Good morning everybody!
Felice Leon wrote this beautiful and thought provoking piece about Black August.
What is Black August?
Black August is a month for Black liberation.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has a piece on Black August.
Here's an excerpt from the Center for Constitutional Rights about the start of Black August.
Black August began in the 1970s to mark the assassination of the imprisoned Black Panther, author, and revolutionary George Jackson during a prison rebellion in California. It is a time of reverence to honor political prisoners, freedom fighters, and martyrs of the Black freedom struggle. This month, we celebrate all the political prisoners who have helped us understand that prison is political and that our collective freedom depends on abolishing the state’s capacity, through incarceration, policing, and surveillance, to disrupt communities and diminish principled struggle against the unjust status quo. The month of August is also rich with the history of Black resistance outside, from the Haitian Revolution to the Watts rebellion and the Ferguson uprising. Black August is a reminder of the power in unity, and a mandate to continue joint struggle.
This would be an interesting topic in our middle and high schools, colleges and universities if there weren’t anti critical race theory legislative measures put in place with states like Tennessee, Ohio, Idaho, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, and like minded states.
Legislative measures like anti critical race theory stifle the conversation of how Black August originated. We need conversations like Black August in the classrooms. We also need to discuss why SNCC, SCLC, CORE, ACORN, the Black Panther Party, Marcus Garvey, supported Black liberation.
I should mention that the conversation should be free of false equivalence; I know I am heading in wishful thinking territory. It would also be nice if White fragility didn’t have a need to center itself in the conversation when the conversation needs White fragility to move out the way.
Before I go, I’m leaving you with this tweet.
Have a good morning and let’s have that conversation!