Black August is an annual commemoration and prison-based holiday to remember Black political prisoners and Black freedom struggles in the US and beyond, and to highlight Black resistance against racial, colonial, and imperialist oppression. It takes place during the entire calendar month of August.
It was initiated by the Black Guerrilla Family in San Quentin State Prison in 1979 when a group of incarcerated people came together to commemorate the deaths of brothers Jonathan P. Jackson (d. August 7, 1970) and George Jackson (d. August 21, 1971) at San Quentin State Prison.
It is a cultural movement that has had a significant impact on the arts. The Black August (film) focuses on the experiences of prison activist George Jackson. A book named Black August: 1619 – 2019 by Gloria Verdieu. The Black Collective launched the Black August Mixtape. In visual art, the virtual exhibition “Black August” opened at the Crenshaw Dairy Mart.
August 1: Emancipation Day in Antigua and Barbuda, Anguilla, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Canada
August 5: Nelson Mandela is arrested and imprisoned in 1962
August 7: Death of Jonathan P. Jackson
August 9: Mike Brown is killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri
August 10: The Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 is frequently invoked and commemorated as part of Black August
August 11: Watts riots known as the Watts Uprising, August 11-16 1965
August 14: Bois Caiman: Vodou ceremony that would lead to the first large-scale uprising of the enslaved of Saint Domingue and spark the Haitian Revolution
August 17: The birth of pan-africanist leader Marcus Garvey
August 21: the beginning of Nat Turner’s Rebellion
August 21: death of George Jackson
August 22: The Haitian Revolution begins in 1791
August 23: Uprising of the enslaved in Saint-Domingue, the beginning of the Haitian Revolution
August 30: Birth of Fred Hampton, who was deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party at the time of his assassination by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence
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