Morgan Hubbard - The Black August Event: How Education Serves as an Act of Resistance in a White Supremacist Society - (2-3 points)

The Black August Event: How Education Serves as an Act of Resistance in a White Supremacist Society

The "Commemoration of A Black August" event, on September 11th, 2025, featured the screening of Free Angela and All Political Prisoners and a panel from two of Spelman's professors, Dr. McCarty and Dr. Richardson. The director of the film, Shola Lynch, began with an introduction of Angela Davis' activism and how important it is to shed light on the Black Panther Party; however, many of the activists will never see how their work is still celebrated. 

The excerpt of the film commenced with the known story of the fight for educational desegregation and the eradication of racially driven police brutality. As many black lives continued to be lost at the cost of the fight, the Black Panther Party was created as an act of self-defense against America's systematic flaws. The violent response of numerous black Americans became a threat to the US police, but not in the ways that one would expect it to. The fear was not solely due to their self-defense through guns, however, the far more horrific fear was that black Americans had refused to succumb to a white supremacist system. Many white Americans continued to realize that they had lost control of the system that they created to deem black Americans as inferior. 

Angela Davis worked as a prominant figure in the Black Panther Party, but she participated in the educational aspect of black resistance. She enlightened people about Marxism and how the system relates to the work of the party, before she took up a job at UCLA as a professor. In her career, she recieved immense backlash when white Americans discovered her involvement in the Black Panther Party and in the communist party. Ronald Reagan pushed the sentiment that her participation in such parties indicated that she would indoctrinate the faculty and students into her beliefs which would threaten the safety and future of UCLA. The reactions of the white Americans is truly frustrating, but not at all surprising. Many white Americans saw, and still see, any act of resistance against the function of the government as a threat to their safety and become defensive. While the excerpt of the film ended here, we all had an understanding of the violence that sparked due to the newfound black power within the Black Panther Party. 

The panel discussion built upon the film and centered around the concept of a "political prisoner" and how that relates to the broader understanding of education at Spelman. Dr. McCarty spoke from personal exprerience within her involvement in the Black Panther Party and her support to those who are victims of the system. As she continued to participate in their protests, she took notice of how police systems would feel so threatened that they pinpointed activists and attempted to intimidate them as discouragement. Listening to Dr. McCarty retell the stories from her own exprience contrasted the sentiment that racism and segregation ended long ago, as she is currently my ADW professor. When you understand that someone you know has experienced what you've been learning about in a distant manner, it begins to bridge the gap between learning and experience. I always had an understanding that racism was not a distant memory in US history, however, she made the Black Panther Party feel more personal through hearing her story. 

Dr. Richardson touched on how to teach future generation about black resistance regardless of the current challenges within the Department of Education and she made a statement that has continued to stick with me. She explained that, "you have to read because they don't want you to." Activism requires creativity and critical thinking, which in turn marks education as an act of resistance because white supramacists want you to develop a white racist mentality to continue their control. Change requires some element of suprise because change will not occur if the same protests continue and that creativity is reliant on education. 

The event has left me thinking about what I can do to serve and has pushed me to attempt to find any programs that involve working with the incarcerated community. I want to continue the work of past activists instead of allowing myself to be content with the way that the world is currently running because America has yet to provide equal treatment to all citizens.

Morgan Hubbard