On this day, 23 March 1953, singer, songwriter and former Black Panther Yvette Marie Stevens, better known as Chaka Khan, was born in Chicago.
Her stepmother was a civil rights activist, who encouraged Khan to speak up. And by the age of 14 she had joined the revolutionary Black Panther Party. A friend of Chicago Panther leader Fred Hampton, she dropped out of high school, spoke at rallies and worked in the organisation’s free breakfast for children program.
Khan was later given a gun which she held in her room, but she later told Guardian journalist Alexis Petridis: “every moment I had that gun it changed me. I felt physically sick. I threw it away into Botany’s Pond by Chicago University, then I felt better. That finished me with the Panthers.”
Khan went on to considerable success in bands and as a solo artist.
We have numerous books available by and about former Panthers here: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/black-panthershttps://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1382038068648006/?type=3
Like many of you, lately I spend a lot of time in silent stress. I hope you and those dear to you are safe and that you’re each taking social distancing very seriously. The comic will resume its usual content after this in hopes that, at the very least, I can create some distraction for us both.
This reporter’s reaction to Donald Trump shitting all over the most obvious softball question is my new most favorite thing of ever.
Yikes
Whitehouse correspondents are some of the ballsiest people in the world especially in this day and age.
Imagine. Your job is to sit in front of the most powerful man in the country if not the world and interrogate him on national tv in front of god and everyone. And that man is both an idiot and hates everyone in your profession.
This guy probably went to college for journalism and clawed his way up through the industry for years to get to the point where he can be a whitehouse correspondent and is putting himself and potentially his coworkers and family in danger of being infected because he’s gotta leave the house every day to interrogate the people who work in the executive branch and report back to his news agency because that’s his frickin job even with confirmed cases on Capitol Hill. And then he asks a baseline simple question and the president calls him stupid.
What. Other response is there other than that? My god. I am just… so sorry for reporters during this time.
