One of the principal goals of the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC) is to facilitate our organizations supporting each other by supporting their events, or at least helping us all avoid conflicts between our events when possible. Beyond that, the hope is that we will develop greater respect for each other and work together so that our efforts in our community will all be successful. A large part of that is simply being aware of the events and programs we are all sponsoring in our community.
In service to that specific goal, this post is to announce several upcoming Pan Afrikan community events in the Baltimore Maryland, Frederick Maryland and Washington DC area coming up in June. The list of events may be updated as we learn about more events that are being held, and we also plan to make a similar announcement about events in the Washington DC-Maryland area coming up in July. Here’s what I have on the list so far:
- Saturday, June 15: Maryland Council of Elders and Black Alliance for Peace Town Hall, Douglass Memorial Community Church, 1325 Madison Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 1 PM to 3 PM.
The Black Alliance for Peace Web site (Baltimore Town Hall: Youth Organizing Youth: Rising Up Against Repression — The Black Alliance for Peace) describes the event as follows:
Youth are heavily impacted by decades of worsened material conditions, which hinder their quality of life. Where young residents attempt to exercise autonomy and help shape a changing society, they are met with disregard for their legitimate concerns. Actions against youth in the city, state and region are some of the most punitive. Reliance on curfews, racist legislation and the constant surveillance of our youth disrupts any collaboration on solutions to the problems all African/ Black youth face in Baltimore. Heightened sensationalized media coverage further compounds the issue.
Join the citywide alliance for this youth/ student led town hall for discussions on how to support to their efforts to create conditions to forge an alliance of student and youth organizers throughout the state.
Masks Required. Masks Provided. Food & Refreshments Available. Childcare provided. (doors open at 12:30pm)
- Saturday, June 15: Camp Harambee The People Fatherhood and Manhood Celebration, Greenmount & 24th Streets, Baltimore, MD, 1 PM to 6 PM
Baba Charlie Dugger and Camp Harambee The People have organized, supported and run important community events in Baltimore for over 50 years. A veteran educator, he has consistently sought to bring messages of positivity and self-awareness to youth and Elders alike in the Baltimore area. - Saturday, June 15: Suns Of Reawakening 7th Annual Juneteenth Freedomfest, Mullinix Park, Frederick, MD, 12 PM to 7 PM
We became aware of the Suns of Reawakening and their Juneteenth event at the recent African Liberation Day commemoration in West Baltimore this past May 25. Western Maryland has an important Afrikan and Afrikan-Descendant community that has, in many circles, gone unnoticed. We hope that this event will make more of us aware of this community of Black Maryland and help us all to expand our knowledge and build a more cohesive and organized Pan Afrikan community. - Saturday, June 29: Street Law Soldiers Unity Festival, Fort Lincoln Park, 3201 Fort Lincoln Drive Gazebo #2, Washington, DC, 12 PM to 7 PM
General T’Shaka Sankofa of the Street Law Soldiers, Washington DC (Facebook) sponsors regular Unity Festivals in the Washington, DC area. Street Law Soldiers has chapters in Washington DC, and elsewhere across the US.
If you have an event scheduled for June that is not on this list, and you would like it to go out to our emailing list, feel free to send us the pertinent information, along with a flyer and contact information, and we will see about putting it together with other events in a future post as well as in the next group email we send out. If we are to truly start building unity in our community, it starts with us recognizing the positive events we all are sponsoring, producing and promoting, helping make the people aware of these events and programs, and supporting them when we can. Of course, when several events are happening at the same time, we can’t attend them all, but at least this way we can all be informed about what our various organizations and activists are doing for the sake of the people.