Category Archives: Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble and Cultural Work

Tribute To A Freedom Fighter: Our Beloved Joan Stands Tall Among the Ancestors

Joan Sharpe Neal was the daughter of sharecroppers from Edgecombe County in eastern North Carolina.   She was among the first generations in her family who went from the fields to the factories, prevalent in the 1980s in the eastern blackbelt.

Joan stepped forward as an activist in BWFJ’s 1988 campaign to organize workers at the Schlage Lock plant in Rocky Mount, North Carolina when the plant issued a surprise notice to the workers that the plant would immediately close and move its manufacturing to Tecate, Mexico.  The company promised the workers closing benefits such as severance pay but later reneged, planning to leave the workforce stranded.  BWFJ helped the workers organize to win back those promised benefits. During the campaign, a cancer cluster resulting in the death of 25 workers was discovered and traced back to toxic waste Schlage was dumping in the surrounding area.  Joan was an unassuming member of the fightback waged by the workers for just compensation and accountability of the company.  As a result of the struggle the workers not only won back the promised benefits but expanded those benefits to include extended health care coverage for all the workers and the Rocky Mount plant designated as a Superfund Clean-up Site under the EPA.

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THIS 2021 DR. ML KING DAY… STATE OF EMERGENCY…LET’S REMEMBER KING’S REAL LESSONS !

The following is a recent speech given by Angaza Sabubu Laughinghouse  a BWFJ leader.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is more remembered by most for his “I have a Dream Speech” and not his radical political actions or radical views about the failures of U.S. capitalism and its systematic racism or embedded white supremacy! Why are so many of us fuzzy, forgetful or just content with the political and media myth makers or just plain intentional lies about King?

Along with many others, I am a product of the 1960’s-70’s activism and movements. As an inquiring Black working class youth, born to Gloria and Charlie Jr. of Jim Crow segregated Greenville, NC, I was deeply impacted and shaped by this historic period and his April 4th,1968 assassination which occurred nearly 53 years ago.
 
 My family, by then, had long migrated, like many African –Americans, to New York City and the North. They escaped the intensity of southern brand of repression just to endure a more sophisticated systematic racism up North.  As we know, King was also influenced by the northern & large urban  Black leaders and movements ( ie.  militant  self-defense/anti-police brutality, youth organizations, Malcolm X ( Ballot or Bullet speech), Black workers unionizing/ tenant organizing/fighting for affirmative action, anti-Viet Nam War, League of Revolutionary Black Workers, etc.). So in the late 1960’s, King attempted to bring his southern civil rights tactics to Chicago and the North, with not only violent racist resistance from whites, but the more militant urban Blacks who wanted to challenge the entire systematic racism and economic oppression of this capitalist society!

BWFJ DENOUNCES THE MURDER OF PALESTINIANS; SUPPORTS RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION, RIGHT OF RETURN

Date: Mon, 14 May 2018

Black Workers For Justice (BWFJ) calls on all Black leaders and activists to speak out and call for an end to the recent Israeli killings of Palestinians who are protesting in their own territories of Gaza and Jerusalem!  The Trump Administration and  U.S. government are supporting the Zionist colonial state and their murders of over 53 people and over 1000 injured!
Dr. Martin L. King stated in 1967, that the U.S. is the greatest purveyor of all violence in the world today. And as we approach Malcolm X’s 93rd birthday, we must remember his words that capitalism and Imperialism  are like vultures, preying on the oppressed.
Jerusalem was home to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, until the Zionists killed and expelled the Palestinians from their land in 1948. Today, the pro-Zionist Trump Administration is continues to force oppressed Palestinians from their homes. By declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moving the US embassy there amid controversy and protest, the Trump administration has insulted the Palestine Peoples Nation and struggle for liberation from Zionism and US/European  Imperialism.
BWFJ is calling on all African Americans to recognize and examine the connection between the Black struggle for self-determination here in America, and that of the Palestinian people. Our people here in America face attacks on our communities through gentrification, attacks on our bodies through police brutality, and attacks on our livelihoods as the cost of living rises but wages remain the same. Our sisters and brothers in Palestinian face similar threats as they remain severely oppressed under an Israeli system of apartheid.
We must hold rallies, informational pickets, student teach-ins, lunch and learns, and other activities to publicize and support the struggle of the Palestinian people!
Self Determination for African-Americans  and the oppressed Palestinian Nation!
End the murders of all Blacks, Brown, Palestinian, and oppressed people at home and abroad!

“State of Emergency,” Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble New CD

The Fruit of Labor Singing Ensemble, our songs and music were born out of the struggle of organizing African American workers in the “Black Belt” region of North Carolina and the South. Recruited from workplace and community struggles, The “Fruit” has captured in music oppressed peoples’ and the working class’ history of community and workplace struggles.

Many folks have experienced the powerful political messaging of our lyrics bound up in soul stirring, gut wrenching blues, bouncing to a hip-hop or reggae beat or sliding in and out of a jazz melody with a little scat included. Our lyrics have also been known to get caught up in a 70’s funk beat and break it down rhythm & blues sound. They are even infused, at times, with a bit of pop flavor and, at others, a take them down to the river and lift ‘em up gospel flavor! The Fruit of Labor’s songs and music touches all because it is rooted in our people’s ageless traditions of chants, call and response, spirituals, reggae, jazz, blues, R&B, soul, folk, hip-hop and spoken word. This new CD “State of Emergency” features some of these and a fun new genre we call reggaebilly. It’s an exciting mixed bag of dancing, energy, down in your bones spiritual and “fightback” coming at you!

Thanks to all our many fans, supporters, fellow freedom fighters and activists involved in the many righteous progressive workers’ rights, civil rights, environmental rights and human rights struggles who inspire us and our music! We invite you to listen to “State of Emergency”. We hope you enjoy it and it makes you get up and move and get activated!

fruitoflabor.org

35th Annual MLK Support for Labor Banquet