Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Harlem's Mae Jackson: When Obama Speaks, Whose Lips Move?
Bill Quigley
16 Jun 2009
🖨️ Print Article

If you don't see the video above, click here.

Mae Jackson is a New York City based writer, poet, dreamer and doer whose record of activism on behalf of her people stretches back to SNCC. A founder of Art Without Walls, an art program for the children of imprisoned women, she is well acquainted with the difference between surface change, and fundamental, revolutionary change.

Here are a few minutes of her address to the crowd at May 31, 2009 event memorializing the early 20th century Harlem activist Hubert Harrison, in which she lays out a clear understanding of whose lips move when our First Black President speaks. Referring to some of Barack Obama's widely acclaimed orations at the Democratic convention, atop Lincoln's tomb, and other places, she tells us

“..those wonderful speeches made by the young man from Chicago were actually crafted, that's written, by three young white men 25, 26 and 31 years old. We got the unfortunate opportunity once again to see the world through their eyes. Obama was the spokesperson. Same as when you buy a painting, that doesn't make you the painter...”

She explains how the establishment turned took the politics out of activism, neutralizing and de-politicizing young political activists by turning them into “community organizers."

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • Black Alliance for Peace US Out of Africa Network
    Report: The Anti-Imperialist Upsurge in the Sahel and the Historic Conference in Niamey
    27 Nov 2024
    The Black Alliance for Peace and U.S. Out of Africa Network provided this report following their participation in the “Conference in Solidarity with the Peoples of the Sahel”.
  • Phil Wilayto
    Crisis & Cover-up at Red Onion Super-Max
    27 Nov 2024
    Red Onion Prison in Virginia has the same history of racism, brutal violence, and inhumane conditions that characterize the entire mass incarceration system. But recently men held there in…
  • Keston K Perry
    The IMF and the World Bank Must be Abolished to Save the Planet
    27 Nov 2024
    The IMF and the World Bank give the appearance of aiding Global South nations with economic relief for climate disasters, but in reality, they are burdening them with more debt. 
  • Tamara Nassar , Ali Abunimah
    AOC votes to back Israel lobby’s bogus “anti-Semitism” definition
    27 Nov 2024
    New York's "progressive" congresswoman panders to the Israel lobby by supporting a definition of antisemitism that will stifle free speech.
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio November 22, 2024
    22 Nov 2024
    This week, we discuss the COP29 climate summit and why the earth is still warming despite prior climate agreements. But first, we analyze the 2024 presidential election results and why Donald Trump…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us