The following is a recent speech given by Angaza Sabubu Laughinghouse a BWFJ leader.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is more remembered by most for his “I have a Dream Speech” and not his radical political actions or radical views about the failures of U.S. capitalism and its systematic racism or embedded white supremacy! Why are so many of us fuzzy, forgetful or just content with the political and media myth makers or just plain intentional lies about King?
Along with many others, I am a product of the 1960’s-70’s activism and movements. As an inquiring Black working class youth, born to Gloria and Charlie Jr. of Jim Crow segregated Greenville, NC, I was deeply impacted and shaped by this historic period and his April 4th,1968 assassination which occurred nearly 53 years ago.
My family, by then, had long migrated, like many African –Americans, to New York City and the North. They escaped the intensity of southern brand of repression just to endure a more sophisticated systematic racism up North. As we know, King was also influenced by the northern & large urban Black leaders and movements ( ie. militant self-defense/anti-police brutality, youth organizations, Malcolm X ( Ballot or Bullet speech), Black workers unionizing/ tenant organizing/fighting for affirmative action, anti-Viet Nam War, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, etc.). So in the late 1960’s, King attempted to bring his southern civil rights tactics to Chicago and the North, with not only violent racist resistance from whites, but the more militant urban Blacks who wanted to challenge the entire systematic racism and economic oppression of this capitalist society!
As is usually the case after mass protest, when people are no longer in the streets, government and law enforcement gear up to punish those who participated in the resistance. They want to send a message to hundreds of thousands across the country that they will not tolerate challenges to their authority and murderous behavior. In cities and towns across the country, local authorities are reviewing video and news reports hoping to single out leaders of the nationwide uprisings in the wake of the George Floyd murder by the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25.
We Need International Observers to Protect the Democratic Right of the Black Vote!
Since the 2016 election there has been incessant talk of Russian, and sometimes Chinese and other countries interfering in US elections. Yet It has long been known that the US interferes in elections across the world. Whether covert or open, scholars have reported at least 62 electoral interventions between 1942 and 1989. When their favored candidate is facing a serious challenge, they have insisted on election observers and have been critical of results when other credible observers have been satisfied.
In August we commemorate Black August to honor Black Freedom
Fighters and Black Resistance. This year, in addition to lifting up those
fighters killed by the state and our political prisoners, we focus on a key
demand of our movement, Reparations.
On August 15, thousands across the US, with support from allies in the Caribbean, Africa and Europe will participate in National Reparations Day. The Day was called by the December 12th Movement to recognize two critical events in our just struggle to be made whole from the damage and destruction of slavery. In 2001 at the World Conference Against Racism the delegates declared that the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade and slavery were crimes against humanity. The second marker was the August 17, 2002 Millions for Reparations National Rally held in Washington, D.C. the 117th anniversary of the birth of Marcus Garvey.
In 1978,
from July 10 to September 25, 1978 about 36 City of Rocky Mount Sanitation
workers went on intermitting strikes demanding the rehiring of Alexander Evans
a Sanitation workers that was unjustly fired for picking up a suit left by a
trashcan that was emptied by workers. There was policy that anything
left within 10 feet of trash can be picked up by the workers. Evans was known
to take clothes to people in need as part of his religious mission. A
week before being fired there was an article in the Rocky Mt newspaper honoring
Evans for caring for the poor. These workers were not unionized, but acted
collectively to send representatives to meet with the City Manager and community
forces to build support.
The City
prosecuted Evans in court and was defeated, but the City wouldn’t rehire Evans,
so the workers went on strike again.
The BWFJ is an organization of Black workers formed in December of 1982 out of a struggle led by Black women workers at a K-mart store in Rocky Mount, North Carolina against race and gender discrimination. After organizing a boycott of the local K-mart store and reaching out to workers at other workplaces and communities, Black workers and community activists from 10 counties met at the First Missionary Baptist Church in Fremont, NC in December 1982 to form BWFJ as a statewide organization.