Asante Sana, #HRapBrown #ImamJamilAlAmin

Posted on November 24, 2025 by toddpanther

Dear Friends of SNCC,
The family of Jamil Al-Amin aka H. Rap Brown announced his passing on Sunday, October 23, 2025 at the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina. Jamil Al-Amin served as the fifth Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Before becoming SNCC Chairman, Jamil was an active member of the Howard University SNCC chapter the Nonviolent Action Group (NAG). He also worked in the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project, and organizing in Greene County, Alabama in 1965-1966. Jamil Al-Amin is the author of two books, Die Nigger Die (1969) and Revolution by the Book (1993).
The SNCC family offers its condolences and love to Jamil’s wife Karima Al Amin and son Kairi.
While chairman of SNCC, Jamil asserted that “violence was as American as cherry pie.” His statement referred to the thousands of Black and Brown men, women and children who were and are brutalized and killed in America without any accountability. The violent deaths of Medgar Evers, Sandra Bland, Emmitt Till, Aura Rooser, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Michelle Cusseaux, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mya Hall, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Janisha Fonville, Tamir Rice, Natasha McKenna, George Floyd and Freddie Gray are an undeniable part of America’s history.
In 2025, thousands of Brown men, women and children are being swept off the streets by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and disappeared without due process. Unlike white Americans, Black and Brown people are presumed guilty and are subjected to being stopped, frisked, detained, jailed, and/or shot.
After serving as SNCC Chairman, Jamil was arrested for robbery and jailed in Attica Prison from 1971 to 1976. While in prison he joined the Muslim faith and changed his name from Hubert Gerold “Rap” Brown to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin.
Since 2000, Jamil had been serving a life sentence for the accused murder of two Deputy Sheriffs in Fulton County, Georgia. Jamil’s son, Kairi, has been working for more than a decade to secure his father’s release from prison. He has continually stated that there was evidence to prove Jamil innocent of the murders.
It is the hope of SNCC veterans, who over the past 65 years have engaged in the struggle to make America a less violent society for Black and Brown people, that all Americans will continue the very hard work of fighting against all forms of inequality and injustice. We must ensure that America becomes a place where all people feel safe and are not subjected to violence by federal, state or local governments, and non-state actors because of the color of their skin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Rap_Brown

https://imamjamilactionnetwork.org/

#CBSNewsChicago: #Ebony #Ebonymag #Ebonymagazine celebrates 80th anniversary

Posted on November 20, 2025 by toddpanther

Michael | Official Trailer

Posted on November 9, 2025 by toddpanther

#TodayinBlackHistory #BlackHistory #NewarkHistory #BlackPressHistory #NewspaperHistory #apartheid #SouthAfrica #SouthAfricaHistory #antiapartheid #antiapartheidhistory #NewJerseyHistory #PeoplesOrganizationforProgress #AfroAmericanNewspaper #NewJerseyAFRO Today Is….

Posted on November 9, 2025 by toddpanther

….the 40th anniversary of the event that spurred my first published article ever, done for the 4,000-circulation weekly. It was about a massive anti-apartheid march in Newark, N.J.

I was folded into The New Jersey Afro-American by Deborah P. Smith-Gregory, the article’s key and lead author.

Deborah worked for local Afro legends Harry B. Webber and editor-in-chief Bob Queen. She would succeed him in 1987, becoming the paper’s first woman editor.

From here:

Robert C. Queen (1912-1996) was born in Newark and served most of his life as a reporter and newspaper editor. Queen’s career started in 1938 when he was a reporter for the New Jersey Guardian. Later he was a writer and city editor for The New Jersey Herald. In the 1950s, he was managing editor of The Philadelphia Independent. Subsequently, he worked for the Philadelphia offices of The Pittsburgh Courier. In 1963, he returned to Philadelphia to become managing editor of the Philadelphia edition of The Afro-American. His final stop required him to return to Newark as editor of The New Jersey Afro-American. For the better part of a half century, Bob Queen covered Newark’s political and entertainment scenes, telling stories of interest to African-Americans that tended to be overlooked, misunderstood or forgotten by mainstream journalists. Former city councilman Calvin West recently recalled how, when he and Irvine Turner, Newark’s first black councilman, were in office, Queen made it a point to report the African-American viewpoint. The son of a lawyer, Bob Queen had little formal training in journalism, yet he was one of his era’s best reporters. A contemporary reporter described him as a mover and shaker in the Newark community and beyond. During his lengthy career, Queen interviewed Roy White, one of the famous Scottsboro Boys. He also wrote of nightlife in Trenton, where he played piano in his youth at local watering holes. Like other leaders, Queen gave of his time and talents to many organizations, including the Philadelphia Citizens’ Committee, Sigma Delta Chi Journalistic Society, and the Philadelphia Child Development Program. His honors included an award for journalism from Temple University, the W.E.B. Dubois Award from the Newark Branch of the NAACP and the New Jersey Association of Black Journalists’ award. Queen also received an honorary doctorate from Essex County College, was inducted into the Black Press Hall of Fame and was cited by the Garden State Association of Black Journalists. He was well thought of by contemporaries such as Sally Carroll of the Newark NAACP. As his wife, Edna, commented, ‘Once you knew him, you had a friend for life.’ Old-schooled and gentlemanly, Queen was indeed a friend to his many colleagues and associates.