For the month of August, the Black Organizing Commission of Liberation Road is collaborating with Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) to commemorate Black August. Black August is a time to honor our freedom fighters, political prisoners, politicized prisoners and prisoners of war.
One of the ways we are commemorating Black August is by sharing our reflections about different topics of interest to Black revolutionaries.
HERE ARE OUR REFLECTIONS ON WEEK FOUR’S TOPIC:
Envision it: proclaim the year Black folx will be free! What season or month is it? How many states have we taken? What became the anthem commemorating that moment? Did we do the electric slide in celebration of our victory?
August 18, 2047
The day that Patriarchal White Supremacist Capitalism died. The Left finally realized that we were stronger together. We stopped arguing about the little things like “Communist” or “Anarchist” and got serious about freedom. We used EVERY tactic that we had access to, even those that were never created for us to use.
By building independent political power, we took 5 southern states. We tore down every monument and statue that was ever erected to the confederacy. We built monuments to all our favorite Black Freedom Fighters.
Esperanza Spalding’s “Black Gold” was blasting from the speakers. We ARE Black Gold! Our victory celebration lasted for three whole days. We all did the electric slide, ate delicious BBQ, played spades, and all told stories about the moment we fell in love with Black people. All of that heartache, all of the arguments and mistakes we made, got us here. Grace was right! We really were the ones we had been waiting for. We ACTUALLY got free, in our lifetimes.
2073
As the period for mass uprising among Black folx continued in response to state repression and violence, the Black liberation movement grew and strengthened. Our ability to harness the energy of working class Black people deepened and we turned that into tactical electoral campaigns that brought us closer to exposing the material conditions and legitimizing and making possible our effort to openly challenge the state. As a result, left re-foundation began to happen and so did a broader left clarity around the need to defeat the new confederacy. For over 20 years, a successful independent political organization was established and the conditions began ripen to engage in armed struggle. In 2039 the movement for Black lives and our strategic united front engaged in a 34 year long 21st Century guerrilla war.
With the culminating moment in our favor occurring November 7th, 2073, our movement was not only able to severely wound the right but also completely fracture its Alliance. Through our successful campaigns waged to combat white supremacy and neo-liberalism (with an intersectional approach, of course) over the years, November 7th was the day we finally were able to force the ruling class to yield.
- The entire Blackbelt south + Maryland
In the lead up to 11/73 through our independent political organization, our movement elected 236 socialists at the city and state levels, affording us the opportunity to take four states before 11/73 and we were able to take the entire Blackbelt and Maryland afterward.
- “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar
Younger comrades remembering the history of nascent stages of the movement for Black lives, honored their elder comrades by playing “Alright” by Kendrick Lamar through the streets for 19 days nonstop after 11/73.
We damn sure did electric slide in the streets. Cha Cha Slide. Cupid Shuffle, too. And all them new dances the young folx be doing.
So y’all know I’m a nerd and I love comics, and anime, and sci-fi and shit. 🙂 And I got so hype at the chance to share what free, not liberated (because they were never colonized), badass, afrofuturistic comicverse country inspires me-
WAKANDA. Yah, Wakanda- the self-sustaining, East African nation that, as I just mentioned, had never been conquered or colonized, the scientifically innovative, technological mecca that is home to world’s largest deposit of vibranium (the material that makes up Captain America’s shield, yah), a land that is untouched by poverty, disease, pollution, white-supremacists, home to King T’Challa. I’ve imagined our liberated, self-determining Black People living and thriving in our badassness something like Wakandans. <3 I can’t wait to see a live action visioning of this on a major platform on 2/16/2018. #BlackPantherSoLit
2113
It is the dead of summer in the Black Belt. Our movement embodied the Emiliano Zapato quote, “I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees.” After 100 years of physical and political war that was catalyzed by the 2012/2013 iteration of the Black Liberation Movement, we control the entire geographic South and through our strategic alliance, have helped our Chicanx sibs reclaim the Southwest. Additionally, our indigenous sibs are completely sovereign and have been able to reclaim some of the lands stolen from them.
Thanks to the international support we received from other global Liberation movements, the New Confederacy and Neoliberalists are reeling from their defeat! A fully functioning solidarity economy is in place from the local to the national level and the means of production is rapidly changing hands.
The commemoration song will be James Brown “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.” Black Folx will be doing everything from The Electric Slide to whatever new dances will surely exist at that time.
The year 2100, late August, summertime hot: The beginning of the Great Reparations Era!
The United States has witnessed world historic revolution across the South! Black, Queer-led socialist construction is underway. A fifth of the economy is now under social ownership, with healthcare free and fully available. Kool and the Gang’s Summer Madness has made a tremendous comeback; it’s our multinational anthem! And yes, we doing the electric slide!
