B Sides Black August 2022

N02 $22.00

B SIDES

IMPROVISATIONAL BLACKNESS

BLACK AU G U ST 2 02 2

Greetings!

I’m so very grateful to you for taking the time to see a bit of what I’ve seen. Please reach out and let me know your thoughts! B Sides best embodies my current approach to image-making; improvisational with a dash of unconditional love. Something that is really important for you to know about me, if you want to really see these images, you have to love our people. My people have to be your people - hence ‘our’. It’s a non-negotiable. Got it? Good.

Otherwise, you’ll just look at beautiful images of Black people, and it’d be shameful for you to see so little and miss so much.

Please enjoy this Black August Special Edition. This month, please spend some time with George Jackson, Mumia AbuJamal, Safiya Bukhari, your neighbor and ya mama.

SOMETHING

If we truly are to have a new society, we must build a strong foundation. If we truly truly are to have a new soceity, we must develop a mechanism to struggle from one generation to the next. If we are to maintain our new society after we have won the battle and claimed victory, we must instill into the hearts and minds of our children, our people, ourselves this ability to struggle on all fronts, internally and externally, laying a foundation built upon a love for ourselves and a knowledge of the sacrifices that went before and all we have endured.

- Safiya Bukhari

B SIDES

TO THINK ABOUT

BLACK AUGUST 2022

Enjoy the images, Tafari Melisizwe

N02 The first thing we would like to state is that we commemorate Black August, not celebrate it. We don’t want people to think that it is a party or just an event. Black August is about resistance. The concept of Black August developed inside the California prisons, under the leadership of men like George Jackson, W.L. Nolan, and Khatari Gaulden, who were all assasinated in California prisons. As taught to us by the OG’s (Original Guerrillas), Black August was a response to the need of Afrikan prisoners to form a principled and effective political unity to combat the racism and genocide against Afrikan people behind the walls. Black August began in 1979, one year after the assasination of Khatari Gaulden. As part of Black August brothers fasted the days of the assassinations of the comrades (24-hour fast). On the other days, they fasted until sundown. Physical training and education was increased. As part of our observation and commemoration of Black August we continue that tradition til this very day. We encourage others who want to observe Black August to work out an exercise routine for each day either individually or in groups and to not use any drugs or alcoholic beverages during the entire month.”

The call is: “Black August Resistance” and the response is: “Long Live the Dragon”.

Here is a link to the FTP MOVEMENT site which includes interviews and understanding of what Black August is: www.thepeoplesarmy.org/blackaugust Also, here’s the link to the BPM Black August Calendar blackaugustcalendar.com/

GRATITUDE TO THE COMRADE KALONJI JAMA CHANGA FOR THE QUOTE AND INFORMATION ABOVE.

THE RETURN F O R T A M S T E R D A M , C A P E C O A S T, G H A N A | 2 0 1 5

Tafari Melisizwe is a freelance photographer based in Chicago, IL. He is currently working on 3 projects, “Motherland People,” a digital platform that explores the lives, experiences, and stories of America’s African-descendant communities.

He’s also producing two long-term archival project “Old, Gifted & Black” and “In These Hands”. Through photojournalistic-style portrait photography, Melisizwe explores historical and contemporary relationships between people of African ancestry in an effort to forge meaningful understandings and connections along the continuing lines of language, geography, culture, and history. This work has taken him across the United States, as well as through Ghana, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Cuba and 6 underwhelming hours at the Burkinabe border. While certainly honest, his work is neither neutral nor objective, as he grounds his photography within the social, political, and aspirational tenets of Pan-Africanist praxis. His work presumes the humanity of black people, oft-ignored or obscured from the outset in mainstream discourse. His greatest aspiration through photography is to present black life as it is, as it unfolds, and to use that as a catalyst for joy,

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