Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power - Screening and Discussion

636 North Broad Street,New Orleans LA 70119

19 October, 2022

Description

Join us for the New Orleans premiere of this powerful new film. This event will feature a discussion with local and national Civil Rights and Black Power Movement veterans. Locally, we will have members of the New Orleans chapter of the Black Panther Party present, including Malik Rahim. We will also have Mukasa Dada here from Atlanta. He was a field organizer with SNCC, and known for coining the phrase “Black Power.” ABOUT Mukasa Dada: Mukasa Dada, also known as Willie Ricks, was born on February 18, 1943, in Chattanooga, Tennessee. His father, John D. Ricks, was a cement finisher and his mother, Casey Ricks, was a homemaker. He built a reputation for being a heavily militant figure in the Civil Rights Movement and was also known for coining the phrase “black power.” Growing up, he attended James A. Henry Elementary and 2nd District Junior High. He never continued his education past the 7th grade. Even after dropping out, he still would hang around his sister’s school and with the other students in attendance. As a result, he became involved in the activism that the students were engaged in such as the marches and the sit-ins. Due to how violent the marches became, the NAACP came to Chattanooga to introduce the activists there to nonviolence, which was his initial introduction to the concept of nonviolence. However, his reputation of militancy made it through the grapevine allowing Jim Forman to hear about him and want him involved in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1963. Within SNCC, Dada became an organizer in Alabama and Georgia. His work involved preparing people for literacy tests and forming schools Freedom Schools. Later in 1966, he became a field secretary in Lowndes County and developed an alternative to the Democratic Party. This party was the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, which came to be known as the Black Panther Party. Also, during the Meredith March Against Fear in 1966, Mukasa Dada coined the phrase “Black power” during a motivational speech to pull in more marchers. He is currently still very active in speaking about Black empowerment around the world and has contributed to various publications regarding the movement. ABOUT Malik Rahim: Malik Rahim joined the Black Panther Party during the Civil Rights movement and was a leader in the New Orleans Panthers by 1970. His house became the depository for the Chapter. Through the Panthers, he participated in the free breakfast program for children, political education classes, facilitation of free medical care, and neighborhood clean up and empowerment programs. Ever since, he has continued to be involved in community organizing against the death penalty, against solitary confinement on a national and international level. In 2005, Rahim co-founded the Common Ground Collective within his house, where he still resides on Atlantic Avenue in New Orleans, Louisiana. Rahim continues to be an activist and community leader while his house is both a memorial to past civil rights movements and current center for post-Katrina support and organizing efforts in New Orleans. ABOUT Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power: In 1960, Lowndes County, AL--despite being 80% Black--had zero registered Black voters. This film chronicles the courageous men and women, famous and unknown, who put their lives on the line to secure the right to vote for everyone. The story here is told by the Black and white people who were there at the time, including grassroots organizers and citizens content with the status quo, who share their personal anecdotes of that tumultuous time, lending an uncommon intimacy and authenticity to this historical documentary. Against a backdrop of blatant and brutal violence against freedom fighters, a young Stokely Carmichael brings passion to the crusade, and we witness the evolution of the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) into a powerful force on the frontlines, fanning the cause outward throughout the South. Celebrated documentarians Sam Pollard and Geeta Gandbhir expertly weave rarely seen archival footage and first-person testimony to create a solid sense of place and capture the high-stakes tension on the ground. Through their expert direction emerges an intimate, insightful snapshot of this seminal moment in the quest for Civil Rights, a film whose relation to the current assault on the right to vote makes it urgently relevant.