African Drumbeat Historical Calendar

Chimerenga. This is Dedon Kamathi with Freedom’s now calendar of Historical events for the week of March 10. This weekly presentation is to honor and guide us in our continued struggle for liberation from the triple -forces of class, national and gender oppression by taking inspiration from the culture of resistance of prior generations.

March 10, 1977

Lumumbist forces of the Congo begin armed class war against the Neo-colonial fascist regime of Mobutu  financed by the U. S. CIA and a host of right wing European Christian fundamentalist movements all seeking to keep control of the  bountiful natural resources of the Congo.

March 12, 1947

The Truman doctrine is proclaimed by the United States proclaims itself the protector of the world from socialism the working class ideology which seeks to redistribute societal wealth to all not just to the super rich. Socialism whose origins are in the communal societies of pre-class stratified Africa, Asia and the Americas has been the most challenging ideology to colonialism and neo-colonialism for the past 500 years.

March 12, 1927

Minerva Mirabal the oldest of the 3 Mirabal sisters – Dominican woman -who defied the Trujillo dictatorship and the United Snakes invasion and occupation of their country. All 3 sisters were executed on November 25, 1960 due their militant anti-US colonial activism.

March 12, 1791

Benjamin Banneker one of the greatest African architects of his period is commissioned to lay out the complete city and capital of the United States the District of Columbia.

March 12, 1938

German Troops under Adolph Hitler march into Austria and annex it in Germans bid to replace the US, France, Britain as the world’s colonial superpowers.

March 13, 1979

The revolutionary forces of the New Jewel Movement in Grenada led by Maurice Bishop overthrow the British stooge government of Eric Gary thereby bringing to the people of Grenada free medical care, education; subsidize foods, housing and pride in their African culture. The New Jewel Movement served the people of Grenada and not the Multi-national food and spice corporations.

March 13, 1967

Students representing seven California colleges meet to form the United Mexican American Student Association. Later the Black Student Alliance and UMAS at Cal State Los Angeles united and voted to establish the Minority Student Program which evolved 1 year later into the Educational Opportunity Program the premier program for the massive inclusion of so called minority students in the de facto segregated California university school system.

March 14, late 17 Century

Tituba- African Native America healer from Barbados persecuted as a “witch” due to her practice of traditional African culture was the slave of a Salem Christian Minister. Tituba shunned the Puritan lifestyle and religion and openly practiced her African medicinal cultural rituals and was much sought after as a healer. The 1692 hysteric witch hunts against women targeted her for hanging.

March 14, 1883

Karl Marx, the leading European theoretical and revolutionary of the contemporary communist movement dies in abject poverty. His critique of Capitalism in the 3 volume master piece “Capital” as well as Wage-Labor and Capital among 25+ books becomes the bases for the world wide anti-capitalist and anti-colonialist and anti-neo-colonialist movements of the 20thand 21st centuries. Rooted in a critique of European political economy with the rise of Imperialism it became a critical ideological tools for deconstruction the European economic stranglehold over Africa, Asian, the Caribbean and Latin America... It exposes the inevitable contradiction between labor or the workers, and capital or the capitalist dies. Components of Marxism was used as a part of the ideological weapons by  Russian, Cuba, Vietnam, China , Guinea, Ghana among more than 60 countries in the world with its searing analysis of the fundamental anti-social essence of Capitalism.

March 15, 1997

The international day against Police Brutality begins in 1997 as an initiative of the Montreal, Canada collective. Police brutality is a capitalist’s tactic to terrorize the youth and working class from uniting and conducting class and national struggle against the national and class exploitation that is the bases of the super profits of the ruling oligarchy.

March 15, 1961

The Bakongo clan of  West Africa rise against the Portuguese and took control of Northern Angola,  though temporarily defeated with over 50,000 deaths and  over 300,00 fled to the Congo. The freedom loving warriors regroup and inevitably organize under the leadership of the Movement For the Liberation Of Angola and not only overthrew the colonial government but set in motion the overthrow of the dictatorship of Portugal and the rise of a Socialist government inside Europe.

March 16, 1827

 Ist African owned and operated newspaper was founded. The same year slavery was abolished in New York. The paper served to counter the plethora of racist commentary published in mainstream America newspaper. I feature articles o Haiti, Sierra Leone. By the start of the Civil war over 40 Black owned and operated flourish in the US many underground.

March 16, 1947

Hyda Sha’Rawi crosses over. She was a pioneering Egyptian women’s rights advocate and indepence leader. She was a leader in the elimination of the harem system a meaning a forbidden place were a multi-wife system were the wives and all the female members of the women   were forbidden contact with men except for the husband /father.,

We will close with a chant of unity from the continued struggles in South Africa. We say Amanda you response Awethu. Which means the power to rule, the power of the land the power of humankind belongs to we the people?