The African Union Mission in Georgetown, Northwest Washington, DC, was the location for a special event, the meeting of the Chair of the African Union Commission, His Excellency Moussa Faki Mahamat, with members of the African Diaspora on Wednesday, November 15, 2017. The event was emceed by Mr. Melvin Foote, president of the Constituency For Africa (CFA), a Washington, DC-based lobbying organization that seeks to influence United States policy in favor of constructive objectives for the United States as well as the Continent and people of Africa.

Also present at the meeting was the current African Union Ambassador to the United States, Madame Ambassador Arikana Chimbori-Quao, and several other local and regional advocates for members of the African Immigrant Community in the United States. The audience included a number of members of that Community, as well as Afrikan-American Pan-Afrikan activists who had gathered here to learn more about the AUC Chair’s positions on African development, the African Union’s relations with the United States, the role the Diaspora can play in lifting Africa up, and how the African Descendant populations, particularly Afrikan-Americans, can not only contribute more effectively to the development of the African Continent but also gain, at last, that Seat At The Table in the African Union’s
Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) and Pan-African Parliament.

Mr. Foote began the event with an introduction of himself and a statement.

Mr. Melvin Foote, event emcee, President of the Constituency for Africa (CFA)

“Good evening. … This is a day the Lord has made for the Diaspora and we should be celebrating. … My name is Mel Foote. I’m the president of the Constituency For Africa. CFA is a Washington, DC-based organization that works to educate Americans about Africa, improve cooperation and coordination among various organizations, groups and businesses that work on African issues, we work to
unify the African Diaspora, and our end product is we work to shape United States policy toward Africa. Since we’re in America, we should be shaping US policy toward Africa in a way that supports the African Union.

“It gives me great pleasure on behalf of the Constituency For Africa and the African Diaspora to welcome to Washington the Chairman of the African Union Commission, His Excellency Moussa Faki Mahamat.

“Mr. Chairman, the Diaspora worldwide and in the United States has much to offer Africa. In the United States alone, there are over 50 million who are Diasporan. This includes African Americans whose Ancestors were brought to these shores 400 years ago as slaves, to provide the free labor that enabled the country to develop into the power that it is today. There are also African immigrants from countries across the Continent who now rank as the best educated of all the immigrant populations in this country.

“According to the World Bank, the African immigrant community remits more than $35 billion to the Continent each year, a larger amount than all the Foreign Direct Investment that the Continent receives currently. There’s also a large [immigrant community of] Afro Latinos, and those from the Caribbean.

“There are many areas where the African Union and the Diaspora community can work together and cooperate. One clear area that we can jointly work together on is increasing direct and indirect investment in Africa and on economic and business development. Mr. Chairman, you will be pleased to know that the technological ability of the Diaspora in these United States in the areas of health care,
education, business development, agriculture production, computers and sciences, roads and infrastructure construction, and many other areas, which if effectively tapped can be a valuable resource for Africa, as the Continent addresses the growing demands of citizens and the developing challenge of facing the rapidly expanding next generation on the Continent.

“Sir, if properly engaged, we in the Diaspora can also be much more helpful to Africa in lobbying the United States government, and to ensure that Africa is dealt with in a fair and equitable manner. That’s very important Sir. The Diaspora can really access the United States government to give a better hand to Africa.

“Though we are very proud to call ourselves Americans and very much want the United States to win – we want our country to win, we want America to win – but we are also proud of our African heritage, and we want Mother Africa to win also. That’s why they call us African Americans. We love Africa and we love America.

“I must tell you, Mr. Chairman, while we in the Diaspora have this great potential, we are also very much challenged by the lack of unity and spirit of cooperation among us. We are deeply divided, fragmented, and even antagonistic toward one another. We often spend inordinate amounts of our time attending to nonsense issues such as Who is an African and who is not an African. Q’uest que c’est?

“I guess the real question is: Are you an African because you were born in Africa? Or are you an African because Africa is born in you?

“We certainly look forward, Mr. Chairman, to your clarification on the definition of the African Diaspora, and how you envision that we can work together in a more unified manner.

“We certainly look forward to hearing from you, Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat, as you engage us on issues concerning Africa and the Diaspora. In addition to hearing your thoughts on a range of issues on Africa involving economic development, democracy and governance, and social and political development, we are especially eager to hear your thoughts, Mr. Chairman, on how we in the Diaspora can best work with the African Union to address and resolve issues in Africa and to and to work toward a more harmonious union of African people, worldwide.

“Mr. Chairman, the African Union has sent us a great Ambassador to Washington. We are very pleased with Ambassador Arikana Chimbori-Quao. We don’t want her ever to go. …”

Mr. Mamadou Samba, Director, Washington, DC Mayor’s Office on African Affairs

“Washington, DC has the only Office of African Affairs in the United States, and we have a mandate to serve the African community here. There are about 16 to 18 thousand African immigrants in Washington, DC, and about 112,000 in the Washington Metropolitan Area, and about 1.7 million in the United States. So you can see the importance of our office, which is now ten years old. The office was created in 2006 after the community galvanized to ask for the city to create a body that supports the African immigrants and makes sure that when they do come to the United States they have a structure to help navigate and have access to services and resources. Our work is done in partnership with the Commission on African Affairs, which is 15 dynamic African leaders that serve as advisers to the office, to the Mayor and the Council on issues that impact the African community.

“Our services are divided into five or six areas where we provide services. One of them is Constituent Services. Any time somebody walks into our office and says ‘I just moved to the city, I don’t have a place to go, I’m looking for a job,’ our office provides those services. Our African Community Grant is another one. As of today, we’ve funded a total of $120,000 to African nonprofit organizations.  The program provides cultural services to African community members. One of them is Konkouran West African Dance Company, which is the only traditional African dance company in Washington, DC. They’ve been here for 30 years. And because of our funding, they’re able to stay in DC and not move to Maryland, and nobody should go to Maryland, everyone should stay in DC [laughs]. …

“Our capacity building program is another area where we provide training and support [for] the capacity of non-profit organizations. …

“Other programs are also there, but I just wanted to highlight our Youth Engagement Program, where every year in July … we host a Young African Convention Summit [for] African community members to come in and talk about community engagement and volunteerism and what we can do to impact positive change in our community here. I’d like to officially extend an invitation to our next year Summit, which is on July 13th, to come and participate and talk to our community members.

“After the Summit every year, we host our very famous Mandela Day of Service. In case you didn’t know, we are the only city in the United States that has a Mandela Day of Service, where every year we follow Mandela’s legacy, and go out and volunteer in changing our community.

“And this is what our office is all about. … This is what the African Diaspora is all about. … The Ethiopian community is about 46%.  We have the Nigerian community, Ghana, Cameroon and Kenya, and they spend a lot of time trying to find out who makes the best Jolof Rice. Of course, we know Senegal makes the best, because Jolof is in Senegal [laughs]. …

“We surveyed about 238 Africans. And it was found that 64% of them identified discrimination as the number one barrier to finding employment. 50% of them find lack of work experience was the second barrier. And personal and financial reasons was the third barrier to why Africans are having trouble finding employment. Here in Washington, DC, if you get into a cab it’s probably an Ethiopian [who is driving it]. More than likely, a Master’s or Ph.D. but he’s driving a cab. This is the reason why the past few weeks Washington, DC has, as a result of our survey, created a task force to address credentialing issues of African immigrants in the United States, so
that those who are doctors in Nigeria, if they want to practice here, we identify what are the credentialing issues that could be adopted here. Or if they are practitioners in whatever field, when they come here they can work in their field. …”

Mr. Kende Oregba, Chairman of the Maryland Governor’s Commission on African Affairs

“Africa is my fatherland. Nigeria is my country. … My goal as Chairman is to have a unified voice for all the Africans in the state of Maryland. For Diasporans … If we all come together as one, with one voice, there’s a lot that we can achieve together. … We have to come together as Diasporans both in cultural, education and businesses to unify and do things in common. That is my goal, and that is what I come here to do.”

Mr. Alhousseynou “Al” Ba, President and Chief Execiutive Officer of One-Africa Group

“Africans and African-Americans need to help each other … using technology. That’s why we built this social media application. We are thankful to have a champion like Ms. Arikana. … She really unites us. …” (introducing the AU Ambassador, Ms. Arikana Chimbori-Quao of Zimbabwe)

Madame Ambassador Arikana Chimbori-Quao, African Union Ambassador to the United States

“Good evening everyone. Thank you for coming. It’s a weekday, and I know you have all been to work and yet you found time to come in and spend some time with our very own Chair of the African Union.

“I have to say this is a very important day, for me, for all of us, also for the Chair also for the Chair and his team with which he has been traveling, believe it or not, these past two weeks, from one country to the other, putting out fires across the Continent. I picked him up from the airport this morning at 6:30, and we’ve been at it since then. … They flew all night. And at one point even contemplated moving [rescheduling] the event again [it had originally been scheduled for the summer but was rescheduled because of problems coordinating with the Trump administration — Editor] and he said ‘No.’ He said ‘If you cancel any other meeting you can cancel all of them, but not the Diaspora.’

“I have talked, I have preached, I’ve jumped up and down, I’ve climbed to the tallest mountain, and proclaimed who the African Diaspora are. All people of African descent living outside of Africa. Today I say, you asked, you complained, and I promised you I would deliver. Without further ado, and I know Brother Mel has said everything I could possibly say, please give a resounding welcome to our own Chair, Moussa Faki Mahamat.”

His Excellency Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chair of the African Union Commission (AUC)

[He delivered his address in French. The following transcript is from the point where we were able to access audio of the English translation of his speech, a few moments in.]

“The world has become a real global village and each one of us, even thousands of miles away, can act and interact with others.

“Everything that is expected of you, at a time when the Continent is developing, and despite all the challenges that the Continent is facing, I can reassure you that Africa is on the move, and it wants to walk together with all its children, wherever they are.

“You can be useful to yourselves and to your Mother Continent, first of all by organizing yourselves; all the societies that succeed are societies that organized themselves. You need unity, you need to work together, for the same objective.

“On the Continent, it has become the order of the day that Africa should speak with one voice. So in the Diaspora also, you should speak with one voice. When you are united, when you speak with one voice, you are going to show your force and your capacity, your capacity to change, to change the daily lot which is that of women, youth, and the lesser young ones in Africa.

“The Diaspora, particularly the Diaspora in the United States, is the outcome of a struggle, a major struggle with the first ones who became aware, who have broken the fetters and the chains, who despite the violence have shown the way and have paved the way.

“The Black movement, the liberation movement of the Black man on the Continent has been inspired by the great men who were born and have grown up in these conditions outside of Africa. This is something which is extraordinary and we can never forget that.

“I believe we’re at the time when everyone today since the liberation of the Continent, we can really achieve big things for our Continent. We rely a lot on you. But you also can rely on us. We have the conviction, the deep conviction, that things have to change, that things have to be fair in this world, and I believe we have the necessary resources. We have the knowledge, we have the know-how.  We have the conviction. And we have the historical reference. It is just [that] we have to sit down and work. We cannot allow ourselves to be digressed or diverted. We are a third of mankind, those who live on the African Continent and those who live across the
world.

“So we can change the world into a more humane and human world. Because we ourselves, we have suffered injustice. So we can change the world to become more human, more interdependent, and I believe that we have references. … I think we have a reference.  Mandela has nothing to envy from any prophets. He himself was a prophet. His capacity to transcend, despite all the sufferings he had been through, he is a monument, he is an icon. And in all his works, we have to look at the future. Forget the past and look to the future. Africa is very often projected through negative images. Yes, we have problems like everywhere in the world. But we have hope. … [A populace that is] courageous, enterprising, which is trying to build this future. So all our Brothers and Sisters across the world have to contribute to the emergence of this Continent. Because potentialities exist, it is your Motherland, which will welcome you at any time, those who want to return to Africa can do so, those who want to export their knowledge, their investments, the doors are open.
…

“Migration, which is a phenomenon that is affecting the African Continent, all of these are maybe, for a given circumstance, due to drought, famine and others, because this is not an adventure where people just have to die and drown in the ocean. This capital, and particularly those who live in the United States, which itself is a country of migrants by essence. … This is a country of different origins, of
different colors, and there is that will to live together. So, dear Sisters and Brothers … I don’t need to make speeches. I simply want to tell you that we expect a lot from you. But as I said, you can also count on us, and have expectations. We need to organize ourselves.  We on the Continent are trying to do what we can. We need your assistance, your contribution, your innovations, and we can help you
organize yourselves into a structure so that you can develop and to make your Brothers and Sisters benefit from your experience in life.

“The Diaspora is important, and as you know, in the history of peoples, and I know in the African Diaspora, there are people contributing billions of dollars every year through their work and many families depend on the remittances and the many communities develop through the contributions of the Diaspora. This is an extraordinary contribution. And history will retain that the best organized people
are the ones that succeed. One cent or one dollar is something, and when you think in terms of a million inhabitants, then it becomes [a] significant amount. We can make investments, we can change the life of people. So dear Brothers and Sisters, apart from the emotional feelings, we need a scientific approach. An organization, an awareness, so that together, we can change life on this Continent. I can reassure you that in the African Union, the Commission, we have taken an oath that we are going to carry out our duties and to ensure that things will change. …”

Questions from the Audience

Mr. Foote called on several audience members to pose questions.

Q: Former US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield asked, “What in terms of your engagement with the US government over the
next few days are the goals you would like to achieve?”

A: “We have an annual meeting which is held one year in Washington and one year in Addis Ababa on peace and security issues, governance, investments, trade and development. There is a new American administration and it will be our first official meeting tomorrow [November 16]. We have come with an open mind and we hope to continue in that dynamic approach which has governed the relations between the United States and Africa. We are an important Continent. Looking at its population, its resources, and its geopolitical position. And I believe it is in the interest of the United States to work with us. We have agreements on trade and investment and we hope that this will continue in a spirit where we will find ourselves in a ‘win-win’ situation. The situation, like, for example, the Climate Ex-
change, which is important for countries in Africa which [are] victims of droughts, disasters, the fight against terrorism, but since Africa has also become a theater for these terrorist activities, we hope that we are going to do something. We want to give more impetus to AGOA [the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which was touted by the Clinton and Obama administrations as a means to improve trade with Afrika — Editor]. And we are a Continent of a lot of possibilities, and which, obviously, gives a lot of possibilities for investments. So we hope that in the discussions with the United States, we should be able to enhance our cooperation and this is our concern and these are issues we are going to raise tomorrow.”

Q: An audience member from Cameroon asked, “What is the role of African youth in your Agenda and what place do they have in decision-making?”

Q: The director of an organization called the International Youth Leadership Institute asked, “On behalf of the African youth, what role can travel play in bridging the gap between the Continent and Diaspora? What are your thoughts on youth in decision-making and helping to bridge the gap?”

A: “The issue of youth and I say that today for more than 60% of the population, on a Continent of more than 1.2 billion inhabitants, 60% of which are youth and are very important. Therefore we need to educate and organize the youth so that they can play the role of transforming the Continent. And it is fore this reason that this year, the theme for the year in the African Union is How to harness the demographic dividend by investing in youth. It’s a very crucial theme and within the framework of the reforms that have been initiated, the institutions of the African Union are trying to think of how to have … youth in the African institutions so that they can be involved in the management of the decision-making on the Continent. And this is something which is very logical, since they are the majority and logically speaking the majority should have [its place].”

Q: An audience member asked on behalf of UNESCO about the AUC’s interest in digital documentation of countries’ heritage, or what he referred to as “Digital Repatriations … digital transformation the cultural heritage of different countries in Africa.”

A: “The issue of the availability of the digital repatriation – If you have any proposal, put it in writing and you can give it to the Ambassador here; she will convey it. …”

Q: Baba Akbar Muhammad asked, “After living in Africa for twelve years, I lecture and talk on Africa. And one of the questions I get from our youth [involves] a serious discussion about Dual citizenship for those in the Diaspora. And I’d like to suggest and would like to know from you, would the African Union at upcoming meetings discuss it so we can talk to the young people who are asking that question?”

Q: Another audience member asked, “How can a truly enabling environment be created to make the relocation and integration of Diasporans sustainable and impactful on the Continent?”

A: “The Diaspora and the Continent – I believe there are reciprocal responsibilities. I was saying, you can expect from us and we also expect from you. We want to create the necessary conditions for those that want to return where they can find favorable conditions which are conducive. We want to encourage investment from the Diaspora. We need the expertise, the know-how, of the brains in the Diaspora, in the different parts of the world. And some are at the highest level and they can make the Continent benefit from their knowledge, from their know-how. We are the “mother”, and we need to establish the conditions. We are ready to discuss with the
Diaspora, wherever they are so that their living conditions, their mobility, their problems are taken into account. So, there are common interests and so we need to work together. So it is not by chance that they are thinking that the Diaspora is the Sixth Region of Africa.  So it is important that I say to organize the Diaspora, that the Diaspora should organize itself, and you will have them in the decision-making organs [and be] considered as the Sixth Region. It all depends on the organization, that they are the stakeholders in the decision-making.

“Now, what environment should we make for the Diaspora? Well, the conditions are necessary for all possible investments, and also to have the possibility of getting land, either for cultural development and investment, these are all possible. We can approach and engage the various Member States, and this forms an integral part of the population of the Continent.

“The issue of nationality because the question was raised, ‘Who is African and who is not’. For us all people who have an African lineage … We need to remove barriers between countries to allow for free movement of persons and goods [with an] African passport for the officials, diplomatic services, we are going to give them to businessmen, to students, so that we can have an African passport, and that will enable people to travel from, let’s say up to the Cape and, oh, from Goree Island too. … So this mobility will allow people to know each other better and to work together for the Continent.

“We have ambitions for this Continent, which has been the victim of a lot of foreign interference, but as you are aware, we are hopeful in the daily struggle. And I thank you. …”

Q: What can we in the Diaspora do to help the situation in Zimbabwe and what is happening across Africa? What can we do that would be helpful?

A: “Thank you [for that question]. How can the Diaspora be useful, particularly with what is happening on the Continent. I think we can move from the smallest to the biggest thing and issue. To send a school book or a note book to to a village from somebody in the Diaspora is, I think, a thing that is highly appreciated. To invest one million dollars in a business in Zimbabwe which is rich, is an important action [and we must create] the necessary conditions for that. I am not saying that in a charitable way, just to go and help people; it does not work. I think we should give the possibility to people to at least fend for themselves. But knowledge, know-how,
investment. We need to create the necessary conditions for people to be trained so that they can stand on their feet. The Diaspora has that advantage. They have people who have acquired knowledge, extraordinary know-how, in health, education, energy, business, in agriculture. So, this is what I call the wealth of the Continent. … People have capital and sometimes they don’t know what to do with it.
… With $5,000 you can do business in Africa. … You can do small things and big things and see what the Diaspora can contribute.”

Q: Another audience member asked, “What is your strategy to make the world more humane?”

A: “How to make the world more human? People who have gone through certain experiences and are capable of conveying a different method … I give the example of Nelson Mandela. With all the difficulties and problems he went through, we needed a man like him to say ‘We need transcend the situation, we need to forgive, we need to build our country’ … The people who have done this, they are capable of transforming the world.

“In respect of legality between men and women, we say everybody is equal. [In some places] we have discrimination … Because of your name or the color of your skin, there is discrimination. … Many of the Diaspora do go through this in certain regions. So we need to develop … A peaceful philosophy that, by conviction, you can change and make the world more human. …

“I spoke of a world [that is] more human, which does not take into account the rank or the color of the skin of the person. I thank you.”

At this time, Mr. Foote began to move to the next agenda item, a proclamation from the World Council of Mayors. However, an urgent request was made for an Elder to pose an important question. Elder Nabeela Uqdah chose to defer her comments on reparations and repatriation due to time constraints.  Thus the floor was yielded to Sis. Iman Hameen, Facilitator Emeritus (2006 – 2012) of the New York Organization of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC).   Her comments, given with permission from Elders and which included some of Elder Nabeela Uqdah’s questions and ideas, were perhaps the most important of the entire evening.

The Statement of Sis. Iman Hameen

“To His Excellency Chairman Mahamat, Distinguished Heads of State, The Honorable AU Ambassador Quao, The Honorable Mel Foote, the steadfast organizers of this event, and all Esteemed Members of the audience, I must first ask my Elders, may I speak? … Thank you.

“I could greet you in an African language but which one do I choose? There are anywhere from 1500-2000 different African, native and tribal languages. Should it be Zulu or Ewe? Kiswahili or Amharic? Should it be the language of Mozambique or respectfully, a native language of the people of Chad, or how about Ebonics? Because we have not decided on ONE mandatory, official African language, FOR NOW, I must speak in the language of a colonizer, which brings me to my first of three points.  Please indulge me; it has taken 400 years for me to get here.

“Briefly, I come to you in earnest and with a strong sense of urgency to push the conversation and debate. We must organize as ONE body, with ONE AIM and ONE DESTINY as a Union of African States be it as a republic or federation. We must unite as ONE, with one president, one strong united defense and one currency. We must have a national African plebiscite and referendum to move this agenda forward.

“Point #2: As such, we declare that you must direct your eyes, minds and hearts to the deplorable plight of the so-called African Americans. I am specifically talking about the surviving descendants or ascendants, if you will, of kidnapped Africans who were brought to the United States via human trafficking. We, the SURVIVORS of the MAAFA are being destroyed in the United States. We are targeted for annihilation and genocide EVERYDAY. The time has come and history dictates a mass return of our people to Africa but where in Africa do we go? We are not Ghanaians, Liberians, Azanians, Libyans, Nigerians nor Ethiopians, etc. We are a HOMELESS, LANDLESS people. We cannot claim an island, state or one African country as our own like the Caribbeans or Diasporan Continental Africans can. We need our own designated, sovereign land within a united Africa so that we can heal, develop, prosper and help to unite Africa. We ask for LAND that we can call our own sovereign land so that we can return as transplanted Africans with all of our skills, talents and resources, with our weaknesses and strengths. We are due reparations from the US and Africa and we have a right to Repatriation. We ask you, Chairman Mahamat to take our plight to the other members of the African Union expeditiously.

“Point #3: We have contributed endlessly and faithfully to the discussions, forums, conventions, declarations, protests, financial interests, wars and whims of Africa and yet we are NOT at the table. We are NOT on the agenda in any concrete and equal way. Within the AU’s call for a Sixth Region, we are still overlooked. We have followed all protocols and filed all necessary applications. And we have yet to be officially recognized. Not merely, as Diasporans, but as a special, separate group of African people who live in the United States. When will we be granted, not only observer status but VOTING status as members of the African Union? WE BELONG AT THE TABLE! If not now, WHEN?

“In closing, to reiterate, these are urgent matters of grave importance that must be treated with even more urgency. We ask to be on the AU agenda. REPARATIONS are due to us. We ask for sovereign land within a united Africa, we ask for voting status at the ECOSOCC table, and we ask that the AU aid us in returning home. We are a NATION WITHIN A NATION and we want to come home now (maintenant). Chairman Mahamet, the task is now in your hands – take our plight to your fellow members of the AU. Thank you.

“Sincerely,
Iman Uqdah Hameen, an anxious citizen of the Union of African States …”

After this important statement, which it should be noted did not receive a direct answer even though her statement was met by repeated applause from the audience, the presentation by Ms. Mary Thomas of the World Conference of Mayors was made to the AUC Chairman, and the event was officially closed.

 

 

“The thing to do is to get organized.  Stay separated and you will be exploited, you will be robbed, you will be killed.  Get organized and you compel the world to respect you.”
–The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey

The above statement is, in my opinion, perhaps the most profound comment I’ve ever heard or read from The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (UNIA-ACL).  More profound than “Africa for the Africans, those at home and those abroad.”  More relevant than “Up you mighty race; you can accomplish what you will.”  This is because while those other two statements are iconic in their own way, they are pronouncements that were designed to inspire, whereas that first quote is an analysis and a prescription for people of Afrikan Descent to free ourselves from bondage and oppression, and, unfortunately, one which too many of us continue to ignore.  Too often, we rail against the discriminations and deprivations to which Afrikan people are subjected, but we also repeat, ad nauseam, the very behaviors of disunity that ensure that those discriminations and deprivations will continue without any comprehensive and effective challenge from us.  Why are we so often obsessed with the empty behavior of complaint coupled with rejection of any organized and cooperative plan to put our collective misery to an end?

It has been stated that “division is a monster.”  Division is indeed a monster.  We have been “divided and conquered” from the day a Conquistador saw that when we were separated from our communities we could be more easily taken away from our homes and consigned to enslavement.  It was used to keep our enslaved Ancestors as compliant as possible, it was used to instill fear in our communities post-Reconstruction, it was used to destroy our organizations from the UNIA to the Panthers and beyond.  It is used today to keep us divided.   Our communities do need to organize themselves, as so many of us have stated repeatedly.  So, what is it that keeps that organization from happening?  Why are so many of us so quick to dismiss and reject those among us who are working to build the Black Unity we all claim to want?

I’ve written about that before, on this web site.  Specifically, here, here, here and here, among other places.  The problems seem to be that (1) when the call is put out to our organizations and activists to come together and work to build coalitions with input from the community, too many of us insist that it’s impossible, and so we don’t even try; (2) too many of our organizations and activists seem to want to be involved in work that only we control, and not even work where we would share the effort, input and reward; (3) we too often dismiss as illegitimate those whose analysis of the situation of Afrikan people doesn’t completely agree with ours, when what we should really be assessing is the sincerity and commitment of the activists to work on listening to each other and getting something done for our people; (4) even when we express vocal support for an effort, when the time comes to actually support it, putting our money, our effort  or just our attention where our mouths are if by nothing more than coming to a meeting of the community to participate in building an agenda and determining a collective course of action, we too often “forget” about the meeting just as it approaches, and thus fail to even come to see whether the effort is legitimate or not, and sometimes the entire effort dies on the vine because of a perceived (or maybe actual) lack of interest.

As a case in point, the Maryland Organizing Committee of the Pan-Afrikan Diaspora organization Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus, an organization to which I belong, has held three Pan-Afrikan Community Town Hall Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland to date which, quite frankly, should have gotten much more response than they have gotten so far, if for no other reason than people should at least be curious enough to see what the plan is and to offer their ideas for improving it.  How can one dismiss a plan when they haven’t even taken the time to engage the planners or even see what the plan actually is?  Especially when the planners are asking the community of activists, organizers and “just plain folks” to come and offer their thoughts, ideas and critiques so that a truly participatory, cooperative and complete strategy can be developed, and especially since our elected officials have so consistently failed us?  If you don’t trust elected officials, religious leaders and big corporations, fine.  I don’t either.  But that seems to leave us, the activists, organizers and “people on the ground”. And when we try to bring us out to collectively and cooperatively formulate a strategy, the call is too often ignored or rejected outright without so much as a discussion.  Even when the suggestion on the table is for us to build a Cooperative Coalition among the different entities in our community that do care about what is happening, from the business, art, spiritual, media, education, revolutionary, scientific, grassroots and other communities, in which all of these organizations are empowered to pursue justice the way they do best, but in coordination and cooperation with each other so that what we all do is done in a way that we help each other instead of competing against each other.  And then, after rejecting even that idea, we go back to the old, comfortable jacket of raging against elected officials and blaming them for all our problems.  Didn’t we conclude that ages ago?

But no doubt, there are people who, if they read this commentary all the way through, will have already dismissed even this grassroots-based Pan-Afrikan Cooperative-Coalition idea as a pipe dream, or as lacking in proper analysis.  Well, if there’s something lacking, why not improve it by informing it with your own ideas?  Why not engage in some form of dialog instead of telling us that our ideas suck and are unworthy of implementation?  None of us knows everything, least of all me.  But if we continue to simply dismiss each other and then scream about how un-unified we are, at that point we need to look in the mirror.  If everyone has to agree with you top-to-bottom for there to be anything close to unity, then there will be no unity.  EVER.

I apologize if I seem to be ranting, but this is far more frustrating than it needs to be, and in many ways it’s our own collective fault.  Our organization has been struggling with this since 2007 in Maryland, and we’ve just now gotten to the point where some organizations and activists are starting to learn what we are about and engaging with us.  Lots of organizations with few resources fold up in less time than we’ve been pushing this huge rock up the hill.  But we haven’t given up on trying to engage our community, though it gets frustrating to hear all the outrage about what is happening to us but then get little more than ridicule or dismissal when an attempt is made to bring us together and seek solutions together, especially when that dismissal and ridicule are often coming from people who have not one clue as to what we are about.  Let’s get away from the knee-jerk cynicism and get back to talking to each other instead of at each other.  That’s where real community lies, and that’s how we can rally our forces and win the battle for truth and justice.

Peace and Power,
Bro. Cliff
KUUMBAReport
Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus

“This will surely be the last time I speak to you. Magallanes Radio will be silenced, and the reassuring tone of my voice will not reach you. It doesn’t matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be with you. At the least, your memory of me will be that of a man who was loyal to the country. … I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other people will be able to transcend this sad and bitter moment, when treason tries to force itself upon us. … I’m sure that my sacrifice will not be in vain … It will be a moral lesson that will punish the felony, cowardice, and treason [of the Armed Forces].”
–the last broadcast of President Salvador Allende, Sept. 11, 1973

EDITOR’S NOTE: This week marked the 51st anniversary of what is called, by people who know history, “The Other 9-11” or “The First 9-11”, as Heather Gray of the Atlanta-based organization Justice Initiative calls it.  Below, we share two of Justice Initiative’s releases from 2017, which include commentaries by Heather Gray, Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein.  For even more background, we invite you to check out an archived issue of our newsletter, KUUMBAReport, “The ‘Other’ 9-11”.

Note: I had first written an article about 9/11 in Chile for Counterpunch in 2012. The above article has been updated. Heather Gray

 

JUSTICE INITIATIVE: Chile Was Not Saved by Milton Friedman

The horrific terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, August 12 immediately followed the ominous warning the night before of torch-wielding
Whites marching on the University of Virginia campus to the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, located in what had been called Lee Park but was being changed to Liberty Park. They were marching in protest of the imminent removal of Lee’s statue, which has increasingly been recognized as an homage to the general who fought the Civil War on behalf of the slaveholders in the South. The fact that Lee and the Confederates who followed him were technically traitors to the country, or that the “Southern way of life” they fought for was built around the brutal oppression and enslavement of people of Afrikan descent, is lost on these racist, venal hooligans who clearly want to “take their country back” to the days of rampant White privilege on the backs of Black people in the United States.

The statements of US president Donald Trump, as the supposed “leader of the free world”, are no less repugnant than the terroristic acts of these “Alt-Right” hooligans, as he first attempted to conflate the aggressive violence of the Nazi, Ku Klux Klan and White Supremacist marchers with the clearly defensive actions of the faith leaders, anti-fascist (“Antifas“) and Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists who found themselves under attack by these angry White men who wielded tiki torches chanting “Blood and Soil” (a Nazi-inspired slogan), “You will not replace us” (another White Supremacist slogan motivated by the irrational fear of people of color “taking their jobs and opportunities from them”), and “F**k You F*gg*ts” (anti-LGBTQ taken to extremes), all designed to elicit fear among the anti-fascist demonstrators who included such “dangerous individuals” as the Rev. Traci Blackmon of the United Church of Christ and Dr. Cornell West.

The violence of these White Supremacist attackers led to a tragic, but predictable result: Heather Heyer, 32, a paralegal who lived in Charlottesville, was killed by a car driven by James Alex Fields, Jr, age 20, of Maumee, Ohio, as he first drove forward into a crowd of counter-protesters and then reversed back up the narrow street, hitting several people, seriously injuring up to 19 more.

And Trump did not miss the opportunity to lower himself even below the standards he had set with every race-baiting, dog-whistle remark he made during the presidential campaign and the first seven months of his markedly un-presidential presidency.

Trump began on Saturday, August 12 with a statement that denounced “this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.  It’s been going on for a long time in our country. Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama, this has been going on for a long, long time.” The public outrage at his attempt to create a “moral equivalency” between the violent White Supremacists and the anti-fascist protesters who were their targets caused Trump’s staff to release a more innocuous statement the next day. His handlers on the White House staff then convinced him to recite a revised statement from a teleprompter on Monday, August 14 finally condemning the Klan, the Nazis and White Supremacists. However, he reversed his field yet again the following day (Tuesday, August 15) in what was billed as an “infrastructure press conference” but which seemed to quickly degenerate into a disjointed, unhinged rant after reporters began to pose questions about his response to the Charlottesville attack and his irritation grew that there were those who questioned his sincerity about healing the nation. His response was to double-down on his Saturday remarks, insisting that the White Supremacist marchers included a number of “very fine people” who were “quietly marching” in Charlottesville against the taking of the Lee statue, and that the “Alt-Left” had been just as aggressive and “very violent”, attacking the “Alt-Right” marchers with clubs.

As if that was not enough to make his point, he then launched into a defense of the Confederate statues of Lee and Stonewall Jackson, questioning the decision to take them down in the first place because George Washington and Thomas Jefferson also held Black people in enslavement, completely overlooking or ignoring the fact that Lee and Jackson had actually betrayed the United States and that Lee was at one point sentenced to be executed for treason.

As Jamil Smith explained in a Los Angeles Times article, “Why would Charlottesville racists do so much to protect a Robert E. Lee statue?” (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-smith-charlottesville-statue-20170814-story.html), August 14, 2017:

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu … delivered a landmark speech outlining exactly why he pushed, successfully, to have his city’s monuments to the Confederacy and Jim Crow torn down.

“These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy,” he said. “After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city.”

In this way only does it start to make sense that racists would commit terrorism to defend monuments. The monuments themselves are terrorism. Thus the Lee
sculpture honors a dishonorable man while encouraging his ideological descendants and expressing to black people that America is not ours, too. “White nationalist” is the appropriate term to use, since a white ethno-state is what Confederates sought and what their modern-day brethren still wish to achieve.

After Charlottesville, it should be clear now to everyone that the urgency to rid ourselves of these markers of America’s racist past comes not from some childish desire to block out painful history, but to challenge a racist present. White nationalism is not just a cultural legacy. It is an ongoing public safety crisis, and should be treated as such.

Trump’s remarks were almost unanimously derided as yet another example of a president “going rogue” and resorting to ad-libbing in response to interrogation from his enemy, the press. But television talk show host Rachel Maddow, on her Wednesday evening show on MSNBC, made note of a small, folded page Trump held at the press conference that was the written statement he had made Saturday, without the “on many sides” comment, an indication that this defense of his incendiary statements was actually planned in advance and not actually the “off-the-rails” diatribe many observers thought them to be. The implication there is that Trump had always planned to make those remarks and to give license to the reactionary White Supremacist right-wing to ramp up their tactics of intimidation and violence.

The responses so far from political representatives and members of the media, for the most part, has been one of condemnation. Only the farthest right-wing pundits have attempted to defend Trump’s remarks, falling in line with Ku Klux Klan former Grand Wizard David Duke, who had stated at the Charlottesville march the intent of the marchers to “realize the promise of Donald Trump” and who tweeted his appreciation of Trump’s “courage” in directing his August 15 remarks against the “Alt-Left”.

All these recriminations have so far glossed over the fact that so-called “conservatives” in the Republican Party in particular have been banking on racial dog-whistle tactics for generations, and Trump is only the most overt and crass version since the years of Wallace, Goldwater and Nixon. Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes in a commentary for the Electronic Urban Report titled “You Can Thank Trump for the White Nationalist Rampage” (http://www.eurweb.com/2017/08/you-can-thank-trump-for-the-white-nationalist-rampage/#) on August 13:

It was both hilarious and telling to see # 45 Donald Trump tweet that he condemns “all that hate stands for” following the racial fomented violence by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The hilarity is that one would have to reach back to presidential candidate George Wallace in 1964, and maybe toss in GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, to find someone who aspired to sit in the Oval Office that so blatantly, nakedly, and shamefully pandered to racial bigots to snatch the office as Trump did. His broadsides against Hispanics, Muslims, immigrants, blacks, and women, are almost the stuff of political legend. …

We gave the above description of the events stemming from the Charlottesville march and attack primarily because of what appears to be a surprising lack of coverage on many of the nation’s media outlets (with the exceptions of networks such as MSNBC and Free Speech TV). The question at this point, for those of us in the Pan-Afrikan and activist community is: what do we plan to do about it?

We received the following statement about the August 12 Charlottesville attack from the 8th Pan African Congress, courtesy of the Pan-Afrikan publication Self-Help News (selfhelpnews@ubol.com):

No To Charlottesville!
14 August 2017 12:19
The Pan African Congress
North American Delegation
(614) 214-6277
8thPanAfricanCongress@gmail.com
Website: www.panafricancongress.org

Don’t Agonize, Organize!

The North American Delegation to the 8th Pan African Congress condemns in the strongest terms the actions of the white supremacists, racists, anti-Semites and bigots, collectively characterized as “Alt-Right,” who gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, promoted and engaged in domestic terrorism for the “Unite the Right” rally. We also condemn the failure of the U.S. President, Donald J. Trump to clearly and forcefully express similar sentiments.

We recognize that Donald J. Trump rose to fame on the back of his claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and was therefore ineligible to be president. We acknowledge that despite the random attacks on people of color throughout the United States over the past seven months, Donald J. Trump has failed to characterize a single incident as an act of domestic terror. We know that Donald J. Trump has as cabinet members, senior members of staff and significant consultants, people with a track record of close association with the “Alt. Right” or neo-Nazis.

We had hoped though that on this occasion, Donald J. Trump would recognize that African Americans and people of color have faced a gradual erosion of our rights on a daily basis by those who, as David Duke expressed at the rally, “put Trump in the presidency.” We have been faced with hate speech, hate crimes and simple hate in communities across the country as individuals have acted out what they think it means to have Trump as president. And it’s time to stop.

As the North American Delegation to the 8th Pan African Congress we encourage all who are concerned about the increasing role of bigotry, police brutality, militarism and the criminalization of Black lives to reach out to others with similar concerns and to look to history to gain guidance on the latest resurgence of racism within the United States.

We call on our brothers and sisters in Africa and the Global African family internationally to use all mechanisms at your disposal to condemn the actions of Donald J. Trump. The spread of white racism and chauvinism inside the USA remains a threat to oppressed peoples in all parts of the planet.

From the outset, the cardinal principle of Pan Africanism has been that the African in one part of the world is responsible for the well being of other Africans in every part of the globe. This spirit of Pan Africanism guided the solidarity and support of Africans from the time of the Haitian Revolution of 1791 to the fight against apartheid. This spirit of Pan Africanism must guide us all as we work to end racism at home and abroad in 2017 and beyond. August 13, 2017

Julialynne Walker
Chair
North American Delegation – Pan African Congress
Pan African Movement
8thpanafricancongress@gmail.com
http://8thpanafricancongress.com/
www.panafricancongress.org

Meanwhile, the Electronic Urban Report (http://www.eurweb.com) released the story that the Illinois Senate has passed a non-binding bill to refer to White Supremacists as a “terrorist organization” (http://www.eurweb.com/2017/08/illinois-senate-passes-bill-call-white-supremacists-terrorist-organization/#).

There will certainly be more statements and commentaries on this issue in the next few days. We may share some of them on this website.

 

 

JUSTICE INITIATIVE

The following article was taken from an interview with Dr. Ray Marshall by Heather Gray for the Federation/LAF’s 25th Anniversary in 1992. Dr. Marshall served as the Secretary of Labor under President Jimmy Carter. As an economist Dr. Marshall shares his insight on the economic needs of individuals, communities and nations and, importantly, the different levels of democracy and how cooperatives can serve to strengthen democratic institutions.

by Heather Gray
from an Interview with Ray Marshall

Federation/LAF
Justice Initiative International

Heather Gray: How do you make it possible for low income Blacks and low income whites in the mountain areas to improve their income?

Ray Marshall: I can’t think of an institution better suited to that than a co-op. Co-ops are the best people development institutions you can have. With cooperatives you deal with all of it – you are involved in the leadership development, people have to learn to run co-ops, work with people, learn to make plans, meet and set goals, marshal resources.

I have always been interested in rural development in the South. It’s not well understood outside of the South that there’s a connection between economic independence and political independence – that people didn’t have economic independence if when they voted they lost their jobs or got kicked off the plantation. The whole reason for forming cooperatives is to give people economic independence so that they could have independence in political and other matters.

In our early organizing work in the South we learned a lot about how the economy works – particularly how the federal government works. We couldn’t get help from the federal government for low income farmers because they were biased toward large farmers. Most of our financial institutions were set up to help those who didn’t need help and to take money out of our rural areas and not to put it pack in. We need institutions like the Federation/LAF that understand the conditions of rural America and are controlled by the people there. Nobody, for example, can better understand the problems of the small farmers in Georgia and Mississippi than the farmers themselves.

Cooperatives are very important because if we’re going to make our political system work in this country we have do it from the bottom up. I’m an optimist about that. All over the world you see democratic institutions sprouting up and we need to strengthen our democratic institutions here. The basic evolution is that first you have political institutions that are controlled by the people and not special interest groups – that’s political democracy. After workers get the right to vote then you have industrial democracy which means worker participation in the work place. That’s collective bargaining. Most countries have taken that further than us. Then there’s social democracy where you have safety nets – a minimum level of welfare services. Every industrial country in the world is more developed in social democracy than us in, for example, health care and education. Finally, there’s economic democracy where individuals and not special interests control their economic institutions. Economic democracy strengthens all other forms of democracy. If you have economic democracy then people can’t intimidate you when you vote.

America would be better off with a strong cooperative movement. Most countries that are having trouble economically are those that are weak in economic democracy. The main economic developmental strategy in the United States is to keep people’s wages and income down. That’s a loser and you wouldn’t want to win it. Most other countries know that a much better approach is to try to compete by improving productivity and quality and that means more efficient institutions. A co-op can be one of the most efficient institutions you can put together because it’s controlled by its members who have a vested interest in achieving their own objectives.

“If you see something, say something” has become a cliché, but unfortunately one to which we often feel we must resort to stem the tide of violence in the Pan-Afrikan Community.

The Family of Victorious Swift is seeking justice for their son and brother, who was killed in a robbery on March 26 near Mondawmin Mall in Baltimore City.  While it is believed that DNA evidence can find his killer (they fought before his assailant drew a weapon, and it is believed that the assailant’s skin and other DNA were found on Victorious’s hands as a result), the Swift Family is appealing to anyone who may have seen what happened to alert the authorities.

Despite the historic distrust that often has existed between Pan-Afrikan activists and the police because of such incidents as the killing of Freddie Gray in 2015, which activists are convinced occurred because of the actions of Baltimore City Police, the fact remains that, without a viable force in the community to investigate acts of violence and ensure community security, the police are often the only recourse available in cases such as this one.  Meanwhile, affected families and friends of the victims of senseless violence continue to struggle to find personal healing and to make sense of what has happened to their communities.

On Friday, April 14, a special meeting was held at the Union Mill in West Baltimore.  It was called and sponsored by the Afrikan Heritage Walk-A-Thon and its Founder, Mama Victory Swift, in memory of her son.  The meeting was called to bring together families who had lost loved ones to the violence that continues to plague our communities.

The first meeting drew between 25 and 30 participants, including four families who had lost members to violence in the past.  Several of Mama Victory’s children attended the event as well, and gave voice to their personal pain as well as the resolve they feel to make the violence stop.

This was not just an opportunity for families to commiserate, however.  Ideas for healing the community were discussed, from supporting education to establishing neighborhood watch patrols.  Cameras need not be police cameras, either; several local properties apparently use cameras to monitor their immediate residences, and the possibility of improving community cohesiveness so monitoring efforts can be community-led were also discussed.  Ultimately, the community needs healing so that those who consider criminality may find an alternative that helps build the community instead of tearing it down.  Organizations such as the Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement (PLM), to which Victorious was a regular contributor, operate not far from the neighborhood where the shooting took place, but other organizations must come together with PLM to coordinate a city-wide strategy and program to lift the community up.

The previous week, the memorial service for Victorious Swift, a much-loved and respected art student, boxer, musician and community activist, had drawn over 300 people and sparked a re-awakening of a sense of urgency among community organizers and Pan-Afrikan activists.

Mama Victory says that this was not the last such meeting that is planned.  More gatherings for families of the victims of violence will be planned, and a website has been established to continue the work that was started on this day.  The Website “Our Victorious City” (https://www.ourvictoriouscity.org/) makes the following Mission Statement:

Over the past few years, gun violence has risen to the forefront of public consciousness. Much of the debate has focused on gun regulation and keeping deadly weapons out of the hands of potential killers, particularly those with mental illnesses. Unfortunately, far less attention has been dedicated to the impact of gun violence on victims. While individuals killed and injured in atrocities such as the Sandy Hook and Aurora Theater shootings are publicly remembered and mourned, victims of these tragedies are not limited to those men, women, and children killed, injured, or present during these horrific events. The consequences of gun violence are more pervasive and affect entire communities, families, and children. With more than 25% of children witnessing an act of violence in their homes, schools, or community over the past year, and more than 5% witnessing a shooting, it becomes not just an issue of gun regulation, but also of addressing the impact on those who have been traumatized by such violence (Finkelhor et al., 2009). Outside of those traumatized, there are the ones who witness violent crimes occur and impede police investigations, making it nearly impossible to put an end to this spiraling epidemic. This organization’s manifestation arises from the violent death of Victorious Khan Aziz Swift. He was a 19 year old architectural student with an illuminated future and talent in droves.  He had no children, no wife, just 6 brothers and sisters and a mother who refuse to let him die in vain. Our mission is to end street/gun/violence once and for all. This is an epidemic that some of us believed to be an outside problem, until it rings our front doorbell.

The site includes news reports, videos of Victorious Swift and links to facilitate contact, donations and further organizing.

There are related efforts being developed to attempt to wake our people up, particularly in the Baltimore, Maryland area.  The organization BlackMen Unifying BlackMen (BMUBM) is planning a “No Excuses Rally” in the Pimlico area of Baltimore City on May 27.  An official announcement of that rally, including a flyer that is being created, will be shared by us before the end of April.  And there are organizations working to pull these many groups together into cooperative coalitions that may ultimately evolve into something akin to a Pan-Afrikan United Front so that different organizations can work together as they never have before to help bring an end to the systematic oppression but also the violence and self-loathing that so often makes life so hard for people of Afrikan descent around the world.

 

 

The following article appeared in The Graphic in a piece initially written by Doreen Andoh on December 29, 2016, and was reposted on December 31 on http://www.theafricandream.net by Oral Ofori.

At a ceremony in the capital city of Ghana – Accra – to formalize the process of granting of Ghanaian citizenship, 37 people were made to swear an oath of allegiance to the country by Ghana president John Mahama.

Presenting certificates of citizenship to them, Mr Mahama said their naturalization made them entitled to every privilege deserving and due any Ghanaian. The event happened in the last quarter of December 2016.

The president said he was optimistic that the skills and knowledge acquired by the naturalised Ghanaians would contribute immensely to the development of the country.

“You have expressed so much gratitude to me and other stakeholders for the opportunity given you today, but I do not think you have to thank me because I have only restored to you what rightfully belongs to you and was painfully taken away” he said.

Mr. Mahama said in giving them the opportunity to obtain Ghanaian citizenship, he was only following the footsteps of forebears, including  Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther king, who led and gave a foundation to Pan-Africanism.

He said Ghana was the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain its independence, and had since become and would continue to be the headquarters for the fight for African liberation and the beacon of African emancipation.

He expressed the hope that the introduction of Africans applying for visa on arrival in Ghana would be extended to Africans in the diaspora to facilitate their visit and stay in Ghana to contribute to national development.

Oath of allegiance towards Ghanaian citizenship

In his remarks, the Minister of the Interior, Mr. Prosper Bani, said the naturalised Ghanaians were now free to acquire Ghanaian passports and any other national document that identified them as Ghanaians.

“I wish to assure you that the Ministry of the Interior will give you the needed assistance to acquire those documents,” he said.

Mr Bani expressed the hope that the naturalised Ghanaians would continue to owe allegiance to the country, particularly in their deeds and support the development of the country.

He, however, appealed to them to be law abiding because the acquisition of the Ghanaian citizenship has conditions, which included lawfully revoking the citizenship in accordance with section 18 of the citizenship act of 2000 (Act 591).

He said the President’s approval of the citizenship of these persons was a demonstration of the Pan-African spirit, following in the steps of Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore and Dr W.E. B Du Bois that Pan-Africanism remained an integral part of Ghana’s foreign policy.

Pacesetters praised

Mr. Bani applauded the efforts of all who had contributed to the successful emancipation and reintegration of Africans in the diaspora back to their roots, giving particular recognition to Mr. Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey.

“Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey, in 2004, as the then Minister of Tourism of Ghana, organised an international conference on the theme, International Conference on the Transatlantic slave-trade, Legacies and Expectations; which provided the inspiration to  envision the return of Africans in the Diaspora,” he said.

Mr. Bani said Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey also initiated a project dubbed the “Joseph Project” in 2007 which sought to practicalise the act of healing, forgiveness, reconciliation and rapprochement between Africans in Africa and those in the diaspora.

He acknowledged that the efforts of Mr. Obetsebi-Lamptey and other pan-Africanist were yielding the desired results.

On behalf of the persons who were granted Ghanaian citizenship, Ambassador Dr. Erieka Bennett expressed gratitude to the President, Mr. Mahama, for the honour done them, and pledged their commitment to remain responsible citizens of the country.

To show their appreciation, they presented a memento to president Mahama.

Source: Doreen Andoh/Graphic Online

On Friday, January 29, 2016, the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) hosted a discussion designed to encourage a more cooperative atmosphere among the Pan-Afrikan organizations in Baltimore, Maryland.  The event was named “Spokes of the Wheel” to describe a pictorial representation of how a variety of organizations with different missions, specialties and personalities might bring those qualities together into a Cooperative Coalition and this help make their work more effective for the community.

The event was held at the downtown Baltimore building of The Real News Network (TRNN), a non-profit, viewer-supported daily video-news and documentary service based in Baltimore, Maryland and Toronto, Canada. The event sponsor who made the venue available to SRDC for the event was Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS), a Pan-Afrikan grassroots think-tank based in Baltimore which hosts monthly Malcolm X Talks such as this one on Thursday and Friday evenings.

In attendance were representatives of several organizations whose statements are included below: local grassroots organizations, think tanks, revolutionary organizations, arts collectives, organizations with financial plans, spiritual organizations, as well as international organizations such as SRDC. Each organization present introduced itself, described its mission and spoke about the need to develop a Cooperative Coalition such as the one being discussed this day.

“We do need to get past the point where we talk about how we need to come together but we don’t actually do it”, said Bro. Cliff, Maryland State Facilitator of SRDC.  “Too many times, we see that and we hear that, and we say it to each other.  ‘Black people have to come together.’  And yet, the next year, we’re just as fragmented as we were the year before.” The idea is to find ways in which these organizations can function in a spirit of teamwork to achieve the overall goal of freedom and uplift for Afrikan people.

Lady Brianne, resident poet and one of the Cultural Curators of LBS, welcomed the audience to the event: “We are a policy think tank here in Baltimore, and we’re doing a lot of work, particularly now with the legislative session, around reform of the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBR). … One of the things we always need is support, whether it’s phone banking or going out to Annapolis with us, so I’m hoping you all can stay connected with us.  So I just wanted to welcome you all here tonight. …”

Seba Heru-Ka Anu of spiritual organization Ta Nefer Ankh officiated a Libation/Tambiko ceremony.

A brief discussion was held on the definition of the Afrikan Diaspora and the need for people of Afrikan descent in Afrika and the Diaspora to come together and, more importantly, to organize. SRDC’s specific proposal is the establishment of a Pan-Afrikan Cooperative Coalition that would include a broad spectrum of organizations.

Organizational Introductory Statements

Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS)
Bro. Lawrence Grandpre, Director of Research

LBS is a think tank that does research and develops policies in service to the Pan-Afrikan struggle. Right-wing think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation Cato Institute and Rand Corporation do similar work in service to corporate and right-wing interests, providing talking points to political leaders.

LBS was developed primarily at Towson University with debate teams there along with community activists such as Dayvon Love, Adam Jackson and Debra Murray.  LVS has traveled across the country and introduced a debate style that developed from Afrikan-centered traditions, using that to help direct policy discourse and influenced by such historic intellectuals as Dr. Naim Akbar and Dr. Marimba Ani.  LBS sees itself as “a too, for a larger movement of liberation for Afrikan people”, and notes among its accomplishments several regular programs such as the Summer Debate Camps, held at Morgan State University and Coppin State University, and the Marshall Eddie Conway Liberation Institute.

LBS regularly travels to Annapolis to lobby for changes in Maryland state legislation such as the Law Enforcement Officers Bill of Rights (LEOBR), which us seen as granting unreasonable levels of protection for police against criminal prosecution for acts of misconduct, harassment, brutality and other forms of corruption and oppressive tactics.  LBS is challenging the structure that “allows them to have no accountability for any of their actions … to force them to respect us.”  LBS uses “the power of the community instead of waiting for the Department of Justice” to come and save us or for “the police to learn to respect us.”

Ujima Peoples Progress Party (UPP)
Bro. Obasi, co-founder and spokesperson

UPP is a political party that is working to obtain ballot status “to challenge the state apparatus in the streets as well as the ballot. … We know that voting doesn’t solve our problems. We know that Afrikan people never got anything from voting.  Everything we got, we got with blood and we got it in the streets.

“We cannot have this conversation without talking about capitalism. We can’t have this conversation without talking about White Power.  And we can’t have this discussion without talking about imperialism.  Because all of it is interconnected.

“How we got started was, myself and a couple of my comrades are Pan Afrikan Internationalists. We believe that Afrika should be free and everybody should know their history.  We believe in a united Afrika, under the leadership of the working class, because it’s the workers that produce the wealth.  Bankers don’t produce the wealth, no stockbrokers, it’s the workers that produce the wealth.  We believe Afrika should be free and all the resources should be kept among Afrikans.

“So we have to ask ourselves: how do we free Afrika when we’re not in Afrika?  How do we fight imperialism?  Organization is our best weapon.  We have to have organization.  At the same time, until we destroy capitalism – because capitalism has to be destroyed – you can’t truly practice your culture, you can’t truly practice your spirituality under the rule of another people.  Let’s just keep it real.  It’s time for all the other discussions that some people want us to have, it’s time to eliminate that.  Because you can’t do these things if you have no power.

“Our job [as UPP] is we have to create liberated territory wherever we find ourselves in the world. Wherever we find ourselves in the world, our job is to control that ground … to reduce the influence of the state … the bureaucracy that’s causing all these atrocities.  We have to directly challenge the state.  We have to have all kinds of organizations.  We have to have these spiritual organizations.  We have to have these cultural and economic organizations. … Kwame Nkrumah said that neocolonialism is the last phase of imperialism. … White Power in Black Face, White Power in Business Face, the people who look like us, but serve the purpose of our enemies. … Barack Obama has us thinking that we’re making some progress, when we’re making no progress.  I think it was Malcolm X who said the Republicans put the knife in six inches, and the Democrats pull it out three and they talk about progress.  Well, Afrikans are free people, so when we talk about progress, we’ve got to talk about our progress in proximity to us getting free. … We’ve got to challenge them as well as in the streets; we’ve got to go to that electoral arena to challenge them.

“It’s cool to get voted in, but our job is to use that electoral process as an organizing and mobilizing tool, because all of us [here at this meeting] might have a little more awareness, but the masses of the people are at the polls. We have to create our own institutions to contend with the ruling class.  Our people’s loyalty to these [established] institutions is fickle.  We only have these institutions because we don’t have our own.

“We’ve got to get 10,000 registered voters to sign a petition so that we can get on the ballot. We want to go into our own communities.  Those people in Lexington Market are our people.  It’s going to be those young folks that are going to make that change.

“We’ve got to get 10,000 registered voters to sign the petition, get on the ballot and make history, and we can go in our own communities, run our own candidates and we can challenge these jokers and ‘shiny Negroes’ … because this is not a theoretical question. They’re murdering us.  We have a right to live just like everybody else.  And we’re not going to get it unless we get off our tails and fight.

“We have to create organizations, and this event right here, this is a real critical question right now. If organization is our best weapon, just imagine a bunch or organizations!

“They say it’s radical. We say it’s common sense to create your own institutions to assert your needs.  Even outside of elections, you’re going to see us in the streets, because politics is more than just voting.  You’ve got to be in the streets.  ‘Uhuru’ means ‘Freedom’.  It’s how we greet each other.  So I say ‘Uhuru Sasa.’  Freedom Now.”

Dr. Ken Morgan
UPP Faculty Advisor, Coppin State University

“Nnamdi Lumumba, State Coordinator for UPP, is running as an Independent in the Seventh Councilmanic District. We can’t affiliate as a Party [until UPP obtains the 10,000 signatures to get ballot access], but he is running as an Independent on the platform of the Ujima Peoples Progress Party. … We meet on Wednesdays.  We do mean business.  We have theory and we have practice, but the bottom line is, we must struggle to make it happen.”

Working, Organizing, Making A Nation (W.O.M.A.N.)
Prepared Statement

The following statement comes from the written literature of W.O.M.A.N.: “On January 15, 2009 W.O.M.A.N. officially began functioning as an organizing body. The plan to unite kindred organizations has been a key component from its inception as well as keying in on the active social engagement of all participating organizations comprising W.O.M.A.N. From inception, W.O.M.A.N. has been on the move to display practical unity for our community and not be content with empty, intellectual sound-bites of unity.

“W.O.M.A.N. views its mission as an economic/social calling to address the economic disunity of Black Nationalist, Pan-Afrikanist, Afrikan-Centered groups and organizations. Being progressive, aggressive and practical, W.O.M.A.N. wills itself to foment a fresh model of economic and social organizing. Thus by leading the way for grassroots efforts into the 21st century we unite theory with practice for high achievement. Our mission includes the pooling of funds and energies designed to (1) Fundraise and solicit funds to carry forth our noble purpose; (2) Illustrate the practice of Ujamaa as the model to learn from; (3) Support or create informational services to schools, community organizations and other non profit entities; and (4) Support or create networking capacities for organizations that serve youth, seniors and those with special needs.”

Ta Nefer Ankh
Seba Heru-Ka Anu, Founder and Director

“Our organization is a national organization founded in 1992. We pattern ourselves after the Honorable Marcus Garvey and the Honorable Malcolm X as a nationalist Pan-Afrikanist organization, but following also, leaders like Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop, Dr. Yosef ben-Jochannon and others who also called for a cultural context in which we organize ourselves, and so our community as we define it in Ta Nefer Ankh is an Afrikan-centered community.  What we focus on is mainly creating community.  One of the things that I recognized over the years is that we have political organizations, and that politics ideology does not necessarily define how we do what we do in a cultural context.  In other words, even though we can be a Pan-Afrikanist and a nationalist it doesn’t define how you eat, how you interact with one another, how you engage in relationships with one another, and as Cheikh Anta Diop pointed out to us, that we really needed to connect with the cultural context.  So we’re an Afrikan-centered organization that expresses itself from the Kemetic perspective.  Why Kemet?  Kemet is the first writing Afrikan civilization.  It’s not the oldest.  It’s the third oldest Afrikan civilization.  But it was the first writing. And as the first writing civilization, we’re able to go to Kemet and actually read from our Ancestors exactly how they defined their society, how their society worked, and for me as a person whose background is in Cultural Anthropology, which I love, because it asks the question, why and how did you do it.  So, when you ask our Ancestors, for example, how did you come together and create the civilization that you did, how did you create community, they actually have a model.  And so, we base ourselves on the Kemetic model.  We’re not exclusive in the sense that we don’t promote anything else – we promote all Afrikan society – but we look at Kemet as the model upon which we build.  So we invite folks to come with us and actually do building.

“You asked this question about folks coming together and reasons to come together. Our primary reason to come together is to improve the way of life, improve our quality of life.  Not only should it improve your quality of life, but it should answer all of the challenges that you have.  So, by coming together as a community, [this] allows us to have unity.  It allows us to generate the kind of infrastructure that we need: organizations, institutions.  Out of these organizations and institutions we can promote programs and practices, protocols that we need, that a community needs in order to operate. …

“Our headquarters is here in Baltimore.  We have the Cultural Center on Liberty Road.  You can get some information on us at taneferankh.com.  I’m the national leader, so I teach our communities across the country.  I also travel across the country, recruiting folks to create community, because it’s important that we have community.  We’re talking about creating Afrika where we are.

“The Black Agenda Organization is similar to the wheel, the spoked wheel that you talk about. We have organizations across the country and around the world that actually espouse the Black Agenda, so that would be a common denominator upon which we can come together and organize with each other.  And therefore we see the Black Agenda as that nexus that will enable us to connect with each other.  So, essentially, we’re saying the same thing.

“Black Forum is a weekly event featuring presenters addressing topics relative to the Black Agenda and the Black Power Movement.”

Teaching Artist Institute (TAI)
Bro. Infinity Excalibur, TAI Fellow

“In the beginning was the Heart-Drum.
With this vibration we gave rhythm to the world.
On this beat we Sing Life.
We are the Rhythm People.”

Bro. Infinity will be teaching poetry and short-writings within the Fellowship. “We are going to travel the Diaspora, teaching various artistries and variations of each of our specialties. … We’re going to go to Black nations across the world, teaching, sharing, learning from them, they learn from us.  It’s going to be collective.  It’s going to be responsible.”

Sis. Kim Poole, Founder, TAI

“In a lot of ways, the Drum is the only thing that we can trust. We’ve been told so many things about who we are, what’s been stolen, what the history says, what it doesn’t, but the one thing that’s undeniable across every people, everywhere, that are melanated, is the beat of that Drum.  I don’t care if you go to the service on Sunday or over to Brazil, they’ve got Rhythm People.  Just start beating that Drum and you’ll see who you are.  You’ll see where your alliances run.  And so, we’ve used that as an opportunity to create a sense of unity that in a lot of ways has been lost through ideology.

“So I’m a Soul-Fusion Teaching Artist, and music is what I trust. Art and culture is what in a lot of ways re-Afrikanized me, even got me interested in what that would mean, what that would look like.  And I know that it’s the first pillar of societal development, culture.  And so we have to ask ourselves, what language are we speaking?  I don’t speak Igbo.  I don’t speak Yoruba.  I don’t speak Kiswahili.  But the one thing that we can speak is the beat of this Drum.  And if we can all use that as a tool to see eye to eye, I think, honestly, that that’s the best chance we have at creating a coalition that works.

“It means coming together on one accord, and being able to communicate in ways that both parties understand. And it’s the Rhythm Resolution.  That’s where the Teaching Artist Institute comes in.  Because we want to teach you how to use art as a way of knowing, as a pedagogy.  How can you be innovative?  How can you be creative?  We want to teach you how to use the traditional media of music, poetry, short-writing that Bro. Infinity talked about, that spoken-word, that call-and-response.  It’s the artist community that needs to be at the core of development.  The reason the artist needs to be at the center of the community is because they have that innovation, and they remember who we are, even if only inherently.

“The Teaching Artist Institute has four goals. The first is to train artists and artisans as educators of socially-engaged art.  So, making sure that you’re conscious of that responsibility and understand your influence.  The second goal is to establish and maintain a Teaching Artist Collective.  We don’t support each other enough. ‘I don’t believe what you believe; you’re not Black enough for me; Oh my God Sis, you look too “hood” for our collective over here, we’re a collective of fine things, we go to Afrika, we do trips and we’re Ambassadors.’ We allow classism, and it’s amazing how many ways we’ve learned to divide each other from each other and perpetuate that lesson.  So we need a Collective; people who say, ‘In spite of my class, in spite of my belief system, one thing I know for certain is that I am vested in the perpetual development of my people, and I am willing to use my way of knowing towards that goal, to support that goal.’

“Our third goal is advocating cross-cultural communication and mutual understanding through art. A lot of my art is the pages of my diary. … We need to find ways to express who we are. … Though I’ll [still occasionally] write those songs that help me to release [any emotional baggage], I know that it’s very important to use my art as a tool for development.

“And last, to create a platform for Teaching Artist expression. The fact is, the people that usually ‘get’ it, they never get a loud enough bullhorn to say what they get. Because they stop before they ever get started.  And it’s time for us to be more strategic about how we get into decision-making rooms.  It’s time for us to realize that art can get into any sector, and you need to use your art, whatever it may be, to bring those artists to the room, to bring them to the mic, to give them an opportunity to spread their message.

“So, what is a Teaching Artist? A Teaching Artist is one that recognizes and understands the influential nature of their art.  They use this to promote a value system or a subject matter as an entity in and of itself or as a tool integrated into another discipline.  So we’ll do that in many ways with all of our fellow Teaching Artists this year, but one way that the Teaching Artist Institute is going to do that this year is to support the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus.”

Organization of All Afrikan Unity-Black Panther Cadre
Statement from Baba Ade Oba Tokunbo, Founder and Chairman

The following statement had been prepared by OAAU-BPC Founder Baba Ade Oba Tokunbo: “As of June of this year, the concept of Pan-Afrikanism will be celebrating its 116th anniversary since Henry Sylvester Williams coined the term.  Many Afrikan people in the Motherland, in the Western Hemisphere, in Asia, in Europe and in the South Pacific have an interest in or identify with each other as Black people, as Afrikan people.  They are paying attention to what is going on not only in Afrika, but also amongst Afrikans around the world and in the United States. They are in the Andaman Islands, they are in Papua New Guinea, they are in Vanuatu, they are in Conakry or New Caledonia, they are in Palau and elsewhere.  The idea and the sentiment of Pan Afrikanism is alive and strong in these communities.

“The African Union has taken the initiative to acknowledge the existence of the Diaspora and the role of the Diaspora in promoting the concept of Pan-Afrikanism. Sisters and Brothers throughout the Continent acknowledge this, and are mindful of us here.  We have to take advantage of this.  This is why the Town Hall initiative gives us the opportunity to build across the Black communities of this nation.  Then we will have the opportunity to be represented at the AU, and we can bring issues that the current generation of activists are concerned about.  This is why we have to come together to mobilize, educate and organize the masses of our people here, so we can have a representative voice.”

Souls of Life Society
Bro. King Obadele, Founder and Chairman

“Energy we are, and energy we shall return, when we depart from this which returns to dust. Each one of you, you’re a vessel.  Each one of you carries a spirit within you.

“We have connected with the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus for several years now, because of the vibration that they hold true, which is to recognize that it’s time for change and for us to take action. The Souls of Life Society as you see here, ‘through the power bestowed by God and man,’ a lot of people have a lot in mind of believing so many different things.  Souls of Life Society has come together so that we can come under the understanding that life and love is the most important thing that there is about our living.  So you can look at this and say ‘through the power bestowed from within to do what must be done.’  Our organization harmonizes the unity needed for Black organizations to thrive so that humanity can survive.  We are the original man and woman of the earth and the founders of civilization.  We are the melanated ones.  Within us [is] the true blueprint of humanity, but that would mean that you are more than human. The plan against your greater good was and is to dehumanize you.  Yet, this is the crux of an amazing truth you have yet to accept collectively, which is, you are more than human. Spirit you all are.

“I have been traveling since 1991 to different organizations throughout Baltimore City, observing organisms and organizations to see what causes them to tick.  What I’ve discovered is that we have common ground, which is life and love, but we have to identify that common ground of life and love through re-communing with spirit.  Living thought speaks to each and every one of us.  Your Ancestors are waiting for you to activate the love that has brought you to now.  Do not let religiosity and dogma continue to separate you from who you are.  Everything vibrates and everything has a frequency.  We must begin collectively to speak the same language.  That is truth, harmony, order, righteousness, reciprocity, balance, justice, compassion, propriety, respect and consideration.

“Malcolm said it best when he said that, and this is what I picked up from him, they do not speak a language that, when you come to them in peace, they understand you. That was his belief.  I understand that.  But the thing is for us to overstand that we are more than anybody could possibly imagine we are. But we have to accept that that is true.  We are the original man and woman of the earth and the founders of civilization which means that we are the leaders.  The blueprint is already within us.  The earth itself is awaiting us to awaken.

“My organization, the Souls of Life Society, the acronym is S-O-L-S. The only thing that’s missing is U.  So, if you would be so kind as to look up the website, soulsoflifesociety.org, click it and hook up with us.  Because it’s time for the change to come strong.  We have to understand that, in speaking the language amongst ourselves of what is known as the virtues of Ma’at, which is an ancient Kemet practice, we will better realign with ourselves and with what needs to be done in order to bring the transformation that is needed amongst us as a community, amongst us as a world.  I’ve been with the Brave Men’s Society, the Egbe. … They speak an Afrikan cosmology that speaks of Iwa Pele, which explains very clearly the issues which have happened with our Black community and why there is so much division amongst us.  Come to the website.  Come check us out at the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus so that we can make things happen.”

Pan Afrikan Liberation Movement (PLM)
Bro. Anani Kulu Fatiu

“I’m a part of the Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement that’s located here in Baltimore.  My name is Anani Kulu Fatiu. …

“What we have here today, which I embrace, a lot of what was stated was, the Pan-Afrikan Coalition and coming together. This is not new for Afrikan people.  This is how we lived on the Continent.  We were always demonstrating what Pan-Afrikanism was and what it is.  And that’s how we were able to develop such great nations and civilizations that the Baba has mentioned.

“… We’re dealing with the harmful effects of [White Supremacy], and we’re trying to figure out how we can all come together and merge and make a dynamic push, to push us in our natural way of how we lived as Afrikan people, prior to any invasions, prior to anything.

“I also facilitate a study class, every Sunday from 2 to 4:30, which is the Beginning Study Class, which is everything that a lot of people have mentioned about what they know about their Afrikanity; some people have never even heard of this.  This is very new to a lot of people.  That being Black, and being from Baltimore, West Baltimore to be exact, is pretty much the only thing that they identify with, or being from New York, and so forth, all over the place, not knowing how to get to your center.  So I teach the Beginning Study Class, so we start all the way from the base level.  We’re going to start having a dialog, conversations and then we get into the great literature of our scholars to move us along.  We don’t [just] talk it, though.  We become it and we demonstrate it.

“So I love everything that was said. I’m enjoying everything that’s said.  I love it.  It’s good.  I love the energy that I see out here.  I love being part of my organization.”

The Earth Center
Bro. Nehez Meniooh, Director, Healer, Teacher, Initiate of the M’Tam Schools

“The message I’m here to deliver is a lot bigger than the young man you see in front of you. The Earth Center is the unified form of the temples and the norms of the existing Kemetic Culture.  Because like the Brother before me had just mentioned, a lot of people don’t understand about their identity as what we call Black People of the world.  And that’s because our enslaver has given us the education for what our identity is about.  And because of that misunderstanding, because of that miseducation, today we think that the greatness, the education, the profound wisdom that built these empires that we’re calling ancient today, that built the empires that the Elder introduced at the beginning of the lectures, we’re told today that they’re all dead.  We’re told today that the languages are dead, the hieroglyphs are just to be studied in books and for us to try to recover, but the truth of the matter is that those are still alive.  Those are still alive, being kept in secret societies throughout rural Afrika, throughout traditional Afrika.

“Three thousand years ago, when the priesthood and the pharaohnic throne made the decision that they would change the way that they would keep the culture, instead of in its glory and in its greatness that we see in the Nile Valley, they decided, since the invaders were just not going to give up, to take it underground and keep it secret. And that’s when they took it into the huts and they took it into what, for us, with our education, we look at it and say those people need help, those people are hungry, those people are impoverished.  But those people are keeping the greatest knowledge that this world has known.  And the Earth Center is the first mission of those temples that has been sent out to the Diaspora, to the world, to give you a chance to reconnect with the identity that’s coursing through your veins.

“Because the blood in everyone’s veins in here is very, very old. It’s not yours.  You got it from your father, you got it from your mother.  They got it from their father, they got it from their mother.  And it goes all the way back to those same civilizations that we’re looking at and we’re talking about and we’re studying.  It’s all there inside of us, waiting to be awakened.

“The Earth Center represents that movement.  It’s an organization that was started by a Dogon High Priest.  His name is Prophet Master Naba Lamoussa Morodenibig.  He was originally born in the country of Burkina Faso, West Afrika.  I know a lot of our Pan-Afrikan students in the room know the Kingdom of Burkina Faso from Thomas Sankara.  He did a lot of very great work for us trying to reclaim our identity from what the French colonizers did in his country.

“The Prophet Naba started his education in the traditions. He is a Dogon, so he went through the Dogon Mystery Schools.  He is a Kemetic High Priest.  He continued to go through the initiations.  And when he had the chance, he pleaded with his Elders in the initiation and his royalty to come out into the Diaspora and let the Diaspora know we’re still here, that the traditions are still here.

“We have three branches in this organization. We have a publishing branch, which we call Firefly Productions.  We write books, we write magazines, journals; we have slowly been starting to distribute them around the Baltimore area.  You might see our free publication called The Sunnyside floating around.  We also present some of the treasures that have been kept in the Kemetic Culture, such as the Great Book of Divine Ordinances, which is the original set of commandments our Ancestors followed; the original Map of the Sky that you find on the ceiling of the Temple of [Hathor at] Dendera [Egypt]; the original calendar our Ancestors used of thirteen months and ten days; all of that we have available through the publishing company.

“We also have the M’Tam School of Initiation, M’Tam School of Kemetic Philosophy and Spirituality. Because if we are to recover, it’s going to have to start with education.  If we’ve only been educated by our enslavers, then we can’t wonder why we just seem to not be able to organize.  Because it’s values that put people together. … A good idea might get us all to run one way, but as soon as that chain behind us pulls us back, then we won’t be able to stay together.  So it has to start with our education, and it has to start with an education that comes specifically from our Ancestors and not from the ones who are enslaving the world.

“And the third branch of the organization is the Ankhasta Natural Healing. And that is the network of traditional healers and priests throughout Afrika, mainly West Afrika, who are preserving and protecting the traditional medicinal knowledge and making those recipes available to the Diaspora, who are suffering in our hell, because we’ve been educated by the destroyer.

“So, this organization is split into three branches but even beyond that we do a lot of work. … But one of the things we do that I do want to mention is, every year we take a trip home, so that what we teach the students in the class, what we’re telling the Diaspora – that this culture is still existing, that this culture is still your legacy to be reclaimed, your legacy to awaken in yourself – we take you into the culture so that you can see for yourself, because we don’t believe in belief. You have to know. You have to study. Whatever beliefs you have about the way the earth functions, that’s fine, that’s your business … but at some point, if you want to recover, you have to be educated.  You have to hold that belief loose enough that if common sense tells you that just doesn’t fit anymore, you have to be able to evolve.

“So once a year, we take our students, we take friends, we take guests on a spiritual pilgrimage to go into the culture. The last pilgrimage we took, the royalty in the city called Sia, which is in the western part of Burkina Faso, one of the kings there said ‘Please, take this message to the Diaspora.  Let them know, the way that we live, they see us living in huts, they see us living in dirty clothes, they see us living with nature, that’s a choice.  We don’t want to live in the machine.  We don’t want to live and be a part of the destruction.  We’d rather live and stay next to nature and stay next to the Divine.  Let them know that’s a choice.  But also let them know that everything they saw from the past, nothing has been lost, and it’s here if they’re willing to come and get it.’

“So that is what the Earth Center is representing.  We will have a lecture March 19 at Tehuti’s [Wisdom] Bookstore.  We will be opening up the doors of initiation at the end of March.  You can check our website, www.theearthinstitute.org, and I thank everybody for their ears.”

Black Running Organization
Bro. Isa Olufemi

“There’s a lot of talk about coming together but it never really happens, so the Black Running Organization is here to fill that void. The charge to everyone who’s standing is for you to come and join us at our Unity Run every Sunday at Druid Hill Park.  You don’t have to come every Sunday, but we expect to see you this year, before June. … And it’s not just for the Brothers; it’s for the Sisters too.  What we do is not about competition.  Competition is not part of it at all.  It’s for all skill levels and it’s all about unity.  It’s a practical illustration of unity.

“So if you ever come to Druid Hill Park or you ever come to one of our programs, and you see us, you’ll see a whole bunch of Black people together, unified, running.  And it’s very practical, it’s very simple.  That’s what we do.  If we’re all talking about culture, we’re all talking about this war that we’re in with our oppressors, then we must understand that we have to train physically.  Whether you’re a man, woman, child, Elder, whatever.  Baba Ade [founder and chairman of OAAU-BPC], who’s in his sixties, was out running with us.  We’re not about the lecture. … We just want to see you come out and run with us.  So if you do see us and you do have the ability and to run and you don’t come out, then we can’t organize because we’re not doing what we know we must do.  The program I’m inviting you all out to – Black people only – every Sunday, 10:00 in the morning, by the basketball courts in Druid Hill Park.  If you come to that event, then we’ll extend the invitation to our other events.  Our slogan is ‘Let’s Grow’, that means together we develop our natural processes.  Those natural processes are Black people being amongst Black people and using running as a platform to organize.  So, as always, Let’s Grow.”

The Need for a Cooperative Coalition
Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus
Bro. Cliff, Maryland State Facilitator, SRDC

“There’s an old slogan that says, ‘Think globally, act locally.’ And essentially, what our organization is attempting to do is build a means to reach out to and harness the grassroots voice of our Diaspora on the local level, then move that to the national level, and then move that to the global level.  We start off with grassroots local organizations like ours right here.  I’m the Maryland State Facilitator, so the organization that we have here, essentially operates here in the state of Maryland.  We have Facilitators in other states – not every other state – but we want them in every state plus [Washington] DC.  We’ve got a long way to go before we get there.

“What would happen is, the local organizations would call public meetings, much like this, preferably much bigger, in which we ask you two things: What are the key issues that we need to take out of here to the national level and then to the international level, which is the first question; and the second question is Who would you want to have represent our voice from the state of Maryland on the national stage and on the world stage?

“I can explain all the details of that but it will probably have to be in our next event where we give you the details of what SRDC’s plan is. But the ultimate idea is to come up with a delegation of twenty elected representatives to essentially take the voice of 300 million people of Afrikan descent around the entire world to organizations like the African Union, the United Nations, the latest Pan-Afrikan Congress, the World Social Forum, what-have-you.

“How do you elect 20 people out of 300 million? The way we will do it is we will start at the local level.  We would elect two representatives from this state.  Those representatives would get together with the elected representatives from other states in a National Summit.  We hold them every year.  We’ve held them for [more than] the last seven years.  And at that National Summit, those representatives who were elected in their states would get together and they would essentially determine who is the Dream Team of, let’s say, three or four.  The three or four best of that group to take the combined agendas of all the states that sent representatives to the National Summit and to take that to the world stage.  In a nutshell, that’s basically how it works.  So it’s grassroots local organizations, community Town Hall Meetings.  We’re going to have one later this year.  We’ll have more informational sessions, maybe here, maybe a few other places to explain that further, then ultimately we’re going to have that community Town Hall Meeting [in Maryland].  Then we would have the National [Summit].  Then ultimately we’d have a Full Diaspora Summit [of all the National Summits around the world] which would determine what the overall Pan-Afrikan Agenda would be from the United States, from Canada, from Brazil, South America, Europe, Asia, Central America, the Caribbean, on and on and on, and they would take that to the African Union.

“All of these plans [in Afrikan Diaspora communities around the world] aren’t fully developed yet, but then we aren’t fully developed yet.  But you’ve got to start somewhere.  And that’s what we’re doing.

“Now, if the African Union suddenly decided they don’t want to listen to us, we can take it to the United Nations, who are currently recognizing the International Decade for People of African Descent from 2015 to 2024.  So if they want to put some serious teeth into it, eventually we can put pressure on them to listen to us also.  So there are any number of ways that this can be applied; our current objective is to get that voice in the African Union, because, and I’ll explain this the next time we meet, they have invited us to do so. Some of them are trying to [renege] on it, but we’re not going to let them.

“So that’s basically what our organization does. Now, the reason we asked for this gathering is that we’ve recognized that we can’t do this just with our own organization all by itself.  We need to bring in the Earth Center, we need to bring in PLM, we need to bring in W.O.M.A.N., we need to bring in Teaching Artist Institute.  We need to bring in Black Running Organization, so when we’ve got to run from or after somebody, we can do it.  We need to bring in LBS because at some point or another, we’ve got to be able to march up to the halls of power and say, ‘Here’s what our Think Tank has come up with, here’s what our organizations have told us we need to put together, and dammit, we’re gonna get it.’  And we need to bring all of these organizations together in order to do that.

“So we’ve got people dating back hundreds of years [Harriet Tubman, Marcus Garvey, Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King] who have been telling us [that we need to organize]. And we need to find a way that we can finally organize our organizations so we can heed this call.  We need to understand the divisions in our community; [they] don’t need to become walls that we build up against each other.  We’re not all the same.  If we’re going to separate ourselves from each other because we’re not the same, then we’re never going to get organized.”