This year’s celebration of Black History Month II: Women’s Focus comes at a time of the pandemic COVID-19 and the continuing pathology of oppression. It is also a time of resistance, rising up and raising the battle cries: Black Women Rising; Black Men Rising; Black People Rising; No Justice, No Peace; and Liberation’s Coming From A Black and Beautiful Thing.
The Rev. Al Sharpton sat quietly in his office in late July, watching the final funeral service for Rep. John Lewis on a wall-mounted television.
Instead of flying down to the memorial in Atlanta, Sharpton had remained in New York; he had work to do. Preaching at the funeral of a year-old boy who was shot in the stomach at a Brooklyn cookout — a boy not much younger than his first and only grandson — Sharpton demanded gun control, an issue close to Lewis’ heart.
The racist public murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis has now added to a list of recent and historical victims of police violence and racist terrorism, including Devon Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arberry, Tamir Rice, Atatiana Jefferson, Philando Castile and numerous others. And as our people rise up in massive resistance seeking justice for these Black men, women and children, martyred on the altar of White supremacy, they serve as bright lights and fierce fires lifted up to show the way forward in struggle. Indeed, they call on us to intensify and continue the struggle against the radical evil of these murderous police and vigilante practices and against the savage system which sanctions and supports them and other related forms of oppression. And we owe it to ourselves and to our martyrs to continue the intensified struggle, keep the faith and hold the line until victory.