The 2026 Pan African Conference of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) will be held October 6-9, 2026 at the African Studies Department, University of Ghana, the country’s oldest and largest public university located in Legon, Accra. For more details and information on how to register, visit the SRDC Web site at https://srdcinternational.org or click here.
Panama Celebrates Black Culture Month with its Annual Delfile Parade Along Rio Abajo
Despite overcast skies and inclement weather, the Central American country of Panama celebrated its Black Culture Month, and SRDC Facilitators were there to participate in its culminating parade, as they have been for several years.
Every May, the large Afrikan Descendant population (which we are increasingly referring to as the “Afrikan Ascendant population”) of Panama celebrates Black Culture Month. Back in 2023, this writer was introduced to the celebration when I visited Panama to assist in establishing the Panama Chapter of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) with two community meetings and participation in that year’s Delfile, the Black Culture Month Parade along the Rio Abajo, one of the main throughfares of Panama City. You can read my 2023 account of that visit here, as well as on the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus’s Web site here.
For a message from SRDC Panama Facilitators Ras Bukie and Empress Yesury Nurse, and several photos from the 2026 Delfile, click here.
African Liberation Day Commemoration in Maryland: Saturday, May 30 (Sandy Spring)
IMPORTANT NOTE: The Saturday, May 23 African Liberation Day Celebration scheduled for Baltimore’s Lafayette Square Park had to be cancelled due to the inclement weather. The wet and soft ground, which prevented the construction of the stage, and the constant, incessant rain, which made running electrical equipment for the sound system impossible, forced the organizers to cancel the event. Camp Harambee The People and its founder, Baba Charlie Dugger, hoped to see the community at their June 20 Fatherhood and Manhood Celebration at MUND Park, Greenmount Avenue at 24th Street in central Baltimore.
Maryland will see a major commemoration of African Liberation Day (ALD) on Saturday, May 30 in Sandy Spring, Maryland. For a brief intro to African Liberation Day (formerly known as Africa Day and often celebrated under that name in Afrika itself) and information on the commemoration being held on May 30 in Maryland, click here.
Camp Harambee The People’s Motherhood & Womanhood Celebration was held May 9 at the Wall of Pride and Respect, Carey-Cumberland Park. For more details about the afternoon and a few pictured for those of you who missed it, click here.
Camp Harambee The People (Baba Charlie Dugger) Events for Spring and Summer 2026
Baba Charlie Dugger, through his organization Camp Harambee The People, has been sponsoring cultural-historical events for the Baltimore Pan Afrikan Community for over half a century. This 2026 Spring and Summer, five events were scheduled, with four of them still coming over the months of May, June and August. For more details, click here.
The Organization W.O.M.A.N. and Black Nationalism Celebrate Minister Malcolm X on May 19, 2026
Tuesday, May 19, 2026 is the 101st birthday of Ancestor Malcolm X/El-Hajj Malik Al-Shabazz/Omowali. On that day, from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM, The Organization W.O.M.A.N. (Working, Organizing, Making A Nation) will host Toward Operational Unity, Black Nationalism Celebrates Minister Malcolm X, a celebration featuring song, dance, drumming, poetry, speakers and a panel discussion at 1307 Eutaw Street in Baltimore. The event is sponsored by W.O.M.A.N. and is embraced by Njia Ya Tayari, the Baltimore UNIA-ACL Division 106 Barca-Clarke, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS), the Pan Afrikan Liberation Movement (PLM) and the African Study Group. For more information, including how to contact the organizers, click here.
The increasing repression and violence of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across the United States have focused on Minneapolis, Minnesota, where the recent murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, together with the New Year’s Eve killing of Keith Porter, Jr. in Los Angeles, California, have turned up the heat to extreme levels and threatened to ignite a powder keg. The people of Minneapolis, however, have maintained a principled resistance thus far, recording ICE atrocities, holding massive nonviolent marches and making plans for a general strike that could spread across the country. Meanwhile, Pan Afrikanist and Black Nationalist organizations debate the degree to which the Pan Afrikan community should involve itself in these mass actions, as the connections between ICE activities, theorized Nazi ideology and the likelier connection to Civil War-era slave patrols becomes clearer. For some of our thoughts, as well as a number of links to articles about recent events, click here.
Is Ghana Blocking Historic Diasporan Afrikans from Citizenship?
The Ghanaian government has announced the “Temporary Suspension of Ghanaian Citizenship Application Process for Historical Diasporans” and the imposition of new standards that must be met to qualify for Ghanaian citizenship, which might even impact upon the ability to establish residency in Ghana even without the granting of official citizenship. What impact might this have on Afrikan Diaspora efforts to connect with our Ancestral Home in the future? Read the Ghanaian Government’s letter, and the Press Release response from the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus-Tanzania (6RegionTZ), here.
Closures and Second Chances: the Baltimore City School Board and the Fate of Education
EDITOR’S NOTE: This includes a slight update from the January 15, 2026 article, to include some of the reaction from the community to the Board of School Commissioners’ final decision.
The Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners voted on the renewal or closure of a number of city schools, several of which were focal points in a sometimes-desperate struggle by school administrators, community activists and grassroots citizens to save them. While there were victories, there were also bitter defeats, as some schools were approved to remain open under certain conditions and one school was set to close permanently at the end of the school year. For details about the January 8 hearing and the January 14 School Board decision, click here. For details on the December 11 hearing, click here.
Baltimore City School Board Seeks to Close Four Area Schools; Hearing Set for January 8, 2026
A December 11 hearing concerning the plan of the Board of School Commissioners, Baltimore City School Board to close four area schools has led to a follow-up hearing to be held January 8, 2026. For more details on the affected schools, the December 11 hearing and the follow-up session scheduled for January 8, 2026, click here.
Authoritarianism: “Hello America. These are my friends, Fascism and Martial Law.”
As if it weren’t enough that National Guard and military troops have already been deployed to cities such as Washington DC, Chicago Illinois, Memphis Tennessee and Los Angeles California, with threats to further invade cities such as Portland Oregon, Minneapolis Minnesota and New York City (if the people have the nerve to elect the “socialist” Zohran Mamdani as mayor), US President Donald Trump and “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth called a sudden, mandatory meeting of US military commanders, generals and admirals from around the world in Quantico, Virginia to “lay down the law” with their new plan to destroy perceived enemies of the US abroad without restraint and to quell insurgencies, crush dissent and implement the equivalent of martial law at home. For a bit more on this topic, click here.
Backing “Black MAGA” Instead of Real Pan Afrikan Organizing?
What seems to be motivating the support for the Trump administration that comes from so many “Black MAGA” groups? Read a few of our thoughts here.
We take a quick look at the increasing repression in the United States, from the DOGE takeover of several federal departments to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids to the June 14, 2025 parade in Washington, DC and the “No More Kings” protests across the country. For the full article, along with numerous links to other articles for more details, click here.
