Why Is We Americans?

ATTICA

Leonard Peltier: Longest-Serving Political Prisoner in the US

Richard Wright Novel Brought Back to Life

When​ Richard Wright sailed to France in 1946, he was 38 years old and already a legend. He was America’s most famous black writer, the author of two books hailed as classics the moment they were published: the 1940 novel Native Son and the 1945 memoir Black Boy. By ‘choosing exile’, as he put it, he hoped both to free himself from American racism and to put an ocean between himself and the Communist Party of the United States, in which he’d first come to prominence as a writer of proletarian fiction only to find himself accused of subversive, Trotskyist tendencies. In Paris he was a celebrity. French writers and American expatriates flocked to the Café Monaco, where he held court a short walk from his Left Bank flat. ‘Dick greeted everyone with boisterous condescension,’ Chester Himes remembered. ‘It was obvious he was the king thereabouts.’

Click below to read the entire article:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n19/adam-shatz/outcasts-and-desperados

Eric Hobsbawm Documentary

A new documentary on the life and legacy of the great historian Eric Hobsbawm, The Consolations of History, has been released by the magazine London Review id Books,

Hobsbawm wrote many articles for the magazine as the documentary touches upon but the film’s strength is its focus on his scholarship, the political scope of his work, and the political activism that he was involved in throughout his life.

Hobsbawm was not a neutral observer, a Marxist whose views of history and politics were informed by the class struggle.

I found the story of his childhood to be very interesting. He was a citizen of the world from the beginning of his life.

Also, listening to Hobsbawm speaking in Italian, fluently, was disarming and wonderful.

His four books on world history which cover the time period from the French Revolution through the 20th century are absolutely essential, The depth of analysis and the high quality if the writing are extraordinary.

This documentary provides an insightful and fascinating look at Hobsbawn’s personal, professional, and political life.

Highly recommended.

Music Video of the Week

Peter Gabriel – Biko

How Armed Black Southerners Helped Fight for Civil Rights

An important side of the civil rights movement that must be learned and discussed. It’s a history that’s been ignored for far too long.

Most history students never learn that even Martin Luther King Jr.—arguably history’s greatest spokesperson on behalf of nonviolence—had armed guards stationed outside of his home and a pistol tucked in his sofa in 1955 when he emerged as the leader of the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala.

But he did.

As time went on, he came to trust in the philosophy of nonviolence in his personal life as much as he believed in its power politically, and eventually got rid of both the guards and guns. At some point, though, we glossed over this complexity and began to think of nonviolence as preordained and as a natural outgrowth of the movement.

We don’t teach our children about the training civil rights activists had to endure in order to prepare their minds and bodies for nonviolent protests. And we don’t often think about how the movement functioned in rural places, far from the glare of the spotlights of network news cameras. Outside of the national gaze, what might check the violence of white segregationists who resisted every attempt by black citizens to assert their right to vote and to organize politically? How did the movement work in the face of the violence in rural Union County, N.C.; Lowndes County, Ala.; or Sunflower County, Miss.?

That’s the story masterfully told by Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee field secretary and now journalist Charles Cobb in his challenging and important new narrative, This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible, which adds to a growing list of important histories that expand what we know about the way organizing had to work in rural communities.

Click here to read the entire article

I Am Troy Davis

It was two years ago today that a monstrous miscarriage of justice was committed by the state of Georgia as its unrelenting pursuit to execute Troy Davis finally came to fruition.

Troy was executed even though there was no DNA evidence and no weapon that linked him to the murder that was committed. The majority of the witnesses in his case recanted their testimony against Troy because, as they explained, they were pressured and threatened by the police to give false testimony.

Troy Davis will never be forgotten.

The best way to honor him today is to fight to end the death penalty.

Troy Davis’ life and struggle against the death machine in Georgia and in the US will be vindicated one day when in our society it will no longer be possible to execute another human being.

I AM TROY DAVIS!!!!!!!!

The Trials of Muhammad Ali

Trayvon

The justice system does not work for us.

There is no justice to be found for blacks, latinos, and all people of color in US courts.

The justice system does not work for us.

It never has and it never will.

The US justice system does not operate in a vacuum.

The justice system is racist and unequal because it is part of a deeply racist and unequal society.

More discussions, more protests, and more attempts for reforms will not fundamentally change a system that is rotten to the core.

That’s been the call for many, many years, and things still remain the same.

It will never work.

US Society and US Courts do not recognize the value and rights of black lives.

It has been that way from the beginning of US history and continues to be a daily reality, through out the years, decades, and centuries.

Right up until now, in 2013.

What happened in that Sanford court today is a daily reality for all people of color.

This reality doesn’t lessen the pain and it doesn’t contain the outrage felt about this latest miscarriage of justice.

The absolute truth about our civil rights and human rights as manifested every day, in every court, in every state, always has been and is still the same:

The justice system does not work for us.