Category Archives: news

Bashir Akinyele: Why Ras Baraka Is The Only Choice For Newark Mayor

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Bashir Akinyele is one of those veteran revolutionaries that Newark is proud to consistently produce. He is a grassroots activist, a committed public high school history teacher, and a serious thinker.

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He sent the following out this afternoon. It’s about why he thinks Newarkers should re-elect Ras Baraka as mayor.

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The Meaning of Mayor Ras J. Baraka

On May 8, 2018, Black people, Brown people, and Newarkers of all races will go to the polls for the Mayoral election in Newark, NJ.

The two candidates are Central Ward Councilwoman Gayle Chaneyfield Jenkins and incumbent Mayor Ras J. Baraka.

Hands down, Mayor Ras J. Baraka is the most progressive candidate of the two. In fact, he is the most progressive elected official in the state of New Jersey.

Although many of my progressive, revolutionary, pan-Afrikanist, Afrocentric, Black nationalist, and liberal brothers and sister have not come forward on a mass level to give our people a proper analysis of what Mayor Ras J. Baraka’s campaign for re-election in Newark, N.J. means to Black people, oppressed people and for Newarkers, I am not like them, family.

I have been taught and trained better than that in this struggle for self-determination, liberation and power. I understand what a Black leader and a Black elected official is and is not, and the science of electoral politics are in this world.

If you are a progressive, revolutionary, pan-Afrikanist, Afrocentric, Black nationalist, and liberal brother and sister, you still understand that liberation will not come from an elected official or electoral politics! Liberation only comes organically from the masses of the oppressed!

When we have real Black leaders, they lead in the battle to help Black people and oppressed people struggle independently for power. Real Black leaders continuously keep Black elected officials and the system of electoral politics accountable to the people. However, like Malcolm X taught us, we only use Black elected officials and the science of electoral politics as a tool to protect Black and oppressed people’s interests period (e.g., controlling the school board, controlling the police department, controlling city hall, controlling the fire department, etc.)! But Malcolm X also taught us that if we do not have a mass movement to force a Black elected official and the electoral system to support us, then the Black elect official and the electoral system will sell us out whole sale!!! And for the record, many Black officials and the electoral political system have sold Black people and oppressed people out. But Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka has not sold Black and oppressed people out, family!!!!

You see, you must understand something about brother Bashir Muhammad Akinyele: I am a well studied Blackman and Muslim. I have been a community activist for over 30 years. I know that Newark was home to the following: two Black Power conventions, the Black and Puerto Rican Convention, the Congress of Afrikan People, the Committee for a Unified Newark, Black Nia F.O.R.C.E, and the Hip Hop Political Convention. Many of these movements were organized by the Barakas (Daddy, Momma, and sons).

I also know that Mayor Ras J. Baraka has said over and over again, ” Please hold me accountable.” And some people in Newark have done just that, family. But others have gone overboard with their criticisms of the mayor. Why? Because they do not care about the masses. They are not connected to a movement! These people only care about themselves, family! At the same time, I know that some of these people, who are overly critical people, are very misinformed about the issues. On the other hand, others are straight-up informants and government agents!!!

In conclusion, I have met some of the greatest Black and Muslim leaders in the world! I know a sellout from a stand up Blackman or Blackwoman.

Let’s be clear: Mayor Ras J. Baraka is not a Black leader any more, fam. He is an elected official now. However, his ideology and elected office are rooted in helping to provide resources, support, and the protection of our Black and Brown, and Newark’s interests!

Therefore, based on his track record thus far, he has demonstrated that he is not a sellout. He is good for Muslims, Christians, Jews, Black people, Latino people, poor people, gay and lesbian people, poor Whites, working class people, union members, and all Newarkers.

Black Power! All Power to the People! Free the Land! Uhuru! Habari Gani! Hotep! As Salaamu Alaykum!

Bashir Muhammad Akinyele
Educator, Community Activist

THANKS TO…….

Posted on by toddpanther

…..the IMIXWHATILIKE Crew for the opportunity, Highline College and Seattle Central College for their commitment to us,

and TERP magazine for this article!

And a special thanks to Dr. Darryl Brice and Sister Yoshiko Harden for hosting us while in Seattle!

About That Ida B. Wells Obit In The New York Times

Posted on by toddpanther

Sure, it’s a good thing. But as an author of a new book on Ida, I just wanted to point out that she was also consistently “overlooked” while she was alive, not only by white racists in the North and the South, but also by the NAACP and Black male (and white liberal) leaders. *COUGH*Carter G. *COUGH*W.E.B.*COUGH* 🙂  (The NAACP publicly pretended it, not her, started the organized fight against lynchings!) In fact, such treatment is a major part of my book.

So, no, it’s no surprise that The New York Times ignored her; of course it did!

 

Official Announcement: My New “People’s Biography” Of Ida B. Wells-Barnett Is Now Available During This Women’s History Month And Beyond

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BOOK NOW AVAILABLE!

 

NEW BOOK DISCUSSES THE STRUGGLE OF BLACK WOMEN ACTIVISTS THRU THE LIFE OF JOURNALIST IDA B. WELLS

Ida B. Wells-Barnett is the historic link between Harriet Tubman, the great abolitionist and Civil War hero, and Ethel Payne, the pioneering twentieth century Chicago Black journalist who took up the journalism role she had pioneered. She lived during the time of the birth of Jim Crow and died 24 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white man, spurring the mass-action wing of the Civil Rights Movement.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) has gone from mid-twentieth century obscurity to a major twenty-first century subject in Women’s Studies and the history of Black American media.
But her life was much more complex than the one paragraph portrait written of her: Black journalist, anti-lynching crusader.

She was first and foremost a mother and wife. She was also a local Chicago community activist for decades. She was a devout Christian who believed deeply in the Black church and in Black schools, even when those institutions didn’t believe in her. She had no problem publicly criticizing Black ministers who failed to represent their flocks, and Black school systems when they failed the students in her charge. She would be fired and ostracized by many elements of the Black community for her stands. She was a major leader of several movements: the suffragist movement, the Black women’s club movement, as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She was maneuvered out of power in many of the movements she led. It was especially despicable that, as the NAACP became more and more involved in anti-lynching, she was left out of its history, erased from the cause for which she risked her life!

This new book, Warrior Princess: A People’s Biography of Ida B. Wells (New York: Diasporic Africa Press), shows how her independent spirit infused her work.

By the time Wells-Barnett died, white women and Black northern men and women had the right to vote, the NAACP was on its way to becoming the most powerful civil rights organization of all time, and the Black press, thanks to the societal changes of the twentieth century, was about to become the most powerful nonreligious institution in Black communities.

This work is not a work of biography as much as it an ideological portrait from a Black feminist perspective. It’s a book that discusses the ideas and institutions around Ida B. Wells-Barnett as she spent her life in teaching, journalism, anti-lynching campaigns, and civil rights and political organizing. It discusses how she balanced white racism of both genders, and sexism from Black male leaders. It attempts to show how one Black woman created and maintained her selfhood amidst such challenges.

It is for Black women activists of the twenty-first century—those who are committed to showing that Black lives have always mattered most to them. It is for the young Black women who have spearheaded major protests and demonstrations during the presidencies of both Barack Obama, a Black Democrat, and Donald Trump, a white Republican.

This personal history tells us not only that there’s no easy road, but no reward for standing for the basics of civilization. It shows that victory does not equal celebration or credit. That when you use a sword to cut down injustice, the people who pass through the barriers you broke can have selective amnesia.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett demanded her own terms in life. She got them; she lived the life she wanted. But it was always a struggle, and the only reward was being able to express herself and live her own values in a deeply repressive time.

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Table Of Contents 

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE—A POST-CIVIL WAR LIFE OF HOPE, DESTOYED BY PLAGUE; PARENTS AND AN ADOLESCENCE STOLEN

CHAPTER TWO—MISS IDA B. WELLS, THE SCHOOLTEACHER WHO FOUGHT ON A TRAIN

CHAPTER THREE—THE SHAPING OF BLACK AMERICA: IDA B. WELLS, THE BLACK PRESS AND FREE SPEECH IN POST-RECONSTRUCTION MEMPHIS

CHAPTER FOUR—KNOTTED ROPE: WELLS’ CAMPAIGNS AGAINST LYNCHING

CHAPTER FIVE—THE ‘PRINCESS OF THE PRESS’ BECOMES A FETED CLUBWOMAN

CHAPTER SIX—IDA’S ALPHABET: NAACP, NACW, NFL, NERL

CHAPTER SEVEN—FAMILY TIME

CHAPTER EIGHT—SEXISM IN THE MOVEMENT: WELLS-BARNETT FIGHTS BLACK FEMALE INVISIBLILTY

CHAPTER NINE—THE COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN WELLS-BARNETT AND WHITE FEMINISM

CHAPTER TEN—AN ELDER, STOPPED IN MID-SENTENCE, AS THE BLACK MOVEMENT ROOTS ITSELF INTO THE 20TH CENTURY

CODA: A NATION OF LEADING BLACK FEMALE VOICES

Lerone Bennett Jr., The Gold Standard

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Lerone Bennett Jr. was the gold standard for Black journalists and historians. As Amiri Baraka once eulogized about James Baldwin, Bennett “traveled the world like its historian and its biographer.”
People remember “Before the Mayflower,” but they might have forgotten that Bennett once shared a jeep with the SNCC activists in the South, covered the Million Man March, and, perhaps one of his greatest articles, covered extensively the Pan-African Conference in Tanzania in 1974 (See below). That last article was one of the most substantive for a Black publication, and that was when there was actual competition!
Bennett made Ebony a legitimate publication, and Johnson knew it. Johnson will forever be known to me as the Black millionaire who funded his own historian. Together, they made money with Bennett’s book. But they also helped to make history by writing history.
I grew up with “A Pictorial History of Black America,” Bennett’s “encyclopedia” series on Black history that was published in the 1970s.
Also, he wrote my favorite history book, “The Shaping of Black America.” Sadly, it’s one of his lesser-known works. In it, Bennett describes the founding and the building of Black America in the 18th century, describing the development of Black communities.
I have spent my life imitating Lerone Bennett Jr., and will continue to do so.

BENNETT 1974 PAN-AFRICANISM AT CROSSROADS 6TH PAC REVIEW

Official Press Announcement Of My New Book, “Marvel’s Black Panther: A Comicbook Biography, From Stan Lee To Ta-Nehisi Coates”

Posted on by toddpanther

#theblackpanther #blackpanther #WakandaForever #BlackPantherLive #Reginald Hudlin #WhatWakandaMeansToMe

THE BOOK WILL BE RELEASED THIS WEEK! I WILL UPDATE WHEN IT IS ON AMAZON! 

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FOR MORE THAN 20 YEARS, THE BLACK PANTHER WAS ONCE ONE OF THE MOST OBSCURE OF MARVEL’S CHARACTERS.
THEN, FOR THE FIRST TIME, HIS BLACK COMICBOOK WRITERS TOOK OVER.

Now, a new book tells the history from the perspective of its Black and white writers.

MARVEL’S BLACK PANTHER: A COMIC BOOK BIOGRAPHY, FROM STAN LEE TO TA-NEHISI COATES (Diasporic Africa Press) is a collection of chronological thoughts about the 52 years this character has existed.

The first, in-depth examination of the first Black superhero to appear in American mainstream comics, it is a group of chronological essays—a “biography” of a comicbook character—exploring what writer Todd Steven Burroughs thinks about how this Black/African hero character has been shaped: first by white liberal American men—Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Roy Thomas and Don McGregor—then by a Black American liberal man, Christopher J. Priest, and even later by American neo-Black-nationalists Reginald Hudlin and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

It is about race, mainstream superhero comics and the Black American imagination within the backdrop of American history and world history. It’s about the limitations of white liberalism and the power of Black-centered but white-controlled American popular culture; ultimately, it’s how 20th century white liberalism had to yield to the 21st century multicultural reality.

This book, a new addition to the growing scholarly literature on the growing literature on Black American comic books, shows how Black writers developed the version of The Black Panther now seen and beloved on movie screens throughout the world.

Excerpts from the book can be found here and here.

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BEFORE HIS BLACK WRITERS TOOK OVER, THE BLACK PANTHER HAD FADED FROM THE LEE-KIRBY BAD-ASS WHO HAD TRAPPED THE FANTASTIC FOUR IN MINUTES TO, FIRST, A SIDNEY POITIER HARLEM TEACHER AND, LATER, A GUY WHO TOOK FOUR PAGES TO FREE HIMSELF FROM A BEAR TRAP.

“Marvel’s Black Panther: A Comic Book Biography, From Stan Lee To Ta-Nehisi Coates” shows the character’s growth under Priest, Hudlin and Coates, writers who understood that The Black Panther was at least as cool as Batman. Both Priest and Hudlin turned The Black Panther, a character known primarily for leaping around, into a literal Dark Knight; Marvel finally had a character that imitated and matched Batman’s powerful aura.

Christopher Priest brought him back to his first, dangerous Lee-Kirby Fantastic Four 1966 appearance, and
Reginald Hudlin then followed up by bringing him out of the comicbook store into the larger 21st century Black popular-culture world.
Ta-Nehisi Coates put him in the complex world of 21st century African domestic politics.

By doing so, Marvel now had the Batman-like character it had long wanted, and Black comicbook readers, Afrofuturists and Black fantasy-lovers had essentially a brand-new, culturally-relevant version of an established Marvel superhero.

Thanks to Priest, Hudlin and Coates, one of Marvel’s greatest Hollywood blockbuster film superheroes in 2016, 2018 and beyond is an unapologetic Black Cat.

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The book answers the following questions:

• Which Black Panther writer created Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan?
• What is The Black Panther’s complex relationship with The Avengers?
• When was The Black Panther ever female? When was the Black Panther a half-Jewish New York City police officer?
• Who are the secret LGBT characters a Panther writer slipped into the 1970s comic book?
• How does Ta-Nehisi Coates’ first Panther storyarc thematically compare with his acclaimed full-length essay book, “Between The World and Me”?

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The book’s Foreword is written by Makani Themba, chief strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies based in Jackson, Mississippi. A social justice innovator and pioneer in the field of change communications and narrative strategy, she has spent more than 20 years supporting organizations, coalitions and philanthropic institutions in developing high impact change initiatives.
The book’s Afterword is written by Greg Carr, Ph.D., J.D., chair of the Black Studies Department of Howard University.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD— Makani Themba, community activist/strategist, Higher Ground Change Strategies, Jackson, Mississippi

INTRODUCTION—Black Panther vs. White Panther

CHAPTER ONE— From Patrice Lumumba to Sidney Poitier: Early Fantastic Four and Avengers Appearances

CHAPTER TWO— The Jungle Book: Don McGregor Creates His Own Africa

CHAPTER THREE— The Finished Man: Don McGregor (Almost) Completes His ‘Panther Novel’

CHAPTER FOUR— The Return of the Kings: The Amazing and Wacky Adventures of Jack Kirby’s Panther

CHAPTER FIVE—The Client Was a Man of Remarkable Focus: A Panther and a Priest

CHAPTER SIX—The Spy King: How Christopher Priest’s Version of The Panther Forever Shook Up The Avengers

CHAPTER SEVEN—’Bad Mutha’: Reginald Hudlin’s Uncompromised Royal Black (Super-)Man and the Unbridled Black Imagination

CHAPTER EIGHT—Side-Swipes: The New York Ghost Cop and the Wakandan Princess As ‘Replacement’ Panthers

CHAPTER NINE—The (Black) Man Without Fear: That Time Panther Briefly Replaced Daredevil

CHAPTER TEN—Between the World and Him: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Panther

CONCLUSION—Panther Slices Through Captain America: Civil War

AFTERWORD—Greg Carr, Chairperson, Africana Studies, Howard University