Without a penny of foundation funding, we have gotten more done for peoples’ struggles than many million-dollar operations.
Since we launched the U.S. Out of Africa!: Shut Down AFRICOM campaign on October 1, more than 1,700 people have signed our petition to shut down AFRICOM; our members have appeared in media interviews to discuss our grassroots effort to end the U.S. militarization of the continent of our ancestors that is connected to the state repression U.S. Black communities face; we co-organized successful panel discussions in Atlanta and New York City; and Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) members organized and participated in the Women’s March on the Pentagon, the only women’s march calling for an end to war, militarism and imperialism.
We continued sharing our message during #AntiwarAutumn by attending the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations’ annual March on the White House and their conference, participating in the Peace Congress, Veterans Occupy Washington and Catharsis on the Mall, and organizing a well-received AFRICOM plenary in Dublin, Ireland, at the First International Conference Against U.S./NATO Bases.
Earlier in the year, we attended the National Assembly for Black Liberation, re-structured our Coordinating Committee, organized a standing-room only Baltimore program, and attended the inaugural Conference on U.S Foreign Military Bases.
These activities have been key to building up our members and organizing with other anti-imperialist forces. We do all of this because a People(s)-Centered Human Rights framework informs our work. We don’t do liberal, individualistic human rights, which centers white power and finance capital, using “Responsibility to Protect” as a cover for maintaining Full-Spectrum Dominance.
It was, in fact, National Organizer Ajamu Baraka who had developed this groundbreaking concept, which opposes the legalistic, mechanistic, state-centered liberal framework the United Nations was founded on. Orient yourself with his work.
We plow forward without asking for foundation money because we know how difficult it would otherwise be to continue to be unabashed proponents of People(s)-Centered Human Rights, to continue stating our foundational understanding that the militarization of the African continent is connected to the repression of our people on this stolen land called the United States.
To do all of the things we need to do in 2019, we must go to the people. The foundations will not support us. The mainstream media won’t cover us. Only you can help us.
We rely on the people to fund the movement to end war, repression and imperialism—here and around the world.
Please consider giving what you can today.
You are all we’ve got.
No compromise.
No retreat.
Struggle to win,
Ajamu, Jaribu, Margaret, Netfa, Paul, Vanessa and YahNé
Coordinating Committee
Black Alliance for Peace
P.S. We are completely dependent on the people. Contribute to our 2019 fund.