Author Archives: Biko

Lewis Turner-Presenté!

We are sad to report that cherished and long timed fighter for justice Lewis Turner has transitioned. Brother Lewis Turner, or Mr. Lewis as he was called respectfully and affectionately, was a life long activist dedicating his energy to fighting for rights of the oppressed and exploited.

We are reprinting a resolution passed by the Rocky Mount, N.C. City Council honoring his life and work. We also share a statement from Dr. Ben Chavis, civil rights leader, a defendant in the well known Wilmington Ten case, and current president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

 

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Reparations Now!

The Biden administration has promised to issue scores of Executive Orders reversing many of the Trump policies. He has gone on record saying how vital the Black vote was in his win vowing to have our backs. The call has been made for him to uphold that vow by making a down payment on the Reparations owned us as a result of our enslavement. The campaign is being led by the Brooklyn, N.Y. based December 12th Movement (D12)

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Tribute To A Freedom Fighter: Our Beloved Joan Stands Tall Among the Ancestors

Joan Sharpe Neal was the daughter of sharecroppers from Edgecombe County in eastern North Carolina.   She was among the first generations in her family who went from the fields to the factories, prevalent in the 1980s in the eastern blackbelt.

Joan stepped forward as an activist in BWFJ’s 1988 campaign to organize workers at the Schlage Lock plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina when the plant issued a surprise notice to the workers that the plant would immediately close and move its manufacturing to Tecate, Mexico.  The company promised the workers closing benefits such as severance pay but later reneged, planning to leave the workforce stranded.  BWFJ helped the workers organize to win back those promised benefits. During the campaign, a cancer cluster resulting in the death of 25 workers was discovered and traced back to toxic waste Schlage was dumping in the surrounding area.  Joan was an unassuming member of the fightback waged by the workers for just compensation and accountability of the company.  As a result of the struggle the workers not only won back the promised benefits but expanded those benefits to include extended health care coverage for all the workers and the Rocky Mount plant designated as a Superfund Clean-up Site under the EPA.

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THIS 2021 DR. ML KING DAY… STATE OF EMERGENCY…LET’S REMEMBER KING’S REAL LESSONS !

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!

Impeach and Prosecute Trump, Prepare for Struggle!

*The storming of the US Capitol on January 6th by white nationalists and Trump supporters was part of a failed coup. Some call it a failed insurrection, others, a riot. What is important is its aims and impacts. It was no surprise to those paying attention to developments during the Trump administration. While these Neo-fascist organizations are not new, they have been strengthening since the Obama Administration and have taken a tremendous leap with the cover and encouragement of Trump.

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