Kenya’s former Prime Minister Raila Odinga and a front-runner in the upcoming August 9th presidential election announced that Martha Karua, a former Justice and Constitutional Affairs minister (and an erstwhile fierce opponent), would be his running mate. This historic nomination made her the first woman in Kenya to run on a dominant political party’s presidential ticket. The news was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm and concern. In her acceptance speech, Karua, who vied for the presidency in 2013 and came in sixth said “This is a moment for the women of Kenya. It is a moment that my grandmother . . .
Local Organizing Updates
Our Duty To Challenge The Unjust Raid on the APSP
The NBLM National Unity Initiative joins all those who have condemned the senseless raid and attack of the US government and its FBI on the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), the Uhuru Movement, and its leadership in both St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri. We view this attack as a part of the right-ward trend of the US government at the local, state, national, and international levels, trampling on the basic democratic and human rights of the oppressed, both here and abroad. In April this year, many organizations active in the Black Freedom Struggle joined forces in a joint . . .
The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns FBI Attack on the APSP
The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) unequivocally condemns and opposes the latest domestic U.S. state repression and intimidation tactics currently being leveled against the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP). On Friday, July 29, 2022, the FBI executed multiple raids against APSP’s Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida, and their Uhuru Solidarity Center in St. Louis, Missouri, and the private residence of APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela also in St. Louis. The FBI employed flashbang grenades and handcuffed Yeshitela and his wife while their house was raided. The FBI claims that the raids are connected to the federal indictment of a Russian . . .
Día de la Alegría: Celebrating Revolution in Nicaragua
Holidays in the United States celebrate awful events such as the settler colonists declaring independence from Britain so that they might take indigenous lands and protect slavery. There is also Thanksgiving, the commemoration of genocide turned into a day when Americans should think grateful thoughts before spending more than they can afford in order to celebrate Christmas. Christmas is ostensibly a religious holiday but is rarely treated as such. Labor Day was created to prevent acknowledgement of May 1, May Day, which commemorates just one example of U.S. state repression which took place in Chicago in 1886. But this columnist . . .
On the Renewal of the UN Occupation of Haiti
The United Nations occupation of Haiti under MINUSTAH and BINUH brought instability, violence, and even cholera to that nation. Signatories of an open letter to Mexico’s president Lopez Obrador remind him that his support for regional self-determination means little if he spearheads renewal of the BINUH mandate. Dear President López Obrador, We, the undersigned, condemn in the strongest possible terms Mexico’s spearheading of the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Integrated Office (BINUH) in Haiti. The Haitian people view BINUH’s presence as a foreign occupation that, since 2004, has suppressed Haiti’s independence and sovereignty. We agree. We want . . .
Out of the Clouds: Remarks on ‘anti-Blackness’ in Cuba
Transcript Wassup y’all. I had to set a timer because my comrades have better notes than I do. I want to talk to you for a little bit. My name is Salifu. I’m a member of Black Alliance for Peace. I’m from Charleston, South Carolina. I’m also a member of the All African People’s Revolutionary Party. And I want to talk to you a little bit about one of my least favorite games that the U.S. plays, because the US plays a lot of games. One of the things that the United States does is try to combat liberation struggles . . .
Stacey Abrams: Bossed & Bought
In 2020, Stacey Abrams, Jon Ossof, and Raphael Warnock led a coordinated campaign to usurp and ultimately neuter massive amounts of radical potential from Atlanta’s grassroots community. Abrams, who’d just unsuccessfully taken on Brian Kemp for Georgia Governor in 2018, became the face of an effort to boost “minority” voter turnout for the 2020 elections, particularly targeting Black voters in the state. The issue of voting rights became synonymous with her name, and in fact with “saving democracy” as the Democrats framed it; Abrams surprise-opened the highly watched Verzuz battle between ATL rappers Gucci Mane and Jeezy to remind the . . .
Witnessing History: 2022 Elections in Colombia
From May 26 to May 31, I was in Cali, Colombia serving as an election observer with an international delegation of mostly Black women. This is a preliminary report. On May 26th, in my capacity as the co-coordinator of the Haiti/Americas Team for the Black Alliance for Peace, I traveled with a delegation to Colombia to serve as an official observer of its presidential elections. The elections were historic: not only was a leftist presidential ticket leading in the polls, but the vice presidential candidate on that ticket was Francia Márquez, a popular and well known Afro-Colombian feminist activist. As . . .