by BAR executive editor Glen FordAt long last, the Black Left is on a path to organizing a new movement, to replace the one that was “wiped out” a generation ago. The Black is Back Coalition gathered “to consolidate alliances, solidify the Coalition’s organizational structure, and reaffirm Principles of Unity.”
Building a Social Movement: Black is Back Coalition Meets in Florida
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
“It’s a Black face that is doing the white man’s job for him.”
“What’s been clear to some of us for a very long time is that we need to go beyond coalitions of the moment,” said Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black is Back Coalition. “Most of us have been stymied by the fact that we don’t have a generalized social movement, as occurred in our communities in the 50s and 60s. Our movement was wiped out, people like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were wiped out.”
Yeshitela spoke at Uhuru House, an impressive two-story structure in the Black section of St. Petersburg, Florida, site of last weekend’s National Conference to Consolidate the Movement. The orderly rows of Red, Black & Green flags at curbside gave the impression of a Black national embassy, said Lawrence Hamm, chairman of the Newark, New Jersey-based People’s Organization for Progress (POP), one of 18 Coalition member organizations.
The Black is Back Coalition was founded only four months ago in Washington, DC. Within eight weeks of its first meeting, the Coalition gathered hundreds for a November 7 rally and march on the White House. Now it was time to consolidate alliances, solidify the Coalition’s organizational structure, and reaffirm the Principles of Unity that had brought such a diverse list of Black-led organizations together based on democratic principles and practice.
“The empire represents itself in a non-traditional fashion,” said Yeshitela, who also heads the African People’s Socialist Party. “It has always represented itself as white power, in a white face. Now it is not a white face, it’s a Black face that is doing the white man’s job for him. And that is the significance of Barack Obama.”
Obama’s ascendance has plunged Black America into political crisis, caught between reflexive loyalty to a Black man and revulsion at the Administration’s pro-Wall Street and pro-war policies. “Now we are supposed to accept the crisis of imperialism as our crisis, because the leader of the empire has a Black face,” said Yeshitela.
“Black America has been plunged into political crisis.”
At the November rally in Washington, marchers chanted their disgust for the Black champion of white banking interests. The St. Petersburg meeting’s focus was, in Yeshitela’s words, “How to build this social movement…to take on the issue of Obama.
“How do our people all over the world benefit from [for example] the kind of mass work that is being done by the People’s Organization for Progress in New Jersey?
“How does the whole movement get the benefit of the kind of resources…that come from Black Agenda Report?
“How do we benefit from the skills, resources – human and material – that exists out there but are still in these little pockets [of activity] since the government crushed our movements and split us up in these little disparate places? That was the issue that some of us saw as being possible to resolve at this critical time.
“That’s why Black is Back is so important.”
Coalition Member Organizations and Institutions
Operation Power
African People’s Socialist Party
Black Agenda Report
African People of Love
Black August Planning Organization
Masjid Al Islam
People’s Organization for Progress
Harlem Tenants Council
Malcolm X Center for Self Determination
Kinetic Faith and Justice Network
Muslim Alliance of North America
Friends of Congo
Black Food
Dignity – Cynthia McKinney
Friends and Family of Mumia Abu Jamal
Vox Union/Free Mix Radio
Know They Self Productions – Rosa Clemente
SALSA
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