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August 2 is an anniversary that no one wants to celebrate but one that needs to be remembered. On that day in 2010, six Black teenagers from two families drowned in the Red River in Shreveport, Louisiana. It was a day that would break your heart.
Maude Warner (left), mother of the Warner children, and Rena Blalock, mother of the Stewarts, release a lantern during the 15-year remembrance of the drowning of the Shreveport Six at Southern Hill Park, Aug. 2, 2025. (Photo: Henrietta Wildsmith)
The children and their families went on an outing to barbecue and cool off on a hot summer’s day. One of the children, Dekendrix Warner, stepped from a shallow sandbar into water 28 feet deep and started thrashing around.
The teenagers responded to Dekendrix’s yells for help and jumped in to try to save him. But they could not swim. All began to drown. The teenagers fought hard to save each other. No one could help, because family members and bystanders could not swim either. Screaming for help, the teenagers started going under.
“It was nothing I could do but watch them drown one by one,” said Marilyn Robinson, a friend of the family. (Fox News Aug 3, 2010)
Takeitha Warner (13), JaMarcus Warner (14), JaTavious Warner (17), Litrelle Stewart (18), LaDarius Stewart (17) and Latevin Stewart (15) all drowned that horrible day. Dekendrix Warren (15), was saved.
Black children drown at a rate almost three times higher than white children, according to Make a Splash Foundation, which provides scholarships for survival swim lessons. “Drowning is the leading cause of accidental death among children ages 1-4 and remains a major threat through age 14.” (makeasplashfoundation.co, 2026)
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 37% of Black adults don’t know how to swim, compared to 15% of the U.S. population. USA Swimming reports that 69% of Black children cannot swim compared to 41.8% of white children. Black people are three times more likely to die from drowning than white people. Some 60% of Black people never took swimming lessons.
Why is this? In the 1940s and 1950s, many public pools were built across the United States. The Works Progress Administration built hundreds of pools. Some were big enough to hold thousands of swimmers at a time! One included a zoo, community center and parks.
Some pools did not allow interracial swimming. To prevent Black people from swimming with white people, the Parks Department could close down. In many cities, if laws prohibiting segregation meant that the pool had to be open to Black people, white people would stop going to the pool.
In the town of Montgomery, West Virginia, a new pool was built in 1942, but it was unused for four years. Black people there were demanding equal access. White leaders formed a private “Park Association,” and the city leased the pool to this group for one dollar. Now the pool was “private” and as such could be kept segregated.
In segregated Montgomery, Alabama, the government drained the pool rather than allow it to be shared by Black and white people. The government poured concrete into the pool and covered it over with grass.
In response to desegregation laws, public pools across the country were closed down by white supremacists. The 2021 book “The Sum of Us” by Heather McGee described one example like this: “Built in 1919, the Fairground Park pool in St. Louis, Missouri, was the largest in the country and probably the world with a sandy beach, an elaborate diving board and a reported capacity of 10,000 swimmers.”
When a new city administration changed the park’s policy in 1949 to allow Black swimmers, the first integrated swim ended in bloodshed. On June 21, 200 white residents surrounded the pool with “bats, clubs, bricks and knives” to menace the first 30 or so Black swimmers. The “white mob that grew to 5,000 attacked every Black person in sight.”
Due to this racism, the Black community did not have access to pools, swimming lessons and water safety instruction.
The fight for the right to swim
After a Dec. 14, 1974, march on Boston of 25,000 people to “Say No to Racism,” the NAACP called for a march in July of 1975 to Carson Beach in
South Boston. Even though Carson Beach was just yards from their apartments in the Columbia Point housing project, a center of the Black community of Dorchester, Black people could not go there, because they were vulnerable to attacks by racist gangs and the police. If they did go, it was at night.
Called together by the NAACP, the march organizers were a coalition of civil rights groups, Workers World Party and many others. A few thousand people marched from Columbia Point along the beach to the Carson Beach area. When they reached Carson Beach, police stopped them from going further.
The fight began. The white racists threw stones. Black people defended themselves. Ten people were arrested and 40 injured.
Building a workers’ world means building a world where people of all nationalities are encouraged to learn how to swim and have water safety lessons. Swimming should be part of a mandatory curriculum for elementary, middle and high school students.
This year marks the 47th anniversary of Black August, honoring our incarcerated freedom fighters and revolutionaries
Black August does not arrive with fireworks or parades of summer holidays. It arrives with hunger.
Before sunrise on August 1, in kitchens across Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Oakland, and inside prison cells where the practice can cost a person months in solitary confinement, people set aside food, TV screens, and distraction. They reflect. There is no greeting of “Happy Black August.”
“This is a commemoration, not a celebration,” Melina Abdullah reminded listeners on Los Angeles based KBLA Talk Radio 1580 as the month began. “This month, we fast, study, train, and fight.”
Forty‑seven years into a tradition most Blacks have never heard of, Black August remains one of the most disciplined, politically grounded, and deliberately suppressed commemorations in Black history. It is a month rooted in sacrifice, born behind prison walls, carried forward by organizers who refuse to let the memory of fallen freedom fighters be erased.
Born behind jail/prison walls
To understand Black August, one must begin with a blatant injustice.
“Black August began inside the California prison system, in response to the murderous repression faced by Black revolutionary prisoners,” said Attorney James Simmons of Black August Los Angeles on the August 1, radio show.
He pointed to three names—W.L. Nolan, Alvin Miller, and Cleveland Edwards—men killed by prison guards on January 13, 1970. After an altercation with White inmates, guards opened fired, but only on the Black prisoners.
In the aftermath, three incarcerated men—including George Jackson—were charged with retaliating against a guard. Jackson would become one of the most influential revolutionary writers of the 20th century. His books “Soledad Brother” and “Blood in My Eye” challenged the myth of American exceptionalism and urged Black people to organize, study, and resist.
Mr. Jackson never lived to see the movement his writings inspired. On August 21, 1971, he was killed by San Quentin prison guards. The year before, his 17‑year‑old brother Jonathan Jackson was killed during a courthouse action aimed at freeing the Soledad Brothers.
“These assassinations—and the movement that refused to let their deaths go unmarked—gave rise to Black August,” Atty. Simmons said.
But the roots run deeper. Kalanji Changa of Black Power Media on the same show notes that August 1 itself marks the anniversary of the death of Khatari Gaulden, a leader of the Black Prison Movement who died due to deliberate medical neglect at San Quentin.
“We use the word ‘assassination’ deliberately,” Mr. Changa said. “His death was state‑sponsored. Black August was first commemorated one year after his death.”
Inside those cells, resistance was not metaphorical. It was organized, intentional, and dangerous to those who sought to oppress and suppress the actions and activities of brothers behind bars.
“George Jackson ran political education classes inside the library. He trained comrades in martial arts,” Mr. Changa explained. “The prison movement was real, organized, and deliberate.”
Pillars of resistance, discipline
Black August rests on four pillars—disciplines rather than slogans. Dr. Akinyelé Umoja, another panelist who encountered the tradition in Oakland in the late 1970s, breaks them down:
Fast. Inspired by the Islamic Holy Month Ramadan, the founders fasted from sunup to sundown—not just from food, but from harmful influences and distractions. Some refused to speak English during the day, using Kiswahili instead. Today, a social media fast counts.
Study. The reading list begins with “Blood in My Eye,” finished by Jackson days before his death. Organizers urge people to buy from Black‑owned bookstores.
Train. Physical conditioning—martial arts, running, strength training. “A strong mind requires a strong body,” Mr. Umoja said.
Fight. Engage in activism. Support incarcerated comrades. Write letters. Back campaigns. Put money on their books.
Within the month sit four “Flea Days”—full 24‑hour fasts honoring the fallen:
August 1 — Khatari Gaulden
August 7 — Jonathan Jackson, William Christmas, James McClain
August 13 — W.L. Nolan, Cleveland Edwards, Alvin Miller
August 21 — George Jackson
“These four days are our holy days,” Mr. Changa said.
A living tradition— and a suppressed one
What began in California spread across the country—Los Angeles, Atlanta, Philadelphia—and even internationally. In Cuba, medical students once held Black August commemorations with comrades of Assata Shakur.
But inside U.S. prisons, the tradition carries a steep price. “Since 2014, up to 300 incarcerated brothers and sisters have been placed in solitary confinement simply for practicing Black August,” Mr. Changa alleges. “The state classifies it as gang activity.”
Ms. Abdullah highlighted one name: Jay Burton, who co‑founded Black Lives Matter chapters inside California prisons. He entered at 16. He is now 53—and currently in solitary confinement. “Not because of what he did when he first entered,” Ms. Abdullah said, “but because of the political organizing work he continues to do.”
Why most people have never heard of it
The obscurity of Black August is not accidental.
“Anything that exposes 400‑plus years of crimes against humanity—particularly against Black people—will never be something those in power want widely known,” said Empress Phile Chionesu, founder of the 1997 Million Woman March, during an interview with The Final Call. She noted that Black media, once a conduit for this history, “has largely lost that capacity.”
Others point to distraction. “People are distracted by propaganda instead of engaging with real issues,” Bigga Dre, a Philadelphia organizer, told The Final Call. “Entertainment makes people feel good. Conviction demands action. People don’t want that responsibility.”
He traced the erasure to one institution: the prison industrial complex. “Powerful interests are capitalizing off incarceration,” he said. “That’s why Black August gets swept under the rug.”
For Mike Africa of the MOVE organization, the relevance of Black August depends on purpose. “If it genuinely helps people and drives meaningful change, it remains essential,” he said during a Final Call interview. Honoring political prisoners, he said, must translate into structural change—starting with the family.
Supreme Dow, curator of the Black Writers Museum, told The Final Call about the importance of intergenerational dialogue where younger generations can pass on information about the significance of Black August. He calls for intergenerational engagement—elders in dialogue with young people.
Ms. Chionesu reminds young people of their legacy: the first Black student union at California State, the sit‑ins, Freedom Rides, Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown. “Those were students. Young people. That legacy belongs to them,” she said.
The importance of remembering
Black August is not abstract. It shows up in living rooms, libraries, and community centers.
In Los Angeles, Mr. Simmons outlined a month of programming: an opening event at the Radical Hood Library; Pan‑African Women’s Day; a Black Panther Party breakfast; a group reading of “Blood in My Eye” and weekly physical training and study sessions.
In Philadelphia, Bigga Dre is organizing a strategic planning session on environmental justice, targeting the country’s largest incinerator in Chester, where three‑fourths of Philadelphia’s trash is burned. “This is environmental racism,” he said.
Ms. Chionesu’s work includes “Black Poli Sci 101” sessions with Jalil Muntaqim, who spent nearly 50 years incarcerated after joining the Black Panther Party at 16. Her organization is also investigating toxic mold in a women’s prison.
And on August 15, the October Gallery will host a meditation seminar in commemoration of Black August.
Organizers of these various commemorations return to a single idea: a people cut off from their history can be stripped of their future.
“Marcus Garvey said it best,” Bigga Dre noted. “A people without knowledge of their past is like a tree without roots.” Supreme Dow frames the stakes clearly: “It has always been illegal for us to fight for our freedom.
The struggle demands more than performance. It demands study, action, and consistency.” Ms. Abdullah offers the simplest invitation: “None of us were born knowing this. Start where you are,” she said.
“Forty‑seven years on, the men who died inside California’s prisons are still being remembered by people the state tried to silence—and by a movement that refuses to be forgotten,” Ms. Abdullah said.
THE LATEST:
About 12,000 people from Summerland and thousands more from the surrounding area remain evacuated from their homes on Sunday due to the Bald Range fire, while evacuation alerts stretch south to the edge of Penticton and north through Peachland to Highway 97C.
In a Sunday update just after 9:30 a.m. PT, the B.C. Wildfire Service said the wildfire is displaying extreme Rank 5 and 6 behaviour — the latter being the highest rank a wildfire can reach.
Crews observed rapid rates of spread and embers carried one kilometre ahead of the main fire, starting spot fires.
"Fire behaviour at this intensity is extremely volatile and aggressive, which makes direct attack unsafe for ground crews," the service said on Sunday.
Most evacuees have headed to Penticton for support, where they are being urged to stay with family or friends if they can due to limited accommodations.
Interior Health is extending hours at the Penticton and West Kelowna urgent and primary care centres on Sunday for people who need access to non-emergency care.
Premier David Eby said homes have been lost in the fire, though officials have yet to say how many.
The RCMP said it is also investigating a possible fatality in the Meadow Valley area northwest of the city.
The fire, first spotted Friday evening, grew so rapidly it forced wildfire crews to use helicopters to rescue dozens of people cut off by the flames, officials said Saturday. As of Saturday night it had burned 103 square kilometres.
The B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) says its top priorities are building control lines, protecting structures and ongoing search and rescue operations.
The provincial government declared a state of emergency on Saturday, amid what Eby called "a remarkable escalation in fire activity."
BCWS director of wildfire operations Cliff Chapman said prolonged hot and dry weather has left southern B.C. facing "explosive" fire conditions "we have never seen before."
Thunderstorms forecast for parts of the interior could also bring dry lightning on Sunday, the BCWS said.
There are over 100 wildfires burning across B.C., including the 485 square kilometre Ainslie Creek wildfire east of Boston Bar, which continues to expand.
The BCWS says to the north it has grown within nine kilometres of Highway 8, triggering a new evacuation order from the Nooaitch Indian Band, while to the east it is now within 12 kilometres of Highway 5.
The Bradley Creek wildfire, which is believed to have destroyed at least 230 properties on Okanagan Indian Band land, was classified as "being held" on Saturday, meaning it is not expected to grow under current conditions.
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ShareIn his final remarks, Ilan Pappé urged supporters to move beyond solidarity, transforming anti-Zionist principles into organized political action.
In his final remarks at the Second Jewish Anti-Zionist Congress in Dublin, Israeli historian Ilan Pappé challenged participants to move “from words into action”, arguing that the global movement for Palestine has reached a stage where declarations of solidarity are no longer sufficient. The challenge now, he suggested, is to translate principles such as decolonization, liberation, and de-Zionization into concrete political action.
“I think one of the things we wanted to do in this second conference,” Pappé told attendees, “is to translate slogans into action.”
“It is not enough to say, ‘I want to de-Zionize, I want to decolonize, I want to liberate,” he continued.
Throughout his remarks, Pappé intertwined political analysis with personal reflection, explaining how his own biography—as an Israeli Jew born and raised in Haifa—has shaped his understanding of Palestine’s future.
Pappé began by reflecting on the unusual position he has occupied throughout much of his adult life.
Having spent decades opposing Zionism while living inside Israeli society, he described feeling isolated from the dominant political consensus around him.
“All my adult life,” he said, “I lived in a society where my imagination about the future was exactly the opposite of the imagination of most of the people who were my family, my friends, my peers, my colleagues at the university, and my society at large.”
Today, he said, that isolation has been replaced by a sense of belonging within a growing international movement that shares a common vision for Palestine.
“I feel very fortunate,” he explained. “My own individual aspirations… are no different, as far as I can understand, from the aspirations and vision of most of my Palestinian friends.”
While emphasizing that Palestinian liberation must remain led by Palestinians themselves, Pappé argued that Jewish anti-Zionists have a distinct responsibility that extends beyond expressions of solidarity.
Drawing attention to the British direct-action movement Palestine Action, he challenged participants to consider whether a comparable framework for organized Jewish anti-colonial action should emerge.
“What is the Jewish action for liberation?” he asked. He acknowledged that he had not yet reached a definitive answer but insisted that the question itself had become increasingly urgent.
“We need to claim back our Judaism,” he said, arguing that Jewish identity has been “taken hostage” to justify the continued colonization of Palestine.
Rather than waiting for future conferences, Pappé urged activists to spend the coming year developing practical forms of Jewish anti-Zionist organizing.
“We should focus between this conference and the next one… to think about what Jewish action means in Dublin, in London, in Berlin.”
The second part of Pappé’s address drew heavily on his work as a historian. Recalling conversations with friends in Gaza during Israel’s genocidal war, he acknowledged that discussions about political arrangements after liberation understandably feel remote for many Palestinians struggling simply to survive.
“When we tried to organize a webinar on one democratic state,” he recalled, “our friends in Gaza said, ‘Not today.'”
He described that response as entirely understandable.
Nevertheless, Pappé argued that political movements must distinguish between immediate crises and longer historical processes. “It’s still important… to recognize the difference between short-term developments and long-term processes.”
For Pappé, decolonization is not solely the result of resistance from the colonized. Colonial systems, he argued, also begin to collapse under the weight of their own contradictions.
One of the central arguments of Pappé’s speech was that Israel’s military power should not obscure what he views as deeper structural weaknesses within Israeli society.
Responding to those who point to Israel’s technological, military and diplomatic strength, he offered a striking metaphor.
“People say to me, ‘Israel is so powerful,'” he said.
“Yes,” he replied, “but this is the upper floors of the building. The foundation is crumbling.”
He argued that Israeli society is increasingly divided internally, describing what he characterized as an ongoing process of political fragmentation, military exhaustion, demographic decline and international isolation.
“There is a rot at the foundation of the State of Israel,” he said. “There are extensive cracks in its foundation.”
These developments, he suggested, should encourage activists rather than discourage them.
“If you understand that these processes are taking place,” he said, “you know better where to focus your energy.”
Pappé also pointed to changing public opinion beyond Palestine, particularly among younger generations. He highlighted the growing support for Palestinian rights among young American Jews, arguing that civil society is increasingly diverging from the positions of political elites.
“The numbers of young American Jews who would populate a convention hall to show solidarity with Palestine,” he observed, “is growing exponentially.”
Taken individually, he cautioned, none of these developments would transform the political reality. Together, however, they form what he described as converging historical processes with the potential to produce a transformative moment.
“We are in a process,” he said, “that has the potential of bringing an end to Zionism and colonialism.”
Pappé concluded by looking beyond the present war toward a post-colonial future. He acknowledged that questions surrounding the approximately eight million Jewish Israelis living in historic Palestine will eventually have to be addressed.
Yet, he stressed, their acceptance of decolonization cannot become a prerequisite for Palestinian liberation: “Their position is not a precondition for liberation and decolonization.”
At the same time, he argued that the Palestinian national movement will eventually confront difficult questions about citizenship, coexistence and reconstruction.
Drawing from his recent book ‘Israel on the Brink’, Pappé described an imagined conversation with a future grandchild in a liberated Haifa.
Asked why the Jews who once lived on their street had disappeared, his fictional older self replies that many chose to leave because they could not imagine living in a society no longer organized around apartheid.
“I did all I could to persuade them,” he says in the imagined exchange, “that it’s much better to live in a non-apartheid state, but I failed.”
Pappé ended where much of his historical work has long begun: with the memory of a multi-religious Palestine that existed before political Zionism.
Rather than presenting coexistence as an abstract aspiration, he argued that it represents a historical reality interrupted by colonization.
He described a Palestine where Muslims, Christians and Jews “genuinely coexisted” and suggested that liberation should seek not only to end violence but to restore the possibility of ordinary human life.
“Decolonize Palestine, de-Zionize it, liberate it,” he concluded.
“But more than anything else, make it a normal human place—something the Zionist project wrote the Palestinians out of for the last 120 years.”
