Thousands Protest US in Africa at Harlem Rally

RALLY IN HARLEM TO PROTEST ATTACKS AFRICA AND BLACK COMMUNITIES IN THE U.S.

HARLEM: Thousands Protest Attacks on African People on the Continent and in the U.S.


By People's Media Center NYC

Thousands rallied at Malcolm X Boulevard in Harlem Saturday, August 13 to protest the attack on African people on the Continent and in the United States. The heinous bombing of Libya by the US and NATO, illegal sanctions against Zimbabwe by the West, and the Bloomberg administration’s destruction of housing, jobs, education, health care and police abuse, are all a systematic assault on African communities.

Special guest speakers included: Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam; Father Miguel d'Escoto, former President of the UN General Assembly and former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua; Dr. Molefi Asante of Afrocentricity International; Viola Plummer of the December 12th Movement; NOI Minister Akbar Muhammad, and many others.

The rally garnered international attention with the participation of Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman. Father d'Escoto spoke against the “war of aggression on Libya.” Further stating “There is no people in the whole planet who know less about what the United States does abroad than Americans. They are systematically deceived. This is the very foundation of what they call democracy in this country.” Father d'Escoto went on to outline the need for reform in the United Nations, emphasizing the domination of the voting members of the UN Security Council over all other countries.

“We never underestimate our people's ability to analyze a situation. The vast majority of folk are clear about the attack on African people and want to do something to fight back. Mainstream media propaganda about strong African leaders like Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and President Robert Mugabe is just like what they say about Black people here who do not bow down to the status quo,” said Gregory Perry of Queens.

Bronx Coordinator Kamau Brown stated, “Colonel Gaddafi and the people of Libya have built their country from the poorest to the richest country in Africa. He is the key person in the organizing effort to build a United States of Africa. President Mugabe has dared to take back the land stolen by European settlers and give it back to the people of Zimbabwe.”

“The attack on us here is insidious. Police brutality and harassment, gentrification of our communities, housing foreclosures, destruction of public education, closing hospitals, the prison industry, the list goes on and on. They all destroy lives. The NATO bombs in Libya and the illegal sanctions in Zimbabwe kill people. Black people understand that it's time for Pan African Unity.” Brown concluded.

Rally Saturday: Africa for Africans

Greetings Sister and Brother Leaders:

Hope to find you and your families well. A friendly reminder. Hope you'll join us this Saturday, 8/13, 11 am, at U.N. Plaza in San Francisco (@ Civic Center BART station) for our STAND-UP FOR AFRICANS! STOP THE BOMBING OF LIBYA! REPARATIONS NOW Rally. Many thanks for your consideration.

Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma'at

"Take your righteous steps... and, let our Divine do the rest. Walk in Faith... on each and every day!"


July 6251 KMT/2011

Greetings to our African-Descendant Organizations and Justice-seeking Allies in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area:

In solidarity with the masses of people in Libya, the entire African continent, Haiti—and the millions upon millions facing increased imperialist military, police and corporate violence; as well as worsening conditions of life in communities, workplaces and prisons around the U.S., African Diaspora and internationally—We appeal to you and your organization’s members to join our STAND-UP FOR AFRICANS! Rally for Justice and Healing Gathering, on Saturday, 13 August 2011, at 11 am. We will assemble in the 1945 birthplace of the United Nations, downtown San Francisco, California. Our location is the United Nations’ Plaza, located on Market Street b/w Seventh & Eighth. (Take BART or MUNI trains to the United Nations’ Plaza/Civic Center stations). We are also expressing our unity with the Millions March being organized by the December 12th International Secretariat and others in Harlem, New York (please visit www.millionsmarchharlem.com for more information)

Sixty years ago, in 1951, our courageous Ancestors (such as WILLIAM and LOUISE PATTERSON, LOUIS BURNHAM, JOHN PITTMAN, JAMES MALLOY, HARRY HAYWOOD, ESLANDA and PAUL ROBESON, RUSSELL MEEK, W.E.B. DUBOIS, JAMES FORD, BENJAMIN DAVIS, and many other outstanding activists) organized the WE CHARGE GENOCIDE campaign to the United Nations’ General Assembly. They exposed to the world “The Crime of Government Against the Negro (African-descendants in the U.S.) People”; and sought to secure international support and immediate relief. It is in that great tradition—and the spirit of our collective Victory ten years ago at the U.N.’s “Third World Conference Against Racism” in Durban, South Africa—that WE STILL CHARGE GENOCIDE for the continuing crimes against humanity and nature; and proclaim that AFRICAN NATIONS AND ASCENDANTS DESERVE AND DEMAND REPARATIONS NOW!

We condemn the imperialists’ attempts to murder the Gadhafi family; to disrupt, dismantle, divide and destroy that independent nation’s infrastructure, economy, and self-defense capabilities; and, to accelerate their robbery of oil and militarization of the African continent. We also acknowledge the threat by some in the African Union to withdraw from the U.N. based on the “security council’s” (along with NATO’s and President Barack Obama’s) unjust and bombastic actions, in Libya. We are launching our “Dismantle the United Nations’ ‘Security Council’ Monopoly! Support Equality and Democracy Through One Nation/One Vote: Petition to the People of the World.” Finally, We are reactivating our “Establish a Permanent Forum for African Descendants at the U.N.” effort, from 2009. Your participation, leadership and contributions are most welcome to help popularize these campaigns for truth, justice, peace and Reparations.

In Unity! For those on the west coast who are unable to travel to New York, We look forward to seeing you on Saturday, 13 August, 11 am, at the United Nations Plaza, in Frisco!

Initiated by FONAMI (Foundations for Our New Alkebulan/Afrikan Millennium), Members of N’COBRA in Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area, the ANSWER Coalition and other activists

Reach us at:

support@africansdeservereparations.com

510.759.4311 [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311]

Special invitations to participate in this 13 August mobilization extended to a number of spiritual, cultural, political and justice organizations, including: African People’s Socialist Party; All African People’s Revolutionary Party; All of Us or None; Bay View Newspaper; Committee for Defense of Human Rights and SF-8; Committee to Free Cuban Five; Haiti Action Committee; International Longshore Workers Union; It’s About Time/Black Panther Alumni; KPFA/Pacifica Radio; KPOO; Congresswoman Barbara Lee; Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; Nation of Islam; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Prisoners of Conscience Committee; Wo’se Community Church of the Sacred Way; and other groups.

************************************************************************

STAND-UP FOR AFRICANS!

Rally for Justice and Healing Gathering

Saturday, 13 August 2011

11 am

United Nations’ Plaza, downtown San Francisco

Market Street b/w Seventh & Eighth (at UN Plaza/Civic Center BART and MUNI stations)



WE STILL CHARGE GENOCIDE!!!

End the U.S. and European Terrorist Wars, Torture, Murder, Robbery and (Re-) Colonization of Africans!

Life Over Capitalist Debt and Death! Human Needs, Not Corporate Greed!

Arrests, Trials and Convictions for the Criminal Political, Military and Financial Gangsters and Banksters!

Stop the Bush-Obama Imperialist “AFRICOM” (aka, U.S. African Command) Militarization of Africa!

Dismantle the so-called “security council” of the United Nations! Support One Member Nation, One Vote!

REPARATIONS NOW…

FOR LIBYA, ZIMBABWE, HAITI AND ALL AFRCAN NATIONS AND DESCENDANTS, PALESTINE, IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN!!!

This action initiated by the FONAMI (Foundations for Our New Alkebulan/Afrikan Millennium), Members of N’COBRA in Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area, the ANSWER Coalition and other groups.

c/o FONAMI P.O. Box 10963 Oakland, CA 94610

support@africansdeservereparations.com 510.759.4311 [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311] [Call: 510.759.4311]

We are in unity with the Millions March taking place in Harlem, New York ( www.millionsmarchharlem.com for info)



Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma'at

Part TWO: 30 Years of Teaching and Writing

Part Two: 30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X by James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer,1997

copyright (c) 1997 by James G. Spady

...The poetry of Marvin X is deeply rooted in the cosmological convictions of his ancestors and his community. His individual identity is inextricably linked to his communal identity. That is why it functions as a source of power and inspiration. Because he is open to the magico-realist perception or reality and has the authentic experiences of the streets, Marvin's works strike a chord. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in a recent collection, Love and War, 1995.

"Read Love and War for Ramadan!"--Dr. Mohja Kahf, University of Arkansas, Department of English and Islamic Literature



cover art by Emory Douglas, Black Panther Minister of Culture



He introduces the work with these words, "Love and War is my poetic story of rediscovering self love and the internal war (Jihad) to reconquer my soul from the devil who whispers into the hearts of men, Al Qur'an. But I am also mindful of socio political conditions of my people. And this reality fills me with compassion and love, forcing me once again (now that I am clean and sober) to put on the armor of God and return to the battlefield. This collection is a signal of my return to the struggle of African American liberation after an absence of nearly a decade, caused by disillusionment and drug abuse. I return with the spirit of my friend, Huey P. Newton, rip, shaking my bones. He and I were often in the same drug territory and but for the grace of God, I chould have easily suffered a fate similar to his. I came close many times. Praise be to Allah."



"Marvin X was my teacher, many of our comrades came through his black theatre: Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Emory Douglas, George Murray and Sam Napier."
--Dr. Huey P. Newton,co-founder of the Black Panther Party



...Craft is essential to Marvin X's poetry and drama. He knows the possibilities and constraints of the form. And he also knows how to expand. He credits Sun Ra with having helped him to realize the full possibilities of theatre. Marvin read his poetry in San Ra's grand musical energy field and he closely observed Sonny's skillful exploration of our Omniverse and all of its real possibilities. Was int not Sun Ra who told Marvin X that he would be teaching at U.C. Berkeley before it happened?




Marvin X and Sun Ra, both Gemini





...Nearly 30 years ago, Marvin sought to teach the relationship of Islam and Black Art. In his published conversation with Amiri Baraka, he attempted to reconcile and provide voices and faces for the different expressions of Islam in the West.

As a skilled interviewer, he allows Askia Toure and Baraka's divergent views of Islam to be placed into the record. In the afterword he states, "I believe the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is at least ten years ahead of any Black group working for freedom, justice and equality in the hells of North America. The Islamic ideology, discipline and organizational structure permits the masses of our people to fully develop their self-identity, self defense and self-government."

Again, X is out front. He recognized the tremendous influence Islam had on the Black Arts Movement. He is a case study in that type of influence....


Elijah and Malcolm, major influences on Marvin X. He honors both men.



....Marvin X is credited with convincing Eldridge Cleaver to use his advance against royalties from the popular book Soul on Ice, to help set up Black House. The building became "the mecca of political, cultural activity in The Bay Area. Among artists featured were: Sonia Sanchez,Vonetta McGee, Amiri and Amina Baraka, Chicago Art Ensemble,
Avoctja, Emory Douglas, Sarah Webster Fabio, et al. Playwright Ed Bullins joined Marvin and Eldrdige at the Black House, along with Marvin's partner, Ethna X (Hurriyah Asar), and singer Willie Dale, Cleaver's buddy from San Quentin.

Eldridge Cleaver, see Marvin X's memoir, Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, 2009 Upon his release from Soledad prison, Marvin X was the first person he hooked up with. Later Marvin introduced him to Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.


....Marvin X is a teacher of primeval knowledge, a knower of both street poetry and book poetry. In fact, he combines the two in a powerful way. Each verse is a teach act, each stanza--a class. His use of alliteration, rhymes, assonance, dissonance and free rhymes indicates he has absorbed the teachings of the academy. Yet, the street consciousness lying in the cut of its content links him directly to the poets of the new idiom called Rap.



Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale who attended Oakland's Merritt College along with Huey Newton and Marvin X. Bobby performed in Marvin's second play Come Next Summer before founding the Black
Panther Party.

His experimental verses are wholistic, historical and yet dialogical. The dynamic complexities of the situation creates in the reader an urgent need to know more. Can we expect anything elswe from a good teacher?

30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X

30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X

Copyright James G. Spady, 1997

Philadelphia New Observer

Marvin X has been teaching for a long time. He has established his tenacity. As one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), he became a teacher in an emerging field called Black Studies. Like Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Askia Toure and others, Marvin X both contributed to and later taught those pivotal courses that constituted a new discipline.

For the last thirty years, this gifted poet, journalist, dramatist, oral historian (he appears to be the only participant in the Black Arts Movement that conducted intensive and extensive oral interviews with the key participants, as well as international political, cultural and educational leaders)and teacher, has established an unusual record. Marvin X has taught at the University of California at San Diego, Mills College, San Francisco State University, Fresno State University,
Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland, University of Nevada,Reno, and the University of California at Berkeley.

His peers were among the first to recognize his ability. The well-known African American man of the Arts and Letters, Amiri Baraka, refers to Marvin X as "one of the outstanding African writers and teachers in America. He has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the founders and innovators of the new revolutionary school of African writing."

One of the best known playwrights in America is Ed Bullins. He refers to X as "one of the founders of the modern day Black theatre movement. He is a Black artist par excellence." The editor of Black Scholar magazine, Robert Chrisman, spoke of Marvin as "an extraordinary distinguished poet who has a powerful sense of meaningful drama"....

After high school (1962), Marvin enrolled in Oakland City College, aka Merritt College. There he met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, who went on to found the Black Panther Party. It was at OCC that Marvin began to undergo a vital change. He listened intently as speaker after speaker addressed the ever-growing members of the cognoscente at Oakland City College. They, like many area colleges, benefited from the organizing and conscious-raising activities of the Afro American Association under the leadership of a young black lawyer, Donald Warden (now Khalid Abdullah Al Mansour). Marvin's early writings appeared in the Merritt College literary magazine.

Upon receiving the A.A. degree, Marvin went on to San Francisco State University, 1964. Marvin wrote a play for one of his English classes. The professor, legendary novelist John Gardner, was sufficiently impressed to carry it over to the theatre department. In the Spring of 1965, Marvin X's one-act play "Flowers for the Trashman" was produced at San Francisco State, a novel experience for an African American. It is even more exceptional in that it was his first play. (Published initially in Black Dialogue, Winter, 1966 and later in Black Fire, edited by Larry Neal and LeRoi Jones).

Marvin X soon met Philly playwright Ed Bullins, introduced to him by Art Sheridan, founding editor of Black Dialogue magazine. Ed and Marvin founded Black Arts West Thetre in the Fillmore. Black Arts West was certainly influenced by the Black Arts Movement in the East, mainly New York and Philadelphia.

The role of Amiri Baraka in shaping national Black consciousness can not be overemphasized. However, Marvin X, Hillary X, Ethna X, Duncan X (as they would become in a few months after joining the Nation of Islam, circa 1967), along with Ed Bullins and Farouk (Carl Bossiere, rip)were part of an indigenous Black Arts Movement....

--Continued--

London Bridges Falling Down, Falling Down

In solidarity with the family and friends of our son Mark Duggan

The PASCF extends our deepest sympathy and forthright solidarity to the family and friends of our son Mark Duggan. Between 6.15pm and 6.41pm on Thursday 4th August 2011 our 29 year old son Mark was shot dead by London Metropolitan Police gunmen in Tottenham Hale North London.

Coming two weekends before our Marcus Garvey African Family Day with its theme of African Youth Thirty Years On: State Destruction or Self-Liberation, the Tottenham Uprising of 6-7th August 2011 confirms something that was never in doubt: the capacity of our African Youth (and our wider African community) militantly to resist injustice and oppression.


Contextualising the current uprising

There is a rising amount of injustice and oppression around at the moment. The racist ruling class is making working people (Africans especially) pay for the destructive structure and operation of a capitalism increasingly dominated by finance capital. This system commoditises everything (including nothing) in pursuit of super profits. When this blows up in its face with bogus AAA instruments proving to be what they always were - worthless - it is the capitalist state that 'saves' the finance sector and the economy as a whole. It has to do so by printing and borrowing money.

Ideologically right wing capitalists then attack the state for being too large and too debt-burdened. They demand 'cuts' to 'save the nation and posterity.' Poor people pay. The objective noose around the neck of capitalism tightens. The right wing demands tax cuts for the rich. The banks, for their part, as part of 'rebuilding their balance sheets' virtually refuse to lend or lend at interest rates of way above that at which they borrow. The banks pay next to nothing on savings. The finance houses (banks by another name) make super profit by attacking money (the national currencies of all nation-states are commodities that are not just traded but attacked for profits).

This completely irrational aspect of the system cannot be curbed because finance capital is king. And so the crisis deepens. The USA and the EU/Euro Zone and the UK (Sterling) are in trouble. So is Japan (its industrial production-based miracle has run its course). So too is China, the leading lender into this system and itself a social powder keg. The question there is: can a Communist/(Stalinist) party structure successfully manage a corrupt capitalist economy in which workers are exploited in myriad un/traditional ways? Those (like Ghaddafi) who dare to propose currency (absolutely not system) alternatives get targeted for murder/regime change. Well serious!

State oppression brings people’s resistance

Injustice and oppression reign on the streets of the UK (and elsewhere) as well. The Metropolitan Police is not only in bed with the corporate criminals like News International, taking bribes left right and centre. It also has its officers killing, humiliating and criminalising Africans. If they can get away with shooting our sons Derrick Bennett, Azelle Rodney and a Brazilian, Jean Charles de Menezes (shot some 7/8 or more times in the head in public) why not the killing of Smiley Culture (What were handcuff marks doing on his wrists if he stabbed himself to death using a knife with body-penetrating force?) and why not Mark Duggan on Thursday 4th August. Eye witnesses say Mark was shot dead by armed police after being 'subdued' and fully under their control. The bullet he is alleged to have fired is now being said to have come from a police issued firearm. It is now officially admitted that the media facilitated the police in the telling their usual lies that Mark had shot one of them before himself being shot dead. If Mark's unlawful killing was fuel, the open assault upon a young African sister towards the end of a peaceful demonstration was more fuel, and lighted match.

On top of that, we have a national DNA data base with African people massively over-represented on it! We have Joint Enterprise Statute, dangerous in conception being abused by the police, the state prosecution services and the courts! The Police are in Schools - taking names and information, managing the long-term criminalization of another generation of an entire community as they participate in process of rampant exclusion and false charging of African Youth!

Perhaps more than ever and disproportionately at the expense of African people, the police are dealing in drugs and facilitating gangs of many sorts! The police are abusing stop and Search powers exploiting fears about gun and knife crime in trying to justify this humiliating outrage?

Late on Saturday 6th August PASCF members witnessed a search on Railton Road, Brixton (Starting point of the Brixton Uprising of 1981 provoked by the Swamp 81 stop and search Operation!) The victim of that search was an African who appeared well into middle age. One of the police men doing the search had on surgical gloves and only barely avoided stripping the man, so invasive was he. Our member asked that policeman if, having found no evidence of a crime, he had ever had reasonable grounds for suspecting the African and as he walked off he said the African man would tell us what it was about. The poor victim had no idea what the search had been about. He had been asked for a search and had felt obliged to say 'yes'.

On 8th August the Hackney part of the ongoing Uprising followed immediately upon precisely one of these lawless fishing exhibition type searches by Metropolitan Policemen.

Youth are the spark of the revolution

Of course the struggle continues with London in flames. So far our children are rising up in Tottenham, Enfield, Islington, Waltham Forest, Walthamstow, Wood Green, Camden, Harlesden, Shepards Bush, Ealing, Queensway, Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, Chelsea, Hounslow, Croydon, Brixton, Loughborough Junction, Crystal Palace, Tooting, Streatham, Clapham, Merton, Camberwell, Peckham, Lewisham, Catford, Lee, Blackheath, Woolwich, Surrey Quays, Old Kent Road, Tower Bridge, Bromley, East Dulwich, Ilford, Chingford, Dalston, Hackney, Canning town, East Ham, Barking, Isle of Dogs, Oxford Circus, Bristol, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, West Bromwich, Nottingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Surrey and Suffolk. In addition to militarily defeating the British police force, they summoned Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Home secretary, the Mayor of London and other officials all of whom were on holiday.

Not only do our young people presently have the capitalist state on the run but they are demonstrating its logistical limitations for all who have eyes to see. The political pity is that Marx’s working class/proletariat - theoretically history’s appointed "grave diggers of capitalism" - is visible only as one source, along with Black Members of Parliament, of scared, inane and reactionary comments about the spreading Uprising.


Pan-Afrikan Society

Commmunity Forum

07944-204-955

www.pascf.org.uk; pascfevents@gmail.com

Statement of the PASCF on the London Uprisings

11th August 2011

GET YO MIND RIGHT, A Video by Marvin X

Get Yo Mind Right is Marvin X's version of the barber shop, shot in East Oakland, 38th and MacArthur. The videographer and editor is Pam Pam. Marvin must not only pay for his haircut but the young barbers force him to teach on a variety of subjects, politics, religion, history, manhood and other topics. We also see the neighborhood psychopath doing his thing. One barber is a young Black Panther baby; a customer from Philadelphia is a disciple of Noble Drew Ali's Moorish Science Temple. A youth explains why he wears the do rag and cap. Enjoy this video that Fahizah Alim of the Sacramento Bee called "the Real Barbershop."

Marvin X at the Philadelphia International Locks Conference