It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of our comrade, Queen Mother Yaa Asantewa, formally known as Sister Dorothy Lewis. Queen Mother has had a longstanding relationship with the African People's Socialist Party and our movement.
The Party first met Queen Mother in 1982 when we held the First World Tribunal on Reparations for African People in the U.S. Using the UN Charter on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and various other international documents, the Tribunal put the U.S. government on trial for the crime of genocide against African people in the U.S. and demanded the 4.1 trillion dollars in reparations calculated to be owed for labor alone.
Immediately following the three-day Tribunal, the Party built the African National Reparations Organization (ANRO) to carry out the verdicts of the Tribunal. Queen Mother Yaa Asantewa, who had a history in reparations work, became the chairwoman of ANRO after the organization was abandoned by its first chair, and she had maintained a relationship with the Party ever since.
Queen Mother Yaa Asantewa has been a relentless force to reckon with when it came to the question of reparations for African people. She stayed in the forefront of the question and never wavered in her understanding that Africans were owed reparations and must be paid.
In 2008, Queen Mother joined with forces including the African People's Socialist Party, Glen Ford from BlackAgendaReport.com, longtime activist Efia Nwangaza and professor Jared Ball in the forming of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations (BIBC). She was the BIBC's treasurer when she passed.
We salute Queen Mother Yaa Asantewa for her tireless dedication to the issue of reparations. She will truly be missed as we continue the struggle that she gave so much of her life to!
Long live Queen Mother Yaa Asantewa!
