21 Apr What Can You Do Now That You’ve Listened to ‘Resist & the Role of Solidarity with Rev. Sekou’?
By: Greg Jobin-Leeds & Thalia Carroll-Cachimuel
What can you do now that you’ve listened to When We Fight, We Win! Podcast: ’Resist and the Role of Solidarity with Rev. Osagyefo Sekou? Here you can find:
- organizations to support,
- music to listen to,
- resources to learn more (websites, books and films),
- Black-led political organizations to keep your eye on, and
- activists/community leaders to follow and repost on your social channels.
Whether you’re a long-time activist or learning now about how to get involved, these resources are a way to grow and contribute to the fight!
1. Help financially by centering organizations led by people of color.
- Rev. Sekou is asking our community to check out Memphis For All, an organization that is part of an emergent progressive electorate fighting for democracy, solidarity, and justice inside and outside the ballot box.
- Our dear friend, David Ragland, PhD, was the person that introduced many on our team to Rev. Sekou. Dave is Co-Founder of The Truth Telling Project. The Truth Telling Project implements and sustains grassroot, community-centered truth-telling processes to amplify voices on structural violence. They share stories, facilitate healing, support activists on the ground, educate, and seek justice. Please take a moment to consider a donation here.
- Meet Mama Cat, the woman that feeds the movement and creator of, PotBangerz. We met Mama Cat at a Rev. Sekou & the Holy Ghost concert in St. Louis. PotBangerz is a St. Louis based tax-deductible organization of family and community leaders who fight in justice by uplifting the community, meeting nutritional needs, helping unhoused families navigate their way to permanent housing.
- To learn more email: movementpics@gmail.com
- To consider a donation: https://www.potbangerz.org/donate
- The incredible, Vanessa Ly, is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Sisters Unchained. Sisters Unchained is a program dedicated to the collective leadership, healing, and creative expression of women and non-gender conforming people of color who are impacted by incarceration. Click here to help uplift Sisters Unchained.
- SONG– Southerners on New Ground is a social justice, advocacy and capacity building organization serving and supporting queer and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, uniquely focusing its work in the southern United States through community organizing for economic and racial justice. Consider contributing here.
- Black Mama Bailout reunites families – creating a national community of leaders who have experienced incarceration, and working with groups across the country to transform harmful systems to keep our people safe and free. Contribution page can be located here.
- Young Voices with Action helps members;
- Helps enhance the leadership capabilities of all young people
- Provides instruction and guidance for young children and adults in service of economic, political and social empowerment
- Provides financial and moral support in community activism
- If you have any questions about Youth Voices With Action email, youngvoiceswithaction@gmail.com
- Consider making a donation to Youth Voices With Action here.
- Breathe Circles is a collective of Black and brown womyn and girls committed to developing sacred connections and curating sacred space that allow them to BREATHE. Through the use of personal experiences with restorative principles, peacemaking circles, mentorship, and food as a healing praxis, Breathe Circles co-creates pathways for people, especially sistas, to experience a liberating revolutionary love and healing rooted in community. Support Breathe Circles here.
2. Listen to Rev. Sekou’s Album, When We Fight We Win
3. Study about Anti-Black racism, the Movement for Black Lives and the Prison Abolition movement, the root causes of the suffering and transformative visions:
- Community Change Inc. is a great local place to learn about anti-racism in a supportive atmosphere. This is a link to their resources page that is full of great ideas.
- The policy platform of The Movement for Black Lives is detailed and visionary. Read it. M4BL works in response to the sustained and increasingly visible violence against Black communities in the U.S. and globally, a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country have come together with renewed energy and purpose to articulate a common vision and agenda. They are a collective that centers and is rooted in Black communities, but recognize a shared struggle with all oppressed people; collective liberation will be a product of all of their work.
- Prison Radio‘s mission is to include the voices of incarcerated people in the public debate. Prison Radio challenges unjust police and prosecutorial practices which result in mass incarceration, racism and gender discrimination. They do this by bringing the voices of men, women and kids into the public debate and dialogue on crime and punishment. Their educational materials serve as a catalyst for public activism, strengthening movements for social change.
- Read The Case for Reparations by the amazing Ta-Nehisi Coates.
- Stay up-to-date on arts & culture, criminalization, the Trump Presidency, gender & sexuality and more with Colorlines magazine.
Books:
- When We Fight We Win! by Greg Jobin-Leeds and AgitArte reflects on real stories of hard-fought battles for social change, with clear lessons and tips for activists to build powerful movements.
- Just Mercy by Brain Stephenson is a story of Justice and Redemption revolved around the case of an innocent man, Walter McMillian, a black man who had a white girl friend in Monroe County, Alabama, framed by the Sheriff, the District Attorney, and convicted by a Jury for the murder of a clerk in a dry cleaner’s shop. Condemned to die.
- Ten Hills Farm – The forgotten History of Slavery in the North by C.S. Manegold. Beginning with John Winthrop as master of Ten Hills Farm and owner of slaves, the author traces the next 5 family generations of slave owners in the Winthrop family.
- Complicity – How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery by Hartford Courant journalists Anne Farrow, Joel Lang and Jennifer Frank. A well-researched book that demythologizes the region of America known for tolerance and liberation, revealing a place where thousands of people were held in bondage and slavery for both economics and a necessary way of life.
- The Half Has Never Been Told. Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism by Edward E. Baptist. This nonfiction book shapes slave narratives and plantation records into a riveting tale showing how the expansion of slavery after the Revolution helped modernize the young capitalist economy.
- So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo. The author explores the complex reality of today’s racial landscape with answers to questions like “Why am I always being told to ‘check my privilege?’” “Is police brutality really about race?” “Why can’t I touch your hair?” What is intersectionality and why do I need it?”
Films:
- 13th, is a documentary that explores the criminalization of African Americans and the prison boom.
- Slavery by Another Name, is a documentary made from the Pulitzer Prize winning book of the same name by Douglas A. Blackmon.
- Bryan Stevenson’s TED Talk is a brilliant and important piece of the underpinnings of Dan’s Sabbatical study on Remembrance and Reparations.
- I am Not Your Negro, a film biography of James Baldwin, also includes images from film and media of African Americans from the early 20th century through 2014.
- Eyes on the Prize. A 14 part series of the Civil Rights decade from 1954 to 1965, Beginning with the Montgomery Bus boycott and concluding with the signing of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
*Many of these Books & Films were recommended by Dan Smith and the “Beloved Community” Group:
4. Learn about the history of slavery and anti-Black racism in your neighborhood.
- The First Church in Cambridge has a “Remembering Slavery’s Living Legacy” is a document that has discoveries of the First Church’s slaveholding history. This project came to be based on ongoing work of the congregation to examine its history of complicity with slavery and to explore the work that others have done to face their histories of racial terror and to repair the destruction left behind.
- Jews for Racial & Economic Justice– For 29 years, Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) has pursued racial and economic justice in New York City by advancing systemic changes that result in concrete improvements in people’s everyday lives. They are inspired by Jewish tradition to fight for a sustainable world with an equitable distribution of economic and cultural resources and political power. The movement to dismantle racism and economic exploitation will be led by those most directly targeted by oppression.
5. Support Black-Led political organizations & people of color candidates:
- Supermajority‘s goal is to build an inclusive national membership of women who are connected, empowered, and taking action—moving up the ladder of civic participation and advocacy and voting in record numbers.
- Texas Organizing Project organizes Black and Latino communities in Dallas, Harris and Bexar counties with the goal of transforming Texas into a state where working people of color have the power and representation they deserve.
- We the People of Detroit is a community-based grassroots organization that aims to inform, educate, and empower Detroit residents on imperative issues surrounding civil rights, land, water, education, and the democratic process.
- To learn more email:
aurora917@gmail.com - How to get involved and support: https://www.wethepeopleofdetroit.com/get-involved
- Maria’s List prioritizes women, African Americans and immigrants whose perspective would be very helpful to our most vexing social, political, educational, environmental and economic problems.
6.#Repost, Follow & Stay Involved:
