The Women of Black August

Written by Becca Williams, SBT Copywriter

(Cover art can be found in this article.)

In researching Black August, I came across profiles of numerous political prisoners, many of whom are men who have been incarcerated for their involvement in Black Liberation and Black Nationalist movements, such as MOVE or the Black Panthers.  Much of the information about political prisoners, and about these movements themselves, centers on the experience of the powerful men who led them and the men who followed.  Yet, as the below video demonstrates, many Black women carved out spaces for themselves within these movements and within a society that excluded them.  As quoted in the above video, “The women members were the ones who pushed the groups in the direction of a more radical interpretation of what it means to work towards full liberation, for all Black people, not just Black men.”  Black women were present, vocal, and influential within these political spheres, all while experiencing both interpersonal and structural sexism.

My goal for this post was to go into the experiences of a few Black women who are or have been held as political prisoners in the United States so that we can have a better sense of what they’ve contributed to the liberation movement and so we can counter the narrative that these movements have been male-dominated.  It’s impossible for me to adequately understand or capture in writing the experience of Black women living in a police state, let alone incarcerated Black women jailed for their activism.  What I can attempt to do is shed some light for y’all (and for myself) on who some of these women are, what they are fighting for, and how they have shaped the current liberation landscape.  Generally speaking, there needs to be a lot more done to acknowledge the sacrifice, the discipline, and the love that Black women in the liberation struggle contribute on a regular basis. 

For starters, Black women are incarcerated at nearly twice the rate as white women, and have vastly different experiences within the prison system.  As I’ve said before, these experiences are not monolithic – an introductory way to understand the complexities around identity and lived experience is to take a look at Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality. We’ve touched on this before in this blog, and it’s important to note that this theory and this term originated from Crenshaw’s work specifically around the ways in which Black women experience sexism and racism differently from white women and Black men - that they live at the intersection of racism and misogyny.  Since her initial coining of the term in the late 1980’s, the term has been applied to a broader understanding of how our numerous identities (i.e. race, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability) intersect in various ways that lead to different experiences of privilege and oppression.

For this post, I’ll write about a few Black women who either have been or continue to be incarcerated for their political actions or beliefs: Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, and the MOVE 9 women – Debbie Sims Africa, Janet Holloway Africa, and Janine Phillips Africa. To get into the specific details of these women’s lives, we’ll also need to briefly talk about the movements they influenced:  The Black Panther Movement, and MOVE. 

The Black Panther Party (BPP) was a political party founded on October 15^th, 1966 by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale while they were students at Merrit College in Oakland, CA.  Newton and Seale believed the college was not adequately acknowledging the role of the Black community throughout America’s development and rise.  They advocated for Black Studies courses, Black student leadership initiatives, and an inclusive curriculum that more deeply connected the community with the university.   Following the teachings of Malcom X, which centered on the Black community creating their own spaces for liberation and growth (as opposed to integrating and assimilating into predominantly white spaces), Newton and Seale advocated for liberation through self-determination in accordance with their 10-point program, which you can read here.  The party reached its peak membership in 1970, and while its overall lifespan was pretty short, it has had a massive impact. 

The BPP believed that guerilla warfare and small groups of armed people could bring about significant social change, and they relied heavily on Marxist and Socialist teachings to guide their work – which included successful mutual aid programs, free health clinics, and free breakfast programs for Black school children – which has served as an inspiration for similar programs still in existence. Their perceived militancy, their propensity for carrying unconcealed weapons in public, their socialist beliefs, and their unabashed call for Black liberation led to this group being surveilled by then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s Counterintelligence Program, known as COINTELPRO.  COINTELPRO’s aim was to disrupt dissident political groups, namely Black nationalist and Black liberation groups.  They did this through covert and often illegal means, including infiltrating and disrupting the Black Panther Party, with the intent to ”expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of the Black nationalists” which would ultimately prevent the rise of what they termed “the Black Messiah.”  These are quotes taken directly from recovered FBI documents after FBI offices were broken into in 1971.  The actions of COINTELPRO led to the assassination of Fred Hampton, the leader of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party. 

Both Assata Shakur and Angela Davis have membership ties to the Black Panther Party, and both were incarcerated as a result of their activism.  Assata Shakur, born Joanne Deborah Byron in Queens, NY in 1947, joined the Black Panther Party in 1970.  In the 1960s, Shakur worked menial jobs in New York, often spending her time after work at a bar on Broadway where she first learned more about communism.  She later engaged with the Black Liberation Army, and was alleged to have committed numerous crimes with other BLA members.  Then, in 1973, Shakur was in a vehicle with BLA members when they were pulled over by troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike.  A shootout followed, killing a State Trooper and one member of Shakur’s party, Zayd Malik Shakur.  Assata Shakur was convicted of murdering the State Trooper, even though evidence showed that she was shot by police with her hands up.  Later, evidence pointed to an unfair trial: Jurors expressing prejudice before the trial began, her defense attorney’s offices were found to have been bugged, and materials related to her case went missing from her lawyer’s office.  Shakur escaped prison in 1979 with the help of Black Liberation Army members posing as visitors, and resurfaced in Cuba in 1984 when she was granted asylum by Fidel Castro.  She has remained in Cuba ever since, and she has remained on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists List. In 2017, Donald Trump unsuccessfully called for her extradition.  Regarding Shakur’s innocence, Angela Davis stated, “Assata is not a threat.  She is innocent.  People really don’t know the details and are not aware of the extent to which she was targeted by the FBI and the COINTEL program.”

(A "Wanted" poster for Assata Shakur.)

Angela Davis, born in 1944, continues her advocacy and activism around Black Liberation, and has written and taught extensively on the subjects of prison and police abolition.  As I noted in the last blog post, Davis was charged and ultimately acquitted of murder and conspiracy for the alleged role she played in the hostage situation involving George Jackson’s brother, Jonathan.  During this process, Davis was held in jail for 18 months and was kept in solitary confinement.  While she had long advocated for prison reform, it was her time in prison that led to her intimately understanding the injustice inherent in the justice system. In 1969, Davis was fired from her role teaching at UCLA after her Communist Party affiliation was made known.  She took the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in her favor: That UCLA could not fire Davis for her political affiliation.  She was, however, fired a few months later for making “incendiary comments” during her political speeches.  She has spoken, written, advocated, and lectured all throughout the world on issues such as prison reform and abolition, women’s rights, racial equity, and LGBTQ+ rights, and currently is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at UC Santa Cruz.

While I was somewhat familiar with the Black Panther Party, Assata Shakur, and Angela Davis, learning about MOVE was entirely new for me.  MOVE is a Philadelphia-based Black Nationalist organization that rose to prominence in the 1970’s, and is often associated with the Black Power movement.  The founder, a man named Vincent Leaphart who eventually took the name John Africa, wrote the foundational manifesto that called for Black liberation as well as a return to nature, communal living, and eating raw foods.  In 1985, after some very tense confrontations with MOVE, Philadelphia law enforcement bombed the MOVE headquarters using a demolition device typically used in combat.  Firefighters then delayed putting out the resulting fire. This was a pivotal point in Philadelphia’s history that highlighted tensions between communities of color and the government.  It was also one of the greatest tragedies experienced by that city – the bomb killed eleven MOVE members including John Africa and five children, destroyed 61 homes, and left more than 250 people without housing in a predominantly Black middle-class neighborhood.  Despite a commission finding the attack to be “ill-conceived and hastily approved,” no one was ever criminally charged. 

A few years before this, in 1978, law enforcement engaged in a shootout at one of the MOVE residencies after police had tried, unsuccessfully, to evict MOVE members from their housing.  During the shootout, an officer was killed.  MOVE maintains that the officer was killed by friendly fire, however nine members of the organization, the MOVE 9, were convicted of third-degree murder and sentenced to between 30 and 100 years in prison.  One member, Debbie Sims Africa (members took the last name “Africa” as homage to both the founder and to the continent) was released on parole in 2018 after a decades-long fight led by her son, Mike, who was born in the month after Debbie’s imprisonment.  Two other members of the MOVE 9, Janet Holloway Africa and Janine Phillips Africa, remained incarcerated until 2019.  Janine lost her three-week-old infant in the 1978 shootout, and seven years later lost her 12-year old son in the bombing.  Janine, Janet, and Debbie passed their time in prison together, playing cards, laughing, and deepening their bond.  All three women have noted the continuing urgency in the fight against police brutality, and remain committed to MOVE’s ideals.

(MOVE members guarding their barricaded headquarters, 1977.)

As this Black August comes to a close, take the time to reflect on the people and the movements it commemorates.  The fight for Black Liberation has been fought over centuries, and while there have been some gains, much has been sacrificed.  All of the Black women written about above remain committed to this work, and if we are to believe Black women – which is where we should start – then we can start to understand the depth of their contributions and the work that remains to be done by all of us.

Additional Resources: 

Take a look at this article for more information on radical Black Communist women.

Reverend Joy Powell has been incarcerated in Westchester, New York since 2006 as a result of her activism around police brutality, and continues to advocate for herself and others through her writing.  You can learn more here. 

Lastly, take a moment to read up on the experiences and advocacy of Cameroonian women in ICE Detention, who have written to Congress about the anti-Blackness they experience.  They write about medical negligence and being forced to sign their own deportation papers, and some have been moved or punished for their activism.