By Segun Shabaka
The 36th annual NAKO Symposium on Community, Culture and Struggle will be postponed due to the noncooperation of the principal of Public School 287. No adequate reason was given for the refusal to allow the use of the school’s auditorium after several months of numerous attempts to contact her in person, by email as well as by phone.
Too many of these new jack, recent arrivals to principalship are individuals who don’t understand the turbulent history and struggles of the 1960s and 70s that made it possible for them to be in the positions they occupy.
They act like gangster overseers running ‘massa’s’ plantations. Some even think and act like they are ‘massa.’ Part of those struggles were to open up these community schools for community use; ‘bringing the community to the schools and the schools to the community.’
Those that fought in those struggles for ‘Community Control’ understood the lack of institutional space available to our oppressed community and marginalized neighborhoods coming out of the Holocaust of Enslavement.
Not much has changed. Unlike many other communities, Africans in America still do not own or control in any significant way the space we occupy. Thus, our labor today is much like the old plantation system, it goes towards enriching and empowering others to our own demise.
The Symposium has served as the intellectual component of the International African Arts Festival (IAAFestival) which will celebrate its 54th year July Fourth weekend. The exact dates of the IAAFestival are Friday, JULY 4, thru Sunday, JULY 6, 2025. For information and to support the IAAFestival go to www.iaafestival.org.
The symposium has brought together major Black thinkers from across the world to share their ideas and solutions around the myriad issues facing the world African community. Scholars, intellectuals, activists, leaders and experts from various fields discuss vital issues that affect the African American and African diaspora communities using the 7 areas of culture as defined by Kawaida Philosophy which was developed by Dr. Maulana Karenga (History; Religion/Spirituality and Ethics; Social Organization; Political Organization; Economic Organization; Creative Production {art, music, literature, film}; and Ethos- psychology or Collective Consciousness). In these times of mass uncertainty, suppression and racism Black people need to be dialoguing more than ever.
The Symposium has been tentatively rescheduled for September of 2025, and will take place at Brooklyn’s Restoration Plaza. The exact date and location will be announced within the next few weeks. For further information contact: nakoinfogroup@yahoo.com or 718-789-3264.