Jun 10, 2025
Brown Berets and Black Panthers at the Alameda County Courthouse at a Free Huey Newton Rally, Downtown Oakland, 1968
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Brown Berets and Black Panthers at the Alameda County Courthouse at a Free Huey Newton Rally, Downtown Oakland, 1968
George Jackson
"Field Marshal, Black Panther Party"
Carolina Gold rice has a tradition that goes back for centuries in South Carolina's low country and nutrients that make it a staple of healt
A rice that has been a staple of South Carolina's low country for hundreds of years defies the stereotype that rice can't be a ticket to a long life and a healthier diet.
NBC's Cynthia McFadden traveled to the region to meet with Rollen Chalmers, a lifelong low country farmer who harvests rice known as Carolina Gold that has been produced in the area for centuries.
"My ancestors, it was all harvest by hand," Chalmers said on TODAY Wednesday. "It will get you a little emotional when you get to thinking about what was going on in these fields in them days."
The rice is a staple of the Gullah Geechee, descendants of enslaved people who were taken from the rice-growing region of West Africa.
"They didn't have anything but what they knew about growing rice, and they really understood how to grow in these fields," Chalmers said.
National Geographic Explorer and best-selling author Dan Buettner highlights the rice in his new book, "The Blue Zones Challenge: A 4-Week Plan for a Longer, Better Life," in which he explores the "Blue Zones" around the world where people live a full decade longer and healthier than the rest of us.
Buettner and McFadden visited a former plantation outside Savannah, Georgia, where Carolina Gold is still grown.
"Carolina Gold rice is an African strain of rice that pretty much disappeared until about 20 years ago," Buettner said on TODAY. "It's a uniquely American crop because that strain has gone away. You can't go back to Africa and get that strain. You've got to go to the Carolinas."
Chef Roosevelt Brownlee, 74, is a proud keeper of the Gullah Geechee tradition of making the rice, which he has cooked for luminaries like Muddy Waters, Dizzy Gillespie and Nina Simone over the years.
"He's arguably the best in the world when it comes to the Gullah Geechee," Buettner said. "Yet nobody ever called him a chef. They called him a cook."
Brownlee whipped up a sumptuous dish of Hoppin' John with Carolina Gold rice, a traditional Southern dish mixing the nutty flavor of the rice with Sea Island red peas.
"Hands down my favorite dish," Brownlee said.
The dish is traditionally eaten on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day to bring good luck for the new year. TODAY's Craig Melvin, a South Carolina native, knows all about it.
"I grew up on Hoppin' John," he told McFadden. "Don't come back next time without samples."
Carolina Gold defies the common aversion to too much rice in a diet because of all the carbohydrates.
"If you're eating a bowl of white rice, it's probably not the best idea," Buettner said. "Carolina Gold rice, it's different. It's a different species from the Asian rice. It's got a little gold hue to it. It's got a nuttier flavor. And it usually has some germ left in it, and that's where a lot of the nutrients are."
The special rice fits into Buettner's findings from the "Blue Zones" of what has helped people live longer and healthier.
"They don't have any superfoods," he said. "There's not any magical pill or supplement you're going to take. They were essentially eating whole food, plant-based. The key to a healthy America is giving them delicious, plant-based recipes that they can cook and they can afford."
Chalmers has been preaching the gospel of Carolina Gold for years.
"I love to share this stuff, and share the knowledge," he said. "You can still live good and live healthy."
Some flags I created. Let's go!
Mayan-centric Mexican flag: not meant to represent the whole of Mexico given the cultural diversity in the country
Free Manchuria : too often do redesigns for Manchurian flags rely on the fascist puppet-state installed by the Japanese empire. Here the blue field (which symbolises purity and the East) with a golden border (symbolising the Centre and the Ren Confucian virtue), common Manchu colours. In the canton, this symbol was taken directly from the flag of the Boy Scouts of Manchukuo. A type of fleur-de-lys with 2 dragons crossed in an X-pattern. On top of the dragons, a modified orchid from the Imperial Seal of Manchukuo, meant to differ from the former fascist rule
Atlas Kabyle Federation : The chess pattern is taken from the Almohad dynasty - a Berber dynasty that reigned over North Africa and eastern Iberia. The central symbol is currently used by Amazigh people to represent freedom. It corresponds to the letter "Z" in the Latin alphabet
Different Romania : The colour scheme is the same but the shades are all different and are inspired by the coat of arms Vlad III Dracula. In this scenario, Transylvania was much more instrumental in the unification of Romanian-speaking territories. I also wanted to have an original layout for a flag which shares many similarities with, as you know, Moldova, Chad and Andorra
Socialist New Afrika : This flag combines the colours from the African-American flag, with a wreath in the centre which surrounds a gold disk where 2 hands holding torches cross, and in the flame a star
SHORT MISSION STATEMENT
The “Amend the 13th: Abolish “Legal” Slavery in Amerika Movement” is an all-inclusive, coalition-based national campaign and community-based organizing effort which is determined to remove the “legal” and social basis for the dehumanization of those subject to the judicial machinery of the United States – and finally abolish slavery in Amerika once and for all.
The movement has three basic aims:
To amend the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution to remove its “legal” slavery provision for all persons: including those found guilty and sentenced for a felony offence.
To abolish and/or repeal all “civil death” and social containment statutes and ordinances which do not afford prisoners, ex-offenders and their communities full human, political, economic and participatory rights in social life in Amerika that derive their power from the 13th Amendment.
To develop and implement as quickly as possible autonomous community-based economic, political and social infrastructure capable of eliminating, mitigating or diminishing to the greatest degree the negative impact of mass incarceration, criminalization and “legal” slavery on our communities.
We will seek to accomplish this end via a three-pronged strategy designed to raise social awareness of and public opposition to the continuation of “legal” slavery in Amerika, while simultaneously undermining its basis.
Organize a national petition drive to amend the 13th Amendment to remove its “legal” slavery provision at the federal level, and a corresponding petition in each state to rescind all “civil death” and social containment “laws” which derive their powers from the “legal” slavery provision of the 13th Amendment.
Carry out targeted demonstrations which highlight both the negative social impact and continued existence of “legal” slavery in Amerika. We intend to organize these annually in California and Texas, and elsewhere depending on volunteers.
Promote and seek formal authority for the implementation of community-based parole, pardon and clemency boards based on the concept of “strategic release.”
The structure of “Amend the 13th,” in keeping with its aim to forge a national coalition inclusive of every group, activist and individual opposed to “legal” slavery in Amerika in all its guises – i.e., criminalization, mass incarceration, disenfranchisement, “civil death,” involuntary servitude, the deliberate applications of poverty, etc. – will seek state coordinators from already existing organizations and/or activists in each state.
These state coordinators will be responsible for creating their own state coordinating committees reflective of the activists, organizations and affected communities in their state. They will also be responsible for recruiting city coordinators to conduct signature drives, organize community participation in development and stability initiatives, organize demonstrations, garner support for community-based parole, pardon and clemency boards – and “strategic release” – and expand political and material support for the movement nationally.
Each state coordinator will coordinate their efforts with the “Amend The 13th” national coordinating committee, which will include founder Joka Heshima Jinsai and an executive director, deputy director, chief inside coordinator, deputy inside coordinator, secretary, national treasurer, community development coordinator, national spokesperson and executive legal consultant.
The primary function of the National Coordinating Committee is to see that the three basic aims of “Amend the 13th” are realized via its three-pronged strategy, and ensure sufficient human and material resources are available to state and city coordinators to realize these goals.
Building a successful movement begins with developing a competent and effective structure capable of being the living counterpoint to the existence of the prison industrial slave complex. We understand conditions and points of resistance differ from state to state.
The struggles being waged in Georgia and Alabama in the 2010s were successfully waged in California and New York in the 1970s. However, what is constant across every state is the “legal” and political basis for all the various forms of abuse, exploitation and dehumanization experienced by those subject to the judicial machinery in the U.S.: the “civil death” and slavery provisions of the 13th Amendment.
Striking at these as one will undermine the entire dehumanization rationale of U.S. penal policy and jurisprudence which stems from the conscious preservation of the slave system in its modern, punitive form. Social attitudes flow from social conditions, and social conditions are influenced by social attitudes; as such, the minds of the people – your minds – are the primary battleground for social progress.
The unfortunate truth is that most U.S. educational institutions teach what to think, and rarely how to think. “Amend the 13th” seeks to provide the people with an opportunity to not only explore critical thought, but to also confront the hate which continues to cast a pall over social relationships at every level of Amerikan society. It allows us to not simply alter the basis for inhumane “laws” and codified hate, but to also alter the institutions and social life in the most desperate and besieged communities in such a way that it strikes at the very origins of crime, criminalization and human misery.
If we can agree the disproportionate distribution of wealth, privilege, access and opportunity in a society is the origin of all crime and the gateway to enslavement in the U.S., then the most prudent course is to invoke its opposite – to create independent wealth, access and opportunity in those communities which enjoy so little of it. Stable and prosperous communities produce stable and prosperous people.
Therefore, “Amend the 13th’s” intent is to empower the modern slave socially, politically and economically in the social interests of society as a whole; conversely, opposition to it would run contrary to those interests.
In the final analysis, the complete abolition of slavery in the United States is a historical imperative. It is our responsibility as principled people to finally end this willful hate, this intentional social containment and the tissue-thin façade that it is not willful and intentional. The U.S. state must be held accountable by the people – and the world – for preserving the vilest practice in the history of civilization in the body of “the supreme law of the land.”
The struggle against 'racism' is, in the spirit of Fanon, one in which We struggle to become 'anti-racist' in both our thought and our practice. It's also an attempt to approximate the communist ideal, transcending the boundaries of racialized discourse and practice that were erected by the oppressive apparatus, and which serve to reproduce, reinforce, and sustain it. [...] All i wanna say here is: No matter how We see the relations between 'racism' and capitalism (e.g., that they arose simultaneously, or that one preceded the other), i think they should always be mentioned together. That is, i believe it's counter-productive to ever talk about 'racism' without immediately and thoroughly linking it to capitalism, so that no one can be unmindful of the need to struggle against capitalism if they claim to be 'anti-racist' or 'against racism.' 'Racism' is used to justify and facilitate the exploitation of peoples, and it's based on the false belief that humanity is divided into a plurality of 'races' that stand in relation to each other as 'inferior' or 'superior' based on physical and/or cultural differences. There are no 'races'--only people(s) and groups of people(s), united and distinguished by common history (social development), habits, interests, etc.--sometimes We call all of this 'nationality' or ideology. To be 'anti-racist' is, first of all, not to hold the false belief in an alleged plurality of 'races'; to be 'against racism' is to combat all beliefs and practices that facilitate the exploitation of peoples, particularly when such exploitation is supported by the social construction of 'race.' Any attempt to destroy 'racism' without an explicit link to the struggle against capitalism ultimately serves only to reinforce 'racist' ideology and to shield capitalism from attack. On the other hand, an attempt to combat capitalism without an explicit link to anti-racist discourse and struggle allows capitalism to use the belief in 'race' held by oppressed peoples, and appeal to the 'racism' of citizens of the oppressive state, thus undermining all revolutionary initiative.
James Yaki Sayles, Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth: New Afrikan Revolutionary Writings, 157-8
The issue is, are we at a state of conflict. If we are at a state of conflict, what is going to be the solution . . . You have to first accept there is a conflict. If you don’t accept there is a conflict, then you can’t fathom a separate nation. And if you do, it’s egotistical. Well I want my own. It’s without basis. But if you understand that we do not coexist in a vacuum, that we are in a life and death struggle. That the history of us being brought here and how we are treated since we’ve been here, demands that we come up with some formula to resolve this contradiction or else our condition, our condition and our circumstances might be the cause of the fall of all humanity on the planet earth. Because we must be free. Now, everybody doesn’t agree with that scenario. You follow me? . . . Some people believe that we can formulate a better living and life condition by participating in an integrated political and economic cultural system. Now, I do not say that they’re not revolutionaries. If they are hell bent on changing and changing the rights of people and forcing this government and developing a new government that integrates everybody into an equal formation and rights for everybody, well then all praises due to Allah. Fine. It still does not deal with the question: where do we find ourselves as New African people brought here as slaves. Okay? . . . But even in that society I will co-exist because you allow me to have my own culture or at least try to find where I’m going. You follow me? . . . But, I contend that Utopia or that possibility for the last 150 years has not come to be. And in the process, we have been dying, dying, dying, dying, dying. And in order for us to understand what it is that we were fighting for, we must label what we’re for, and I’m fighting for a nation. A nation of New African people, not exclusively, but conclusively our nation that develops a culture that deals with our experience and that a culture that will allow the exercise, creativity, the potential of every man, woman and child that enters our nation. So, I come to that because I understood that I have to know why I’m fighting and might die. Why I sacrifice.
Mutulu Shakur
Robert F. Williams in Tanzania 1968