How to Stall Our Movement’s Progress: Operate as the FBI
The official functions of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are extensive, but one of their most notable priorities is the protection of civil rights. Ironically, however, the FBI has violated the civil rights of African-Americans on numerous occasions. Here are a few times the FBI backpedaled on its stated mission.
Under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI worked to suppress dissent across various social movements including the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, and the women’s movement. As Hoover’s largest targeted group, African-Americans neither had to exhibit violence nor be perceived as having liberal, radical, or subversive ideas to justify surveillance under Hoover’s FBI. Simply “being Black was enough.”
During the height of the civil rights movement, with a fear in the rise of communism and under the guise of “national security,” FBI agents were directed to surveil African-Americans in churches, classrooms, college campuses, bookstores, places of employment, and especially within Black student organizations.
And, even if Black people were not in the community in which an FBI agent was assigned, the agent would be expected to file a form communicating this or else risk being charged with failure to perform. Just being Black justified surveillance since “Hoover saw the civil rights movement…as presenting the greatest threats to the stability of the American government since the Civil War,”…”these people were enemies of the state.“
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The FBI also targeted organizational leadership to stifle the movement’s progress. COINTELPRO (or, the Counterintelligence Program) targeted Black Americans that fought against segregation and racism in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1956 to 1971, COINTELPRO was constructed to spy on and infiltrate Black organizations, with a special focus towards systematically denigrating their leaders.
In 1963, the FBI ramped up its focus on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with then Assistant Director William Sullivan recommending for “increased coverage of communist influence on the Negro.” The FBI’s “goal in targeting Dr. King was clear: to find ‘avenues of approach aimed at neutralizing King as an effective Negro leader,’ [since] the FBI was concerned that he might become a ‘messiah.’” Through bugging hotel rooms as well as photographic and physical observation, the FBI used gained clues in an attempt to “blackmail him into suicide” and break up his marriage.
The FBI also targeted the Black Panther Party, primarily through informants playing dual roles as party members and FBI co-conspirators. “Agents sent anonymous letters encouraging violence between street gangs and the Panthers” which resulted in “the killings of four BPP members and numerous beatings and shootings.”
Working alongside local police departments, the FBI would call for raids and vehicle stops, and also had a hand in the raid and killing of Black Panter Party leader Fred Hampton. Though narrated as a shootout between Panthers and raiding police forces, “a federal investigation [later] showed that only one shot was fired by the Panthers….[and] police fired 82 to 99 shots.”
This surveillance and systematic targeting continue today. An investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in California found that police departments used detailed consumer data and social media aggregators to track Black protestors. Johnetta “Netta” Elzie, co-founder of the policy platform Campaign Zero has explained that her surveillance manifested in at least two years worth of phone tapping and being followed home by police after protests. Not to mention, the Department of Homeland Security has been monitoring the Black Lives Matter movement since its inception.
The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Justice Department have an entangled history with the Black community. Our quest for rights are perceived as a threat to national security; and our attempts to mobilize are threatened by co-conspirators. However, these institutions have demonstrated what their response will be to Black political mobilization. Therefore, let’s be all the more steadfast and informed in our quest towards justice, equality, and empowerment of our community.
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The post How to Stall Our Movement’s Progress: Operate as the FBI appeared first on PushBlack.
For generations, Black culture has been imitated, duplicated, and appropriated by the mainstream without receiving its due credit.Just look to any discussion of Black influences on hairstyles, dance trends, music, speech patterns, or fashion, and you’ll find the root in Black culture. Through this appropriation, our people have inspired some of America’s most iconic and enduring cultural projects. One example comes in the form of a famously sassy cartoon character known as “Betty Boop.” Though portrayed as a white woman, Betty Boop’s caricature was actually modeled after a Black woman:Esther Jones.
Esther Jones, commonly referred to as “Baby Esther,” was a Black jazz singer and entertainer during the 1920s. Esther’s unique musical performances involved “scatting,” which she learned from her manager Lou Walton. With frequent shows at the Cotton Club in Harlem, Jones became well known for her “boo-boo-boo” and “doo-doo-doo” improvisation vocals. These sounds would become her signature “baby voice” style and would directly influence other vocalists….even becoming a hallmark trait falsely – associated with Betty Boop.
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While Esther Jones was the definitive inspiration for the creation of Betty Boop, a White woman named Helen Kane tried her best to prove otherwise. Kane was also a vocalist in New York at the time, who just so happened to see one of Esther’s shows at the Cotton Club. Mesmerized by Esther’s “scatting,” Kane began to integrate her own form of it into a recorded song titled “I Wanna Be Loved By You.” Instead of “boo-boo-boo” and “doo-doo-doo,” Kane inserted “boop-boop-a-doop”and similar vocals without ever acknowledging that the pattern was adapted from Esther’s performance. Later, Kane would insist that she, in fact, was the model for the creation of Betty Boop.
Well, will the REAL Betty Boop please stand up?!
Even though Helen Kane attempted to steal Esther Jones’ sound, she would never become more than an imitation. Unfortunately, this narrative of whites claiming things that are not rightfully theirs is all too familiar throughout Black history. Although Esther did not become rich or famous for her work, she will forever be credited as the original Betty Boop in our books.
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The post The Only Betty Boop We Acknowledge is Esther appeared first on PushBlack.
While the military was one of the first institutions to integrate back in 1948, it wasn’t until 2017 that U.S. Army grooming policies were changed to permit a common hairstyle amongst Black women soldiers: the loc.
Army Regulation 670-1 details the regulations for “Wear and Appearance of Army Uniforms and Insignia.” In updating the grooming policies for women soldiers, the directive sought to clear a previous discrepancy that differentiated between locs, cornrows, and twists -- allowing some while barring others.
Now, locs are permitted so long as they are “of uniform dimension; have a diameter no greater than a half-inch; and present a neat, professional and well-groomed appearance.”
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Under the old rules, hairstyles that “twist[ed] two distinct strands of hair around one another to create a twisted ropelike appearance” were previously banned.
The change was a long overdue and welcomed accomplishment by women soldiers who were forced to resort to harsh chemicals or expensive treatments in order stay within regulations.
The Army is not the only division of the military that has delayed just and fair treatment through regulating Black hair. It wasn’t until late 2015 that the Marine Corps approved loc and twist hairstyles.
However, its regulation of those styles still creates challenges for Black women. For example, according to the Marine Corps’ Hair Regulation video, “entwined” hairstyles (meaning braids, twists or locs) can be no more than 3/8ths of an inch in diameter (or the size of a standard paperclip), can be spaced no more than 3/8ths of an inch apart, and locs must be parted with only a square or rectangular shape.
If you want to pull your “entwined” hairstyle into a bun, that bun cannot extend more than three inches from the scalp nor be wider than the wearer’s head.
But the regulation of Black women’s hair is nothing new. Couched in a narrative that favors straight, blond tresses over coarse coils, Black women have sought to chemically straighten, heat-damage or otherwise alter their natural form in order to ascribe to a Eurocentric style of beauty.
In recent years the natural hair movement has transformed this - resulting in hundreds of thousands of Black women relinquishing the ‘creamy crack’ and opting to wear and style their hair in ways similar to those of our ancestors past.
However, even within this movement, there is still debate over a “preferred curl pattern” or texture that places a hierarchy on certain hair types. Like colorism for hair, these debates and preferences reinforce Eurocentric standards of beauty that are counterproductive to our collective identity.
While our military sisters have more freedom to rock their hair in its natural glory, let us continue to celebrate Black beauty in its many forms and textures; styles and lengths; coils and coarseness. 
Praised by Ava DuVernay as “ahead of her time,” and acknowledged by Beyhive fans as the (unofficial) influence to Beyonce’s “Lemonade,” Julie Dash’s 1991 film – Daughters of the Dust – is long overdue for the widespread attention it deserves.
Set in the early 1900s, Daughters of the Dust, is an independently directed and produced film portraying three generations of Gullah women as they move through life’s transitions and transformations. The film tells the story of the Peazant family, who as descendants of slaves, sought refuge off the coast of South Carolina. Though the work earned director Julie Dash the honor as the first African-American female director to achieve nationwide theatrical distribution, Dash struggled to gain traction for projects since, with one agency even telling her that she “had no future.”
Some say that she was ahead of her time: that if produced today, alongside the likes of Queen Sugar, Underground, Selma, and even the remake of Roots, Daughters of the Dust would have (and should have) garnered the attention and follow-up that it truly deserved.
While studying at UCLA’s film school, Dash became part of a group of Black independent filmmakers called the L.A. Rebellion. The group resisted commercialization of the films, rather deciding to focus on raw realities and creating artistic products “influenced by avant-garde, Latin America, African and Russian cinema.”
To Dash, the Sea Islands in Gullah that are depicted in Daughters of the Dust, represent our very own “Ellis Island:” a place of port and departure where we can reconnect with our heritage and authentic truth. While some may have criticized Beyonce’s Lemonade for using such a direct influence, Dash viewed the comparisons as “natural….a continuum of song, of manner, [and] motor habits that went undercover for a while because everyone was trying to integrate and be part of the melting pot…you don’t need to be in the melting pot. Why melt?”
Dash affirmatively told the story of a culture not often discussed and during a time when Hollywood wasn’t quite ready to hear. In 2016, Daughters of the Dust was re-released by Cohen Media Group but still garnered only $41,000. But it’s still not too late to support this iconic telling of our history.
D.C. Wilson
The post The Ava DuVernay of Years Past appeared first on PushBlack.
The riveting story of Oscar Micheaux’s ascent in the film industry teaches us a valuable lesson about the power of building independent businesses and taking control of our own destiny.
Arguably the most prolific African-American independent filmmaker in history, Micheaux birthed an entirely new genre of films called “race films” in the early 1900s. These films starred Black actors and were intended for a Black audience.
After holding several unfulfilling jobs and being displeased with what others thought of as the good life, he decided to chronicle his life experiences into novels that would eventually become the foundation for his films.
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At the time, the film industry was far from accepting of Black films so Micheaux had to get creative about getting his stories in front of the masses. Micheaux became self-sufficient and utilized his charisma and connections from previous jobs to fund and produce his own films.
Although he had miserable experiences in his past jobs, those positions equipped him with the business acumen and contacts necessary for him to go into business for himself.
In fact, Micheaux started his own film company after refusing to sell one of his stories to a major production firm because they would not allow him to be directly involved in its adaptation.
This brave decision catalyzed all of his subsequent success and demonstrated that he knew the value of his stories and would settle for nothing less than he deserved.
Micheaux’s films tackled issues of interracial romance, colorism, and white prejudice during a time when Hollywood focused narrowly on stereotyping Blacks as unsophisticated Negroes. He moved away from these images and created complex characters that more accurately depicted the realities of Black life.
His philosophy was that the only way to bring African-Americans to greater heights was to elevate consciousness about racial iniquities.
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Micheaux’s seminal works The Homesteader (1919) and Within Our Gates (1920) bring to light the trials and tribulations of mixed-race relationships and explore the dangers associated with them. These films questioned the value systems of both Blacks and whites and disrupted traditional narratives about race-mixing.
As Black people we have a history of making a way out of no way. Micheaux had no blueprint for how to operate outside of the mainstream film industry, yet he pioneered a path and amassed immense success.
His enduring legacy as the first African-American to show a film in a white theatre marks the beginning of Black people’s visibility on the big screen and a new lens to view race relations in America.
He had no formal film school training or experience, just the tenacity and will to bring his vision to fruition. Click here to watch some of his films.
It is always incredible to share uplifting stories of African-Americans excelling in fields that historically excluded us, but the real beauty is in the spirit of resiliency and persistence that characterize these innovators. Micheaux exemplifies the timeless quality of self-sufficiency that has been a part of the advancement of Black people for centuries.
We should constantly remind ourselves of our rich cultural achievements and remember that we are a people who have and will continue to achieve no matter what obstacles we see in our way. 
In 1964, Roald Dahl introduced the world to the classic story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but little did we know that he made a major change right before releasing the book. It turns out the character Charlie was originally written as a Black boy.
Yep, you read that right. The iconic protagonist, who escaped poverty after receiving a golden ticket to meet master chocolatier Willy Wonka, was intended to tell the story of an 11-year old Black boy and his family.
Pressure from Dahl’s agent, who was skeptical about printing a book featuring a Black main character, led to the monumental change that now has us thinking, “Well, what if?”
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What would it have meant to have a Black Charlie in the 1960s? What if the movie adaptations featured a Black child? Given the book’s release in the midst of the Civil Rights movement, it gives us cause to wonder if a story of this magnitude could have had an impact or become an African-American staple.
It is fascinating and disturbing at the same time to know that Charlie was supposed to be Black because Dahl caught flack from the NAACP for his famous Oompa Loompas, who were not always orange. In the first edition of the book, the Oompa Loompas were described as African pygmies that were rescued by Willy Wonka from the terrors of their homeland to work in his factory.
The NAACP believed the relationship between the African-inspired Oompa Loompas and white master-esque Willy Wonka depicted slavery and should be stripped from the children’s novel. Although Dahl denied this claim, he rewrote the Oompa Loompas to be white with green hair.
The news that Charlie was Black even has famed director Ava Duvernay chiming in and calling for a new movie adaptation launching a frenzy of twitter banter about who could play the part.
Representation in children’s books and films is not a trivial issue. As kids form their identities, the images they see in print and on-screen play an instrumental role in what they learn, perceive, and accept as Blackness. For Black children specifically, positive depictions of Black life in these mediums are scarce so each one counts.
Unfortunately, Dahl fell victim to mainstream expectations and gave up what could have been the most transformative detail in his story. Thankfully, there are plenty of Black children’s books that tell the stories our kids need to hear and you can check out some of the best-sellers here.
Called the “electronic griot,” Gil Noble used his journalism expertise as the host of WABC-TV show Like It Is to help change the way Black people saw themselves. His death in 2012 sent shock waves in the Black community.
Like It Is was the longest running issues-oriented Sunday show for Black people. In its 43-year run, Noble interviewed many Black luminaries like Ralph Abernathy, Amiri Baraka, Sarah Vaughan, Bob Marley and countless others. The show went on air after WABC-TV decided there should be more programming for Black people during the Civil Rights Movement.
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Before becoming the host of Like It Is, Noble worked as a model, bank clerk and a jazz musician. He started as a part-time announcer for WBIC radio. Later, he became a reporter for WABC-TV covering the 1967 Newark Riots. Soon after, he became an anchor for the weekend nightly news broadcasts and transitioned to hosting Like It Is.
When ABC picked up NBA coverage, the show would be preempted by the coverage. The show went from an hour to 30 minutes to sometimes not airing at all. There was pressure on WABC-TV to cancel the show because of basketball’s popularity, but an outcry from the community put a stop to those plans.
In 2011, Noble suffered a stroke and could not continue with the show. The show last aired October 16, 2011, ending its 43-year run. The show Here and Now, a show similar to Like It Is, took its time slot, continuing Noble’s legacy.
At his funeral, mourners recounted the ways Gil Noble and Like It Is impacted their life. One mourner said she felt better about herself as a Black woman after years of having an inferiority complex. Another said that the show gave her ‘cultural food’ in the same way that she got ‘spiritual food’ by going to church.
In his lifetime, Noble won seven New York-area Emmys, five honorary doctorates and 650 community awards.
Noble’s work cannot be understated. His show provided a platform for Black people to speak their minds about racial injustices. Some criticized him for being one-sided, but that was his modus operandi. He wanted to finally give Black people the voice they needed.
Check out Noble’s classic interview with Bob Marley below for a hint at how powerful his show truly was.