Nina Simone was born on this day in 1933. My love for her is boundless. Throughout the day I will share some of my favourite things that #NinaSaid for my annual appreciation and respect 💜✊🏽❤️ (Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
“I’ll tell you what freedom is to me: no fear!” #NinaSaid
In a 1999 episode of BBC HARDtalk, Tim Sebastian asked Nina Simone “Tell me about music as a political weapon.” Here’s what #NinaSaid
Asked “So you sing from anger?” #NinaSaid “I sing from intelligence.” Read 👇🏽
On her friendship with playwright Lorraine Hansberry, #NinaSaid: “Lorraine started off my political education, and through her I started thinking about myself as a Black person in a country run by white people and a woman in a world run by men.” lithub.com/young-gifted-a…
Sept15, 1963, a bomb killed 4 young Black girls Birmingham, AL. #NinaSaid “I had it in my mind to go out and kill someone...I didn’t yet know who, but someone I could identify as being in the way of my people.” She wrote Mississippi Goddam in an hour
“When they killed those children is when I said ‘I have to start using my talent to help Black people...When they killed those little girls in Alabama, that’s when I changed,” #NinaSaidnewyorker.com/magazine/2014/…
In the mid-1960s Vernon Jordan, the head of the Urban League, asked Nina Simone how come she wasn’t ‘more active in civil rights’.
“The first time I wore my hair African was after Pastel Blues...It reflected black pride, and that’s when I changed it. I identified a lot with Africa, and learned what they did, and started wearing my hair in an Afro,” #NinaSaidissuu.com/publishingscot…
“All my songs, the important ones, have razor cuts, I call them, at the end. I cut you, I make you think and it’s immediate... When any Black woman hears that song, she either starts crying or she wants to go out and kill somebody,” #NinaSaid about her song Four Women
Nina Simone is revolution!
What an incredible legacy she left us.
I am spending today listening to and celebrating her and what #NinaSaid.
More than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago - an average of 12 migrant workers each week - @guardiantheguardian.com/global-develop…
"The findings expose Qatar’s failure to protect its 2 million-strong migrant workforce, or even investigate the causes of the apparently high rate of death among the largely young workers."
Woman training to fight against fascists in the Spanish Civil War, August 1936, 📷 Gerda Taro cc: @MaazaMengiste
Mujeres Soldados Women Soldiers, 1936, Photographer unknown
Fanny Schoonheyt was the only woman among the contingent of Dutch volunteers to take up arms in defense of the Spanish Republic in the war against fascism. albavolunteer.org/2011/12/queen-… Barcelona, May 1937. 📷 Agustí Centelles
Today is the born day of Claudia Jones, communist, intellectual and journalist who founded the West Indian Gazette, the first Black newspaper in Britain. and the Notting Hill Carnival. (Photo: Getty)
#ClaudiaJones was born in #Trinidad, moved to the US as a child, was arrested and jailed several times for her activism and communist politics and deported to Britain.Some articles about her fight for the rights of Black women and the Black working class essence.com/black-history-…
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the youngest woman elected to the U.S. Congress. It shows in the way she refuses to be grateful because the white boys let her in their club called Congress. feministgiant.com/p/essay-aoc-th…
It shows in the way that she calls out those white boys, whether they are the now former congressman Ted Yoho-- who called her a “fucking bitch” last year-- or Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley--who cheered on the January 6 insurrectionists--for the white supremacists they are.
And it shows in the way she threatens men on both the right and the left. It is a reminder of the vicious patriarchy that is alive across the political spectrum and is especially virulent against this young Latinx woman.
And primarily, it shows because AOC is a Disruptor.
This is a great film about African Americans who went to Spain to fight fascism as part of International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War. There’s an online event today about it. h/t @MaazaMengiste eventbrite.com/e/an-alba-film…
Langston Hughes is mentioned in the film. This is a brief intro to what he wrote about the link between fascism, racism, and the Spanish Civil War
"Cause if a free Spain wins this war,
The colonies, too, are free" Langston Hughes #SpanishCivilWar