Drums in the Global Village » world history

“Harvest of Empire,” The Documentary

Todd Steven Burroughs — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:00:20 +0000

Just got back from the screening of this film (from this book) at Brookings less than two hours ago. It was great to see Joe Torres and the AP’s Suzanne Gamboa (the post-film panel moderator) again, and equally great to see the legendary Juan Gonzalez in the flesh. (Of course, I’ve raved about Gonzalez’ and Torres’ epic here and here.)

It was a solid film. It told the story of the immigration of Latinos from the historical perspective of (the abuses of) American foreign policy. The same racial-conflict-covered-in-red-white-and-blue tone reminded me of the first set of “Eyes On The Prize.”

Because I hadn’t been paying attention, I didn’t know that if the Supreme Court decides to uphold the worst parts of Arizona’s iillegal mmigration crackdown, 14 states may follow up with their own laws. Juan Crow, as somebody said tonight.

I’m Very Happy To Be Published In……

Todd Steven Burroughs — Mon, 14 May 2012 00:34:24 +0000

…..this issue of the Journal of Pan-African Studies.

The Long Distance Runner Historian (Parts 1 and 2)

Todd Steven Burroughs — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:34:37 +0000

An extraordinary commitment. Serious. Detailed. Can’t wait for Part II on C-SPAN’s “Q+A” two Sundays from now.

*****

May 22nd UPDATE: And here it is.

Asante Sana, Reggie Schell

Todd Steven Burroughs — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:16:03 +0000

I first (and last) met Reggie Schell at the 2002 Black Panther Party Reunion in Washington, D.C. He was just coming into the building of the University of the District of Columbia where the event was held. I’m sure he hadn’t seen some of those people in years. But he let me, a nobody, grab him immediately and we sat in a stairwell and he let me interview him about Mumia for an hour. I never forgot that powerful act of kindness and dedication.

Viewing/Fu?neral information For Fallen Panther Comrade Reggie Schell

In a message dated 5/9/2012 7:08:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, barbaracoxeasley@aol.com writes:

Friends our comrade Reggie Schell will be laid to rest on Tuesday May the 15th at Alphonso Funeral Home 2300 block north broad st. near york st.
viewing from 9 to 11 am and service at 11 am.

Messages of Condolences and Encouragement for Family should be sent to the Schell family
1940 W. Cecil B Moore Philadelphia Pa 19121
please pass the word.
BC

SIGN THE JERICHO COINTELPRO PETITION!

Free All Political Prisoners!
nycjericho@gmail.com • www.jerichony.org

Capt. Reggie Schell: Black Panther (1941-2012)
[col. writ. 5/11/12] © ’12 Mumia Abu-Jamal

He was born Richard Reginald Schell, but most people knew him as Reggie, and those who worked with him called him “Cap”–short for Captain, the rank he held in the Philadelphia Branch of the Black Panther Party. He was a patient and wise teacher, and looked out for younger Panthers (Including this writer).

He wasn’t the first, nor the last captain in Philadelphia, but his tenure marked the expansion of the local office, from one storefront on the old Columbia Ave. (now Cecil B. Moore Ave.) to at least 5 offices citywide.

His term of office was one of conflict and confrontation, and during the Rizzo years (under former police commissioner and late city mayor, Frank L. Rizzo) that conflict turned into a shooting
war.

He built the local chapter into an office that was the pride of the state–and the bane of the State. It was late summer, 1970, when city police attacked local Black Panther offices in North Philly, West Philly and Germantown in the wee morning hours.

Panthers shot back.

Panthers were busted citywide, just as BPP offices were raided nationally.

The city raids were designed to deter people from attending the Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention (RPCC), when people, mostly activists, would gather together to write a new revolutionary constitution for a new, revolutionary America.

The raids backfired, for afterwards, support came from all quarters, even those which had previously avoided the Panthers.

But even after the dissolution of the Party, Reggie continued his work by founding the Black United Liberation Front (BULF) composed mostly of local ex-Panthers. The issues were the same, protecting and defending the rights of Black people. Fighting against police brutality, for decent housing, and against the Prison-Industrial-Complex. He worked closely with any group or individual who could help, and had a close and personal working relationship with the late North Phila.-based cleric, Father Paul Washington, long-time rector of the Church of the Advocate.

In later years, even when under the ravages of kidney disease so serious it required weekly dialysis, Reggie Schell was at his post, ignoring his pain, passing out leaflets on C. B. Moore Ave., or painting signs of protest for passersby. Above all things, he loved Black people.

He died as he lived—as a revolutionary, relentless, determined, straight ahead.

Reggie Schell returned to his ancestors on the early hours of May 9, 2012. He was 2 months shy of his 71st birthday.

He is survived by his 4 adult children, Dessalina, Leslie, Marcus and Richard Reginald. He had a dozen grand-children and ½ a dozen great-grands.

Reggie Schell—Capt., Black Panther Party; Founder, Black United Liberation Front; revolutionary—soldier for the Black Nation–will be long remembered!

All Power to the People!

(c) ’12 maj

Thanks, White Nonprofit…..

Todd Steven Burroughs — Tue, 08 May 2012 16:50:45 +0000

…..for countering the other white nonprofit with the gazillion-seen video.

LIVE (NOT) FROM DEATH ROW, On “Democracy Now!”

Todd Steven Burroughs — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 12:14:23 +0000

First time on the newsmagazine live since that incident in 1999.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to interrupt the broadcast, because right now we have just gotten a call from Mumia Abu-Jamal from prison in Pennsylvania. Mumia Abu-Jamal is speaking to us for the first time no longer on death row.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, can you tell us where you are? Welcome to Democracy Now!

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Good morning, Amy. And good morning to Democracy Now! I am in the open room, the block out area of SCI Mahanoy, a prison in Schuylkill County in northeastern Pennsylvania.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Mumia Abu-Jamal, can you say how the conditions there are different from the prison from which you were moved?

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Well, in many ways, they’re similar. But in only in kind of dimension are they different. That is to say, everything is bigger. For nearly three decades, I was in what could be called a dog run or a small dog cage with one other fellow from death row. The difference between that and going to a cage, a yard that is about a mile wide with about 400 or 500 other men, is pretty profound.

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia Abu-Jamal, can you talk about what your reaction is to be taken off of death row, to no longer have death hanging over you, but to be in jail for a life sentence without parole?

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Well, you’ve kind of answered the question with your question. That is to say—

OPERATOR: This call is from the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy and is subject to monitoring and recording.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: You’ve probably heard me refer to life as “slow death row.” It sounds a little dramatic, but it is really more truth to it than hyperbole. And that’s because, you know, in Pennsylvania, it has the highest population, or one of the highest populations, in the state, of lifers—in fact, juveniles with life sentences. And in Pennsylvania, there’s no gradation: you know, all lifers are lifers, and that’s for their whole life. So, and I guess, in that sense, too, it’s bigger. I mean, it’s bigger in terms of the time differential, but it’s slow death row, to be sure.

And when you see, as I’ve seen, going to chow or going to a meal and seeing what I call the “million man wheelchair march,” it makes an impact on you. You know, you look up in the morning, and there are 30 or 40 guys going through the handicap line, and they’re in wheelchairs. And although some are young, most are quite old. And so, you know, life means life in Pennsylvania.

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia Abu-Jamal, there was a protest at the Justice Department yesterday, Occupy the DOJ, A24, for your birthday, April 24th, as people there called for—called for the Department of Justice, the attorney general, to open a probe into your case. What do you want to happen in your case?

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Well, as I said to our people there in Washington the other day, yesterday, frankly, we want freedom. I mean, I was thinking this morning, as I was being told that, you know, we could possibly talk to you, about a case that’s in the federal law books called U.S. v. Brown. The person is perhaps known better as Rap Brown or Gerold Brown. Imam Jamil is his name today. This is an old case, I think from the ’70s, perhaps. But in this case, a federal case, the judge referred to Brother Jamil, at a golf course with other people around, as: “I’m going to help get rid of this nigger.”

Think about that in the context of Judge Albert F. Sabo of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia, not saying it on a golf course among friends, but saying this in his chambers in the courthouse during a trial. “I’m going to help them fry the nigger.” This was heard by a court reporter—a member of the court staff, a court employee, and a person that is perhaps the best listener you could ever have for any conversation, because that’s her job. She takes notes during trials for a living. Now, we didn’t know about it until years later, but when we put this into our papers, our filings, it has been essentially ignored by every court it’s come in front of. How is that possible? And so, I mean, that’s certainly one indication, as you can see, one example of an unfair system.

*********

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Danny Glover is here also to talk about your case.

DANNY GLOVER: Hello, Mumia.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Yes, Brother Danny. How are you?

DANNY GLOVER: How are you doing, brother?

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Good, good, good, good. Good to hear your voice.

DANNY GLOVER: It’s good to hear you, as always. And I certainly would be—feel a lot better, be a lot better, if you were out of jail, not simply just off of death row.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Me and you both.

DANNY GLOVER: But certainly, I just want to tell you that—and I’m really emotional because I didn’t expect to hear your voice this morning—that we continue to struggle and will continue to struggle to fight for your release. We sent a letter to the attorney general, Holder, that we convene a meeting and the federal government use its own authority to investigate your case. And certainly, we—people are out here, and we love you, brother.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Thank you so much. I assure you I did not expect to hear your voice, either, and I’m pretty emotional about that. You are a hero, for the acting community and the arts community and the drama community and, of course, the black community, and, beyond that, the international community, for the work you’ve done in the arts. And I am as pleased as punch and thrilled to hear you there. Thank you. Thank you very much.

DANNY GLOVER: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia, I think it’s interesting that you are talking to Danny Glover, who is currently playing Thurgood Marshall—that’s going to be coming out in an HBO series on Muhammad Ali—the Supreme Court justice.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: I think—I think Thurgood himself would get a real chuckle out of that. That’s wonderful. I mean, so—

DANNY GLOVER: Good, good.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: This is—you know, you’re—

DANNY GLOVER: Well, I’m looking forward to seeing you soon. All right, brother?

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: We shall make that happen.

DANNY GLOVER: We will make that happen, OK. All right.

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia Abu-Jamal, your access, outside of death row right now, to people, to the media, to the phone? You have had so much trouble reaching out over the years, though you have managed.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Well, if you recall, it’s been—it’s maybe 15 years, I think, since I last called your show. I was in conversation with you, perhaps 1996 or thereabouts, and the phone went dead. And I looked out of my cell, and I saw a guard come up and literally pull the wire out of the wall that connected the phone. And I remember saying, “Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?” And it was dead because there was no wire to connect us. So, as you can see, the wires are a little tighter now. But—

AMY GOODMAN: Well, you sued—you sued the Pennsylvania prison authorities over them pulling out the phone from the wall when we were speaking on Democracy Now!

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Indeed, I did. And thanks to the efforts of some really brave and conscientious lawyers and judges, I won—at least most of the issues in that suit. Abu-Jamal v. Price I think was the name of the case.

OPERATOR: This call is from the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy and is subject to monitoring and recording.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: And thanks to that case, I was able to write and continue to, you know, be in contact with our people. So, I’m real glad he pulled that wire out the wall. That was very helpful.

AMY GOODMAN: Danny Glover, what do you think Thurgood Marshall would do in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal?

DANNY GLOVER: Well, surprisingly—no, not surprisingly, I think Thurgood Marshall would have been one of the few justices who would perhaps hear the case, would argue to hear the case, even though there were moments during the civil rights movement that Thurgood Marshall had even trouble with Martin Luther King and disagreed a great deal. But I think—I feel that he would be one who would want to hear the case. Thurgood Marshall—for nothing else, during those dark years in the ’30s and ’40s, Thurgood Marshall was there, before Brown v. Board of Education, fighting cases all the time of men who on death row who were about to have—for murder or for rape, all over the South, you know. We often know Thurgood Marshall from his work on Brown v. Board of Education, but clearly his work around inmates, around prisoners, around those who have been accused, accused falsely, and fighting for them was something he did all over the country.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m afraid we’re going to lose Mumia Abu-Jamal in a moment. Mumia Abu-Jamal, your thoughts on what Danny Glover just said about the Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, and also if you could comment on the Trayvon Martin case and the Occupy movement?

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Well, I would concur largely with, not surprisingly, Danny Glover’s remarks, because, you know, from what I’ve read and what I’ve heard, Justice Thurgood Marshall was not just a brilliant legal mind and not just a brilliant judge or jurist, he was an incredible lawyer who fought for people who were poor, who were dispossessed, who were powerless, in the apartheid South. And also because he was a black lawyer, his experiences in the South were such that not only were his clients endangered, but he himself was endangered. And many times he would be told that he had to leave town before nightfall, or he would face death. I mean, this was the American South in the middle 20th century.

The good thing about that, if there can be a good thing about such an experience, is that when he came to the Supreme Court, those experiences of being a defense lawyer of the poor and the dispossessed and those facing death, he was able to share with his fellow justices, because these were people, largely, who, let’s say, came from a completely different background. And I don’t mean racially; I mean class, and I also mean that many of them—most of them were not defense lawyers. They were either lower court judges, or some were legislators, and, you know, mostly they were prosecutors and so forth. So, he was able to expand their perspective of what the law really meant in the real world and—through his own life experiences. Now, I think he had a profound impact, if you really check it, on the former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. If you look at her early jurisprudence and then look at her later jurisprudence, I think it’s a direct effect of the influence of Thurgood Marshall.

As for Trayvon, the little boy who could have been the son of the President of the United States, when we look at what happened in that case, and in my—my real view is that, in a matter of weeks or months, or months, we may see an immunity hearing that will wipe out the charges completely, and Mr. Zimmerman will never see the inside of a prison.

As for the Occupy movement, I think it’s one of the greatest advances in the democracy movement in our modern period. And it’s pushed because of the economic crisis—

OPERATOR: You have 60 seconds remaining.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: It’s pushed because of the economic crisis that’s facing the United States and especially young people who have come out of college and have no hope for a job, have no hope for a future, have no hope for a life without terrifying, crippling loans over their heads. I think they did something wonderful, but it’s a first step. They have something else to do, something more important to do, and that’s to connect with other people’s movements around the country and—

OPERATOR: You have 30 seconds remaining.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: —and build a kind of resistance that can transform this country. I thank you all for these brief moments. I really do. Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia Abu-Jamal, happy birthday. Happy 58th birthday.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Oh, thank you. Thank you, Amy.

DANNY GLOVER: Happy birthday, Mumia.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: Thank you, Danny.

DANNY GLOVER: OK.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: All the best. On a move.

DANNY GLOVER: See you soon.

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL: All right, brother.

DANNY GLOVER: All right.

AMY GOODMAN: Mumia Abu-Jamal, speaking to us from SCI Mahanoy, the prison in Pennsylvania where he is no longer on death row. Are you still there, Mumia? His phone has been cut off at this point. Danny Glover, your thoughts right now as you sit down and hear Mumia Abu-Jamal speaking to you, no longer from death row?

DANNY GLOVER: Well, it’s a beginning, as he says. As he mentioned in terms of the Occupy movement, it’s a beginning. We have to find, by—as someone would say, by any means necessary, legally, to free—and collectively, as a community, not only in this country, but around the world, to free and to bring him home.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Danny Glover, your thoughts on Trayvon Martin and Mumia Abu-Jamal? We’ve just spoken to. Is the criminal justice system very different now than it was when Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted?

DANNY GLOVER: Certainly, it’s framed now in a different way. It is simply still the place. I know those places, and I visit those places Mumia talks about, where there is a wheelchair caravan of men who are serving life sentences. You take, for instance, Soledad State Prison in California. Forty percent of the prisoners there are on death—excuse me, on life sentences. And you take Vacaville, two places that I visited last year. Also 40 percent of the prisoners are life—lifers, as they’ve been calling them, lifers. So, the reality is that that has not changed. The course, from prisons to—from high school to communities to prison, is still the same course that has happened.

What is essentially—and we must be reminded that at the point that Mumia was charged with this crime—and certainly, there were a number of activities, the COINTEL program and other programs, to incite and not only to dismantle those movements and to dissuade young people from becoming progressive and radicalized in different ways within the community. So, here’s a journalist. And that’s what Mumia is first—

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds.

DANNY GLOVER: —is a journalist.

AMY GOODMAN: And then we’ll continue off air.

DANNY GLOVER: He’s the person who is attacked—a journalist now, first—who’s attacked in here because of what he has to say.

AMY GOODMAN: Danny Glover, we want to thank you very much for being with us. We’re going to continue this conversation and post it online in a web exclusive at democracynow.org.

The Best Tribute All Of Us Can Give Gil Noble……..

Todd Steven Burroughs — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:30:52 +0000

…..(other than to contribute to the digitization of his show’s archive) is to continue to tape and share events like this wake! (This is what *I* call church! ) THANKS, STILL HERE HARLEM PRODUCTIONS!

Gil Noble Archives, P.O. Box 43138, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043.

(APRIL 26TH UPDATE: Here’s what WABC-TV’s “Here and Now” did:

)

Glad to post this on Mumia’s 58th birthday!

Smiley and West On Eliminating Poverty

Todd Steven Burroughs — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:36:52 +0000

APRIL 24TH UPDATE:

I’m glad they did this. But short of The Fire This Time, I don’t know how they can get people to pay attention.

Mumia Abu-Jamal 2012 Interview With Russian Television

Todd Steven Burroughs — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:00:48 +0000

Listening to this reminds me again how much of life Abu-Jamal has missed.

************

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Monday, April 9, 2012

Media Contact

AKILA WORKSONGS, Inc.

April R. Silver | pr@akilaworksongs.com

Chantel Bell | chantel@akilaworksongs.com

DANNY GLOVER, FRANCES FOX PIVEN, M1 OF DEAD PREZ AND OTHERS WILL “OCCUPY THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT”

FOR THE RELEASE OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!

Major Protest and Civil Disobedience Planned at the

U.S. Department of Justice: April 24, 2012, 11:00 am, Washington, DC

New York, NY – - A broad coalition of community organizers, activists, artists, students, scholars, celebrities, and concerned individuals will hold a national rally and protest at the headquarters of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday April 24, 2012 at 11:00 am in Washington, DC (located at 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW). The purpose of the protest is to call for the release of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal on the day that is his 58^th birthday. Renowned activists Frances Fox Piven, and Norman Finkelstein; actor Danny Glover; hip hop artist M-1 (of the duo dead prez); and others will engage in acts of civil disobedience at the protest. Organizers hope that the planned civil disobedience will dramatize their formal request that US Attorney General Eric Holder meet with a delegation to discuss systemic police corruption and civil rights violations in Abu-Jamal’s case and in the cases of hundreds of others across the nation.

Organizers will make seven core demands of US Attorney General Holder:

1. Release Mumia Abu-Jamal

2. End mass incarceration and the criminalization of Black and Latino Youth

3. Create jobs, education, and health care, not jails

4. End solitary confinement and stop torture

5. End the racist death penalty

6. Hands off immigrants

7. Free all political prisoners

Attorneys will be available to answer questions.

Johanna Fernandez, a professor of history at Baruch College, CUNY in New York and the filmmaker of Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, announces that the rally and protest are tied to short term and long term goals. “Our immediate goal is to have Mumia Abu-Jamal released from prison. His recent release from death row was only a half victory. Our long- term goal is to end mass incarceration. Toward that end, we have developed a project called Liberation Summer. In just a few months, we will join with others to mobilize, train, and organize thousands of people who want to see an end to the unjust criminalization and mass incarceration of African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, other people of color, immigrants, and poor communities. Mass incarceration is not the solution to social problems. Rather than criminalization, we want a world without prisons.”

Background: Mumia Abu-Jamal

On December 9, 1981 in Philadelphia, journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested for the killing of a Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. In 1982, he was convicted and sentenced to death row. Last year, the Supreme Court allowed to stand the decisions of four federal judges whose unanimous rulings and arguments state that Abu-Jamal’s 1982 death sentence was unconstitutional. In early December, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office decided that it would not continue to pursue a death sentence in this case and Abu-Jamal’s original sentence was commuted to life in prison without parole. Supporters of Abu-Jamal have cited the elimination of the death sentence in this case as one of the few civil rights victories in the post-civil rights era. Abu-Jamal’s demand for a new and fair trial and freedom is supported by heads of state from France to South Africa; by city governments from Detroit to San Francisco to Paris; by the Congressional Black Caucus and other members of U.S. Congress; by the European Parliament; by the NAACP, labor unions, and distinguished human rights organizations like Amnesty International; by Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu; by scholars, religious leaders, artists, scientists; and by countless others around the world.

Now that Abu-Jamal is off death row, activists are demanding his release from prison. On December 9, 2011, in an event at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia that marked the 30^th year anniversary of Abu-Jamal’s incarceration, Archbishop Desmond Tutu joined countless others and asked the nation to “rise to the challenge of reconciliation, human rights, and justice” and called for Abu-Jamal’s “immediate release.”

Background: Why Rally at the Department of Justice?

The police officers who shot, beat, and arrested Mumia Abu-Jamal in 1981 — for the shooting death of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner — were under scrutiny by a Department of Justice investigation of the Philadelphia Police Department. The probe, which began in 1979, marked the first time in the nation’s history that the federal government sued a police department for civil rights violations and charged an entire police department (rather than individual officers, with police brutality). The DOJ suit maintained that the Philadelphia police’s practices of “shooting nonviolent suspects, abusing handcuffed prisoners, suppressing dissension within its ranks, and engaging in a pattern of brutal behavior ‘shocks the conscience.’” (Philip Taubman, “U.S. Files Its Rights Suit Charging Philadelphia Police with Brutality,” The New York Times, August 14, 1979). Only days after the end of Abu-Jamal’s trial and conviction, 15 of the 35 police officers involved in collecting evidence in his case would be convicted and jailed, as a result of this federal investigation, on charges that included graft, corruption, and tampering with evidence to obtain a conviction. Chief among these officers was Alfonzo Giordano, the police inspector who led the crime scene investigation in Abu-Jamal’s case. The DOJ investigation remains unfinished: it did not provide relief for defendants like Abu-Jamal who were convicted by the testimonies and work of these corrupt and convicted cops.

ENDORSED BY: International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal ? Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal ? Coalition to Free Mumia (NYC) ? Occupy Philly ? OCCUPY General Assembly (NYC) ? Occupy DC Now ? Occupy DC Criminal Injustice Committee ? Occupy the Hood ? Decarcerate PA ? Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change [SPARC] ? Millions for Mumia/Int’l Action Center ? dead prez (Sticman and M1) ? John Carlos ? Talib Kweli ? Immortal Technique ? Angela Davis ? Danny Glover ? Alice Walker ? Francis Pixen ? Amiri Baraka ? Marc Lamont Hill ? Cornell West ? Vijay Prashad ? Norman Finkelstein ? ANSWER Coalition ? Prison Radio

For event information, contact Johanna Fernandez at 917.930.0804. Media inquiries are directed to AKILA WORKSONGS at 718.756.8501 or pr@akilaworksongs.com .

# # #

Marable (Posthumously) Wins Pulitzer For “Reinvention”

Todd Steven Burroughs — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:48:50 +0000

If it was any other major Black biography, I’d be overjoyed. But nope. I’ll stand by what I’ve said on this, and what I will say.

Columbia professor, 3 alums, including former Spectator editor, win Pulitzers

In addition to the four Columbia affiliates, the Associated Press team that uncovered the NYPD surveillance of Muslim communities received a Pulitzer.

By Naomi Cohen
Spectator Staff Writer

Published April 16, 2012
Updated, 4 a.m.

The late Columbia professor Manning Marable, Eli Sanders, CC ’99, David Kocieniewski, Journalism ’86, and Tracy K. Smith, SoA ’97, were among those awarded Pulitzer Prizes on Monday.

The Associated Press team that uncovered the scope of the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslim communities, including college students and the Columbia Muslim Students Association’s website, was one of two award winners for investigative reporting.

The winners were announced in the newly renamed Pulitzer Hall, formerly Journalism Hall, on Columbia’s campus.

Sanders received the award in feature writing for “The Bravest Woman in Seattle,” his narrative of a woman who was raped and whose partner was raped and murdered. Sanders, the editor-in-chief of Spectator’s 122nd managing board in 1998, now writes for The Stranger, an alternative Seattle weekly.

The announcement of Marable’s award for “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” made waves in the Institute for Research in African-American Studies and the Center for Contemporary Black History, which Marable founded.

“In many ways, it was a surprise,” said the institute’s director, Fredrick Harris, who worked closely with Marable. He said the institute exchanged enthusiastic emails regarding the news, which coincides with the planning for a memorial conference for Marable next week, at which leading African-American scholars will speak.

“Here we have an opportunity to reflect on Professor Marable’s scholarship as well as his activism. It highlights the important contributions that Manning Marable made … to Columbia and to the world of scholarship,” Harris said.

The book, which was originally a finalist in the biography category but was awarded the history prize, “separates fact from fiction and casts Malcolm X into a human figure,” Harris said. “It talks about how Malcolm X reinvented himself, and his reinvention of self really reflects on how Black America in the 21st century has to in many ways reinvent himself to address some challenges when it comes to racial inequality.”

Marable died in April 2011 after a double lung transplant and complications from pneumonia. Posthumous Pulitzer awards are rare—the last was awarded in 1996 to the late Jonathan Larson for the musical “Rent.”

One of the two investigative journalism awards was given to Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan, and Chris Hawley at the AP. The national attention resulting from their series inspired a vocal response from students on campus and fireside chats with University President Lee Bollinger and University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis.

“It’s important that they’re [the AP reporters] being recognized for their work,” said Abdul Rafay Hanif, CC ’14 and president of the MSA. “They showed a lot of initiative in reporting the issue and shedding light on the issue that’s not only important to Columbia, or to New York City, but to the entire United States.”

Kocieniewski, a writer for the New York Times, was awarded the prize in explanatory reporting for what the jury called his “lucid series that penetrated a legal thicket” in the tax loopholes often exploited by the affluent.

Smith, a creative writing professor at Princeton, was recognized for her collection of “bold, skillful poems” called “Life on Mars,” which the jury said was capable of “taking readers into the universe and moving them to an authentic mix of joy and pain.”

“It was clear from the very start that Tracy K. Smith’s voice would be a beautiful force to be reckoned with in contemporary American poetry,” said School of the Arts Poetry Director Lucie Brock-Broido, who taught Smith at both Harvard and Columbia. “It is deeply gratifying for us in the School of the Arts to see the body of work that she’s gone on to create and even more gratifying to see that work receive the recognition she so truly deserves.”

Pulitzer Prize Administrator Sig Gissler said, “The watchdog still barks, the watchdog still bites,” referring to the strength of American journalism even “when resources are stretched and newsrooms are thin.”