Black August and the Epic Struggle to Free Mumia Abu Jamal!*

Black August and the Epic Struggle to Free Mumia Abu Jamal!* 

by bro Zayid Muhammad

Long live the revolutionary spirits of George and Jonathan Jackson, the courageous revolutionary cornerstones of this hot time we call Black August...a time marking some of our ugliest oppression and repression, a time marking some of our boldest expressions of resistance...

Born in the putrid and bloody walls of the California prison system in 1979, its core foundational moments are of course the assassination of field marshal George Jackson on August 21, 1971 and the death of his brave 17 year old little brother Jonathan Jackson, who was killed during an epic 'extraction mission' of some of the Soledad Brothers from a Marin County courthouse on August 7, 1970.

u wanna know why u have get your behind in line and searched entering an amerikkkan courtroom these days...Thats why! ...'cause Jonathan done been here like that!

August 20, 1619, our new world ordeal gets anchored by english speaking colonists at Jamestown, Virginia, one that would shackle and slaughter our Ancestors for their labor for several centuries and change! Capitalism?...Gdmt, our Ancestors were Capitalism's most prime capital once upon a time when we colored!

August 25, 1967, the american nat'l security state announces a 'new', 'hard hitting', 'neutralization' covert action called COINTELPRO! 'new' my big high West Afrikan *ss! It had already claimed Malcolm, and had been stalking the politically courageous among us since the criminalizing of reparations mother Callie House, our first modern political prisoner, and Black August born Mr. Garvey, just a few years later using the same playbook!

Speaking of Malcolm, u do know that he barely survived being poisoned to death by the CIA on August 4th, 1964 in Cairo Egypt! u haven't stolen The Diary of Malcolm X yet? Underground homework. Treat that as an order. 

And we sure as hell are not going to forget the insanely savage and sinister lynching of Emmitt Till on August 28th 1955 and the courage of his mother Mamie Till Mobley to have an open casket funeral to xpose what they did to her sonto the entire world! That set off the modern socalled Civil Rights Mvmt like nothing else!

On the question of epic resistance, it is no accident of history that we would lose George on what happened to be the anniversary of Rev Nat Turner's most blood curdling uprising back of 1831, the time when the 'last had become first and the first became last'!

It is also no accident of history that the most epic of our Slave Uprisings, the mighty Haitian Revolution, the won our Ancestors won, sets the world on fire in August! Its spiritual sacrifice at Bois Caymon on August 14th, and its actual launching of hostilities on August 22nd 1791!

And against the cyclical scourge of police brutality came the epic Watts Rebellion of August 11th in 1965! 

Mumiasizing Black August, let us remember the sinister apartheid style tank and bullet assault on MOVE on August 8, 1978, an attack that would land nine MOVE members in the klutches of the state to face 30-100 years each! Two, Merle and Phil Africa, would die in prison, the others would do between 40 to 42 years each before their freedoms!

The incredible unconquerable young warrior healer Mutulu Shakur would join this realm on August 8, 1950. He would later pioneer acupuncture to combat the heroin assault on our community and would ultimately go underground doing what a radical underground does. He too would face state kaptivity for his commitment for 36 hard years!

Have we forgotten that the upsouth state of pennsylvania used Mr Garvey's August 17 birth date to be its day to execute Mumia in 1995! 2 million of us from around the world said 'hell to the NO u aint either', but the no good bastards did try!

Sad irony occurs in August also, August 22nd 1989 would see us lose the courageous Huey P Newton to Oakland's streets in a way that we absolutely should not have!

August 24th 2003, would see us also lose his comrade from the Black Panther Party and later the Black Liberation Army, Safiya Bukhari, our 'lioness for liberation' Mumia called her, who literally breathed fire into the global movement to free mumia and to launch the Jericho Mvmt when she got out of prison!

Staying on that note, one of the most feared of the Black Panther Party and its underground, the implacable Russell 'Maroon' Shoatz, also straight outta Philly who defied captivity not once but twice was born on August 23 in . He would endure 49 years in kaptivity for his legendary courage! Courage we will never forget!

And as police brutality continues to stalk us, we got a surge of a new movement that came in young wide loud and proud called Black Lives Matter, which went buckwil' in aftermath of the police slaying of Michael Brown in the hot stanky streets of Ferguson Missouri on August 9th 2014! That mass national insurgent response would produce a profound echo of solidarity all the way from the bomb burnt and bloody rocks of Gaza as the Palestinian people would announce and pronounce loudly and proudly their profound solidarity with our children's resistance at that epic moment! 

And its no accident of history that in this year on the first day of Black August of this year, the anniversary of the Harlem Uprising of 1943, the anniversary of the death of Khatari Gaulden, a cofounder of Black August, that a young brave Black labor organizer named Chris Smalls, straight outta Jersey the birthplace of racial profiling, would return to JFK Airport like Malcolm did from his Hajj in '64 to a huge sea of love after being beaten and detained by the Israeli Defense Forces for participating in a humanitarian aid mission called Freedom Flotilla that sought to take food to Gaza challenging Israel's genocidal blockade forbidding that! And when asked why he dared to do that, the young g blew a whole a lot of minds from LA to the West Bank when he said, he did so not only to call out Israel's genocide, but to also 'call out the complicity' of the still pathologically racist american labor movement for their physically transporting the u.s. aid to israel!

Cant' make this sh*t up! 

This Black August finds movement legend the unconquerable Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, , enduring terminal cancer at Butner Medical Facility in North Carolina as we push for his full freedom and exoneration. This last chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was once a man once so feared that the m'frs of the u.s. congress actually had the gall to come up with the 1968 H Rap Brown Act, criminalizing anyone 'exporting riots across state lines' as a Civil Rights bill. He was framed by the State of Georgia for killing a Fulton County Sheriff and wounding another, he deserves hugely special attention this Black August for sure!** Under no circumstances can we lose this brave great man while in the klutches of the state! Under no circumstances! Follow his case here...

https://www.imamjamilactionnetwork.org/

We who like it hot...with blood still stinging in our eyes...call it 'Black August'!

*Look forward to this and more like this from a new newsletter from the global effort to Free Mumia! Get Mumia's latest book with Jennifer Black, Beneath The Mountain!...

**Follow the Imam's fight. Go to https://www.imamjamilactionnetwork.org/

Bro Zayid Muhammad, long time organizer and Jazz poet, is chair  of the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee. Hit him up at babazayid@gmail.com...

(c)2025

BLACK AUGUST 2024 AND POLICE BRUTALITY!

BLACK AUGUST 2024 AND POLICE BRUTALITY!

10 YEARS SINCE MICHAEL BROWN!

 by 'bro Zayid' Muhammad

Black August, the time to affirm Black Resistance to Oppression, has come!

This year marks the 45^th observation of the tradition!

 

It happens to also mark the tenth anniversary of a police killing that led to epic uprisings, the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri!

 

At the heart of the observation of Black August is inspiration from courageous Panther legends George and Jonathan Jackson, (George was assassinated on August 21, 1971 and his little brother Jonathan was killed in an extraction mission on August 7, 1970).

 

 

In practice, Black August is also about lifting up support for Black political prisoners.

 

Given the intensity in the air on the national landscape with the July 6th police killing of Sonya Massey, a single mother shot in the face by a Springfield Illinois police officer, an outrage that spawned actions in almost 40 cities on July 28^th as a National Day of Mourning, and given the tense political landscape with fascism emerging and the sanctioning of the Gaza Genocide, and where the police are being weaponized to attack those who are protesting that Genocide, we thought that it would be timely to focus on police brutality for this moment.

 

Black August has its origins  inside the California prison system with the Black Guerrilla family and people like Khatari Gaulden who were nurturing the concept when he was killed in prison on August 1, 1978. The following year, surviving elements of the Black Panther Party and emerging elements of the New Afrikan.Independence Movement would begin to observe the practice in earnest.

 

Other key revolutionary moments that make up the inspirational core of Black August include the Nat Turner Uprising, launched on August 21, 1831, the ritual launching of the Haitian Revolution on August 14, 1791 with the Bois Caiman gathering, or the actual launch of hostilities on August 22, 1791, the revolutionary birthdays of Marcus Garvey, and in recent decades, of Fidel Castro on August 17^th 1887 and August 13, 1920 respectively. Panther Blue Notes which include the deaths of Huey P Newton and Safiya Bukhari, August 22, 1988 and August 23, 2003, and the bold Birth Notes of the ‘implacable Maroon’ Shoatz and Chairman Fred Hampton, August 23, 1943 and August 30, 1948!

 

With its West Coast origins, the Watts Uprising, an uprising covering the widest area of territory at that time, and yes, driven by the scourge of police brutality, is also a key centerpiece of inspiration (August 11-15, 1965).

 

 

So let’s dive in.

 

The very beginning of Black August requires the remembering of the 1943 Harlem Uprising, the second of Harlem’s three major uprisings. It was August 1^st of that year that saw a police officer shoot  a Black soldier in uniform who was defending a Black woman when all hell broke loose.

 

In the contemporary era, it was on August 8, 1978 that the Philadelphia police would attack in Apartheid fashion the MOVE family in Powelton Village with tanks, water hoses and live fire. Pioneers of Environmental Justice who were also advocates of armed self defense, MOVE sought to defend themselves as best they could. At some point, an officer was killed by friendly fire, and all of the participants were brutally beaten in spectacle fashion, especially the late Delbert Africa, whose horrific beating was captured on live television while he was peacefully surrendering. They were all charged with the officer’s death and endured prison time of 40 years each, with two of them, Merle Africa and Phil Africa, dying in captivity.

 

The valiant Dr Mutulu Shakur was born on the same date August in 1950 incidentally.

 

On August 9^th, 1997, Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant was savagely beaten and sodomized by NYC police officers after he was taken into custody after breaking up a fight at a party in Brooklyn. Officers viciously sodomized Louima at the precinct by ramming a plunger up his rectum, producing life-threatening permanent injuries that required several surgeries to save his life. The protest response saw a sea of angry marchers shutting down the Brooklyn Bridge creating a protest tradition with their actions. The action prompted a federal investigation that saw the officers go down federal charges, something that rarely happens.

 

On August 14^th, 1998, on the anniversary of the ceremonial launch of the Haitian Revolution at Bois Caiman, Brooklyn based activist J Andree Penix Smith lost her son Justin at the hands of the Tulsa Police. Justin was chased without cause and when he was finally stopped, he chose to go down fighting in anticipation of the abuse he saw himself facing. Was that the spirit of Black August igniting Justin’s resistance? Why not? His mother has become an ally to other mothers since then.

 

August 27^th 1994 saw the police killing of double amputee Edward Mallett by Phoenix Arizona, a double amputee, because he  “looked suspicious” to the police!

 

On August 29^th, 2000, Detroit police killed Errol Shaw, a young man who was a deaf mute. Shaw was “armed with a rake.” His killing, among a sea of other incidents, led to Detroit facing a federal investigation of its police force.

 

Just recently, on August 24^th, 2019, Elijah McClain, an animal loving violinist, was stopped suddenly by the police while walking home in Aurora, Colorado. Again, for “looking suspicious.” As he was being viciously beaten, the beleaguered young man terrified for his life was heard pleading “I don’t even kill flies!” Paramedics administered a sedative that officials say ultimately caused the young man’s death several days later.

 

August 21, 2021, the anniversary of both George Jackson and Nat Turner incredibly, saw an Asbury Park NJ police officer shoot and kill Hasani Best, who was in a mental health crisis. Hasani’s situation was physically contained and even had responders better equipped to address the situation en route when he was killed. For the record, he was in possession of a butter knife.

 

Most recently another Soprano State incident saw Andrew Washington being shot to death in his Jersey City home in a mental health crisis on August 27^th just last year as his family waited outside expecting the police to take him to get help. His death brought huge protests to the port city and led to the Governor signing into law a bill that is supposed to pilot the use of ‘community led’ emergency response teams, instead of the police, called the Seabrooks-Washington bill named after ‘Drew, as Washington was affectionately known in his community, and after a Paterson based Community based Violence Interventionist Najee Seabrooks, who was also killed several months earlier under similar circumstances. Activists from all over the state are still pushing for the full implementation of these community led emergency response teams.

 

 

As alluded to earlier, it was the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9^th, ten years ago, that again gave the contemporary Black Lives Matter one of its epic moments. Protests ignited all over the country. This sea of protest took down a compromising Black elected official and marked the emergence of a genuine grassroots organizer from out of their ranks, Cori Bush, going to Congress and becoming arguably its most radical voice in that space. Who else has done a sit in on the steps of the Congress? However, as this goes to press, she is being targeted by defeat by the Zionist lobby AIPAC, who is seeking to replace her with a compromising buyable Black Democrat willing to sign off on Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza.

  

Ten years later, we share these painful insights because police brutality continues to stalk us like we are being openly hunted. Please, let us remember, ten years ago, as the Michael Brown protests blew up all over the country, at the same time, from the pained spaces of Palestinian occupation, came Solidarity from those quarters in a very pronounced way. Let us understand the place of the curent police attacks on the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. coming from police in cities with Democrats and with Republicans in leadership, each often rubberstamping the abuse! That will continue! That may even expand and get worse because that’s what Fascism looks like!

 

So let us use the spirit of Black August to hold the line against neoliberal repression. Let us use that surge of angered mobilization that had us rally in nearly 40 cities for Sonya Massey last Sunday, and let us reinject the question of police brutality into this sickening but critical election cycle! John Lewis and Sheila Jackson Lee went to their deaths championing the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act!

 

Let’s put it in everybody’s face who is coming to us pandering for our vote...Everybody’s.

 

And Trump calls Kamala ‘the Radical Left.’ He aint seen ‘the Radical Left’ yet. In the spirit of Black August, it’s time we make everybody see us, and feel us! Him, her, everybody!

 

Finally, on the matter of political prisoners, the shared point of Black August practice, the courageous Mumia Abu Jamal, now in his 43^rd year in prison and in spite of his predicament, has just coedited a new book, a mass incarceration reader, Beneath the Mountain, loaded with the voices of American political prisoners from over the years! It will be the subject of a number of gatherings this month! Remember, Mumia survived a Black August execution date in 1995, August 17^th, as his captors sought to mock our veneration of  Mr Garvey, one of our first political prisoners, but the people in the millions from all around the world stood up and said “O hell no!”

 

All Power to the People!

Stop Police Brutality!

By Any Means Necessary!

Free Mumia!

Free All Political Prisoners!

Fast! Study! Train! Fight!

We who like it hot call it 'Black August'!

(c)2024

*'Bro Zayid’ Muhammad is the lead organizer for the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee, a proud cub of the NY chapter of the Black Panther Party. He has an activist profile of 45 years. He is a poet and stage actor. Contact him at ‘babazayid814@proton.me...Follow the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee on Facebook...