The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) continues the legacy of Black radical resistance, uniting organizers to confront imperialism, capitalism, and white supremacy while building an independent path toward collective liberation. The gathering in Indiana - 53 years after the historic National Black Political Convention - reaffirms that our freedom lies not in reforming a broken system but in dismantling it and forging a revolutionary future.
In March 1972, on the heels of the Black Freedom Movement, nearly ten thousand Black people, including organizers, activists, politicians, and artists, convened in Gary, Indiana, for the National Black Political Convention (NBPC). Similar to today, they faced the failure of the two-party duopoly, rising inflation, growing economic crisis, an unpopular imperialist war, counterattacks on our movements, and a pressing need for political clarity. Among the NBPC's goals was to build an independent Black Agenda. While they achieved this goal by producing a National Black Agenda, class and ideological factions ultimately weakened the ability to organize around it. Thus, the appetite for political clarity and strategy sought at the ‘72 conference still eats at us as we meet in Indiana 53 years later.
The Second National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) is an attempt, as many have done before us, to create a space to discuss, debate, train, assess, and create a collective way forward for Black/African/New Afrikan organizations and organizers who believe that our struggle for self-determination is paramount to our survival. We understand that without organized political power, we will not collectively achieve affordable housing, an environmentally sustainable planet, life-affirming education, land sovereignty, food justice, and economic security. We do not look to be integrated, assimilated, or incorporated into America but to liberate ourselves from it. By Any Means Necessary!
The Black Radical Tradition- the opposition to empire, imperialism, patriarchy, and capitalism as we fight for self-determination- is under attack, and we must fight back. Our enemies are working hard to appropriate and neutralize our historical traditions, symbols, and narratives of resistance. This was on full display at the Democratic National Convention and throughout the ill-fated Harris Campaign, where many of our symbols and s/heros, like Fannie Lou Hamer, Frantz Fanon, and W.E.B DuBois, were grossly misappropriated to support their imperialist agenda and justify the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. The Republicans and their ilk are no better, as their overt white nationalist stance presents a clear and present danger to our people. Going forward, our movement must draw some clear lines in the sand against the two parties of imperialism and the notion that engaging the two-party system is the only legitimate path to accomplish our goals.
We are clear that our enemy is organized. They invade us for charting our own path, imprison us for defending ourselves against them, starve us for profits, expel us for questioning their history, and deprive our bodies of freedom for exercising our own choices. They are organized through military budgets, campaign contributions, banking institutions, governmental laws, and media propaganda. Capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy, and patriarchy are nothing but expressions of an organized enemy. An enemy that has left us bargaining for crumbs each election cycle.
The first National Black Radical Organizing Conference (NBROC) was convened in Atlanta in June 2023. We aim for BROC to serve as a place for an ongoing collective process to provide greater political clarity for our movement and our people. We need to make it clear that to be a Black Radical is to be a revolutionary and that being a revolutionary means being committed to the struggle to end capitalism, white supremacy, colonialism, imperialism, and patriarchy. It means building for our collective liberation by developing our institutions to construct a socialist future through organizing the Black working class, building new social movement trade unions that serve the interests of our people, independent Black political power, participatory democracy, solidarity economics, and ecologically regenerative practices to situate us in the right relationship with Mother Earth. To be successful, our praxis - theory and practice - must be dialectical and material. We must have a solid class analysis and a deep understanding of dynamic and generative culture that constantly returns us to our African source(s) and moves us forward towards a love supreme.
Therefore, we will gather to forge an independent base beyond the two-party duopoly. We insist that we must advance clear revolutionary nationalist, Pan-African, and internationalist perspectives. Our liberation will not come from trying to reform American institutions or political parties. It will be born out of defeating US imperialism and dismantling the systems of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy—nothing short of it.
At this conference, we will help organizers further establish the skills to build a base beyond the duopoly. We will sharpen our methods of strategy, hone our communication skills, refine our ethics, strengthen our analysis, identify our needs, and bring new people along with us.
Despite its many shortcomings, the 1972 National Black Political Convention provided a space to activate political imagination. We are organizing this conference to give our people the space to enter and grow. We recognize that everyone enters the struggle at their own level with the ambition to contribute more. Here, we want to nurture that ambition because we can win only with the masses’ invigorated participation!
The National Black Radical Organizing Conference will be held May 30 - June 1st at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is sponsored by representatives Black Alliance for Peace, Community Movement Builders, National Black Liberation Movement, Black Men Build, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Cooperation Jackson, and more to be announced. Registration is now open.
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