With the 46th commemoration of Black August, we confront the paradox of a month that binds our mourning and our militancy. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) asserts that this is not a time for performative reflection, but for sharpening our commitment to the living tradition of resistance forged by our ancestors such as Nat Turner, George Jackson, and the Haitian people as they began their revolution. This month also marks the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a stark reminder of Western imperialism’s capacity for genocidal destruction, as well as the continued siege on colonized and oppressed people domestically and across the globe.
From the ongoing genocide in Palestine to the brutal suppression of resistance in Haiti, Congo, and Sudan, the U.S. empire proves, yet again, that its notion of “freedom” is reserved only for the oppressors. From the ongoing genocide in Palestine to the brutal suppression of resistance in Haiti, Congo, and Sudan, the U.S. empire proves, yet again, that its notion of “freedom” is reserved only for the oppressors. Meanwhile, within the belly of the beast, Black communities face state-sanctioned terror: police killings, mass incarceration, economic warfare, and the erasure of our history through reactionary education policies. Now, under the Trump regime’s escalating authoritarianism, we witness the open colonial occupation of Washington, DC—a majority-Black city denied self-governance and now subjected to a federally imposed police state. The same empire that arms Israel’s genocide in Gaza deploys the National Guard to suppress dissent and entrench racial control at home, proving that imperialism’s violence is both exported and domesticated.
The U.S. and Israel’s impunity must end. This lack of meaningful action against the Zionist occupation’s genocidal acceleration, enabled by U.S. funding, corporate media collusion,, and protection at the United Nations and other international forums, motivates BAP’s call to ban both states from international sporting events. While this is one tactic, what’s clear is that anti-imperialist multilateralism must intensify: through movement efforts like the Friends of The Hague Group (FOTHG), state-based pressure by The Hague Group, and unwavering solidarity with the Axis of Resistance. It is this very impunity that has allowed Gaza’s genocide to continue for nearly two years, the violent occupation on the West Bank to intensify, the militarized occupation of DC to unfold under Trump’s “Safe and Beautiful” task force, and activists like labor leader Chris Smalls to be brutalized with silence from liberal elites.
BAP rejects the hollow commemorations that reduce historical atrocities to performative gestures. We refuse to let August pass without exposing and confronting the bloody legacy of U.S. militarism and colonialism. This month, we honor the martyrs victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki not with empty apologies, but by linking their struggle to our own, against the same empire that drops bombs and starves colonized and oppressed people abroad while slowly killing our people at home.
August is not a time for passivity. It is a month to remember that our struggle is intertwined with the struggle of all oppressed peoples. The same system that dropped nuclear bombs on Japan today arms Israel with weapons to slaughter Palestinians, funds death squads in Haiti, and militarizes police in Black neighborhoods. There can be no peace under imperialism, only resistance.
No Compromise! No Retreat!