In October and November some of the most influential scholars and activists from throughout the African world will be participating in African People’s Solidarity Day events in four U.S. cities — Philadelphia, Oakland, St. Petersburg and Boston.
Among this illustrious group of speakers are:
Runoko Rashidi. Speaking at the Philadelphia event, Rashidi is a renowned and popular historian, research specialist, prolific writer, world traveler and dynamic public lecturer focusing on the African presence globally and the African foundations of world civilizations. Rashidi is the author of Introduction to the Study of African Classical Civilizations and several other works.
Sbusiso Fransisco Xaba. Speaking in Oakland, Philadelphia and St. Petersburg, Xaba is the dynamic President of the Pan Africanist Youth Congress (PAYCO).
PAYCO mobilizes the youth of Azania (South Africa) to end the colonial legacy of illiteracy, poverty, disease and exploitation, and to build self-determination and self-reliance on the African continent. As a student leader Xaba organized youth struggles against African land eviction.
Aisha Fields. Speaking in Oakland, Philadelphia and St. Petersburg, Fields is a physicist coordinating projects led by the Uhuru Movement that are working directly with communities in Sierra Leone to build a West African electrical infrastructure and water purification program based on models of environmental sustainability. She holds a Ph.D. in Applied Optical Physics from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University.
Syllah Bacarra. Speaking in Oakland and Philadelphia, Bacarra is the International Coordinator of the Bolivarian Foundation for the People of Africa, representing the African struggle in Venezuela.
Jafrikayiti (Jean Saint-Vil). Speaking in Philadelphia, Jafrikayiti is a well-known speaker on the struggle of African people in Haiti and an artist-activist immersed in the Global Social Justice movement. He hosts two radio programs and has been featured as political analyst by Canadian radio and television as well as by Embassy Magazine, ZNet and Rogers Ottawa Television.
Luwezi Kinshasa. Speaking in Oakland, Philadelphia and St. Petersburg, Kinshasa is the Director of International Affairs of the African People’s Socialist Party. Born in Congo, he is currently exiled in Britain as one of the tens of thousands of Africans from Congo who were forced into political exile by the Mobutu regime. He speaks and organizes throughout Europe and in Africa as the Chair of the African Socialist International Interim Committee, working to liberate and unite Africa and African people everywhere.
Gaida Kambon. Speaking in Boston, Kambon is the National Secretary of the African People’s Socialist Party. She was born and grew up in Panama. A powerful organizer and leader of the Uhuru Movement, she has headed up many successful campaigns against police brutality and in defense of the democratic rights of African people, including the campaigns to free the Cross City 5 and the Tampa 4.
Queen Mother Dorothy Benton Lewis. Speaking in Philadelphia, Queen Mother Lewis is a long time advocate of reparations. She is currently the Co-Chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America’s (N’COBRA) International Affairs Commission, which recently facilitated a Global Pan Afrikan Reparations and Repatriation Conference in Ghana and Benin, West Africa.
For six years, she served as National Co-Chair of N’COBRA, which honored her many years of dedication and advocacy with the title, Queen Mother. She was the president of the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO), the first mass reparations organization in the U.S.
Pam Africa. Speaking in Philadelphia, Pam Africa is a leading spokesperson of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal. A renowned journalist, Mumia has been on death row for nearly 15 years for a crime he did not commit. Pam Africa travels the world speaking and organizing support for freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal.
Robert C. Smith. Speaking in Oakland, Smith is professor of political science at San Francisco State University. An honors graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, he holds a master’s degree from UCLA and a Ph.D. from Howard University.
He has authored or co-authored scores of articles and essays and ten books including Race, Class and Culture: A Study in Afro-American Mass Opinion; Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era: Now You See It, Now You Don’t; We Have No Leaders: African Americans in the Post-Civil Rights Era; African American Leadership; and Contemporary Controversies and the American Racial Divide.
The keynote speaker for African People’s Solidarity Day in Oakland, St. Petersburg and Philadelphia will be Chairman Omali Yeshitela, the Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party and leader of the Uhuru Movement.
For the majority of his life, Chairman Yeshitela has been a powerful speaker, leader and proponent of one united and liberated Africa as the birthright of every African worldwide.
Speaking throughout Africa, Europe and the U.S., Yeshitela continues the unfinished legacy of Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and Kwame Nkrumah. A brilliant theoretician, he has authored several books including the newly released One Africa! One Nation!
Also speaking at all the events will be Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People’s Solidarity Committee (APSC), the organization of white people working under the leadership of the African People’s Socialist Party. APSC builds support from the white community for the call for reparations to African people and for the Party-led movement for the liberation of Africa and African people.
Hess is author of Overturning the Culture of Violence, a book telling the true story of America’s history built on slavery and genocide and exposing white complicity with the oppression of African people.
APSD is tribute to struggle for unification and liberation of Africa
The African People’s Solidarity Day events are sponsored by the African People’s Solidarity Committee as a tribute from North American people to the struggle for the liberation and unification of Africa and African people everywhere.
African People’s Solidarity Day is based on the reality that this country is founded on the enslavement of African people and the theft of our land and resources, which continues today.
Through programs primarily made up of African leaders and historians, along with video and power point presentations, African People’s Solidarity Day will educate white people and other allies of African people about the true history of African civilization that was destroyed by the conquest that built the wealth and power of the United States and Europe.
The events will show that African national liberation is the only solution for African people everywhere. They will call on all peace and justice loving people to find their future in the struggle to end this deadly imperialist system through the liberation of African and all oppressed peoples.
More information on African People’s Solidarity Day can be found at www.apscuhuru.org. A $10-$25 sliding scale donation is requested, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Lunch can be bought on site at a reasonable cost.
