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Barron

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OTP:  The recent primary election only had about 15% of the electorate coming out.  What’s going on and how can we change it?

Charles Barron:  Number one, I think that a lot of voters feel they don’t have a reason to vote. They’ve been lied to so much by elected officials that there is a fair amount of despair and hopelessness vis a vis the electoral process, and we can’t blame it all on voter apathy.   The other part is the candidate.  There is a lack of sincere, down-to-earth, grassroots, for the people, candidates.  So when you have candidates that are not committed to the people, and you have incumbents who have sold out the people, it’s very, very difficult to convince people to come out and vote because Rosa Parks, and Fannie Lou Hamer, and Martin Luther King, Jr. struggled for you to have that right.   We ran that one down for a little while and it’s worked to an extent.  Now people want to see some concrete changes in their daily living.  They want to see things delivered and promises kept.

OTP:  How do we convince people that there is a reason?   I see folks out here who simply have no inclination whatsoever to go and vote.

CB:  I think you have to do several things.  Number one, as we’re doing with the Unity Party and the Mary France campaign, is to give people a reason to vote,   to develop a new electoral movement.  To revolutionize the electoral movement with people who are connected with grassroots people.  I think once they see candidates from the community who have worked in the community, candidates they believe in, then I think we’ll have a better chance. Even though this last turnout was dismally low, I look at things like Barry Ford running against Ed Towns in the 10th Congressional District.  Ed Towns got 17,000 votes and Barry Ford got 12,000 votes.  That’s a lot for a person who was not known before this race.  And when you add in the other guy, Ken Diamondstone, he got 4,000 votes.   So there were 16,000 votes against Ed Towns.   48% of the district went against Ed Towns, a longtime incumbent.   Well that’s a signal that people are dissatisfied with the kind of leadership Towns is offering and want a change.

OTP:  What are the nuts and bolts of grabbing people and getting them down to the ballot boxes.  How is that done?

CB:  First it has to take place long before the election.  I think that’s a mistake that a lot of grassroot candidates, insurgent candidates make.  They take too long to run.  They wait until the last minute to make that decision.  To run, you need an expert team to get the signatures to get on the ballot.  You need to raise enough money, and you have to be connected to the people.  People are tired of folks coming around just on election day.

We have an election coming up in 2001 and we’re out here now, three and four years before the election, getting connected with our people.   We have to see our folks where they are.  We have to go into the barbershops when there are no elections and find out what is on folk’s minds.   We have to go to tenant association meetings, block association meetings, churches, when there are no elections.  Just to get involved in the everyday life of our folks and work on issues they care about.  Rent control issues, issues in the housing developments, income caps.  People are looking at subsistence education of their children and we have to address those basic issues.  When people know that you are going to address the issues that impact their daily lives, and do it on a consistent basis, even before the election, then I think we have a better chance of getting them out to vote.
Just last night I was talking to five or six brothers on the corner, and one of them said, “I’m glad you stopped to talk.  We saw your picture on the poster, but I’ve never met you.    Now that we’ve met, you can rest assured you’ve got my vote.”  I invited them to an organizing committee, Operation POWER.  It’s an organization that came out of our campaign.  So that’ll be four or five more people.  I’ve got to do more of that.  So do other people who are serious about transforming our communities and our people.

OTP:  It’s not just the picture on the poster that gets the job done?

CB:   No, you can’t just put the picture on the poster up a few months before election day, get the New York Times and the Amsterdam News to endorse you, some big name people to endorse you.  You have to work hard everyday.   You have to walk through the housing developments.  See the folks sitting on the benches, introduce yourself and see what is on their minds.  What do the people want?  Of course they’re going to tell you “I need a job.”  Of course they’re going to tell you they want the drugs out of the community.   Then you have to see what level of commitment they’re willing to make, to cause that kind of stuff to happen.   It takes leadership. There are two kinds of leadership, A transformative leader who is a change individual, trying to change the system so that a greater amount of goods and services are delivered to the greatest number.  Then there are the other types of leaders who are into transactions.   They cut deals.  They make transactions.  They get a small group of loyalists some jobs to keep them in office.  I believe we need to move toward a transformative leadership for change, and away from transactional so that we can create a political movement.

OTP:  There is always talk about how the incumbents have a built-in advantage.  What are the mechanisms they use to enhance their reelections?

CB:  There are three main things they do to get reelected.  The first is mass mailing.   Take my 42nd Council District.   We have 54,000 registered voters.  The incumbent, with the money in her city council budget, can mail to those 54,000 voters two or three times right before the election.   So she’s already started off with three mailings to 54,000 people.

OTP:  These are mailing paid for by the city?

CB:  Out of the city council budget.  It’s illegal to use the city council budget for a campaign and there is a law that you’re not supposed to do a mailing within ninety days of an election, but not many people adhere to that law.   So what they’ll do is say they are just sending out a council report to the district thirty days before the election.   So they get to do that three times.  Then when it comes to the campaign, the incumbents are connected to powerful people, like the mayor in the case of Priscella Wooten in my district or the mayor and Ed Towns, so they get support from these power associations and developers, and corporations, so they have a lot of funds.   So they take those funds and do two or three more mailings and add to the three they’ve already done.   So now you have five different mailings to 54,000 people.   Secondly, they do phone banking.  The day of the election or a week before the election, they get the unions to give them access to very sophisticated phone banks.  They are able have people work the phones.    So now the voters are getting phone calls.   Thirdly, most voters make up their minds the day of the election and the incumbents have the money to pay people to go out there with palm cards.  They have the financing to put teams of people at each polling site.  Priscella Wooten had five hundred people out to my one hundred.   So it’s mailing, phone banking and election day operations with palm cards.  That’s how the incumbent stays in office.  And they already have the name recognition.

OTP:  Now what does an insurgent have to do to overcome that?

CB:  That’s why we have to start very, very early.   For example, I ran once, we got four thousand votes.  So even though Wooten is the incumbent and did all that I just said, and then some, she only got six thousand votes.   So four thousand to six thousand.  Now I have to work these next three years, to build an army for election day.  To raise more money so that I can do more mailing and to get a phone bank going.   I’ve got to spend the time expanding my base.  You have to build a base.  After the election, I didn’t go away.  We’re going to work out there to expand our base.  We’re going to go into the churches.  We had several ministers working with us this time, and we’re going to increase that number.   We are getting more into our youth.  There are a lot of young people who are politically conscious, the Hip Hop Nation.  Hip Hop culture is looking more toward politics.  I’ve spoken with young people in the district who are looking to get involved as well.  And then we are going to look more to expand toward some community-based organizations that were more fearful to get involved last time because there were purse strings attached.  But with no incumbent in the next election, even though they will still have a machine coming at me, these organizations will have more courage to get involved.  And then looking at the Tenant Associations and Block Associations Presidents.  These are real local leaders.  In our district we have about eleven housing developments.   We had three or four tenant association leaders from those housing developments involved.   We’re going to shoot for more and expand that.   Then we are working with the Black Political Free Agents organization, the Unity Party, and Operation POWER which is a group we put together.  And then we’ve been assisting other campaigns.   In this past election we worked with three or four different campaigns and that gave us relationships with other political forces.   That’s what we mean by expanding our base.

OTP:  In this upcoming election for governor, what’s the lay of the land and what’s the role of the Unity Party and Mary France?

CB:  We’ve really got to build an independent political movement, a progressive political movement.   That is a major objective.  We want to get 50,000 votes under the Unity Party banner, so we can build an independent political movement.   Right now the two major parties either take us for granted like the Democrats, ignore us like the Republicans or use us like progressive white efforts.   So we’re either ignored, taken for granted or used.  The Unity Party brings us power, leverage and respect.   Instead of an individual voting for Twiddle Dee Dee or Twiddle Dee Dum, that is Peter Vallone or George Pataki, they’ll have a real choice.  Because those two are both so conservative their politics are very similar, it’s not going to make a huge difference who wins.  The difference will be so marginal, you’ll be better off voting for Mary Alice France, with the Unity Party, so that you’ll have 50,000 people representing you.   Because you need 50,000 votes to get an independent party line, when people seek elections with these major parties, they will look at you differently now because they are looking at 50,000 people instead of one person.   Or instead of black people who are controlled by certain black leaders who the power structure is comfortable with, we’ll have an independent party that will give us more leverage.   Having a Unity Party means that we can run our own candidates locally.  So if I run in 2001 as a registered Democrat, I’m also going to be on the Unity Party line. So it really increases our opportunities on a local level, as well as gives us more leverage and power and negotiating power on the broader level.
OTP:  Running on two party lines, how does that work?
CB:  you can be endorsed by many parties.   Peter Vallone is on the Working Families Party line in November, and the Democratic.   In New York City, the Liberal Party, the so-called Liberal Party that’s actually very conservative under the leadership of Ray Harding, they wield a lot of power now because they support Giuliani.  If that white vote is split, then the Liberal Party endorsement really means something.    We can play that same kind of power politics if we had a Unity Party and continued to build it.   There may come a time where we’ll run our own candidates for statewide office and keep building.  But in the meantime, as we win local elections and become powerful, we can still make a difference in the gubernatorial election if the two main candidates are neck and neck, if we can come in with a hundred thousand, hundred and fifty thousand votes, it can make a difference.  If you look at this last race for the Democratic Primary, Peter Vallone got 296,000 votes.   Chuck Schumer won the nomination for Senate with 252,000 votes.   That may seem like a lot, but you’re talking about millions of voters in the state.   Remember that Al Sharpton got 187,000 votes when he ran statewide with little or no money.   These other guys have millions of dollars.  Sharpton got more votes than everybody else in those races but the two winners.   Now that’s something to think about.  He got more votes than Mark Green, more votes than Geraldine Ferraro, more votes than Betsy McCaughey Ross.  When you look at the governor’s race, Peter Vallone got 296,000 votes.  Betsy McCaughey Ross 112,000, James LaRocca, 41,000, and Charles Hynes, 84,000.  Sharpton, with 187,00 votes in his senate race in 1994 got more votes than Hynes and LaRocca put together.

OTP: How much did Sharpton spend on that race?

CB:  About $70,000.
OTP:  How much money do these other guys spend?
CB:  Millions.  I know Betsy McCaughey Ross spent about $2.5 million and she only got 112,000 votes.
OTP:  Unbelievable.
CB;  So Sharpton spent $60-70,000 in that Senate race and he got 187,000 votes.   Look at it this way.  In his citywide run for mayor, he got 132,000 votes.   That was more than Betsy McCaughey Ross got statewide.
OTP:  Gotcha.
CB:  Her 112,000 with her millions.  Look at the Senate race.  Charles Schumer got 252,000 votes with over ten million dollars.  That’s not cost-effective with Sharpton getting 187,000 votes for $70,000.  [ed. Note: These figures work out to approx. .37 cents a vote for Sharpton, $22.32 a vote for Ross, and $39.68 a vote for Schumer].   Mark Green had 93,000 votes.  Sharpton had 187,000.  Geraldine Ferraro, the woman icon, vice-presidential candidate, she had a few million, 132,000 votes.  The Geraldine Ferraro vote statewide was only as much as Sharpton got citywide, 132,000.  So we have the potential to really build a party, an alternative to the two party system, and really have a major impact.  And then look at some of the local stuff.   The local races.  When I ran against Priscella Wooten, I got 3,990 plus votes.  Four thousand.   Clarence Norman, Jr., the most powerful black Democrat in the State.  He received 3,313 votes.   Do you hear me?  We got four thousand.
OTP:  And the populations are the same?
CB:  We have a larger district.  There are several assembly district in the council district.  But look at it this way, I got three thousand votes from just the 40th Assembly District.  That covers East New York, the other thousand came outside of East New York.
OTP:  Alright.
CB:  He got three thousand three hundred.  I got three thousand in the 40th , one Assembly District.   I probably could have beaten Assemblyman Griffith if I would have wanted that seat, because he’s vulnerable and we’re building a machine out here.  Take the case of James E. Davis, Officer Davis.
OTP:  Oh yes.
CB:  He doesn’t have any real solid base.  Two thousand seven hundred and thirty-three votes against Clarence.  He got 45% of the vote against Clarence.   Look at Ed Towns with millions of dollars and out here for sixteen years, he got a total of 17,990 votes.   Barry Ford, a virtual unknown, 12,610 votes, 36% of the vote.  Kenneth Diamondstone, 4,000 votes.  If you total Kenneth’s and Barry’s votes, which is an anti-Towns vote, it’s 16,610 to Towns’ 17,990.  48% to Towns’ 52%.  What message is the electorate giving to us?   They want these guys out.   They will go with anybody to get them out.   But we have to build our bases more, and build our relationships more.
OTP:  What can the individual person do who says, “Hey, I want to make something happen.”  What can they do?

CB:  I don’t think there should be an individual black person in this city that is not a part of some organization.   The first thing all of us have to do with our families is join an organization.   We cannot do this thing alone.   Then once you get involved with an organization, you have to push that organization to be progressive.   To link with other organizations that have similar goals, so that we can build progressive and independent coalitions to launch an electoral movement.  Movements change things.   Campaigns put individuals in office.  Movements change things systemically.  Movements build platforms.   Campaigns build a person.  We have to get beyond the idea of running campaigns as individuals and look at building movements and coalitions for independent progressive policy that will be more issue-based and platform-based, organizational-based, and system fighters.  We can’t just look at somebody with a name, and put them in office.  They have to be committed to an agenda, an organization, and be system fighters.  Not afraid to fight against white supremacy.   That’s one of our major problems.  White male supremacy.  Most of the parties in this state, if not all, are lead by white males.   Whether they’re progressive parties or liberal parties, or conservative parties, they’re lead by white males.
OTP:  Conrad Muhammad has an interesting group called A Movement for CHHANGE that he is developing.
CB:   Yes.  I think that’s an excellent group that has a world of potential.  Conrad Muhammad has a real challenge before him.  He’s going to have to sustain a movement, and develop the resources.  But we need training.  Groups like that need training.  Not only young people, but all of us need training.  I’ve put out a call to Conrad already.  We at Dynamics of Leadership, are certainly willing to provide that kind of training.  People will gather with you early, but to sustain a movement like that, you’re going to have to obtain some power real soon, and obtain resources in order to do fundamental things.  You have to find a building, a base, that you can organize in and have people come to.  In addition to the money, you have to have the training to go along with that so that you’ll know what the political landscape is in New York.
OTP:  When we were speaking at the meeting, I was lamenting on the poor turnout and you said words to the effect, “Do not despair.”   Do you remember that?
CB:   Yes.  You know, I’m an eternal optimist and a realist.  I’m not one who is an idealistic optimistic in an unreal way.  But I’m certain that during slavery days somebody told Harriet Tubman that she was out of her mind.  That slavery was here forever, so why would she try and do something about it.  But Harriet did it, despite of all that was around her.  And slavery doesn’t exist anymore in that form.  I’m sure somebody told Marcus Garvey that he couldn’t build the things he wanted to build.  A steamship company in 1920.  Black people would never give him enough money to build the Phyliss Wheatley Hotel, and the Universal Grocery Store, and the Universal Restaurant.   But Marcus Garvey said, “Up you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will.”  And he did it.  I’m sure people thought that Jim Crow would be around forever.  George Wallace said, “Segregation now, segregation forever.”   He just died himself, as did segregation.   I’m sure someone told Nelson Mandela, “well you might as well just give it up.  You’re going to be in jail forever.   He sat in there for twenty-seven years.  Never giving up hope, always having a vision for a new South Africa.  Apartheid is dead and Mandela went from the prison to the presidency.   If that could happen in South Africa, if that could happen on the plantations, then we who have so much more, should do equally as well, if not better.  And any leader who comes before us and tells us that any form of our oppression is permanent, that’s a leader not fit to lead.

African New Leadership Leads the Way

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One of the most important processes in African history is happening right now, and by nation standards it is happening at breakneck speed.  It is of such a magnitude and scope, that it has the potential, if assisted by changes in the New York City school curriculum, to change the thinking and the lives of African-Americans within a generation.   This process came to Harlem this past September, when the Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture, hosted  AA New York Conference on the Contribution of Black Intellectuals to the African Union and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. It is a process African leaders have named the African Renaissance and it is being spurred on by the African Union.

The African Union is a coming together of countries on the continent to chart a new and unified course for Africa.  NEPAD is a project of the AU for social and economic development.   And with globalization making Africa only a phone call or Web page away, then descendants of the historical Diaspora, with their economic and intellectual resources and with their many skills,  have a lot to offer to a system looking for synergy.

In his introduction to this conference of scholars, Curator Howard Dodson noted that the African Union had decided early on to have the African Diaspora play a role in its agenda.  And that these discussions were to Abegin the process of thinking about how we go forth organizing ourselves in the Diaspora to become participants in the advancement of the AU and NEPAD agendas.  And in exploring ways in which the AU and NEPAD agendas can intervene in the ongoing struggles for freedom, justice and  human dignity throughout the Diaspora.
The first part of the program was devoted to understanding the nature of the AU and that was done through a presentation by Dr. Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, Senegal’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Senegal president, Abdoulaye Wade.

The second part of the program was devoted to working groups, discussing how the participation of the Diaspora might operate and what it might look like.   Several person made brief welcoming remarks as the cpmferece opened.  AWe are in the time of the beginning of the return,@ said Councilman Bill Perkins.  AWhat left Africa was not just bodies, but human resources, intellectual and spiritual.@ Said the councilman, AWe are talking about the reuniting of a people, the coming together of dried bones.

In brief remarks, the Honorable Rex Nettleford, -Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, said that groups such as this Ahave to look seriously at our curricula, to get the next generation to understand they have a real job to perform.  Not only in terms of  economic imperatives. But the continuing concern with what’s happening in the spiritual and intellectual life of our communities.  The creative imagination and the creative intellect are the two tools that people like us have had to fight all the oppression for the past 500 years, said the chancellor.  He noted also that ANepad has pedigree, because it comes from the African people themselves and not the United Nations.  Nettleford ended saying ANone but ourselves can release us.

The Sixth Region
In his presentation, Dr. Gadio said that central to Senegal=s Africa and international policy is the role and place of the Diaspora in the movement of African Renaissance.  There is no future for Africa without the involvement of all its children, as Marcus Garvey used to say, >at home or abroad’.
Dr. Gadio said that Senegal felt the Constitution of the African Union was originally flawed Abecause the Diaspora was left out and that corrective measures were underway.   He said that President Wade was able in the revision process, to get a line concerning the Diaspora added.  But he said, Athe goal of Senegal is to have the Diaspora in the Constitution of the AU as the Sixth Region of Africa, joining East, North, South, West and central Africa.  Dr. Gadio assured the group that Senegal will bring the issue to the table until it succeeds.
Why Now the Diaspora?

Globalization, New Leaders and Global Drive for the African Renaissance.
Dr. Gadio explained that there were a few reasons for the coming back of the Diaspora into the African political agenda.  AGlobalization is one factor and new leaders in Africa is another.  He said that President Wade and President Obasandro of Nigeria are examples of two African leaders who are trying to symbolize a leadership that believes in African Renaissance and Pan-Africanism.

Saying there was a global drive for African Renaissance Senegal’s foreign minister asserted that  African people in Africa had realized that they were at an impasse.  Echoing the words of professor Amos Wilson he said Athe richest continent in the world, with a people who had the richest history and background and culture were convinced that they were poor, going around saying they were poor.  That had to stop and this movement of African Renaissance is underway and we are proud to be a part of it.

The New Partnership for African Development (Nepad)
As Dr. Gadio spoke about Nepad, he asked that we use the French pronunciation Naypod instead of the English, Kneepad, which Dr. Gadio explained was what Africa was too much associated with.  Recalling that the original name of what is now Nepad was ANew African Initiative, he was disappointed that it  was not kept.  Citing the great Senegalese scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, he said it was important for people to reconnect with an historical initiative.  AWhat happened to the African people is that we lost the initiative.  Other people came and took over our people, our lands and we lost that historical initiative.  It was a good name, but I like Nepad, also.

The foreign minister said that Nepad was a merger of two important projects that were happening on the continent.  AOne was the Millennium African Renaissance Program, headed by Thabo Mbeki of South Africa with the support of Abdelaziz Bouteflika president of Algeria and Olusegun Obasanjo, president of Nigeria.

When President Wade came to power in a peaceful transition in March 2000 in Senegal, the continent now added Aa man who had spent the previous forty years as a Pan Africanist, economist and lawyer and had been reflecting on Africa in a holistic way.   Dr. Gadio said that soon after assuming the presidency, President Wade was joining with the others in this new thinking.  They were actively looking at the situations confronting their countries from a regional and continent-wide perspective.

This new African leadership is, according to Dr. Gadio, focused on infrastructure, education, agriculture and health.  He said there was a paradigm shift away from loans and the accompanying chains of interest payments, to setting up self-help priorities.  He also noted that this process of rebirth traces back to Marcus Garvey, to Sylvester Williams in Trinidad, and to others and that it was part of a one hundred and fifty year struggle.  Pan-Africanism started with the Diaspora.

African Woman Initiative
Dr. Gadio spoke about how the African woman is central to the development of Africa, and the black community, therefore Senegal proposed that there be an African woman initiative in Nepad and they also proposed and were able to obtain, Afor the first time in the history of the continent and perhaps of the world, that the executive branch of the AU, the Commission, be composed of five men and five women.

African Peer Review Mechanism
Dr. Gadio said that while the OAU had a hands off approach in dealing with internal problems of countries, the AU has taken a very different approach.   The African Peer Review Mechanism is an extraordinary process and a guide to the management of a continent.  It provides for a committee composed of Heads of State of Member Governments of the AU to act for, as its base document says, Amutual learning and capacity building, and for exercising the constructive peer dialogue and persuasion required to make the APRM effective, credible and acceptable.
Fifteen of the 53 African Union members have so far volunteered to have this extensive and independent national auditing done. They are Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda.  The first countries audited will be South Africa and Ghana.
The African Peer Review Mechanism is only one of the elements of the AU process.  Dr. Gadio likens it to a train picking up ideas and structures at various stops.  He can see the president of the AU as the spokesperson for the continent and the Council of Ministers as the beginning of a federal government.
Diaspora, Historic and Modern

Since all human life stems from Africa, there was some discussion regarding what constitutes the Diaspora. Dr. Gadio said there were the historical, those descendants of Africans who had been captured and taken to the Americas, and the modern, those who have migrated throughout the world.  The foreign minister sees these two groups as having tremendous potential and says the question is Awhat can Africa do for the Diaspora and what can the Diaspora do for Africa?@
He suggested that as commerce grows between the Diaspora and Africa, and as the African Renaissance grows, there will be a Diasporan Airline Company that would travel a new  Atlantic Triangle of Trinidad, New York and Senegal.  Trading with, visiting and supporting each other. AOnly when we reunite will our ancestors be satisfied.
The Dakar Conference

The Dakar conference originally scheduled for December was specifically meant to get the contribution of intellectuals in the Diaspora, and African intellectuals in general, to the building of the African Union.  Because of the time constraints, the Dakar meeting will be a preparatory one in anticipation of the conference itself, which they plan to have the scope of the First World Festival of Negro Arts, that President Leopold Senghor held in Dakar in 1966.
This December preparatory meeting would decide the format of the Conference, determine needed workshops and themes and decide on the desired outcome.  The goal is to produce a memorandum at the end which will be given to the African Union, outlining what can be done for the continent.  AIt will be an unprecedented platform for the launching of the African Renaissance.@  In this anticipated gathering of five hundred intellectuals, the focus will be on determining what role the African Diaspora will play in the African Union.
In order to select from this distinguished assemblage, five men and five women who will represent the group in Senegal, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture had them break into working groups based on randomly distributed folders with a colored star that determined the discussion group members.
The group then worked on the questions below, and based on those discussions, selected a male and a female member to represent them in Dakar.   These are the kinds of questions that would result from a curriculum designed to produce active participants in the African Renaissance.

I. The African Union and the African Diaspora
This conference assumes that African peoples in the Diaspora can become critical contributors to the development of the African Union and Nepad.  It also assumes that the African Union and Nepad have the potential of becoming critical actors in the advancement of the agendas of peoples of African descent in the Diaspora.
1. What are the areas of common interest between the peoples of the Diaspora and the African Union?
2. What are the primary items on the AU and Nepad agendas that would benefit from support and involvement of African Diasporan peoples and governments?

3. What are the major issues facing African peoples in the Diaspora that would  benefit from African Union and Nepad support and involvement?

II. Organizational Structure
The African Union is currently an organization of continental governments represented by presidents and the ministers of state. The African Union has proposed establishing a Sixth Region to represent the interests and participation of African peoples of the Diaspora-both old and new.
1. How should Caribbean governments with African majorities be represented in the African Union?
2. How should large black populations in major Diasporan societies (i.e., the United States, Brazil) be represented in the African Union and Nepad? For example: (Select one.)
a. The head of the Congressional Black Caucus?
b. The head of the Black Leadership Forum?
c. The ranking African-American in the U.S. government?
d. The head of the National Conference of Black Mayors?
e. The head of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators?
f. Through state caucuses and a national election?
g. A combination of the above?
h. Other?

As members of one of the groups spoke about these questions they said there was a common psychology among Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora, and that springs from the effects of white supremacy, Awhich remains alive in the world.

Another common concern was access to technology, a shared sense of not being in charge of our destination and an alienation from the global economy.  AThere has to be a re-education of what it means to be African.

Shining Thread of Hope

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During February and March, students seek subjects for essay assignments centering on black leaders and female role models.   They are encouraged to focus on the familiar, extraordinary heroes and heroines.   Yet, the happenings in the circle of our own daily lives, outside the realm of history books, inform us of many more pacesetters who should be added to the pantheon of  Ahonored citizens.  Thanks to an alert from Brooklyn’s-own  Children’s Times Associates, we have learned about a new,  must-read book  that attempts to correct this in terms of the Apanoramic story of black women.    for teachers, parents, students and everyone else:  Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson’s A SHINING THREAD OF HOPE: The History of Black Women in America is for everyone:students, teachers, parents, young and older.    Informative and inspiring, THREAD OF HOPE chronicles, in the words from the book’s cover,  Athe lives of black  women from indentured servitude in the early American colonies to the cruelty of antebellum plantations, from the reign of the lynch law in the Jim Crow South to the triumphs of the Civil Rights era.  Tracing the accomplishments as well as the suffering of black women through the Great Migration, the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, the Civil Rights movment and the present day,  Hine and Thompson challenge preconceived notions and move black women from the fringes of American history  to a central position in our understanding of the forces and events that have shaped this country.  More than a story of struggle, black women’s history is very much a story of hope…  This book tells the stories of  unheralded women whose lives and work still impact on all of us, but whose names are virtually unknown.   Of immediate consideration, for this month,  is  Mabel  K. Staupers.   Due to her efforts during World War II, Nurse’s Day, in  May,  is a salute to nurses of color, as well.  Hine and Thompson  remind us that  Stauper’s aggressive fight against quotas established by the U.S. Army Nurse Corps led  to the end of discriminatory practices against Black nurses in the army and navy (January 10, 1945).   Stauper helped Ato dispel entrenched beliefs about the alleged inferiority of black health-care professionals and paved the way for the integration of the American Nurses’ Association. In a related note,  The Children’s Times Associates is spearheading a movement to have a school  in New York named after Mabel K. Staupers.  Clara Barton is so honored.  Why not Mabel K. Staupers?

WHOSE MAJESTY?

Editor, Our Time Press
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I looked forward to attending the NYU-sponsored Queens, Queen Mothers, Priestesses and Power symposium at the Schomburg Center in Harlem.  I paid the fees and registered. By the attendance, it was apparent that others were interested, too.

As Dr. Howard Dotson proudly welcomed the audience, I looked around at the packed auditorium and saw gracious Camille Yarborough, stately Queen Mother Moore and Dr. Blakely.  The great Osunfunke Mama Keke looked majestic. Susan Taylor, ever regal, was also present.  Then Dr. Flora Kaplan, the NYU conference convener introduced the presenters.  Before the symposium could get started, Dr. Kaplan blundered, introducing Mama Keke as Queen Mother Moore.  That was a major mistake, particularly before such an audience.
As royalty in our community, the African American women of influence in that audience were not properly acknowledged.  These noble women remained scattered throughout the audience.  Some audience members began to bristle in their seats.  Other began raising the questions about authenticity.  Suddenly, something was very wrong with this picture.
After things settled, the Aexperts@ were brought on. They simply gave an overview of their papers which were variously, titled, AAsante Queen Mothers: A Study in Female Authority,@ AGender and the Politics of Support and Protection in Pre-Colonial West Africa,@ and >Priestesses and Power Among the Riverine Igbo,@ and more.  To hear about the topics as case studies in African gender raised my level of anticipation.  I was beginning to relax … until a Mr. Nigel Barley was introduced.  After hearing his title, Assistant Keeper, Museum of Mankind, The British Museum, London, I began to think that this had to be some kind of joke.  I listened to his authoritarian tone.  That along with his title and institutional affiliation were discomforting. Also, the panelists professors whose surnames — Barnes, Clark, Henderson — gave no indication of their ethnicity or race, were inclusive in their viewpoints along with White males, African males and African females.  Glaringly absent from this were female African American scholars.  There was no Dr. LaFrancis Rodgers Rose (President of International Black Women’s Congress), Dr. Johnetta Cole (former President Spellman College), or Dr. Niara Sudakasa (President of Lincoln University) nor any Black member of the Association of Anthropologists.

The Schomburg Center and NYU’s Institute for African-American Affairs as Acooperating institutions have remained unchallenged.  Lending their names as cosponsors may have added some credibility.  I have yet to know what Acommon interests were served by such an alliance.  Why this event?  Why this audience?  And why these locations?

What was evident is that at that time African-American women had no leadership in the above institutions.  The absence of an informed African American female perspective was telling.  Did any one ask about this oversight at the planning stage?  Was there a Acall for papers?  Who chose these particular presenters? This conference stood out as a culturally inappropriate event.  The information was sorely misrepresented.  As a familiar image (once again) reminded me of this conference, so many questions remain unanswered.

Over the next two days, I attended several workshops.  At the Academy of Science, there in the audience was Her Royal Grace Iya Orite of the Oyotunji African Village in Seldon, South Carolina.  The panelists described the relationship of the Queen Mother as chief counsel. I looked around the room and saw other royalty.  During the Q&A session, I asked the question about the glaring absence of the African American viewpoint in this scholarly work.  And further inquired about the failure to recognize Queen Mother Moore and Mama Keke.  Everyone looked to Dr. Kaplan for a reply.

Given such poor representation, is there any likelihood that the book (AQueens, Queen Mothers, Priestesses and Power) will help Ato deepen understanding of African American cultural heritage as its introduction proposes?

HUMAN RIGHTS HYPOCRISY

Editor, Our Time Press
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David Mark Greaves

When a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  A tree fell across Black America in Geneva, Switzerland in April, and African Americans in the States would not have heard it were it not for the relentless ten year effort of the Brooklyn based December 12th Movement International Secretariat.

The International Secretariat has become a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) with consultative status at the United Nations.  It was that achievement that allowed them to be present at the 54th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights  meeting in Geneva when the U.S. Delegation took their axe into the forest.

At an April press conference held at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, Secretariat member Amadi Ajamu, who was at the Geneva session,  read the following release.  AA particular resolution put forward by the African Group is being vehemently debated on the floor and is of grave concern for all African people on the Continent and in the Diaspora.
AThe African Group resolution demands an official apology and sets the framework for reparations from those nations that facilitated and prospered from the Trans-Atlantic African Slave Trade.

The resolution cites the precedents set by certain nations to rectify past atrocities and gross human rights abuses through apologies, compensation, and reparations. The United States delegation to the Commission on Human Rights led by Ambassador Bill Richardson, stated that >Chattel slavery was not a crime against humanity because it was legal in the US.'(Emphasis added)  Further, the delegation has taken an opposing position on the question of reparations, and has demanded that >reparations’ be stricken from the resolution. In so doing, the US delegation does not represent the interests of the majority of Black people in America.

AThe December 12th Movement International Secretariat is actively mobilizing the Black community nationwide in support of this historic African Group Resolution… The United States and Western Europe must be held accountable for the long centuries of slavery and colonialism forced upon African people.
We’d like to repeat the stunning statement of a diplomatic representative of the U.S. government.  AChattel slavery was not a crime against humanity because it was legal in the US.  This is an impossible position for any civilized person to take.   The text of this press conference should have been in the headline of every newspaper, news-magazine and media outlet across the country.   When an official of the U.S. Government makes that kind of statement, there should be a spasmodic reaction by Black people and their political representatives.
If chattel slavery is not a crime against humanity, then what is?

Apparently we need constant reminders of what slavery was.   For hundreds of years, African people, our forebears, our ancestors, were killed and tortured until the survivors worked as slaves.  Then they were treated as livestock and bought and sold as any other livestock would be.   Their labors made the emergence of the United States possible.  And it=s the United States position that this was not a crime against humanity because it was legal at the time?
White-owned media are worse than useless as a source for information.  They present us with Jesse Jackson talking about Trade not Aid, and warm and fuzzy photo-ops of Bill Clinton and Hillary looking at elephants, and holding African babies.   Meanwhile their delegation to the Commission on Human Rights was continuing the rape of black people in America behind closed doors in Geneva.  But this time we know about it because of the determination of the December 12 Movement International Secretariat to work in the international arena.

Omowale Clay, speaking for the Secretariat, said that what is critical now is that there be an outcry that Bill Richardson, by taking the position that slavery was not a gross violation of human rights because it was legal in the United States, cannot represent progressive and African people in this country.    Mr. Clay went on to say that, AWhat the U.S. is really attempting to do is avoid the question of establishing the historical links between the slave trade and the benefits this country received.  Benefits that continue up to this very day. On Monday, April 27, the International Secretariat of the December 12th Movement made a full report to the African Community at The House of the Lord Church, pastored by Reverend Herbert Daughtry in Brooklyn, NY.

When you first learn American history, people like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Patrick give me liberty or give me death, Henry, are called Founding Fathers, and held up as heroes. The Declaration of Independence, though written by slaveholders, is held as a statement of universal human rights.

Today, the December 12 Movement, representing the heirs of those slaveholder=s slaves, are among the heroes of today, and are carrying forward that human rights legacy in national and international arenas.

From the Declaration of Independence to Martin Luther King, Jr., the December 12 Movement rests firmly in the mainstream of the American human rights struggle.
Most people are very familiar with the opening of the second paragraph; AWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness….    Lesser known is the listing of grievances against King George.   If you substitute current American institutions, you find that many of these still resonate in the African-American community.  For example, one complaint was, Afor transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.  This speaks directly to the actions taken against Abdul Haqq by the FBI Joint Terrorist Task Force.  Mr. Haqq is a member of the December 12th Movement and an activist who had assisted in founding the Black Men’s Movement Against Crack and helped uncover police participation in drug-trafficking.

We have personally witnessed Mr. Haqq in the street talking with children about drugs and their future. Since there is ample evidence that the CIA was spending large sums of money in the 1980’s to bring drugs into the community, it is easy to see why the activities of people like Mr. Haqq would be questioned and responded to by those with the most to lose, the criminals working in the criminal justice system.   Mr. Haqq was arrested in New York in March of 1997, transported to Ohio, and put on trial for the Apretended offense of murder.   The trial ended in an acquittal on April 22, 1998, and it represented a tremendous triumph for the Movement, and for attorneys Roger S. Wareham and Terry Gilbert.

Mr. Wareham is also one of the counsels for the December 12th Movement International Secretariat and is the International General Secretary, for the International Association Against Torture.

Roger Wareham Reports to the Community
We got into the international work from the position that Malcolm X was correct when he said that if our struggle is to progress, we could not confine it to civil rights, we have to begin talking about human rights.  That we had to take our struggle and put it in the international arena, on the international agenda.  The arena for that is the United Nations.  The year before he was assassinated he was trying to make those connections in terms of the United Nations.

AWe (the December 12th Movement), were a part of a Freedom Now’ delegation that went to the United Nations in 1989, to bring to them the issue of political prisoners inside the United States.  What we found when we got there is that there was a real misconception on the international arena around the condition of Black folks…. The view they had of Black folks was really more influenced by the Dream Team, Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan.  They thought all of us here were living like that.  That we were all living good.
It became clear we had to go to square one, because there was so much information and misinformation being spread about our situation that people thought that racism was over inside the United States.

One of the things that happened when we got there was that there were people from progressive countries who were allies of our struggle, and who took us under their wings and shared their experience so that we did not have to start from scratch.  One of the things they told us was that the United Nations is a forum.  It is a forum for public perceptions and public propaganda.  People don’t free themselves inside the United Nations, but what they do is change international perceptions about their struggle and bring legitimacy to it.   And they said that in order to do that, you have to keep coming.  You can’t come one year and don’t come for another two or three years.  You have to come to the point where when you walk in the hall, people know who you are and they know what you’re there for.  Which means that you’ve got to keep coming.  This was a commitment that we as an organization made, and which was a greater commitment than we had imagined, in terms of the sacrifice of going to Geneva Switzerland twice a year, which is an incredibly expensive place.  But we made that commitment because we were convinced that that was what Malcolm was talking about, and to uphold his legacy we had to do that.  So we started going in 1989 and continued through to today.
In order to participate inside the United Nations, as a nongovernmental organization (NGO), you have to be accredited.  You have to have a track record, etcetera, etcetera.
So originally as the December 12 Movement, we participated as part of an NGO called the International Association Against Torture.  And it was in that organization that we began to make our impact inside the United Nations.  We did it in terms of the presentations we made at the Commission on Human Rights and the Sub-Commission as well.  We participated in the Third Committee of the General Assembly at the World Conferences on Human Rights, on Development, and on Women.

We had a strategic goal of winning the international community over to the fact that we were an oppressed nation and that we have a national liberation struggle, that we have a right to self-determination, that we were not simply a minority inside the United States.
In order to push that question, tactically we had to begin by discussing the question of racism.  Because as Viola (Plummer) was saying, that’s the language they understand.   Malcolm was a master of that.  He said when you go into an arena, you have to speak the language that the people speak, and they understood racism.  In presenting the facts of racism, in presenting our situation by the statistics that the United States government itself provides, it became clear that on every level we were no different in our relationship to the United States than Jamaica was to the United States, or Trinidad is to Great Britain, or any other colony is to a colonizer.
We entered in 1989, when the whole world geopolitical situation was changing. The Soviet Union was disintegrating, there was no longer a socialist block that would take up the interests of national liberation struggles.  The United States had assumed the role of being the only superpower and assumed a real dominance inside the United Nations.  So we were pushing a rock up a hill.  Some people said that it was hopeless, that we=d never get the United Nations to investigate the United States in this period of time.   We took the position that no one could tell us what we couldn=t do.
Our whole existence in the United States is proof positive that we shouldn’t even be here if we listen to what other people say.  We went there with the position that the United States was the major human rights violator in the world, and that the United Nations needed to investigate that.   From that struggle, from those meetings, from the interventions we made, from the discussions we had with different countries and folks, from the information we presented, and the way we presented it, in 1993 the United Nations appointed a Special Rapporteur on the theme of racism and racial discrimination.   They said that wasn’t going to happen.  Then we pushed for him to go to the United States first.  They said that wasn’t going to happen.  He came to the United States first, he issued a report, and to this day the United States is still upset about the report.  They say he distorted stuff, he was shallow, but it’s on the record, his findings of continued racism in the United States.
Last year we were successful in having the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial and summary executions come to the United States.  He did a scathing report around the question of the death penalty and around the questions of police killings in the United States.  His report was presented a few weeks ago…(as a result) the United States was forced to ratify an international covenant on international and civil rights where one of the things they talk about was eliminating the death penalty and the United States wasn=t going to give that up, and another was executing juveniles, and the United States wasn=t going to give that up.  So they signed it with the reservations that the U.S. could still execute juveniles and others.  So this report exposed the hypocrisy of the United States.  That=s an example of what we can accomplish in terms of perceptions in the international arena.
Last year the December 12 Movement got its own status as an NGO, so we can now participate as a full NGO with consultative status before the United Nations.

Publisher’s Comment
It is apparent that the December 12th Movement is becoming more and more effective, and pose a threat to very dangerous people and their interests.   As they continue to work and succeed, it is easy to see that the way society allocates its resources could change, changing fortunes and the direction of the nation.  There are people who don=t want this to happen, and they are capable of doing absolutely anything.  You need only look at what they have already done.

As the civil rights struggle shifted from civil rights to human rights, these people, in and out of government, killed Martin Luther King and began the heavy importation of drugs and arms into Black communities.   The loss of lives and the human potential is meaningless to them.   This is evident as whole industries spring up around the desire to subjugate, imprison, and kill Black and Brown people.  To destroy their families, to mis-educate and under-educate, in short, to restrict and constrict the human spirit of Black and Brown people by using any means necessary.

This is why it is important that the African-American community know as much about the work of the December 12 Movement as possible.  In the same way the forces of the state came for Abdul Haqq, they are capable of coming for others.  In the warning words of an 1851 poster addressed to the AColored People of Boston, AKeep a Sharp Look Out for Kidnappers, and have TOP EYE open.

– DG

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