Black August: We're Not Free Until We All Are Free
Community,
Black August has commenced. Amid the continuation of reactionary, white supremacist, and fascist politics, we are called to hold each other close, especially those of us who have been systematically disappeared, ostracized, and revolutionized by the plantations and concentration camps known as prisons.
Throughout the month of August, the National Black Food and Justice Alliance will share deeper analysis and practices for studying, fasting, training, and fighting for political prisoners, prisoners of war, and incarcerated siblings amid these conditions. We invite you to practice relationally, face to face, and in community to support the movement and embody how the struggle for abolition is not separate from our own. Please explore this blog for in-person opportunities that may be in your local area.
Disconnection is incentivized and planned. We refuse to be separated from each other, whether through bars or across borders, and we will reach out and organize Black August and beyond. #FreeThemAll #BlackAugustResistance
Deepening Our Praxis
Since its inception by the Black Guerrilla Family in San Quentin State Prison in California on August 21, 1979, Black August has served as a commemorative month to honor the righteous freedom fighters who have rebelled against the state. Their rebellion was in response to the brutal conditions of incarceration, the targeted assassinations of Black revolutionaries like George Jackson, and the violent systems of white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism that continue to criminalize Black resistance and the struggle for self-determination.
Black August rose from the same fascist playbook still used today—first weaponized by Nixon and Reagan through “law and order,” the war on drugs, and mass incarceration to crush Black resistance and cage those deemed expendable or a threat.
Today, those same tactics show up as over-policing, surveillance, and attacks on Black autonomy, Indigenous sovereignty, immigrant survival, and queer and trans life.
Through their internationalist and socialist analysis, George and Jonathan Jackson remind us: this isn’t just about survival—it’s about fighting a global system built to exploit, erase, and disappear us.
Then and now, we are reminded that this call is not one of blind rage, self-sacrifice, or unguided rebellion against these reactionary politics. It’s about holding each other close while pushing against the systems that harm us.
Then and now, we are reminded that this call is not one of blind rage, self-sacrifice, or unguided rebellion against these reactionary politics. It’s about holding each other close while pushing against the systems that harm us.
Remember: incarceration is not just punishment—it’s a system of dehumanization and exploitation, carrying forward the legacy of the plantation. It extracts labor and profit from Black, Indigenous, and poor communities.
Remember: political prisoners are targeted because their resistance threatens the very foundations of this violent order—including a corporate-controlled food system built on control, extraction, and dispossession.
As we honor political prisoners, prisoners of war, and our incarcerated siblings, we’re called to deepen our commitment to Black liberation—and to study, remember, and defend freedom fighters of the past and present. Our work must include defending those who have dared to fight, and dismantling every system that threatens Black life, dignity, and liberation.