PHILADELPHIA – The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (BIBC) continues to forward the struggle for black freedom with its Annual Conference scheduled for Philadelphia on August 22-23, 2015.
The theme of the conference – Black Community Control of the Police! Black Power Matters! – reflects the continuing significance of the struggle of our people against police terror.
The theme also reflects the fact that our people are open to all kinds of attacks, such as exemplified by the June 18th massacre of nine Africans in church by a white man in Charleston, South Carolina.
This is why the theme speaks to our need to control the police in our community, and also recognizes the need for power to control the white people in our lives like George Zimmerman and Dylan Roof.
Africans from throughout the U.S. are expected at the Philadelphia venue at Uhuru Furniture and Collectibles at 832 N. Broad St. Presenters who are already confirmed for the conference include Glen Ford, executive director of Black Agenda Report and BBC chairman, Omali Yeshitela.
This conference will also feature a video or live stream presentation by representatives from the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, an organization whose solidarity with our struggle has already begun to express itself in very practical political ways.
Last year’s Black is Back Annual Conference occurred in Philadelphia at Uhuru Furniture on August 16-17, one week after the August 9, 2014 police murder of 18-year-old Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri that initiated the resistance that continues to influence the political atmosphere in the U.S. today.
Black power matters!
In fact, the 2014 Annual Conference featured Zaki Baruti, an organizer from St. Louis who played an important role in organizing the demonstrations that followed the police murder of Brown.
The Black is Back Coalition has organized a strong, active St. Louis/Ferguson Coalition that is also building to bring Africans from that area to the Annual Conference.
The impact of the resistance stemming from Brown’s murder also contributes to the theme of this year’s conference. The question of police terror in the African community continues to roil the sentiments of our people.
This year’s Annual Coalition Conference will sum up the work of the organization for the last year and set goals for the upcoming Coalition work.
The Conference, however, also puts the question of self-determination squarely back on the agenda of our liberation struggle. The Coalition Conference, unsatisfied with the empty slogan of “Black Lives Matter,” declares that the value of black lives is reflected in the will of our people to struggle for power.
