#bpp picture

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Hi BPP hope you are doing great. I’m a jikooker but there’s something that’s been bothering me a little bit and i would like to get ur opinion on it. So after Jimin posted that photo of himself and Jk, i saw some people making comments about Jk’s body language and how he kept his elbow out to keep a distance between him and Jimin. I’ve also seen other instances on original content when Jk’s body language with Jimin was kinda off or negative and the barely looked relaxed around him. When u see him with literally anyone else, he looks really relaxed and does not mind sitting really close to them but with Jimin it looks like sometimes Jk wants to intentionally keep a distance. Now I don’t even for one second believe the nonsense tkkrs and antis spew about Jk hating Jimin. Anybody with eyes can see how much Jk cares for and loves Jimin. So why do you think his body language is like that? And is this something you’ve noticed too? I would really like to hear what you think.

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Rant incoming.

Hi Anon,

I'm going to make an example of your ask to show something I keep repeating from time to time, which is that the majority of the problems, 'discourse', and source of angst in k-pop spaces, is manufactured by k-pop stans themselves and has almost nothing to do with reality or the members.

One of the biggest tells that something is fan-manufactured BS, is if the narrative is riddled with contradictions, because cognitive dissonance can only take one so far.

For reference, to be sure the whole class is all on the same page, here's the picture Anon is referring to:

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Anon, let's pick apart your ask a little bit.

"So after Jimin posted that photo of himself and Jk, i saw some people making comments about Jk’s body language and how he kept his elbow out to keep a distance between him and Jimin."

Let's first talk about why you're listening to anybody trying to read body language from one still picture showing two Busan Bros and their backs.

The person most able and likely to fully read Jungkook's body language in this scenario, is Jimin. You know, the person who was beside Jungkook, actually with him in person, when the picture was taken. Not some random internet stranger sitting on their sofa looking at a still, pixelated image of jikook's backs.

Following that logic, if Jungkook was in any way uncomfortable with Jimin or wanted to get away from him in this instance, you'd have to first assume Jimin is inconsiderate, oblivious of Jungkook's feelings, or being something of a troll to JK, to then assume he'd go ahead and force JK to take this picture and then post it (assumed by some people to show JK was uncomfortable with Jimin in this case) on Jungkook's birthday.

Which is the end goal of that narrative. It takes an innocuous picture, and forces an end conclusion by first introducing a harmful assumption but one necessary to reach the end conclusion, in this case that assumption is of Jimin's character. So that's how a picture of Jungkook having his hands clasped in front him and likely holding something, which is obvious from the picture and which easily explains his posture, and shows JK actually leaning into Jimin - an obvious contradiction to the end-claim, then becomes fodder for the narrative of 'JK's body language around Jimin is "kinda off or negative and the barely looked relaxed around him."'

Like, that's a whole bunch of words pulled from the ether that have no bearing or relationship to the actual picture we're all looking at. All of those words came from the imagination of someone else who has nothing to do with jikook, and now I'm sitting here in my hotel room having to explain why it's bullshit.

Actually I didn't have to answer this, normally I'd delete it, but you started off your ask nicely and it's a good one to pick apart.

Because it shows the thing that really gets me about the kind of theories that drive discourse in BTS fan spaces. It's that every time, there's far more accessible and simpler explanations to explain what you're seeing, than anything you get from antis, shippers, rival shippers, akgaes, mantis - the usual suspects for this disease of a hyper-active imagination that for some reason always follows the plotline of a Fernando Gaitán telenovela. It's almost like the members are not treated as real people, but as fodder for drama and sensationalist conspiracy theories for that fan's entertainment, self-fulfillment and actualization.

It's what makes fandom such a self-sustaining system. It's that even when there are no problems or drama, you can count on some fan somewhere who will eagerly create them out of thin air, just to get a reaction from other fans who perhaps subconsciously have the primary motivations of the initial fan: treating the members first and foremost as a means to explore unresolved anxieties, insecurities, and boredom.

Now, this doesn't mean that Jungkook can never be uncomfortable around Jimin or want to keep his distance. We know it's possible because Jungkook is a person, and it's human to sometimes want your own space or to want to not always be in physical proximity with people around you, and that this can happen for a whole bunch of reasons. But what you sent me Anon, is an ask that's about a theory where the source of the theory itself (the picture), contradicts the end-claim of the theory, just to feed an underlying fan narrative that's often found in spaces that don't treat either Jimin or Jungkook as real people. The picture doesn't actually show Jungkook pulling away from Jimin. It shows Jungkook with his hands clasped in front of him, leaning into Jimin so Jimin's arm can get around his shoulder, Jimin standing with an upright posture, and both Jimin and Jungkook looking in the same direction.

The only thing possible to infer from this picture, is that jikook are jikooking.

It's possible this is a reality that makes some people so uncomfortable they'd look for any explanation to take away from that fact, including believing theories that are inherently self-contradictory, but there's no reason you need to play along with that BS. It wastes everybody's time and does nothing but dumb down the conversation in fan spaces.

[vampireclub7]

I feel like you did this for me so thank you BPP!! 🥲 😭

Resending the ask:

Jungwon caught my eye too BPP!!

Can you please talk more about him?

I’m curious about how a younger member became the leader of the group. Aren’t hyung-dongseng hierarchies strict in Korea? How is his personality?

He looks so fascinating to me. I don’t think I’ve seen someone with his face shape before. Anything about him is ok, just tell me. And pls give me your best examples of his dancing! His dancing reminds me of Jimin. It’s so sharp!

***

Lol!

I feel like I can immediately tell how he got you.

You saw him move, and then you saw his face. It’s the double-whammy effect of it that got you, isn’t it?

In spirit of full transparency (lol), I debated answering this ask because I like Jungwon a lot so I’m selfish with him. Liked him since he was on I-Land, I even put money down, betting that he was going to debut. And he made me good money by debuting, ranked 1st.

He’s a badass, he's beautiful and intelligent. His ambition is palpable and I can only hope he gets the right support. I think he has flaws (like everyone else in the group) that hopefully he learns to manage better the older he gets. I’m cautiously hopeful about the whole team, but trust his competencies as an idol.

When he performs Jungwon fully commits. Every time. You’ll see it when we watch his cover and fancams. That’s the thing about him that personally reminds me of Jimin, occasionally. He's a perfectionist, has high standards and holds himself to them. He’s competitive, emotionally intelligent, mindful of the team, kind and principled (at least so far), and that’s why he was nominated to be leader despite being the second youngest member. As Heeseung (the oldest) was the only other person nominated by the members, Heeseung declining the position in favour of Jungwon thankfully turned out to be the right choice. Jungwon appears to bear the responsibility well. But he’s also young, he’s got a bit of an ego (understandably lol), and he’s still relatively inexperienced.

So naturally, I’m selfish with him. I’ve also seen him make a lot of people very delulu when he’s barely legal, so I’m cautious on where I talk about him. Some k-pop stans can be weird and you never really know lol.

Anyway, I’m still happy you’re so curious to hear about him. So, sure why not, let’s talk about Jungwon. :)

Something about him just makes me want to do Show and Tell. Like, present him to the class as a pet, curiosity, or marvel. Because I feel he’s so pretty and full of talent, it should be self-evident, leaving nothing for me to really say besides, “Here’s Jungwon.”

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(No, this picture isn't edited in the way think it is)

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(with Ni-ki)

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I love that you caught his dancing right away. After his voice, his dancing is the next thing that stood out to me during I-Land. He’s incredibly strong in his movements, I think that's why it looks 'sharp'. He's got the strongest popping skills in the group, and is also very fluid. That’s what is reminding you about Jimin with his dancing, I think.

Jungwon dances in such a way that the only right way to watch him dance, is either watching him live or on a very big screen.

The fact he can match and keep pace with Ni-ki says enough, really.

It's best to see him dancing with the rest of his team, in my opinion. It gives one a good appreciation of how well he fits into Enha. So, I'll link their MMA 2022 dance break performance, starts at 4:00. Note the imagery of having him in center for the final part of that dance break where he plays puppeteer.

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For Jungwon's own fancam of that break, to see what he's doing up close,

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Pardon my language, but that is insanity. Everything about it. I don't want to be dramatic but the fact Belift/HYBE is having a three year old group do this level of floor work and stunts in their performances is ridiculous. Remember the aerial flips Son Sungdeuk was having Jimin do for something like 3 comebacks? This is like everyone in the group doing something that requires the same focus and energy as aerial flips - everybody in the team, all the time. The talent in that group is mad. The way Belift is moving with them has me a bit worried. I don't want to say scared but it comes close, because of how young they are.

Anyway, I digress.

His dancing is phenomenal and I'm happy to provide more examples, but it's probably best if we end here today. :)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Black Panthers protesting in Chicago, Illinois, 1969 :: Photo: Hiroji Kubota/Magnum Photos/c/o Atlas

Hiroji Kubota: ‘At the time, the Black Panthers were starting to get popular and I managed to get to know them. For some reason, these three leaders wanted to be photographed with a very big Picasso sculpture at Chicago City Hall. “It’s not interesting,” I said. Then it started snowing so we went outside and I took this. I didn’t give them any instructions – they just went down there and saluted, never asking me anything about myself, or what I might be doing the picture for. They pretty much ignored me.’

[Scott Horton]

* * * *

The Black Panther Party

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP) was founded in October 1966 in Oakland, California by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, who met at Merritt College in Oakland. It was a revolutionary organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense, particularly against police brutality. It was part of the Black Power movement, which broke from the integrationist goals and nonviolent protest tactics of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The BPP name was inspired by the use of the black panther as a symbol that had recently been used by the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, an independent Black political party in Alabama.

[National Archives]

[digitalusmarket]

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Also Read: How to Use Flatten Tool in Cricut Design Space

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Cricut Design Space

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Cricut Explore Air 2 Machine Accessories

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EasyPress 2

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Some other important Cricut tools can be beneficial for doing a project. Those other help tools are Spatulas, Scrapers, and Weeding Tools.

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Also Read: Ultimate Guide to Cricut Tools and Accessories

Connecting Cricut Explore Air 2 to PC/iPad/MAC

Even though you can use your Explore Air 2 machine wirelessly, we will begin by setting this machine with the USB cable. Begin by placing your machine on the surface with about 10” left behind it as the Cricut cutting mat moves back and forth within the machine.

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Final Words

If you have recently purchased a new Cricut Explore Air 2 machine or wish to purchase it, then you can read the above-detailed tutorial to learn all its essential features, tools, accessories, and more. Cricut Explore Air 2 is a fantastic crafting tool that writes, scores, and cuts plenty of materials to create projects. It’s a cloud-based device, meaning crafters can create projects anywhere using their smartphone or PC.

Source:https://hariguide.com/how-to-use-the-cricut-explore-air-2/

[t2mip]

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[coochiequeens]

Stephen Shames had just turned 20 when he visited the headquarters of the Black Panther party in Oakland, California, and showed some of his recent photographs to Bobby Seale, co-founder and main spokesman for the organisation. Though Shames was still finding his way as a photographer, Seale liked what he saw and decided to use some of the pictures in the Black Panther newspaper. So it was that a young white guy from Cambridge, Massachusetts became the official chronicler of the Black Panthers from 1967 to 1973, documenting their community programmes, protests, rallies, arrests and funerals at close hand.

“The Panthers were never a black nationalist organisation,” says Shames, now 74. “They formed alliances with many black writers and activists and their whole legal team was white. They were not out to get white people, as the American government insisted. They were a revolutionary organisation who worked with anybody they felt was sincerely trying to change the system to benefit poor people and create a more just society.”

Since that time, Shames has published two photobooks about that struggle – The Black Panthers (2006) and Power to the People: the World of the Black Panthers (2016) – as well as several other titles that attest to a life of activism and deep engagement with his subjects. Next month, he will complete his trilogy on that era with a book that, as he puts it, is “long overdue”. Co-authored with former Black Panther Ericka Huggins, who is now a writer and educator, Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party is a dynamic visual and oral testament to the crucial role played by women in a revolutionary group whose figureheads, with a few exceptions, were men.

In her foreword to the book, the activist and author Angela Davis points out that 66% of the membership of the Black Panthers was female. She writes: “Because the media tended to focus on what could be easily sensationalised … There has been a tendency to forget that the organising work that truly made the Black Panther Party relevant to a new era of struggle for liberation was largely carried out by women.”

The book is a powerful record of an intense period of grassroots activism and political engagement, a counter-narrative to the one propagated by J Edgar Hoover, the head of the FBI, who called the Panthers “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country”. Like the Black Panther men, the women members tended to look both stylish and dramatic, often sporting afros and at times wearing the black leather jackets and berets that were the Panther uniform. “Most young people are photogenic,” says Shames, “but the Panthers were charismatic. It was something to do with the pride they instilled in their people. Rather than treating them as a problem, as the government did, they gave them a sense of faith and pride and I really think that shines through in the photographs.”

Shames’s extraordinary access allowed him to capture fly-on-the-wall shots of young women at protest rallies, but also carrying out on-the-ground organising of various Black Panther community initiatives, including the Free Breakfast for Children Program, the People’s Free Ambulance Service and the People’s Free Medical Clinics, which offered medical care, including sickle-cell anaemia testing. Though the series is punctuated by images of well-known female members – Kathleen Cleaver (law professor and former communications secretary for the party), Elaine Brown (prison activist, writer and former chair of the party), and the late Afeni Shakur (political activist and mother of rapper Tupac Shakur) – most of the testimonies come from ordinary black women whose youthful engagement with the Black Panthers remains the most empowering moment of their lives.

Carol Henry, who joined the Oakland chapter of the Panthers, recalls: “I joined the BPP when I was 20 years old. I lived in a part of town where the Free Breakfast for School Children Program ran. We got up at 3am; it was a real mission, but it was beautiful. We gave those children a full breakfast every day. Cooking that breakfast was the most memorable part, because everybody got up so early and everybody worked together.” Another woman, Barbara Easley-Cox, who was in the Philadelphia chapter, remembers: “Love is what tied me to the party; it exemplified how I understood love. And that is: you have to love people, to serve them. I was so loved. So blessed on this earth because of my sisters, all of us, who came into the party. It’s lacking today, when I look out on this landscape in America.”

As co-author, Ericka Huggins wrote the introductory essay and tracked down, as she puts it, “the women who were there and whose individual testimonies we could use to evoke how extraordinary that time was for many of us”. Huggins’s own moment of political awakening was seismic. Aged 18, and a student at Lincoln University in Philadelphia, she picked up a copy of the radical leftist magazine Ramparts and saw a photograph of a young black man strapped to a hospital gurney with a bullet wound in his stomach. Next to him, a policeman stood grinning at the camera. On reading the accompanying report, she found out that the young man was Huey P Newton, a co-founder of the party, who had authored the party’s 10-point manifesto with Seale in 1966. “I studied the picture for some time,” she recalled years later, “I didn’t have tears for it, I was so appalled.”

The following day, she left a note for her friend and fellow student John Huggins that read: “I am going to California if I have to walk. I am going to find Huey Newton and work in his defence. Are you coming?”

The pair subsequently drove across the country to Los Angeles, where they joined the local Black Panther chapter, which then comprised around 20 members. They were married soon afterwards and initially worked at whatever task was necessary: answering phones, selling newspapers, writing letters to politicians and talking to potential financial donors. Not long after their arrival in California, they attended the funeral of 17-year-old Bobby Hutton, who had been killed in disputed circumstances during a shoot-out between the Panthers and the Oakland police. “The person waiting in line next to me to pay his respects was Marlon Brando,” says Huggins. “He looked as heartbroken as I felt.”

The killing was an augury. In January 1969, her husband, who had become a leader of the Los Angeles Black Panthers, was assassinated on the campus of UCLA by alleged members of a black nationalist group, the US Organization. The killing was thought by many in the black community to be linked to the Cointelpro programme that was being conducted clandestinely and illegally by the FBI against the Black Panthers. In December that year, Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed in an FBI-orchestrated raid on Hampton’s apartment.

Widowed with a three-week old daughter, Huggins moved to her husband’s home town of New Haven, Connecticut and, alongside Kathleen Cleaver and Elaine Brown, organised a branch of the Black Panther party there. In 1969, she was arrested alongside Bobby Seale, and charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy but, after a lengthy trial, the charges were dismissed in May 1971.

“The word ‘conspiracy’ was used a lot at the time,” she says now, calmly. “We spent time in jail for a murder we did not commit or have anything to do with. The system, then as now, was punitive. We were punished before we even entered the courtroom and their aim was to keep us in prison for ever…”

Did her time in prison dent the sense of optimism and empowerment she had experienced when she joined the Black Panthers? “My optimism was dented by my husband being killed,” she replies, “and by not being able to see my daughter except for a single hour every Saturday. But I chose not to let it break my spirit. When I was in solitary and grieving, I taught myself to meditate in a way that brought me into a deeper focus, so that when I went to court I could be really present. It’s a practice I have kept to this day.”

Huggins insists that her experience was not exceptional and that it “helped me help the women I contacted to tell their stories, because it’s hard sometimes to go back”. Alongside Shames’s powerful images of a moment of black activism that echoes through the decades to this day, those stories evoke a time in which young black women experiencedlifechanging personal empowerment and collective possibility.

“These are not war stories,” says Huggins, who spent 14 years as a Black Panther, making her the longest serving woman in their history. “They are stories of service to humanity. The reason they are so striking, touching and inspiring is because you can sense how beautiful and alive the women were in that moment. Every function of the government that could do harm to us did so, but we kept stepping out and stepping up, because we were giving our communities what had never been given. I think all the women in the book realise that, because they can remember how great they felt back then, what they learned, and what was indelibly imprinted on their minds and in their hearts. The book is our legacy.”

Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party by Stephen Shames and Ericka Huggins will be published by ACC Art Books on 9 October. There will also be a book signing and talk on 9 October at Marcus Books in Oakland with the co-authors and special guest Angela Davis, 2-4pm

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, sorry if you've answered this question before but what is your best song from Face?

***

Hi @tabbypuppykitty

I’ve had a rethink. I think Face-off is now my favourite song on the album.

Set Me Free Pt 2 is still top 3, but Jimin’s enunciation on Face-off brings a smile to my face every time I hear it because that man is too damn sassy for his own good lool.

In the latest Suchwita episode, Hobi revealed that Jimin practiced live singing six hours everyday before and during FACE promotions.

Six hours. Every day.

That made me pause. I started thinking about everything that happened during FACE. I don't talk about this at all here because I won't ever share personal pictures and I know I was incredibly lucky and many other people here likely deserved to see him before I did, but I saw Jimin live during his very first shows for FACE.

He was so happy. The joy on his face and the way he worked the crowd... like a fish in water. He gave some of the best performances of the year during FACE promotions. The whole project and the thoughtful way he went about promoting the album, is noteworthy.

(You should watch this if you haven't already)

*

But then I remembered the BS, the way k-pop stans reacted to the album, to the MVs, to the encore stage, the way BTS akgaes indulged in their sociopathy on his account, how BigHit failed (the anger Jimin biases feel is justified but some of y'all are wallowing in it). I remembered a few of Jimin's Wlives, how so much has been going on for him this year, and then tried to fit 6 hours daily practicing into it...

I have to stop myself when I think about Jimin. He has such latent intensity, like a glamour, a force field around him... it's like a black hole that sucks everything, including you, into him and his world. It scares me.

I know I whine about Jimin biases but y'all amaze me ngl. It takes a special fortitude of heart to bias Jimin. This post already sounds incredibly effusive, but I don't believe I'm exaggerating when I say he's a truly beautiful person. It's almost as though the world does not deserve him. It's impossible to not love him, desire him, care for him... want more sooner for him. I see all that, but I also see that man is stubborn as fuck.

He took his time to start work on his solo album. The middle of the Vegas concerts is when he said he suddenly came to his senses, shook himself out of that trance, and earnestly started putting together the FACE project. He'd written songs before, but FACE was its own thing. The personal stories he chose to communicate, the care in lyricism and production, the quality... Jimin created art in FACE and trusted that those who care for nothing but the best, will love it.

That's sexy, but the way he went about it also betrays a conservatism in him. It's a shadow of the edge in him, that thing about him that causes a tinge of anxiety when you watch him too closely.

I'm not sure if I'm making sense, but what I mean to say is you need a special kind of courage to bias and love Jimin. I recognize that. When I write what I do here, I always remember that. I also have very little respect for solos. And those two sentiments aren't mutually exclusive.

But taking it back to Face-off, my favourite thing about it is Jimin's sense of humour and skill coming through in the song, as well as how he enunciates his words. To really hear the switch in his tone, you need to stream in this order:

Like Crazy > Alone > Set Me Free Pt 2 > Face-off

By the time you get to Face-off, Jimin's voice has already gone through every variation possible, but then he brings out a tone I've heard only one other artist do well (Rihanna), and that tone is disgust.

Pure, refined sass. And he's already got the sauciest voice in k-pop.

The melodic and tonal choices Jimin makes at these timestamps fucks with my head:

1:53 - 2:08;

2:16 - 2:25;

2:41 - 2:56....

(lol, at this rate you might as well just listen to the whole song again.) Jimin is fantastic in the whole thing.

Europe is where Jimin belongs, but America would eat Jimin up too. The country already does if we're being real, America already loves Jimin. But given the right concept, Jimin would devour because he always does, and the world should get to see it. I hope I get to see more of it. As I've said before, if you feel inclined to communicate that to BigHit, I strongly suggest you do.

During Suchwita, Hobi showed how he's planned content for fans almost years in advance. It's possible Jimin does this too, planning music and content for fans to see months later... (So we might not learn why he went to London, for months...)

Yeah... I don't have the strength of heart to bias Jimin. Good luck to y'all.

*

...that was kind of a lot lool. So to calm down, Jimin:

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Anyway, sorry I rambled. Face-off is a really good song and Jimin did an excellent job on it. The whole project is very good so I can't wait for the next songs we get from him. Shit can't get worse than BB deleting D2C sales so on the bright side, we can only go up from here, and for Jimin who already owns the record as the first soloist in history to debut #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, up will be a good spot to be.

Stream Like Crazy, Seven, All Day, and HUH?!

[seeinganewlight]

susan egan reposted the picture of the bpp live stream that i posted to her instagram 🥰i love her sm

[96thdayofrage]

That all this time later we are still learning new information about Hampton’s killing is testament to the sheer volume of the effort aimed at this young revolutionary.

“This was a masterplan for destroying radical black nationalist groups.”

The horrifying story of the 1969 police murder of Fred Hampton is now well known. But there’s still much to be revealed about the case — like the information in bureau files newly obtained by Jacobin showing the FBI awarded Special Agent Roy Martin Mitchell, the handler of informant William O’Neal who was key to the raid that killed Hampton, a $200 bonus for work well done.

In the predawn hours of December 4, 1969, fourteen Chicago Police officers, claiming they were searching for illegal weapons, crashed into a first floor apartment on Chicago’s Monroe Street and opened fire. Inside were nine members of the Illinois Black Panther Party, including the rising star of the chapter, Fred Hampton.

The police claimed the apartment’s occupants fired on them, but after a fusillade of more than ninety bullets, the only people shot were Panthers, including Mark Clark and Hampton, who were dead. The picture of grinning cops carrying Hampton’s body  out of the apartment that circulated in the wake of the killing said it all: the Chicago Police Department (CPD) had wanted Hampton dead. Their mission was accomplished.

The Chicago police, however, were not the only ones celebrating. We now know that within days of the murderous operation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) awarded their Special Agent Roy Martin Mitchell, the handler of the informant who was key to the raid, a $200 bonus for work well done. This, and other information is contained in documents obtained by Aaron Leonard — posted here for the first time — via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

The murder of Fred Hampton remains a point of tremendous outrage and debate decades after the fact — most recently thrust into the spotlight with the release of the film Judas and the Black Messiah . Too often there is an assumption that all facts are known. But with these new documents and others released in the past few years, it is clear there is more to uncover — not only for the sake of historical accuracy, but to understand how the bureau targeted those who were deemed threats to the status quo, so we can try to ensure such voices will not be silenced in the future.

COINTELPRO: “Black Nationalist Hate Groups”

When speaking of Fred Hampton the term COINTELPRO, the syllabic abbreviation for counterintelligence program, has become near-synonymous with his killing. So it is worth looking at what the COINTELPRO aimed at the Black Panther Party (BPP) actually was.

The United States at the end of the 1960s was in tumult. The antiwar movement was radicalizing, Catholic pacifists were destroying draft records, and the black freedom movement was giving way to Black Power and armed self-defense. Against this backdrop, in August 1967 the FBI launched a program called “COINTELPRO, Black Nationalist Hate Groups,” expanding on an effort begun in the mid 1950s directed at the Communist Party. The Bureau soon expanded the program. In a memo issued on March 4, 1968 , they elaborated on its objectives:

1) Prevent the coalition of black nationalist groups

2) Prevent the rise of a “messiah” who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement [here citing Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Elijah Muhammad, and Stokely Carmichael as examples]

3) Prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups

4) Prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability

5) Prevent the long-range growth of militant black nationalist organizations, especially among youth

Taken as a whole, this was a masterplan for destroying radical black nationalist groups. As 1968 gave way to 1969, the Bureau was particularly fixated on the Black Panther Party.

The Black Nationalist Hate Groups COINTELPRO was a major undertaking, and its exposure played a large role in forcing the Bureau to curtail domestic security operations in the mid-1970s. But COINTELPRO was just one piece of the Bureau’s larger toolkit against radicals, one that included surveillance, informant infiltration, intelligence gathering, and compiling lists for possible detention, and working with local police and their red squads to achieve these goals. Understanding this gives a much clearer picture of what Hampton and the Chicago BPP were up against.

The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which started in Oakland in 1966, did not get its start in Chicago until the end of 1968. Around this time, elements of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), including leaders Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), James Forman , and H. Rap Brown, briefly joined the BPP. In Chicago, this included SNCC member Bob Brown, who would become one of the chapter’s original members, along with Bobby Rush, and twenty-one-years-old NAACP Youth Chapter leader Fred Hampton. While the Panther-SNCC merger ultimately fell apart, the Chicago BPP did not.

From the start, the FBI was all over the Chicago chapter, having the advantage of an informant who joined the group as it was forming. William O’Neal had been recruited  by FBI Special Agent Roy Martin Mitchell. Mitchell, who had learned that O’Neal had stolen a car and crossed state lines — making his case a federal one — used that as leverage to turn him into a snitch. According to O’Neal, Mitchell told him:

“I know you did it, but it’s no big thing.” He said, “I’m sure we can work it out.” And, um, I think a few, few months passed before I heard from him again, and one day I got a call and he told me that it was payback time. He said that “I want you to go and see if you can join the Black Panther Party, and if you can, give me a call.”

O’Neal’s joining the Chicago chapter at its inception is consistent with a practice the Bureau had developed: aiming to embed informants  into radical groups at their formation, where they could more easily assimilate and potentially rise in the ranks. This held true for O’Neal: who quickly became a security captain for the chapter. It also helps explain how the FBI was able to develop insightful, if not always successful, COINTELPRO efforts against the chapter.

“The Bureau aimed to embed informants into radical groups at their formation, where they could more easily assimilate and potentially rise in the ranks.”

One of the first measures they implemented was a “poison pen” letter  sent to the Chicago Mau Mau street gang in December 1968. The letter purportedly from “a disgusted Black Panther,” slandered Bob Brown and Bobby Rush “as opportunists and hustlers out for their own personal gain.”

A month later they again tried to foment divisions, this by sending an incendiary letter to the Black P. Stone Nation , a formidable street gang, which was already in conflict with the Panthers over recruitment. The letter from “A Black brother you don’t know,” claimed “the Panthers blame you for blocking their thing and there’s supposed to be a hit out on you. […] I know what I’d do if I was you.” Fortunately cooler heads prevailed, though such was not the intent of the letter.

These were official COINTELPRO operations, meaning they had to be proposed and approved within the FBI hierarchy. Notably, they were not singularly targeted at Fred Hampton. Our research has only been able to find one example where Hampton is the explicit target.

That plan, outlined, in a November 25, 1969 memo , proposed sending a letter from “a disgruntled Panther” to the national office that would state:

“Myself and other brothers are getting tired of the screwing Hampton [Name REDACTED] are giving the brothers and sisters here in Chicago and the brothers in Berkeley. Last week [REDACTED] and Hampton called us all in for a meeting and the M….F……told us we are purged from the Party. All the time they are bitching about you no good nigger. [sic] They say you only think of Chicago when you need bread. You don’t give a damn about all our brothers in jail….”

The fodder for the letter was an incident in which Hampton had suspended a group of Chicago Panthers (the memo says “purged” until they “‘earned’ the right to be called a Panther”) for being late to a meeting. The letter’s aim was to sabotage plans for Hampton to move up the Panther hierarchy by joining the national office.

Notably, that same proposal shows up in a memo dated December 3, 1969 , which also references “a positive course of action” the Chicago Police Department were about to carry out (i.e., the raid, using intelligence the FBI had passed on to them from their informant William O’Neal).

“The letter’s aim was to sabotage plans for Hampton to move up the Panther hierarchy.”

It is confusing that both the raid and the proposed COINTELPRO against Hampton are mentioned in the same memo, suggesting the FBI’s effort against Hampton were more ongoing and they did not anticipate he would be killed the following day. At minimum, more information is needed to understand what the FBI was aware of about the imminent CPD raid.

The Chicago BPP in 1969 was in the middle of a tempest. On the one hand, the chapter was in the midst of an influx of new members, and the party was seen by many black youth as an electrifying force. Hampton himself was in high demand for giving speeches to organizations and on college campuses. Meanwhile police were routinely raiding BPP headquarters, the media was vilifying them, members were being arrested with minor charges transforming into major ones, and various secret police were working in the background to sabotage their efforts to work with and unite with other forces.

The CPD & the Red Squad

The murder of Fred Hampton unfolded against a pitched dynamic of raids and armed self-defense. In 1969, the Panther headquarters in Chicago was raided three times,  first by the FBI and twice by the CPD. Such an extraordinary situation helps explain the Panthers’ emphasis on security and self-defense.

Meanwhile, there were forces in operation in the background beyond the FBI. While the Panthers repeatedly ran up against Chicago street cops, the CPD also had a sizable intelligence component, operating under different names over the years but generally referred to as “the red squad.”

For a single city, the operation was huge. In his 1990 book Protectors of the Privilege, which documented the activity of big-city red squads, late ACLU director Frank Donner, called Chicago the “National Capital of Police Repression.” He reported that in 1970, 382 people were assigned to the unit, with forty-nine specifically targeting “subversives.” Not surprisingly, the Panthers were a target. According to former Panther Billy “Che” Brooks , the Chicago chapter was under the constant eye of the Chicago Red Squad and Gang Intelligence Unit.

“ACLU director Frank Donner called Chicago the ‘National Capital of Police Repression.’”

It was against that backdrop that the CPD’s targeting of the BPP reached a crescendo. On November 13, Panthers Lance Bell and Spurgeon “Jake” Winters were in the abandoned Washington Park Hotel when police were called out to them. Bell fled the scene, but Winters engaged cops in a running shootout, killing one and wounding nine officers. After an extensive chase, he shot one of the two officers on his trail, knocking him down. According to the account in Black Against Empire : The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin Jr, as the other officers rushed forward, “Winters walked to the fallen officer, purposely raised his gun, and shot the officer in the face.” Winter was in turn killed by approaching police.

According to informant William O’Neal, this was the incident that set the CPD on a course of murderous revenge that would result in the killing of Fred Hampton.

The Rising Informant

It was against this backdrop that positions in the Chicago BPP chapter were constantly shifting. In the case of FBI informant William O’Neal, he appeared to be on the rise. This comes through in a 1,636-page document  released by the FBI in 2017 (under the JFK Assassination Records Collection Act), which includes numerous reports from SA Mitchell and an informant — most likely O’Neal.

Specifically, one document has SA Mitchell reporting , “HAMPTON is allegedly considering approaching O’NEAL to see if he will take over as acting Minister of Defense if RUSH goes to jail.” At the time, Bobby Rush was facing jail for possession of an unregistered weapon, stemming from a police arrest after a Panther speaking event in Urbana, Illinois.

While O’Neal was rumored for promotion, Hampton himself was confronting prison for an incident in which an ice cream truck was looted of $71 worth of merchandise and distributed to neighborhood youth. Hampton would be convicted at trial and later released on bail, but lost his appeal  on November 26 and was facing a return to jail to serve an excessive two- to five-year sentence.

The CPD were apparently in no mood to await Hampton’s imprisonment. Here, the FBI’s informant William O’Neal played a key role. It was O’Neal’s floor plan, a rough diagram , later refined by Mitchell  of the apartment where Hampton and other Panthers were staying, which was given to the CPD raiding party — a document that lawyers Jeff Haas and Flint Taylor  were able to pry loose in a later civil trial. While this is hard evidence of O’Neal’s role, many accounts of the murder also claimed that O’Neal drugged Hampton the night before the killing. That evidence, however, is still in dispute .

O’Neal’s role in supplying the floor plan, and the fact that he was given a $300 bonus a week after Hampton’s murder, has been known for some time. What had not been known previously, and which we learned with the release of 491 pages in SA Mitchell’s personal file, is the degree to which the Bureau was following, encouraging, and rewarding O’Neal and Mitchell throughout 1969 — culminating in a personal commendation by J. Edgar Hoover himself for Mitchell, days after Hampton’s murder:

“Through your aggressiveness and skill in handling a valuable source, he is able to furnish information of great importance to the Bureau in this vital area of our operations. I want you to know of my appreciation for your exemplary efforts.”

“It was O’Neal’s floor plan which was given to the CPD raiding party.”

In the memo, Hoover is careful not to spell out what the “vital area of our operations” is. But a notation on the letter reads, “Re: Black Panther Party,” making clear it was his work against the BPP. Further diminishing the commendation’s vagueness, another note references a “Moore-Sullivan” writing on December 2, 1969  that recommends the award for Mitchell’s “development of a highly productive informant in the Black Panther Party” — almost certainly William O’Neal.

Notably, the same day Hoover congratulated Mitchell, the FBI issued a COINTELPRO memo following up on the proposed poison pen letter aimed at Hampton. In it, they noted, “In view of the fact that Hampton was recently shot and killed by Chicago police, no further action is being taken in regard to your proposal.”

It remains unclear all the details the FBI knew about the CPD raid at the moment Hoover wrote to SA Mitchell. But it is clear that they knew their informant, carefully cultivated over months, had played an integral role in the “success” of an undertaking where the only people shot were Black Panthers awoken from their sleep, two of whom were shot dead. That in that moment, the Bureau chose to reward their agent’s work further closes a loop of culpability: it was blood money for a bloody deed.

Still More to Uncover

The Fred Hampton story has been told and retold such that it is frozen in amber, as if all the facts are known. Yet our obtaining of previously secret documents shows there is still more to be learned — not only from the corpus of files held by the FBI, but from the files of Chicago’s SAC Marlin Johnson, the informant William O’Neal’s file, any liaison notes between the CPD and the FBI that may exist, to say nothing of information that may lie in the records, not destroyed , of the Chicago Police and their red squad. (The CPD admitted in 1974 that it destroyed 105,000 files on individuals and 1,300 on organizations .) That all this time later we are still learning new information about Hampton’s killing is testament to the sheer volume of the effort aimed at this young revolutionary — and hopefully a spur to finally get all the secrets out.

This article previously appeared in Jacobin  and Reader Supported News .

[whatevergreen]

"...Spearheaded by Newton’s widow, Fredrika Newton, and the Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation, cities throughout the Bay Area are signing on to a resolution asking the National Parks Service to conduct a “reconnaissance survey,” identifying sites and monuments that would be linked together in a national monument. The resolution also urges the Biden Administration to act on the findings of the survey. Resolutions have already passed in Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond, with San Francisco and Sacramento expected to follow, according to Newton.

Above: model for a Huey Newton bust by Dana King

"...The Berkeley resolution, placed on the city council agenda by council member Terry Taplin, states in part that the party was “founded in response to the wide-spread poverty, lack of economic and educational opportunities, and police oppression experienced by the African American community in Oakland, California…Pervasive and unrelenting police terrorism directed at communities of color during the 1960s made necessary the formation of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.”

"The resolution goes on to cite the BPP’s work creating “survival programs” aimed at providing food, healthcare, legal assistance, transportation and other services to Blacks and other people living in poverty.

In 2016, the 50th anniversary of the BPP’s founding, news outlets acknowledged, for example, that in January 1969, members of  Oakland’s St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church and the BPP created the first “Free Breakfast Program for School Children” in the nation, eventually feeding 20,000 children across the U.S. and becoming a model for today’s federal school breakfast program.

These pictures of the Panthers stand in stark contrast to the one promulgated by members of the Johnson and Nixon administrations of the BPP as armed and violent domestic terrorists." ...

"...While racism persists in our society, so, too, does the inspiration of those who fought back, fed their families, clothed their children and healed the sick,” he wrote. “Memorializing their struggle for freedom is one way we can ensure their unfinished work continues.”"

Above: A mural depicting women of the Black Panthers adorns the back and side panels of Oakland resident Jilchristina Vest’s home.

It's not a bad idea... As long as it doesn't turn into one of these tokenistic commemorations designed to sweep much needed and continuing efforts towards real change 'under the rug'.

[endangered-justice-seeker]

undefined

The Black Panther Party started the Free Breakfast for School Children program in 1969 at St. Augustine's Church in Oakland, CA. with the radical commitment to feed black and brown children on their way to school. The Breakfast Program was one of the most successful survival programs launched by the BPP, growing in a few short years to feed over 100,000 school children breakfast in cities across the country every day. Their commitment to feeding black children healthy meals was so dangerous that the FBI named it the biggest domestic threat to national security.

Inspired by the work of the BPP, the People's Kitchen Collective offers  Free Breakfast Program, serving hundreds of people a free, hot, nutritious, and delicious breakfast in Oakland. Since 2007, the People's Kitchen Collective has served thousands of free breakfasts in West Oakland in collaboration with local artists, poets, musicians, farmers and groups like Youth Speaks and Bigger Picture Project.

http://peopleskitchencollective.com/free-breakfast-program

[yourladyindank]

Left a Black-led group about racism after they claimed all non-Black folks were lying when anyone said that their first thought looking at a picture of the BPP holding rifles was anything other than hatred and terror. I grew up in rural America, my first reaction was literally "God they have good trigger discipline." Bunch of city people went nuts on me claiming that I really hated all Black people with guns actually. Liiiikkkeeee ?????

Because city people have demonized guns for soooo long that lots of them often get real sensitive about it, so a compliment will sound like an insult or backhanded

Hyper sensitivity is a hell of a drug

[the-merricatherine]

Assata Shakur's critiques of the Black Panther Party

From autobiography pages 221 - 222

The more i studied, the more critical i became of the political education (PE) program in the Party. There were three different political education classes: community classes, classes for BPP cadre, and PE classes for Panther leadership. In the community classes, Panthers explained the ten-point program and the general objectives and philosophy of the HP? as well as various articles that appeared in the Black Panther newspaper. As far as i was concerned, these were the best PE classes the party ever gave. If the teachers were good, the classes were interesting and fun. With a few exceptions, PE classes for Party members turned out to be just the opposite. We reviewed articles in the BPP paper, read passages from Mao's Red Book, and discussed certain speeches and articles by various Party members. Most of the time whoever was giving the class discussed whatever we were studying and explained it, but without giving the underlying issues or putting it into any historical context. The basic problem was not whether the teacher was good or bad. The basic problem stemmed from the fact that the BPP had no systematic approach to political education. They were reading the Red 80012 but drdn't know who Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, and Nat Turner were. They talked about intercommunalism but still really believed that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves. A whole lot of them barely understood any kind of history, Black, African or otherwise. Huey Newton had written that politics was war without bloodshed and that war was politics with bloodshed. To a lot of Panthers, however, struggle consisted of only two aspects: picking up the gun and serving the people. That was the main reason many Party members, in my opinion, underestimated the need to unite with other Black organizations and to struggle around various community issues. A l0t of the sisters and brothers had joined because they were sick and tired of the oppression they had been suffering. Most of them had never been in the struggle before. Quite a few joined thinking the Party was going to issue them a gun and direct them to go out and shoot pigs. Most of these brothers and sisters had attended inferior schools which either taught them lies or nothing at all. Education of every kind was sorely needed. Without an adequate education program, many Panthers fell into a roboton bag. They repeated slogans and phrases without understanding their complete meaning, often resulting in dogmatic and shortsighted practices. For example. one day an African brother who was working with one of the African liberation movements came into the office and gave us a beautiful calendar put out by one of the African liberation groups. It was baaad. It had beautiful pictures of African freedom fighters and said something like “International support for African libera~ tion.” The firs: thing i did was hang it up. When i came to the office the next day the calendar was gone. When i asked what had happened to it, they said, “The calendar said ‘international’ and we’re not internationalists, we'ne intercommunalists.” I am convinced that a systematic program for political education, ranging from the simplest to the highest level, is imperative for any successful organization or movement for Black liberation in this country. The Party had some of the most politically conscious sisters and brothers as members, but in some ways it failed to spread that consciousness to the cadre in general. I also thought it was a real shame the BPP didn't teach Panthers organizing and mobilizing techniques. Some members were natural geniuses at organizing people, but they were usually the busiest comrades with the most responsibility. Part of the problem was that the Party had grown so fat that there wasn’t a lot of time to come up with step by-step approaches to things. The other part of the problem was that almost from its inception, the BPP was under attack from the u.s. government.

PAGE 225-226 

Politically, i was not at all happy with the direction of the Party. Huey went on a nationwide tour advocating his new theory of intercommunality. The essence of the theory was that imperialism had reached such a degree of degree that sovereign borders were no longer recognized and that oppressed nations no longer existed, only oppressed communities, within and outside the u.s. The problem was that somebody had forgotten to tell these oppressed communities that they were no longer nations. Even worse, almost no one understood Huey's long speeches explaining intercommunalism. Huey Newton was not what you would call a good speaker. In fact, he had a kind of high pitched monotonous voice and his rambling for three hours about the negation of the negation was sheer disaster. People walked out in droves. Instead of criticizing what was happening, most of the Party members defended it. When I said that Huey needed speaking lessons they jumped down my throat. When Huey changed his title from defense minister to the ridiculous "Supreme Commander" and then to the even more ridiculous "Supreme Servant," damn near nobody said a word. That was one of the big problem in the Party. Criticism and self-criticism were not encouraged, and the little that was given often was not taken seriously. Constructive criticism and self-criticism are extremely important for any revolutionary organization. Without them, people tend to drown in their mistakes, and not learn from them.

For more, check out Assata Shakur’s autobiography Chapter 15, pages 216 to 233

[musubiki]

I heard Penny was also a rival of some sort to Mochi! Referring to one of your past bpps, Lime sorta goes out with her for a while? Does Penny actually like Lime or is it more "he's hot he'll be good for my image" or something like that? Also your art is amazing keep up the great work ! Looking forward to when TCWG is published

Aaa thank you for your support!!!!!!!!

PENNY has a weird hobby in that shes rich and has p much everything she wants so she treats dating more like a game???? She has a whole notebook full of names/pictures/phone numbers of all the boys shes dated, and her goal is to get three dates out of every boy!!!!!! And then she dumps them LMFAO

So lime was no different!! Except the fact that they went on only TWO dates before he talked to mochi about it in this old bpp, and he never went on the 3rd date, so penny, upset that he was throwing off her record streak just kept hitting on him/bothering him/etc until he goes on the third date with her (for whatever reason) and they FINALLY FIND OUT WHAT SHE WAS TRYING TO DO ALL ALONG!!!!!!!!

And she does that evil manga laugh that "Hohoho! FINALLY I can mark you off the books!" And checks the last box in her little date diary, and mochis like "THATS ALL YOU WANTED??!?????" while lime is in the back like "I WAS USED!!!!!!!!!"

I always wanted her and mochi to end up as friends though!!! Even though she doesnt have a solid design yet!! She was actually created before oscar and i originally wanted mochi/coco/penny to be the girls squad trio and im still kinda playing around with the idea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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 La honorable logia “Comandante Osvaldo Ramírez García”  da su apoyo cordial y fraterno al festival de “Arte vista” pero esta vez en pro de un acogedor entorno que muchos perpetuaremos. Con la asistencia de nuestra delegación artística masónica, nuestra orden fue participe de una noche que se nos perpetua en los rincones del recuerdo grato.

Los literatos cubanos exiliados, han  distinguido con el Premio Nacional de Literatura Independiente de Cuba “Gastón Baquero”, correspondiente al año 2017, a los escritores y poetas: Rafael Almanza, (quien reside en Cuba), y Ángel Cuadra (ex, preso político, exiliado).

El camagüeyano Rafael Almanza (quien ha sufrido en carne propia la triste y amarga cicuta por su libre y fluida expresión de las ideas distintas  y la palabra escrita, es un eslabón más en los principios  literaritos que edifican una cuba futura. Contribuyente de la revista Árbol Invertido, nos informa e instruye de temas literarios y  cultura general. Rafael Almanza  es, como muchos cubanos de letras vivas, un alquimista en suelo pedregoso, la fragua del diamante.

 El poeta Ángel Cuadra, (con el cual sostengo una amistad de muchos Años), es también ensayista, periodista y profesor. Su carácter y posición honorable le condujeron al más  triste de sus ciclos vividos “El presidio político de la cuba Castro-Comunista”. Esta condena solo engrandeció más ese genio musicalizado que gestaba su alma libre, el espíritu que hoy se muestra con todos los galardones de una vida bien empleada, digna de imitación. Una vez más somos testigos contemplativos  del gigante espiritual recogiendo la cosecha que perdurara después de sus pasos.

Reproducción del Acta dada por el Jurado, cortesía de los organizadores del certamen cultural, marzo-2018.

La cuarta edición del Premio Nacional de Literatura Independiente de Cuba “Gastón Baquero”, cuyo jurado constituyó la suma de 10 votantes y estuvo integrado por los escritores, críticos y periodistas Armando de Armas, Armando Añel, Ernesto Olivera Castro, Joaquín Gálvez, Jorge Olivera Castillo, José Hugo Fernández, Juan Antonio Molinete, Luis Felipe Rojas, María Elena Cruz Varela y Víctor Manuel Domínguez, anuncia, por mayoría de votos, su decisión de otorgar el galardón correspondiente a 2017 a los escritores Rafael Almanza, en Cuba, y Ángel Cuadra en el exilio.

Con este galardón, las entidades convocantes aspiran a premiar la labor literaria de los escritores exiliados, ninguneados o censurados abiertamente por el oficialismo tanto en Cuba como en su periferia académica, así como a estimular la independencia literaria en la Isla tras cerca de 60 años de control estatal sobre las instituciones y actores culturales. Además, apuestan por un espacio de interacción y exposición para aquellos creadores independientes que margina o silencia el régimen aún en el poder, responsable del ámbito opresivo en el que desarrollan su labor los escritores residentes en Cuba.

Ángel Cuadra (La Habana, 1931) es poeta, ensayista, periodista y profesor. En Cuba, fue uno de los fundadores del Grupo Literario Renuevo (1957). Detenido en 1967 por actividades políticas subversivas contra la dictadura de Fidel Castro, fue sancionado a quince años de prisión. En 1980, el PEN Club de Suecia lo nombró “miembro de honor”. Entre sus numerosos libros publicados figuran Peldaño (1959), Impromptus (1977), Poemas en correspondencia (1979) y Diez sonetos ocultos (2000). Ha recibido, entre otros reconocimientos, el premio Rubén Martínez Villena (Cuba, 1954), el Premio Presidencial (Los Ángeles, 1986) y el Premio ‘Amantes de Teruel’ (España, 1988). Es presidente de honor del PEN Club de escritores cubanos en el exilio.

Rafael Almanza (Camagüey, 1957) es crítico, poeta, narrador, investigador y ensayista. Gran Premio de ensayo “Vitral 2004” con su libro Los hechos del Apóstol (Ed. Vitral, 2005). Ha publicado, entre otros títulos, El octavo día (cuentos, Ed. Oriente, 1998), Hombre y tecnología en José Martí (ensayos, Ed. Oriente, 2001), Libro de Jóveno (poesía, Ed. Homagno, 2003) y El gran camino de la vida (poesía, Ed. Homagno, 2005). “Decidió no publicar más en editoriales y medios estatales y vive retirado en su casa, ajeno a las instituciones gubernamentales, aunque admirado y querido por quienes lo aprecian como uno de los intelectuales cubanos más auténticos”, señala la revista Árbol Invertido.

 Nuestra logia “Comandante Osvaldo Ramírez García” orientó su respaldo una vez más al festival de “Arte vista” y a nuestro buen amigo el escritor Armando Añel, con la presencia de la comisión artística masónica de nuestro honorable templo, también la donación siempre prometida de dulces y otras golosinas para tan distinguidas actividades. Estuvieron presentes: Ibrahím Bosch, Ariel Portilla, Fausto Felipe Hernandez, Felix Lopez Tito, Martínez & Rubén Santos, (quien les escribe).

La comisión artística masónica se mantiene activa en pro del mejoramiento humano y el decoro de los hombres.

  Miami  4 de marzo, del 2018.

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La honorable logia “Comandante Osvaldo Ramírez García” da respaldo fraternal a Premio Nacional de Literatura Independiente de Cuba “Gastón Baquero”, correspondiente al año 2017.  La honorable logia “Comandante Osvaldo Ramírez García”  da su apoyo cordial y fraterno al festival de “Arte vista” pero esta vez en pro de un acogedor entorno que muchos perpetuaremos.