Black August

This article is part of a special Black August series on TheBurningSpear.com. We encourage all our readers to help “Keep The Spear Burning” during our Black August Fund Drive. Support your black power newspaper! Sponsor a prisoner or donate today at Burningspearmarketplace.com

Black August is a commemoration begun in 1979 by Africans in prison to raise up those who have died struggling for African liberation from within prison walls or in attempts to liberate Africans from the colonial prisons like George and Jonathan Jackson.

August 9, 2017 marks 3 years since the police murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. Young Michael was murdered by Ferguson, MO copy, Darren Wilson. 

Witnesses stated that Mike Brown was shot eight times while his hands were in the air. His rotting body was then left on the concrete for more than eight hours as an example to the Ferguson community of what the police will do if we disobey their colonial orders. 

What the police did not expect in this suburb of St. Louis, MO was resistance from the African working class community. This powerful display of African Resistance on August 9, 2014 marks one of the critical dates in Black August.

Rapper J. Cole visited prisoners at the birthplace of Black August—San Quentin State Prison—on August 1, 2017.

Cole made the prison visit during the middle of the North American leg of his "4 Your Eyez Only tour." 

BlackAugust originated in the prison camp of San Quentin 1979. African prisoners would wear black armbands to remember the heroic, revolutionary actions of the #SoledadBrothers, the San Quentin Six, Jonathan Jackson, Khatari Gaulden and all our fallen Freedom Fighters. 

Today we raise up HarrietTubman as we celebrate Black August. The Burning Spear newspaper’s “Harriet’s Daughters” page is dedicated to the fighting African women who continue the legacy of Harriet Tubman, who was a fearless freedom fighter during the times of slavery in the U.S. 

Over the course of 10 years, Harriet Tubman made over 19 trips to the slave states of the South and helped bring over 300 Africans to the so-called “free” states of the North. 

Unfortunately, just bringing people to states where chattel slavery was illegal did not change the overall system of oppression that Africans were faced with throughout the U.S. 

Now over 150 years later we pick up where Harriet left off. 

But today as African Internationalists we understand that ours is not a struggle “from slavery to freedom” as Booker T. Washington might say. 

Rather, it is a struggle from being a free, independent and proud people with our own power and our own land, back to being a free, independent and proud people with our own power and our own land. 

The Burning Spear newspaper is celebrating the month of August––Black August––with a month-long fundraiser to raise $10,000 towards the production and distribution of our revolutionary newspaper!

“Black August: Keep The Spear Burning” will educate the masses of African people of the history and significance of this 38-year-old revolutionary celebration, while winning our people to support our very own black power newspaper through prisoner sponsorships, getting subscriptions and becoming distributors!

There will be various Uhuru Movement events held throughout the country in celebration of Black August putting forth the significance and history of The Spear and outlining various stories of African resistance, many of which have been chronicled in our beloved newspaper.

The African community of St. Petersburg, Florida came out in droves on Sunday August 21, 2016 for Burning Spear Media’s event, “Black August: Celebrating African Resistance––From Haiti to Ferguson.”

The Haiti Revolution is known as the most successful rebellion of African people.

It led to the creation of the first African state free from slavery and is an inspiration for African resistance throughout the world.

Each August, growing numbers of Africans around the world celebrate the birth of Marcus Mosiah Garvey who was born on August 17, 1887 in St. Ann's Bay, Saint Ann, Jamaica.

The celebration of Garvey's birth date is due to the fact that since the attack on Africa that led to the capture, dispersal and enslavement of millions of Africans and the colonization of Africa, no African has been more instrumental in creating the vision of a free and liberated Africa and African people.