About Burning Spear Media
Burning Spear Media, a wholly owned subsidiary of Black Star Industries, currently operates four main divisions: Burning Spear Publications, Vanguard AV, Living History Archives and The Burning Spear newspaper.
Burning Spear Publications
Vanguard AV
Burning Spear Publications is a small independent publishing and distribution house for books and pamphlets on the topic of African liberation. Burning Spear Publications titles are available on its own distribution site, burningspearmarketplace.com, as well as through Amazon and a growing number of independent bookstores.
A “Special Collection” of Burning Spear Publications books and pamphlets authored by Omali Yeshitela was established in 2010 at the University of South Florida’s Nelson Poynter Memorial Library in St. Petersburg.
Burning Spear Media’s “Vanguard AV” provides audio visual and livestreaming consultation and technical services for black community and family events, in person and online.
Vanguard AV provides professional and affordable services, community employment and training opportunities for interns and volunteers who are seeking to learn creative and technical skills in videography, photography, sound engineering, event planning and online streaming.
Living History Archives
The Burning Spear newspaper
Burning Spear Media is the custodian of a rich store of video, audio, photographic and print materials documenting the history of the Black Power struggle as seen through the activities of the Uhuru Movement over the past 50 years.
These records of conferences, workshops, community healthcare projects, freedom schools, homeless activism, protest marches, speeches, electoral campaign activities and personal accounts are being preserved and digitized as a resource for current and future generations of students, activists, journalists, film-makers and historians.
In 2019, Burning Spear Media partnered with the University of Florida to get the print issues of The Burning Spear newspaper, going back to its first tabloid issue in 1969, digitized and published on UF’s “Florida Digital Newspaper Collection.”
Burning Spear Media is currently seeking funding for the preservation and digitization of approximately 4000 hours of VHS and miniDV tape, including recordings of twelve sessions of the International Tribunal on Reparations to Black People in the U.S. going back to 1982.
Future projects include scanning and cataloging of historical photographs, posters, correspondence and publications to be made available to the public.
The Burning Spear newspaper is the only African liberation journal in continuous publication since its inception at the height of the Black Power movement of the 1960s through today.
Dubbed the “Voice of the International African Revolution,” The Spear carries articles and reports on the pressing issues affecting the lives of African people in the U.S., in Africa and around the world, focusing on the realities and struggles in the “heart of the ‘hood.”
The official journal of the African People’s Socialist Party, The Burning Spear features an African Internationalism analysis of current and historical world events.
Each month, The Burning Spear newspaper is sold on neighborhood streets, in bookstores and online. Subscribers across the U.S. receive The Spear at their doorstep.
Over 500 men and women locked up in prisons across the U.S. receive free subscriptions to The Burning Spear newspaper. The Spear is a lifeline to those incarcerated and otherwise isolated from their communities and from the news of the world.
The Burning Spear newspaper provides free training opportunities and mentoring for aspiring writers, copyeditors, proofreaders, photographers, illustrators and layout designers.