Headlines
Hurricane Ida displaces predominantly Black and Brown communities in Louisiana and across the southern and eastern United States. On the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s devastating landfall in 2005, on Aug. 29th, Hurricane Ida struck the Louisiana coast as a Category 4 hurricane, leaving over a million families and businesses without power. While at least 26 people have been reported killed by the storm there, winds and flooding also devastated the northeast, specifically New York and New Jersey, killing at least 40. While FEMA has expanded eligibility for disaster relief aid, allowing more Black, Brown, and poor families to receive support for rebuilding what they lost, much of the work of helping the survivors has fallen to grassroots organizations closest to the affected areas. We urge you to donate to groups like Southern Solidarity (southersolidarity.org) and Another Gulf Is Possible (anothergulf.com/ida) in Louisiana to help Black, Brown, and poor families surviving this disaster.
Activist News
Thousands gather at multiple demonstrations in DC to demand justice for Black People on the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. The morning of Aug. 28th, civil rights leaders and prominent Black politicians, like Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, Rev. Al Sharpton, and Mayor Muriel Bowser, began a yearly tradition of mass demonstration at the close of Black August with the March on For Voting Rights event. Thousands took to the streets to advocate for voting rights legislation and DC statehood, marching through Black Lives Matter Plaza to the National Mall, many chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice No Peace”, demanding that Black votes be counted and Republican voter suppression efforts be countered. However, seeing democrats chanting with protesters was an eerie reminder to some social justice activists that pro-cop politicians, like Bowser, would rather co-opt the image of radicalism, than fully address the urgent demands of those that embody it.
Later, crowds met at the Make Good Trouble Rally to hear speeches from the Black Lives Matter Movement, Martin Luther King III and Yolanda Renee King, Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, and other long time organizers about the need for broad-scale justice and structural reform. Meanwhile, Impacted Families (impactedfamilies.com), a national coalition of Black and Brown families who have lost loved ones to police brutality, hosted a rally and march to the Dept. of Justice to demand accountability. Beneath the Washington Monument, between 200 and 300 families took turns speaking on their losses and demands. An editor for The Washington Revolutionary reported that families passionately called for the reopening of cases which failed to convict the killer police who took their family members. The group then began marching, many chanting “Fuck 12” through the streets of downtown.
Finally, Aug. 28th ended with a rally and march for An’Twan Gilmore, who was shot to death after 8 armed officers confronted him while asleep in his car on the 25th. Family members and friends of An’Twan joined local abolitionist organizations and about 150 DMV community members to boldly demand attention and action for the loss of An’Twan’s life by wanton police execution.
As Black August 2021 passes on, we continue to honor Black lives lost to white supremacy and brutal racial capitalism. The fight is far from over.
The Washington Revolutionary 