HOUSTON – On October 18th and 19th, the SHAPE Community Center in keeping with its historical mission of keeping Houston’s black community abreast of the struggle of its people, will host an event titled THE BLACK STRUGGLE IN THE ERA OF BARACK OBAMA – WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
View the event listings:
Sunday, October 18 at SHAPE Community Center
Monday, Octboer 19 at Texas Southern University
The event at SHAPE Community Center will feature Omali Yeshitela (formerly Joe Waller), founder and Chairman of the African People’s Socialist Party, Uhuru Movement, and The Burning Spear newspaper.
Another presenter will be Kofi Taharka, National Chair, National Black United Front., and Dr. Aisha Fields, Director of the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project.
And cultural entertainment will be provided by the dynamic l44Elite.
Event organizer Danielle Ross says, “Black people did not vote for President Obama so that he could give the big corporations trillions of dollars while at the same time leave the black victims of Hurricane Katrina homeless and without a promise that they will be restored to their rightful places in the New Orleans African Community.”
Yeshitela, who has been in the forefront of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements since the 1960’s is a leading author and theoretician on what he calls African Internationalism. In and out of Florida prisons during the 1960’s and early 70’s, he has built a movement that is represented throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, East, West, and Southern Africa, and in South America which he says, ”is a continuation at a higher level of the worldwide revolutionary movement built by the Marcus Garvey during the first quarter of the twentieth century.”
In one document from the Party’s literature it quotes Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party while addressing a public rally in 1987 in Oakland, California while addressing the government’s offensive against the Panthers as saying “They might have destroyed the Black Panther newspaper, but now we have The Burning Spear newspaper. They might have crushed the Black Panther Party, but now we have the Uhuru House (African People’s Socialist Party), so they haven’t really done anything.”
The Party contends that the Obama Administration is not unlike any other democratic party administration. Yeshitela says that although Obama disagrees with former president Bush on tactical approaches to both war, and domestic policy, the essence of carrying out U.S. strategic interest means that war is a necessity and black people inside the U.S. and throughout the world will have to continue to struggle just to survive and in many cases fight the upfront genocide that accompanies U.S. doctrine.
National Black United Front Chairman, Taharka, whose organization is deeply involved in what they call “the question of black political prisoners here in the United States” will speak specifically on former Black Panthers who are still in prison from the political storm of the 60’s, and the efforts to secure their freedom.
Literature and African artists of all persuasions are encouraged to come and set up booths at the event. The SHAPE Community Center event begins at 6;00 pm. The event is free and all are invited.
