A Panel of Human Rights Defenders and Organizers on Africa400, Wednesday, September 15, 2021

The Wednesday, September 15 edition of Africa400 features a panel of guests representing several organizations working in defense of human rights and the empowerment of People of African Descent.  Show hosts Mama Tomiko and Baba Ty welcome members of several organizations to discuss their roles in the pursuit of human rights, restorative justice and raising the voice of the grassroots Pan-Afrikan Diaspora and marginalized communities.

To listen to the September 15 show, click below:

Below are descriptions of each of the organizations that appeared on the show:

US Human Rights Network (USHRN)

The US Human Rights Network (US Human Rights Network (ushrnetwork.org)) is a national network of organizations and individuals working to strengthen a human rights movement and culture within the United States led by the people most directly impacted by human rights violations. We work to secure dignity and justice for all.

We work to realize human rights by:

  • Engaging, connecting and mobilizing communities, Peoples, workers, and diverse sectors across issue areas, constituencies, and regions to uphold and defend human rights and hold government accountable;
  • Building the capacity and leadership of grassroots groups and individuals to effectively apply the human rights framework in developing strategy and making long-term structural shifts to achieve justice;
  • Raising the visibility of local human rights concerns and activism to shape the public discourse locally, nationally, and internationally; and
  • Facilitating effective collective action to secure the structural change needed to fully realize human rights.

 The US Human Rights Network is guided by these core principles:

  • Human rights are universal, interdependent, indivisible, and inalienable.
  • Human rights movements must be led by those most directly affected by human rights violations.
  • Human rights advocacy and organizing should prioritize the struggles of the poor and most marginalized groups in society.
  • Human rights movements must be inclusive and respect and reflect the diversity within communities.
  • Human rights encompass civil, political, economic, social, cultural, environmental, sexual, and development rights for individuals, Peoples, and groups.

Jericho Movement

Jericho is a movement with the defined goal of gaining recognition of the fact that political prisoners and prisoners of war exist inside of the United States, despite the United States’ government’s continued denial … and winning amnesty and freedom for these political prisoners.

The Jericho Movement (https://thejerichomovement.com/) addresses four principal issues:

  1. Building the Amnesty Campaign

A big part of this work is locating political prisoners, compiling dossiers on them, and building the case for amnesty.

  1. Continuing the Educational Campaign

About the Existence of Political Prisoners inside the U.S.

  1. The Jericho Legal Defense Fund

Providing supportive expenses for lawyers and law students etc. to provide legal defense for political prisoners.

  1. The Jericho Medical Project

Fighting for adequate and quality medical care for political prisoners.

George Jackson University (GJU)

AN OVERVIEW

In 2003, Abdul Olugbala Shakur, Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, Hodari Kambon, Abasi Ganda, Yafeu I-yapo, Dr. Donald R. Evans, and Dr. Rashad Ali developed the concept of transforming the entire U.S. Prison Industrial Slave-Complex (P.I.S.C.) into the largest university in the country. The initial name for the project was University of the Mind, but under this title we received very minimum feedback, so by Summer of 2003 we decided to name our university The George Jackson University (GJU), https://www.georgejacksonuniversity.com/, within six (6) months we received over 20,000 applications for enrollment into our GJU from New Afrikan (Afrikan Amerikan) prisoners across the country, we even received applications from as far as Brazil, London, and Canada, brothas and sistas trying to connect.

HISTORY OF GJU

In the past five (5) years a growing number of people have inquired about the GJU, make no mistake about it, we were not discouraged from pursuing our objective, many of us have been extremely busy working on a number of other issues, and not to mention all documents related to the GJU were fraudulently confiscated, therefore we have to start all over again. Our first step towards revising the GJU is developing a strong and dedicated outside support network and faculty . We are re-instituting the concept of transforming the entire U.S. prison industrial slave complex into the largest progressive educational institution in the country with emphasis on Afro-centric and Pan-Afrikan studies and New Afrikan political education.

The Kent State Truth Tribunal

On May 4, 1970 a troop of Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed Kent State students protesting America’s invasion of Cambodia. Four students were shot dead and nine others wounded. Ten days later, also in a student protest against the Vietnam War, two Jackson State College students were killed and more than 11 wounded by the Mississippi police. 

The Kent State and Jackson State student killings seized headlines at a watershed moment in American history, bringing the war home and distressing a country already divided over the Vietnam War. In the days that followed the campus massacres, more than four million students rose up in dissent across 900 university campuses, generating the largest nationwide student protest in U.S. history. 

The Kent State massacre has never been thoroughly, impartially investigated and no person or group has been held accountable for wrongdoing. Through the courts, families of those who were killed or injured received paltry sums of compensation and a statement of regret.

Forty years after Kent State in 2010, new digital forensic evidence emerged in a tape recording of the Kent State commands-to-fire and gunfire. Still, the U.S. Dept. of Justice refused a credible inquiry into the new audio that contained the sounds of shooting and killing of students exercising their fundamental right to political expression. There has been no admission of responsibility on the part of the state.

The Truth Tribunal (https://www.truthtribunal.org/) is a direct response to this history of impunity for Kent State. On the 40th anniversary of the Kent State massacre, Allison’s sister Laurel decided to learn and record the truth at Kent State from the people who were there. For decades she had watched Kent State University and the U.S. government act with institutional power and unlimited funds as they repressed the truth at Kent State and buried all evidence of government complicity in committing the Kent State massacre. The Truth Tribunal archive will stand as an enduring record of the truth, as told by those who witnessed and survived that day. 

Just before his death, Boston University history professor and renowned advocate Dr. Howard Zinn sent Laurel this note:

Laurie,

You are right that trying to get “redress” via the judicial system is a dead end, or a maze, and that learning and spreading the truth is the most important thing you can do. That was the idea of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. 

Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC)

The Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org) was founded in 2006 in response to the African Union’s (AU) decision in 2003 to invite the African Diaspora “to participate fully as an important component in the building of the African Union.”  The AU initially coined the term “Sixth Region” to describe the Diaspora, which consisted of “people of African descent and heritage, living outside the Continent, irrespective of their country of citizenship, who are willing to contribute to the development of the African Continent and the building of the African Union.”  While the AU established the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC), an AU organ that was established to allow for the participation of Africa’s “non-state actors” or grassroots civil society in advising the General Assembly, as the means by which the Diaspora would begin our journey to full AU membership, as well as a set of criteria and procedures to establish that representation, the actual organization of the people of the Diaspora to accept this invitation was left up to us in the Diaspora ourselves.  Toward that end, SRDC has developed a plan to empower the people to choose our Diaspora representatives in ECOSOCC through a series of local, national and international elections (one cannot appoint themselves or others to be a representative), and to bring our many Pan-African organizations together in a cooperative effort to accomplish this task, so we can truthfully say that the result of our efforts is a delegation that truly speaks for the people of the Pan-African Diaspora.  Our work will  not stop there, however; our hope is to help establish representation for the Diaspora in the AU’s Pan African Parliament (which can actually create legislation), as well as fight for the recognition of the Diaspora by the United Nations and its numerous international human rights and geopolitical bodies.

This, of course, has turned out to be no easy task.  To maintain the trust of our grassroots communities, we need to consistently demonstrate that we are indeed dedicated to addressing the issues that afflict us as a people, which we continue to do by holding Community Town Hall Meetings where information and ideas are shared with and by the community, by planning or assisting with on-the-ground projects such as cultural events, educational events and capital projects, by inviting different organizations to participate with us, and by forming coalitions to help bring those organizations, as well as our communities, together on a more regular basis.  Still, rivalry and distrust continue to threaten the unity we are working toward, disinformation is spread by those who wish to prevent us from coming together in the first place, and even the African Union itself often allows its own bureaucracy to complicate our work and make our job that much harder.  These obstacles cause some activists to lose hope and abandon the struggle, but SRDC has continued to push forward despite all this.  Thus, while we continue to work to establish our voice in the African Union, we also participate in discussions and forums of the United Nations, coalitions of grassroots civil-society groups and of other international Pan-African organizations in hopes of building a standing global coalition that can more effectively pursue truth, justice, self-determination and prosperity for African people and the world as a whole.

SRDC is organizing in several areas of the US and Canada, and our organizational allies in Central America (Central American Black Organization, or CABO), Europe (African Union African Diaspora Sixth Region, AUADS), the Caribbean (Mouvement International pour Reparation in Guadeloupe), the Middle East (Middle East African Diaspora Unity Council in Dimona, Israel) and recently, the African Continent (Sehwah-Liberia and organizations in Tanzania) are doing similar work where they are.  Our plan for organizing the Diaspora includes sponsoring regular local community Town Hall Meetings, establishing Councils of Elders, holding an annual International Summit (This year’s Summit will be in Monrovia, Liberia) and building alliances and coalitions with other organizations.

To find our more, visit https://srdcinternational.org, or email info@srdcinternational.org or cliff@kuumbareport.com.

Spirit of Mandela Coalition

Created in 2018, In the Spirit of Mandela Coalition (https://spiritofmandela.org/) is a growing grouping of organizers, academics, clergy, attorneys, and organizations committed to working together against the systemic, historic, and ongoing human rights violations and abuses committed by the USA against Black, Brown, and Indigenous People. The Coalition recognizes and affirms the rich history of diverse and militant freedom fighters Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Graca Machel Mandela, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, and many more. It is in their Spirit and affirming their legacy that we work. This October 22-25 2021,  In the Spirit of Mandela Coalition  will be organizing and hosting an International Tribunal which will be charging the United States government, its states, and specific agencies with human and civil rights violations against Black, Brown, and Indigenous people. The Tribunal will be charging human and civil rights violations for:

  1. Racist police killings of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
  2. Hyper incarcerations of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
  3. Political incarceration of Civil Rights/National Liberation era revolutionaries and activists, as well as present day activists.
  4. Environmental racism and its impact on Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
  5. Public Health racism and disparities and its impact on Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
  6. Genocide of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people as a result of the historic and systemic charges of all the above.

Black Alliance for Peace (BAP)

The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), https://blackallianceforpeace.com/, seeks to recapture and redevelop the historic anti-war, anti-imperialist, and pro-peace positions of the radical black movement. Through educational activities, organizing and movement support, organizations and individuals in the Alliance will work to oppose both militarized domestic state repression, and the policies of de-stabilization, subversion and the permanent war agenda of the U.S. state globally.  

PRINCIPLES OF UNITY

RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE

BAP is not a pacifist movement. While committed to peace, we understand there can be no peace without justice, and we will stand in solidarity with all peoples (and nations) who strive to liberate themselves from oppression.

SELF-DETERMINATION

BAP supports people’s struggles for national liberation and self-determination, with a special focus on the struggles of Black peoples and nation-states in the “Americas.”

ANTI-IMPERIALISM

BAP takes a resolute anti-colonial, anti-imperialist position that links the international role of the U.S. empire to the domestic war against poor people and working-class Black people in the United States.

WORKING-CLASS FOUNDATION

BAP identifies the Black working class as the main social force of any reconstituted Black Liberation project.

INTERSECTIONALITY

“People(s)-centered human rights” as defined as emanating from bottom-up mass struggle and informed by a Black, revolutionary, feminist intersectional framework will be the basis for analysis and actions.

ANTI-PATRIARCHY

All members, on an organizational and individual level, must be committed to ending patriarchy and all forms of male domination in either internal organizational practice or external/public political positions.

DECOLONIZATION

Members of this Alliance see the U.S. state as the ongoing institutional expression of settler-colonialism and are committed to an authentic process of decolonization in every sense of that term.

PRISONER SUPPORT

BAP is committed to working against all forms of state and domestic repression, including the issues of political prisoners and prisoners of war in the United States.

BLACK UNITY

BAP sees itself as one aspect of the effort to revitalize the broader Black Liberation Movement.

SOUTHERN ROOTS

The South is the base of U.S. military infrastructure. It’s also where 55 percent of Black people happen to live. BAP identifies this region as a priority for collective learning, organizing, and mobilizing the power and influence of Black workers and the poor to oppose militarism, war and imperialism.

AFRICA400
Wednesdays 2-3pm EST.
https://handradio.org/
https://kuumbareport.com/
webuyblack.com
kweli.tv

  

 

 

 

“Precise Time” with Baba Ty on Africa400, Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Baba Ty hosts “Precise Time” on the Wednesday, September 8 edition of Africa400.  Baba Ty examines the key issues of the day from his perspective as a developmental psychologist, cultural historian and Pan-Afrikan activist.

To listen to the September 8 show, click below:

Africa400 is broadcast live every Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 PM (Eastern Time, United States) on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org).  After the broadcast, the show can be listened to on HANDRadio’s Podcasts Page, an update of this post and the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).

“Mothership” on Africa400, Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Grandmother Walks On Water hosts the Wednesday, September 1 edition of Africa400 with her show “Mothership”, as she discusses “Becoming Shepherds of the New Earth”.

Raise Your Vibration….

AFRICA400 presents MOTHERSHIP with Grandmother Walks on Water aka Nata’aska Humminbird as she dispenses her wisdom and ancestral knowledge to women becoming Shepherds of the New Earth by preparing their bodies, diet, relationships, womb, and children for a way of living that is in submission to Mother Earth.

MOTHERSHIP is a call in show so please join the conversation with questions, comments.

Becoming Shepherds of the New Earth-Part 1
From the discussion with Grandmother Walks on Water, these are her recommendations for people to become ready as Shepherds of the New Earth:

Preparing for a plant based diet

1. Start cleaning our colon with enemas, colonic

2. Smooth move tea, detox tea, detox foot bath

3. Dry brushing body before showers

4. Weekend juice fasting

5. Read William Dufty’s Sugar Blues

6. Read Elijah Muhammad’s How to Eat to Live

7. Only use Clean Oils: Grapeseed, Olive Oil, Coconut, and Sunflower

8. Give up Pigs and Cows, transition to poultry and clean fish (No Scavengers)

Clean eating is eating food that has the least amount of processing and contamination.
Things that are not clean
⦁ Meats: Lunch meat, Pigs, Cows, Hot dogs, Chicken, Bacon, Ham, Sausage, Pork Chops, Steak
⦁ Un Organic Milk, Eggs, and Cheese
⦁ Crabs, Shrimp, Lobster, Catfish
⦁ Doritos and Potato Chips
⦁ Bread, Hamburgers, French fries, Pizza, and Soda
⦁ Hydrogenated oils: Corn, Vegetable, Canola, and Soy oil all are mass produced.
⦁ Canned Soup and Alcohol

Clean eating is putting the least amount of strain and damage on our heart, liver, kidneys, colon, gall bladder, spleen, joints, and blood pressure.  It is eating for Life instead of Death.

Leaving a Light Ecological Footprint

All of the above items take massive industrial production, the waste from food production, and packaging ends up in the dump, and ocean.  Cow farts are helping to destroy the ozone layer of our planet.

1. Reduce Waste

2. Recycle

3. Reuse, and Give away, instead of Throw Away

4. Plant Community Gardens to Feed the Neighborhood

5. Cook at Home from scratch -Make Quilts from Old Clothes

6. Need Less

7. Have Less

8. Drive Less

9. Walk More

10. Spend as much time as possible walking barefoot on our Beautiful Earth.  Rubber soles disconnect us from the electromagnetic current coming from the Earth. We are Organic Electromagnetic Beings.

These Are Some Of The Ways To Walk Softly On The Earth, And Leave Less Of A Footprint

We Need Our Mother’s Touch

To listen to the September 1 show, click below:

Africa400 is broadcast live every Wednesday at 2:00 PM (Eastern Time, United States) on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org).  After the broadcast, the show is available for listening on the HANDRadio Podcasts Page, an update of this post and the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).

AFRICA400
Wednesdays 2-3pm EST.
https://handradio.org/
https://kuumbareport.com/
https://srdcinternational.org/
webuyblack.com

Pan-African Liberation Movement (PLM) Race 1st Rally August 28, 2021

The Pan-African Liberation Movement (PLM) is sponsoring its Second Annual Race 1st Rally on Saturday, August 28 in Baltimore, Maryland.  (Correction: our earlier post incorrectly read “Sunday”.  The correct date is SATURDAY, August 28.)

The march-and-rally participants will meet at 1:00 PM in West Baltimore at Henry Highland Garnett Park (Druid Hill Avenue and Lafayette Avenue).  The march begins at 1:30 PM and arrives at Lafayette Park at 2:00 PM where the rally will be held.

How to Support the Race 1st Movement and Obtain More Information

CashApp: $RACE1STMOVEMENT

Email: race1stmovement@gmail.com

Phone: 443.722.1684

“Fresh News From Africa” on Africa400, Wednesday, August 25, 2021

Bro. François Ndengwe hosts a new episode of “Fresh News From Africa” on the Wednesday, August 25 edition of Africa400.

Bro. François Ndengwe is editor of Hommes d’Afrique Magazine and Femmes d’Afrique Magazine. He is also Founder and President of African Advisory Board.

To listen to the August 25 show, click below:

Africa400 airs every Wednesday at 2:00 PM on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org, or download the HANDRadio App at ‎HAND RADIO on the App Store (apple.com) or HAND RADIO – Apps on Google Play).  After the show airs, it will be available for listening on the HANDRadio Podcasts Page, an update of this post and on the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).

AFRICA400
Wednesdays 2-3pm EST.
https://handradio.org/
https://kuumbareport.com/
https://srdcinternational.org/
webuyblack.com

Africa400 Presents “The Keys of Justice” Jazz Diaspora Show on HANDRadio, Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Africa400 presents “The Keys of Justice” Jazz Diaspora Show on HANDRadio, Wednesday, August 18 at 4 PM ET (United States), honoring pioneering Jazz Bagpiper Rufus Harley (1936 – 2006), featuring his children Sis. Noah Harmony Shoatz Harley, Bro. God’s Messiah Patton Harley and Bro. America Beautiful Patton Harley.

The show was broadcast on HANDRadio, https://handradio.org.  To hear the recording of the show, click below:

The show is also available on HANDRadio’s Podcasts Page and the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).

To listen to the show, click here:

Press Conference and Protest for Imam Jamil Al-Amin/H. Rap Brown Sunday, August 15

Sunday, August 15 sees a Press Conference and Protest against the wrongful imprisonment and medical neglect of Civil Rights leader Imam Jamil Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown.

This press conference will take place outside the U.S. Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, and will feature a variety of speakers and activists.  Sponsoring organizations include Black Lives Matter Phoenix, Council of American Islamic Relations Arizona, American Friends Service Committee of Arizona, Progressive Democrats of America, Justice Or Else Phoenix Local Organizing Committee, Students for Imam Jamil and others.

To support or learn more about the protest or about Imam Jamil Al-Amin’s case, go to https://freeimamjamil.com.

“Free the Rap” Focuses on the Case of Imam Jamil Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) on Africa400, Wednesday, August 18, 2021

“I can find only three places for a righteous man in an evil society: on the battlefield fighting his enemy; in a cell imprisoned by the enemy; or in his grave free from his enemy. Outside this, I find only hypocrisy.”
— H. Rap Brown aka Imam Jamil Al Amin

The Wednesday, August 18, 2021 edition of Africa400 discusses the continuing struggle to obtain justice and freedom for Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown.  Show host Mama Tomiko leads an informative discussion of his case, the Press Conference and Protest held on Sunday, August 15 and the continuing effort to win his exoneration and freedom.

Africa400 will continue to dedicate shows to Imam Jamil Al Amin, aka H. Rap Brown, until he is released from prison.  Below is a reprint of an article written by last year’s Africa400 guest Dr. Maulana Karenga as he spoke to the need to ‘Free the Rap’.  The article can also be read at Achieving Justice for Imam Jamil: A Battleline For All of Us – Los Angeles Sentinel | Los Angeles Sentinel | Black News (lasentinel.net).

Achieving Justice for Imam Jamil: A Battleline For All of Us
By Dr. Maulana Karenga
Published April 25, 2019

He came into the consciousness of his people and in the cross-hairs of the oppressor on the blood-stained battlefields and battlelines of the Black Freedom Movement of the 1960s. The media called Imam Jamil Al-Amin, H. Rap Brown then, but we just called him Rap because of the hard hitting, defiant, rhythmic and righteous way he described and condemned our oppressor and oppression and praised our people and challenged them to stand up, step forward and continue the liberation struggle.

We had met briefly at the SNCC headquarters in Atlanta when Us and SNCC were exploring incorporating Watts as a freedom city separate from Los Angeles. But we had ample time to talk when he came to speak at a Free Huey Rally at the Los Angeles Sports Arena that Us had played a key role in organizing within the context of the Black Congress, a Black united front, including the major groups in the L.A. area. He and I spoke at the rally, along with a long list of Black leaders and activists, as well as Mexican leaders, Reies Tijerina and David Sanchez. Also we had stood together against taking Custer stands with the police at the event, and I had sent Tommy Jacquette-Halifu to provide security for him to the airport. Halifu was a man of the people and I had also sent him to the Bay area with Kwame Toure to speak at Hunter’s Point and elsewhere. He had built a strong relationship with both. May the work Halifu and Kwame did and the good they brought last forever and always be a lesson and inspiration to us all.

Rap was his battle name, and his words were, as we say of Kawaida philosophy, a shield and sword, a pillow of peace and a constant call to righteous and relentless struggle. Long before the art of rappin’ was redefined as only a young people’s music, it was a whole people’s way of talking, telling truth, making sense, doing word magic with sayings and songs or running down a love proposal or program in smooth, cool and powerfully persuasive ways, i.e., making a case for togetherness in both personal and collective ways. And Rap was a master rapper, skilled in the spoken word, speaking rhythmically without rhyme, but with compelling reason; speaking truth to the people and to power, calling for an increase and expansion of the righteous and relentless struggle we as a people were waging for our liberation and a higher level of human life.

Historian Vincent Harding, speaking at a support rally for Imam Jamil in March 2012, said that Imam Jamil had, even at an earlier age, recognized and accepted the responsibility of youth to make a better world. Moreover, he said, Imam Jamil knew that youth “must develop themselves and become leaders in the building of a just and fair society.” And that he has spent “his life working on the creation of something better, something just for all of us in this country and in the world.” Indeed, he did this during the Black Liberation Movement and continued with his work after the Movement as a respected and loved Imam waging jihad, righteous struggle, on the spiritual and social levels and contributing greatly to the advancement of Black and human freedom.

In the 60s when they tried to muzzle and mute his voice of struggle, and of teaching the unvarnished and victorious truth, he would not be cowered, cut off or calmed down. “Let Rap, rap” we shouted. “Teach, Rap. Go on and rap Rap” we called out as he lit fire to falsehood, exposed the hidden horrors of the oppressor and raised high the praise for the people and the urgent need to continue and intensify the struggle. And now they seek to muzzle and mute his voice again. In 2002, he was falsely convicted of murder of a police officer and wounding another and sentenced to life in prison. Imam Jamil has always asserted and maintained his innocence. And there were holes and inconsistencies in the prosecutor’s narrative of conviction: the eyes and height description of the shooter; the wounded officers’ statement of having wounded the assailant, but no wounds were on Imam Jamil; a blood trail, but no blood on or from Imam Jamil; what was seen as a planted gun at the scene of Imam’s arrest; reports of police pressuring of the witnesses; and a confession later of someone who said that he was the shooter.

Having locked Imam Jamil down in a Georgia State prison, the state and federal government secretly transferred him out of state to a supermax underground federal person in Florence, Colorado without the knowledge of his family or lawyer on August 1, 2007. This was strange and suspicious because Imam Jamil was not convicted of a federal crime, but a state crime and thus unless there was some problem of space or of special circumstances, he should have remained in the state of the conviction. But it was not for reasons of space and there was no justification of special circumstances, but rather an expression of the governmental desire to capture, isolate and break him as was their long-term intention and as further demonstrated, by their transferring him to another federal prison in Arizona. Therefore, the current righteous struggle to return Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin back to Georgia and bring him out of the brutalizing isolation in the federal prison in Arizona, to get for him the medical treatment he urgently needs, and to free him from wrongful imprisonment is a struggle for justice in a most compelling and comprehensive sense.

Clearly, his trial was grossly flawed and his conviction was deeply wrongful. His targeting and imprisonment was political. His transfer from a prison in Georgia for a state conviction to federal prisons in Colorado and Arizona and being placed in solidarity confinement for 8 years is vindictive, vicious and designed to isolate him from family, community and legal counsel, and punish and break him. The refusal to allow journalists and academics to see and interview him is to muzzle him and eliminate the regular monitoring and checking on their savage treatment of him. And the denial of adequate and appropriate treatment for him is inhumane, a violation of his human rights and creating conditions for his death. Thus, we must see and engage this as a moral obligation to resist and reverse these unjust and evil actions.

Imam Jamil tells us from the beginning that we must not expect justice to be given to us without struggle in the midst of an unjust and evil society. Therefore, he urges us to constantly struggle to bring into being the good world we all want and deserve. He says “I can find only three places for a righteous man in an evil society: on the battlefield fighting his enemy; in a cell imprisoned by the enemy; or in his grave free from his enemy. Outside this, I find only hypocrisy.” Immediately, this calls to mind Min. Malcolm’s teaching that “Wherever a Black man (woman) is, there is a battleline.” Indeed, Haji Malik continues saying, “We are living in a country that is a battleline for all of us.” So, as we said in the Sixties, even if you, yourself, are not at war, you are in a war, a war being waged against you, your people and against people and things righteous, revolutionary and resistant. And thus, it behooves us to come to the battlefront conscious, capable and committed. Also, as we said then and must know as true now, there can be no half-stepping and no compromised commitment, for the brutal nature of our oppression and the evil character of our oppressor will not permit it. Finally, Imam Jamil tells us that we must continue the struggle, not only to free him, but also ourselves and the world. He says, “We have to see ourselves as the authors of a new justice. And wherever we see injustice and tyranny, we must (stop) it.” Our task, he states, is “to make the world more humane.” Indeed, he concludes, “That has to be the role of any revolutionary or any person that considers himself (herself) revolutionary.” And we of Us say again and again of our righteous and relentless struggle to bring good in the world, “If not this, then what? And if we don’t do it, who will?”

********

Dr. Maulana Karenga, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, California State University-Long Beach; Executive Director, African American Cultural Center(Us); Creator of Kwanzaa; and author of Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community andCulture and Introduction to Black Studies, 4th Edition, www.OfficialKwanzaaWebsite.org www.MaulanaKarenga.org.

Africa400 is broadcast live every Wednesday at 2:00 PM (Eastern Time, United States) on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org) and over the HANDRadio App.  After the show airs, it can be listened to at the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).

To listen to the show, click here:

Baba Ty with “Precise Time” on Africa400, Wednesday, August 11, 2021

Africa400 features host Baba Ty on Wednesday, August 11, as he discusses the topic “Precise Time”.  Call-ins are welcome at (410) 598-4242.  Baba Ty consistently sounds the alarm for us to become educated about the roots of racism and oppression in this society, and to understand the need for struggle and resistance against injustice.

Listen to the August 11 show below:

Africa400 can be heard live every Wednesday at 2:00 PM (Eastern Time, United States) on HANDRadio (https://handradio.org), or by downloading the HandRadio App.  After the broadcast, the show can be heard by visiting the HANDRadio Podcasts Page, an update of this post and the Media Pages of KUUMBAReport (https://kuumbareport.com), KUUMBAEvents (https://kuumbaevents.com) and the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org).

AFRICA400
Wednesdays 2-3pm EST.
https://handradio.org/
https://kuumbareport.com/
webuyblack.com
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JUSTICE INITIATIVE and New York Times Tribute to Pioneering Organizer and Educator Bob Moses

EDITOR’S NOTE: Justice Initiative, an Atlanta-based organization founded by Heather Gray, occasionally shares articles, analyses and commentaries for this Web site.  Here, they offer a tribute from The New York Times about human rights activist and educator Bob Moses, who transitioned to the Honored Ancestors on Sunday, July 25.

JUSTICE INITIATIVE

Note: Bob Moses died this past Sunday, July 25, 2021.  Please see below the New York Times article about Bob Moses.

Over the years of my work in civil and human nights advocacy throughout the South, Bob Moses has been invariably referred to for his remarkable organizing work and relentless ‘never give up’ mentality. What was also so impressive about Bob Moses is that his organizing work was never to seek accolades for himself. What he did was always in the interest of building a ‘group’ mentality that would advocate and work for justice.

Also, on Monday, August 2, 2021, we on the ‘Just Peace’ program on WRFG-FM at 6:00PM (EST) interview civil rights leaders Ben Chavis and Courtland Cox, both of whom worked with Bob Moses in the civil rights movement.

Ben Chavis is now the head of  the president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, an African-American organization which focuses on supporting and advocating for publishers of the nation’s more than 200 black newspapers.

Courtland Cox is the head of the SNCC Legacy Project of which Bob Moses served as vice chair. Here is excerpt from the SNCC Legacy Project about Bob Moses:

We honor his vision, tenacity, and fearlessness. His deep belief in people who find themselves in the socio/economic bottom made a fundamental difference for millions of his fellow Americans.

He was key to SNCC launching its voter registration campaign in Mississippi. That work in turn led to Freedom Schools, the 1964 Freedom Summer Project, the  Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the Poor Peoples Campaign, and the  Mississippi Freedom Labor Union. And these not only began to alter the face of Mississippi, but also challenged the country to be true to the best in itself.

At the heart of these efforts was SNCC’s idea that people-ordinary people long denied this power-could take control of their lives. These were the people that Bob brought to the table to fight for a seat at it: maids, sharecroppers, day workers, barbers, beauticians, teachers, preachers and many others from all walks of life.

(SNCC Legacy Project)

Heather Gray
July 20, 2021
Justice Initiative

Bob Moses, Crusader for Civil Rights and Math Education, Dies at 86

Mr. Moses developed a reputation for extraordinary calm in the face of violence as he helped to register thousands of voters and trained a generation of activists in Mississippi in the early 1960s.

Bob Moses was teaching math at the Horace Mann School in the Bronx when scenes of Black people sitting at lunch counters across the South inspired him to become an activist.   Credit…Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

By Michael Levenson, Clay Risen and Eduardo Medina
July 25, 2021
New York Times

Bob Moses, a soft-spoken pioneer of the civil rights movement who faced relentless intimidation and brutal violence to register Black voters in Mississippi in the 1960s, and who later started a national organization devoted to teaching math as a means to a more equal society, died on Sunday at his home in Hollywood, Fla. He was 86.

His daughter Maisha Moses confirmed his death. She did not specify a cause.

Mr. Moses cut a decidedly different image from other prominent Black figures in the 1960s, especially those who sought change by working with the country’s white political establishment.

Typically dressed in denim bib overalls and seemingly more comfortable around sharecroppers than senators, he insisted that he was an organizer, not a leader. He said he drew inspiration from an older generation of civil rights organizers, like Ella Baker, a leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and her “quiet work in out-of-the-way places and the commitment of organizers digging into local communities.”

“He exemplified putting community interests above ego and personal interest,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., said in a phone interview. “If you look at his work, he was always pushing local leadership first.”

In 1960 he left his job as a high school teacher in New York City for Mississippi, where he organized poor, illiterate and rural Black residents, and quickly became a legend among civil rights organizers in a state known for enforcing segregation with cross burnings and lynchings. Over the next five years, he helped to register thousands of voters and trained a generation of organizers in makeshift freedom schools.

White segregationists, including local law enforcement officials, responded to his efforts with violence. At one point during a voter-registration drive, a sheriff’s cousin bashed Mr. Moses’ head with a knife handle. Bleeding, he kept going, staggering up the steps of a courthouse to register a couple of Black farmers. Only then did he seek medical attention. There was no Black doctor in the county, Mr. Moses later wrote, so he had to be driven to another town, where nine stitches were sewn into his head.

Another time, three Klansmen shot at a car in which Mr. Moses was a passenger as it drove through Greenwood, Miss., Mr. Moses cradled the bleeding driver and managed to bring the careening car to a stop.

Arrested and jailed many times, Mr. Moses developed a reputation for extraordinary calm in the face of horrific violence. Taylor Branch, the author of “Parting the Waters,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the early civil rights movement, told The New York Times in 1993 that “in Mississippi, Bob Moses was the equivalent of Martin Luther King.”

A mural of civil rights leaders, including Mr. Moses, second from left, was unveiled at Jackson State University in Mississippi on Saturday. Credit…Rogelio V. Solis/Associated Press

Although less well-known than some of his fellow organizers, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer and John Lewis, Mr. Moses played a role in many of the turning points in the struggle for civil rights.

He volunteered for and later joined the staff of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, where he focused on voter registration drives across Mississippi. He was also a director of the Council of Federated Organizations, another civil rights group in the state.

Mr. Moses also helped to start the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, which recruited college students in the North to join Black Mississippians in voter registration campaigns across the state, according to the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.

Their efforts that summer were often met with brutal resistance. Three activists – James E. Chaney, who was Black, and Andrew Goodman and Michael H. Schwerner, who were white – were murdered in rural Neshoba County, Miss., just a few weeks after the campaign began.

That same year, when Black people were excluded from the all-white Mississippi delegation at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., Mr. Moses helped create the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which sought recognition as the state’s delegation instead.

Mr. Moses, King, Hamer and Bayard Rustin negotiated directly with Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, who was running for vice president. Although King favored a compromise in which the Freedom Party delegates would be given two seats alongside the all-white delegation, Mr. Moses and other Freedom Party leaders held out for full recognition.

Mr. Moses later recalled that he was in Mr. Humphrey’s suite at the Pageant Motel when Walter Mondale, Minnesota’s attorney general and head of the party’s credentials committee, suddenly announced on television that the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party had accepted the “compromise.”

“I stomped out of the room, slamming the door in Hubert Humphrey’s face,” Mr. Moses recalled in the book “Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project,” which he wrote with Charles E. Cobb Jr.

Mr. Moses called the convention a “watershed in the movement” because it showed that support from the party’s white establishment was “puddle-deep,” and he despaired over the possibility of building a biracial coalition that also bridged class divisions.

“You cannot trust the system,” he said in 1965. “I will have nothing to do with the political system any longer.”

Robert Parris Moses was born on Jan. 23, 1935, in New York City, one of three children of Gregory H. Moses, a janitor, and Louise (Parris) Moses, a homemaker.

In a 2014 interview with Julian Bond, Mr. Moses credited his parents with fostering his love of learning, recalling that they would collect books for him every week from the local library in Harlem.

He was raised in the Harlem River Houses, a public housing complex, and attended Stuyvesant High School, a selective institution with a strong emphasis on math. He played basketball and majored in philosophy and French at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y.

He earned a master’s degree in philosophy in 1957 from Harvard University, and was working toward his doctorate when he was forced to leave because of the death of his mother and the hospitalization of his father, according to the King Institute. He moved back to New York, where he taught math at the private Horace Mann School in the Riverdale section of the Bronx.

Already active in the local civil rights movement, he left for Mississippi after seeing scenes in the news of Black people picketing and sitting at lunch counters across the South. The images “hit me powerfully, in the soul as well as the brain,” he recalled in “Radical Equations.”

His natural confidence and calm demeanor drew people to him, and he soon became something of a civil rights celebrity. He was a hero of many books on the movement, and an inspiration for the 2000 movie “Freedom Song,” starring Danny Glover.

Eventually the fame got to be too much – not only because it added to the stress of an already overwhelming task, but also because he thought it was dangerous for the movement. He resigned from the Council of Federated Organizations in December 1964 and from S.N.C.C. two months later. He was, he said, “too strong, too central, so that people who did not need to, began to lean on me, to use me as a crutch.”

Mr. Moses grew active in the movement against the Vietnam War, and in April 1965 he spoke at his first antiwar protest, in Washington, D.C. “The prosecutors of the war,” he said, were “the same people who refused to protect civil rights in the South” – a charge that drew criticism from moderates in the civil rights movement and from white liberals, who worried about alienating President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Not long afterward, he received a notice that his draft number had been called. Because he was five years past the age limit for the draft, he suspected it was the work of government agents.

Mr. Moses and his wife, Janet, moved to Tanzania, where they lived in the 1970s and where three of their four children were born. After eight years teaching in Africa, Mr. Moses returned to Cambridge, Mass., to continue working toward a Ph.D. in the philosophy of mathematics at Harvard.

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Moses is survived by another daughter, Malaika; his sons Omowale and Tabasuri; and seven grandchildren.

When his eldest child, Maisha, entered the eighth grade in 1982, Mr. Moses was frustrated that her school did not offer algebra, so he asked the teacher to let her sit by herself in class and do more advanced work.

The teacher invited Mr. Moses, who had just received a MacArthur “genius” grant, to teach Maisha and several classmates. The Algebra Project was born.

The project was a five-step philosophy of teaching that can be applied to any concept, he wrote, including physical experience, pictorial representation, people talk (explain it in your own words), feature talk (put it into proper English) and symbolic representation.

“He understood that the literacies necessary for the 21st century were very different from the ones needed in the Industrial Age,” Courtland Cox, a veteran civil rights leader and a friend of Mr. Moses, said in a phone interview.

By the early 1990s, the program had stretched to places including Boston and San Francisco, winning accolades from the National Science Foundation and reaching 9,000 children.

Mr. Moses teaching an algebra class at Lanier High School in Jackson, Miss., in 1999. His Algebra Project exposed teachers and students to the latest innovations in mathematics. Credit…AP Photo/Rogelio Solis

Mr. Moses saw teaching “math literacy” as a direct extension of his civil rights work in Mississippi.

“I believe that the absence of math literacy in urban and rural communities throughout this country is an issue as urgent as the lack of registered Black voters in Mississippi was in 1961,” he wrote in “Radical Equations.”

In the summer of 2020, when the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis touched off global protests against systemic racism and police brutality, Mr. Moses said that the country seemed to be undergoing an “awakening.”

“I certainly don’t know, at this moment, which way the country might flip,” Mr. Moses told The New York Times. “It can lurch backward as quickly as it can lurch forward.”