Black August Film Series at Sankofa continues tomorrow - Mumia Long Distance Revolutionary
Naji Mujahid
BLACK AUGUST 2013 – WASHINGTON DC
Black August Film Series at Sankofa, Every Wednesday at 6pm, $5 admission
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August 1 – One man play, Jay Sun for President; Directed by John Johnson
Location: Anacostia Playhouse; 2020 Shannon Pl. SE (Behind the Big Chair), Time: Doors 7pm; House Open 7:30pm; Show 8pm
Welcome to the New World. Meet the New President.
August 3 - War Resister's League 90th Anniversary Conference; Political Prisoner Panel
Location: Georgetown University (37th & O St NW) Inter-Cultural Center, Room 205b
Time: 1-330pm
Cost: Free
August 6 – Black August Concert
Location: The Howard Theater
Time: Doors open at 6pm, Show starts at 8pm
Cost: $20
featuring Dead Prez, Maimouna Youssef, Martin Luther, Gods'illa, and Farafina Kan. Hosted by Wise Intelligent (Poor Righteous Teachers). See more at: http://thehowardtheatre.com/show/2013/08/06/black-august-ft-dead-prez-maimouna-youssef-martin-luther-godsilla-and-farafina-kan/
August 7 – Wilmington 10; USA 10,000
Location: Sankofa Video & Books; 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington DC
Time: 6pm
Cost: $5
"Wilmington 10; USA 10,000" by Haile Gerima, looks at the case of nine black boys and men as well as one white woman held as political prisoners in the 1970's on trumped up charges designed to discourage their organizing in Wilmington, North Carolina. Ben Chavis and icons such as Charles Cobb Sr. and the United Church of Christ are featured. Includes Assata Shakur, and other political prisoners.
August 10 – Dr. CR Gibbs Annual Black August lecture “Let Your Motto Be Resistance”
Location: Southwest Library; 900 Wesley Place SW (1 block from Waterfront Metro)
Time: 11am - 130pm
Cost: Free
This year, Professor Gibbs annual lecture will focus on the history of the effective use of the boycott for purposes of Black self-determination, liberation, and protest.
August 14 – Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary
Location: Sankofa Video & Books; 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington DC
Time: 6pm
Cost: $5
Before he was convicted of murdering a policeman in 1981 and sentenced to die, Mumia Abu-Jamal was a gifted journalist and brilliant writer. Now after more than 30 years in prison and despite attempts to silence him, Mumia is not only still alive but continuing to report, educate, provoke and inspire.
Stephen Vittoria's new feature documentary is an inspiring portrait of a man whom many consider America's most famous political prisoner - a man whose existence tests our beliefs about freedom of expression. Through prison interviews, archival footage, and dramatic readings, and aided by a potent chorus of voices including Cornel West, Alice Walker, Dick Gregory, Angela Davis, Amy Goodman and others, this riveting film explores Mumia's life before, during and after Death Row - revealing, in the words of Angela Davis, "the most eloquent and most powerful opponent of the death penalty in the world...the 21st Century Frederick Douglass."
Trailer: http://youtu.be/YlUTlBmuAcM?t=11s
August 21 – Herman’s House
Location: Sankofa Video & Books; 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington DC
Time: 6pm
Cost: $5
Herman Wallace may be the longest-serving prisoner in solitary confinement in the United States—he's spent more than 40 years in a 6-by-9-foot cell in Louisiana. Imprisoned in 1967 for a robbery he admits, he was subsequently sentenced to life for a killing he vehemently denies. Herman's House is a moving account of the remarkable expression his struggle found in an unusual project proposed by artist Jackie Sumell. Imagining Wallace's "dream home" began as a game and became an interrogation of justice and punishment in America. The film takes us inside the duo's unlikely 12-year friendship, revealing the transformative power of art.
Trailer:
http://youtu.be/cOK9QILmXW0
August 28 – Free Angela Davis & All Political Prisoners
Location: Sankofa Video & Books; 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington DC
Time: 6pm
Cost: $5
Free Angela is a gripping historic account of the events that catapulted a young University of California philosophy professor into a controversial political icon in the turbulent late 1960’s. Angela Davis joins the Communist Party, protests with the Black Panthers, and becomes a principle spokesperson for the burgeoning prison reform movement. As a result, she finds herself Fighting to keep her job, and in the national media spotlight characterized by her many detractors as a dangerous subversive menace, and by her supporters as a strong leader challenging authority and boldly advocating for “Power to All People.”
It’s an edge-of-your seat thriller told for the first time by Angela and others who lived through the events firsthand. The interviews recount the politics that led her to challenge authority and spur a worldwide movement for her freedom that cemented Angela Davis, and her signature Afro hairstyle, as an iconic symbol of this still relevant political and social movement — the right to challenge the system. You know her name. Now, you will finally know her story.
Trailer: http://youtu.be/lrE6yJyMK_c
August 25 – Annual Black August book event
Feat. Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz
Location: Sankofa Video & Books; 2714 Georgia Ave NW, Washington DC
Time: 430pm
Cost: Free
Russell Maroon Shoatz is a political prisoner who has been held unjustly for over thirty years, including two decades in solitary confinement. He was active as a leader in the Black Liberation Movement in Philadelphia, both above and underground. His successful escapes from maximum-security prisons earned him the title “Maroon.” Despite the torture and deprivation that has been everyday life for Maroon over the last several decades, he has remained at the cutting edge of history through his writings. Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell ‘Maroon’ Shoatz is the first published collection of his accumulated written works, and also includes new essays written expressly for this volume.
This program will feature Russell Shoatz III on behalf of his father.
AUGUST 29 – Discussion on the Prison Labor Movement
Location: UDC Law School; 4240 Connecticut Ave, Bldg. 52, Room 505
Time: 6pm
Cost: Free
This program will feature Donald F. Tibbs, JD/Phd of Drexel University Law School and author of the book From Black Power to Prison Power: The Making of Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union. The book is a legal history of how the social and cultural history of the Black Power era connects to the legal history of the Prisoner’s Rights Movement; and what the Supreme Court did to eviscerate both.
Donald F. Tibbs. FROM BLACK POWER to PRISON POWER: The Making of Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners' Labor Union. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/donald_tibbs/4
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