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


  • Nicaragua Succeeds Despite U.S. Attacks
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Nicaragua Succeeds Despite U.S. Attacks
    17 Feb 2023
    The Central American nation of Nicaragua has been the focus of US interventionism ever since the Sandinista revolution which occurred in 1979.
  • Jihad Abdulmumit and the Peoples' Senate
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Jihad Abdulmumit and the Peoples' Senate
    17 Feb 2023
    The upcoming introductory webinar of the Peoples' Senate will be held on Saturday, February 18.
  • Did the US Blow Up Nord Stream If There is No Media to Report It?
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Did the US Blow Up Nord Stream If There is No Media to Report It?
    15 Feb 2023
    A respected investigative journalist explains how the U.S. sabotaged the Nord Stream pipelines. But corporate media working in service to the state ignore the story and endanger the world.
  • INTERVIEW: A Voice from the Monster: Charlene Mitchell in Tricontinental, 1971
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    INTERVIEW: A Voice from the Monster: Charlene Mitchell in Tricontinental, 1971
    15 Feb 2023
    A 1971 interview with the late Charlene Mitchell reminds us of both the need for Black radical struggle against capitalism, militarism, and racism, and the contradictions of inter-racial organizing…
  • Colombian Peace Caravan: Bringing the Hope of “Total Peace” to Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Territories
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Colombian Peace Caravan: Bringing the Hope of “Total Peace” to Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Territories
    15 Feb 2023
    Ajamu Baraka representing BAP’s Haiti/Americas Team was invited to serve as part of an international delegation on a historic “humanitarian Caravan” between January 17 and the 21st to the Indigenous…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us