The Black Panther Party officially celebrated their 50th anniversary last October. With that remembrance in mind this Black History Month wouldn’t be complete without a look back at one of the most important civil rights organizations to ever take the streets. Here’s the word about an amazing PBS Independent Lens documentary about the power and the people…

Directed by Stanley Nelson, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution tells the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party, one of the 20th century’s most alluring and controversial organizations that captivated the world’s attention for 50 years.

If you’re new to the Panthers’ story catch up with John Blake, here. And now the documentary…

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.

The rise of Trump and issued spotlighted by Black Lives Matter can make it seem like mainstream racism is a virulent new creature on the American scene. The mainstreaming may be new, but unfortunately, this is a culture that has thrived in the states since the beginning of the country. The reason the BLM movement is addressing the same issues the Black Panther Party addressed in the 1960′s is because institutional racism is a — so far — permanent feature of American culture that squishes and seeps from the urban power centers to the countryside. Nowadays racists are coming out of the woodwork, hoping that their great orange leader will ring in a new era of hate and separatism. Back in the day you had to go looking for these dangerously ignorant subcultures in places like rural Michigan. Here’s one of the best films ever made about white supremacist subculture. This is Blood in the Face…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Cinema posts

In the midst of this surreal political season, with the endurance of Black Lives Matter, and having just written an article about an African American neighborhood in Nashville, I suppose it might have been expected that I’d stumble across a mention about the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, but it still caught me by surprise.

I’ve read deeply and broadly about America’s radical left and have a pretty thorough understanding of how groups like the Black Panthers came to be, their major players, their triumphs and their failures. I’ve also read a lot about how the Nation of Islam took root in the states. I’ve read about the Noble Drew Ali and Marcus Garvey. I understand how Malcolm X straddled both of these organizations between his life and his death.

But somehow I’d never heard of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers which formed right in my backyard in my hometown, in the auto factories of Detroit. Here’s a few words about the league from the legendary Detroit radical newspaper, The Fifth Estate…

The League of Revolutionary Black Workers is a federation of several revolutionary movements which exist in Detroit. It was originally formed to provide a broader base for organization of black workers into revolutionary organizations than was previously provided for when we were organizing on a plant to plant basis. The beginning of the League goes back to the beginning of DRUM, which was its first organization. The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement was formed at the Hamtramck assembly plant of the Chrysler Corporation in the fall of 1967. It developed out of the caucuses of black workers which had formed in the automobile plants to fight increases in productivity and racism in the plant … With the development of DRUM and the successes we had in terms of organizing and mobilizing the workers at the Hamtramck plant many other black workers throughout the city began to come to us and ask for aid in organizing some sort of group in their plants. As a result, shortly after the formation of DRUM, the Eldon Axle Revolutionary Movement (ELRUM) was born at the Eldon gear and axle plant of the Chrysler Corporation. Also, the Ford Revolutionary Union Movement (FRUM) was formed at the Ford Rouge complex, and we now have two plants within that complex organized.

Our analysis tells us that the basic power of black people lies at the point of production, that the basic power we have is our power as workers. As workers, as black workers, we have historically been, and are now, essential elements in the American economic sense. Therefore, we have an overall analysis which sees the point of production as the major and primary sector of the society which has to be organized, and that the community should be organized in conjunction with that development. This is probably different from these kinds of analysis which say where it’s at is to go out and organize the community and to organize the so-called “brother on the street”. It’s not that we’re opposed to this type of organization but without a more-solid base such as that which the working class represents, this type of organization, that is, community based organization, is generally a pretty long, stretched-out, and futile development.

For more about the league here’s an illuminating documentary about these brave men and women, and their fight…

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.

This week I was reminded of long lost Labor Days in Detroit, marching with my father’s union as a little kid. Thinking about Labor Day and Detroit got me thinking about John Sinclair who famously got thrown in jail in 1969 after giving two joints to an undercover cop, before even more famously getting sprung from jail when John Lennon headlined his benefit concert. Sinclair managed the MC5 and also founded the White Panther Party which backed the agenda of the Black Panther Party while also advocating for a sex, drugs and rock and roll wing of the revolution. He’s a good man, and a great Detroiter. Sinclair now lives in Amsterdam.

Here’s Sinclair’s story in this great doc: White Panther – The Legacy of John Sinclair…

WHITE PANTHER: The Legacy of John Sinclair from Nomad Cinema (Charles B Shaw) on Vimeo.

Stay Awake!

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel where I archive all of the videos I curate at Insomnia. Click here to check out more Counter Culture posts.