“We are hungry please let us in, we are hungry please let us in,” a quote from Tupac Shakur poignantly explains the birth of more radical revolutionary movements. The U.S. Department of Justice defines The Black Liberation Army (BLA) as an urban guerrilla group closely patterned after the principles of Carlos Marighella. The BLA emerged in the 1970s as one of the most radical and uncompromising forces in the Black freedom struggle. Born from the repression of the Black Panther Party, the BLA was a direct response to police violence, systemic racism, and the unyielding war the U.S. government waged against Black revolutionaries. Emerging from the repression of the Black Panther Party – After the FBI’s COINTELPRO program waged war on the Panthers, assassinating leaders like Fred Hampton and forcing others into exile or imprisonment, some members refused to surrender. The BLA took the fight underground. The U.S. government responded with ruthless repression. The BLA was labeled a terrorist organization, and law enforcement dedicated entire task forces to dismantling its cells. Many members were killed or arrested. From Assata Shakur, Mutulu Shakur, to Sundiata Acoli to Jalil Muntaqim. Dead or in jail. Again in the poignant words of Tupac Shakur, "You're hungry. You reached your level…we was asking with The Panthers...now those people that were all asking they're dead or in jail. Now what do you think we're gonna do?...Ask?"
Black History 365 | # 288 Wallace Fard Muhammad
Wallace Fard, also known as W. Farad Muhammad, the Prophet, was founder the first Temple of Islam which evolved into the Nation of Islam or its modern-day media dubbed Black Muslims. Authentic.
According to Fard he was born in Mecca to wealthy parents in the tribe of Koreish, the tribe of the Prophet Mohammad. According to FBI records Fard was born in 1891 in New Zealand. He arrived in the United States in 1913 and briefly settled in Portland, Oregon. Fard was arrested in California in 1918. After spending time in San Quentin Prison in California, Fard was released and moved to Detroit, Michigan.
Fard’s exact arrival date in Detroit is unknown, but once he arrived he made a meager living peddling umbrellas and silks door-to-door in Detroit’s African American community called “Paradise Valley.” At some point Fard began promoting a new faith he believed would liberate Detroit spiritually, psychologically and financially. He began to preach that Christianity was a false religion. He particularly denounced Colonial empires as exploiters of the black race and called on his followers to join his Temple of Islam and replace their last names with “X” in order to renounce their slave ancestry. These Colonial empires he referred to as “White Devils.”
During this period Detroit’s burgeoning African American population was ravaged by the Great Depression. Fard’s teachings became popular solace for many in the African American community. Fard’s First Temple of Islam included the Fruit of Islam, a military-like organization of black male converts, a Muslim Girls’ Training Corps Class and a University of Islam which, despite its name, was mainly focused on elementary and high-school level education.
Fard disappeared in 1934. One of his disciples, Elijah Poole, who became the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, succeeded Fard and by World War II had built the Temple of Islam into a network of mosques across the United States. Salute.
Black History 365 | # 287 Vernon Dahmer
Black History 365 | # 286 Isaac Woodard
In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement. Please be weary of the connection of black lives to social change. It seems as though as if its some sick, twisted currency that can be exchanged for a social reset. More recently it’s George Floyd…According to a McKinsey report released in December 2020 (and updated on the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s murder), more than 1,100 organizations committed a total of $200 billion to racial justice initiatives between June 2020 and May 2021. McKinsey’s analyses showed that nearly 90% of those pledges came from financial institutions. Tech companies also made grand announcements. For instance, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged $10 million to “groups working on racial justice,” which at the time was the company’s single-largest donation. Intel committed $7.6 million, Apple gave $100 million, and Google put up $370 million, to name a few…FOH. Bless the soul of Isaac Woodard.
Black History 365 | # 285 Marion Stokes
This is Marion Marguerite Butler Stokes. Beginning in 1979, former librarian Marion Stokes recorded broadcasts from multiple televisions at once, 24 hours a day, eventually accumulating 71,000 tapes of television history. She believed that the news held crucial historical details at risk of disappearing forever. It started in 1979 with the Iranian Hostage Crisis at the dawn of the twenty-four hour news cycle. It ended on December 14, 2012 while the Sandy Hook massacre played on television as Marion passed away. Having been surveilled by the government for her early political activism––she and her first husband had attempted to defect to Cuba together –– Stokes was exceedingly cautious about her recordings while she was alive. Networks were disposing their archives for decades into the trashcan of history. Remarkably Marion saved it, and now the Internet Archive will digitize her tapes and will be made publicly available, offering everyone the opportunity to examine history. Rest in peace.