What to The Still Exploited and Repressed is Juneteenth?

As the 160th recognition of Juneteenth is upon us it is more important than ever before to take stock in the multidimensions of struggle in which the masses of the world find ourselves. The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) has been among the most vocal in articulating that what global humanity has been enduring over the last several decades are the last gasps of a dying Pan-European supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal order led by the U.S. And that the answer of this order to its circumstance is the readiness to destroy the world before surrendering power over it.

It would be a form of mental enslavement for African (Black) people to believe that there is actual freedom for those still colonized domestically within the bowels of the U.S. settler state. African people in the U.S. share the essential reality of their Global South counterparts in being relegated to lowest wage-paying employment, arbitrary layoffs, militarized police occupation of our communities, incarceration en masse, internal displacement through policies of gentrification, and the list goes on.

Contrary to the notions pelted at the people that Juneteenth is a moment to revel in the Americanism that Malcolm X warned us about, a trickery that would tether us to the calamitous path of U.S. imperialism, BAP contends that this must be an opportunity to refine the understanding of “freedom” to be more than the end of chattel slavery and to broaden our concerns for people beyond U.S. borders, where the reach of the U.S. to deny freedom extends. This Juneteenth 2025 BAP stands resolutely against the U.S. imperialist outpost of Israel’s genocide in Palestine and its attacks on Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iran.

In May 2025, BAP honored the Centennial Birthday of Malcolm X (aka El Haj Malik El Shabazz, aka Omowale) not through symbolic remembrances, but through political actions, grassroots organizing, and building community connections. We’ve continued our expansion of honoring African LIberation Day (ALD) into an African Liberation Month with several BAP City-Wide Alliances having organized teach-ins and other forums, many led by BAP member organization the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).

BAP wrapped up May and went into June as a co-organizer with Community Movement Builders, National Black Liberation Movement, Black Men Build, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Cooperation Jackson of the National Black Radical Organizers Conference (NBROC 2025) held in Indianapolis. This conference brought together some 500 individuals, representing many organizations. For those who could not attend in person, Watch gatherings were organized by a few BAP City-Wide Alliances to see the plenaries on Black Liberation Media livestream.

BAP will continue to do our part in consolidating a force that can have a formidable impact with domestic and international dimensions. Much of this depends on imbuing the people with an indignation, strength and optimism to contend with the lethal U.S. state psychopathy.

Even if fate insists on a world dominated by neoliberal capitalism, war and environmental destruction, the Black Alliance for Peace will defend humanity’s flank of resistance to the West's Euro-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy to the last drop of our blood.

No Compromise! No Retreat!

BAP Philly tabled at the 10th annual Malcolm X Day Festival on Sunday, May 18th. We were able to pass out literature, engage with folks during and after the speech given by Chad, and promote our upcoming teach-in happening on Sunday, June 8th.

Another year of commemorating ALD in Baltimore, the longest running ALD in the U.S! AAPRP and BAP came together to host a critical three-panel symposium on "The Struggle On The Continent, The Global Anti-Imperialist Movement, and Fighting In The Belly Of The Beast."

Thank you to all the panelists and attendees who came out! A special thank you to the embassies of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Eritrea.

On Sunday, May 25, 2025, the Black Alliance for Peace-Atlanta Citywide Alliance and the All-African People's Revolutionary Party gathered at the Washington Park Pavilion to commemorate African Liberation Day. The event featured political education, arts, culture, and a keynote address by Baba Mukasa Dada.

Members of BAP NYC/NJ CWA tabled at African Liberation Day in Brooklyn, NYC (organized by AAPRP-NYC). We provided literature about the Zone of Peace and Shut Down AFRICOM campaigns. We also had a button-making station. Using the SICA framework (Social Investigation, Class Analysis) our CWA investigated to what degree members of the community understand the various arms of the war against Black/African people. We discussed our Principle of Unity, Black Unity with attendees, and its connection to Pan Africanism.

On May 25th, members of DPC joined commemorations in New York City, Baltimore, and Atlanta to honor African Liberation Day (ALD), first initiated by revolutionary Dr. Kwame Nkrumah in 1958.

On May 31st, DPC Florida members attended the Orlando ALD, where we created space to honor our ancestors through Bomba dance. These events were hosted by the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) and brought together comrades to reaffirm that African liberation is inseparable from the liberation of our peoples across the Caribbean and the diaspora. Nkrumah’s vision of Pan-African scientific socialism called not only for independence, but for a united struggle against white supremacy and the capitalist systems that exploit and divide us. We remain rooted in that vision—uplifting the fight for a liberated Africa as essential to our struggle for the freedom of Puerto Rico, Haiti, and our entire region.

On May 19th, Malcom X Grassroots Movement-Chicago, Displaced Alliance for Panafrican Socialists, Rebuild Collective, and Black Alliance for Peace-Chicago gathered at Mama Africa’s Marketplace to honor the centennial of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz’s birthday. Members of the South Side community discussed African unity, self-determination, Pan-Africanism, electoral politics, international solidarity, justice, and their path forward. We heard from our intergenerational community on what Malcolm X’s revolutionary politics mean to them and their application to today’s conditions. As we continue to struggle towards African unity and justice, we encourage everyone to get involved with an organization. Because human rights are not given—they are taken.

On Sunday, June 15, Stone Koffi of the BAP-DC CWA participated in a panel discussion, Combatting Military Propaganda, with fellow former service members of the U.S. Military about the impact of the military on the poor and working classes, military propaganda, and how anti-imperialist organizations should engage active duty and Veterans who are open to learning more about organizing against empire.

Members of BAP NYC/NJ citywide alliance joined the People’s Senate, the Reverend Joy Powell freedom campaign, How Our Lives Link All Together (HOLLA) and a host of other organizations for a vigil and rally in support of the incarcerated women and trans community at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York. The incarcerated community inside has been subjected to physical and emotional abuse from the Facility staff, and a call was made to mobilize. Upon arrival, the vigil started with participants chanting and calling out by name those who have contributed to the abuse. Near the end of the vigil, Reverend Joy Powell, an incarcerated woman inside, and others were able to speak and inform people about the conditions inside. They expressed appreciation for participants at the vigil and stated the chants could be heard inside. Rally speakers talked about the importance of showing up for our incarcerated sisters, the necessity of political unity, and the urgency for continued action. Press Release on Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

Members of BAP-DC, Pan-African Community Action (PACA), and Malcolm X Grassroots Movement DC (MXGM) gathered at the Black Workers & Wellness Center in Southeast DC to host a viewing of the streamed plenaries of the National Black Radical Organizing Conference on May 30th and 31st. The small group discussed how the organizations represented plan to collaborate to develop more programming and popular education, directly engaging Black workers and Black youth in the DC area.

In the May 26th episode of Revolutionary African Perspectives on WRFG Atlanta, BAP members and show hosts Dartricia, Musa, and Steven discuss the 61 Stop Cop City RICO Defendants return to court, the GBI ruling in the deaths of 19-year-old identical twins Qaadir and Naazir Lewis in north Georgia, and reflections on the 5 years since the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police and the subsequent uprisings that followed. The hosts share their reflections on the African Liberation Day event hosted on May 25th at Washington Park in Atlanta by the Black Alliance for Peace and All-African People's Revolutionary Party, featuring Baba Mukasa Dada.

BAP Coordinating Committee member Netfa Freeman joined a lively panel on The Santita Jackson Show on AM 950 – The Progressive Voice of Minnesota to discuss South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’’s meeting with U.S. President Trump. Netfa was also interviewed on PressTV about the protests and crackdown on them in Los Angeles in response to the detention and removal of suspected undocumented migrants.

The June 17th episode of WPFW’s Voices With Vision, co-hosted by Netfa and Brother Craig, featured a full reading of BAP’s statement regarding Israel’s ilegal assault on Iran, supplemented with an interview with BAP CC member and director of the North-South Project for People(s) Centered Human Rights, Ajamu Baraka.

June 21, 2025 | The Black Alliance for Peace Baltimore Citywide Alliance Town Halls are Back!!! Starting with Weaponizing Wages in Class War. Where do we go when "upward mobility" is a myth, and labor is devalued? Join for a critical conversation on: Decades of income inequality, the failure of policies that punish the poor, and who truly benefits from "development"?
Masks Required and Provided. Food and Refreshments provided. Childcare provided.
Join BAP Baltimore (@bap_baltimore) and All-African People’s Revolutionary Party DMV
(@aappdmv) and engage in the rest of the series, which will happen on the 3rd Saturday in June, July, and August: (2)Forced Migration & Imperialism: The Continuity of African Dispossession from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to Neocolonialism (3) Hands Off Our Political Prisoners
1:00 pm- 3:00 pm (doors open at 12:30 pm) | Payne Memorial A.M.E Church 1714 Madison Ave Baltimore, MD 21216

June 25, 2025 | Pan-African Community Action (PACA)’s next Assata Shakur Study Group session is “Building Revolutionary Alternatives to Capitalist Healthcare - Part 2.” 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET. at Black Workers & Wellness Center, 2500 Martin Luther King, Jr., Ave., SE, Washington, D.C. This is a hybrid event with an option to participate online. Select the appropriate option when you register here.