All posts by LeslieMac

FRN Must List – 9-1-2015

MUST WATCH

Black man pulled over by white police officer for “making direct eye contact with him” – The David Pakman Show – 8/25/2015


MUST READ

29 Portraits That Prove Afropunk Is The Move Stylist Festival On Earth – Fader  by Liza Raiss – Photos by Natalie Keyssar

Meet One of the Women Who Created a Black Lives Matter Textbook for Middle Schoolers – Pacific Standard – by Francie Diep – 8/27/2015

In Chicago, hunger strikers fight for a high school – The Washington Post – by Lyndsey Layton – 8/26/2015

Continue reading FRN Must List – 9-1-2015

FRN Must List – #GulfSouthRising Special Edition

MUST WATCH

New Orleans’ Recovery From Hurricane Katrina Leaves Some Behind – NBC News

An Unequal Recovery in New Orleans: Racial Disparities Grow in City 10 Years After Katrina


MUST READ

10 NOLA Groups Truly Doing the Work When the Cameras Aren’t On – Colorlines by Rosana Cruz – Graphics by Aura Bogado

Two Sides to the Katrina recovery: one black, one white – separate and unequal – The LENS – 8.28.2015

“We Lost My Grand Mother In The Storm. I don’t Mean She Passes, We Lost Her” – Refiner29 – 8.28.2015

Continue reading FRN Must List – #GulfSouthRising Special Edition

#M4BL Media Round Up

I was blessed to be on the planning team for the recent Movement for Black Lives Convening – held July 24-26 in Cleveland, OH. Below are some of the many articles related to the Convening.

The Movement for Black Lives Convening – Cleveland State University – Cleveland, OH

Strange Fruit Podcast: Police Violence, and the Movement for Black Lives Convening

Black Love Matters by Mark Winston Griffith

Black Lives Convening: A pivotal moment for liberation

#M4BL Convening 2015: Just What We Needed

Thousands of ‘freedom fighters’ in Cleveland for first national Black Lives Matter conference

 

About that flag coming down in South Carolina

Well – the Confederate flag will no longer fly outside the state house in Columbia, SC. It was taken down in what was repeatedly referred to as a “small dignified ceremony” in front a large crowd of citizens, lawmakers and the families of 9 souls killed in the name of hatred in Charleston, SC. just a few weeks ago.

I wasn’t going to write anything about this symbolic moment, but I was so struck today by the aforementioned “small dignified ceremony” that I realized I did indeed have something to say. So I wrote a little something about it, want to read it? Here it go…


Let’s back up a bit and go through the history of THIS flag at THIS location in THIS state.

This Confederate flag was placed in front of the Columbia, SC Statehouse on April 11, 1961 as part of the Centennial celebration of the firing on Fort Sumter, which opened the Civil War. It became a formal figure above the Statehouse on March 16, 1962 when lawmakers approved a measure to make it’s place permanent.

A few months before the flag was raised that first time, a groups of black students who would become known as The Friendship Nine were arrested and convicted the following day for refusing to leave an all-white lunch country in Rock Hill, SC. These students refused bail and spent 30 days doing hard labor at a County Prison Farm – meanwhile the lunch-counter & jail-not-bail protest model spread across the South. It was widely know that SC Rep John A May who requested the flag be flown did so in direct response to the actions of the Friendship Nine.

Who were the Friendship Nine?


Continue reading About that flag coming down in South Carolina

Ferguson Response Network Podcast Ep 22 – Building, Healing & Accountability in the Movement

@LeslieMac & Ricky from @AUADOTORG are joined by Larry Fellows III to discuss Baltimore PD lies in action, recent arsons at Black churches, SCOTUS upholds Fair Housing Act and creating space for building, healing & accountability within the movement.

Subscribe to the Ferguson Response Network Podcast via:

Join the Movement:

Host Contact:

LeslieMac

Ricky L. Hinds II

Guest Contact:

Larry Fellows III

Continue reading Ferguson Response Network Podcast Ep 22 – Building, Healing & Accountability in the Movement

FRN Must List – June 22, 2015

Must Watch

#BlackLivesMatter Ep of #MooreTalkLive Loving Blackness and #Charleston #Haiti #Jamaica

The Dominican Republic’s “Ethnic Purging”: Edwidge Danticat on Mass Deportation of Haitian Families

South Carolina Massacre: Why Don’t We Call Killing of 9 Black Churchgoers and Act of Terrorism?


Must Read

A long walk to freedom – The “March 2 Justice” is over, but the fight for racial equality continues by Alex Q Arbuckle Continue reading FRN Must List – June 22, 2015

On the Loss of Susie Jackson

My heart is still heavy today thinking about the 9 lives lost in Charleston to White Supremacy. Today on my mind is Susie Jackson.

SuzieJackson

She was the matriarch of her family and was busy planning their annual family reunion at the time of her murder. I am haunted by the knowledge that her final moments were tied to such violence and hatred. That after her long life THIS is how she was taken from us.

I sit here thinking about all that she lived through in her 87 years on this earth as a black women. There are many tragedies that I know mark those 87 years but instead here I choose to note the triumphs that she witnessed her fellow Black Women achieve during her lifetime.

Losing her is the loss of a real life connector to these moments & to the stories that go with them as seen through her eyes that only she could tell: Continue reading On the Loss of Susie Jackson