“…the definition of fascism is: a police state wherein the political ascendancy is tied into and protects the interests of the upper class — characterized by militarism, racism, and imperialism…” — George Jackson
Federal troops on the streets of Washington and throughout the United States. Relentless attacks on Black political power. Public education dismantled. Attacks on organized labor. Books banned. Black history erased. Health care pulled from millions of people. Protesters criminalized. Record numbers of people killed by police. ICE raids. George Jackson stated it clearly 54 years ago: “Fascism is here.”
Black people in America have to tell our own history, especially now, as the entire project of telling the truth is under attack. The radical right-wing forces in the United States government are determined to crush our movements, criminalize our leaders, gut our hard-won voting rights protections, eliminate the holidays and commemorations we fought hard for, and edit our history right out of the textbooks. We refuse to be erased. We will fight to protect and expand the days and months dedicated to naming and celebrating all Black history.
Black August is a month that commemorates and recommits our communities to radical resistance. It honors the life, leadership and legacy of George Jackson, murdered by prison guards in August 1971. It also demands that we free our political prisoners and celebrate our freedom fighters, often erased from the pages of mainstream media and dialogue about Black history. Founded 47 years ago by Khatari Gaidi and other activists held prisoner in California’s prison system, the month is a time to reflect and learn about the legacies of Black revolutionaries and rededicate ourselves to the protracted struggles against white supremacy, colonialism, capitalism and imperialism. In 1979, the Black August Organizing Committee, through revolutionary leaders like Mama Ayanna Mashama, brought Black August to communities beyond the prison walls to commemorate how we resist oppression every day as part of a continuum of freedom fighting.
This year’s Black August will serve as an anchor for the coming months, which will inevitably require our resistance. In August, we will host a lecture series called Black August Sessions that will eventually become a permanent educational and cultural resource. The objective is not simply to document Black August but to create a living archive that continues advancing the work of the movement throughout the year.
Black people know fascism. We are the descendants of generations of people whose lives and movements were controlled by violent, ruthless, state-sanctioned institutions. We had no legal authority over our own bodies. By law, we could not vote, protest, learn, have families or live free. We did not have the basic rights afforded human beings. Through military agents of the government and white slavers backed by the laws of the nation, any opposition to our oppression, attempts to end our enslavement, or organized political dissent to white supremacists’ rule over our bodies was violently and brutally suppressed. We remember that even after chattel slavery, after we defeated the old systems, new institutions sprang up to continue the project of our forced labor, subjugation and mass incarceration. We remember because our parents and grandparents lived through it. We remember because 1965 wasn’t that long ago. And we remember because the fights continue as the institutions that force or exploit our labor continue. We remember because the state is still killing us.
Black people fight fascism. Black August tells the story of those freedom fighters who used every tool available. It celebrates the births of Mutulu Shakur (August 1950) and Marcus Garvey (August 1887). It tells the story of the Nat Turner Rebellion (August 1831) and the Haitian Revolution (August 1791), the Watts uprisings (1965), and the beginnings of the Attica Rebellion (September 1971). It acknowledges the Ferguson uprising (2014), salutes the Montgomery boat brawl (August 2023), and tells the story of a people who refuse oppression and demand freedom by any means necessary.
Black people refuse to concede the future. We just witnessed widespread racist gerrymandering and the politically motivated and unconstitutional gutting of the Voting Rights Act, which Black people made possible to secure our political participation. Now is not the time to give up or give in to these attacks on our rights. Black people have always carried the fight for human rights, social and racial justice, and freedom while being under constant attack. Whether it is the FBI’s COINTELPRO campaign of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, where Black leaders and organizations were identified as threats to America and targeted for death and destruction, or last month’s “Cuba Report” by Marco Rubio, where Black-led organizations, authors and leaders are being criminalized as domestic terrorists, we fight on. We affirm our right to vote, self-defense and collective self-determination. Our movement is multi-issue. Our movement is rooted in local organizing and international solidarity. Our movement knows that electoral justice demands accountability, interventions, dismantling and building something new. Our movement is made for this moment because we keep our eyes on the future.
Black people survived fascism. We are here because we are vigilant about protecting our voices, physical movement, political activism, communities and families. We are here because we fight for our very existence every single day. The Harriet Tubman Combahee River Raid, the Black Panther Party, the Deacons for Self Defense, the Republic of New Afrika, the Revolutionary Action Movement, the Black Liberation Army, and so many more organizations and actions refused subjugation. Through generational trauma, we remember fascism. And every day, through generational power, we survive because we resist.
Black August is a revolutionary, unapologetic love letter to our freedom fighters and a reminder that Black people, since our arrival in America, have resisted fascism every day. In 2026, it is a call to resist. Each day that we fight back against fascism’s encroachment on our rights, each day of August, and each day beyond, is an action in the legacy of Black August.
