scott crow

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Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective
By scott crow, with a foreword by Kathleen Cleaver
Published: October 2011
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.

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.

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Latest Blog Entries

• Repression against grassroots hurricane relief lingers in New Orleans
  The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy has raised the question once again of whether post-disaster relief can help build organizations and networks that will create more resilient communities for the future. In trying to do so, East Coast activists a...

• Black Flags & Windmills: Climate Justice in Action
  "Black Flags and Windmills: Climate Justice in Action"By Scott Parkin  Its a preview story on my upcoming book from PM Press. Originally appeared on Rainforest Action Network blog: The Understory

• To catch a terrorist: The FBI hunts for the enemy within
  This is a compelling story in the recent issue of Harper's magazine about the targeting of Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent, and the use of informants who do more than gather information in the ludicrous 'War on Terror'.  I am quo...

• scott crow: Interview on KOOP radio
  This is a recent interview w/ scott crow on Rag Radio with host Thorne Dreyer on Austin, Texas' KOOP 91.7.  The interview is from Aug. 8th, 2011. 

• FBI to Expand Domestic Surveillance Powers as Details Emerge of Its Spy Campaign Targeting Activists: An interview w/ scott crow
  DEMOCRACY NOW!FBI to Expand Domestic Surveillance Powers as Details Emerge of Its Spy Campaign Targeting Activists: An interview w/ scott crow and Mike German

• Journal: Left Eye on Books highlights 'Black Flags and Windmills'
  My upcoming book 'Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective' was highlighted as todays pick by the journal Left Eye on Books  

• From the NY Times: "For Anarchist, Details of Life as F.B.I. Target"
  Here is a recent profile piece on my life and the long term government/ corporate spying on my life over the last 10 years.  It misses many details, but touches on the absurdity and depth to which the state will go to label people as 'domesti...

• INTERVIEW with scott crow in December 2010 Z Magazine
  Darwin Bond-Graham interviews  PM Press author scott crow in the December  issue of Zmagazine .  

• 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 ...

What Others Are Saying...

Interview

• scott crow on Breaking the Set
• scott crow talk at the Law & Disorder Conference
• scott crow on Medium.com & Death & Taxes Magazine
  
• scott crow on The Circled A
• scott crow on Alas Barricadas
• scott crow on Alpine Anarchist
• scott crow on Writerscast
• scott crow on STIR Magazine
• scott crow on Left Eye on Books
• scott crow on KZFR radio's 'The Point' hosted by Sue Hilderbrand
• scott crow on Diebenow.com
• scott crow on Mother Jones

Reviews

• Black Flags and Windmills: Earth First! News
• Black Flags and Windmills: Razorcake
• Black Flags and Windmills: Text as Folk Art on The Anvil
• Black Flags and Windmills: 1 of top 5 books of 2011: Progressive Magazine
• Black Flags and Windmills: The Rag Blog
• Black Flags and Windmills: Texas Observer
• Advance Lookout for Blag Flags and Windmills
• The Angola 3: Political Media Review
• The Angola 3: Abort Magazine

Mentions/Related

• scott crow at the Austin Film Fest
  
• scott crow in Chico on newsreview.com
• scott crow in The Sounds
• Repression against grassroots hurricane relief lingers in New Orleans
  

scott crow interviewed on Medium.com & Death & Taxes
by DJ Pangburn
Medium.com / Death & Taxes Magazine
February 22, 2013

The voter, says crow, must pass into oblivion. In his or her place must arise the doer, the creator—that person who sees all potential and jumps into action.

Ancient Rome suffered a political paralysis similar to contemporary America. In Rome voters were mostly irrelevant. Into this political void came the Roman emperors who, while bringing some domestic stability, only hastened Rome's fall. Whereas the great American political paralysis might be a melancholic moment for this country's patriots, scott crow on the other hand sees vast opportunities to do great things.

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scott crow at the Austin Film Fest: 'Sparks fly'
by Stephen Saito
The Moveable Fest
October 23rd, 2012

“Let me say that we had nothing to do with making the film except that we were interviewed for it,” said Austin-based activist Scott Crow in one of the more unusual introductions to ever begin a Q & A session at a film festival.

Proudly identifying himself as an anarchist, but quickly adding that “the world I actually want to live in is an egalitarian world,” Crow ushered a touch of chaos into the typically staid practice of a post-screening chat when he took center stage at the Austin Film Festival’s premiere screening of “Informant,” which had won the festival’s prize for Best Documentary earlier in the day.

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scott crow in Chico: As the crow flies
by Vic Cantu
newsreview.com
December 13th, 2012

“I am a revolutionary.”Thus began Scott Crow’s rousing speech about making the world a better place. Speaking in Ayres 106 on the Chico State campus on Dec. 6, Crow, an Austin, Texas-based activist and author and self-described anarchist, advocated fighting for what is morally correct, even breaking the law if need be. And Crow should know—10 of his friends, including his father and uncle, have been jailed for protesting, mostly for vandalism.

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Repression against grassroots hurricane relief lingers in New Orleans
by Vic Cantu
newsreview.com
December 13th, 2012


Since Hurricane Katrina landed over seven years ago, residents of New Orleans and the surrounding communities have faced one environmental and humanitarian crisis after another. The BP Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010 severely damaged the Gulf ecosystem, leaving the public to bear the costs. Epidemics of poverty, homelessness, violence and incarceration continue to plague New Orleans. When Hurricane Isaac recently pounded the Gulf Coast with heavy rains that led to extensive flooding in August, it left in its wake another environmental disaster.

In nearby Braithwaite, La., the Stolthaven Chemical Facility has reported that as many as 191,000 gallons of chemicals — including toxics such as octene — may have leaked into surrounding waterways and communities.

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Black Flags and Windmills: A Review
by Sasha
Earth First! News
November 1st, 2012


When I began reading Black Flags and Windmills (PM Press 2011), by scott crow, my imagination was sparked by the power of scott crow’s commitment to radical organizing. There is a sense of no return that pervades this deep and intense work. In passionate and effusive prose, crow describes the nature of Hurricane Katrina’s impact as well as organizing efforts to support communities of color and poor people in the Algiers neighborhood. But crow lends an equal amount of time to exploring the logistical aspects of organizing, and how they relate to an unshakable faith in anarchism. For the fascinating and courageous insight into strong, though radical in its self-critique, anarchist praxis, Black Flags and Windmills has become a classic in the genre of non-fiction, and an important tool for folks today working in the context of rising cats-tastrophy (hint, hint, Hurricane Sandy…).

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Black Flags and Windmills: One of top 5 Reads for 2011
By Steve Hart
Razorcake
Friday, March 30 2012

Black Flags and Windmills is an incredible book about a group of dedicated men and women who, faced with challenges from all sides of the United States government, built an oasis in a desert of shitty water and bloating animal carcasses. The author also writes about some of his internal struggles with the collective and doesn't shy away from his criticism of his own techniques and beliefs.

I highly recommend this book. It is dramatic and tense, full of intense hope and utter despair. Everyone should read this.

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Black Flags and Windmills: One of top 5 Reads for 2011
The Anvil
February 19, 2012

While the group had many contributors and co-creators, it is fair to say that CGC (now a non-profit called Common Ground Relief) was initiated by a local ex Black Panther, a local woman, and an anarchist, in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when New Orleans was traumatized; entire neighborhoods had been emptied – sometimes through force; the government was demonstrably more interested in controlling the behavior of those who were left, than it was in meeting their needs. CGC, like many other efforts that seek to serve people’s needs without government or NGO mediation, has been lauded by some as an example of direct action, and criticized by some as a charity. In fact it was probably both, depending on when and on which people or subset of people one focuses on. Scott crow makes clear that there was an ongoing negotiation between working with people who were not anarchists, not used to dealing with anarchist horizontal process and mostly probably not interested in learning to deal with it, and the anarchists who made up most or sometimes all of the volunteers who were coming in from outside the area. Differences that were not made any less challenging by the different racial, economic, and cultural compositions of the two groups.

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Black Flags and Windmills: One of top 5 Reads for 2011
by Elizabeth DiNovella
The Progressive Magazine
December 21st, 2011

crow says the surveillance and ongoing criminalization of dissent is “an absolute farce. People like me are paper tigers. If you are going to have a war on terrorism, you need terrorists. Who are easy to find? Social activists.”

He knows that the FBI uses surveillance as a way to intimidate activists. “What everyone fears about surveillance, it’s happened to me, and I’m OK,” he says. “It hasn’t been pleasant. But I’m OK.”

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Black Flags and Windmills: A Review
by Mariann G. Wizard
The Rag Blog
December 13, 2011

Black Flags and Windmills, crow's first book, focuses on Common Ground Collective, an anarchist-based relief organization he helped found when official disaster relief efforts not only failed to meet the needs of affected residents along the Gulf Coast, but seemed intent upon criminalizing them.

But that wasn't what he set out to do. While millions sat stunned, weeping at televised images of a drowned metropolis, as mythic to the American psyche as Atlantis to the Greeks', scott crow drove from Austin, Texas, to New Orleans to look for a stranded friend.

Black Panther Party matriarch Kathleen Cleaver's insightful introduction sees this as the fulcrum, asking, "What deep motivation drives anyone to travel by boat across an unfamiliar flooded city looking for a friend under life-threatening circumstances?"

The answer comes from another BPP icon, Geronimo ji Jaga: "Revolutionaries are motivated by great love for another world."

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While Common Ground took shape the vacuum began to fill with a volatile cocktail of greed, racism, and fear. Some members of Common Ground took up arms to protect themselves and their community, knowing their work could not flourish without security. I have never brandished a weapon, but neither have I had one pointed at me. Right or wrong, Common Ground decided guns were a necessary response. Throughout this tenuous time, Common Ground’s commitment and work remained unshaken. Undaunted by constant security threats, the collective remained steadfast. Crow writes “we would not let Power deny dignity and self-determination to anyone.”

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On a personal level it was healing to write: I came back with post-traumatic stress, couldn’t function in society and felt like the ghost in the machine a lot. The writing actually helped me to relive those traumas in a different way, to really dissect them. It was almost a five-year process; I feel so much better now than I did when I started the book. This is not to say that Black Flags and Windmills is a sorrow-filled book. There are lots of beautiful stories along the way and lots of really engaging organizing that was going on. The book describes the anarchist heyday of Common Ground, when the most self-identified anarchists came; this was early September 2005 until 2008. Afterward, the organization became much more structured in a traditional nonprofit way. This is not to denigrate it—just to say that the book focuses on this initial period of “black flags” at Common Ground.

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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...

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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.

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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.

Other Videos

What Me Worry? The rise of the surveillance state and what we can do about it.
Law & Disorder Conference, Portland State University
April 2012


Excerpt from Wood Shoe talk April 2013

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