Rockbites: Black August benefit festival continues, Webcast soon

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Black August benefit festival continues, Webcast soon
31 August 2001

Black August is a term coined, and a tradition started, by black men and women of the Black/New Afrikan Liberation Movement in California prisons in the ’70s. The idea was to devote some time each year to acknowledge and study the history of resistance to racism in the Americas. They picked August to symbolize the major milestones of the struggle. For example, August was the month the first Africans were brought to America as slaves (in 1619), the Underground Railroad began (in 1850), and Martin Luther King led his March On Washington (1963).
    The fourth annual Black August benefit concerts started a couple of weeks ago in New York city and continue through 4 September in Capetown. Organizers picked the times and places to coincide with the first ever UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, And Related Intolerance, taking place in Durban starting today and running through 7 September.
    Through 10 September you can view full length on-demand Webcasts of the New York and Durban concerts, along with video interviews, daily updates, and more. It’s not free: cost is US$5, which gives you full access through 10 September and supports the nonprofit festival. On the Black August site click Webcast. (As of press time, Webcast purchase was not yet set up.)
    Artists for the New York concert were (among others) Chuck D, Dead Prez, Hedrush, Lauryn Hill, Talib Kweli And Hi-Tek, and Welfare Poets. Artists for the Capetown event on 4 September will be Black Thought Of The Roots, Imani Uzuri, Jeru The Damaja, and most of the artists from the New York concert. | Black August | | 'Emancipation Provocation' 2001 | | UN World Conference Against Racism | | UN paper on prevention of discrimination | | top of page |

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