Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality

The new issue has gone to press and is available online.  Click here!

Click here to read or download the special 4-page issue of The Virginia Defender   This issue is an expository to help visitors to Richmond learn the current social struggles in Richmond regarding Confederate symbolism, racism and coming to terms with the conflicting narratives of our history as a freedom-seeking nation. Learn about the call to move the race route from highlighting the city's largest single Confederate shrine: Monument Avenue; the struggle to protect Shockoe Bottom from destruction just as we're coming to understand the enormity of its role in the slave trade and the origins of the city; and on the community proposal for Shockoe Bottom. Richmond today bears the scars of our country’s original contradiction: that the “Land of the Free” was founded as a slave society, and continued as such for 246 years. The effects of that history on today’s social, economic and political issues have never been fully examined.    Shockoe Bottom can be the place ...

Click here  for the Summer 2015 issue.

VICTORY IN THE  SHOCKOE BOTTOM STADIUM STRUGGLE! Statement by the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality Bowing to years of growing local, national and international pressure, Richmond City Council voted Nov. 10 to keep baseball on the Boulevard, where it has been played for nearly 60 years. This effectively kills – for now – the reactionary, developer-driven proposal to build a baseball stadium in historic Shockoe Bottom, once the center of the massive U.S. domestic slave trade. As we celebrate this important victory, we call on all defenders of Black History to rededicate ourselves to reclaiming and memorializing a section of Shockoe Bottom in order to pay homage to the hundreds of thousands of Black people who suffered and resisted on this sacred ground. ......................................................... This latest proposal to build a stadium in the Bottom – the fourth such proposal that we are aware of – was first raised Aug 5, 2012, in a ...

Click here to download the Autumn issue of The Virginia Defender (Vol. 10, No. 3)

Chokwe Lumumba's death is a loss both personal and collective.  Jackson, Mississippi, Mayor Chokwe Lumumba died at the age of 66 on Feb. 25, 2014. Taking office just last July, a true people's mayor, Lumumba lived according to his principles - without fear, with strength and faith in the people. He was a Black man committed to his belief in unity of all peoples while advocating for the self-determination of Black people. He was a good man and he was elected mayor in a majority Black city in a period when most elected people elected are too afraid to speak truth to power and money, much less act truth to power and money. He had a plan, it's now the plan of the people of Jackson. Chokwe Lumumba is now one of our beloved ancestors. Long live the heart of Chokwe Lumumba. Long live the people of Jackson Mississippi. Long live the People. May Richmond live and learn as well. Coverage: Jackson Free Press http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2013/apr/03/chokwe-lumumba-mi...

The murder trial of Ashley Williams began this morning in Richmond circuit court, John Marshals Courts Builiding, 400 N. Marshall St. Ms. William is the single, poor, 27-year old, African American mother charged with deliberately neglecting her youngest child D’Shawn, allowing him to starve to death. D’Shawn died on May 30, 2009, and it is only because of intense community interest in the case that the prosecution of Ms. Williams was delayed until today. Members of the family and the community have packed virtually every court hearing over the last several years. The previous judge recused himself without comment, and the trial is being presided over by a visiting jurist, Judge Alfred B. Swersky. The morning was taken up by jury selection. The composition of the 12 jurors and 2 alternates is 8 whites, 6 African American, and includes 5 white men, 3 white women, 3 Black men and 3 Black women. After jury selection and a short break, opening statements were made. The 2 sides presented dia...