Thursday, August 29
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Indianapolis Liberation Center
What is Black August and why do revolutionaries commemorate it for an entire month each year? Inmates in the prison where the state assassinated George Jackson in August 1971, started the tradition in 1979–the last year in a decade of unprecedented prison rebellions. This year, PSL Indianapolis‘ annual Black August Liberation Forum delves more deeply into two central but often ignored elements of Jackson’s beliefs: that internationalism and unity are central to winning independence, self-determination, and liberation for Black people and all the world’s oppressed and exploited.
We are especially honored that Orlando “Magik” Gilyard, an organizer and rapper from Baltimore and a member of the Bloods will be speaking. Gilyard helped organize a truce between the Bloods, Crips, and the Black Guerrilla Family (which George Jackson incidentally co-founded in 1966) at the start of the 2015 Baltimore Rebellion. The unity they established extended past street organizations and incorporated religious, political, and community groups who effectively protected their own communities. They proved in practice that the people don’t need the cops and gave us a glimpse into what self-determination can look like even in the face of the National Guard.
As George Jackson urged us:
“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation,…people are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”
That humanity and love is found in the global revolution. As Jackson wrote, only by forging internationalist ties “can we expect to be able to seize the power that is rightfully ours, the power to control the circumstances of our day-to-day lives.”
Come through this month’s Liberation Forum to have a discussion and get updated about ongoing struggles for Black liberation in Indianapolis; learn from organizers and activists who are not just studying but putting Jackson’s legacy into practice, advancing it, and demonstrating how imperative it is to the freedom struggle 45 years after the first commemoration of Black August.
