti-colonial worldview’”), recently offered policy prescriptions to deal with black unemployment: teach black youth the value of work.  He stated:

Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working.  And have nobody around them who works. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash’-unless it’s illegal.  What if you paid them part time in the afternoon, to sit at the clerical office and greet people when they came in?  What if you paid them to work as the assistant librarian. What if they were the assistant janitor, and carried a mop?

Deploying longstanding stereotypes about black laziness and criminality, all while crafting economic policy based on bootstrapism, Ginrich shows how 2011 has been so much about sampling and redeploying the racist ideologies of yesteryear.  Gene Marks, whose article prompted widespread condemnation because of its paternalistic tone and acceptance of widespread stereotypes, is equally reflective of this trend.

I am not a poor black kid.  I am a middle aged white guy who comes from a middle class white background.  So life was easier for me.  But that doesn’t mean that the prospects are impossible for those kids from the inner city.  It doesn’t mean that there are no opportunities for them. I believe that everyone in this country has a chance to succeed.  Still.  In 2011.  Even a poor black kid in West Philadelphia.

 

The racism of 2011 has not been limited to the political sphere, amongst punditry and politicians, but has been visible throughout society.  Evident in a teacher calling black and Latino first graders “future criminals,” Alexandra Wallace’s racist diatribe against Asians, Psychology Today’s racist article about black women, billboards charging “abortion-as-black- genocide,” and a high school coach referring to a black player as “a future welfare recipient,” racist talk and imagery has been visible throughout the year.  We have seen Lowes’ refusal to run advertisements during All-American Muslim and the Right’s demonization of Nightrunner, “DC Muslim Batman of Paris.” 

Amid the denials and the claims that whites face ample discrimination, the level of racial animus and the level of rhetorical violence during 2011 have been revealing.  The lack reflexivity and the hegemony of white privilege, with the use of the N-Word during Slut Walk, is telling about this year (see here for an apology).  In fact, 2011 has seen ample instances of the N-Word within the public square, from high school girls chanting it before their game to the recent slur directed at Rihanna.

Of course, 2011 has seen the violence and the injustices of racism in policy.  In the execution of Troy Davis, in the systemic deportations of undocumented mothers and fathers, in the judicial assault on ethnic studies, in the anti-immigrant policies of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina,  and Indiana, in the many instances of police brutality, the persistence of racial profiling,  and the number of hate groups surpassing 1,000, this year has seen ample evidence of the fallacy of a post-racial America.

The prosecution and sentencing of, and the struggle for justice for, Kelly Williams-Bolar is emblematic of many issues surrounding race in 2011.  From the criminalization of people of color and the demonization of women of color, to educational inequalities and the generation of kids behind left behind, her case teaches us much about the continued struggle for civil rights in 2^nd decade of the twenty-first century.  Jamilah King described the case in the following way:

Just in case you haven’t seen this story blow up on your social network this week: Kelley Williams-Bolar is headed to an Ohio jail. The mother of two was sentenced this week to 10 days in jail, three years of probation, and 80 hours of community service. Her crime? Sending her two daughters to an out-of-district school. . . .

              

It’s an infuriating case, especially for anyone who’s even remotely familiar with educational inequity in this country. America still hasn’t made good on its half-century promise to desegregateits public schools, and academic achievement can almost always be measured by zip code.

The demonization of women of color extended into the realm of popular culture as well.

2011 was also the year of The Help, a film that recycled the hegemonic Hollywood trope of “white love” (h/t Elon James White) and racial redemption all while sanitizing the black freedom struggle.  Yet, it was also a year defined by the many powerful responses to this film; these effort resisted and challenged the film’s (mis)representation of black women’s work, segregation, social justice, and countless other issues.  From the Association of Black Woman Historians’ powerful statement to the many articles from black scholars – Dutchess Harris, Rebecca Wanzo, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan, Martha Southgate, Mark Anthony Neal, Aishah Shahidah Simmons,  Melissa Harris-Perry, and Honorée Fanonne Jeffers – many voices have challenged the narrative and representations offered by The Help, refusing to accept the cultural politics of the mainstream.  Yet, 2011 has also seen the release of Pariah, a film that explores the experience of a young black lesbian struggling for acceptance within her family and society at large.  Whereas The Help represents blackness as accessory, as the help, Pariahreminds audiences of the power and beauty of black identity, highlighting heterogeneity, diversity, and humanity.   

2011 has seen ample moments of resistance, a refusal to accept and tolerate racism, sexism, and homophobia.  It has been a year of “speaking truth to power” and refusing the dominant narrative.  Following the airing of ABC’s 20/20 special entitled “Children of the Plains,” a group of Native American students from South Dakota produced their own video that refused the images and messages offered in the show: “I know what you probably think of us…we saw the special too. Maybe you saw a picture, or read an article. But we want you to know, we’re more than that…we have so much more than poverty.”  Then there were the students from Ohio University, who launched the “We are a culture not a costume” campaign to protest the racist stereotypes and racist images so prominent during Halloween.  Youth in Californiaand Alabamafought vigorously to change the tide against anti-immigrant racism.  Hotel workers in New Yorkprotested Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the victimization of Nafissatou Diallo. And so much more.

The power of new media as a space of resistance has been on full-display, whether the consciousness raising happening on twitter and Facebook, or the ways in which Jay Smooth, Jasiri X, Issa Rae, Amie Breeze Harper, Ariana Proehl. Scholars like Alondra Nelson, Koritha Mitchell, Nicole Fleetwood, Danielle McGwire, Kellie Jones, Evie Shockey, and Manning Marable (who we lost this year) have also published important works that advance the study of race, gender, and sexuality in both history and our current moment.  In the face of erasure, dehumanization, and persistent inequalities, scholars and artists (see Lisa Thompson’s discussion of black women in theater), activists and organizers, and people from community big and small have met the racism and injustice with force.  There has been so much to challenge in 2011 yet the many instances of injustice have not killed our “freedom dreams.”  While these dreams will be deferred until 2012, the struggle will continue.   

***

David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman. He has written on sport, video games, film, and social movements, appearing in both popular and academic mediums. His work explores the political economy of popular culture, examining the interplay between racism, state violence, and popular representations through contextual, textual, and subtextual analysis.  Leonard’s latest book After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness will be published by SUNY Press in May of 2012.

Belly of the Beast: From Durham to Wall Street

Belly of the Beast: From Durham to Wall Street

by Lamont Lilly | special to NewBlackMan

The scene was a perfect storm of organized chaos.  Here were the young and old, students & workers, immigrants and oppressed, all addressing the failures of capitalism’s current worldwide crisis, outlining the destructive forces of global banking systems and highlighting the lack of communal values in a place that loves to cry patriotism. Right-winged conservative press would have you to believe that the only “fanatics” there were Ivy League white college kids—the privileged and idle-minded, or simply a cadre of recent graduates who have yet to find jobs after completing Master’s Degrees. But that wasn’t true at all.  The idea of occupying Wall Street may have begun as a young white thing, but by the time we arrived on the evening of October 8^th, there were participants of all nations, all races and all ages—raising a range of pertinent issues.

There were Haitians from the Bronx who had marched the George Washington Bridge earlier that day in a show of solidarity. There were domestic and sanitation workers from Queens. There were the unions and labor organizations from all over the country—Working Class adults who currently live the effects of capitalism from the front line, Blue-collar folks whose wages have been decimated by the manipulation of global markets, international corporatism and “Third World” exploitation. For this one night, I was living what Democracy really looks like: the common masses united in a single front.

Creatively illustrated cardboard was everywhere. Homemade signs and justice banners waited on deck for live action. While some were large and others were small, all were quite grand in stature, bearing sharp demands and philosophical ideals such as “Books not Bombs” and “Stop the War on the Poor.”  It was a true Who’s Who of change slogans.  There were also posters of Troy Davis and Mumia Abu-Jamal.  However, nearly everyone possessed an anti-capitalist placard of some sort. The LGBT community was also in full-effect, but that was merely the surface.

There, within this tightly restricted park-ground was everything a revolutionary would need for a couple of months, that is, aside from a public restroom. There were mass water dispensers and community chow lines, a first aid station equipped with medics, and an immense library for learning and entertainment. There were sleeping bags, tents and thinly padded nap mats for rest and relaxation. There was art and music, love and hope. There was one common cause and one loud voice: The People.  No lobbyists or politicians were allowed. No bureaucrats or corporate bourgeoisie were welcomed.

Sure, to some, it was a festival. While walking around attempting to find a place to post my belongings, I ran across what appeared to be an old makeshift reggae band—four middle-aged white men with golden locked hair and long beards, sitting on the ground with their guitars, fumbling through Bob Marley’s, “Redemption Song.” I jumped in, considering they only knew half the words to one of my personal favorites.  There I was, howling to the top of my lungs with four strangers. We were 30 yards from the Occupy Wall Street drummers.

However, on the North End there were serious politics being discussed.  I was completely awed by their covert development of order and social structure.  Formally entitled, The General Assembly, there were 500 or so people tightly interwoven in a scattered circle, Indian style.

There were no microphones. Yet, all could be heard via the systematic rippling effect where each phrase was repeated backwards, twice. There was no President or Speaker of the House to go through in order to be heard—no political red tape to be understood.  Here, any man, woman or child who wanted to address the masses was permitted to do so by simply waiting behind “the podium,” (a small group of steep opal-shaped steps perpendicular from the street).

During the Assembly, it was clear that a wide array of interests were there in attendance. However, I don’t recall one time there being any certain individual or targeted companies mentioned. It wasn’t about hate or animosity, at least not that particular night. It encompassed more of a rallying of sociopolitical thought, a brewing of further direction—a galvanization based on commonality and mutual strands of oppression. Spirits were high and emotions were free. For those who’ve grown up in the Black Church, it was the embodiment of a Pentecostal Worship Service, a Holy Ghost hour, primarily reserved for Human Rights activists, anti-capitalists and concerned citizens at-large. Of course Dr. King would have supported the Occupy Movement.  These were some of the same issues MLK advocated for through his, Poor People’s Campaign in the spring of 1968—through his efforts with the Sanitation workers in Memphis, TN.

Purpose and the Point

What the general public or your casual Fox News consumer has failed to understand, is the power of struggle and its catalytic ability to unite the oppressed and disenfranchised.  These whirlwinds of local protests sprouting across the country aren’t simply about disproportionate tax benefits, financial inequality and corporate greed. It’s far bigger than just the “rich and poor.” The complexities of the issues are much more intertwined than that. This is about the mismanagement of Human Capital—the manipulation of the common masses worldwide. This is about the audacity of the “haves” who obviously don’t give a damn, who could care less whether your home was foreclosed last year or not, or whether your daughter had a decent meal at her public school today. The 1% aren’t concerned with Racism, Sexism and Homophobia. Worker’s Rights doesn’t affect them.  Social class is nonexistent from the elite’s perspective. Homeless veterans are “no such thing,” while universal healthcare is considered a “waste of money.” But really, what else should we expect from a socioeconomic system that breeds such chiseled individualism?  It’s me, me, me, with an emphasis on “I.”

However, there’s something uniquely rugged about this generation. We were the “Crack Babies,” the children of Ronald Reagan. Growing up in the 80’s, we witnessed first-hand how greed drives poverty, and in turn, how poverty perpetuates crime. We understand fully that within our current social fabric, someone’s always going to lose.  We ARE the Prison Industrial Complex!  And we’re the same ones who keep being told educational funds have run dry. Yet, we operate under the guise of a government that somehow finds scores of resources for military occupations.

This isn’t about demands, folks. The Occupy Phenomenon is really about the People reclaiming our own destiny, producing our own change from the ground-up. “Occupying” is about the connection of ALL oppressed people. Ultimately, what we desire is something better than the flesh-eating machine we’ve been feeding since Reaganomics.  It’s been eating us from the inside out for three decades now, patiently preying upon the same Proletariat and Underclass that helped to build and stabilize it.

Some have deemed the Occupy Movement, a leaderless struggle, but that’s the whole point.  We’re all leaders and should be respected as such—not lied to, cheated on and outright deceived by state-sponsored pimps swindling billions from the few crumbs we do have. Well, “We the People,” have decided it’s time to represent ourselves, whether it’s Raleigh or Wall Street. We’re tired of being Wage Slaves.  We’re tired of our jobs skipping town for open borders and vast NAFTA experiments. We’re also tired of a justice system that bears no resemblance of justice, at least not from Oscar Grant’s perspective. Yet, Republicans and Democrats alike wonder why the People are taking to the street. Probably because that’s the one place they never come.  Power to the People! Power to the Street!

***

Lamont Lilly is a contributing editor with the Triangle Free Press who recently served as an organizer with Cynthia McKinney’s 2011, “Report from Libya Tour.”  He is also a columnist for the African American Voice and Spectacular Magazine.  He resides in Durham, NC.

President Obama’s Silence on Troy Davis Execution Emboldens Young Progressives

President Obama’s Silence on Troy Davis Execution Emboldens Young Progressives

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan

The refusal of President Obama to commute Troy Davis’s death sentence, or even ask local authorities to postpone his execution, brings to a decisive end the faltering romance with the President among young Americans, freeing them to lead much needed justice movements on their own.

It would be a mistake to regard young Americans of this generation as politically passive. It was their energy and idealism that drove the remarkable and unexpected victory over Hilary Clinton in the Democratic Primary, and the history making campaign that made Barack Obama our first African American president.

It was understandable, given the atmosphere of that campaign and the idealistic, activist rhetoric candidate Obama employed to excite hopes of an American Renewal ( “Yes We Can”) that many young people relaxed after the election, assuming their future was in good hands and that the vision of a just society which drove them to participate in the campaign would drive the President’s policies.

Over the last three years, that expectation of moral leadership has been disappointed on many fronts. The huge expenditure  to bail out the banks, the failure to mount an effective jobs campaign, the refusal to fight for a public option in the  health care plan,  the continuation of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most recently, the  acceptance of a budget compromise which eviscerated programs ranging from student loans, to public radio, to environmental projects made the President seem as though he lacked a moral compass, or worse yet, was unwilling to challenge policies which might jeopardize his election chances or hurt the interests of his  Wall Street donors.

The President’s compromises and evasions, coming at a time when poverty rates were growing, the racial wealth gap was escalating, and young people, whether educated or not faced the worst job market since the Depression,  left many young people confused and demoralized.  Many could not believe what was happening to them economically; they were still hoping that the economy would correct itself, or the President they had placed so much hope in would find some way of righting the ship that was sinking around them.

But while disappointment with the President was growing, the political warfare waged against him by the Republicans, particularly after the 2010 Congressional elections, left him with a residue of credibility.  Weren’t the President’s opponents responsible for the tepid and ineffective policies coming out of Washington.  Didn’t Republicans try to obstruct every positive initiative he tried to launch, from asking the wealthy to pay their fair share of taxes, to rebuilding the crumbling American infra structure.

Enter the Troy Davis case. Here was a defendant who had been on death row for twenty years, insisting on his innocence, while the witnesses against him were steadily recanting their testimony.  The thought of executing someone with this much doubt surrounding his conviction had created a worldwide protest movement involving millions of people around the world, not just because of the cruelty of capital punishment and the injustice of this particular case,, but because of the disproportionate application of the death penalty in the US to poor people and people of color.

To many young people in this country, and elsewhere, the execution of Troy Davis was a moral wrong of startling clarity, and given the hopes they had invested in Barack Obama when he ran for President, they expected him, at the very least to speak out against Troy Davis’s execution, and if possible, to use his power to stop it.

When the President did neither, and Troy Davis died, Barack Obama’s image as a visionary leader died with it.

But in this case, the cloud had a sliver lining.

While Troy Davis courage in the face of state murder inspired young people to fight harder against injustice, Barack Obama’s  silence freed them to lead themselves. No longer could they expect someone in a position of power to stand up for the weak and powerless, to confront deeply entrenched patterns of racial and economic equality, or even insure that young people in this country would have a secure economic future

If there was going to be a fight on all those fronts, it would have to be led by young people themselves, in the streets as well as in the political arena, and they would have to fight harder than they had ever fought in their life.

The Wall Street occupation currently taking place is a sign that more and more young people have gotten this message.

While they may—or  may not—give  their vote to Barack Obama in 2012,  they most important thing they will be doing will be acting collectively to change the course of American and world history, and in doing so they will have lots of solidarity and support from young activists around the world facing similar problems.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

“I Am…”: Troy Davis, Fred Hampton and the Black Freedom Movement

“I Am…”: Troy Davis, Fred Hampton and the Black Freedom Movement

by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

The State has acted in the case of Troy Anthony Davis and in many ways that was never in doubt; it acted as it has always acted.  What was never really clear, is whether we all had the resolve to respond.  The more than half-million signatures that were generated on behalf of Davis (largely via social media), the re-engagement of the NAACP under the leadership of Ben Jealous, and the stellar on-the-ground coverage of the State murder of Davis by Amy Goodman and Democracy Now are just a few examples that we still do have the capacity to build, organize and resist.  That we need to sustain these efforts on behalf of social justice goes without saying.

I was most struck though, by the many images of signs, tee-shirts and Facebook pages that declared “I Am Troy Davis”—images that circulated within logics particular to this moment of social media and the market forces that frame so much of our visual culture and our political activities.  Anybody could imagine themselves as a political progressive if they simply wore a t-shirt.   Yet, instead the invocation of “I Am Troy Davis” took me back to another historical era of mass political resistance.

Black Panther member Fred Hampton was murdered by the State, at roughly the same age as Troy Davis, when the latter was initially arrested for the murder of  police officer Mark MacPhail.  Unlike Davis, who was arguably tried in front of a jury of his peers, Hampton was gunned down by the Chicago Police Department in concert with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (under the directorship of J. Edgar Hoover) in the early morning hours in what poet and publisher Haki Madhubuti has called a “one-sided shootout.”  Hampton’s crime was, ultimately, being one of the youngest and most effective organizers within the Black Freedom Movement of the late 1960s. 

The attack on Hampton, which included the use of a Black FBI informant, was intended to highlight the so-called violent nature of the Black Panther Party and was firmly in line with the FBI’s preference to remove effective local leadership, before they ascended to the national stage.  The plan backfired when the house that Hampton and comrade Mark Clark were murdered in was left open for public viewing, allowing for independent forensic experts to discover that  the vast majority of the gunfire came from the police officers; the party members in the house fired one bullet in self defense.

Though Hampton’s story was long known among Chicago residents and veterans of the Black Freedom Movement, a new generation became aware with the broadcast of the ground-breaking documentary series Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement 1954-1985.  The episode “A Nation of Law, 1968-1971” specifically examines the acts of repression visited upon the Black Freedom Movement by the State, including the murder of Hampton and the put down of the Attica prison revolt. 

One of the episode’s respondents, Father George Clements, had been named the first Black priest at Chicago’s Holy Angels Catholic Church in Chicago in June of 1969, six months before Hampton’s murder.  In the episode Clements recalls a mass he held in response to Hampton’s killing:

“in the midst of this mass, I was trying to explain to our children, we had all the school children there, all 1,300, and I was trying to explain to them the importance of Fred. And I wasn't getting through, at least I felt like I wasn't getting through. And in the midst of my explanation, I just burst into tears. And the next thing I knew was here was one of our 8th grade boys. He jumped up and he said, "I am Fred Hampton." And then a girl in the 6th grade, she jumps up and says, "I am Fred Hampton." Another kid in first grade, "I'm Fred Hampton." And before you knew it, the whole church, kids were all shouting, "I am Fred Hampton."

Father Clements’ recollection speaks to the power of the very idea of a Fred Hampton, as the late political leader was very much a prototype for the next generation of Black political leadership in the 1970s and the very reason he had to be destroyed.  By the time Hampton’s story is told via Eyes on the Prize, the Black Freedom Movement as it existed at the end of Hampton’s life had been largely—and effectively—neutralized by the very State forces responsible for his death, more formally known as the FBI’s covert counter intelligence program or COINTELPRO.

The value of consciousness raising by hip-hop artists in the 1980s, notably Black Power child, Chuck D (Carlton Douglas Ridenhour), was that the very practices of sampling that allowed hip-hop to mine the sonic history of American music was also used to piece together a history of Black radicalism and resistance; a generation of American youth were introduced to figures like Joanne Chesimard—Assata Shakur—and Malcolm X. 

It was this element of hip-hop that filmmaker Spike Lee increasingly made use of in his own films, and as such, Lee drew reference to Clements’ story about Fred Hampton in the closing montage of his film Malcolm X.   In scenes shot in South Africa and Harlem, NY, Lee captured young students, encouraged by the actress Mary Alice and a just released Nelson Mandela, standing from their seats shouting “I Am Malcolm X.”  It was a brilliant piece of cinematic layering that allowed for a recognition of a broader reality of Black loss and trauma.

Unfortunately in the hands of Madison Avenue advertisers, Lee’s spark of creativity was little more than a gimmick, that they later deployed in the name of a “Cablinasian” professional golfer, who had no more interest in the history of Black radicalism than he did embracing the post-racial project, even as he become the defining symbol (before our current President) for that project within a neo-liberal meritocracy.   The subsequent “I am Tiger Woods” campaign which Nike ran in the aftermath of Woods’ historic win at the Master’s Tournament in 1997, effectively silenced the voices of those girls  and boys who stood up in Holy Angels Catholic Church chanting Fred Hampton’s name, and the legacy of the movement that their voices embodied.

And yet in September of 2011, Fred Hampton is again recalled, this time in another symbol of the State’s will towards violence.  Most heartening were images of Davis’ nephew De’Jaun Correia, a reminder that the State murder of Troy Davis can serve as his generation’s River Jordan, a possibility that was also reflected in the photoof Howard University students, mouths taped in silent protest, effectively mocking the first Black President for his own silence on the matter of Troy Davis.  May a generation be renewed in the aftermath of Davis’ death.

Kevin Alexander Gray on State Violence and the Murder of Troy Anthony Davis

Kevin Alexander Gray, author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics, spoke to Dennis Bernstein of KPFA Flashpoints Radio about state violence and the Georgia State murder of Troy Anthony Davis.

A Generation Renewed?

Howard Students Protest Troy Davis Execution

by Jeremy Borden and Clarence Williams | The Washington Post

A total of 13 people from Howard University — one a professor and the rest, students — were arrested outside the White House Wednesday while protesting the pending execution of Georgia inmate Troy Davis.

Soon after protesters arrived, police cordoned off the sidewalk area in front of the White House and moved them into Lafayette Square, students and witnesses said. More than a dozen students, along with a Howard English professor, sat along the fence and refused to move, said Marcus Ware, a third-year law student and one of the protest’s organizers.

The protesters felt strongly about their right to position themselves against the White House fence, other witnesses said.

Police gave the students and the professor three warnings to move, before arresting them, Ware said.

Twelve people were arrested for failure to obey a lawful police order, and the professor was arrested for crossing a police line, said Sgt. David Schlosser, a U.S. Park Police spokesman.

Protesters were later allowed back in front of the White House.

Several Howard student groups had organized protests over the pending execution of Davis, convicted of killing an off-duty police officer. Davis is scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m., and many around the country and world are weighing in, including religious leaders.

“We weren’t being aggressive,” Ware said.

Some students and other activists are hoping the White House will intervene. ­ “We fundamentally believe the death penalty is wrong,” he said.

Troy Echoes

Troy Echoes
by Jeffrey McCune | special to NewBlackMan

Preface: I hate that the poem I wrote at 7pm is publishable.

Oct 9, 1968
Papa was lynched—
after 7 of 9 recanted:
“He never touched her!”
Yet, the noose tightened—
strangling generations,
reminding all that even breath is not free.

Sept 21, 2011
Ten days after terror,
I hear a man lynched.
The chorus of 7 repeats.
#Dead.

One heart stops,
Voices muted,
People shocked,
Too many ghosts remain.

Helpless.
I sit and hear echoes in my room:
“I am Troy Davis!”
“Too Much Doubt!”
“Power to the People!”
Dead.

          ***

Does anyone hear the faint cry in the dust?
The soft breath-like whisper,
crying for just…
Is anyone listening?
The innocent screams of young boys and men,
captured by the cyclone of suspicion.

The body drops,
The tears fall,
The free world continues,
while for some it never began.
I swallow…
My God!
My America?

September 21, 2012
Echoes resound.
I listen.
I hear my name.
Loud.
Family Traditions Burn.

***


Jeffrey Q. McCune, Jr. is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Women’s Studies at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is author of the forthcoming manuscript, Sexual Discretion: Black Masculinity and Politics of Passing (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming 2012).