NEWSLETTER

EDITORIAL: "Silence is betrayal!" in the midst of today's growing CRISIS!

Get engaged with the FOLWCC volunteers

Climate change - One good thing you can do right now


If you watch the news, you know. Our climate is collapsing.


In Canada, wildfires have burned over 50,000 square miles. In India, heatwaves are filling morgues and overwhelming hospitals. The Atlantic current is on course to shut down within years, turning large parts of the U.S. and Europe into landscapes no one recognizes. Horrific fires in Lahaina have destroyed much of the city.


As climate researcher Eliot Jacobson put it recently, “The planet is breaking.” So how do we fix it? We have to change—what we eat, what we buy, how we get around.


Here’s one change you can make right now.

Make a DONATION to "FRUIT OF LABOR WORLD CULTURAL CENTER!"


YOU will make a difference. 

DONATE

Golden-Era Rap Music and the Black Intellectual Tradition


By Antoine S. Johnson


Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, was a crucial moment in African-American history. Many rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities, including but not limited to the AIDS and crack epidemics, police brutality and the expansion of the prison-industrial complex, state-sanctioned violence, and misogynoir. Some emcees felt obligated to speak for voiceless Black youth in ways they felt African Americans were being failed by government entities, educational systems, and media outlets. To this end, rappers functioned as organic Black intellectuals during a period in which there was a marked decline of Black radical intellectuals in the Black public sphere. Rappers being “embedded and dedicated to movement” makes them organic intellectuals and an important component of what made the golden era, golden. Rappers made significant contributions to the Black intellectual tradition despite the music industry’s compromising commercialization of hip-hop culture.


This period saw emceeing become the dominant hip hop element, usurping deejaying, graffiti, and breakdancing. Spreading knowledge, a fifth element, was taken seriously by many emcees, making rap “CNN for Black people,” according to Chuck D of Public Enemy (PE). Ernie Singleton, a former executive with MCA Records, stated that rap music “deals with the kids’ reality of living with high unemployment, a high crime rate, and the devastating drug problem.” Speaking to and with Black youth was an arduous task, but one many rappers embraced. Chuck D, for instance, believed he had an “obligation” to educate with his raps “because I’m aware.” “We’re at a time,” he continued, “when [Black communities are] getting kind of lazy and slack and we’re moving backwards, so I have to try to turn this around.”


And try he did, incorporating socially conscious lyrics in his songs. As a member of the Nation of Islam (NOI), most of his and Public Enemy’s messages consisted of Black Nationalist rhetoric, including the song “Rightstarter (Message to a Black Man),” modeled after former NOI leader Elijah Muhammad’s 1965 book, Message to the Black Man in America. This was Chuck’s and PE’s attempt to provide Black youth with role models, and in another popular effort they introduced young people to Malcolm X. From 1988 through the release of Spike Lee’s 1992 Malcolm X film, hip-hop culture plastered Malcolm’s image, the “X” symbol, or brandished his quotes on hats, backpacks and posters, starting a period referred to as “Malcolmania.” Black intellectuals had mixed reviews on this period. The cultural critic Stanley Crouch insisted that hip hop’s Malcolm nostalgia relegated the Black icon to a political “bad-boy image,” and places selling Malcolm X-themed clothing were pandering to Black consumers.2 The historian Robin D. G. Kelley lauded rappers’ ability to evoke Malcolm’s “totality of lived experience in their lyrics,” suggesting that Malcolm X lived vicariously through the hip hop generation. Other scholars believed this period watered down Black culture. According to historians Barbara Ransby and Tracye Mathews, Malcolmania left Black youth “with the disempowering misperception that only the larger than life great men can make or change history.” The “deified persona of Malcolm X,” made him a “paragon of puritanical morality.” “Thus,” continued the authors, “the prescription for solving the problems and dilemmas facing the African-American community today is—add strong Black man and stir.” Read more here.

The Black Arts Movement


By Kalamu ya Salaam

aalbc.com


In a recent conversation on our FOLWCC discussions, I shared a list of writers who are associated with the 1960-70s Black Arts Movement - known as B.A.M. I was contrasting it with today's" current pro-capitalist & materialist/ sexist/ misogynist Hip-Hop"!


Today's "make that dollar" Hip Hop industry and their artists ( for the most part) have NO revolutionary African-American/ Black social movement engagement with our peoples' anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles on the ground...not on our actual battlefronts and day-to-day struggles.


Artists of the liberation movements of the 1960s -1970s "Black Arts Movement" were inextricably linked to social and political consciousness and daily activism. I was astonished to read someone’s reaction saying they had never heard of these artists and writers! I share the list below. How many do you know?

Toni Cade Bambara

Amiri Baraka

Steve Cannon

John H. Bracey Jr.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Mari Evans

Nikki Giovanni

Nathan Hare

Gil-Scott Heron

Fred Lee Hord

Rosa Guy

John O. Killens

Etheridge Knight

Audre Lorde

Haki Madhubuti

Paule Marshall

Larry Neal

Sterling D. Plumpp

Eugene Redmond

Ishmael Reed

Carolyn Marie Rodgers

Kalamu ya Salaam

Sonia Sanchez

Ntozake Shange

S. Pearl Sharp

Askia M. Touré

Quincy Troupe

Marvin X

SEPTEMBER 2023 CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Saturday, September 9; 10:00 AM-12:00 PM; Write Revolution Vol. 2 Poetry Workshop Series. The second installment of a poetry workshop series facilitated by poet/writer Hausson Byrd centered around inspiring, challenging, and guiding participants through crafting their own evolution. Sliding scale registration is $5-$15. Please contact Hausson for registration and more information at progressinked@gmail.com.

Saturday, September 23; 9:30-10:30 AM; Workin’ It Out – a Free Total Body Community Workout Class; Stretching, toning, aerobic – we’ve got it all for participants who are beginners, may have limitations, or are advanced. Plus, we'll have a 10-minute "Livin' More than Just Enough" Health talks about overcoming disparities and healthcare access in our communities. So, come out, bring your towel, and be ready to get on the road to better fitness and building healthier lifestyles in Black and Brown communities. Water and healthy snacks will be available. Rsvp to Nathanette at (919) 876-7187 or nlmayo5@yahoo.com.

Sunday, September 24; 10:00 AM-1:00 PM; Young Readers Brunch, Reading Circle, Art Session and Book Give-Away. Free to the public. Coordinated by D’Juan Owens. Email: djuanowens85@gmail.com to register. Participants must pre-register. Space is limited to 50 participants.

Reserve the Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center for your Special Event!



The Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center is the perfect beautiful venue for your special event. Contact us today for information about our very reasonable rates and availability. Call (919) 876-7187, 919-231-2660 or email fruitoflaborwcc@netscape.com.

AVAILABLE NOW!

Music and songs that inspire, engage, and liberate our spirit!


Enjoy Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble’s Album: State of Emergency


The album is available on

Amazon, Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube Music, iHeart Radio 

and many more streaming services and retailers. 

MUSIC THAT IS HOTTER THAN JULY

Contributions of Black Americans to the American Labor Movement


History of Labor Day