August 6, 2018

50 Years After the First Memo Leak of the FBI’s Cointelpro, the Question Stands: Are We Free?

In March of 1968, a memo by the FBI was addressed to 14 field offices. In it contained instructions on how to create fictitious decoys for the Black Panther Party (BPP). It mapped out an official war strategy against the advocacy group. In a calculated and egregious effort, the agency forged letters containing death threats to different Black organizing groups, causing deep tensions and sometimes deadly disputes amongst them. President Edgar Hoover labeled the Black Panther Party a “hate group” and publicly demonized the organization as “the greatest threat to internal security”. This was the same group that orchestrated a children’s breakfast program when the government failed to provide children with their necessary needs for survival. The Black Panther Party was fully committed to ensuring that children learn and grow in a healthy and affirming environment. The free breakfast program of today was inspired by the Black Panther Party’s program. At its highest popularity, it fed thousands of children with more than 40 programs around the nation. But, despite its impact Hoover went after the program,” Consequently, the BCP (Breakfast for Children Program) represents the best and most influential activity going for the BPP and, as such, is potentially the greatest threat to efforts by authorities to neutralize the BPP and destroy what it stands for.” Hoover, was on to something. The community-based programming served to exposes the power in unity that was being formed by the Black Panther Party and the ways the government misguided their attention away from adequately serving communities. 50 years later, the Black Lives Matter rallying cry turned into a movement to end systematic violence against Black communities represents a similar threat to the FBI today. In 2017, a leaked FBI report revealed that BLM was a domestic terror group labeled as “Black identity extremists”. Activists across the country have experienced monitoring through phone disruptions. It’s a tactic, that seeks to interfere with one activist’s biggest tools by causing interference to organizing and recording the police. In some instances, reports of law enforcement disguising as protesters has served as a way to cause paranoia or initiate conflicts and have even lead to arrests at peaceful protests. This reaction by authorities in response to Black groups organizing for better treatment is a chapter of our histories ugly past that has resurfaced in an attempt to silence and divide political power among black communities seeking change. It’s the same demonization that would serve to dismantle the Black Panther Party. The only threat present was and still is the threat to white supremacy. In the spirit of turning L’s of 1968 into lessons. We must continue to be both aware and vigilant in the fight for justice, dignity, life and humanity.

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Esri, and the Racial Equity Anchor Institutions Partner to Launch Survey on Policing Budgets Across Country February 24, 2021

Washington, DC – On February 25, 2021 at 10:00 am ET, the Racial Equity Anchor Institutions and Esri will host a virtual press briefing on the launch of a new initiative to survey and track policing budgets in targeted areas around the nation. The new initiative is an effort to aid communities on their journey to better engage with and potentially reimagine what public safety looks like, neighborhood by neighborhood. Interested media can register to attend by visiting https://naacpheadquarters.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_eMlWidmDQgeG1qKqHWkdDg. 2020 and 2021 presented highs and lows across the country. It has been exhausting for our nation, communities, and…

Police Brutality in Rochester Proves that Police ‘Reform’ is a Myth February 9, 2021

By Thomas B. Harvey, Justice Project Program Director Nothing short of police abolition will end the continued abuses of a system of policing designed to systematically oppress Black people and maintain a white supremacist status quo. Credit: Life Matters Last month, police in Rochester, New York pepper sprayed, manhandled, handcuffed and arrested a nine-year-old Black girl in obvious mental health crisis. This horrifying violence triggered a familiar and morbid routine: news coverage of this police brutality was met with strongly worded condemnations from political leaders, whose calls to reform policing were centered in the conversation; meanwhile…

Advancement Project National Office Issues Statement on President Biden’s Executive Orders Addressing Racial Equity January 26, 2021

“We acknowledge and commend the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to make racial equality a legislative priority and center piece to their agenda."

Fighting for Voting Rights is How We Honor Dr. King’s Legacy January 18, 2021

By Jorge L. Vasquez, Jr., Program Director, Power and Democracy until every eligible voter has equal access to the polls and every voting age citizen is eligible to vote without unnecessary and unwarranted interference, there will always be citizens who, as Dr. King coined, “cannot live as a democratic citizen.” “So long as I do not firmly and irrevocably possess the right to vote I do not possess myself. I cannot make up my mind-it is made up for me. I cannot live as a democratic citizen, observing the laws I have helped to enact-I can only submit…

Police Continue to Protect White Supremacy January 11, 2021

If this attack on the Capitol showed one thing, it’s that law and order only applies to Black and Brown people. By Marques Banks, Justice Project Staff Attorney As the nation watched white supremacists storm the United States Capitol, I thought about how police react in strikingly different ways to white protesters versus Black protesters. I am a lawyer who has supported protests over police murders from Mike Brown to George Floyd. I was in the streets and personally watched as my friends, colleagues, and other protesters were beaten, teargassed, and arrested in massive numbers for exercising their…

Advancement Project National Office Responds to DA Announcement in Jacob Blake Shooting January 5, 2021

The Kenosha County District Attorney, Michael Graveley, today announced that Rusten Sheskey, the police officer who shot Jacob Blake seven times in August will not be criminally charged.

National Civil Rights Groups Sue Louisiana Judges, Sheriff Over Unconstitutional Bail System December 15, 2020

Lawsuit aims to end Baton Rouge’s cash bail system after another person dies awaiting trial at local jail BATON ROUGE, LA – Last night, Fair Fight Initiative, MacArthur Justice Center and Advancement Project National Office sued East Baton Rouge officials in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, seeking to end the immoral and unconstitutional practice of wealth-based incarceration in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison (EBRPP). The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four individuals who are being held inside of EBRPP and are unable to afford their bail.

Advancement Project National Office Responds to First 2020 Presidential Debate September 30, 2020

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden faced off in the first of three 2020 presidential debates. On the topic of national protests resulting from the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and others, Advancement Project National Office released the following statement.

Advancement Project National Office Responds to Breonna Taylor Decision September 23, 2020

Six months have passed since Louisville police murdered 26-year-old Breonna Taylor in her home on March 13, 2020. After months of nationwide protest and uprisings, and both local and national demands to defund the police, a Louisville Grand Jury’s decision was announced today. Attorney General Daniel Cameron today made an announcement regarding the investigation into Taylor’s murder, stating that it was not up to him to decide if the loss of Breonna’s life was a tragedy and that, “the answer to that question was unequivocally yes.” However, the Grand Jury’s decision to indict only one of…

Civil Rights Organizations Debunk Myths of No COVID-19 Cases in East Baton Rouge Parish Prison August 19, 2020

Impacted people behind bars share harrowing stories of coronavirus outbreaks, unsanitary conditions Baton Rouge, LA – Last night, several civil rights and racial justice organizations pushed back on efforts by the Sheriff and Warden of the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison to silence the detainees trapped inside the facility and to hide from community members and taxpayers what the organizations say is really happening in the jail. The Sheriff and Warden, defendants in a federal lawsuit filed by the advocates, claim that the jail has the coronavirus pandemic under control, but the plaintiffs and…