Category Archives: Protest

March 25, 2015 · 8:39 pm

Killing Trayvons ~ “American Violence at the Intersection of Race & Class”

with Kevin Alexander Gray

Co-editor [with Jeffrey St. Clair and JoAnn Wypijewski] of Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence, and author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics for an evening of analysis, dialogue and performance.

Gray is a civil rights organizer in South Carolina. He is a contributing editor to Counterpunch, on the boards of RESIST & Savannah River Site Watch. He served as a national board member of the American Civil Liberties Union for 4 years & is a past eight-term president of the South Carolina affiliate of the ACLU. Advisory board member of DRC Net (Drug Policy Reform Coalition), & was Jesse Jackson’s ’88 SC campaign manager.

“There’s no keener mind, no sharper eye, focused on the condition of black politics. Gray’s take is radical, so his focus is always ample and humane.”

joining Kevin will be Adam Gottlieb

Adam is a poet-emcee/teaching-artist/singer-songwriter/revolutionary from Chicago. As a teen, he was featured in the 2009 documentary film “Louder Than A Bomb.” Since then, he has gone on to perform and teach widely throughout Chicago and the U.S. In 2012 he co-founded the Royal Souls open mic in the East Roger’s Park neighborhood of Chicago. He is a founder of the Chicago branch of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade, and performs with his band OneLove.

Also featuring . . . Chicago poets active in the ‘Let Us Breathe’ and ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, along with members of high school teams in the 2015 Louder than a Bomb spoken word competition.

The presentation by Gray and the performances by the artists will be followed by a conversation with the author, poets and audience!

Join Us for an evening of analysis, dialogue and performance!

Saturday, April 11th. 6 – 8 PM
Powell’s Books Chicago
1218 South Halsted

Sponsored by: The Chicago Consortium for Working Class Studies & the RevolutionaryPoets Brigade, Chicago

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Tagged as Adam Gottlieb, Black Lives Matter, Kevin Alexander Gray, Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence, Let Us Breathe, Louder Than A Bomb, Powell’s Books Chicago, Revolutionary Poets Brigade, The Chicago Consortium for Working Class Studies, Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics

June 12, 2014 · 8:52 pm

Now Available! ~ Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence

Skin privilege. When you’re black it seems the hardest thing to explain to whites. Even the most conscious or liberal whites sometimes don’t quite get it. Or as Langston Hughes once said, “A liberal is one who complains about segregated railroad cars but rides in the all white section.”

The killing of Trayvon Martin in February 2012 rang yet another alarm about the costs of that privilege. Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence tracks the case and explores why Trayvon’s name and George Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict symbolized all the grieving, the injustice, the profiling and free passes based on white privilege and police power: the long list of Trayvons known and unknown.

With contributions from Robin D.G. Kelley, Rita Dove, Cornel West and Amy Goodman, Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Alexander Cockburn, Etan Thomas, Tara Skurtu, bell hooks and Quassan Castro, June Jordan, Jesse Jackson, Tim Wise, Patricia Williams, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Vijay Prashad, Rodolfo Acuna, Jesmyn Ward and more, Killing Trayvons is an essential addition to the literature on race, violence and resistance.

Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence is set to be released early Summer 2014.

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Editors:

Kevin Alexander Gray is a civil rights organizer in South Carolina and author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike!: The Fundamentals of Black Politics.

Jeffrey St. Clair is the editor of CounterPunch. His books include Whiteout (with Alexander Cockburn), Grand Theft Pentagon, and Born Under a Bad Sky.

JoAnn Wypijewski regularly writes for The Nation and CounterPunch. Her books include Painting by Numbers.

Published by CounterPunch Books.

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Filed under 1ST LOOK | KAG Book Promotion, American Culture, American Politics, Black Culture | United States, Black Politics, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Cultural Essays, Drug Policy, Human Rights, Law Enforcement, Obama Administration, Poetry, Police Abuse|Brutality|Killings, Protest, The Obama Administration, The Press, white supremacy, Work of Comrades

Tagged as Alexander Cockburn, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, bell hooks and Quassan Castro, Cornel West and Amy Goodman, Etan Thomas, George Zimmerman, Jeffrey St. Clair, Jesmyn Ward, Jesse Jackson, JoAnn Wypijewski, June Jordan, Kevin Alexander Gray, Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence, Patricia Williams, Rita Dove, Robin D.G. Kelley, Rodolfo Acuna, Tara Skurtu, Thandisizwe Chimurenga, Tim Wise, Trayvon Martin, Vijay Prashad

Video

Pardon Gregory Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice, and Michael Walli.

Tuesday, Feb 18, 2014

Pardon anti-nuclear activists Gregory Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice, and Michael Walli.

U.S. District Judge Amul Thapar in Knoxville, Tenn. sentenced 84-year-old Sister Megan Rice, a Catholic nun, to 35 months in prison and three years probation. Rice is a sister in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. She became a nun when she was 18 and served for 40 years as a missionary in western Africa teaching science. Thapar sentenced 58-year-old Greg Boertje-Obed, an Army veteran who lives at a Catholic Worker House in Minnesota, and Michael Walli, a 64-year-old two-tour Vietnam veteran who lives at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington DC, to five years in prison and three years probation as well.

The activists were found guilty on May 8 of sabotaging the plant and damaging federal property at the Y‑12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Officials said “there was never any danger of the protesters reaching materials that could be detonated or made into a dirty bomb…”

Protesters were engaged in a symbolic act to bring attention to America’s stockpile of nuclear weapons, which they view as both immoral and illegal …

Gregory Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice, and Michael Walli

Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice, and Michael Walli are members of Transform Now Plowshares, “an effort by people of faith to transform weapons into real, life-giving alternatives, to build true peace.”

Sister Megan Rice told the judge: “Please have no leniency with me … To remain in prison for the rest of my life would be the greatest gift you could give me.”

Their attorneys asked the judge to sentence them to time they had already served, about nine months, because of their record of good works throughout their lives.

A sentence of time served is fair.

Please sign both of the petitions asking President Barack Obama to pardon the three activists.

Thanks,

Kevin Alexander Gray

White House ~ https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/pardon-anti-nuclear-activists-gregory-boertje-obed-sister-megan-rice-and-michael-walli/hTh4PRLQ

Change.org ~ http://www.change.org/petitions/president-barack-obama-pardon-anti-nuclear-activists-gregory-boertje-obed-sister-megan-rice-and-michael-walli?recruiter=3098064&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=petition_invitation

NEWS STORIES:

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/NATL-Nun-84-Megan-Rice-Sentenced-Almost-3-Years-Prison-Break-In-Nuclear-Plant-Peace-Protest-Uranium-246059071.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/02/18-8

http://gazette.com/nun-gets-nearly-3-years-in-prison-for-nuke-protest/article/feed/91065#M8mlktzxz1LpOUOd.01

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February 19, 2014 · 4:53 am

October 9, 2013 · 4:40 am

After Trayvon: Revisiting MLK’s “Triple Evils” | Pamela Brown

In the 20th century, Martin Luther King Jr. defined the problem of America under the weight of the “triple evils” of racism, economic exploitation and war. In the 21st, the case of Trayvon Martin has created an existential crisis for black Americans and allies engaged in the struggle for racial justice. It underscores, again, that for many millions of people the “ism” felt as the greatest threat is not capitalism or militarism. Yet these effusions of persistent racism are enmeshed in a context: of growing inequality under neoliberal economic regimes and of wide-scale state-sponsored violence globally. It is time for all people to revisit MLK’s “triple evils” in forming a strategy for resistance and a vision of the future — re-imagining what freedom might look like and how it might be achieved.

Pamela Brown

Kopkind’s 2013 Harvest Late Brunch fundraiser will be held Sunday, October 13, at 2 pm. Our speaker is Pamela Brown.

Pam was deeply involved in Occupy Wall Street and has continued in its offshoot organizing and educational projects, at the convergence of race, class and debt. She is a columnist for Tidal Magazine and an organizer with the People’s Investigation of Wall Street. She was a founding member of Strike Debt and the Rolling Jubilee, and has been involved in campaigns and writing projects including the student debt pledge of refusal and the Debt Resistors Operations Manual. With a background in philosophy and media arts, Pam is currently a doctoral student in sociology at The New School.

Kopkind is a living memorial to the great radical journalist Andrew Kopkind. Each summer since 1999 it has been bringing together journalists, activists and filmmakers for week-long seminar/retreat sessions with the aim of thinking deeply, acting consciously, living expressively and extending the field for freedom, pleasure and imagination.

Out-of-towners, we have some rooms and cabins, so contact us if you’d like to stay the night.

Please Come! We Look Forward To Seeing You!

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Filed under Actions | Events, American Politics, Black Culture | United States, Black Politics, Civil Rights, Feminist Leaders, Police Abuse|Brutality|Killings, Political Ideology, Protest, Work of Comrades

Tagged as Andrew Kopkind, Kopkind's Harvest Late Brunch, Pamela Brown, The Organ Barn

November 17, 2012 · 3:46 am

PROTEST AT SC STATEHOUSE TO CALL FOR CEASEFIRE IN GAZA

Emergency Gaza Protest!

SATURDAY Nov. 17^th @4pm

There will be an emergency Gaza protest on Saturday November 17^th at 4pm at the South Carolina Statehouse.

Demonstrators call on President Obama, Israel, Hamas to end escalating violence & a ceasefire in Gaza!

Escalating violence in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militants took a decided turn for the worse on Wednesday as Israel broke a tenuous truce and assassinated Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari in a string of airstrikes in Gaza. Hamas and Palestinian militant groups have retaliated by firing rockets deep into Israel, including at Tel Aviv. Over twenty Palestinians including children have been killed in the ensuing Israeli airstrikes and; three Israeli civilians were killed when rockets launched by Palestinian militants struck an apartment in Israel, the first Israeli civilian fatalities from rocket attacks this year. Israeli troops are massing on the border with Gaza and a ground invasion.

“It is well-known that Israel’s targeted killings of Palestinian militants in Gaza provoke rocket attacks in retaliation,” says President David Matos, who has traveled to Israel/Palestine twice on peace missions. “Israel deliberately escalated the violence by carrying out this targeted assassination .” At the same time, Matos notes that “an all out war in Gaza will be literal murder on both Israeli and Palestinian civilians caught in the cross-fire; it will take de-escalation on both sides to avoid that disaster.”

While the parties on the ground must de-escalate to avert further bloodshed, the US has considerable influence over Israel via the over $3 billion in military aid the US furnishes Israel every year.

“We call on President Obama to pressure Israel to stop its escalations and step back from the brink of war,” says Matos. “If President Obama goes along with more violence, blood will be on his hands.”

Institute for Middle East Understanding Timeline of Escalating Violence~

http://imeu.net/news/article0023227.shtml

Web: www.carolinapeace.org