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


  • Noah Shachtman
    The Secretive Alliance Between the New York Post and Eric Adams
    02 Oct 2024
    Rupert Murdoch’s paper helped elect Adams and hasn’t quite given up on him yet.
  • Natasha Lennard
    Meet the First Tenured Professor to Be Fired for Pro-Palestine Speech
    02 Oct 2024
    Maura Finkelstein was terminated by Muhlenberg College for an Instagram repost.
  • Jemima Pierre
    Jemima Pierre, BAR Editor and Contributor
    Haiti and the Crisis of Imperialism in the Caribbean
    02 Oct 2024
    Dr. Jemima Pierre delivered these remarks during her keynote address at the Launch of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series on June 9th, Trinidad and Tobago, sponsored by the Emancipation Support…
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio September 27, 2024
    27 Sep 2024
    This week, we learn about deadly abortion restrictions in the state of Georgia, where the lack of reproductive rights cost two Black women their lives. But first, we have an analysis of the 2024…
  • Anthony Monteiro
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Presidential Election, Crisis and War
    27 Sep 2024
    Dr. Anthony Monteiro joins us from Philadelphia to discuss the 2024 presidential election. We ask, what type of election is this, as the Teamsters Union declines to endorse the democratic candidate,…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us