FERGUSON, MO.—On April 18-19, 2015, the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations will be hosting a national conference on Black Community Control of the Police in St. Louis, Missouri.
The determination to convene this special conference in St Louis is is based on the need to provide revolutionary leadership for the spontaneous movement that has emerged with the resistance of our people following the police murder of Mike Brown in this city on August 9, 2014.
The Black is Back Coalition is an organization of organizations and individuals whose mission in this instance is to bring a coherent message to this mass movement coming out of Ferguson and spreading throughout the country.
The message is “Black Community Control of the Police.” This is to say we must control the people who patrol our community with guns. We must have the power to hire and fire them and they must live where we live.
In a Black is Back working position paper that appears on its web site, blackisbackcoalition.org, the coalition asserts: “We must understand that the murders of Africans by the police within our oppressed communities are not really accidents. They are not due to the absence of police body cameras or a lack of training…
“This is not a relationship that can be fixed by reform. Civilian police review boards cannot fix it or special government sponsored or endorsed discussions on race relations. It cannot be fixed by sensitivity training and cultural awareness within police departments.
“In the final analysis, we will only be able to fix the relationship existing between Africans and the police and other instruments of U.S. colonial State power through total destruction of the oppressor’s State apparatus that contaminates every aspect of black life from the cradle to the grave.”
Black Community Control of the Police deconstructs coloniaism
The paper goes on to state:“Unlike the opportunist demands, which ultimately seek to perfect the U.S. colonial state apparatus and tighten its noose even more around the throats of our oppressed people, the demand for Black Community Control of the Police deconstructs the colonial relationship between our people and the white power colonial State.
“Black Community Control of the Police is a democratic demand that pushes our struggle forward toward self-determination, the highest expression of democracy, which for a colonized people begins with placing limitations on the ability of the colonial State to intervene in the lives of the colonized.”
The Black is Back Coalition has stood steadfast in its support of, and as an integral part of, the growing black resistance of young working class Africans to colonial domination and oppression from the very beginning of the resistance in Ferguson.
Black is Back Coalition held its August 2014 National Conference in Philadelphia two weeks after Mike Brown’s murder. At that conference, Chairman of the Coalition, Omali Yeshitela proclaimed,
“Ferguson must become the battle cry of African people everywhere in this country. The African brothers and sisters of Ferguson are heroic. They are trying to hold the fort but they need reinforcements. We must open up new fronts of resistance! Wherever we are, we have to make it clear: this is Ferguson!”
Zaki Baruti, President of the Universal African People’s Organization which is based in St. Louis and was doing on the ground work in Ferguson, came to the Black is Back Philadelphia Conference as a seasoned, longtime activist in the Black Liberation Movement to present an accurate assessment of the situation on the ground in Ferguson.
President Baruti’s report from the frontline was invaluable in determining a plan of action going forward for the nearly 100 activists and organizational representatives present at the conference.
Hence, the Black is Back Coalition’s November 3 and 4 “Peace through Revolution” March on the White House in Washington, D. C. had Ferguson as a major focus of all of the literature and activities from the August BIB conference to the actual Washington March and Rally.
Chairman Yeshitela actually took a team of organizers into Ferguson as “reinforcements” that raised the critical questions of class struggle and the State. That work resulted in young organizers who were struggling for explanations and leadership, coming to Washington, D.C. to participate in the “Peace through Revolution” demonstration.
Black is Back Coalition member organization, the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) is still there on the ground, made up of Africans from the St Louis-Ferguson area and are organizing right now for Ferguson to be host city for this special Black is Back National Conference.
It was from a freezing cold outdoor stage at the Washington, D.C. rally that People’s Organization for Progress (POP) Chairman Lawrence Hamm made his passionate call for the “Next Day Demonstrations,” where he called for Africans throughout the U.S. and the world to take to the streets with militant protest demonstrations the “Day After.”
That is the day after the Bob McCulloch Grand Jury in Ferguson came back with the highly anticipated non-indictment of Darren Wilson decision.
Protests were held all over the country following this ‘Call’ from Hamm at the Black is Back national demonstration.
Kamm Howard who leads the Black is Back Reparations work in Chicago led protests the “Day After.” Militants protested from the Houston, Texas area, St. Petersburg and many other areas in response to the Black is Back “next day” Call.
Glen Ford, a prominent member of the Black is Back Coalition and Executive Editor of Black Agenda Report gives his take on the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, saying,
“In yearly conferences and year-round political work, the Coalition has been a singular example of independent Black political action and analysis.”
Black is Back Coalition is a principled anti-war group
The Coalition was initially organized in 2009 to oppose Barack Hussein Obama’s wars as the black Democrat put muzzles on the traditional white anti-war movement.
The traditional black liberation movement organizations were also silenced by the selection of Obama as U.S. president.
Undeterred by the unpopularity of criticizing Obama, the Coaliion led the first national demonstration against the Obama wars, which included the U.S. counter-insurgency war on Africans colonized right here in the U.S.
Every year following its 2009 founding, the Coalition has marched on Washington, D.C. (except 2013 when the White House was under construction and the march and rally was held in Philadelphia).
African working class stands up
For the first time in two generations, the Ferguson fight-back, which the Mike Brown murder ignited has raised the mass consciousness and the people can hear us now.
Recently, the Black People’s Grand Jury was held in the Ferguson area. The momentum and lessons it taught with respect to the State and black people having our own power is a message that the Black is Back Coalition must bring to Ferguson and build on.
On April 18 and 19, 2015, affiliate organizations and individuals will gather once again for this most important conference – this time in Ferguson, Missouri, the current “City of African Resistance!” We call on all freedom loving peoples to join us there as we proclaim “Black is Back.”
FORWARD TO FERGUSON!
Conference venue:
Muhammad Islamic Academy,
3625 N. Garrison Avenue,
St. Louis, Missouri 63107,
Phone 314-643-6519 or
727-821-6621
