Join the Black is Back march November 13 in Washington, DC

Stop US Imperialist Wars!

Victory to Oppressed Peoples in the US and throughout the world!

Join the March and Rally in Washington, DC, November 13, 2010, sponsored by the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations!

On November 13, for the second consecutive year, the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (BIBC) will march on Washington, DC with an internationalist black agenda to challenge Obama’s intensification of imperialist wars around the world and inside this country.

Two years in to the Obama administration it is clear that instead of the promised “hope and change,” we are seeing a neocolonial president enthusiastically catering to the interests of Wall Street and the Pentagon, while the black community that elected him languishes under poverty, prison and police repression.

The broad-based Black is Back Coalition was the first to mobilize against Obama’s imperialist wars on November 7, 2009, just six weeks after the coalition’s formation.

Black is Back boldly challenged the Obama presidency for its crimes against Arab, African and oppressed peoples in other parts of the world, while at the same time opposing Obama’s war at home against African and oppressed communities that are catching hell under expanding police and state repression.

BIBC held its first march at a time when the white left and antiwar movement was frozen into inaction afraid of exposing the first black imperialist president whom they had so enthusiastically endorsed.

The BIBC march challenges us of the white community to recognize that it’s not enough to struggle for peace. We must fight for peace based on justice.

It’s not enough to end imperialist war. We must end imperialism and support the movements for national liberation.

We unite with the Black is Back Coalition by saying that we stand for “Victory to the people of Afghanistan; Victory to the people of Palestine; Victory to the people of Iraq, Pakistan, Venezuela, Cuba and to all peoples struggling to regain self-determination over their lands, resources and lives.”

Obama’s imperialist policies are not new. This country is built on slavery, genocide and colonial wars of plunder and occupation from day one. This is a parasitic system that requires the theft of the resources of the majority of humanity in order to function and to provide the white population with the highest standard of living in the world.

The crisis of the imperialist economy comes from the fact that oppressed peoples around the world are resisting these imperialist wars.

Oppressed peoples everywhere are refusing to let the US plunder their lands and peoples without a fight back. They are determined to have control of their own lands, lives and resources to feed their own families and nations.

The same wars of occupation that the US wages around the world are waged inside this country against the African, Mexican and oppressed populations right here.

The rampant police murders and violence, the millions of African people imprisoned in America’s very lucrative gulag, the mass criminalization of black people justified by a government- and corporate- controlled drug economy imposed on African communities are the result of police containment policies and counterinsurgency tactics no different than those used against the people of Afghanistan, Palestine or Iraq.

There’s a war against African people right here. We don’t have to step over the war dead right in our own cities to protest US war crimes against peoples in other parts of the world. The struggle begins here. There’s colonialism of African, Mexican and other Indigenous people right here, with conditions no different than in occupied Palestine or anywhere in Africa.

African people have a right to resist that war, to fight back, like Diop Olugbala, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, who was facing up to 10 years in prison after being attacked by plain-clothes police when he was peacefully protesting during a Philadelphia city council meeting.

Diop and InPDUM were protesting the city’s plan to cut back needed services in the impoverished African community while at the same time beefing up the terroristic police machine that occupies black neighborhoods to the tune of $1 billion.

For that stand Diop was convicted of felony charges, but a worldwide outpouring of support for Diop and the Uhuru Movement forced the judge to give him probation rather than any jail time.

African people have a right to this resistance. We say, “Victory to African people! Victory to Indigenous people right here!”

To have peace we must end imperialism and colonialism. There must be justice and liberation for oppressed peoples who make up the pedestal upon which we sit.

As the Black is Back call to the Nov. 13 march states:

“The election of the first black president of the United States – Barack Hussein Obama – has not ended the suffering of our people or U.S. injustices around the world. In fact, the only change we have experienced is an intensification of the exploitation and oppression of black people and oppressed people worldwide, by the global white power machine.

“While the U.S. Congress has given Wall Street and the auto industry trillions of dollars, the same Congress refuses to repair the legacy of slavery for descendants of enslaved Africans or prevent ‘ethnic cleansing’ of black people in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina.

“Every day, our people suffer police brutality and murder, unjust imprisonment, depression-level unemployment, underemployment, slave labor in the thousands of U.S. prison camps, disenfranchisement, evictions, foreclosures, and homelessness. And there is no health care to speak of.

“African people who dedicated their lives to the freedom struggle during the 1960’s still rot in U.S. prisons, and U.S. wars have expanded beyond the African community in the U.S., to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and now threaten Venezuela, Iran, and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.”

The African People’s Solidarity Committee calls on all freedom-loving people to join the black-led mobilization in Washington on Nov. 13 to stop US imperial wars and for victory to oppressed peoples inside this country and around the world!

For more information on the Nov. 13 mobilization by Black is Back see its website at: blackisbackcoalition.org

No jail time for Diop Olugbala! A victory for African and freedom-loving people everywhere!

On October 13 the movement for social justice throughout the world won a key victory for the democratic rights of African, oppressed and freedom loving people everywhere when Diop Olugbala, International President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) walked out of his sentencing in Philadelphia with two years probation. He could have been sentenced to up to ten years in prison.

Read more at http://www.uhurunews.com/

The following is the statement put out by the African People’s Solidarity Committee in support of the struggle to free Diop from these attacks on the right of African people everywhere to struggle for their freedom and liberation.

Diop must be free! No charges! No sentence!

The African People’s Solidarity Committee, the organization of white people working under the leadership of the Uhuru Movement, stands in unconditional solidarity with freedom for Diop Olugbala!

As a leader of the Uhuru Movement Diop has courageously stood up to all the power of the brutal Nutter administration and the Obama presidency in the name of the African working class community which is forced into conditions of poverty and oppression.

Diop is a political prisoner, just like Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Sundiata Acoli and so many others from the period during and following the heroic Black Liberation Movement of the 60s.

Diop is the political prisoner of this period, exposing the vicious agenda of neocolonialism, white power in black face, that is orchestrating the attack on black people today.

Diop exposes the fact that, contrary to Obama’s statement that we live in a “post racial” America, the reality is that African people in Philadelphia and the US today are catching more hell than they were 40 years ago.

Diop’s stand shows that there are two Americas:

One where black people of all ages are attacked, murdered and harassed by heavy handed, militarized police forces and SWAT teams, bearing down on African communities in the same way they do in Afghanistan—something that we never see in the white community!

Diop has the courage to expose the shootings, beatings and taserings by police in the black community; along with the massive stop and frisking of young black men, the handcuffing and arresting, even murdering young school children, the rounding up of millions of African people for the brutal prison system that makes billions of dollars for the white community; the fact that a black family has 10 cents for every dollar of a white family, the targeting of black families for subprime mortgages and foreclosures—none of this takes place in the white community.

Diop exposes the reality that the US government has imposed drugs on the African community and uses that to criminalize and lock up millions of black people, even though the majority of drug users and sellers are white and the illegal profits are in the white economy.

The reality is that prisons are used to bring billions of dollars of jobs and resources into the white economy. The state of Pennsylvania says openly on one of its websites that prisons are used for economic stimulus for rural white Pennsylvania!

Diop exposes the fact that the US was built on the enslavement of African people.

There are two Americas with two “justice” systems, two sets of sentencing guides, Jim Crow law, with white America’s opportunities, resources and experience of democracy coming at the expense of the African community.

Diop and the Uhuru Movement have had the courage to expose this fact and to demand that the city of Philadelphia stop its billion dollar war budget, beefing up the military style police force against black people and put that billion dollars into real economic development programs that uplift the entire African community of Philadelphia out of poverty.

The African People’s Solidarity Committee unites with the demands of this march and the Uhuru Movement and calls on all white people to join in support of this just call.

The only way there can be peace, unity and real security in this city is to stop this war against the black community carried out in our name!

Reparations and economic development for the African community are the only road to a city united and moving forward, no one at the expense of another.

Free Diop! Drop the charges and no sentence!

Reparations to the African community--$1 billion for economic development

Independent investigations of all cases of Africans brutalized by the police!

Jail the police, judges and attorneys guilty of crimes against the people! And release all Africans in prison due to corruption of the Philadelphia criminal justice system!

APSC statement in support of groups raided by FBI‏

Fight for our right to stand in solidarity with peoples worldwide struggling for national liberation!

Victory and self-determination to African, Afghani, Palestinian, Indigenous, Colombian and oppressed and colonized people around the world!

The African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC) and the Uhuru Solidarity Movement (USM) denounce the September 24, 2010 subpoenas and raids of the homes and offices of solidarity and anti-war activists in Illinois, Minnesota and Michigan.

These raids, violating the civil rights of the targeted activists, were carried out by the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force allegedly as part of an “ongoing investigation by the Joint Terrorism Task Force into activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”

Groups under attack include the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the Palestine Solidarity Group, the Colombia Action Network, the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee and Students for a Democratic Society.

APSC expresses our support for all these groups and individuals under attack by the US government.

We defend the right of all of us to stand in solidarity with all peoples anywhere in the world fighting to throw off the yoke of colonial violence, war and oppression imposed on them by the terrorist US government. We affirm all of our unalienable rights to raise resources for movements for national liberation and justice.

The US, Europe and the capitalist system itself are the real terrorists!

The US built its wealth and power out of the European assault on Africa that destroyed African freedom and independence at the point of the gun. African people were brutally kidnapped and violently forced by the millions to become the world’s most lucrative commodity as enslaved laborers for hundreds of years.

The US is the real terrorist, carrying out open policies of genocide against the Indigenous people, through torture, murder and war, stealing Indigenous land and forcing the people into concentration camps called reservations today where the life expectancy is 46 years.

The US is the real terrorist having consistently waged countless open and covert wars of occupation, plunder and extermination against the peoples of the Philippines, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Africa, Occupied Palestine and the Arab world and elsewhere in order to create the highest standard of living on the planet for North America.

The US is the real terrorist and wages a brutal counterinsurgency war against the African, Mexican and Indigenous communities inside this country today with militarized police forces shooting down young black men on a regular basis. It is currently imprisoning 2.5 million people—mostly African and Mexicans—on designer, Jim Crow laws after imposing an illegal drug economy on those communities.

The US is the real terrorist, hunting down and rounding up Mexican people who have come across the illegal border set up by the US after stealing the land of the Mexican people.

This attack follows history of attacks on the African Liberation Movement

We recognize that this kind of US government attack on white activists is being perpetrated on a history of attacks against African Liberation activists inside this country since the Black Power Movement of the 1960s which was crushed by a terroristic program called COINTELPRO. This US government secret program was responsible for assassinating and imprisoning movement leaders such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Bobby Hutton and Fred Hampton. Some activists of the 1960s are still in prison today, including Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier and so many others.

We recognize that white activists are being attacked on the basis of the frame ups by the FBI and other US government agencies of Mumia Abu Jamal, and more recently on the Liberty City 7 in Miami, the San Francisco 8 activists, the assassination earlier this year of Detroit black activist Imam Luqman and so many others.

We recognize that the white activists are attacked today on the heels of the political conviction of Uhuru Movement organizer Diop Olugbala who protested Barack Obama’s presidential campaign event in 2008 by raising the banner “What about the black community, Obama!” and who was arrested for leading protests against Philadelphia’s planned $1.1 billion war of intensified police repression against the African community there.

These attacks against the progressive organizations on September 24 are happening under the murderous neocolonial regime of US president Barack Obama who is carrying out and intensifying the terroristic imperialist agenda of his predecessors.

We have a right to stand in solidarity with African and other oppressed peoples struggling for justice and liberation

We affirm our right and responsibility to continue to stand in solidarity with African and Indigenous peoples inside this country and with peoples around the world struggling for justice and liberation from US terror! We uphold our right to stand in material solidarity with those movements by sending resources to support their work and struggle!

The African People’s Solidarity Committee is an organization of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which leads the Uhuru Movement.

APSC’s work revolves around raising reparations or material support from white people for the liberation movement of African people inside this country and around the world.

For almost 40 years the APSP has led the movement for African Liberation, uniting Africans as one people around the world struggling to liberate and reunite Africa and all its resources as the birthright of African people everywhere.

Stop the US government repression against all solidarity and anti-war activists!

Victory to African and oppressed peoples around the world!

Down with US imperialism!

New video talks about building solidarity with African liberation

Free Diop Olubala! Drop the charges now!

Free Diop Olubala! Drop the charges now!

By Penny Hess, African People’s Solidarity Committee

I urge everyone to call, write and email to the judge to demand that the charges are dropped against Diop Olugbala, a leading African community organizer for the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM).

Diop is facing felony charges of aggravated assault in a political trial that begins August 24 in Philadelphia for speaking out at a city council meeting in March of this year against the city’s planned severe budget cuts that would eliminate essential services in African communities of the city.

Diop led the InPDUM protest pointing out that while Philadelphia cut back on essentials for the African community in the name of the city’s budget crisis, it was at the same time increasing its financial allocations to the militarized police responsible for on-going harassment, brutality and murders in an African community plagued with staggering poverty and unemployment rates.

Diop was holding a sign calling for African people to resist the city’s billion-dollar war budget targeting the African community when he was physically attacked by plain clothed police and arrested.

Diop is also well known for challenging then-presidential candidate Barack Obama at a campaign event in St. Petersburg, Florida in 2008 to answer the question, “What about the black community, Obama?”

It was this bold action that got media coverage around the world, exposing Obama for being “white power in black face,” who would continue to carry out the imperialist agenda against oppressed peoples of the world and against African and oppressed peoples inside this country.

While most of the white left and anti-war movement was silenced by its unity with the first black imperial president, Diop and InPDUM laid bare Obama’s role as a neocolonial shill who won the election by blatantly selling out the interests of the African community and the oppressed peoples of the world.

Diop must be supported because he represents organized African resistance in this period. He represents Africans struggling for justice and liberation in 2010 in the face of brutal containment policies—similar to those carried out by the US in wars of plunder and occupation around the world—that have African communities on lockdown and serving as fodder for the lucrative US prison economy.

Diop shows us that the struggle of the Black Revolution of the Sixties was never completed. It was defeated by the same US government that is trying to save itself from crisis by attacking the people of Afghanistan and Mexican people right here.

There are many political prisoners from the earlier period of struggle who must be supported and freed—heroic people such as Sundiata Acoli and Mumia Abu Jamal.

But Diop represents the new era of political struggle and resistance—young African people rising up to fight the endless police attacks on the streets, the hostile education system, the rampant African community unemployment, the frame ups and discriminatory sentencing that are responsible for nearly 4 million African people being tied to the prison system.

Diop is the political prisoner of today, part of a growing organized movement of African people struggling for liberation in the face of Obama’s myth of a “post-racial America” and a deepening US economic crisis brought about by the emerging resistance of oppressed and colonized people around the world.

From the white community we must stand in solidarity with the movement to free Diop Olugbala, recognizing that as in the 1960s the leadership of a genuine movement in this country for social justice and against this vicious imperialism comes from the African community struggling for African freedom right here.

Drop the charges against Diop Olugbala (slave name: Wali Rahman); reparations to Diop!

Here’s what you can do:

1. Call judge Roxanne Covington at 215-683-7142 every Monday with the following demand:

"I am calling to oppose the City of Philadelphia’s efforts to convict Diop Olugbala, also known as Wali Rahman, with the trumped up felony charge of aggravated assault on police. His arrest represents an attack on the rights of African people to free speech and economic development. I stand with the demand for the immediate dropping of all charges against Wali Rahman and Franklin Moses."

2. Call district attorney Seth Williams at 215-686-8000 and demand all charges against Wali Rahman be dropped.

3. Email the judge at: tdaccrimssupport@courts.phila.gov

Sunday, August 1st - Uhuru Solidarity Training Conference: Reparations in Action!

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Please confirm that you can participate by emailing: info@uhurusolidarity.org Uhuru Solidarity Movement Training Conference REPARATIONS IN ACTION! Sunday, August 1st 10:00am – 3:00pm EDT For all supporters and allies of African liberation: We want to invite you to a training conference this Sunday, August 1st from 10am – 3pm EDT. Uhuru Solidarity Movement is launching exciting new campaigns as part of the reparations in action to support the work of the African People's Socialist Party, coming off its successful 5th Congress, leading the worldwide struggle for African liberation, and building the Uhuru Movement as the leading activist organization for real change all over the world. Participate from anywhere in the world through web video or phone! Instructions for how to connect are at the bottom of this email. Please confirm by email that you can participate in this conference! A detailed agenda will be sent out later in the week, but the topics covered in the conference and training are: Building Days in Solidarity With African People: Oakland & San Diego, CA St. Petersburg & Miami, FL Philadelphia, PA & New York City And your city! Uhuru Holiday Pies Campaign – with a 30-year history of supporting African self-determination Uhuru Holiday Online Auction – getting donations for the auction Trainings on: Community organizing & grassroots fundraising: Reparations in Action Pledge Campaign Organizing benefits, house meetings Using the internet to get the word out: media, online postings, social networking Supporting the Uhuru Pie Campaign in your area: sales, pie production, donations Please confirm that you can participate by emailing: info@uhurusolidarity.org INSTRUCTIONS ON HOW TO JOIN THE CONFERENCE: Topic: Uhuru Solidarity Movement Training Conference: "Reparations in Action!" Time: 10:00 am, Eastern Daylight Time (New York, GMT-04:00) Meeting Number: 731 329 716 Meeting Password: uhuru ------------------------------------------------------- To join the online meeting (Now from iPhones too!) ------------------------------------------------------- Go to https://freetrial.webex.com/freetrial/j.php?ED=136214622&UID=0&PW=NZGI5ZDcwYzdj&RT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D Enter your name and email address. Enter the meeting password: uhuru Click "Join Now". Follow the instructions that appear on your screen. To view in other time zones or languages, please click the link: https://freetrial.webex.com/freetrial/j.php?ED=136214622&UID=0&PW=NZGI5ZDcwYzdj&ORT=MiMxMQ%3D%3D ------------------------------------------------------- To join the audio conference only ------------------------------------------------------- To receive a call back, provide your phone number when you join the meeting, or call the number below and enter the access code. Call-in toll number (US/Canada): 1-650-429-3300 Access code: 731 329 716 ------------------------------------------------------- For assistance ------------------------------------------------------- Go to https://freetrial.webex.com/freetrial/mc On the left navigation bar, click "Support". You can contact us at: info@uhurusolidarity.org

African People's Solidarity Committee / Uhuru Solidarity Movement info@uhurusolidarity.org • www.UhuruSolidarity.org • UhuruSolidarity.blogspot.com Listen to "Solidarity Not Charity" on UhuruRadio.com - Sundays at 1pm U.S. Eastern

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Take a stand against criminalization of African youth gatherings in Philly

Alison Hoehne of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement in Philadelphia wrote this response to an article published this week on UhuruNews.com, "African youth in Philadelphia threaten to shut city down—InPDUM demands hands off the so-called 'flash mobs' (African youth)"

Uhuru! This powerful situation unfolding in Philly is giving us in the white community the opportunity to see first hand the reality that the Uhuru Movement has been exposing for so long -- that there are truly two realities in Philly and in the U.S.-- one experienced by the entire white population and a totally different one experienced by African and Latino people.

Just last night there was a flash mob action during rush hour at the 30th Street Amtrak station with 600 young people swarming through the station. They jammed up the whole concourse and stood frozen in place for three long minutes as commuters tried to get through. Were they viciously clubbed by police and arrested? Was there mass hysteria and condemnation by the city government and population? Were they criminalized in the media today as scum criminal types trying to intimidate our good citizens?

Hell no! They were Drexel University students carrying out a charming, "whimsical" (Phila Inquirer), action to show that hundreds of people can come together in Philly peacefully. "This is not a riot" they said, and claimed to be "taking back" the concept of flash mobs as a cool thing to do, unlike the recent African youth rebellions.

Can you imagine 600 young Africans going into 30th Street station and standing still, jamming the place up and not being so much as touched by the Amtrak police, Septa police and Philadelphia police? I remember when ONE unarmed, homeless and mentally ill African man was shot dead in that station for defending himself from Amtrak police by holding a chair in front of him to keep the police thugs from attacking him!

We have to wake our community up! Who are the real criminals and where is the violence really coming from?

Talking of mobs. Does anyone remember the Williams family in Gray's Ferry getting attacked outside their house by the white nationalist mob of firemen coming out of their "beef and beer" in 1997? The Uhuru Movement and the African community led demonstrations of hundreds of people to protest this attack, (and exposing that this was a daily occurrence), forcing the DA's office to make a reluctant arrest or two. It was reminiscent of the white mob attacks on African people in Philly and the Northeast throughout the 1800s. There's a plaque on Lombard at 6th to the "Lombard Street Riot" where hundreds of Irish and Italians viciously attacked the African parade that was celebrating Jamaican independence. Hundreds of African were beaten and many killed. African homes, churches and an orphanage were burned down, yet none of the white people were arrested. This was the norm.

This is our true history. The entire white population has participated in terrorizing African people to keep the jobs, land and resources stolen from African and indigenous people for ourselves.

Nothing has changed. YET!

African people have always struggled against slavery and colonial terror and oppression. The recent African gatherings/youth rebellions are part of an intensification of organized resistance led today by the Uhuru Movement. Oppressed and colonized people around the world and right here are rising up to take back what's theirs. We'd better understand it and get on the right side or we're going to go down with imperialism and reaction!

We in the white community have the opportunity to take the right stand as never before!

Yes, 29 more young Africans have been sent to prison in Philly in one swoop. Crime rates have gone down after all, so the police have got to do something to help fill those prison beds that Wall Street brokers are betting on. The prison system is what's keeping the economies of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia afloat. More young people from the African community in Phila are sent to prison than almost anywhere in the country, creating a billion dollar economy -- jobs for clerks, police, judges, parasitic lawyers & DAs -- not to mention prison slave labor where Africans make most of the paint products and paint brushes in the U.S., electronic parts, office furniture, even bombs, for pennies a day.

Where is the outcry about this violent system that locks up a whole generation of young African people to make money for white people? Where's the outcry at the brutal police murders of African people which happens every week in Philly without a word of protest from the same folks who are all upset about a table at Macy's getting knocked over?

Why is there no outrage when the reports comes out that the First Congressional District (large parts of Phila, Chester etc) has the second highest rate of hunger in the U.S. or that up to 76% of families in African communities in North and West Phila live in dire poverty! There are no jobs for young African people. Two out of five people in Phila public schools are termed permanent truants. This means there is nothing for African students in the colonial schools except hostile teachers, humiliation and police.

It's truly time that we get organized if we want to change this reality. We must support the right of African people to fight back and organize to transform their conditions of life. Any sincere white person and all allies of the African community reading this needs to join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and get organized under the leadership of the African working class revolution. We surely owe African people reparations and we can start by actively working in solidarity with the movement for African liberation and self-determination.

Take a stand with us to make the outcry from the white community against the criminalization of the African community and in solidarity with the just demands of the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement:

1. Hands off the Philly African youth gatherings: drop all trumped-up charges against those Africans rounded up in the Center City and South Street incidents.
2. Reparations to the African community: $1.1 billion for community-controlled education, housing and economic development—not police containment.
3. We demand community control of the police.
4. Free Diop Olugbala! Hands off the City Hall 2!
   

Join today at www.uhurusolidarity.org