More than symbolic gestures (which certainly has its place); I am more excited to see the development of this kind of direct organizing and activism in Baltimore. There is real potential here to raise the profile of the predatory practices of banks in Baltimore and its impact upon the city’s Black community and the poor especially. It also creates opportunity for people in desperate need of housing to literally come in from the cold this winter.

It is shameful and sinful, in my opinion, to be in a city that on any given night has 3400 homeless people on the streets and at the same time have nearly 40,000 city-owned vacant properties.

The local Occupy Our Homes group draws inspiration from the Take Back The Land Movement founded by Max Rameau. I believe that the conditions are ripe for a new kind of activism in Baltimore and I believe that People of Faith need to be partner with the effort. In this clip, Max Rameau explains Take Back the Land and below you’ll find a flyer inviting you to join your power with Lila’s power to prevent her eviction from her home.

I hope you’ll be moved to support this effort. (Click the flyer for larger view)

To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

And in that spirit of Nia; I’d like to share this important article written by Dr. Adam Clark.

CHRISTIANITY AND KWANZAA
By Dr. Adam Clark
(originally posted on The Huffington Post)

It’s strange that the day after Christians celebrate the birth of child who was to become a liberator that they fail to see the liberating possibilities in the week long celebration of Kwanzaa (Dec. 26-Jan. 1.) The infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke portray Jesus as the bearer of concrete longings of a people for freedom from Roman rule. Kwanzaa was created out of the liberation narrative of the 1960s. The longing of African American people for freedom, selfhood and beauty grounds and shapes the vision, values and practices of Kwanzaa. It is derived from African first-fruits harvest celebrations and encourages it’s observers to be thankful for good and beauty of Creation and act for the well-being and wholeness of the world.

Despite its ecumenical character, Kwanzaa remains controversial in black churches. Many popular websites professing to explore the relationship between Christianity and Kwanzaa encourage Christians not to practice Kwanzaa. These websites question the relevance of Kwanzaa to the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Some regard Kwanzaa as a rival “pagan holiday,” “cultic celebration” or as idol worship. Others question the motives of the creator of Kwanzaa, Maulana Karenga, who is cast as an anti-Christian thinker, hostile to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These religious detractors position themselves as defenders of the faith and see their attacks on Kwanzaa as a way of preserving biblical faith against the unbiblical principles of Kwanzaa.

What’s ironic is that the people who denounce Kwanzaa do not have the same suspicion toward the celebration of Christmas. There is a sharp distinction between the biblical portrayal of Christmas and its contemporary emphases. Christmas Day originated when the church used the stories of the birth of Jesus to place a thin Christian veneer over the Roman holiday celebrating the Winter solstice. The American celebration of Christmas that features Santa Claus as its chief icon, lighted trees, shopping rituals, massive food grabs and spectacular gift giving resemble the festivals of Imperial Rome that honored the might of Caesar more than the humble story of a couple that gave birth to a Christ-child in a manger.

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE

Habari Gani? Kujichagulia! which means Self Determination – To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.

Self-Determination is such a beautiful principle which speaks to the freedom that all individuals and people-groups should be able to rightly exercise. Though not always using the term, I have been writing about “kujichagulia” on this site for a long time.

In early 2008, I was blessed to be a part of the Park Heights Community “Dry Out” campaign that sought to expel liquor stores and predatory businesses from the 5100 block of Park Heights Avenue in Baltimore. It’s beyond shameful that there are 4 liquor stores in that one block! It’s also telling that in this overwhelmingly Black community; all of those liquor stores are owned by non-Black people. Under the leadership of Derrick Compton and with the support of others like now-councilman Brandon Scott, Al Watson, and Pastor Kevin Brooks; we put weekly pressure on these establishments to let them know they were being monitored for infractions and targeted for eventual expulsion.

In November 2009, I critiqued the Emerging Christian Movement in the spirit of self-determination, for its exclusion of non-white voices as it presented theological dynamics and features as if they created them while all the while People of Color of other Faith traditions and denominations have been practicing different “emerging” principles for generations.

I wrote about “kujichagulia” back in August 2010 when I proclaimed that “Black People Should Control The Baltimore City Public School System” on the grounds that Afrikan youth make up about 98% of the student population and the city is somewhere around 65% Afrikan. This notwithstanding, Black folks are regularly begging and pleading to have substantive say in the education of their own youth.

Self-determination pushed me back in April 2011 when I talked about the general “whiteness” of the Urban Farming/Healthy Food Movement and the need for people of color to be at the lead of the food revolution just as we are in most cases the ones suffering under the brunt of America’s food deserts.

And of course, my involvement in the struggle against Governor O’Malley’s plan to build a new youth jail in East Baltimore has been fueled by my firm belief that the Black Community should decide what institutions we want or don’t want in our community just like White people and Jewish people decide what will or won’t come in their communities. If White people don’t want a business or even a church to come into their community; chances are it won’t come. If Jewish people don’t want a business to come in their community; chances are it doesn’t come. Why should it be any different for Afrikan people? We don’t want O’Malley’s multi-million dollar youth jail and many of us have committed ourselves to organize, agitate, and protest – even if it means physically impeding the path of construction trucks – until O’Malley bends to our wishes.

This, my friends, is self-determination and in different ways it’s happening all over the world.

I pray that the flames of “Kujichagulia” burn even brighter in the new year for the Global Afrikan Family. As Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. reminded us – “No one can ride your back unless its bent.” No more hunched-backness in the Black community! May we stand up straight like righteous women and men and commit to “define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves” without timidity or apology.

Ashe.

So off the top let me say that yes – I am a follower of Christ and yes – I celebrate Kwanzaa. Some may see these affirmations as incompatible and polar opposites, however, there is no incongruity with me. I am thankful for Kwanzaa and truly appreciate the fact that the day after I join countless millions of Christians in celebrating the gift of new life in Christ; I can immediately keep the celebration going by observing the new life that is possible for the Afrikan community as we embrace sacred values.

Those sacred values in Kwanzaa are called the Nguzo Saba – the 7 principles – and today the principle that is uplifted is UMOJA which means UNITY. With this principle we are invited to “strive for and maintain unity between the family, community, nation, and race.”

In my estimation this is a beautiful way to start this sacred week of observance for the Afrikan community. And leading up to this day of UNITY, my mind was reflecting on Bro. Malcolm X and his speech entitled The Ballot of The Bullet – given in 1964. The whole speech is powerful to say the least, but the first few paragraphs and the closing paragraph are particularly important given today’s focus on UNITY.

Bro. Malcolm goes to great lengths in the opening of the speech to diminish divisions between himself and other Freedom Fighters who embraced different religious perspectives. By 1964, he understood that religion should NOT be a barrier that keeps the Black Community from working together. He shared his position that the Black community has a common fight and a common enemy. At the end of his talk that day, he pledged his support for any of the organizations or ministers (Christian or otherwise) on the rostrum who needed his support. Bro. Malcolm’s evolution in that way can inspire the Black Community today.

There are yet unhealthy levels of factionalism and outright division in the Afrikan community…there is even disconnect within factions that causes greater splintering. As I shared recently on a WEAA radio program; one of the tools of the MAAFA (or Afrikan Holocaust) was Disconnection. African people were forcibly disconnected from their names, their villages, their culture, their land, their religious beliefs, etc. My position is that if DISCONNECTION was the tool used to overpower us; then RECONNECTION and thereby UNITY will be the path that restores our collective strength.

I am excited to see the seeds of this in Baltimore. There is a rising generation of social justice activists and servants of the Afrikan Community that are expressing a greater readiness for strategic unity around shared goals. We are African Spiritualists, Muslims, Christians, Black Nationalists, Pan Africanists, and Integrationists. We don’t agree on every minor point or detail, however, we recognize that no one of us and no one of our organizations will be able to achieve some of the laudable goals that we cherish for the broader Afrikan community in the city.

We MUST work together. We MUST share resources. We MUST lend support to each others initiatives. We MUST begin to identify specific points that we will work together on in 2012. This does not mean that the distinct identities of any of our organizations must be erased. Rather, I believe that our greatest strength is in our varied gifts, organizational identities, and perspectives that when combined can produce lasting fruit.

I close this Umoja reflection by giving thanks for some of the Afrikan-centered groups that I know of that are serving Baltimore’s Afrikan community in remarkable ways. I give thanks for Everyone’s Place Bookstore & African Cultural Center, Solvivaz Nation/Reality Speaks Bookstore, Habesha, the Pan-Afrikan Liberation Movement and its various programs, ISA Academy, Nsoroma Academy, Ujima People’s Progress Party, the Marshall “Eddie” Conway Freedom School, and the many others that I don’t even know about (please add other Baltimore-based, Afrikan-centered organizations that you know of in the comments section)

May 2012 be a year of continued blessing to your organizations and I pray that we can lay the foundation for closer cooperation and functional unity for the benefit of our people. If there is anything that I can do to support you, your organizations, and/or initiatives that will benefit our community; please don’t hesitate to ask. I truly appreciate you all and look forward to strengthening the ties that bind us together.

Ashe.

Jim Wallis, Founder of Sojourner Magazine

Jim Wallis writes a thought-provoking article about the “end” of the Iraq War entitled, It’s Finally Over – and it was Wrong.”

It made me think about the first time I was arrested for direct action and civil disobedience in protest of the military invasion and occupation of Iraq four years ago. The action was planned and promoted in large measure by the Sojourner’s community. I kept the cuffs that restrained me that cold night so that I can show my sons that sometimes living with convictions will cost you something.

But Wallis’ article on Iraq also pricked something else in me. It made me think of the ever-expanding U.S. military action now under President Obama. The same convictions that catapulted me to the White House in protest four years ago are the same ones that critique this president. Obama is not above critique and is NOT greater than the foundational spiritual tenets that I embrace as a follower of Jesus. Here is the comment that bubbled up from my soul onto Wallis’ website in response to his article:

Great article, Jim.

I marched with you and others during the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq in March 2007.

Reading how you rightly described the distortions and lies that justified war in Iraq under Bush made me think of the lies spewed to justify military action in Libya, Uganda, and other parts of the world under Obama.

I didn’t march in 2007 against a republican president. I marched because I embrace the ethic of the Prince of Peace and am co-laboring with others to experience the Beloved Community. With the American military empire spreading now under a democratic president; I believe it’s time for another gathering and mobilization of people of Faith.

To march when Bush calls for war and withhold from marching when Obama expands war across the world threatens our credibility as people whose “citizenship is in Heaven.” It’s easy to stand for conviction when it’ll be embraced and applauded (as it was under Bush). It takes a greater level of resolve to act on convictions when it won’t be popular and will cost us something.

The Church is in danger of losing its voice.

Time to Blow the Trumpet,

Pastor Heber Brown, III
Baltimore, MD

SOURCE: David Shankbone

If all goes as planned. Today – October, 4, 2011 – will be a day that is remembered and perhaps even recorded in the “People’s History of Baltimore City.”

For the past couple of years a committed group of activists have been challenging Maryland state plans to build a multi-million dollar youth jail in East Baltimore – in a community that is already saturated with prisons and jails. While initial activism around the issue was met with strong resistance from political and agency leaders; some of them are beginning to become more vocal opponents of the youth jail citing stats that reveal that crime among youth in Baltimore is decreasing (following a national trend related to crime in general) and fiscal restraints are forcing political power brokers to consider other options.

Last year, this month, community leaders and grassroots activists hosted Youth Justice Sunday which brought a crowd of a few hundred to the neighborhood and site of where the construction of the youth jail is planned in East Baltimore. Today, youth leaders are joined by nonprofit professionals and their allies to once again march and raise awareness about the community’s continued disagreement with this youth jail project – demanding instead that dedicated operating and capital monies be redirected to schools, recreation centers, jobs, and other critical services that residents desire.

Today also marks the start of #OccupyBaltimore – an outgrowth of the #OccupyWallStreet effort that’s been going on for two weeks now in New York. The New York effort – which is a logistically impressive and passionate protest – has gained much attention in people-owned media and communication media, but just recently began grabbing the attention of corporation-owned media after NY police officers pepper-sprayed female protesters. (Wouldn’t be surprised if someone in the #OccupyWallstreet camp knew that crying White females on television in America gets the national TV cameras there quick!)  The #OccupyWallStreet narrative continued to develop with what protestors call the “Battle of the Brooklyn Bridge.”

200 people show up for inaugural meeting of #OccupyBaltimore

#OccupyBaltimore, which was started by the actions of those inspired by the NY-action, organized rapidly – largely on social networking sites and google. Remarkably, approximately 200 people attended the first meeting of the group (Sunday at 9PM!), more than 400 people have joined the Google group, and nearly 1,000 people have said on Facebook that they will join the group as they will begin “occupying” (that word has heavy negative baggage, but I get it.) downtown Baltimore at the corner of Pratt and Light Street – in the heart of Baltimore’s corporate and tourist district. Interestingly enough, the Baltimore police have already begun “monitoring” and likely infiltrating #OccupyBaltimore according to the Baltimore Sun:

“Baltimore police were monitoring social media and news reports for updates on the Inner Harbor protest, said spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.”

Stay tuned for up to the minute details regarding Baltimore’s Day of Protest. We’ll have pictures, video, and livestream of protestors and reactions.

Troy Davis was found guilty of murdering a police officer 19 years ago, based upon the testimony of 9 witnesses. Today, 7 of those 9 have recanted their testimony entirely, and there are enormous problems with the testimony of the remaining 2 witness accounts. There is NO OTHER EVIDENCE. The murder weapon was never found. There is no DNA to test. Troy is scheduled to die by lethal injection on September 21, 2011.

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”

Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!

Of course I’m expecting this to be one of the chapters in D. Brent Laytham’s next series of books….right after the chapter entitled, “God Is Not A ‘He” and before the chapter “God Is Not A Christian.”

Enjoy:

Photo Courtesy: Adam Jackson (Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle)

So on that faithful Saturday – at that forum – I finally had to promote the exploration of a new path for my people. Instead of the usual song and lyrics, I offered up for the consideration of the crowd possibilities that are enveloped in practical philosophies that are less popular in this city. I prodded the crowd toward Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism. We’ve been promoting other paths for our people for so long with so few results for the masses that it’s about time that we found the courage to at the very least begin exploring other avenues for communal empowerment.

Let’s not denounce or dismiss Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism from the table of options before we even give it a try. Let’s not disregard these two philosophies because it makes other people uncomfortable. What about the depressing conditions that make our people more than uncomfortable, but uneducated, unemployed, uninsured, and uninvited?

We talk about diversity, but how diverse are the Black voices that we commonly hear speaking about our condition as a people. Even when they appear to be arguing different positions – like the much discussed “debate” between Dr. Cornel West and Rev. Al Sharpton – closer analysis will reveal that they in large measure are arguing nuances of the same position.

As I said “Black Nationalism” and “Pan Africanism” on the LBS panel that day, I sensed an uneasiness with the audience. White people were in the audience and it’s been my experience that Black people get nervous when you start talking Black Pride around White people. – as if cultural pride and love of self are inexcusable offenses. But the uneasiness just might have had to do more with my poor job of explaining what I meant by those loaded terms. Black Nationalism/Pan Africanism isn’t taught in schools, talked about in churches, or examined on television so one must not assume general understanding.

I wish I would have been able to succinctly define Black Nationalism as Bro. Malcolm X does in this clip.

Can any conscious American African person genuinely disagree with what is advocated with the philosophy of Black Nationalism based on that understanding? As one listens to Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) speak on Pan Africanism can the oppressed African masses truly discard its potential power so quickly?

We don’t need a juvenile Black Nationalism which beats its chests to proclaim it’s hatred for White people. Black Nationalism in its most powerful expression revolves around LOVE for African people not hatred of another people. And we don’t need this rhetorical revolutionary Black Nationalism/Pan Africanism which touts the long listing of books on revolution that have been read. With that, as Amos Wilson said, you’ll just die Black and Proud and your obituary will read, “Here lies a Black Revolutionary who read a lot of books, but left no enduring legacy.”

American Africans need to explore and embrace a Black Nationalism and Pan Africanism which holds as its most important action love of self. Only deep and abiding love of self can provide the sustainable energy necessary to re-orient, re-educate, and release African people around these two powerful concepts. Furthermore, a Pan Africanism fueled by love can appropriately re-connect African people in places where the African Holocaust (or MAAFA) fractured and disconnected us.

Think about it – one of the mandatory goals of the MAAFA involved the DISCONNECTION of African people from their names, their language, their land, their history, their cultural ways, their communities, their families, etc. Disconnection prompted discombobulation and we are largely still confused because we’ve lost our unique orientation to the world. Pan Africanism promotes a RECONNECTION to our ancestral identity which has the potential to bring about the communal healing that we so stand in need of. There’s no doubt about it – if African people don’t embrace love of self and its expression in tangible ways in every area of our activity and thinking then we are likely to remain in bondage.

Furthermore, with this reorientation to love-of-self, we must also commit ourselves to the construction of conscious anchor institutions – schools, banks, businesses, cultural centers, spiritual centers, etc. Especially in these cities where the population is predominantly African, we need to start building enclaves which champion our cultural values, orients our children to the world based on our ancestral understanding, and promotes an active unity and interdependence within the community.

It’s an enormous task that is possible by taking measured steps. For instance on the way to organizing an Afrikan-centered Public School System that is independent of the government funded public school systems; we can start a Saturday academy or after school programs in partnership with kindred spirits. Don’t just try to jump up and build a whole school system! Start one quality program and learn how to run it well before trying to organize a system. On the way to food sovereignty for our community – where we return to eating only what we grow ourselves; start a community garden or assume responsibility for a vacant plot of land. Grow there and supplement your diet with what you grow with your own hands. Learn how to grow and manage a garden well before you jump out there to run a farm! In the way of economic empowerment, perhaps a first step is to organize a Giving Circle before you begin talking about starting a credit union or bank.

These steps can present building blocks toward greater manifestations of what is needed. The American African community must embrace self-determination, self-government, and most important of all – SELF LOVE.

The question now is can we love ourselves enough to even consider different modes of understanding that will give rise to different communal behaviors that can potentially lift African people exponentially?

Photo Courtesy of: Adam Jackson (Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle)

I was asked to serve as a panelist at the first Freedom Forum hosted by the think tank focused on policy analysis and community change. The theme of the event was Baltimore’s Youth Movement: Are They Ready To Lead? And it’s funny because I remember when I was squarely included in the crowd of city youth leaders, but more and more I’m being informed that my license has expired!

I couldn’t help, but sit there though and think about the days when folks like Bro. Farajii Muhammad, Hassan Giordano, C.D. Witherspoon, Ezekiel Jackson and I would run the same type of events. Gatherings focused on serious discussion about our generation and our city. We would link up with the Elders who weren’t threatened by us and examine the many ideas that sprung forth from our minds – pretending to be new ideas.

It was a very reflective moment for me to sit on the LBS panel at yet another forum and just think about all the ideas and all the perspectives that I’ve heard over the few years that I’ve been grinding for social justice in Baltimore. I just couldn’t sit there and regurgitate the same responses that I’ve been giving and hearing for all these years. I feel like I’ve been chasing after a family of rabbits in a field…feeling a sense of accomplishment by catching up to one of them only to have another one of them run across my path and entice me to chase it. In a very fragmented and compartmentalized way, I’ve been running after the rabbit of “better economic opportunities for Blacks in Baltimore” then chasing down “youth mentoring for young Black men” then being lured to leap after the prison industrial complex then better schools then gentrification then street gangs then youth jobs then then Then THEN!

No doubt, some gains have been made, but the masses of my people are still in bondage on so many levels. Surely, chasing after all these different rabbits was doing more to keep me preoccupied and assured of my self worth than it was providing holistic systemic change for my community.

I sat on that LBS panel unwilling to once again serve up a fractured picture of the plight of my beloved and beleaguered community in Baltimore. We need fresh insight. New ideas. New understanding. And a holistic framework which not only pinpoints the cause of our collective pain, but also provides a path to our communal wholeness. I just couldn’t sit there and pretend as if all we need is one more Black person on the corporate board, one more Black politician in office, one more Black Student doing better on the MSA’s, one more Black firefighter or police officer, one more Black church or preacher and then all would be right with the Black world. This incremental approach to community empowerment has not worked for the masses of African people.

Think about it.

How many quarters would you put in a vending machine that didn’t provide you with the snack you selected? At most you’d put 2 quarters in the machine and if by chance you did put a third one in and it still didn’t work, you’d start kicking or rocking that machine trying to get your honey glazed donut. Some of you would even call that 1 (800) number on the sticker not so much because you wanted your quarter back, but because the machine did not provide you with what you know you deserved and you felt cheated.

In that same way, African people in cities across the country have been investing in strategies and systems that have not yielded the desired results for the masses. We’ve been promoting and preaching incrementalism…just go along and we’ll get along-ism…just wait on the benevolence of White folks-ism.

I’m reminded of that quote by the Great Ancestor Amos Wilson who said, “One reason for the condition we’re in today is a leadership that has not yet decided it will determine a new reality and develop an Afrocentric reality, one that is suitable to the advancement and development of Afrikan people.” It’s a statement that rings truer and truer to my ears.

TO BE CONTINUED…