People’s Justice Project Joins Movement for Black Lives for the Community Safety Agenda Endorsing Crucial Legislation at U.S. Capitol
COLUMBUS, OH—People’s Justice Project joins Movement for Black Lives in Washington, D.C. for the Community Safety Agenda; a coalition of 50+ organizations with a re-imagined vision of public safety.
PJP’s Communications Director took to Washington, D.C. to join Movement for Black Lives and 50+ organizations to endorse pivotal legislative bills aimed at promoting community safety and well-being. The endorsed bills include the People's Response Act, Mental Health Justice Act, Opening Doors to Youths, and Counselors Not and Criminalization.
Key principles guiding the Community Safety Agenda's endorsements include:
All investments are in fully non-carceral programs and services.
Investments will shrink the size, scope, and footprint of policing.
Investments will help reduce police contact by addressing human needs upfront and providing civilian responses.
Funding should reflect the values and priorities of grassroots partners and movement groups.
“This legislation is crucial to ensure the safety of Black and Brown people in our communities,” said Tonnisha English-Amamoo, Communications Director at People’s Justice Project. “We are bringing the push for such legislation from Washington, D.C. right to the front door of our local elected officials and we are asking community members to join us. The people have spoken and are demanding a non-police response program right here in Columbus, Ohio and PJP, alongside our partners.”
The People’s Justice Project (PJP) builds the power of black and brown people disproportionately affected by state violence, mass criminalization, and incarceration by centering community organizing and leadership development.
For questions, please contact Tonnisha English-Amamoo at tonnisha@ohiopjp.org
##
Women’s History Month: Militant Organizing of Women
During this month of celebration of African Women, we must take a moment to reflect on the militant organizing of our sisters in the past to better understand how we can organize in the present. It is in this spirit of wanting to build revolutionary organization and mass action, that we should think about the militant resistance actions of Aug 9, 1956—Anti-Pass March—where 20, 000 women joined forces to struggle against the colonial apartheid system.
Let us not forget, that for more than a hundred years, women in South Africa have organized themselves in mass mobilizations for the defense of their interests as women and the interests of their class. In the last 100 years, women of South Africa’s most frequent cause has been the persistent opposition to the pass laws from the early 1900s to its most known resistance in 1956. The pass laws required African women and men to carry written permission from their white employers allowing them to legally enter certain areas. If they were found without a permit they could be arrested and face severe punishment and even “deportation” to another place.
As early as March 1912, a group of African women protested against this form of colonial oppression. Women from the Orange Free State took to the streets with a petition against passes with signatures from over 5,000 people and sent it to Prime Minister, Louis Botha. They were met with harsh arrests and succeeded in pushing the implementation of the pass laws to a much later stage.
How can we compare the significance of the 1956 Anti-Pass March to those of us working to organize and develop militant actions against colonialism and capitalism?
1. Anti-Pass Campaign and Colonial-Capitalism.
The fact that women have led the struggle against the Pass Law system is of great significance to the African working class struggle against capitalism. Why? Because the Pass system was an essential pillar of controlling the movement of labor. Passes were used to control the movement of African and Indian people, ensuring the provision of a cheap labor source that worked arm-in-arm with the colonial segregation laws of that time. A protest against the control of labor is an attack on the domination of capitalism and colonialism which divided Africa through their artificially created border of today.
In the Women’s Charter of the Federation of South African Women (an organization of anti-apartheid women political organizers that led the 1956 march), they identify class society as one that should be eliminated. They said this about the conflict between the colonizer and the colonized :
“These are evils that need not exist. They exist because the society in which we live is divided into poor and rich, into non-European and European. They exist because there are privileges for the few, discrimination and harsh treatment for the many. We women have stood and will stand shoulder to shoulder with our menfolk in a common struggle against poverty, race and class discrimination…”
2. Women and mass organization.
While mass mobilization was a new phenomenon for the ANC male political leadership in the 1950s, for the women of the 1956 Anti-Pass march this was nothing new. Women had always been a feature in the anti-pass campaign and other expressions of public political upheaval. Women embraced the idea of mass campaigns long before the men did. They led the way. They organized dynamic action against all forms of colonial oppression, like the ban on brewing traditional beer, high food prices, high rents, and passes for women.
The courage of the women in the early demonstration of 1913 was extraordinary. Women went to jail for their anti-pass protests and refused to admit guilt by paying bail or fines. These efforts delayed the implementation of passes for women by 40 years.
Another important element is that the 1956 march was organized by women of different races, ideological backgrounds, and social statuses. There were Communist women, churchwomen, trade unionists, African nationalists, the peasantry, and the upper middle class of black and white South Africa, brought together by a common cause of striking back at the oppressive and exploitative system of colonial Apartheid. African women were not going to carry them. To these many different women, despite coming from different backgrounds, they all put forward this demand: clear and non-negotiable.
3. Fighting for women, to fight for universal freedom.
They recognized the complex struggle of being women in class struggle. They both understood the specific oppressions of women within the broader colonial oppression and exploitation of all people under the apartheid system: their goals were ‘to fight for women’s rights and for the full economic citizenship of all’.
As is shown by the Charter of the Federation of South African Women (1954), women understood the complexity of organizing for the liberation of all people when faced with obstacles from their own comrades:
"The law has lagged behind the development of society; it no longer corresponds to the actual social and economic position of women. The law has become an obstacle to the progress of women and therefore a brake on the whole society. This intolerable condition would not be allowed to continue were it not for the refusal of large sections of our menfolk to concede to us women the rights and privileges which they demand for themselves.
We shall teach the men they cannot hope to liberate themselves from the evils of discrimination and prejudice as long as they fail to extend to women complete and unqualified equality in law and practice."
This showed a clear understanding that they were committed to revolution, like many of us are, we must continue to struggle for a revolution with the revolutionary organizations. This is a contradiction we confront today.
It is along these lines of organized and militant action that we remember the women not only of 1956 but all working women who struggled against the exploitation that feeds colonialism and capitalism. We salute them and all those revolutionary women who fight to destroy the colonial-capitalist system and build a new society!
Forever Forward, Unafraid Together Amandla Ngawethu!
Unity of Struggle with the African and Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere
As Africans, it's important to state that we have no claim to this colonized land and its arbitrary borders commonly referred to as "The United States". We do not unite with certain Africans who reject that our people were once a free people that existed within our own political economies in Africa, and were kidnapped and transformed into the first commodities of capital. The first capital and producers of capital's first workers. Within a social system defined by the relationship between capitalist production and producers resting on a foundation of enslavement and colonial domination of peoples and territories around the world. However, in the Western Hemisphere, we do recognize that we Africans and Indigenous people's histories are uniquely tied. From the land theft of the 13th century by the Spanish Conquistadors, to the importation of enslaved Africans, our struggle to reclaim our dignity and culture has been grounded within this history of struggle. Thus, we must recognize our shared struggle against colonialism and slavery which has been the driving force to liberate ourselves from our wretched condition.
We have a tradition of engaging in struggle shoulder to shoulder since the First Seminole War of 1814, where the United States government attempted to force the Seminoles to leave Florida and move to Native Territory per the Native Removal Act of 1830. We, the fugitive enslaved Africans, took up arms alongside our comrades, against the United States Army, using guerilla tactics to advance our position against this colonial effort. Though our courageous struggle was lost, we maintain that this relationship is of the utmost importance as we struggle for our dignity and humanity.
Additionally, during the Mexican War of Independence from Spain, historical records agree that the “mulattos” , the enslaved Africans in Latin America called by the Spanish, took up arms in guerrilla bands crushing the Spanish in 1821. Not only does this set the stage for other such collaborative efforts, but this unlikely alliance was a key force towards freedom. Furthermore, not only did we struggle together as partners, but one of the principal leaders in this development was Vicente Guerrero, an African who became president annexing the practice of slavery.
It has been estimated that 30 to 40 percent of the Latin American population has some form of African ancestry. Thus, our solidarity with the Indigenous peoples of the Americas is sacred and the most strategic alliance towards self-determination. We have taken up arms with our comrades from the Cuban Revolution of 1960s, as well as holding the banner of the Sandinistas of Nicaragua, we were there. We have not gained anything, in the colonization of the Indigenous and Africans of the Americas without the shedding of our blood, as partners. Thus, our fate is deeply rooted as colonized people and exploited peoples. Furthermore, we must recognize that if the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are not free, there will be no such liberation for the Africans in the Americas. It is a struggle of the most honest proportions. For, we both had land that was colonized in the same brutal fashion. We both have been forcibly displaced. Both of our peoples struggle with the contradictions of colonial power, in the form of capitalism. Thus, our unity in the struggle must be centered on the advanced revolutionary theory and historical revolutionary materialism. Furthermore, it must be a theory and practice that unifies our cultural differences and sameness. This is where we will find the essence of true solidarity and unity. This is the starting point towards the process of liberation.
Independence
We, The African masses, once a free people that existed within our own political economies in Africa, were kidnapped and transformed into the first commodities of capitalism. The first capital and producers of the capital's first workers. Within a social system defined by the relationship between capitalist production and producers resting on a foundation of enslavement and colonial domination of peoples and territories around the world.
In the United States, we are approaching an election year. A year that still will find the people in the grip of depression brought about by domestic colonial occupation of our communities. We Africans in the United States will continue to suffer regardless of who is elected or who we vote for. Neither of the Parties is in a position to stop (or care to stop) massive unemployment, community displacement, drugs, violence, homelessness, or the calculated miseducation and imprisonment of our young people.
The President has said on a number of occasions that the place for the U.S. in the “future” global economy will be in technology, research, and development. This is the niche they hope to occupy in the global economy. All of the industrial jobs are gone and are not coming back. Let us be clear, with other countries beginning to offer the same or superior set of skills in the area of technology and research; the position of the U.S. as a leader in this area will be temporary at best; for no more than 50 years.
For Africans in the U.S., we have already been marginalized from this new role of the U.S. in the global economy. The collusion and partnership between the school system and the prison system have guaranteed that the fruit of our generations will not gain the skill sets necessary to compete. More young Africans are matriculating into prison than into universities, and it is on a steady and progressive increase.
Added to this is the fact that the cost of obtaining skills for this century has risen to the point that dreams of education and skills acquisition are now mostly for the colonial elite and not the masses. It is not uncommon for students to leave college (looking for jobs that are not and will not be there) to have amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt. They have been made into nothing more than “educated” debt peons willing to do anything to avoid the debt hunter-collectors. They will make up the new fugitive peons/slaves in this economy. The colonial elite provides only themselves with a means to survive and even then, they will devour each other if it means that only a few of them can survive. They are and have always been cannibalistic and they, when it comes down to it, do not exempt members of their own class from being consumed.
What Must Be Done: Any competent observer of the global political economy knows that it is Africa (not China, Brazil, or India), that occupies the balance of global power for the future. We Africans are a global People, with the world’s first culture and civilization. We must study Africa and the system that displaced its children around the world. We must become conscious and aware of the forces and conditions created by this immoral economic system of capitalism and all of its effects on our People. We must not shrink from identifying those in our own midst that are, in the words of David Walker, complicit (handmaidens) in the exploitation and misery of our People.
A conscious people are a powerful people. We must come to know what is going on around us in our local, national, and international environment. We must collectively struggle to understand and specify what real development means to our People. We must not accept definitions given to us by outsiders, liberal or otherwise. We must study the definitions given by others, but in the end, our own definitions of freedom, justice, democracy, and dignity must spring from our own understanding of our culture and traditions. Our goals and strategies must be our own, based on our own analysis of African and global conditions; and be aligned with the righteous and moral struggle of global forces for freedom, justice, democracy, and dignity.
We Africans are, and have been, historically in the vanguard of the struggle for human rights and dignity. We must make our strength strong and make a contribution to that global struggle on behalf of all humanity. This is our destiny and our obligation to those living and yet unborn. Let 1 billion discussions take place in every nook and cranny of the African world. We, and only we, can educate ourselves for our future development.
Next, we must build a permanent independent organization. When we say independent, we do not mean that any culture or people stand on this globe as an island solely dependent on themselves. There is interdependence in independence…but dependence and interdependence are quite different things — something we can no longer tolerate in this century. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah once said, “Thought without Action is empty…and action without thought is blind”. Once we come to a working understanding of what development must be for us, we must lodge it firmly in the network and structure of a permanent organization. There is and can be no debate on this necessity. The African masses must experience unification…not just unity. This is not only our historical destiny, but the only hope for Africans at home and those of us scattered and suffering around the world.
Finally we, in the end, must be motivated by the love of our People and the desire to make a contribution to them; and through them to the global community of righteous and freedom-loving people. As Martin Luther King once said, “The ark of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Let us begin…Let us Continue. Forever Forward Unafraid Together Amandla Ngawethu!
We Can Only Free Ourselves
Juneteenth must be placed into its proper historical context. Furthermore, we caution that it should not be seen as a development of special concern, but only as a part of an ongoing process of freedom that ultimately was not completed by the end of the civil war.
We define freedom as the ability to produce and reproduce life and the ability to be a self-determined people organized to sustain autonomy from outside forces. Thus, with this definition, what are we celebrating when it comes to Juneteenth?
Many would argue that we’re celebrating the emancipation of African people. However, Abraham Lincoln did not have jurisdiction in territories that held the majority population of enslaved Africans. Therefore, his Emancipation Proclamation did not instantly free us. Therefore, it is a clear and undeniable truth that we Africans freed ourselves!
We have been engaged in this struggle for some time now. During this time period the struggle was intensified. This created an opportunity for war and its existential disruption and threat to production within the colonial slave-based plantation system.
This internal contradiction (North vs South) created favorable conditions for us to free ourselves. It is also true that Lincoln suggested to Congress on December 12, 1862, less than a month before the Emancipation Proclamation, that slavery could be extended to 1900 with slaveholders being compensated for the loss of their "property" and that free Africans be colonized outside the U.S (see Vincent Harding, There Is A River).
Despite this offer from Lincoln, the Republican Party government and the North were not abolitionists and were not in favor of ending slavery. They were only interested in ending the expansion of slavery; particularly west of the Mississippi as slavery posed a continued threat to the development and domination of the Industrial Capitalism of the North as it fought against the Agrarian Capitalism of the South.
Here, we immediately see the connection and difference between emancipation and freedom. There is no Emancipation without Freedom. It is vitally important for us to see this relationship and not assign too much recognition to this so-called emancipation.
We have three developments: slavery, emancipation, and freedom. These three developments are the principal contradiction of the colonial mode of production, Capitalism, and Enslavement (see Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery). It is this principal contradiction that brings these three developments into existence. Once in existence they become inextricably connected where one cannot be understood without the other. Between these three developments, the struggle for freedom is the consistent factor in both slavery and the so-called emancipation. It is here we should study and be focused on.
Indeed, slavery did not end with emancipation either in 1863 or in 1865. Slavery continued but just in a slightly modified form. In this connection, we offer a further examination of some short pieces, The Convict Lease System by Ida B, I Denounce the So-Called Emancipation As A Stupendous Fraud by Frederick Douglass, and the introduction to Slavery By Another Name, by Blackmon. Taken together, they demonstrate the fraud, corruption, and betrayal by the colonial bourgeoisie government on behalf of the capitalist class and the enthroning of Industrial Capitalism as the dominant economy within the U.S. This, after all, is precisely the primary reason for the war.
Again, we can only free ourselves. It is not some jester from the colonial bourgeoisie, nor an African assimilationist whose primary role is to coerce and manipulate the people. We recognize the African working class and other oppressed people gained nothing in this country without the shedding of our blood. This is why we must struggle and we must fight.
Remember, freedom is the ability to produce and reproduce life. We are engaged in a historical process for self-determination, independence, and freedom over our black lives since we were kidnapped and forced to adapt to hostile conditions in the Western Hemisphere. As a whole people, we are contending with these historical forces that have defined our existence. This reality is what informs our demands and ultimately our struggle for freedom. Forever forward, Unafraid together Amandla Ngawethu!
In Struggle,
Aramis Malachi-Ture Sundiata
Executive Director, People’s Justice Project
PJP Stands in Solidarity with Defend the Atlanta Forrest and Community Movement Builders
The most familiar representative of the United States government for the African working class is the police! Not a city councilperson, not a Mayor, or what have you. It is the State and its ability to impose terror and social control of the masses.
The state is an instrument of oppression. It's there to maintain "law and order" and protect the bourgeoisie from the masses. The state is the police department. The state is the court system. The state is the jails and prisons. The state is the army and navy. All of those things are instruments of state power. The primary mistake that the administrators of the state make, is the forces of the organized masses and the guiding principles of seasoned organizations. We will struggle, we will win...
Forever forward, unafraid together, in unity with Defend the Atlanta Forest and Community Movement Builders…Amandla Ngawethu.
Sign on to the solidarity statement and sign the Petition Demanding corporations divest from Cop City.