Scott Crow

Purchasing Links

Coming in August 2010

Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective
By scott crow, with a foreword by Kathleen Cleaver
Published: August 2010
ISBN: 978-1-60486-077-1
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 256
Dimensions: 9 by 6
Subjects: Politics, Current Events
$20.00

When both levees and governments failed in New Orleans in the Fall of 2005, scott crow headed into the political storm, co-founding a relief effort called the Common Ground Collective. In the absence of local government, FEMA, and the Red Cross, this unusual volunteer organization, based on ‘solidarity not charity,’ built medical clinics, set up food and water distribution, and created community gardens. They also resisted home demolitions, white militias, police brutality and FEMA incompetence side by side with the people of New Orleans.

Crow’s vivid memoir maps the intertwining of his radical experience and ideas with Katrina’s reality, and community efforts to translate ideals into action. It is a story of resisting indifference, rebuilding hope amidst collapse, and struggling against the grain. Black Flags and Windmills invites and challenges all of us to learn from our histories, and dream of better worlds. And gives us some of the tools to do so.

Praise:

"(scott crow is a)…prominent anarchist community organizer behind a host of organizations including Radical Encuentro Camp, and Treasure City Thrift…”  --Austin Chronicle

“…a living legend amongst anarchist circles…” 
--This American Life

“..depending on your sense of humor or your sense of irony...(crow and common ground)…are the good anarchists..”
--CNN

 “ … crow is a puppetmaster...”
--Federal Bureau of Investigation

Read advance lookout for Blag Flags and Windmills

The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation
Produced by scott crow and Ann Harkness
Narrated by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Released September 2008
ISBN:  978-1-60486-020-7
UPC: 022891476399
Format: DVD (NTSC)
Language: English
Aspect Ratio:  4:3
Length: 109 Minutes
Subject: Documentary, Prison Abolition
$19.95

The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation tells the gripping story of Robert King, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, men who have endured solitary confinement longer than any known living prisoner in the United States. Politicized through contact with the Black Panther Party while inside Louisiana’s prisons, they formed one of the only prison Panther chapters in history and worked to organize other prisoners into a movement for the right to live like human beings. This feature length movie explores their extraordinary struggle for justice while incarcerated in Angola, a former slave plantation where institutionalized rape and murder made it known as one of the most brutal and racist prisons in the United States. The analysis of the Angola 3’s political work, and the criminal cases used to isolate and silence them, occurs within the context of the widespread COINTELPRO being carried out in the 1960’s and 70’s by the FBI and state law enforcement against militant voices for change.

In a partial victory, the courts exonerated Robert King of the original charges and released him in 2001; he continues the fight for the freedom of his two brothers. The ongoing campaign, which includes a civil case soon to come before the Supreme Court, is supported by people and organizations such as Amnesty International, the A.C.L.U., Harry Belafonte, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, Ramsey Clark, Sen. John Conyers, Sister Helen Prejean, (the late) Anita Roddick, Bishop Desmond Tutu and the ANC. Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox have now endured as political prisoners in solitary confinement for over thirty-five years.

Narrated by Mumia Abu-Jamal, The Angola 3 features interviews with former Panthers, political prisoners and revolutionaries, including the Angola 3 themselves, and Bo Brown, Geronimo (ji Jaga) Pratt, Malik Rahim, Yuri Kochiyama, David Hilliard, Rod Coronado, Noelle Hanrahan, Kiilu Nyasha, Marion Brown, Luis Talamantez, Gail Shaw and many others. Portions of the proceeds go to support the Angola 3. Features the music of Truth Universal written by Tajiri Kamau.

Extras include: "Angola 3" music video for a song written and produced by Dave Stewart (of the Eurythmics) in support of the A3 featuring Saul Williams, Nadirah X, Asdru Sierra, Dana Glover, Tina Schlieske and Derrick Ashong. Directed by Robin Davey. Plus a trailer for the film which features outtakes not in the feature.

Buy this DVD now | Read DVD reviews

Latest Blog Entries

• Ghosts, Warriors and those the state tries to bury alive
  Some of these warriors fell in battles, but some of these warriors were locked far away and forgotten by those who assume to hold power over the rest of us.  Put into living coffins to finish their lives, and to their keepers dismay they co...

• A letter for Gene Akins 1937-2010: A Lifelong Wobbly and anarchist
  This is a letter of remembrances in memoriam for my friend Gene Akins who passed away recently. Gene was a lifelong bonafide card carrying Industrial Workers of the World ‘Wobbly’ since the early 1960’s. He was also a lifelong ...

• NOT GUILTY: Twelve reasonable people, and how the state tried to ‘Aunt Sally’ Kate Kibby
  This is my personal report of the Federal trial--and tribulations--of a woman, Kate Kibby, who was recently found NOT GUILTY for an alleged threat against paid FBI informant, mole, and provocateur Brandon Darby

• Anniversaries So We Don't Forget: Katrina, Common Ground and New Orleans four years on.
  Anniversaries are reminders that we must never give up, give in or forget.

• Will the real story please stand up? Darby, democracy and self
  Do not be afraid, do not stop trusting, and do not stop dreaming of better worlds.

• A letter to Cynicism and the Circular Firing Squad that is Us
  A reflection on the Common Ground Collective, leadership, myths and noble animals.

• Eating Crow: Mistakes, Brandon Darby, the FBI and Our Resilience
  “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” - Zora Neale Hurston

• Reportback from Common Ground Relief 09.04.08
  A report from the ground in the Gulf Coast Region 09.04.08

• On Remembrances and Anniversaries, Tears for the Gulf Coast & Immediate Concerns, Katrina & Gustav
  It's the third anniversary of the devastation of the Gulf Coast in the early years of this century.

What Others Are Saying...

Reviews

• Advance Lookout for Blag Flags and Windmills
• The Angola 3: Political Media Review
• The Angola 3: Abort Magazine

It is no secret that the United States does not hesitate to incarcerate. While the US only represents 5% of the global population, it cages nearly 25% of the world’s prisoners-approximately 2.3 million people. Of these 2.3 million people, approximately half are African American (13% of US population). Of course, the vastly disproportionate caging and state coercion of African Americans in the US has a long and brutal history. This bloody legacy is made manifest in prisons like Angola, named for the country from which many southern plantation slaves were abducted. The Angola 3: Black Panthers and the Last Slave Plantation details the history of not only Angola prison, but the broader struggle between the US police state and organizations like the Black Panthers over the rights and quality of life of African Americans in the US...

Read more | Buy DVD now | Back to reviews | Back to top  

DVD Review: The Angola 3
Abort Magazine

Narrated by Mumia Abu-Jamal, this is the story of Robert King Wilkerson, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox - men who have endured solitary confinement longer than any known prisoner in the US, and who formed one of the only prison chapters of the Black Panthers.  Inside the notorious Angola prison - a former slave plantation where the only change since slavery is it’s classification, prisoners work under much the same conditions as the 1800’s, watched by mounted overseers with shotguns.

It is these images of a modern day plantation that hit the hardest, combined with first hand accounts of institutionalized rape and murder that keep the population in physical and psychological chains.  The Angola 3’s victory is that in this environment of total oppression,  they organized fellow prisoners into a movement for the right to live as human beings.  Within the context of the COINTELPRO operations being carried out by the FBI in the 60’s and 70’s to silence radical voices, this achievement is nothing short of a miracle.

Through interviews with the 3, as well as original Black Panthers Geronimo Pratt, David Hilliard and others,  the nature and scale of this struggle is revealed, and the down to earth humanity of all the members of the movement shines through.  Although occasionally very dry in presentation - many of the interviews are on scratchy, penitentiary intercoms with only a photograph to accompany them - patience is rewarded with gems of wisdom and the indomitable spirit of true freedom fighters.

For those that don’t know, this film is an excellent introduction to one of the greatest social movements of the 20th century - The Black Panther party, an organization that had the American power structure shaking in it’s goose-stepping boots for over a decade until it was mercilessly crushed and nearly destoyed, it’s leaders assasinated and imprisoned, its true political aims obscured.  Time to watch Huey P’s speeches on YouTube again kids.

Buy DVD now | Back to reviews | Back to top  

Author Portfolio

South End Press and Joy James, eds. contributor to What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race and the State of the Nation. Cambridge: South End Press, 2007.

Back to top