Burning Spear News

Black August was established as a month to recognize and honor African prisoners, following the heroic rebellions in the early 1970s of Africans at Attica in New York, San Quentin in California and other prisons across the U.S.

This article is part of a special Black August series on TheBurningSpear.com. We encourage all our readers to help “Keep The Spear Burning” during our Black August Fund Drive. Support your black power newspaper! Sponsor a prisoner or donate today at Burningspearmarketplace.com

Black August is a commemoration begun in 1979 by Africans in prison to raise up those who have died struggling for African liberation from within prison walls or in attempts to liberate Africans from the colonial prisons like George and Jonathan Jackson.

August 9, 2017 marks 3 years since the police murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. Young Michael was murdered by Ferguson, MO copy, Darren Wilson. 

Witnesses stated that Mike Brown was shot eight times while his hands were in the air. His rotting body was then left on the concrete for more than eight hours as an example to the Ferguson community of what the police will do if we disobey their colonial orders. 

What the police did not expect in this suburb of St. Louis, MO was resistance from the African working class community. This powerful display of African Resistance on August 9, 2014 marks one of the critical dates in Black August.

Rapper J. Cole visited prisoners at the birthplace of Black August—San Quentin State Prison—on August 1, 2017.

Cole made the prison visit during the middle of the North American leg of his "4 Your Eyez Only tour." 

BlackAugust originated in the prison camp of San Quentin 1979. African prisoners would wear black armbands to remember the heroic, revolutionary actions of the #SoledadBrothers, the San Quentin Six, Jonathan Jackson, Khatari Gaulden and all our fallen Freedom Fighters.