This is an abridged interview conducted by Nkululeko Sechaba, President of the International People’s Democratic Movement in NYC and the Northern Regional Representative of the African People’s Socialist Party, with Evangeline Byars, lead organizer for the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft.
Nkululeko Sechaba:
Ms. Evangeline, thank you for your time today. My name is Nkululeko. I’m with the African People’s Socialist Party, which is a revolutionary organization geared towards the unification and liberation of Africa under the leadership of the African working class.
We understand that the struggle of black people here in the United States is directly connected to the struggle of black people all around the world, and that we must work together to solve our common problems. Can you take the time to introduce yourself?
Evangeline Byars: [I am] Evangeline Byers. I’m the organizer of the Strong Together organization, which is a labor caucus in New York City Transit. We fight for the rights of transit workers, and I am also the lead organizer for the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft.
NS: Awesome, thank you for your time. I want to start by putting this conversation in the context of the overall struggle. I want to go over one point, and then I’d like for you to take the lead regarding the work you’re doing within the context of housing.
I’m the president of the New York chapter of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM). The goal of InPDUM, the Uhuru Movement, is to defend the democratic rights of the black community, with the understanding that self-determination is the highest expression of democracy. So, the position of InPDUM with regards to housing is that we’re advocating for community control of housing, because that is a reflection of democracy. How can we say we live in a democracy if working class people do not even control their own housing?
That’s one of the central points of the scope of InPDUM’s work:“We want peace, dignity, and the right to build a prosperous life through our own labor and in our own interests. We believe that the U.S.–North American government and society were founded on the genocide of Native people, the theft of their land, and the forcible dispersal, enslavement, and colonization of millions of African people. We believe that the present condition of existence for African people within current U.S. borders is colonialism—a condition in which a whole people is oppressively dominated by a foreign and alien state power for the purpose of economic exploitation and political advantage.
We believe further that this colonial domination is the primary basis of the problems of African people within the U.S., and that we shall know neither peace, prosperity, nor human dignity until this colonialist domination is overthrown and the power over our lives rests in our own hands. Uhuru.”
I wanted to bring that up because a lot of the work that you’re doing reflects the lack of peace in the black community, reflects the lack of dignity the black community has with regard to our ability to build a prosperous life through our own labor and in our own interests.
Within this hostile environment in the borders of what is called the United States of America, we’re still able to strive to get a little something—maybe a house. And even if we get a house, our ability to control and own that house is not even secure. A lot of the work you do is around that.
So if you could speak about the work you’re doing within the context of this point—do you agree with it, and how does it relate to the work that you’re doing?
EB: What jumps out immediately is the theft—when it talks about the theft of land. Forcible enslavement, which goes into so many other things when you think about prison and so many other connections. There are many directions we can go, but I’ll stay on the point of the work I’m doing around deed theft.
When we talk about peace—there is no peace in this situation. Just to give you an example…within a three-block span, we’ve identified six people who are dealing with deed theft. Some form of deed theft, whether it’s mortgage fraud, the outright stealing of the property—whatever it is, it’s the theft of properties and the hostile takeover of people’s homes and the displacement that comes with it.
This is happening all over the United States. If you look at San Francisco right now, they’re using the courts—because they always use the law—to subjugate, to legalize their crimes against the people. They’re using the foreclosure courts and landlord-tenant court as a way to mass-evict people of color. And a large majority of those evictions are of the rightful owners of homes that are currently being contested.
The bigger crime in all this is that it’s politically orchestrated. This is not something happening by happenstance, like a few random people getting together and stealing properties. The Brooklyn Democratic Party is clearly complicit. The district leaders, the county committee, the city council—you have the whole establishment working hand-in-hand to ensure that the theft of property is made a priority.
Even when they enact laws, the courts still ignore them. They do not adhere to the law. So you’re in the same place all over again. What makes this like a cat-and-mouse game—or a cat chasing its own tail—is the fact that the law written by the Attorney General has to go before judges appointed by the Brooklyn Democratic Party, which she [Letitia James] is a part of.
She knows the judges. She knows everything that’s happening. They even know the fraudsters—the attorneys, the notaries and everyone involved. This is organized crime. The same things she is being indicted on are the same crimes she is allowing to happen on her watch throughout New York State.
You think when you buy a home, “I’ll pay my mortgage off in 30 years, and I’m going to have my property.” But what we’re seeing is that when the houses are paid off, a couple of years later—or sometimes almost immediately—a lawyer slaps an illegal lien on the property to foreclose on a mortgage that was never taken out by the actual owner. And to get it stopped is almost impossible.
You have to go through all these appeals processes that take you from the Supreme Court to the Appellate Court, and then the final stage is the Court of Appeals. But most people can’t get there because they don’t have the money to afford legal representation.
We now have the process. We know how to properly file cases in the Appellate Court, which means we’ll be able to make it to the Court of Appeals. Even if we don’t have the money to retain counsel, we now have the ability to put our own cases together, get them to the Court of Appeals, and argue before the court. That puts us in a better position.
But still—the corruption at the Supreme Court level is so thick and so deep that people are getting lost in translation.
And for us, being black people—we have a black mayor, we have a black public advocate, we have a black Speaker of the House in the Assembly. In every area of government in New York State, we’re represented. So why is it that we can’t get any justice? Because they’re on the donor list. They’re taking money from these people.
NS: That’s a powerful overview. In the African People’s Socialist Party, we understand the significance of being schooled through our own struggles so that we can identify who our enemies are and who our friends are. And it sounds like you’ve been able to identify who our enemies are.
EB: A lot of them. And it’s important, right? Because you have to know who you’re going to war with. Who is our enemy? Who is our target? Who has what it is that we need to get?
NS: They look like us, but they’re not like us. They represent white power in a black face.
EB: When we look at Democrats and Republicans, we have no safety net on either side. Nobody’s giving us anything. If Kamala Harris was president right now, deed theft would still be occurring. And the people [need] to understand that they have to start getting involved in local politics.
NS: [The Democrats] do not represent or serve the black community. They serve imperialism. They serve capitalism. And so, we as a black community have to serve our own interests for liberation. So, we have to build. In the Party, we call it dual and contending powers… That’s why InPDUM was created by the APSP as a mass organization to bring the masses of black people back into political life as a result of the military defeat of the Black Power Movement of the 60s. That’s why when we were born in the 80s, we had to kind of rebuild our experience, because the U.S. government murdered our leaders, imprisoned our leaders, infiltrated and dismantled our organizations that were giving leadership and actually doing the work that you’re doing, and that we’re doing as the Uhuru Movement with regards to defending our democratic spaces, with regards to community control. So we’ve definitely got a lot of work to do.
EB: If you can’t organize your community, how are you gonna have power?
NS: Exactly. Everything that you’re expressing embodies the purpose of the Uhuru Movement, of the African People’s Socialist Party, and the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement.
For more information on the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft, visit www.stopdeedtheft.org
For more about InPDUM, visit www.InPDUM.org
