Religious sisters attend the Regional Conference on Human Trafficking, March 18 at Arrupe Jesuit University in Harare, Zimbabwe. Center: Sr. Theresa Nyadombo of the Handmaids of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, education secretary for the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference, said a collaborative effort is needed to raise human trafficking awareness. (GSR photo/Doreen Ajiambo)
HARARE, ZIMBABWE — Jane sat on a hard, wooden chair at a church in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, and stared into space for some minutes. Then, she began to croon in worship and, a few minutes later, the gates of her heart burst open, and she began to pour out her heart to her Lord, tears flowing freely like a fountain.
“Father, I forgive my abusers and the people who caused me pain,” prayed the 37-year-old mother of two, who asked that Global Sisters Report not use her real name. “They treated me like an animal, like I didn’t matter, like I was a dog, worse than a dog. God, please heal my pain and heal my broken heart.”
Jane’s journey of pain began in 2016, when she was enticed by a trafficking agent in Harare with promises of a salary of $1,400 per month at a hotel in Kuwait, more than 3,000 miles away. Life had become unbearable in Zimbabwe after her husband lost his job as a casual laborer in a local milk factory and they were evicted from their house for nonpayment of rent.
“Life was very difficult and we barely had something to eat, and if we ate, it was one meal per day,” she said.
It was at this difficult time that she met her trafficker, who was well acquainted with her mother. Everything was planned quickly, and within one week, all her travel documents were ready, including her passport. She was given a new Islamic name: Amina Ishmael.
Religious sisters display cloth promoting work against human trafficking at the Regional Conference on Human Trafficking, March 18 at Arrupe Jesuit University in Harare, Zimbabwe. The conference was organized by the African Forum for Catholic Social Teaching and brought together various activists in the area of human trafficking. (GSR photo/Doreen Ajiambo)
Upon reaching Kuwait, she was picked up from the airport by a man who would be her boss. It was at his house that Jane realized she had been lied to and trafficked. Her host took away her travel documents and forcefully performed a medical procedure to check her overall health.
“I was raped every day, and I was helpless to do anything about it,” she said, weeping throughout the interview with GSR but insisting she wanted to tell her story. “I was forced to work day and night, beaten, restricted to go anywhere, threatened of arrest and deportation and unlawful withholding of my passport. I wasn’t even paid for the five months I worked at the home.”
When things became intolerable, she fled the home and took refuge in the Zimbabwe consulate. Jane was deported after a week, and upon arrival back in Zimbabwe, she was introduced to the religious sisters who run the African Forum for Catholic Social Teaching (AFCAST), an association of justice and peace practitioners throughout Africa, and who chaired the Counseling Services Unit, a group of doctors and counselors who assist the victims of human trafficking in Zimbabwe.
“As AFCAST, we deal with social problems that affect the people,” said Sr. Janice McLaughlin of the Maryknoll Sisters, who is one of the forum’s founders. “We focus our attention mainly on human trafficking and abuse of children and vulnerable adults. We always do our research and then we try to reach out to those affected or those we feel need help. All this is done by following Catholic social teaching and mission.”
Maryknoll Sr. Janice McLaughlin, one of the founders of the African Forum for Catholic Social Teaching, leads dozens of sisters in denouncing trafficking during the Regional Conference on Human Trafficking, March 18 at Arrupe Jesuit University in Harare, Zimbabwe. (GSR photo/Doreen Ajiambo)
‘There are no jobs here’
Jane is among the 40.3 million people who have been trafficked globally, including 24.9 million in forced labor and 15.4 million in forced marriage, according to 2016 estimates by the International Labor Organization, the most recent available data.
Human trafficking in Africa is an urgent crisis, and women and children are especially at risk. People can be trafficked within their own countries, to neighboring countries and to other continents for sexual exploitation, sexual slavery, forced marriage, domestic slavery and various forms of forced labor, according to the latest report by the United Nations.
Zimbabwe does not meet the minimum standards for eliminating human trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so, according to the 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report from the U.S. State Department. The report also notes that the southern African nation has been mapped as a source, destination and transit point for trafficking. In most of these cases, victims are vulnerable children and young adults.
In 2014, the Zimbabwe Parliament passed the Trafficking in Persons Act to identify those who have been trafficked, mitigate the illicit practice and prosecute trafficking offenders. However, it wasn’t until 2016 that the government launched the Trafficking in Persons National Plan of Action to enforce the law.
Since then, Zimbabwe’s government has made some headway in its efforts to end human trafficking. It investigated 72 potential cases of trafficking and prosecuted 42 cases in 2016, compared to none in the previous year. The government reported prosecuting 14 trafficking cases in 2017.
However, women and girls from Zimbabwean towns bordering South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia are still trafficked and subjected to forced labor and prostitution. In rural areas, men, women and children are also trafficked internally to farms for agricultural labor and to cities for forced domestic labor and commercial sexual exploitation, according to the U.S. State Department.
Along Robert Mugabe Road in Harare earlier this year, hundreds of young female travelers stood in queue, holding luggage and waiting for their turn to enter into a bus. The driver of the Citiliner bus, a South African coach company offering services from Harare to Johannesburg, told GSR that many of them were heading to neighboring South Africa to look for greener pastures.
One of them, a young blond woman in a navy dress, told GSR she felt there was no future for her in her home of Bulawayo in southwest Zimbabwe, and she was seeking opportunities in South Africa to help educate her siblings. She said her friend living in the United States had put her into contact with a woman in Johannesburg who promised to use her connections to find her a well-paying job as a maid.
She blamed poverty and lack of jobs in the country as a reason of migration. The World Bank estimates that extreme poverty in Zimbabwe has risen over the past few years, from 33.4% of the population in 2017 to 40% in 2019. The bank predicts levels will continue to rise in 2020, to between 6.6 million and 7.6 million people. That is about half of the people in this country, who are living on less than $1.90 per day.
“I have no choice but to go and try my luck,” the woman said on condition of anonymity, noting that she doesn’t even have regular migration documents. “I’m told that one needs to have at least $30 to bribe border officials, then they will let you in. There are no jobs here, so I have to try elsewhere to earn a living and help my family.”
High school students attend the Regional Conference on Human Trafficking, March 18 at Arrupe Jesuit University in Harare, Zimbabwe. Public education and awareness campaigns were launched to help especially children, since they are the most vulnerable. (GSR photo/Doreen Ajiambo)
How the sisters and AFCAST help
On the streets of Harare, people jostle for space to get a glimpse of some notice boards advertising jobs and vacancies in the Middle East, North Africa and in Italy, Spain and other European countries. The vacancies on the glass-sealed notice boards are for recruitment agents looking for saleswomen, housekeepers, hotel attendants, drivers, waitresses and chefs.
Such practices that lead to trafficking have prompted religious sisters in the country and elsewhere to stand up against it. They have been organizing workshops every month in schools and churches to create awareness and assist women and girls affected by trafficking.
McLaughlin said the African Forum for Catholic Social Teaching assists women and girls affected by human trafficking with counseling, reuniting them with their families and even helping them start self-help projects.
“I was really moved by the plight of young women and girls trafficked to Kuwait and other Gulf states when I met some of them through the migration office,” she said. “They are abused in foreign countries after being promised lucrative job offers. But it has been really rewarding to see some of them heal from trauma.”
While addressing a regional conference on human trafficking March 18 at the Arrupe Jesuit University in Harare, McLaughlin denounced human trafficking as dehumanizing.
“Human trafficking is destroying the lives of many people, especially young people and young women. Therefore, there is need for a collective effort to fight the vice,” she said.
The conference, which was organized by the African Forum for Catholic Social Teaching in partnership with the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, brought together various organizations involved in fighting human trafficking: the governments of Zimbabwe and the United States; survivors of trafficking; faith leaders, including Muslims; and members of civil society.
Sr. Mercy Shumbamhini of the Mary Ward Congregation of Jesus in Zimbabwe holds a Talitha Kum banner during the Regional Conference on Human Trafficking, March 18 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Talitha Kum is a Rome-based organization of Catholic women religious established by the International Union of Superiors General in 2009 to end human trafficking. (GSR photo/Doreen Ajiambo)
“It is the responsibility of each one of us to fight human trafficking,” said Maria Phiri, a detective representing the Zimbabwe Republic Police. “I would like therefore to encourage everyone to collaborate in this fight by detecting any suspicious activities and also report cases of human trafficking to the authorities.”
Human trafficking has disturbing and long-lasting effects on mental health, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, anger, guilt and shame.
Sr. Elizabeth Boroma, a psychologist, has been counseling women and girls who have been trafficked for sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and forced labor. Boroma told GSR she has helped hundreds of women to come to terms with their pasts and to face their futures with confidence and dignity.
“Most of them are always hesitant at first to talk about their experiences, but with time, they open up and release it,” said Boroma of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. “Some usually cry throughout the entire counseling session, and I let them do it because it’s their way of healing.”
Sarah is one the beneficiaries of Boroma’s counseling service. She recounts heartbreaking tales of desperation, rape, hunger, life on the streets and the suffering she endured in the hope of a better life four years ago in Saudi Arabia, where she thought opportunities were better.
“I wanted take away my life because of the bad experience I went through while in Saudi Arabia,” said the 28-year-old mother of one, who asked GSR not to use her real name. “I went through therapy with the help of the nun, and it helped me move on quickly. I’m now happily married and doing a grocery delivery business.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has changed the nature of the sisters’ anti-trafficking work. Victims of human trafficking say they are not getting the personalized, face-to-face counseling and interaction they previously enjoyed with the sisters. They are also dealing with the loss of their livelihoods.
The sisters have adopted new ways of providing the needed follow-up counseling by communicating with the young women via WhatsApp, email, texting and phone calls.
Jane is still suffering from the sexual assault she went through while in Kuwait and hopes to attend several months of therapy to help her heal and move on.
“I want to move on, but it’s hard to forget what the man did to me,” she said. “He treated me like an animal, but I leave everything to God.”
Growing up playing music in the Church of God in Christ isn’t the only thing Clinton, Mississippi-bred bluesmen Eddie Cotton Jr. and Jarekus Singleton have in common, but it might be the most significant.
“When other churches were conservative, not letting people bring in drums, not letting people bring in guitars, at the COGIC church the lid has always been off,” says Cotton, whose father was a preacher at Christ Chapel Church of God in Clinton.
The weekly free-form church services were a training camp for both musicians — Singleton’s grandfather led the True Gospel Church of God in Christ in Jackson — challenging them to keep up with all manner of instrumentation and tempos while honing their improvisational chops.
“Anybody could get up and start to singing,” he says. “If people wanted to shout, they shouted. And being a musician, you had to put music behind what they were doing. If you couldn’t catch them, you were accused of not being able to play.”
After church services, though, Cotton turned his attention to the blues in the historic Sarah Dickey neighborhood where he grew up. That was the music he heard on 90.1 FM while riding around in his uncle’s car, from old schoolers like Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King and Albert King to “southern soul” blues artists Tyrone Davis, Elmore James and Little Milton, who recorded for Jackson’s Malaco Records.
“Blues was played all the time around the neighborhoods, and the music fascinated me,” says Cotton. “It had a certain feel to it that I just loved even as a youngster.”
Cotton understood how the music of his church related to the music on the block. Even though the songs played in the Church of God in Christ were gospel, he says, they still used blues-based chord progressions and scales, which gave him a feel for the blues. At Jackson State University, he expanded his knowledge base and began experimenting with other kinds of music, but blues was always his foundation, and he sought out likeminded artists.
“King Edward was the first that I ever saw, that I could put my hand on, that was playing the blues like I’d never seen it before,” he recalls. “That encouraged me more than anything, because it was like I found a new home.”
Cotton struck up a friendship with Edward and began sitting in with him on guitar at live performances. “Hearing blues on a radio is one thing,” he says, “but to see somebody play it live is another. I’ve heard guitar players all my life, but they didn’t play with the mastery of lead that I saw King Edward play with. And he was doing it for a living.”
Despite being born half a generation apart, the lives of 50-year-old Cotton and 35-year-old Singleton intertwined through church, music and familial bonds.
As leaders of neighboring churches of the same faith, Eddie Cotton Sr. and Jimmy Lee Shearry, Singleton’s grandfather, preached and led revivals together. That’s how Honey Emmett Shearry, Jimmy’s brother, came to teach Cotton how to play guitar. Later, as Cotton’s popularity grew, he paid that mentorship forward by teaching Singleton’s uncle, Tony Shearry, who then opened his world to the blues.
“We all looked up to Eddie coming up,” says Singleton, who remembers seeing Cotton perform at the Alamo in Jackson while in high school. His uncle Tony would bring him to hear music at the old 930 Blue Café on North Congress Street, too, even though he was underage. “I couldn’t get in, but I’d sit outside and listen to the bands.”
Cotton and Singleton share an independent streak, and not just in their commitment to the blues. Both artists put in the work to have it their way, building their audiences and running their own businesses while continually investing back into it and becoming savvy marketers.
Although they’ve both recorded for prominent record labels, they currently maintain control over their own recording and performing careers, while others choose to work within the traditional network of booking agents, managers and publicists. Their method is becoming more common in the age of streaming, where consumers listen to music through platforms like Spotify and Apple Music instead of owning physical CDs distributed by a label.
“I wanted to do it a certain way,” Cotton explains. “I wanted to make a certain amount [of money].
And you’ve got these people, the movers and the shakers so they think, and if you don’t do it they way, they try to make it hard on you. So, I always was, ‘If you can’t get in the niche, you have to create your own.’”
As Cotton and Singleton have established themselves as popular blues musicians on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean through touring clubs and the European and U.S. festival circuit, their friendship and mutual respect endures.
“I go to his house every now and then,” Singleton says. “He’ll just grab a guitar, he’ll tell me to pick one up. He’s a phenomenal musician. He plays organ, drums — and he might can play more instruments than that.”
The artists were scheduled to perform together at the city of Clinton’s 31st July 4th Family Fireworks Extravaganza until the continued spread of COVID-19 led the city to cancel the event. Instead, Singleton has been working on his fourth album at Brudog Studios in Pelahatchie.
“The pandemic is holding us up for sure, as far as playing live,” Singleton says. But considering more recent events, he has heavier things on his mind these days.
“This racial issue we really have to address, and it’s getting out of hand. I’m just thinking about how we have to speak to this racism and this police brutality, and this unwarranted behavior toward blacks and other minorities,” he says.
The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery at the hands of policemen or private citizens acting in that capacity this spring have made those issues a global conversation once again.
“A policeman should be a friend of the people,” says Cotton. “He should be someone who I can trust to uphold the law. If you check history, that kind of authority is always being abused. What I think is going on now is with social media, you can’t get away with stuff you used to get away with.”
As statues and symbols honoring the Confederacy began to come down around the United States, Mississippi legislators voted to remove the state flag, which flew for 126 years with the Confederate battle emblem in the upper left corner. Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation to retire the flag on June 30.
“[The flag] shouldn’t even be an issue,” Cotton says. “I hear people talk about their heritage. I can understand that, but on my side, being an African American, it didn’t work for me. I don’t need to be reminded that this is what it’s about — white supremacy. That part I don’t agree with. That’s what it means.”
With some safety measures in place, 70% of churches are holding in-person services, eschewing virtual services until the pandemic is under control. Unfortunately, there are more than a few churches that are having in-person services without personal protections in place, avoiding masks and social distancing altogether. But if churches do adhere to the CDC Considerations for Communities of Faith, there’s a lot of cleaning, disinfecting, ventilating, social distancing, mask-wearing, messaging, refraining from singing, temperature-taking, monitoring, and educating that needs to happen. With that in mind, even with best CDC practices in place, is it really safe?
Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III, Senior Leader of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Nashville, doesn’t think so. His 33,000+ member congregation will stay virtual until there is a vaccine. He is asking that other faith leaders do the same. And for those who don’t believe virtual church is a viable long-term solution, he offers eight ways to make virtual church engaging.
1) Don’t Be Tied to a Building.
Our expressions of worship and what we do as a church can happen even without the building. My understanding of 2000 years of church history proves that the church was meant to be without walls. Our work really happens outside the four walls. To reinforce this idea that there’s a necessity of needing a building to validate our experience as Christians is preposterous to me. I think that we have to reimagine what our role responsibilities are in the community. You can do that without being in a building.
2) Creatively Find Community in a Virtual Space
In a crisis, folks either crack or they create. The beauty of being a Christian for me and understanding God’s creative power is that God created something out of nothing. This is an opportunity for us to think through ways to have community in the virtual space.
In our ministry, we are doing some things like virtual connects, where social distancing doesn’t have to mean social isolation. Community is still strong in those spaces — very, very strong. That hour in traffic to come to sit at an administrative meeting at six o’clock in the evening before we go home? Now we can actually go home, have dinner with our kids, do a Zoom, and already be home when it’s done. It’s the same thing. You have to look at these things differently now and think about a post-quarantine post-COVID reality in terms of what the church looks like.
3) Look for the Low Hanging Fruit
Connect with folks who are doing virtual church well and find out the best practices. We’ve made ourselves available as a resource for thousands of churches around the country.
Facebook is free. Zoom is free. Esther Stories are free. There’s a variety of different platforms that folks can get on and create these kinds of opportunities. The other day, I had a call to all the single folks in my church who were home by themselves. I wanted to encourage them and give them some strategies on how to navigate that space being by themselves. We had 300. It’s the capacity for Zoom, and it sold out. It was free, but it was maxed out in 24 hours.
4) Change it Up
I change it up. For instance, our Mt. Zion Nashville app is free and you can access video on demand. There’s all the Bible studies I’ve done all year going back as far back as you should want. Also, the notes for the Bible studies are there as well. So anytime you want to watch, it’s like Netflix. You can go in there and join it.
There are times at which I may deal with the book of Isaiah. But then, for instance, now, we have a series called Life Plan, helping people think through purpose and strategies for your next vision assignment. So, it just fluctuates between biblical literacy and practical life application. I think people need a compass to navigate the space in terms of thinking about what their next career path is going to be. What does God’s Word say about faith and stepping out in those spaces? And so that’s what I’m hearing and moving into.
5) Be Forward-Thinking
We’ve done a lot of training on the front end. We were very blessed with the fact that Mt. Zion Church was seven years ahead of a lot of African American congregations in technology. A lot of my colleagues around the country will tell you that because they were the ones who were reaching out to me saying, “Man, how’d you do that?” We established Mt. Zion Anywhere, as a virtual space because we saw this trend coming. And many churches began to see that in the physical building, people were not packing them in like they used to. But yet when you got home and realized the level of engagement in terms of giving was going up or still consistent, you realize that there’s a shift. People find it easier — rather than just come to Bible study at seven o’clock at night, I’ll just go home, get my kids fed, get in the bed, and watch Bible study. I’m already home. The convenience, right? So, you’re really selling time if you will.
6) Lead and Be Innovative
Anytime you walk into a new space like that, there is always some small pushback. Not pushback so much from Mt. Zion Church as much as from other folks in the community. We were trying to figure it out. You got one leader who actually said, “I’m not going to stream, man, because people are not going to come to church. They are going to have an option.”
Let’s be very clear if you really think about it. In-branch banking — six, seven years ago, the banks were clear. Nobody’s coming into the branch anymore. We need to make sure we do everything right here. You can check everything on your phone. The educational system, same thing, right? You guys can go and pay tuition from your phone. See where I’m going? The church needs to lead this and be innovative enough. When you build your church on a revival-less model through your charisma, then right now, you’re struggling because there’s nobody to preach to. Nobody to say, “Man.” When you build your church on infrastructure, strategy, and technology, it sustains you in seasons like this because it becomes a normal way of existing.
Our choir has done a variety of Zoom choirs with the soloist in the middle. We’ve had guest artists to sing their particular songs with our choir surrounding them. We’ve had different camera shots of people singing from home. We’ve had our folks who dance in ministry do their dances in homes. When you see it in real-time, it’s an amazing thing. So yeah, again, it goes to just being innovative and say, “This is possible. You really can do this.” It’s just how far do you want to take it?
7) Be Present in the Community and the Giving Will Come
I think the fundamental response to giving is tied to a ministry that is doing the work. When people see you engage in the community, see you feeding 10,000 families in the city, see you constantly meeting these folks, they give. They believe in the work you’ve done. And we’ve onboarded new folks in our church who are giving, and people are joining. I’m doing new member fellowships every month. People are joining our church from everywhere now. They are giving. They’re engaged because they believe in the mission. And I think that those who are active givers are going to continue to give. Those who are looking for an excuse not to give, that’s just the way it goes.
8) Stay Connected
We do the virtual connects. Every Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. and every Thursday at 9:30 p.m., members have a chance to talk to their pastor like I’m talking to you. Ask questions. They come on. We have virtual villages — singles, married, men and women. Those are great communities where people are engaging and sharing stories, encouraging. Every Saturday night at 10 o’clock, our youth have a place to go and hang out with each other. So we’ve developed all these different communities in the virtual space that make the church still feel connected. Do we miss being with each other? Of course. Can’t wait to get back? Can’t wait. But at this point, we’re just making the best of this situation and keeping people safe.
A network of more than a dozen Christian groups is launching an initiative to address police reform.
The Prayer & Action Justice Initiative — bringing together Black, Hispanic and Asian organizations along with groups focused on prisoners, prayer and public justice — will advocate for greater equality, accountability and transparency in the criminal justice system.
“The church as a whole, especially certain parts of the church, have not been very clear where they stand on racialized violence and on racial justice in general,” said Justin Giboney, president of The AND Campaign, a group focused on applying biblical values to pressing contemporary issues, which is spearheading the formation of the network.
Justin Giboney speaks during a racial justice demonstration in Atlanta. Photo courtesy of the Prayer & Action Justice Initiative
“We don’t want any ambiguity where we stand on justice. And so our thought is that it is time for the church to unite and, through uniting, we’ll have the credibility to lead on the issue of racial justice.”
The coalition, launched Wednesday (Aug. 19), includes the National Association of Evangelicals, National Day of Prayer Task Force, Asian American Christian Collaborative, National Latino Evangelical Coalition, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, OneRace and the Church of God in Christ, a historically Black Pentecostal denomination.
The coalition also includes Prison Fellowship, a Christian organization founded by the late Chuck Colson, and the Center for Public Justice, a Christian think tank. Both will lead the initiative’s nonpartisan government advocacy work.
In a “Biblical Justice and Race Statement,” the groups said they mourned the loss of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery “and all others who have lost their lives due to racialized violence. The Church must take these injustices personally, and take initiative to expel racial hatred and partiality from our society.”
Citing a dual commitment to the gospel and justice, the statement tied the groups’ efforts to the New Testament Book of James’ proclamation that faith should be accompanied with action.
“Right doctrine without righteous conduct is unfaithfulness,” they said. “Accordingly, to be silent or inactive on racism is immoral.”
The groups’ document calls for “policies designed to level the playing field so that outcomes are driven more by justice than wealth or race.” The policies advocated for in the document include laws for public disclosure of deaths in custody and use-of-force reports, fairer sentences and restorative opportunities for former prisoners to be reintegrated into society.
“We know this country has to do better, especially when it comes to African Americans in our criminal justice system,” said Giboney. “We think we can do that without necessarily a completely adversarial relationship with the police.”
He said there are times when there is unnecessary police contact. The network seeks both national and local consideration of how and whether police should be involved in some kinds of situations that have previously escalated with their presence.
“We know that that’s not an easy job,” Giboney said. “Whereas they do need to be held accountable and do a better job in many instances, they’re a part of our community as well.”
Individual supporters include the Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner, a leader of African American church coalitions; the Rev. John Jenkins, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Glenarden in Maryland; and Super Bowl champion Benjamin Watson.
Many of the initiative’s members previously worked together on the Churches Helping Churches Challenge, which has raised more than $1 million since April to provide grants to mostly minority and immigrant churches that were in danger of closing during the coronavirus pandemic.
Conceived about 50 years apart, both Black Lives Matter and the Black Panther Party for Self Defense galvanized frustration with police brutality against black people in the US.
Alicia Garza created Black Lives Matter, with Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, as a call to action after the acquittal of George Zimmerman for killing 17-year-old unarmed Trayvon Martin in 2013. The Black Panther Party was formed, in part, in reaction to the police killing of Matthew Johnson, an unarmed black 16-year-old, in San Francisco in 1966.
The commonalities between Black Lives Matter and the Black Panther Party are more striking when they are compared to the mid-20th-century civil rights movement, which took place when segregation was legal and black people protested politely and defensively.
Looking ‘proper’
According to filmmaker Stanley Nelson, it was important for civil rights leaders to win the hearts and minds of the press, a majority white American public, and a cautious black middle class. In an interview with NPR, he goes on to explain that civil rights organizers insisted, “‘we’re going to look proper…’ to show the difference between them and the mobs that would be chasing them or screaming at them.”
The Black Panthers were not interested in mainstream press or general public approval. They had their own newspaper designed, art-directed and heavily illustrated by Black Panther Party artist and Minister of Culture Emory Douglas. It showed images that would never appear in the mainstream press.
“Part of Douglas’s genius was that he used the visually seductive methods of advertising and subverted them into weapons of the revolution. His images served two purposes: to illustrate conditions that made revolution a reasonable response and to construct a visual mythology of power for people who felt powerless and victimized.”
The Black Panther newspaper showed photographic evidence of police brutality along with editorial drawings and cartoons illustrating black people fighting back.
Each movement used available media to reach broad constituencies and stimulate action.
The Panthers’ messages were instructive, visual, and covered a range of ambitions, included in the party’s 10-point platform.
The phrase “Black Lives Matter” may seem deceptively simple to those who receive the words as a veiled threat. Perhaps they believe that equality has been achieved and systemic and institutionalized racism no longer exist.
In the 50 years since segregation and legal discrimination ended and the US tried to “move past” its racist history, much of that history was ignored and effectively forgotten. Blacks and whites have differing perceptions of how much progress has been made on racial equality. Polls show that white millennials have about the same racial viewpoints as baby boomers.
This racial knowledge vacuum does not allow some people to believe that black people and other people of color are routinely treated more harshly by police and law enforcement officers. Black Lives Matter’s insistence on presenting evidence of inequality is disturbing to these deniers.
At the time of the Black Panthers, just a few years after civil rights legislation, most black people still lived in poverty with substandard everything – from housing to schools to health care. Even though the political establishment disagreed on what should be done to change it, no one denied there was a problem.
Disruption and pushback
As activist Deray McKesson points out, “protest is confrontation and disruption.” In addition to protesting at the time and scene of controversial police events, Black Lives Matter protesters disrupt everyday life and activities, which creates pushback.
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton responded to last summer’s #BlackFair protest against the small number of black vendors at the state fair by saying, “I just think the way they’re proposing to deal with it is irresponsible.” Another peaceful protest for Black Lives Matter at the Twin Cities Marathon on October 4 2015 brought disagreement between supporters of the movement. Ashley Oliver, a member of Black Lives Matter in Minneapolis and legal chairwoman of the city’s NAACP chapter, told the Star Tribune newspaper that disrupting the marathon was the wrong way to get the group’s message out. “Our message will get lost,” she claimed.
Black Lives Matter organizer Netta Elize explained why the protests must happen at seemingly nonrelated events. She said, “Black people in the US do not have free space to live. The ability to participate in everyday activities without having to think about race is a privilege.”
In their time, the Panthers were marginalized and vilified, limiting their main sphere of public operations to college campuses and other left-friendly venues. Only the most fear-producing images of Panthers appeared in mainstream press, reiterating the FBI’s claim that the organization was the greatest threat to national security.
A group of Seattle Panthers on the steps of the Capitol in Olympia. Seattle Black Panther Party History and Memory Project
Visual tactics
Like the Black Panther Party, Black Lives Matter protesters use elements of “visual theater.” The Panthers’ carefully constructed visual presence included uniforms for members, creating icons for party members that represented strength, purpose, and discipline. As Stanley Nelson’s film points out, the Panthers understood media and the power of visual images.
Black Lives Matter uses visual tactics such as light brigades and more theatrical “die-ins,” to convey an omnipresent threat of violence or death.
To comment on current conditions for black people in the US, artist Emory Douglas repurposed one of his drawings – 39 years after its original appearance in November 1976 in the pages of The Black Panther newspaper – to promote Black Lives Matter.
The original image, he said, was about justice in general, not a specific event. In the new version, Douglas made the scales of justice even larger.
