Black August 2020

Amid a global pandemic and uprisings in defense of the lives of Black people across the US and around the world, we held our fourth annual Black August observance in Hawaiʻi, holding space for our community to learn and grow together, to make commitments to this place and to each other, and to strategize, all while situating ourselves in a long, worldwide genealogy of resistance to White supremacy and colonialism.

While we were not able to meet in person, we hosted 24 virtual events over the course of the 31 days of August. We held virtual learning events, community gatherings, talks, classes, and reading circles over the four weeks, finding so much sustenance in making new relationships across our communities, learning hidden histories, and imagining what true freedom can mean for us, our planet, our ancestors, and the generations yet to come.

Some highlights from the month

Hawaiʻi has joined many places around the world in making the ʻXʻ designation available on identification cards, providing one more option beyond ʻmale' and 'female.' This conversation, part of the Pōpolo Project's Black August observance, engages activists and advocates who defy the gender binary in their work and lives, challenging and dismantling White supremacist notions and structures of gender so we can all get free. Featuring: Jen Jenkins, an advocate and activist in the areas of LGBTQ liberation and transformative justice. They currently serve as Community Co-chair of the Hawai’i Department of Health Sex and Gender Minority Group. Daniel Chinemerem Ikejimba, a first generation Nigerian-American born and raised in Chicago, IL. They recently completed a Master’s in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Hawai’i Pacific University. They are the co-founder of The Abstract, a mental health resource for self-investigation and healing. Recorded August 5, 2020

Dr. Gerald Horne is a historian and author of more than thirty books that examine histories of race and empire, including The White Pacific: US Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas after the Civil War (2007) and Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawai'i (2011), both from the University of Hawai'i Press. As a part of the Pōpolo Project's observance of Black August, this conversation explores how the uprisings and pandemic of 2020 are linked to the history of US politics, imperialism, and race and why internationalism and the history of labor in Hawai'i in the Pacific are important for understanding global movements for liberation. Recorded August 8, 2020

What does it mean to be raising and educating Black youth in Hawaiʻi? What opportunities, challenges, and responsibilities do we have as parents, educators, and community members? This engaging conversation, part of the Pōpolo Project's observance of Black August, is led by educators and thinkers in our community, who push us to consider what we all need to learn to get free. Featuring Luanna Peterson, Kevin Sledge, Piper Lovemore, and Dr. Keith Cross Recorded August 15, 2020

This talk by Dr. Joyce Pualani Warren as part of the Pōpolo Project's Black August observance, examines texts by Prince Alexander Liholiho, Samuel Kamakau, King Kalākaua, and Queen Lili‘uokalani to trace a strand of nineteenth-century Kanaka Maoli literary nationalism which embraced figurative blackness as a means to combat settler colonial notions of physical, racial blackness as a trait that made Kānaka Maoli unfit for sovereignty. Recorded August 22, 2020.

Historian Quito Swan tells a story of Black internationalism that traverses the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans in the extraordinary life story of Dr. Pauulu Kamarakafego, a Caribbean pan-African liberation leader, environmental scientist, and activist whose vision of true Black liberation purposefully included the Pacific. As part of the Pōpolo Projectʻs observance of Black August, Dr. Swan joined us to talk story about his book, Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice, just published in 2020, and connected the legacy of Pauulu Kamarakafego to contemporary solidarity movements for environmental justice and liberation in the global African Diaspora and the Global South. Recorded August 29, 2020