The St. Louis branch of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) will be hosting an event entitled “Black Community Control of the Police!: A BLACK POWER Demand” on Sunday, June 5, 2016 from 4-6 p.m. at Legacy Books & Café, located at 5249 Delmar Blvd.
The significance of this event taking place in St. Louis is immeasurable.
Africans in St. Louis and Ferguson ignited one of the most significant African rebellions of the 21st Century following the murder of Mike Brown by cop Darren Wilson.
InPDUM is calling on all Africans in and outside St. Louis to attend this event.
We have witnessed a number of police murders of Africans by St. Louis police, with the most recent case being 15-year-old Jorevis Scruggs who was shot and killed on Tuesday, April 19, 2016.
The theme of the event centers on the demand for black community of the police!
Chairman Omali Yeshitela of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), and Black is Back Coalition (BIBC) will be the keynote speaker. The Chairman will outline to the attendees why having black community control of the police is critical in gaining black power.
Toni Taylor and Yashica Clemmons will be guest speakers at the event. Both are African mothers whose children were murdered by the police.
Toni Taylor is the mother of 25-year-old Cary Ball Jr. who was murdered by the St. Louis police in 2013. Cary Ball was shot 22 time by murderous cops
Yashica Clemmons is the mother of 16-year-old Dominique Battle, one of three black girls drowned by Florida Pinellas County sheriff’s deputies on March 31, 2016. The deputies enacted an illegal car chase, pushed them into a pond and stood by as they drowned.
InPDUM has launched an international campaign to raise awareness about the three murdered African girls and to gain justice for Dominique Battle.
The purpose of this event is to win our people to the position that we must have control over our communities.
The police are terrorists
The police are a foreign occupying force designed to terrorize Africans in our communities.
Unbeknownst to many Africans, modern day police departments are rooted in slavery.
During our enslavement slave patrols—organized groups of white men—were charged with the responsibility of capturing, returning and punishing enslaved African runaways.
White boys and men from ages six to sixty were required to enlist as slave patrollers.
In the mid-eighteenth century it became necessary for states to require white landowners and everyday white citizens to serve as slave patrollers in order to stop enslaved Africans from both rebelling and fleeing plantations.
These patrollers would police a designated area on foot and by boat, stopping all Africans so as to ensure they were not engaging in any kind of activities that would challenge the colonial social order.
As such, Africans were required to carry passes with them anytime they left the plantation.
As legal slavery neared its end, slave patrol teams transformed into police departments and agencies.
In 1855, St. Louis became one of the first cities to create a police agency.
What is now clear to most in the African community is that the police function to disarm, subordinate and imprison African people.
The nature and function of the police have not changed since slavery.
Young working class Africans are challenging the police State
Young Africans have grown tired of colonial police violence.
Everyday working class African youth are uploading and sharing videos on social media of them being stopped and harassed by the police for simply riding their bikes and walking down the street.
The attack on African youth is no coincidence—it is entirely calculated.
African youth are considered to be the most dangerous element of the African community not because they commit violence against other Africans, but because they are most inclined to challenge the State.
The State created the conditions in which these youths live; it contains the violence in our working class communities as a genocidal method by which to slowly destroy our people.
Yet African youth are blamed for the destruction and chaos that has been brought upon them.
Employees of the justice system such as police officers, correctional officers and prison guards are members of the petty bourgeoisie who collude with the State and benefit from the suffering and oppression of young Africans.
They are dependent on Africans being funneled into the colonial criminal justice system, which employs and pays them.
African youth understand these contradictions very well and are beginning to challenge white power, and white power in black face.
Working class African youth have the least to gain from the maintenance of the State, and the most to gain from its destruction.
Why black community control of the police?
Black community control of the police is a demand wherein Africans can begin to realize the importance and potential of black power.
When working class Africans see themselves controlling those who police our communities, and policing the colonial police who terrorize our people, it would catalyze them into demanding other forms of authority over our communities.
This would then transform into a revolutionary demand for an African Liberation Army.
We aim for African State power. By achieving African State power we can defend ourselves against and counteract white power, the greatest threat to Africans all over the world.
St. Louis InPDUM’s “Black Community Control of the Police!: A BLACK POWER Demand” will take place on June 5th from 4-6 p.m. at Legacy Books & Café. Register on Eventbrite to this powerful event! Demand Black Community Control of the Police!
Join the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement!
Black Power Matters!
Uhuru!
