Twitter: @weallbe
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"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."~Muhammad Ali
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."~Dr. Martin Luther King
The W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Group Inc. Is Proud To Honor 2013's 'Artivists of the Year'...Last Year's Theme Was 'No Justice Just Us So Just Do It!!!':
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1.) Sis. Shelia Washington
Founder and Director of the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center
Bro. Ron aka r2c2h2 tha artivist with Sis. Shelia Washington
Reason For Award: For brilliantly leading a bi-partisan grassroots effort to help officially exonerate and pardon the Scottsboro Boys posthumously by the State of Alabama in 2013.
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: The Official Scottsboro Boys Pardon & Exoneration Ceremony (4/19/2013)
WATCH NOW:
http://youtu.be/cP5rNOSptc8
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. NEWS: Never Too Late But Still Bittersweet: The Official Exoneration & Pardon of The Scottsboro Boys
READ NOW:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2013/05/never-too-late-but-still-bittersweet.html
***About Sis. Shelia Washington***
Shelia Washington was the first African American to work at Scottsboro City Hall. For nearly two decades (1978-1996), she served as public relations manager and office manager for the mayor. In addition to founding the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center, she established and continues to work with the Scottsboro Multicultural Foundation and the Beyond the Break crime and drug prevention ministry. She also managed the Ben Samford Outreach Center, which organizes activities and develops educational programming for youth after school and on weekends. She served on the Department of Human Resources advisory board for child welfare in Jackson County and has earned several keys to the city of Scottsboro for being a mentor and leader in the community.
The Scottsboro Boys Museum & Cultural Center Official Website:
http://www.scottsboro-boys.org/
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2.) Sis. Aisha Sekhmet
Black Revolutionary Hip Hop Artist
Reason For Reward: Using Rhymes & Beats to create high quality music/art used for stimulating the third eye, enriching melanin and instilling cultural pride and revolutionary purpose in the masses of the darker hue...
***About Sis. Aisha Sekhmet***
by r2c2h2 tha artivist
Sis. Aisha Sekhmet is a prolific revolutionary race first rap artist from New Orleans, Louisiana, who currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia...This cultural warrior queen is a true advocate for Black Love, Black Unity and Black Liberation...'The Queen Guillotine' as she is also known serves as a sharp tongued and witted weapon that slices through the oppressive neck of White Supremacy and Racism to bring about poetic justice for her people...I was actually made aware of her unique genius by a 'conscious' sister friend on Facebook a couple of years back and have been a fan ever since...Her latest and greatest creation, "Revival" released this past summer is a sure-fire remedy for sleepwalking Negroes, one of the best albums of this year and an instant nu classic...I have been playing it heavily over the last several weeks in my car and on my computer every since I downloaded it from
CD Baby and I know that the best is yet to come...
Sis. Akhmet's artistry is a throwback to the Golden Age of Conscious Rap which included early Queen Latifah, Public Enemy, The X Clan, Jungle Brothers and even the early political raps of NWA combined with an approach, charisma and style reminiscent of the late great Makaveli aka 2Pac...Her lyrics are laced heavy with Black Nationalist and Pan African themes as well as catchy Black Power hooks...Her flow is wicked and thorough, each line serving as both a history lesson for Blacks and the uninitiated as well as retribution against White Supremacy...
Her artistry is very controversial and confrontational: she directly confronts the system of White Supremacy and she is not afraid to critique (some may say 'attack') some of society's prized institutions, traditions, and taboo topics (the Black church, religion in general, 'Amerikkka,' homosexuality and interracial relationships are some of her favorite targets)!!! She doesn't pull her punches and she goes straight for the jugular too...You may disagree with her point of view but you should agree that she is a talented artist and arguably one of the most significant if underrated voices of her generation who deserves to be heard if not always in agreement with...
Buy Revival On CD Baby:
Official Website:
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3.) Sis. Jackie Sumell
Social justice artist and prison reform activist
Reason for Award: Utilizing her art and activism to bring awareness to freeing the last 2 members of the Angola 3, being co-architect of the visionary Herman's House Project and spearheading the grassroots Stop Solitary Confinement Movement...
Sis. Jackie Sumell playing chess with the late Herman Wallace
“There is infinite opportunity to do something amazing at any point in your life, as long as we can get over the impression that amazing is complex.” -Jackie Sumell
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: "Still Free The Angola 3 & Building Herman's House To Replace The Jail House: A Jackie Sumell Interview" 12/1/2013
WATCH NOW:
http://youtu.be/tqbnSYXDI0I
***About Sis. Jackie Sumell***
Born in Brooklyn NY in 1973, Jackie Sumell is a multidisciplinary artist inspired most by the lives of everyday people. Her work speaks to both traditional artist communities and those historically marginalized from the political process. Her work transcends the boundaries of art and activism in an attempt to connect people in provocative and meaningful ways.
Her work was a center piece for the 2008 New Orleans Biennial, Prospect 1, the 2010 St Etienne Design Biennial, and Nancy Solomon’s Westobou Festival 2012.
Sumell’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the US and Europe, including The Luggage Store Gallery, Artists Space NY, deYoung Museum, Royal College of Art and Dublin County Museum. She has been the recipient of several residencies and awards including Akademie Schloss Solitude, and InContext-3 (Ireland), [CCA] Udjadowski Castle residency in Warsaw Poland. Sumell published 2 artist books A=AGHT (2008) and The House That Herman Built (2006/2008) which documents the extraordinary collaboration with longterm solitary confinement prisoner and Black Panther, Herman Wallace. Their collaboration was featured by the NYTimes, Art Forum, Newsweek, Citizen K, Domus, TDR and most recently as the cover of Afterimage Journal.
In 2001 Sumell received critical acclaim for her project directly condemning Bush’s conservative policies on reproductive freedoms.More recently she has been working on behalf of political prisoners in Angola Prison, Louisiana and spent several months grass-root organizing in a post-Katrina New Orleans. Her work has been exhibited consistently in the Bay Area and in various non-profit venues throughout the US, including the Canzani Center, Columbus OH and Disjecta, Portland OR. Internationally she was included in Kunst Lebt, Stuttgart Kunstgebaude, TULCA Arts Festival, Galway Ireland, Axis of Good Exhibition in Lisbon Portugal, and the 2003 Havana Biennale, Havana Cuba. In 2006 she published the book The House That Herman Built which documents the five-year collaborative project between she and black panther/political prisoner Herman Wallace. In December 2006 Domus magazine featured this project as it cover and in March 2007 it was covered by the NY Times Sunday Arts section. Ms Sumell was in residence at the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart Germany October 2005 through September 2006 and an Artist-in-Residence November 2006 through November 2008 in Dublin Ireland.
She received a B.S. in Allied Health/Sports Medicine from the College of Charleston, and M.F.A. from Stanford University. Ms Sumell currently resides in New Orleans Louisiana where she continues to work on Herman’s House, and several other advocacy based projects. She is 2013 Soros Fellow.
Herman's House Official Website:
http://hermanshouse.org/
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4.) Bro. Akinyele Umoja
Scholar-Activist & Historian
Reason For Award: The 2013 Publication of his literary magnum opus, "We Will Shoot Back,"detailing the little known and extraordinary history of the Black armed resistance struggle of the Mississippi Freedom Movement of the 1950s, 60s, &70s...
Scholar-Activists "R" Us: (Left to Right) Dr. Paul Ortiz (University of Florida), Dr. Akinyele Umoja & Bro. Ron aka r2c2h2 tha artivist
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: Dr. Akinyele Umoja's 'We Will Shoot Back' Lecture @ Delta State University (9/19/2013)
WATCH VIDEO NOW:
http://youtu.be/WBv8vYNgv7E
W.E. A.L.L. B.E. TV: He Was Not Afraid: Dr. Akinyele Umoja On Alfred 'Skip' Robinson
WATCH VIDEO NOW:
***About Dr. Akinyele Umoja***
Associate Professor and department chair in the Department of African-American Studies at Georgia
State University (GSU). At GSU, Umoja is responsible for teaching courses related to the history of people of African descent in Georgia, the Civil Rights Movement and other Black political and social movements, courses on the enslavement of African people in the New World, African religion and philosophy, and 19th and 20th century Black political and social movements. He has been a community activist for over 40 years.
From Publishers Weekly
African-American Studies professor Umoja adds a much-needed chapter to the history of the Civil Rights Movement with his well-sourced chronicle of the Mississippians who risked life, limb, and livelihood by arming themselves against "White supremacist terrorism". Though groups like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the Congress on Racial Equality promoted nonviolence, they also relied on "covert armed protection." Indeed, armed self-defense" was "common practice for southern black activists." These men and women argued: "non-violent stuff ain't no good. It'll get you killed." The possibility of armed resistance came to be an important bargaining chip between civil rights groups and federal officials who often declined to intervene in the increasingly violent confrontations. However, after the 1964 deaths of civil rights workers James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, support for nonviolence disintegrated; some disaffected civil rights leaders adopted paramilitary tactics or turned to the nascent Black Nationalist groups to protect civil rights workers. Increasingly, the Black Panthers and other Black power leaders gained ascendency as White supremacists continued their assaults on Black communities well into the 1970s. Umoja's eye-opening work is a powerful and provocative addition to the literature of the civil rights movement.
Review
"Akinyele Umoja’s marvelously rich and exhaustive study of Mississippi will radically transform the debate about the role of nonviolence within the civil rights movement, proving that armed self-defense actually saved lives, reduced terrorist attacks on African American communities, and laid the foundation for unparalleled community solidarity. We Will Shoot Back is decidedly not a romantic celebration of gun culture, but a sometimes sobering, sometimes beautiful story of self-reliance and self-determination and a people’s capacity to sustain a movement against all odds."-Robin D. G. Kelley,author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
"Ranging from Reconstruction to the Black Power period, this thoroughly and creatively researched book effectively challenges long-held beliefs about the Black Freedom Struggle. It should make it abundantly clear that the violence/nonviolence dichotomy is too simple to capture the thinking of Black Southerners about the forms of effective resistance."-Charles M. Payne,Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago
"Timely and timeless. . . . Expands our understanding of the hidden narratives of Mississippi's black armed resistance groups scattered through generations."-Kathleen Cleaver,Senior Lecturer and Research Fellow, Emory Law School
"This riveting historical narrative relies upon oral history, archival material, and scholarly literature to reconstruct the use of armed resistance by Black activists and supporters in Mississippi to challenge racist terrorism, segregation, and fight for human rights and political empowerment from the early 1950s through the late 1970's." -Mark Anthony Neal, Duke University
BUY THE BOOK:
http://www.amazon.com/Will-Shoot-Back-Resistance-Mississippi/dp/0814725244
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