Total solidarity with the #baltimoreuprising

Total solidarity with everyone striking back against white supremacist shitbags in Baltimore!

This linked document will be constantly updated with actions and activity going on in Baltimore. Many have contact details that can be used to send support and solidarity.

Of particular note is that today all Baltimore schools are also closed. 188 schools. 85,000 students overall. 84% of those students rely on free/reduced meals from their schools to have enough to eat every day. Operation Help or Hush will be serving lunch to students today in 4 locations in West and East Baltimore. You can donate to Operation Help or Hush here: http://operationhelporhush.org

Here’s a relevant soundtrack from Seattle: “And they call this a riot? Aw man, fuck that, I’m gonna call this an uprising.”

US Border Patrol Harass Lorenzo and JoNina Ervin Upon Return

Tony from the London Bookfair Collective just received the following message from JoNina Ervin about her and Lorenzo’s return to the US:

Hey, Tony,

Lorenzo and I are back at home in Memphis. We’re exhausted, but the tour was the trip of lifetime for us. Thanks so much for all you did to make it successful.

As Lorenzo predicted, the U.S. Border patrol harassed us when we landed at Detroit International Airport. Four or  five guards searched all  our luggage. One questioned us about what we’d been doing in the UK, asked us do we work, did we do any speaking, what did we speak about,  how much money we had, etc. Most of the questions were directed to Lorenzo, such as had he ever been in trouble with the law, did he ever write a book,  etc.

This was clearly meant to intimidate us, and we want to blitz the U.S. Border Patrol office at the Detroit Airport with email complaints from folks in the UK who hosted us on the tour and others who heard us speak. We’ll draft a sample email in the next couple of days  for people who’d like to participate in this campaign. We need solidarity to try to discourage the secret police from harassing us.

We’ll write more later.

Peace and love,

JoNina

We’ll post up the email info they are talking about as soon as we have it.

Thanks to those who made last night…

Thanks to everyone who could make it to the talk last night. While we were able to get a PA, we were unable to record the talk, but photos from Edinburgh show a recorder on the table so we’ll be sure to repost any recordings that pop up, and if you have any from last night then drop us an email and we’ll pop it up here. It was awesome to see so many people keen to listen to and talk with Lorenzo and JoNina. After an early breakfast they have made their way onto the next leg of their tour and we wish them well.

Thanks must also go out to strathy polis for really taking to heart community policing. We had them parked outside our talk in a van for 5 minutes before two officers attempted to come in because they were concerned that a car had its lights left on outside. They also sent a van down the dead-end street at 10pm to check on the situation (coincidently the time they thought we were leaving). This care also appears to be spreading to Cardiff:

Today got phone call from police ‘concerned’ about content & format of a lecture by two ex-black panthers I’ve helped promote in Cardiff.

— Val Swain (@grangeendgal) October 7, 2013

I asked if the concerns were terrorism related. Answer: er yes, something like that. Talking about black history now ’cause for concern’?

— Val Swain (@grangeendgal) October 7, 2013

Anyways, the next discussion event from Glasgow AF will be on the 20th of November and we will be looking at the trade unions. More news on that here nearer the time.

The Radical Wing of the Black Power Movement in the United States (1965-1973)

Mon 7th October
18:45
Fred Paton Centre, 19 Carringdon Street, Glasgow, G4 9AJ.
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Glasgow Anarchist Federation are are very happy to be involved with bringing JoNina and Lorenzo Ervin to speak here in a couple of weeks time.

The Black Power movement in the United States superseded the Southern Civil right movement with more movement ideology, strategy, and tactics, which provided even more of a confrontation directly with the American central government. More than just a Black cultural history of the period, and speaking of the usual media creations that dealt with poetry, Afro hairstyles or Black music of the late 1960’s into the ’70’s, Lorenzo and JoNina Ervin, two African American veterans of the U.S. Black Power movement, speak of now-forgotten radical movements from that period: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Black Panther Party, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and others which made up a radical activist wing, which tried to transform the entire country, not just protest racism or seek Black rights with protective legislation. Learn about the radical wing of the Black Power movement, from the standpoint of the grassroots participants, not the leaders.

Speaker Bio’s:

JoNina Ervin, author of “Driven by the Movement: Activists of the Black Power Era”, will speak about her interviews with some 20 Black Power activists as well as about her activity in the Black Panther Party in the 1970’s.

Lorenzo Ervin, author of “Anarchism and the Black Revolution”, “The Progressive Plantation”, and “Black Power, Black Autonomy” is an ex-civil rights and Black Panther Party member will speak on his years as a civil rights/Black Power activist, Black Anarchist political prisoner, and contemporary anti-racist organizer.

They are both active in the Memphis Black Autonomy Federation, and on the national board of the Black Autonomy Federation of North America.