Black History

Co-Author of New Memoir Unveils the Torture of Los Angeles-Based Revolutionary Deborah Jones

Black revolutionaries of the 1960s and 1970s faced unimaginable discrimination, violence, obstruction and hostility from law enforcement, people who opposed their ideologies and activities — and even undercover agents of the federal government. But what happens when the pain, torment and sabotage come from individuals they fought alongside, who they regarded as colleagues and “comrades?” The newly released memoir “What We Stood For: The Story of a Revolutionary Black Woman,” written with the assistance of Thandisizwe Chimurenga, reveals the untold story of Los Angeles-based activist and advocate Deborah Jones. It details the harrowing experiences of Jones, 73, as a member of the Us Organization, one of the leading Black Power groups in California and the United States, from 1968 to 1970.

Published

9 months ago

August 6, 2024

Oakland Post

Book Cover of What We Stood For: The Story of a Revolutionary Black Woman”

By Edward Henderson, California Black Media

But what happens when the pain, torment and sabotage come from individuals they fought alongside, who they regarded as colleagues and “comrades?”

The newly released memoir “What We Stood For: The Story of a Revolutionary Black Woman,” written with the assistance of Thandisizwe Chimurenga, reveals the untold story of Los Angeles-based activist and advocate Deborah Jones. It details the harrowing experiences of Jones, 73, as a member of the Us Organization, one of the leading Black Power groups in California and the United States, from 1968 to 1970.

The US Organization was a political rival to the Black Panther Party.

Two years after Jones joined the Us Organization’s Taifa (Nation) Dance Troupe, Maulana Karenga, cofounder of the organization known for creating the African American holiday of Kwanzaa, accused Jones and Gail “Idili” Davis, another member, of trying to poison him.

According to Jones, that accusation is false and baseless.

According to the account in the book, the women were held and tortured in Karenga’s garage over Mother’s Day weekend in 1970. In addition to describing this account and explaining Jones’ life afterward, the memoir also tells Jones’ story of growing up in Los Angeles in a loving, Pro-Black household, and her life’s calling of inspiring Black youth through Afro-centric teachings.

California Black Media spoke with co-writer Thandisizwe Chimurenga about her process working with Jones on the memoir and some of the sensitive subjects it includes.

Jones declined CBM’s interview request and deferred to Chimurenga.

“The main reason I wanted to be part of this project, I believe Debroah Jones and Gale Davis, the other woman who was tortured along with her, I believe they are used as a hammer against Karenga and this US Organization,” said Chimurenga.

“What I mean by that is: every year during Kwanzaa, people who don’t like Karenga or the US Organization — because they’ve adopted the beef of the Panthers vs the US organization — because of the anger and shock and hurt over the murders of Bunchy (Carter) and John (Huggins) — one of the things they say is ‘in addition to killing Bunchy and John,” they also tortured two sisters.”

Members of the US Organization were convicted for killing Black Panthers Carter and Huggins.

Declassified FBI files have since revealed that some of the tensions between the U.S. Organization and the Black Panthers were inflamed by secret federal agents.

Chimurenga says, with the book, she and Jones want to associate faces with the nameless women people often mention were tortured by the US organization.

“They have names. They are actual people. This is what their life is like,” said Chimurenga. “This is what Deborah says happened to her. She’s not just a nameless cudgel.”

“What We Stood For: The Story of a Revolutionary Black Woman” is available via Diasporic Africa Press and Amazon.

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Activism

Four Bills Focus on Financial Compensation for Descendants of Enslaved People

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of loss property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Published

7 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

Edward Henderson
California Black Media

Last week, California Black Media (CBM) provided an update on four bills in the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) 2025 Road to Repair package.

The 16 bills in the Black Caucus’s 2025 “Road to Repair” package focus on “repairing the generational harms caused by the cruel treatment of African American slaves in the United States and decades of systemic deprivation and injustice inflicted upon Black Californians,” said the CLBC in a release.

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of lost property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Here are summaries of these bills, information about their authors, and updates on how far each one has advanced in the legislative process.

Assembly Bill (AB) 57

AB 57, introduced by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), would require that at least 10% of the monies in the state’s home purchase assistance fund be made available to applicants who meet the requirements for a loan under the home purchase assistance program and are descendants of formerly enslaved people.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee is currently reviewing the legislation.

Assembly Bill (AB) 62

AB 62, also introduced by McKinnor, would require the Office of Legal Affairs to review, investigate, and make specific determinations regarding applications from people who claim they are the dispossessed owners of property seized from them because of racially motivated eminent domain. The bill would define “racially motivated eminent domain” to mean when the state acquires private property for public use and does not provide just compensation to the owner, due in whole or in part, to the owner’s race.

AB 62 is currently under review in the Judiciary Committee.

Senate Bill (SB) 464

SB 464, introduced by Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), aims to strengthen the existing civil rights laws in California concerning employer pay data reporting. The bill mandates that private employers with 100 or more employees submit annual pay data reports to the Civil Rights Department. These reports must include detailed demographic information — including race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation — pertaining to their workforce distribution and compensation across different job categories. Furthermore, beginning in 2027, public employers will also be required to comply with these reporting requirements.

The Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment, and Rules is currently reviewing SB 464. A hearing is expected to be held on April 23.

Senate Bill (SB) 518

SB 518, introduced by Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego), establishes the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery to address and remedy the lasting harms of slavery and the Jim Crow laws suffered by Black Californians.

SB 518 is under review in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A hearing is expected to be held on April 22.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

8 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

8 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.