Category Archives: Ourstory

Baltimore City School Board Seeks to Close Four Area Schools; Hearing Set for January 8, 2026

On December 11, 2025, a hearing was held at the headquarters of the Board of Commissioners, Baltimore City School Board to listen to initial testimony on behalf of four Baltimore City area schools:

The Baltimore City School Board is considering reducing or eliminating funding for these four schools which are credited for having provided much needed education and coming-of-age guidance to help young boys in areas of need to grow into the constructive and promising men they were always meant to become.

Criticisms often aimed at these schools that student test scores are low are countered by the assertion that these schools by and large take in students who are already behind academically, some being unable to read and write when they come to the schools, and they must catch up to be able to compete with mainstream and private schools which may be better funded.  Even operating at such a deficit, institutions such as the Baltimore Collegiate School, for example, have cited a 90-plus percent graduation rate, a testament to these schools’ critical role in helping Baltimore area students, especially young boys, to overcome adversity.

The December 11 hearing drew an overflow crowd of community activists, concerned families and educators who had gathered at the school headquarters to voice their support for the four schools.  After delaying their appearance for the hearing by close to an hour, an act that had many of those in attendance growing increasingly impatient with what they saw as a bureaucratic stall tactic designed to discourage many of the attendees, led to numerous call-and response chants (“It’s 5:52. Where are you?” and “It’s 5:58.  Why are you late?” are two examples) and comments that students who report late to class are sent to detention, the board members finally appeared and informed the gathered crowd that the hearing would not begin because there were not enough chairs for everyone.  Most of those who had come to voice their support for the schools were sent to “overflow rooms” where they would wait until the specific school foe which they were advocating was scheduled to make its presentation.  This not only inconvenienced the public, but it also had the effect of dividing them so that advocates for one school could not see and hear the proceedings as they impacted the other schools.  By “cutting” the gathering into four parts, the board members spared themselves the impact of facing such an intimidating crowd of supporters all at once and were also able to paint these four cases as “isolated incidents” and blunting the perceived impact that these closure decisions would have on the greater community.

A final decision was not made at this December hearing.  Another hearing will be held on January 8, followed by a final vote around January 14, at which time the resolve of the community and the flexibility of the school board will once again be tested.

Supporters are urged to write letters to the Baltimore City School board and Board of Commissioners, support the petitions that have been launched at support Web sites for the schools, to make donations to these institutions as they face possible defunding by the Baltimore City School Board, and to make plans to attend the follow-up hearing at the Baltimore City Schools headquarters on January 8.

UPDATE: “A Beautiful Struggle” Honors Recent Ancestor Imam Jamil Al-Amin on Saturday, December 20

UPDATE: A list of scheduled presenters has been added, and is presented below.

Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign (APPHRC) is organizing an event to pay tribute to Imam Jamil Al-Amin, who passed on to the Honored Ancestors on November 23, 2025.  APPHRC had been an advocate for his exoneration and release for many years, including having spokespeople for him, including his son, as guests on Sis. Tomiko’s Internet radio shows “Africa 500” and “The REvolution Is Black Love”. 

Imam Jamil Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown, was arrested and convicted in March 2002 for the shooting death of an Atlanta deputy sheriff.  He had been a target of law enforcement ever since his days in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Black Panther Party (BPP) as H. Rap Brown, when he had been a “militant” Black Power activist and a fugitive from justice due to trumped-up charges in the 1960s under the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) COINTELPRO operation.

The Imam as well as advocates in his case have protested his innocence ever since and were working diligently to establish his innocence, exoneration and release.  The Imam had been in ill health over the last few years, which increased concern that he would become yet another Political Prisoner from the freedom struggles of the 1960s to pass on to the Ancestors behind bars.

The event will be held on Saturday, December 20 from 12 noon to 4 pm at the Prince Hall Grand Lodge at 1307 Eutaw Place in Baltimore.  People who knew him and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the struggle from the days of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to his days as a respected Atlanta-area Imam from South Carolina to New York City have been invited to participate and make statements.  The flyer for the event is included above, and a  current list of presenters is included below.

“Thanksgiving” or Day of Mourning?

Since this is the time of year in which families gather together to commemorate what is commonly known as the “Thanksgiving holiday”, we thought it might be of some historical significance to share “the other side” of Thanksgiving, known to many Indigenous First Nations communities not as a day of celebration but as a day of mourning.  When I was being indoctrinated — I mean educated — in the school system, I learned about the great feast that was shared between the Pilgrims and the Indians in Plymouth, Massachusetts.  It was not until I was hitting 40 that I learned about the full history of that time, and I began to make occasional “pilgrimages” to Plymouth to participate in the protest that the National Day of Mourning.  This article, first published on KUUMBAReport Online in 2013, is reposted below.

Every year in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as most of us are taking the time of the Thanksgiving holiday to share fellowship with family and friends, watch too much football and eat too much turkey, a different commemoration is taking place.  The descendants of the Wampanoag Indians who encountered the Pilgrims in 1620 have a different story to tell from the one we all learned in school.  Their story is one that begins in friendship, but is soon followed by betrayal, by war, and ultimately by the genocide visited upon their Nation.

I’ve had the honor of being able to travel to Plymouth to take part in this commemoration five times.  The first time, in 1998, was a journey by bus, which was originally published in KUUMBAReport No. 9, February 1999 and is reposted below.  Four other times I drove to Plymouth from Maryland, and on three of those occasions my dear departed Rottweiler, who died in October 2012, traveled with me.  I have not been able to make the trip for the past 15 years, so I cannot share the most recent experiences with you, but I hope to make that trip again someday, and hope the description that follows will provide a reasonable explanation of what the National Day of Mourning, which most Americans regard as Thanksgiving Day, is all about.

“We are not Vanishing.
We are not Conquered.
We are as Strong as Ever!”

This was the primary slogan of the United American Indians of New England (UAINE) as they commenced the 1998 Day of Mourning Rally and March at Cole’s Hill in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts, overlooking Plymouth Rock.  The event had been held at this place every year since 1970, when Wamsutta Frank B. James, a member of the Wampanoag Indian Nation, had been invited by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to address a gathering of dignitaries marking the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims.  After he accepted their invitation, he was asked for a copy of his remarks in advance.  Upon seeing that his view of the history of the Pilgrims did not agree with theirs, the planners of the event first attempted to write a speech for him to recite, then, upon being told he would not have words put in his mouth, they withdrew their invitation and chose not to allow him to speak.  With that, he and other Indigenous people from throughout the country called for “Thanksgiving Day” to be observed as a Day of Mourning for Indian people.  It has been so observed every year since that time.

Information on this year’s National Day of Mourning protest can be found on their Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/events/plymouth-ma-coles-hill/national-day-of-mourning-2025/1918990738650146/.

Wikipedia (National Day of Mourning (United States protest) – Wikipedia) describes the National Day of Mourning thus:

The National Day of Mourning is an annual demonstration, held on the fourth Thursday in November, that aims to educate the public about Native Americans in the United States, notably the Wampanoag and other tribes of the Eastern United States; dispel myths surrounding the Thanksgiving story in the United States; and raise awareness toward historical and ongoing struggles facing Native American tribes. The first National Day of Mourning demonstration was held in 1970 after Frank “Wamsutta” James’s speaking invitation was rescinded from a Massachusetts Thanksgiving Day celebration commemorating the 350th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower. James instead delivered his speech on Cole’s Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts next to a statue of Ousamequin, where he described Native American perspectives on the Thanksgiving celebrations. The gathering became an annual event organized by the United American Indians of New England (UAINE) and coincides with both Thanksgiving Day in the United States and with Unthanksgiving Day, an annual ceremony held on Alcatraz Island in California.

Most of us know well the story of the Pilgrims as was taught in school.  Upon landing at Plymouth Rock, these hardy adventurers, seeking only religious freedom, nearly starved to death in the first winter.  But, after surviving with the help of the benevolent Indian chief Massassoit, the Pilgrims and the Indians got together for a feast of thanksgiving turkey.  Thus, 377 years’ worth of good cheer, turkey, cranberry sauce, and (finally) football games was begun.

The only problem with that scenario is that it is untrue.  Yes, the Pilgrims did nearly starve to death that first winter.  Yes, they would not have survived if not for the goodwill of Massassoit, if for no other reason than he chose to live in peace with them rather than try to drive them from Indian land.  Today, many UAINE activists say the decision to live in peace with the Pilgrims was the worst mistake Massassoit could have made.  This sentiment was eloquently stated in the speech that Wamsutta Frank James had prepared for Thanksgiving Day 1970, but his words were silenced due to ignorance, fear and greed.  We reprint some of his words here as they tell the story better than ours could.

The Suppressed Speech of Wamsutta Frank James: Thanksgiving Day, 1970

“I speak to you as a man–a Wampanoag Man. I am a proud man, proud of my ancestry, my accomplishments won by a strict parental direction (“You must succeed – your face is a different color in this small Cape Cod community!”). I am a product of poverty and discrimination from these two social and economic diseases. I, and my brothers and sisters, have painfully overcome, and to some extent earned the respect of our community. We are Indians first–but we are termed ‘good citizens.’  Sometimes we are arrogant but only because society has pressured us to be so.

“It is with mixed emotion that I stand here to share my thoughts. This is a time of celebration for you–celebrating an anniversary of a beginning for the White man in America. A time of looking back, of reflection. It is with a heavy heart that I look back upon what happened to my People.

“Even before the Pilgrims landed it was common practice for explorers to capture Indians, take them to Europe and sell them as slaves for 220 shillings apiece. The Pilgrims had hardly explored the shores of Cape Cod for four days before they had robbed the graves of my ancestors and stolen their corn and beans. Mourt’s Relation describes a searching party of sixteen men. He goes on to say that this party took as much of the Indian’s winter provisions as they were able to carry.

“Massasoit, the great Sachem of the Wampanoag, knew these facts, yet he and his People welcomed and befriended the settlers of the Plymouth Plantation. Perhaps he did this because his Tribe had been depleted by an epidemic. Or his knowledge of the harsh oncoming winter was the reason for his peaceful acceptance of these acts. This action by Massasoit was perhaps our biggest mistake.  We, the Wampanoag, welcomed you, the White man with open arms, little knowing that it was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.

“What happened in those short 50 years? What has happened in the last 300 years?  History gives us facts and there were atrocities; there were broken promises–and most of these centered around land ownership. Among ourselves we understood that there were boundaries, but never before had we had to deal with fences and stone walls. But the White man had a need to prove his worth by the amount of land that he owned. Only ten years later, when the Puritans came, they treated the Wampanoag with even less kindness in converting the souls of the so-called ‘savages’.  Although they were harsh to members of their own society, the Indian was pressed between stone slabs and hanged as quickly as any other ‘witch’.

“And so down through the years there is record after record of Indian lands taken, and in token, reservations set up for him upon which to live. The Indian, having been stripped of his power, could only stand by and watch while the White man took his lands and used it for his personal gain.  This the Indian could not understand; for to him, land was survival, to farm, to hunt, to be enjoyed. It was not to be abused. We see incident after incident, where the White man sought to tame the ?savage? and convert him to the Christian ways of life. The early Pilgrim settlers led the Indian to believe that, if he did not behave, they would dig up the ground and unleash the great epidemic again.

“Has the Wampanoag really disappeared? There is still an aura of mystery. We know there was an epidemic that took many Indian lives–some Wampanoags moved west and joined the Cherokee and Cheyenne. They were forced to move. Some even went north to Canada! Many Wampanoags put aside their Indian heritage and accepted the White man’s way for their own survival. There are some Wampanoag who do not wish it known they are Indian for social or economic reasons. …

“History wants us to believe that the Indian was a savage, illiterate, uncivilized animal. … Two distinctly different cultures met. One thought they must control life; the other believed life was to be enjoyed, because nature decreed it. Let us remember, the Indian is and was just as human as the White man. The Indian feels pain, gets hurt, and becomes defensive, has dreams, bears tragedy and failure, suffers from loneliness, needs to cry as well as laugh. He, too, is often misunderstood.

“The White man in the presence of the Indian is still mystified by his uncanny ability to make him feel uncomfortable. This may be the image the White man has created of the Indian; his ?savageness? has boomeranged and isn’t a mystery; it is fear; fear of the Indian’s temperament!

“High on a hill, overlooking the famed Plymouth Rock, stands the statue of our great Sachem, Massasoit. Massasoit has stood there many years in silence. We, the descendants of this great Sachem, have been a silent people. The necessity of making a living in this materialistic society of the White man caused us to be silent. Today, many of my people are choosing to face the truth. We ARE Indians!

“Although time has drained our culture and our language is almost extinct, we the Wampanoags still walk the lands of Massachusetts. We may be fragmented, we may be confused. Many years have passed since we have been a people together. Our lands were invaded. We fought as hard to keep our land as you the Whites did to take our land away from us. We were conquered, we became the American prisoners of war in many cases, and wards of the United States Government, until only recently.

“We are uniting. … We stand tall and proud, and before too many moons pass we’ll right the wrongs we have allowed to happen to us.

“We forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands of the aggressor. We have allowed the White man to keep us on our knees. What has happened cannot be changed, but today we must work towards a more humane America, a more Indian America, where men and nature once again are important; where the Indian values of honor, truth, and brotherhood prevail.

“You the White man are celebrating an anniversary. We the Wampanoags will help you celebrate in the concept of a beginning. It was the beginning of a new life for the Pilgrims. Now, 350 years later it is a beginning of a new determination for the original American: the American Indian.

“There are some factors concerning the Wampanoags and other Indians across this vast nation. We now have 350 years of experience living amongst the White man. We can now speak his language. We can now think as a white man thinks. …  We’re being heard; we are now being listened to. The important point is that along with these necessities of everyday living, we still have the spirit, we still have the unique culture, we still have the will and, most important of all, the determination to remain as Indians. We are determined, and our presence here this evening is living testimony that this is only the beginning of the American Indian, particularly the Wampanoag, to regain the position in this country that is rightfully ours.”

Thus the National Day of Mourning began.

The 1997 March and the Police Beat-Down

The 1997 March evidenced a growing response from the Indian community and its supporters.  This evidently was too much for the City of Plymouth to bear.  The 1996 March had raised concerns among the city fathers due to what was referred to as a ?minor incident? in which the Day of Mourning March began just as another march, called the Pilgrim Progress “which celebrated the arrival of the Pilgrims as much as the Indians mourned it” was passing Cole’s Hill, the site of the Day of Mourning Rally.  Apparently, the Pilgrim Progress marchers, feeling intimidated by the Indian protesters, chose to halt their procession and allow the protesters to continue through the streets of Plymouth.

In 1997, however, the City of Plymouth was apparently prepared for a conflict.  As the Day of Mourning marchers began their procession and continued into downtown Plymouth, police descended upon them, arresting 25 March organizers, participants and supporters.  Many marchers accused the police of brutally dragging protesters by the hair (to the extent that one man’s braided locks were torn from his head), throwing and pinning people to the ground and other acts of excessive force.  The police department countered that the protesters had no permit to march and that the police officers? actions were the only way to secure arrestees who trespassed and refused to comply with ?lawful? police commands.  As a result of the confrontation on November 27, 1997, the case of “The Plymouth 25” was born.

Members of this group, which included 1998 organizers Mahtowin Monroe and Moonanum James, were arraigned and charged with a variety of offenses.  Letters, e-mails and faxes were sent to federal, state and local officials demanding that the charges be dropped.  Petitions were signed, and many people honored UAINE’s call for an economic boycott of Plymouth.  “Supporters stood with us in court every time we were required to make an appearance and made sure that information about our case was distributed internationally,” said UAINE in a prepared statement. The end result was vindication for the protesters after almost eleven months of court battles.   “We are pleased to announce that the frame-up criminal charges against those arrested on November 27, 1997 have been dropped,” their October 19, 1998 statement continued.  “Further, [UAINE] has reached a settlement with the town of Plymouth.  Plymouth has acknowledged our right to walk on our own land without a permit on National Day of Mourning.  Plymouth has agreed to make the truth part of its celebration of the pilgrim myth of thanksgiving.  Under the terms of this agreement, we will have a number of important opportunities to address the lies and inaccuracies about ?thanksgiving? and the history of indigenous peoples that have been disseminated not only in Plymouth but throughout the country.  We are confident that this agreement represents a tremendous victory for the struggle of Native people to have our voices heard and respected.”  In addition to the above, Plymouth agreed to pay $100,000 to the Metacom Education Fund “for education on the true history of Native people,” $20,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for legal fees, and $15,000 for two plaques commemorating the National Day of Mourning and the story of Massasoit’s successor Metacom (or “King Phillip” to the Pilgrims), who, upon witnessing the aggressive tactics used by the Pilgrims, had sought to drive them from Indian land.  This had led to what the Pilgrims called “King Phillip’s War”, during which Pilgrims and Indians alike died en masse and Metacom was finally hunted down and killed, his head stuck on a pike in front of the Pilgrims’ settlement for 24 years.

Arrangements have been made to allow the Indigenous perspective of “Thanksgiving Day” as a Day of Mourning to be represented in the schools of Plymouth.  And the events of 1997 practically insured that Plymouth, Massachusetts would gain more media attention in 1998 than it bargained for.

The National Day of Mourning Plaque in Plymouth Plantation (from Wikipedia)

The 1998 Rally and March

A bus carrying a delegation from Baltimore was arranged by the All People’s Congress in response to Ms. Monroe and Mr. James’s call for action.  Approximately 30 travelers left Baltimore at about 12:00 midnight for the long ride to Plymouth, arriving at about 9:00 am.  The weather was cold and threatening, with rain in the forecast.  The assembled crowd, which was estimated to have reached 1,500, was not deterred.  Better rain drops crashing on their heads than police batons, they must have thought.

After several Indigenous speakers addressed the crowd, covering topics from the history of the Day of Mourning, the history of the Pilgrims and the previous year’s March to the plight of political prisoners including not only Leonard Peltier but also Mumia Abu-Jamal and Marshall “Eddie” Conway, the March through the streets of downtown Plymouth began.   The March wound through several blocks, all the time under the watchful eyes of the Plymouth police as well as the “peacekeepers” appointed by March organizers whose job it was to insure against confrontations with the police or other potential adversaries.  The Pilgrim’s Progress march, which had quietly passed by over an hour before, did not conflict with the protesters.

At the end of the March, a Town Hall Meeting was held in the auditorium of a local community center.  There, several March organizers spoke again, while participants greeted each other and Food Not Bombs provided their version of a true Thanksgiving feast–thanks for a successful event, thanks for an important victory for Indian people, thanks for rain being the only thing to pound the marchers’ heads.

The 2010 National Day of Mourning March

The last time I was able to personally attend the National Day of Mourning March was in November 2010.  As I mentioned above, I had traveled to Plymouth five times, once on the 1998 bus, in 2000 in my van with an old friend, and three times in my SUV, accompanied by that old friend (once), then by a brother-in-law, and all of those last three times by my beloved Rottweiler Sasha.  By that time, KUUMBAReport Newsletter was no longer being published, however, the KUUMBARadioReport was being broadcast on Harambee Radio, which at the time was broadcast from their Web site, harambeeradio.com, under the visionary guidance of Ancestor Dalani Aamon who sadly passed on to the Ancestors several years ago, and I was able to share audio from those last marches with the listening audience.

While the Plymouth protest and march remain important reminders of this country’s often-sordid past, and participation in the protest at Plymouth Rock offers key reminders of this history to those who still don’t know, there are other ways for us to honor those who have continued the fight to bring out the true history of the “Thanksgiving holiday”.  Observances are often held in communities across the United States (and certainly in other parts of the world). Key among these is the 2025 Mass Blackout from November 25-December 2 in which we are encouraged to “shut the oppressive system down” by engaging in “No Work, No Spending, No Restaurants, No Projects and No Events” (see the related post) aside from those sponsored by grassroots community groups, and there will likely be references to the Day of Mourning at the November 20-22 Remove The Regime rallies being held in Washington DC and other cities in the US in protest of the Trump administration.  In Baltimore, the Pan-African Liberation Movement (PLM) is holding an Umoja-Karamu to benefit those who are struggling to feed themselves and their families in the wake of the denial of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits and the looming denial of health care, offering free meals to those who need them.  Check out the post for details.

As I have gotten older and family responsibilities have increased or become more complex, I have been unable to make this trip to Plymouth for the last 15 years, but I hope to be able to rejoin the marchers sometime in the next few years to re-invigorate my commitment to truth and justice, and to refresh my remembrance of the Wampanoag and so many other Indigenous communities who were criminally sacrificed on the altar of Western “civilization” and expansion.

The “Mass Blackout” Boycott, November 25-December 2

There have been numerous efforts to encourage the people to resist the urge to spend massive amounts of their money as the “Holiday Season” kicks off and major corporations and big businesses entice us to participate in the shopping frenzy of “Thanksgiving Thursday”, “Black Friday” and now “Cyber Monday”.  These efforts, from alternative celebrations to outright protest actions, take many forms. 

Every year at this time, the United American Indians of New England hold the National Day of Mourning March and Protest at Cole’s Hill near Plymouth Rock, an event I have had the privilege of attending five times over the years and hope to do so again sometime (see the related post, “Thanksgiving or Day of Mourning?”).  In some Pan Afrikan communities, ceremonies such as Gye Nyame (after an Adinkra symbol attesting that “I fear none but the Creator”) and Umoja Karamu (or “Unity Feast”; see the related post about the Pan Afrikan Liberation Movement’s Umoja Karamu in Baltimore November 23) have sought to replace Thanksgiving gatherings with more Afrikan centered events.

This post concerns a specific campaign aimed at big businesses, major corporations and the political machine that maintains them, often at the expense of “the people on the bottom” as they seek to extract more of our hard-earned money to fuel their record profits.

The “Mass Blackout” Economic Boycott is designed to stage a massive economic protest against the current regime in the White House (perhaps, but not necessarily, in connection to the “Remove the Regime” protests scheduled for November 20-22 in Washington, DC and other locations) and, at the same time, deny the major corporations, many of whom support and are supported by the current regime, of the massive profits they count on at this time of the year, from Thanksgiving Day events to Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping sprees as consumers ramp up for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

The “Mass Blackout” Economic Boycott aims to deny the major corporations our hard-earned dollars and, in the words of the organizers, “drain them dry” instead of propping up their bottom lines at the beginning of what they always plan to be their most profitable holiday season.

Two primary promotional graphics have been shared over social media and are shown below.  The guidelines for the “Mass Blackout” Economic Boycott are stated by the organizers as follows:

    • No Amazon.  No Target.  No Walmart. No national chains.
    • No fast food from national brands.  If you eat out, choose independent restaurants.
    • No online shopping.  No Prime Day deals.  No app store purchases.
    • No streaming rentals.  No movie tickets at national theater chains.
    • No rideshare if a local taxi or transit option exists.
    • No new gadgets.  No new clothes.  No home decor.
    • No buy now pay later.  No impulse credit card splurges.
    • To prevent “spoke spending” before and after the Blackout, we ask that all participants purchase goods needed from community-owned stores and markets leading up to and after the dates.  This helps with sustained impact and keeps our money out of the mega businesses’ pockets.

If I’m understanding this correctly, small, community-owned and -operated businesses, especially those run by Pan Afrikan, Indigenous and marginalized communities, are not subject to the boycott.  “Small Business Saturday” is reportedly exempted from the boycott, according to a November 12 USA Today article cited below.  Traditionally, the community is encouraged to specifically support these small and community businesses and organizations as a means of building up an “alternative economy”, one that we frankly should have been supporting all along.

Mass Blackout’s Web Site

“This holiday season, we shut down the system,” proclaims the official Web site, https://www.themassblackout.com.  “We’re pulling the plug on corporate control.”  This is a coordinated economic shutdown—a collective refusal to participate in a system that profits off our pain, exploits our labor, and buys our politicians.

The site explains further:

The system isn’t broken. It’s working exactly as designed—for the wealthy.

The Mass Blackout is a nationwide economic action, coordinated across aligned organizations, calling Americans to:

        • Stop online or in-store shopping (except for small businesses)
        • Stop work
        • Stop streaming, cancel subscriptions, no digital purchases
        • Remove the regime

If you must spend: support small, local businesses only. Pay in cash.

We’re not targeting small businesses or communities—we’re targeting the corporate systems that profit from injustice, fuel authoritarianism, and crush worker power.

WHY NOW?

Because nothing will change while fascists remain in power.

    • The Trump administration paused federal anti-corruption enforcement — giving corporations a free pass to bribe, cheat, and exploit.
    • Big business is funding authoritarian candidates while walking back public commitments to civil rights, labor protections, diversity, and democracy.
    • Billionaires profit while the rest of us are told to shop, work, and stay silent.

This isn’t about left vs. right. This is about people vs. power.

If we do nothing, they win. If we move together, they feel it.

For more details and analysis of the need for an economic boycott, to download their Media Kit and other resources, and for a list of suggested organizations to which you can donate to help lift up those in greatest need, go to the Web site, https://www.themassblackout.com.

Mainstream Media Coverage

While the “Mass Blackout” may not yet have received the attention it merits (and why would the corporate media support efforts to subvert corporate America’s effort to maximize its profits?), USA Today published an article on November 12 about the “Mass Blackout” (“Cancel Black Friday? ‘Mass Blackout’ doesn’t want you to shop or work to protest Trump” by Jessica Guynn, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/11/11/black-friday-cyber-monday-donald-trump-boycotts/87221297007/).

A coalition of grassroots organizations is calling for a nationwide economic shutdown during the busy holiday shopping season, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, to protest the Trump administration and economic inequality.

The groups – Blackout the System, The People’s Sick Day, American Opposition, the Money Out of Politics Movement, and The Progressive Network – urged Americans to stop all spending and refuse to go to work during the “Mass Blackout,” which runs from Nov. 25 to Dec. 2.

Avoid travel and restaurants and cancel streaming and digital subscriptions, organizers said. “If you must spend: support small, local businesses only. Pay in cash.” Small Business Saturday on Nov. 30 is exempted from the blackout.

The groups in the coalition had all independently called for shopping boycotts but decided to join forces.

“We are living under a political system captured by special interests, where billionaires and corporations write the rules,” Isaiah Rucker Jr., founder of Blackout the System, said in a statement. “Congress serves donors, not the American people, and democratic norms are being dismantled in front of our eyes, with corporate backing. This campaign is about showing them where the power truly lies, with the people.”

Carlos Álvarez-Aranyos, founder of American Opposition, told USA TODAY the coalition is “developing the American muscle for boycotts and blackouts as a way to leverage economic power” with the ultimate goal of leading a general strike.

“We don’t see this fight as left versus right. We see it more as top versus bottom,” Álvarez-Aranyos, who helped organize the “No Kings” protests and the Tesla boycott, said in an interview. “This is about Black Friday because, honestly, what we are seeing across the board is just unsustainable. We are being taken advantage of. Prices are up. Inflation is through the roof.” …

The rest of the November 12 USA Today article can be read at https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/11/11/black-friday-cyber-monday-donald-trump-boycotts/87221297007/.

 

 

PLM’s Umoja-Karamu Offers Dinner and Fellowship to Those In Need

The Pan Afrikan Liberation Movement (PLM, https://www.plm95.org; https://www.facebook.com/plmbaltimore) is stepping up to the plate this holiday season in service to those in need.  This should not come as a surprise, as PLM, led by Baba Imhotep Asis Fatiu and his Queen, Mama Ife Assata Fatiu, have been lifting up the Pan Afrikan community in Baltimore and beyond for many years now, having recently celebrated their 30th year of official service as a community organization.  They have helped raise the children through their Watoto Development Center.  They have worked with “at-risk” youth through their Urban Youth Initiative Project (UYIP).  They have educated young people through their Kimoyo Shule Africana Independent School.  They have held study sessions with adults in their Afrikan Awareness Critical Thinking Study Group (AACTS).  They have published numerous books, from the UrBan Philosophy series to Baba Imhotep’s most recent work, Scientific Pan Africanism.  They have held public outdoor events such as the Pan Afrikan Day of Solidarity and Race 1st rallies.  They recently sponsored the Race 1st Convention to bring together organizers and activists from the Baltimore area and beyond to build what will hopefully combine with other efforts for a true Pan Afrikan United Front.

Now, PLM is reaching out (again) to those in our community who are suffering, who struggle to put food on the table, and who are further threatened by the Trump administration’s attack on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits as well as on affordable health care and other essential programs and services.  November 23 will bring the PLM Umoja-Karamu (“Unity Feast” in Kiswahili) from 2-6 PM, at the Unity Hall, located at 1505 North Eutaw Place in Baltimore, Maryland.

As they state in the announcement from their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/plmbaltimore):

In response to the loss of SNAP benefits affecting many of our people, the Pan-African Liberation Movement (PLM) is stepping up to support the community. This year, our Umoja-Karamu Celebration will focus on giving back rather than our usual celebration.

We will be hosting a Community Dinner Give-Away, a warm and welcoming space where Black people can come enjoy a freshly prepared meal, take one home, or sit down and eat together. Our goal is to feed at least 100 people while honoring the spirit of unity and collective care that Umoja-Karamu represents.

If you or someone you know could use a good meal, come out.

For more information, email them at plmbaltimore@gmail.com, or visit their Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/plmbaltimore) or their Web site (https://www.plm95.org).

“The REvolution Is Black Love” Discusses The Wealth Mindset with

On October 15 edition of “The REvolution Is Black Love” features show host Sis. Tomiko’s interview with finance expert J. D. Garnier as he discusses The Wealth Mindset.

“The REvolution Is Black Love” airs Wednesdays at 3:00 PM on Hand Radio (https://handradio.org).  After the broadcast, the audio can be found in this post and on our Media Page under Current Radio and Podcasts.

 

A Song (And A Post) For Assata

(Common)
In the Spirit of God. In the Spirit of the Ancestors. In the Spirit of the Black Panthers. In the Spirit of Assata Shakur.  We make this movement towards freedom for all those who have been oppressed, and all those in the struggle.

Yeah. yo, check it-
There were lights and sirens, gunshots firin
Cover your eyes as I describe a scene so violent
Seemed like a bad dream, she laid in a blood puddle
Blood bubbled in her chest, cold air brushed against open flesh
No room to rest, pain consumed each breath
Shot twice wit her hands up
Police questioned but shot before she answered
One Panther lost his life, the other ran for his
Scandalous the police were as they kicked and beat her
Comprehension she was beyond, tryna hold on
to life. She thought she’d live with no arm
that’s what it felt like, got to the hospital, eyes held tight
They moved her room to room-she could tell by the light
Handcuffed tight to the bed, through her skin it bit
Put guns to her head, every word she got hit
“Who shot the trooper?” they asked her
Put mace in her eyes, threatened to blast her
Her mind raced till things got still
Opened her eyes, realized she’s next to her best friend who got killed
She got chills, they told her: that’s where she would be next
Hurt mixed wit anger-survival was a reflex
They lied and denied visits from her lawyer
But she was buildin as they tried to destroy her
If it wasn’t for this German nurse they woulda served her worse
I read this sister’s story, knew that it deserved a verse
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All this shit so we could be free, so dig it, y’all.

(Cee-lo vocals)
I’m thinkin’ of Assata, yes.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yes.
Your Power and Pride is beautiful.
May God bless your Soul.

(Common)
It seemed like the middle of the night when the law awakened her
Walkie-talkies cracklin, I see ’em when they takin her
Though she kinda knew,
What made the ride peaceful was the trees and the sky was blue
Arrived to Middlesex Prison about six inna morning
Uneasy as they pushed her to the second floor in
a cell, one cot, no window, facing hell.
Put in the basement of a prison wit all males
And the smell of misery, seatless toilets and centipedes
She’d exercise, (paint?,) and begin to read
Two years inna hole. Her soul grew weak
Away from people so long she forgot how to speak
She discovered freedom is a unspoken sound
And a wall is a wall and can be broken down
Found peace in the Panthers she went on trial with
One of the brothers she had a child with
The foulness they would feed her, hopin she’s lose her seed
Held tight, knowing the fight would live through this seed
In need of a doctor, from her stomach she’s bleed
Out of this situation a girl was conceived
Separated from her, left to mother the Revolution
And lactated to attack hate
Cause federal and state was built for a Black fate
Her emptiness was filled with beatings and court dates
They fabricated cases, hoping one would stick
And said she robbed places that didn’t exist
In the midst of threats on her life and being caged with Aryan whites
Through dark halls of hate she carried the light
I wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All of this shit so we could be free.
Yeah, I often wonder what would happen if that woulda been me?
All of this shit so we could be free, so dig it, people-

(Cee-Lo)
I’m thinkin’ of Assata, yeah.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yeah.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful…
May God bless your Soul.
Oooh.

(Common)
Yo
From North Carolina her grandmother would bring
news that she had had a dream
Her dreams always meant what they needed them to mean
What made them real was the action in between
She dreamt that Assata was free in they old house in Queens
The fact that they always came true was the thing
Assata had been convicted of a murder she couldna done
Medical evidence shown she couldna shot the gun
It’s time for her to see the sun from the other side
Time for her daughter to be by her mother’s side
Time for this Beautiful Woman to become soft again
Time for her to breathe, and not be told how or when
She untangled the chains and escaped the pain
How she broke out of prison I could never explain
And even to this day they try to get to her
but she’s free with political asylum in Cuba.

(Cee-Lo vocals)
I’m thinkin’ of Assata, yeah.
Listen to my Love, Assata, yeah.
We’re molded from the same mud, Assata.
We share the same Blood, Assata, yeah.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful…
May God bless your Soul.
Your Power and Pride, so Beautiful…
May God bless your Soul.
Oooh.

(Assata)
Freedom!  You askin’ me about freedom.  Askin’ me about freedom?  I’ll be honest with you.  I know a whole lot more about what freedom isn’t than about what it is, cause I’ve never been free.  I can only share my vision with you of the future, about what freedom is.  Uhh, the way I see it, freedom is — is the right to grow, is the right to blossom.  Freedom is — is the right to be yourself, to be who you are, to be who you wanna be, to do what you wanna do. (fade out)
– “A Song For Assata”, by Common featuring Cee-Lo
from the album Like Water For Chocolate (2000)
Songwriters: Lonnie Rashid Lynn, James Jason Poyser, Thomas Decarlo Burton

The Pan Afrikan community lost a mighty voice for freedom on September 25, 2025 with the passing to the Honored Ancestors of Assata Olubgbala Shakur.  A veteran of the Black Panther Party (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA), wounded in a May 2, 1973 shootout on Interstate 95 that also took the lives of fellow BLA member Zayd Shakur and New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster, tried and convicted of murder despite physical evidence and medical testimony that she was not holding a weapon and was shot in the back with her hands raised, tortured in the hospital as she recovered from her injuries, imprisoned in an all-male US gulag until her liberation and escape in 1979, aided by other BLA members and White revolutionaries, and finally settling in Cuba under the protection of the Fidel Castro government, she finally passed on to the ancestors at age 78, living the life of a free Black woman in exile from the United States with her daughter.

Black nationalist and Pan Afrikan organizations, as well as mainstream organizations such as the Chicago Teachers Union, have mourned the passing and memorialized the life of Ancestor Assata Shakur, while corporate news outlets and government officials have largely condemned her for her life as a Black militant and revolutionary, continuing to mouth the words of those who are still convinced that she was a cold-blooded cop killer, despite the physical evidence in her case.  The fact is, there are those who continue to benefit from the spoils of repression that rocked the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and who refuse to even consider the copious evidence that activists such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and Assata Shakur were not the murderous terrorists that the FBI and its COINTELPRO had painted them to be, and were in fact freedom fighters trying desperately to stem the tide of totalitarianism, repression and violence that the country was swept up in during the Nixon administration and seems to be revisiting during the current “reign” of Donald Trump.

I am hardly qualified to speak about the immeasurable courage, dedication and sacrifice that she embodied. My words would so inadequately describe the life and legacy of New Ancestor Assata Shakur.  So I will leave this task to others, from the lyrics of a tribute song by recording artist/actor Common (above) to news articles to tributes on several youth-oriented and pro-Black Web sites to a couple of quotes from Assata herself.

“I decided on Assata Olugbala Shakur. Assata means ‘She who struggles,’ Olugbala means ‘Love for the people,’ and i took the name Shakur out of respect for Zayd and Zayd’s family. Shakur means ‘the thankful’.” [Assata: An Autobiography, p. 186]

“There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism. In fact, there was not a single liberation movement in the whole world that was fighting for capitalism. The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it” [Assata: An autobiography, p. 190].

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

We share here links to several Web sites that have published short biographies and tributes to her, including an article about the reaction of US FBI Director Kash Patel’s remarks and the “Black backlash” that erupted in response to his disrespectful words. We start with the news article from the Associated Press.

Associated Press
Assata Shakur, a fugitive Black militant sought by the US since 1979, dies in Cuba
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/assata-shakur-a-fugitive-black-militant-sought-by-the-us-since-1979-dies-in-cuba/ar-AA1NnikR?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Teen Vogue
Assata Shakur was a Black Revolutionary who Fought for Freedom Even in Exile
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/assata-shakur-black-revolutionary-fought-190818481.html
Marion Jones, October 1, 2025

In a letter written from prison titled To My People (1973), Shakur writes, “I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i” — Shakur preferred the lowercase “i” as personal pronoun, aiming to remove “the egotistical connotation of the word” — “am a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that amerika is capable of. Like all other Black revolutionaries, amerika is trying to lynch me.”

The dissonance in Shakur’s legacy is on display after her death. She was long framed as a “terrorist”, “cop killer”, and fugitive from the law in media and by officials. Yet, public displays of mourning and calls to honor her legacy abound. Her story is also a reminder of the impact of COINTELPRO, and how it continues to impact activists today through technological surveillance, the criminalization of protest, and the targeting of dissidents.

To many, including those posting in honor of her after her death, Shakur will be remembered as a revolutionary who fought for her freedom and won. That legacy lives on in the “Assata chant” often utilized at protests — “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT OUR CHAINS.”


The Root, https://www.theroot.com
Assata Shakur and Other Black Celebs We Lost In 2025
https://www.theroot.com/black-celebs-we-lost-in-2025-1851759544/slides/2

Activist Assata Shakur, Black Panther Party member and noted revolutionary, died in Cuba on Sept. 26. She was 78. Shakur moved to the Caribbean country in 1984, five years following her escape from a New Jersey prison, where she was serving a life sentence for the murder of a police officer; Fidel Castro granted Shakur (born Joanne Chesimard) political asylum, turning her into a symbol of strained relations between the country. For her supporters, Shakur spent nearly half a century as an icon of Black American freedom fighters and an example of the consequences of an imbalanced and biased criminal justice system.

Black Internet Drags FBI Director Kash Patel For Filth For Slamming Assata Shakur Following Her Death
FBI Director Kash Patel called Assata Shakur a “terrorist” after her death, and Black folks online have interesting thoughts on the matter.
By Phenix S Halley, Published September 30, 2025
https://www.theroot.com/black-internet-drags-fbi-director-kash-patel-for-filth-2000064719

While the Black community was honoring the life of Assata Shakur, former Black Panther and member of the Black Liberation Army, FBI Director Kash Patel went out of his way to slam anyone remembering her positively. Now, Black Twitter is dragging him for filth.


Liberation News, https://liberationnews.org
Assata Shakur: The making of a revolutionary woman
Rachel Domond, September 26, 2025
https://liberationnews.org/assata-shakur-the-making-of-a-revolutionary-woman/

Assata Shakur, much loved fighter for the people, died Sept. 25 in Cuba. To commemorate her life, we reprint this 2021 article from Liberation School-ed.

When I think of political prisoners, and when I think of those who have relentlessly committed themselves to Black Liberation, I always think of Assata Shakur. …

From Assata’s story, we are able to learn what it means to be motivated by a deep love for the people and the struggle for freedom—and what it means to embody a determined and unbreakable spirit in the face of crackdowns and government repression designed to stifle and destroy the movement. Account after account from Assata’s comrades and fellow revolutionaries describe Assata as a light, a positive spirit who remained disciplined and committed to the struggle despite incredible hardships. …

Coming of age in the 1960s and 70s, conditions were ripe with struggle on all fronts—from the Stonewall Rebellion to the Women’s Rights Movement to the Civil Rights and Black Power movements—conditions to politicize. After college, Assata moved to Oakland, CA, where she joined the Black Panther Party, participating in defense programs for the Black community. Some years later, she returned to NYC to lead the BPP in Harlem, coordinating programs like the famous Free Breakfast for Children program. …

COINTELPRO, the government counterintelligence program of the 60s and beyond, was created with the intention to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” Black nationalist and Black liberation organizations and their leaders [4]. It is now absolutely clear from FBI documents that since at least 1971, the FBI, in cooperation with the state and local law enforcement, conducted a campaign to specifically criminalize, defame, harass and intimidate Assata Shakur. The U.S. government saw Assata’s dedication to the cause and leadership within the Black sovereignty movement as a threat to the internal security of the United States. …

Rest In Power, Mama Assata. We are sad to see you go, but we are glad that you were able to love out your life away from these “United Snakes”, and that you now reside with the Honored Ancestors for your unending struggle for the people, unconquered still.

Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition Community Town Hall August 30 at Baltimore’s Temple of New African Thought

On Saturday, August 30, the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC) is holding our first Pan Afrikan Community Town Hall Meeting of 2025.

The event will be held at the Temple of New African Thought, 5525 Harford Road in Wast Baltimore, from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM.  I’ve attached a flyer for the event.

We hope to bring organizers and activists from our community to offer their ideas on how we as a community can move forward as “America quits on Black People”.

The “war on woke”, the elimination of community survival programs (Social Security, Supplemental Nutritional Assistance, Medicaid), the deregulation of police and corporate abuse, gerrymandering and the assault on voting rights, the rise of White Supremacy, the disinformation campaign and other attacks on our community and the general US population will be discussed, centering on how we as a Pan Afrikan community can respond and defend our people from the worst of the current administration’s destructive policies.  Our objective is to elicit ideas on how we can respond as a community on the political, cultural, economic, legal, cultural, information and revolutionary levels, and bring them all together into a cooperative, all-encompassing plan for our entire community that involves, empowers and acknowledges all of our organizers and activists.

We invite you to join us on Saturday, August 30 for what we hope will be a lively and productive discussion.

For more information, feel free to contact Bro. Cliff at cliff@kuumbareport.com.

“The Seriousness of this Moment”: Sherrilyn Ifill and Other Speakers as the State of the People National Convening Comes to Baltimore

The State Of The People (SOTP) National Convening (https://stateoftheppl.com) was held June 19-21, 2025 at The Empowerment Temple (with breakout sessions and luncheons provided at The Forum Caterers) in northwest Baltimore, Maryland. Organized by former MSNBC show host Angela Rye and supported by several current and former MSNBC hosts and guests such as Joy Ann Reid, Mya Wiley and Mark Thompson, SOTP seeks to galvanize and mobilize grassroots Black communities in cities across the United States and advance an alternative Black Agenda to the established Democratic and Republican Party platforms, though the conveners and primary presenters echoed many essential points of Democratic Party politics.

The State Of The People Power Tour visited several cities across the United States in the months leading up to the National Convening: Atlanta, Georgia (April 26-27); Durham, North Carolina (April 29-30); Mongomery, Alabama (May 3); Birmingham, Alabama (May 4); New Orleans, Louisiana (May 8-9); Newark, New Jersey (May 13); Richmond, Virginia (May 16-17); Detroit, Michigan (May 21-22); Jackson, Mississippi (May 30-31); Louisville, Kentucky (June 2-3); and Los Angeles, California (June 5-6) before coming to Baltimore on June 19-21.

The Rev. Dr. Robert Turner, pastor of The Empowerment Temple, graciously hosted this event and made sure the Convening proceeded smoothly.  As an activist for truth and justice himself, it was good to see the Black Church taking a position of support for a community-oriented conference such as this one.

The Thursday, June 19 session began that afternoon with a libation ceremony officiated by Baba King Teasdell of Baltimore’s Souls of Life Society, followed by a recognition of the Juneteenth holiday and a panel moderated by anti-racism activist and author Ibram X. Kendi that featured, among others, New York lawyer Mya Wiley, Morgan State professor Ray Winbush and Rev. Jamal Harrison Bryant who had founded the Empowerment Temple and now pastors a church in Atlanta, Georgia. Lawyer Ben Crump, who became a household name for his advocacy for victims of police abuse, brutality and murder, delivered impassioned closing remarks.

Saturday’s session was another short day as previous speeches and presentations were reviewed and the stage was set for SOTP’s organizing plan going forward.

Much of the content of the weekend was presented on Friday, June 20, which opened with an Old South call and response “I ain’t gonna let nobody turn me round”, a rousing musical performance by Sis. Katoriae and a spoken word presentation. Several breakout sessions and panels were held that featured national speakers such as Minyon Moore of Essence and Rashad Robinson of Color of Change. Former MSNBC host Joy Ann Reid, who now hosts The Joy Reid Show podcast on the Web (https://www.youtube.com/@TheJoyReidShow/videos?reload=9), served as emcee for the Friday session.

Among other speakers during Friday’s session were former New Orleans mayor and current Urban League president Marc Morial, Larry Hamm of the People’s Organization for Progress, former Maryland States Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby, Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott and Maryland governor Wes Moore, who was introduced by his wife, Maryland First Lady Dawn Moore.

Ms. Mosby had prosecuted the police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray in 2015 and was targeted by a number of conservative legislators and the Fraternal Order of Police. She was recently prosecuted herself for alleged improper use of retirement funds to purchase real estate and was put under house arrest for a year. Many Pan Afrikan activists rallied to support her during the court proceedings. Ms. Mosby spoke about her yearlong ordeal Friday in observance of the end of her house arrest from what supporters have called an unjust prosecution and conviction.

Governor Moore spoke about the accomplishments and continuing objectives of his term as governor of the state of Maryland, and gave verbal support to the work of SOTP. He continues to speak out in defense of his veto of the reparations panel, which a number of the attendees of the SOTP Convening have criticized because the existing research on the issue is incomplete and fails to take into account continuing issues that also require relief that a more comprehensive reparations effort could provide.

Reparations discussion

The Why We Can’t Wait Reparations Coalition’s Sis. Dreisen Heath (founder and reparations strategist) and California Black Power Network’s Kevin Cosney (co-founder and associate director) led a discussion around the reparations battle.

The establishment of Juneteenth as a national holiday was described as “a concession to our demands for the purpose of quelling our push for follow-up on reparations” that was presented to Back leadership “at a time when we had good pressure to establish the commission to follow up on [House and Senate reparations bills] HR 40 and S 40 and develop reparations proposals.” For those who were under the misconception that reparations were only for slavery, it was pointed out that reparations is also for post-emancipation harms such as the Black Codes, Jim Crow, racial profiling, COINTELPRO, political imprisonment, mass incarceration, redlining and ongoing institutional discrimination, not just for slavery. The five aspects of the relief required from reparations, according to Sis. Dreisen Heath, include the following:

  • Restitution: return of the people to a dignified place
  • Compensation: other communities have been compensated for the harms done to them
  • Satisfaction: the apologies, the admissions, the commitment to atonement, the public acknowledgements, education about what happened historically
  • Rehabilitation: trauma-informed care, access to community wellness rooted in Afrikan centered practices to lift up Black livelihoods
  • Guarantees of Non-Repetition: building up the structures we need, taking legal statutes off the books that harm us

Despite estimates that $200,000-$300,000 would close the individual wealth gap, changing the continuing conditions will also be required. Examples of ongoing harms include real estate appraisals that undervalue Black-occupied homes by $200,000 or more on resale and similar practices that would continue even after any monetary award.

It was also noted that there is a global Diaspora reparations movement, not just in the United States, attacking colonial powers. We are situated within a larger global struggle with local, state, federal, international, institutional, industry, corporate, statutory and individual harms.

Among local advocacy needed, it was pointed out that Maryland governor Wes Moore’s veto of the reparations panel (“I don’t need another study; I’m ready to act now”) must be challenged so he will be better informed in developing a reparations strategy. Several local activists, most notably members of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS), have stated that the governor’s “misguided” veto was issued without a full accounting of the ongoing harms that must be properly addressed.

HR 40 and S 40 are part of the legislative fight. There are other efforts on that level: Reparations Now legislation, legislation for Black veterans to restore rights from the GI Bill, a reparations bill for Black Wall Street in the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a bill for Black artists to retrieve their intellectual property and others. There was a call to action around continued organizing.

Public safety, state violence, housing disparities, education, healthcare and other issues are linked as consequences of past and current harm. These issues are being discussed and studied at the state level in California, for example.

Building power in the political and grassroots spheres continues on the local and national fronts.

Sherrilyn Ifill’s Address

Sherrilyn Ifill is an esteemed lawyer. She is the Vernon E. Jordan Jr. Esq. endowed chair in civil rights at Howard University, a law professor, and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She delivered what amounted to the keynote address for the Friday session.

Despite recent articles claiming that Black Americans’ approval ratings for the Trump administration are climbing (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/donald-trump-s-approval-rating-surges-among-black-voters/ar-AA1HTf5t?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ASTS&cvid=efc80c6fc7e54149a19b95ba2c16f952&ei=9), Ms. Ifill demonstrated the degree to which many of us have not yet awakened to the real harm Trump administration policies threaten us with, citing Trump’s effort to eliminate birthright citizenship and cut vital support programs on which the Afrikan American community depends in large numbers. The July 3 advance through Congress of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, which eviscerates the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid and other programs while cutting more federal jobs to help fund a huge tax break for billionaires, has yet to hit most Americans who apparently remain convinced that the pain this bill and related actions impose will impact other communities, namely the “illegal immigrants”, and will not adversely affect them in classic “pre-FAFO” fashion.

We include below her presentation in close to its entirety, as it seemed to encapsulate the legal and social ramifications of this time and the criticality of the struggle the country, and especially the Afrikan American community, will face. Her remarks come from the perspective that Afrikan Americans must continue to advocate and fight for our rights as citizens of this country, and as such our engagement on the civic level is needed as voters and community organizers, a position at least largely shared by the organizers of SOTP. While differing from the positions of many revolutionary Pan Afrikanists for whom the fight against imperialism and oppression calls for us to separate from this government and to struggle against it, her analysis nonetheless expresses the spirit of resistance and prescribes those actions we must take “within the system” to complement what we do “outside the system” in the name of revolution.

Here is the text of most of her presentation:

“The moment that we are in in this country is going to require us to multitask. They are coming at us 100 different ways and we have to come at them at least 50 different ways. We can’t put all our eggs in one basket.

“Now what I want to talk to you about is the seriousness of this moment. I don’t enjoy it. I’ve been a civil rights lawyer for 35 years. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do. It’s what I dreamed of doing from the time I was eight years old. And it happened, so I lived my dream. But I always believed, and I’m not capable of not believing, that it’s possible, it is possible for us as Black people in this country to be full first-class citizens. I’ve always believed that it was possible and I still believe it.

“Now I confess that this has been an incredibly disappointing time. There are many sacrifices I’ve made along the way, time with my children, dragging them to marches and explaining to them that we were working for a world, a better world for them. It is a sacred trust of human beings to pass on to your children a world that is better in its condition than the one that was passed to you. And the truth is, we cannot say that right now, which means we have failed in something fundamental. It’s a sin. So we have to get very serious about what this moment means. And what I am here to tell you, because I’ve had the opportunity to sit in rooms and hear what people are talking about, because I monitor the litigation in the Supreme Court, the policy moves, the legislation, the efforts of various federal agencies, is that we are in the greatest danger as a country that we have been in since the dawn of the Civil War. We are ready to fracture as a country.

“Now I teach at Howard Law School, and I run a center called the 14th Amendment Center on Law and Democracy, and the reason is that the 14th Amendment is the Constitutional amendment that remade this country. The first Constitution you all know about: the guys with the tri-corner hats, Hamilton and Jefferson and those people. Those are the people that, in the Constitution, said that Black people would be counted as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation. Those are the people who said in the Constitution that the slave trade could continue until 1808. They knew slavery was wrong, but that was their compromise to get all those signatures on the Constitution. And so, less than a hundred years later, that compromise produced the break that was the Civil War, where our country was fractured in two. When the war was over, the country had to be knit back together. And the knitting of the country, what was critical to the knitting, was the assurance that Black people would be full and free citizens. In 1857, the Supreme Court had decided a case called Dred Scott versus Sanford, and in that case the Supreme Court said that Black people had no rights that the White man was bound to respect. But they said something even more devastating, and the chief justice was a man named Roger Taney, from Fredrick, Maryland. What he said was that Black people not only were not citizens of this country, but could not ever be citizens of this country. What that meant was enslaved people were not citizens, but it also meant that free Black people who lived all over the country had now become stateless persons. And for that reason after the Civil War, the first order of business was to ensure the citizenship of Black people. And to ensure the citizenship of Black people, the framers of the 14th Amendment created something vitally important that you probably hear in the news today but that you think has nothing to do with you. It is the first line of the 14th Amendment and the first line of the 14th Amendment is ‘Every person born in the United States, or naturalized and subject to its jurisdiction, is a citizen of the United States and of the state in which they reside.’ We call it birthright citizenship. When you hear our president talking about ending birthright citizenship, you need to understand that birthright citizenship was created for us. It was created to ensure that we were full and free citizens. You’re not listening to the conversation because you think it’s about some other community.

“Now it’s about them too, and you should understand that when that Congress was creating birthright citizenship, they understood and believed that the children of migrants who were born here would be citizens. You know how I know? Because they had a debate in the Congress. There were some members of Congress who were saying ‘Are we going to let ourselves be overrun these people?’ And the people they were talking about were the most disfavored racial minority at that time. They said, ‘Are we going to be overrun, are we going to let them take over California?’ And the people they were talking about were the Chinese. And what the other legislators said was, what we are saying is that the children of Chinese laborers; in this period Chinese people could not even become citizens of this country, they were barred from citizenship; but if their children were born here, they said ‘They will be citizens.’ So don’t listen to Trump when he says that children of undocumented migrants who were born here are not citizens. Every person born on the soil of this country is a citizen of this country and the state in which they reside. And if we allow them to begin to chip away at that on the theory that they are focused on other people, it is only a matter of time before they come for us. How do I know? All of the activities that we are seeing ICE engage in, around the country, we’ve seen what happened in Los Angeles, you know that this week we learned that ICE picked up a young man and prepared to deport him to Jamaica even though this young man is an American citizen born in Georgia, Black man.

“When we talk about due process, we’re talking about the right for you to come before a judge and say ‘No, I’m an American citizen’. So if people say ‘No, migrants don’t get due process rights’, that same 14th Amendment says every person gets due process rights, which means you can’t take something from me, the government can’t take something from me, without giving me a chance to appear before a tribunal, to appear before a judge and defend myself, and say ‘No, here’s my birth certificate. Here’s my mama. This is the hospital where I was born. I am a citizen.’ So when you hear them having a conversation about due process and you’re not paying any attention to it because you think it’s about other people, understand the only way you could prove that you were an American citizen is if you could come before a judge and prove it. Otherwise, you spend the rest of your life in a jail in Jamaica.

“You may have seen that some migrants were sent to the CECOT prison in El Salvador, one of the most notorious prisons. I’m not sure we’ve paid enough attention to that. Because if you heard the president in the Oval Office with the president of El Salvador, he thanked him for taking all those migrants and he said that ‘We need you to build five more prisons because the home-grown ones are next.’ Who are the people who are disproportionately in American prisons? Anybody here have a family member or a friend who ever was incarcerated? That’s who they’re talking about sending to these gulags. Disappearing people. Sending them, they’re now saying, not just to El Salvador, but Rwanda. So understand that the actions that this administration is taking, they are targeting, as they always do first, the populations that they believe are the most vulnerable, that will not arouse our anger and our activism, and then they move it ever closer. And that’s what’s happening right now. So our very physical safety, and you see what they’re doing, they’re rolling up into Home Depot, and asking you for your papers. They’re rolling up in supermarkets. So we have that threat going on.

“We have another threat going on. We have the threat of the unraveling of federal agencies that are critical to our lives and our livelihoods. The Department of Education. Now understand that there was no such thing truly as public education in the American South until after the Civil War. It was the Freedmen’s Bureau that ushered in public schools in the South. There were some public schools in the North. There was no public school system in the South. We created the public school system, basically. And White Americans were very fine with having a public school system so long as they could maintain a separate and unequal public school system. But after 1954 and Brown versus Board of Education when the Supreme Court said if you’re going to have a public school system you have to offer it equally to Black and White children, we have been in a resistance to public education ever since. And now the plan is, you know the new Secretary of Education for the United States is who? Linda Mcmahon, the head of the Worldwide Wrestling association, so you know that when you appoint somebody like that to oversee it, you know you’re not serious. And her job is to unravel and dismantle the Department of Education, which they are doing by defunding it. Now understand, this is illegal. Agencies are created by the Congress and only Congress can end an agency. But while this percolates its way up to the Supreme Court, which is a whole other story, they are stripping away all the money. Stripping away all the money. The Department of Education funds every IEP [Individualized Education Plan — Editor] and program of support for special education in this country. That’s not your state’s money. That is money from the Department of Education. No Department of Education, no money for special needs kids, no money for special education, no money for IEPs. So that’s happening even as we speak.

“The Department of Justice, which was created, one more time, for us, the Department of Justice was created in 1870 when Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Acts, the legislation designed to protect us from mob violence during Reconstruction. And they created the Department of Justice so there would be a federal arm that could prosecute those cases. Now when we hear about the Department of Justice, we hear about antitrust cases, we hear about all kinds of cases. But it’s important to understand that the core of it always was civil rights enforcement. And they have now taken the Department of Justice and flipped it. What they call civil rights enforcement now is representing White people who claim they have been discriminated against. They are focused in their so-called Civil Rights Division on the rights of the people they call Christians who believe that they have been subjected to religious discrimination. So they have taken away a vital resource that is designed to protect our voting rights, to protect us against police violence, to protect us against environmental injustice, to protect us against injustice in school discipline, to protect us against all these things that essentially has been upended.

“So what do we do about this? All of this is happening right now. It’s happening fast. I appreciate the call for reparations. I believe in it. But I need you to understand, we’re not making it to 2026 as a democracy, unless we reverse something. You hear me? We’re not. And I need people to understand how serious this is.

“So we have to come at this in multiple ways. We have to come at this like this, through education and organizing, and figuring out how to use our voice, we have to come at it, yes, through voting, but the push for voting rights among our people was always because we believed that political power would give us the ability to change the material conditions of our lives and our communities. It was never just about the symbolism of voting. It was because we believed it would give us the power to make change. So the ultimate goal is making change.

“What does that mean? How are we going to do this? How are we going to fight this thing? Anybody who tells you they have all the answers to how we deal with this unprecedented attack is lying to you. There are certain things that we know. We know we have to fight. Never in the history of our time in this country have we decided that we’re just not going to fight. We have to fight. They have decided that we are expendable, that’s what that foreign prison thing is all about. They have decided they don’t need us anymore. They believe that AI [Artificial Intelligence — Editor] can do all the things. They’re shortsighted, they’re wrong. We’re going to find out in a few months when we don’t have no crops because they got rid of all the migrants who were working in the fields. They may be wrong, but they’re taking action with the idea that they don’t need us. And when you hear them talking about these expansion ideas, it’s because all of the stuff that we’ve been saying about the population becoming majority-minority, they were hearing that too. That’s why they wanted Canada to be the 51st state, so it could be whiter. So they don’t want us in the electorate, they don’t feel they need us, they don’t want federal resources to go to us, and they want to strip away the safety net that we need to maintain us. So this is serious right now in this [“Big Beautiful” — Editor] bill, when they’re talking about stripping out Medicaid, when they’re talking about stripping out SNAP, and Social Security. I have a sister who’s living on Social Security right here in Baltimore. I don’t have the money to support her too. So we’d better start paying attention. Now, I always tell people to call their legislators and I mean that, and when I say that people in Maryland or New York say ‘Oh, I live in a blue state, my people know what they’re doing.’ No, that’s not going to cut it. You need to be calling [Maryland Congressman] Kweisi [Mfume]. You need to be calling Chris Van Hollen. You need to be calling your Representatives and your Senators. Now you have phones. You can find an app. It’s called ‘5 calls’. When you get that 5 calls app, it will tell you who all your Reps are so you can regularly call them. So you have to make that appeal to your Representatives. We have to occupy the public space. They want to intimidate us. And that means we have to be out. We have to be outside. Because they want us to believe there are more of them than there are of us. And it is not the truth.

“We have to anchor ourselves in unity. I remind people, and sometimes it hurts my students’ feelings when I tell them this, Black people constitute 13% of the population of this country. When I said this in my class last semester, a young man said ‘Damn, not even 15.’ Yeah, not even 15. And of all the groups growing in population in this country, we’re not. We’re staying steady. We’re not growing. Asian Americans are growing. Latinos are growing. We’re not growing. Now the reason you didn’t know we were 13%, I know a lot of you all didn’t know that, you thought we were more, the reason you didn’t know that, and the reason that White people, when they do the surveys in the Washington Post, think that we’re 50% of the population, is because, maybe they’re just crazy, but the other reason is because we punch above our weight. And because we have so much cultural power, we so much dominate the cultural space, people actually think we’re bigger in the population than we actually are. I know you all are taping but don’t tell anybody, we’re only 13%. And what 13% means is, we cannot be disunified. We can’t afford it. I’m not saying we’ve got to love everybody, the same way, but we have to understand our common survival is tied together. and I’m going to tell you something else about the 13% that’s going to make you salty. We’re not going to make it without allies from somewhere.

“So I know we’re in our feelings right now. You know, last November was tough. I’m still mad. My face is set up. At all times. But understand, we are going to have to build bonds with allies if we are going to make it, because these people are coming for the whole thing. It’s not like before where they do a little something on affirmative action, a little something here. They want the whole thing. They want to return us to a condition of complete disempowerment. They want to strip our history. They want to strip our accomplishments and our contributions to this country. They want to suppress our culture and our voice. They want to make us believe that we don’t belong here. And that’s why I encourage you and talk about the 14th Amendment. Every other group talks about the part of the Constitution they love. The gun advocates talk about their 2nd Amendment rights. They’re going to have a big long gun on their back and they’ll be in the McDonald’s ordering a Quarter Pounder. And you’re like, ‘Well why do you need that long gun?’ And they say ‘Because it’s my 2nd Amendment right.’ And all kinds of people will tell you about their First Amendment right. ‘You can’t tell me what to say, I have the First Amendment rights. I have First Amendment rights to religion. I have First Amendment rights to protest.’ We’ll say in conversation, jokingly, ‘I plead the Fifth.’ Because we know the Fifth Amendment is the right not to incriminate yourself. But when we experience discrimination, when we experience bias, when we experience prejudice, do we ever say they violated our 14th Amendment rights? And the reason it’s important is because we have allowed the entire conversation about race and racism to be about feelings, to be whether or not you’re a good person, or whether you have a racist bone in your body, whether you even see race. I could not care less. What I care about is that the Constitution, as my idol Barbara Jordan said, the Constitution, she used to say, says that we are free, full, first class citizens of this country, and that we are entitled to equal protection. The first time the word and the concept of equality shows up in the constitution is in that 14th Amendment. Did you know that? People are walking around thinking America is a place of equality and justice. Not in the first Constitution. And we know it wasn’t in the first Constitution because I just told you about the three-fifths clause. Where did we get that idea from? You know where most people get it from? From the Declaration of Independence. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’ Well, the 14th Amendment reached back over the first Constitution to the Declaration of Independence and pulled that concept into our Constitution for the first time in 1868. This was huge. This was the transformation of this country. That’s what they’re fighting against. People who are saying ‘Oh, they want to turn things back from the civil rights movement’. No baby, they want to turn things back from 1868.

“So, let me finish by saying, what we’re doing here is important. But what I’m asking is that everyone understand the state of the danger that we’re in. That you be prepared to make your contribution, because there are going to be other ways in which we’re going to have to participate. It’s going to be marching, it’s going to be boycotts, it’s going to be other ways that we have to engage in order to stop this onslaught. I know you usually don’t vote in the in-between elections, but I don’t feel sure we’re going to have one in 2028, so you might want to show up in 2026. Because in 2026, I want to remind you, every seat in the United States House of Representatives is up for election. Let me say it again. In 2026, every seat, every single one, all 435, are up for election in 2026. And if there is a party change, it will take that speaker gavel out of the hand of little Mike Johnson, the current Speaker of the House, and Congress will be able to do its job in pushing back against some of the excesses that Trump is engaged in. That’s the only hope. 33 Senate seats are up for election. So every House seat and 33 Senate seats. If you stay home in 2026, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know what to tell you. Because I don’t think 2028, without some shift in the political landscape, is going to happen as an election year in which that kind of change that we’re used to can happen.

“So, the last thing I would leave you with is to not forget that, and when you vote this time, vote the way we should have been voting all this time but if we’re honest with ourselves haven’t been. Vote for every race on that ballot. School Board, Sheriff, all of the bond issues that decide whether we’re going to allocate money toward opening the public schools in the summer, all that stuff that you skip. It says ‘Pick 3 judges’ and you don’t know who they are, so you just keep it moving, all that. It’s timeout for that. We need all the power we can get. My mantra always is, leave no power on the table. And every time you don’t show up, you give them power. I’m going to give you one other one. Jury service. Stop trying to get out of jury service. You all want to complain about the criminal justice system, but you don’t want to be … these are all the things, these are the places where we have a voice and the potential for power. We have to decide that we’re going to be new citizens, citizens in a different way than we’ve been before. Because these people have shown that they are prepared to take the whole thing. So if you’re with me on that, if you’re with me on that, spread the word in your family, spread the word in your community, follow good resources on social media so that you’re getting good information, I know you don’t want to hear all this foolishness that’s out there but there are people doing great work that you can follow. You know Roland Martin, you know his show. Get yourself in a position that you can understand what is going on, because it’s no joke. I now have a grandson. And by God, I will not give him a world that is worse than the one that was given to me. Make that pledge to yourself as well. Thank you very much.”

Youth Presentations: “Tubman Talks”

Jill Cartwright moderated a youth panel (ages 18-35) and introduced the other speakers.

DaQuan Rayford said: “I hear a lot of my peers say, ‘I could never go through that in civil rights; I could never let them treat me that way’. Whatever you are doing now is what you would have been doing during civil rights. If you are sitting down right now and you are not paying attention to anything, that’s what you would have been doing during civil rights. That’s what you would have been doing during any other period that we have been through. So the time is now to step up and to speak out.”

Taz Gaines, Organizing Black (Baltimore): took “a moment to bring into the space Bilal Abdullah Jr. who was murdered by Baltimore police department this past Tuesday” before describing the work of Organiing Black: “We are young folks, 18-35, we think the world can change using political education, direct action and participatory governance. We’ve been working in the city around local control, we’ve been working around Cop City that’s coming here … [a] $300 billion investment which is way more than what they spent and what they invested in Atlanta. … The reason why we want to stop things like that is because we want our folks to still be in community with us. One of the things that people kept talking about today that I really think is central is our connection to each other. How do we stay connected to each other, whether it is coming to things like this, whether it is inviting folks to Sunday dinner again, sitting on the porch talking to your people, all of that.”

Sis. Mo spoke about the need to recognize and heal the trauma that many youths experience: “Trauma that is not transformed is transferred.”

Tyleek Mcmillan recalled words from an elder, “We’ve been in the house so long that we’ve forgotten what the storm feels like. … Often today in our lives we find ourselves in storms. … If we’re not prepared for the storm, we have the possibility of losing it all. And it reminds me that you can’t get to the other side without a storm.”

Audience Reports and Comments

An activist from Minneapolis, Minnesota noted the continuing need for police reform in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, voter registration, political action and the prevention of gun violence.

Sis. Ertha Harris of Baltimore spoke about her projects: the House of Chiefs event hall, her Tight Knit radio show on AM radio station WOLB, and her ongoing support for former States Attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby.

Sis. Danielle spoke about her work organizing young people and student clubs at Morgan State University.

Jaylen Powell, attending from Delaware, spoke about her work as the CEO and founder of Out Loud.

Activists from the audience stated that communities need more than just to be heard; they need to know that when their voice leaves the room, action will be behind it. Activists and would-be leaders need to meet the people where they are: the barber shops, the projects and other places.

Bro. Cliff of KUUMBAReport, the Sixth Region diaspora Caucus (https://srdcinternational.org) and the Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition stated that we must avoid I-Have-The-Answer-ism. Different organizations need to intentionally coalesce because no one organization can solve our people’s problems.

There was somewhat of a consensus that if our enemies have used divide-and-conquer to keep us down, the answer must include building unity.

Audience members emphasized the need to override the governor’s veto of the bill for the reparation study panel and to repeal the 13th Amendment which allowed slavery to continue for those convicted of crimes, leading to the enslavement of those ensnared in the prison-industrial complex.

The importance of recognizing intersectionality was stressed by an audience member from Boston. We are also Haitian, Boricua, disabled, LGBTQ+ and others.

Black people are represented among targeted federal employees in large numbers.

Black homeowners in Baltimore and Maryland need an association that will represent them and fight for their rights.

Several breakout sessions were held during the day Friday, including ones about health and wellness, economics, mutual aid and coalitions.

State Of The People’s Plan to Organize Our Voice

A specific session, one that perhaps encapsulated the ultimate purpose of this Convening and the other stops in the Power Tour, discussed SOTP’s plan to establish delegates in the 50 US states, Washington DC and the territories toward a national meeting of delegates akin to the 1972 Gary, Indiana Black Political Convention. Town Hall Meetings in the Afrikan American community would help crystallize the Black Agenda for the various states, and the community would elect delegates from their state to participate in a national delegate convention. The delegates would be required to represent not their own personal views or those of their organizations but the needs and aspirations of Black people in their state as determined in the Town Halls. The assembled delegates would help determine the national Black Agenda that SOTP would then use to provide leverage in campaigns to deal with the national legislative, judicial and executive branches of the United States government.

There are numerous similarities to other efforts to build a Black Agenda on the local, national and international levels, from the National Black Radical Political Convention to the State of the Black World to the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus’s (SRDC) work to establish a delegation of Diaspora Representatives.

SRDC’s plan specifically calls for many of the same steps that SOTP is advocating: Pan Afrikan Town Hall Meetings; the development of local, national and global Diaspora Pan Afrikan Agendas; and the election of Representatives at the local, national and global levels to advocate for Afrikan People at the African Union, United Nations and Organization of American States, something that Ancestor Malcolm X instructed us to do 60 years ago. The main differences here seem to be

  1. the organizational structure of the effort, with SOTP being guided, perhaps, by a national body that then gives the plan and strategy to the localities while SRDC’s plan depends more on the local communities organizing themselves to help inform the national and global sociopolitical strategy; and
  2. that SOTP’s plan seems to be geared toward leveraging the voice of Black America (such as they are able to elicit, organize and harness it) to petition the United States government for more just treatment of its Afrikan American citizens, while SRDC’s plan is aimed at influencing global organizations to put pressure on the United States and Western governments where Afrikan People live while providing opportunities for us to “come home” to Mother Afrika instead of “taking our case from the wolf to the fox” as Ancestor Malcolm X described going to the United States government for redress of our grievances.

Since this effort is only now being kicked off as of July 2025, there will certainly be more developments in the coming weeks as SOTP works to connect with on-the-ground activists in the local communities. It will be necessary to work with a variety of organizers and activists across numerous areas of activism and organizing, from culture to economics to local politics and more if this effort is to be successful and truly represent the voice of Black America. We will further discuss the progress of SOTP’s plan and the similarities and differences in these approaches in subsequent articles.

Juneteenth Events in the Baltimore-Washington DC Area

This week, the Afrikan American community recognizes the holiday of Juneteenth, regarded as the day enslaved Afrikans finally learned of their freedom across the United States as the news reached enslaved populations in Texas.

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juneteenth) describes the holiday in this way:

… referring to June 19, 1865, the day when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas at the end of the American Civil War.[8][9] In the Civil War period, slavery came to an end in various areas of the United States at different times. Many enslaved Southerners escaped, demanded wages, stopped work, or took up arms against the Confederacy of slave states. In January 1865, Congress finally proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution for national abolition of slavery. By June 1865, almost all enslaved were freed by the victorious Union Army, or abolition laws in some of the remaining U.S. states. When the national abolition amendment was ratified in December, the remaining enslaved in Delaware and in Kentucky were freed.

Early celebrations date back to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas. They spread across the South among newly freed African-Americans and their descendants and became more commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, often centering on a food festival. Participants in the Great Migration brought these celebrations to the rest of the country. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, these celebrations were eclipsed by the nonviolent determination to achieve civil rights, but grew in popularity again in the 1970s with a focus on African-American freedom and African-American arts. Beginning with Texas by proclamation in 1938, and by legislation in 1979, every U.S. state and the District of Columbia has formally recognized the holiday in some way.

Juneteenth is also celebrated by the Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles who escaped from slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila, Mexico.

The day was recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, when the 117th U.S. Congress enacted and President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law. Juneteenth became the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was adopted in 1983.

There will be numerous celebrations and commemorations in the immediate Maryland-DC-Virginia area this week. We will provide information on a few of them below, and links to other sources of information. If you know of a Juneteenth event taking place this week that we may not have heard about, feel free to let us know at cliff@kuumbareport.com and we will see about announcing it on this Web site.

Rita Church Community Center Kwanzaa Celebration, June 18

The Oliver Senior Center, Harford Senior Center and Waxter Senior Center are holding a Juneteenth Celebration on Wednesday, June 18 from 12 noon – 2 PM. There will be games, food, live entertainment, giveaways and vendors. The event will be held at the Rita Church Community Center, 2102 St. Lo Drive, Baltimore, MD 21213. To register, go to https://tinyurl.run/iusl19 or call (410) 396-3861.

State of the People National Convening, June 19 – 21

The State of the People National Convening will take place from June 19 – 21 at The Empowerment Temple, 4217 Primrose Avenue, Baltimore, MD. A number of panelists and guest speakers will discuss building a Black Agenda, Black Paper Town Halls and Delegate Training. To register, go to https://stateoftheppl.com. For more information, call (410) 209-9687 or visit https://stateoftheppl.com/baltimore.

More Juneteenth Events in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia

WTOP News in Washington, DC has put together a schedule of Juneteenth events in Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia.
https://wtop.com/local/2025/06/juneteenth-2025-a-roundup-of-celebrations-in-dc-maryland-and-virginia/

Juneteenth 2025: A roundup of celebrations in DC, Maryland and Virginia
WTOP Staff

June 15, 2025, 4:15 PM

The U.S. will observe Juneteenth on Thursday.

Officially recognized as a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth dates back to 1865, when a Union general informed enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War was over and that they were free.

This was two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

WTOP has curated an extensive list of D.C.-area events organized in celebration of Juneteenth 2025. Go to the link https://wtop.com/local/2025/06/juneteenth-2025-a-roundup-of-celebrations-in-dc-maryland-and-virginia/ to find out the details.