By Jeffery Kazembe Batts
Policy and purpose can change. “Now is the time” Rev. Jesse Jackson famously said to mobilize the Black community during 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns. The slogan is just as appropriate now in 2024 as President Biden, former President Trump and others campaign for the presidency of the USA.

Policies, by elected officials, that encourage growth and the development of African people, here in the USA, in Haiti and in Africa must be implemented with intention and purpose to overcome the exploitation that is the norm over the last 400 years and is continuing.

Led by Black people, I suggest that “now is the time” to make American elected officials implement “pro African policy and purpose” across all domains including foreign policy and immigration. It is imperative that we make our voices heard by decision makers regarding the allocation of billions in tax dollars abroad.

A fair proportion of resources and diplomatic focus must be allocated to people of African ancestry without compromising their sovereignty. As the only group of people who were forcibly brought to these shores during the transatlantic slave trade, Black people have suffered and earned the right to be at the forefront of the formation of uplifting foreign and immigration policy.

We must get busy creating a welcoming atmosphere for Black migrants from African nations, Haiti or anyplace else they migrate from. America needs more Black people! Let us celebrate the arrival of African migrants to the tapestry of Bed-Stuy at the intersection of Fulton St and Bedford Ave.

Africa’s population is the youngest of all the continents. Resources in Africa are needed as inputs for technology, while land is abundant for food cultivation to feed the planet. How goes Africa and the people is how the world will be in the near future. Historically, when committed leadership has emerged that wanted to uplift the people and create a better quality of life they have been assassinated or sidelined.

Western countries, often led by the USA, have encouraged this tragic reality. Think about Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Jean-Bertrand Aristide around the world. What would the state of Africa or Haiti be like if there was no intervention to disrupt their visions?

Within the USA, Marcus Garvey, Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King to name a few were killed before they could fully make their mark on improving this nation for Black and thereby all people. Not only males but women like Ida B. Wells, Angela Davis, Winnie Mandela, Daisy Bates, Assata Shakur and Queen Mother Moore have been marginalized and not able to do all they could do for the people.

As an African-American I’ve wondered “how this society and the world be, if America embraced the potential of African people by letting their leaders live and flourish.” What if the various alphabet institutions the, DEA, NATO, IMF, CIA, FBI, etc., had plans that empowered and facilitated an uplifting Black agenda?

Over the centuries and decades, the official policy of the USA government has moved from chattel slavery, to Jim Crow, to segregation, to partial recognition of equal humanity of Black people. The condition of Black people changed because of struggle, sacrifice and the building of movements.

Similarly, now we can work for a change in the historical nature of American foreign policy from calling Nelson Mandela a terrorist, supporting Mobutu and overthrowing Aristide to respecting new leadership like Senegal President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and recognizing South Africa’s sovereign right to set their own foreign policy based on their own national interests, among other action items that could benefit the masses of African people.

African activists in America and people of good will in general need to support the right for African people to be assertive and independent in policy decisions when seeking to develop their nations.

It is time that we all embrace a “Pro African Policy and Purpose” and work to make it a reality, both here in NYC and everywhere around the world. Let us organize to get tens of billions of dollars of development assistance for places like Sudan and Haiti since other places are getting that much financial assistance for armaments and Black people pay taxes also. Let us push for more Black migrants in Bed-Stuy, NYC and the entire USA.

On Saturday afternoon, May 18th, a week before African Liberation Day and the day before Malcolm X birthday, all roads lead to Bed-Stuy as we continue the movement for Black power and African development along Marcus Garvey Blvd and Fulton St. in gentrified but still powerful, Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn with a Pro African Policy and Purpose march. Policy and purpose can change.