July 13, 2024 saw the “rebirth” of the effort to bring out, organize and harness the voice of the Pan Afrikan grassroots community so that our voice can be included in the larger effort to bring that Pan Afrikan voice to the World Stage.  The first Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meeting since 2019 (post-COVID) was held at the Temple of New African Thought (TNAT) at 5525 Harford Road in East Baltimore.  The meeting was organized by the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC), a broad coalition of Pan Afrikan organizers and activists from the areas of spirituality, culture, economics, education, political organizing, law, prison outreach, grassroots organizing, revolutionary Pan Afrikanism and more.  (More on the Cooperative Coalition can be found on this site under the heading “Spokes of the Wheel”.)  These activists hail mainly from Baltimore City, but several are also located in Laurel Maryland, Randallstown Maryland, Washington DC and Virginia, with occasional participants from Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Chicago Illinois, Detroit Michigan, South Carolina, Georgia, Texas and Panama.  The Cooperative Coalition hopes to spark similar efforts across the United States and throughout the Diaspora, either as local Cooperative Coalitions that then link together or by expanding directly from Maryland into a national or global Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition.

The plan for the July meeting is to regain momentum for these Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meetings throughout the entire global Pan Afrikan community that had been dissipated when the COVID pandemic struck in 2020, and to move the work of organizing our community forward once again, led by the voice of our grassroots communities.

Purpose of the Town Hall

The Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meetings, originally organized in Baltimore starting in the summer of 2007 by the Maryland Organizing Committee of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) under the direction of the SRDC Secretariat, brought together members of the grassroots Pan Afrikan Community to bring out, organize and harness the voice of the community so that we can be included in the larger effort to bring that Grassroots Pan Afrikan voice to the World Stage.  SRDC had started holding these Town Hall Meetings in California, New York, Ohio, South Carolina and Washington State in 2006 and early 2007, with other groups doing similar work in Central America and Europe.  The overall plan for the Town Hall Meetings was to accomplish the following goals within our local communities:

• Explain the strategy of bringing our voice to the World Stage
• Discuss the role of the African Union (and, later, the United Nations and other international organizations) in the pursuit of that strategy
• Discuss issues that are important to the local community and show the connection of those issues with the international work
• Build a Local/State Pan Afrikan Agenda with the Community
• Have the Community nominate & elect a Representative Delegation who will be able to speak for them (Council of Elders, Representatives, Observers)
• Discuss how the Representative Delegation can work with other Delegations from throughout the Diaspora to bring a voice from the people to international gatherings of the AU, UN and other bodies

The effort in Maryland was designed to bring that local voice to SRDC’s national gatherings (Summits) with other local communities across the United States and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.  The local Pan Afrikan Agendas would come together to form a larger Pan Afrikan Diaspora Agenda, which would then be taken to the African Union, the United Nations and the Organization of American States (OAS) through civil-society organizations they have established to hear the concerns and the ideas of “non-state actors” from our grassroots communities.

The Town Hall Meetings in Practice

From 2007 through 2017, Maryland averaged about one Pan Afrikan Town Hall Meeting per year, plus an annual Kwanzaa presentation when SRDC was invited to participate in weeklong Kwanzaa celebrations by the Baltimore-based Pan African Liberation Movement (PLM), a strong Pan Afrikan grassroots organization in the Baltimore area.  These meetings continued in Maryland despite occasional indifference from several African Union officials, the United Nations’ failure to effectively respond to those it considered “stateless” (Afrikan Americans, for example, do not possess an official state of our own, even though we often refer to ourselves as “a nation within a nation”) and the resulting discouragement among Afrikan Diaspora populations that often resulted from the lack of progress toward our organizational goals.

In 2017, SRDC “cranked up” the frequency of the Town Hall Meetings, with five in the second half of that year which resulted in the formulation, with the community who attended them, of a Maryland Pan Afrikan Agenda document and the establishment of what would become the Maryland Council of Elders (MCOE) in January of 2018.

In 2018 and 2019, MCOE and SRDC held seven more Town Hall Meetings in which guest speakers made presentations to the community on political issues, international meetings if the United Nations and the history and legacy of Pan Afrikan organizing.

The COVID Pandemic, with the constant reports of family, friends and celebrities falling ill and sometimes dying from the disease, the overrun hospital emergency rooms , the stressed-out medical personnel and the sense of insecurity and paranoia that gripped the populace, interrupted the momentum that had been built up from those Town Hall Meetings, as public gatherings as a whole were curtailed in favor of occasional virtual meetings over Zoom, Google Meet and other online providers.  As a result, the progress gained by the steady in-person Town Hall Meetings was slowed until COVID was essentially brought under control.

The year 2024 brought a renewed focus on holding in-person Town Hall Meetings, either because the pandemic had lessened in its severity, or because better treatments had been developed to render COVID less deadly, or simply because the people became tired of the isolation that had been endured over the previous three to four years.  In-person gatherings from African Liberation Day and Race 1st Rallies in West Baltimore’s Lafayette Square Park in the summers to Town Hall Meetings co-sponsored by the Maryland Council of Elders (MCOE) and Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) since the fall of 2023 began to bring out the community again.  At this point, the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC), which had been meeting over Zoom for just over two years, began holding the Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meetings once again, this time as a cooperative effort of SRDC, Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign (APP-HRC), The National Black Unity News and other organizations and activists with whom we have been meeting over the previous two-plus years.

The July 13, 2024 Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall officially began the process of picking up where the effort had left off in 2020.

The July 13 Town Hall

This event, as was mentioned above, took place at the Temple of New Afrikan Thought (TNAT), located on Harford Road in East Baltimore.  We thank Dr. Ausar Winkler for making TNAT available for this important community event, as he has for several Pan Afrikan organizations in the area. 

The event started with a brief introduction of the Central Committee of the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition:

• Sis. Tomiko is a Cultural Anthropologist specializing in systemic & institutional identities, culture of racism, historical & generational trauma, healing paradigms & models.  She is the Founding Director of Aging People in Prison-Human Rights Campaign (APPHRC), which works for the release of aging men & women incarcerated in US prisons.  She is the Principal Organizer of SOLITUDE, an international human rights think tank studying the impact of intergenerational incarceration and loss of human resources to Black women of African descent in the US over the last 500 years.  In November 2023, she led a delegation to the Organization of American States Inter-American Human Rights Council (Washington, DC) to discuss the impact of the last 40 years of mass incarceration on Black Women.  In April 2024, she led another delegation of experts to the Third Session, UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in Geneva, Switzerland.  She is a major supporter and champion of the Community Defense Proposal and the Emergency Preparedness Plan.  She is also an Executive Committee member, Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition.
• Baba David Murphy is the Publisher of The National Black Unity News, founder and manager of the Black Information Portal and widely known as the “Networker of Networks”, supporting journalists, columnists and podcasters through the paper, its associated Web site, and regular podcasts.  Baba Murphy is also a Founding Member of BlackMen Unifying BlackMen, a grassroots organization that has built unity among Black Men through monthly breakfast meetings at Black-owned establishments for over nine years, as well as an annual event to honor Black Men who have made major contributions to the community.  He is a member of the Maryland Council of Elders as well as the National Black Council of Elders, bringing information, wisdom and guidance to the Pan Afrikan community in Maryland and across the country.
  
• Bro. Cliff Kuumba is the Maryland Facilitator of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) which seeks to elevate the grassroots voice of the Pan Afrikan diaspora to the world stage through international organizations such as the African Union, United Nations, Organization of American States and independent Pan Afrikan Conferences and organizations; is a member of the North America Regional Coordinating Committee of the Pan African Federalist Movement (PAFM) whose mission is the building of a federalized Afrikan Continent (55 Afrikan nations, Afrikan countries in the Caribbean and Central America, and Black populations in countries around the Diaspora) as the United African States; and is the moderator of the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition and serves with Sis. Tomiko and Baba David Murphy on the MPACC Central Committee.  Bro. Cliff is also the Editor of KUUMBAReport Online.

Several special presentations were also made:

Baba Bomani Uhuru Jihad Shakur is a Conscious New Afrikan Citizen living in the New Afrikan Population District of Dr. John Henrik Clarke Town.  He is a New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist, New Afrikan Propagandist, New Afrikan Ourstorian, Author, Poet, Advocate of New Afrikan Political Prisoners, New Afrikan Prisoners of War, New Afrikan Political Exiles, Captured New Afrikan Citizens and Political Prisoners/Prisoners of War from the Black Liberation Movement.  He is the Vice Chancellor of George Jackson University, Acting Spokesperson for George Jackson University, Host of George Jackson University Radio and a member of the Black August Organizing Committee.  Baba Bomani has been a Conscious New Afrikan Citizen since 2002, as well as various associations in other organizations and collectives.  He has traveled from the state of Georgia to be with us today and share some of his knowledge, experience, expertise and wisdom. 

Baba Bomani’s presentation stressed specific provisions we all need to be ready to make in response to an emergency, such as:

• “Bug-out bags” so that important documents and supplies (food, medicines, identification, clothing, defensive weapons) will be at a person’s fingertips in the event of an emergency requiring an immediate evacuation
• Alternate sources of power: battery, solar cells
• Provisions in case of emergency (Food, Medical supplies. Tents, blankets and other provisions) stored in the home or on the premises in case of the collapse of the power grid or isolation from food sources
• Phone trees and communications to look out for each other

Baba Thomas Ruffin, Esq. is a Washington, DC-based lawyer who has regularly lent his legal expertise and personal time to the pursuit of justice, in particular for the efforts to win the freedom of a number of Political Prisoners that resulted from the US government’s efforts to destabilize and destroy the Black Liberation Movement in the 1960s and 1970s.  He serves on the board of directors of the International Association of Black Lawyers, and he is the legal counsel for the Maryland Coalition for Justice and Progressive Change, which is chaired by local activist and Elder Rev. Annie Chambers in East Baltimore.  Baba Ruffin has been a participant in the building of the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition since its founding in January 2022, and has made strong contributions to the development of the Coalition over that time, including the proposal for a Cooperative Community Defense Plan, which he traveled from Washington, DC to share with us. 

The essence of his proposed Cooperative Community Defense Plan includes the following elements:

• License, certification and training in defensive weapons to respond to terrorist or vigilante attack
• Adequate provisions in case of an emergency that causes a disruption to the electrical grid or to food and water access
• Property: where to go in an emergency?  Identifying safehouses and similar locations 75-250 miles from the location of an environmental or civil defense emergency
• An up-to-date passport in case of the need to leave the country in response to a national emergency or civil defense disaster
• Phone trees and communications to look out for each other

Mama Marcia Bowyer-Barron is a longtime Baltimore City Resident and member of the New Shiloh Seniors Community.  She is a member of the Maryland Council of Elders which was founded in December 0f 2017.  She has been a contributor to the mission of the Maryland Organization of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC), and she is a participant in the building and advancement of the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition. 

“MotherMarci”, as many of us in the Maryland Pan Afrikan community call her, gave a presentation about the plan to build a Pan Afrikan Senior Advocacy Network to accomplish the following objectives:

• Basic Needs of Seniors: Shelter, Food, Clothing, Phone
• Health and Medical Care, Response to Senior Emergencies
• “Buddy Care”, Regular Well-Being and Status Checks
• No Senior should be suffering or struggling with poverty, homelessness, illness or isolation
• Lift Our Seniors from “Survival Mode”
• Senior Entrepreneur Expos
• The intent is also to replicate this program in other areas.

Baba Leon Waters is the curator of the community-based Louisiana Museum of African American History, based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the founder of the Hidden History Project, www.hiddenhistory.us.  Baba Leon Waters has educated the New Orleans community and Afrikan history students about the historic 1811 Slave Revolt, sometimes referred to as the “German Coast Uprising”, considered the largest slave revolt in US history, which took place from January 8-10, 1811 on the east bank of the Mississippi River and swept through seven plantations covering three modern-day parishes in Louisiana.  Baba Waters is a direct descendant of the Afrikans who led and participated in the Revolt, as recounted in the book On To New Orleans: Louisiana’s Heroic 1811 Slave Revolt by Baba Albert Thrasher, available at www.hiddenhistory.us.  Baba Waters has led numerous 1811 Slave Revolt tours in which the path of the revolt is followed as a reminder to participants of the importance of resistance to enslavement and tyranny.  Baba Waters was also instrumental in the organizing of the largely-Afrikan community in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, riding out the storm when it hit in September 2005 and then gathering together local activist organizations to fight against the forced removal and gentrification efforts that were taking place, particularly in New Orleans’s hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward.  Together with Baba Malcolm Suber and Baba Kali Akuno, Baba Waters helped organize the week-long September 2007 Hurricane Katrina Tribunal, which brought together an international panel to hear analysis and testimony about the city, state and country’s failure to adequately prepare for and respond to the hurricane, as well as atrocities that took place in its wake.  Baba Waters still lives in the New Orleans area and continues to bring knowledge and a commitment to struggle to the community.  He wrote an essay about his experience in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the effort of the local and national political ruling class to use the disaster to reshape the area through gentrification, “State Terror and White Supremacy Triumph ‘Temporarily’ in New Orleans”, which can be read here.

Baba David Murphy, who we introduced you to at the beginning of this article, spoke about the importance of building an independent Black Media network as the Publisher of The National Black Unity News.  The degree to which the lack of positive images of Blackness in the media had built up his feelings of anger as a young man, and the community healing he has witnessed as a result of his work with The National Black Unity News and the work of other providers of constructive, positive information for the people, were and are a constant motivation for him to continue with his important work.  The newspaper is currently published quarterly, and it serves as an outlet for numerous commentators, Black businesses and podcasters that include Bro. Vernon Streeter of Unity TV and Mama Kim Williams and Mama Cynthia Jahi, who assist homeowners facing financial difficulties with their business.

The holding of this Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meeting is important for a variety of reasons, perhaps the most important of which is that it marks a return to a level of community engagement that we had not seen in over three years.  TNAT has been host to several important community events over the last year, from the UNIA Barca-Clarke Chapter No. 106 in Baltimore City, from the Pan African Liberation Movement (PLM) and from a number of other organizations and individual activists.  TNAT also features the Diasporan Soul Cafe, which offers a variety of delicious dishes that take one back to the communities of Afrika and the Caribbean, including curry dishes, ginger beer, sorrel bisap and vegan meals that are sure to please the palate.  Music from Afrika and the Diaspora soothes the soul, while a variety of books, Afrikan masks and health items rouse the spirit, spark the intellect and lead one to a sense of balance.  When you are in East Baltimore, be sure to check out the Temple of New African Thought, get some nourishment from the Diasporan Soul Cafe and stimulate your mind by interacting with others or checking out one of the events that are held in the space.  The Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition will be scheduling more Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meetings in the year 2024 and beyond, and the Temple of New African Thought will surely be an important meeting place for us and for other organizations, a prominent fixture on the Pan Afrikan community landscape.