On the weekend of May 31-Jun 1 dozens of African American organizers, artists and activists convened the first Black Left Unity(BLU) Meeting at the Sonia Hayes Center in Chapel Hill, NC.The gathering was a continuation of the Black Left Unity caucus that meet in Atlanta during the US Social Forum.

As the BLU statement reads “[In Atlanta] most agreed that the Gulf Coast/Katrina disaster is a defining moment that requires that Black revolutionaries unite and work to build a National Black United Black United Front….. and support a Gulf Coast Reconstruction Movement.”The goals of the conference were to explore the history of the Black liberation Movement (BLM), assess the current political situation as well as looking at the BLM as part of a wider fight back against war and racism.

Participants ranged from independent political activists to members of the Workers World Party, Miami Workers Center, the Los Angeles Labor Strategy Center, Mississippi Workers Center, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Black Workers for Justice and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.Meeting in North Carolina not only provided a geographical advantage for both East Coast and southern activists but a historical grounding as well. North Carolina was the site of the first “sit-ins” in Greensboro, NC as well as the training ground for activists such as Ella Baker.Today, North Carolina is continuing the radical tradition through organizations like Spirit House, UBUNTU, El Kilombo Collective and a number of farming co-operatives.

It’s within this historical continuum that the activists gathered to debate , create and celebrate the Black liberation movement in its many forms.

Beating the Drum- Building Networks

Coming some ten years after the historic Black Radical Congress in 1998, the BLU gathering was an attempt to articulate the challenges and opportunities facing the Black liberation movement. Indeed, ten years, marked the end of welfare state and triumph of neo-liberalism in the cities all marking the solving of the Black national question through the imprisonment of a generation.Ten years also marks the freeing of political prisoners Geromino Pratt and Dhoruba Bin Wahad, the development of a conscious network of activists that led to the defense of the Jena Six, as well as a renewed commitment to international solidarity with movements in Venezuela and local activism. This is in addition to the movement currently to elect the first African American president!Hence, far from being dead, the Black liberation movement is a sleeping giant.

But the strategic questions remain: How do we understand “Black”in the age of globalization? What exactly does “Left” mean in terms of a “Black Left”? And on the pratical pursuit, how do we see unity manifesting? In networks? Organizations?These questions were touched in the opening plenary which featured Brenda Stokely, Patrisse Cullors, Jay Woodson and Yvette Modestin. Brenda Stokely gave a brief history of the history of the Black radical left and also touched on a very important concept: the informal Black networks that have exist since the Underground Railroad that spread news and mobilized the Black community.

One of the tasks of the Black left is not only to tap into these networks but to expand them as well. This particularly true in terms of technology, a place where the Black left is still lagging.The potential for new networks was seen in the case of the Jena Six, where Black radio served as a catalyst for spreading the word about the case and the subsequent demonstration.

What if local networks of the Black left developed blogs, newsletters or even short films aimed at expanding and pointing the way forward for our people? How do we combine new technology alongside the need for face to face organizing work?

Patrisse Cullors give, in my opinion the best presentation of the opening panel, looking at the Black left through the lens of globalization.The Black community is subject to the neo-liberal demands placed on the Third World. As such, a Black left fight back must include issues of the environment as well as questions of economics. The Labor Strategy Community Center serves a good starting point in terms of thinking about means of what it means to synthesize organizing practice alongside a strong media strategy.

Black to the Future: Youth and the Practice of Liberation

One of the encouraging developments this weekend was presence of young organizers. Of the sixty participants, close to half were under the age of 35. This contingent was also the most diverse in terms of organizational representation, gender and even nationality(the presence of one South Asian, and one West Indian).Meeting within the youth caucus, discussion was focused on creating intergenerational dialogue and the category of youth as “being led” and underneath the tutelage of “elders”.This was a critical tension throughout the weekend, in additional to problems of a lack of a gender analysis and questions of patriarchal attitudes by some of the participants.These problems reflect the overall orientation of the conference organizers who tended to come from more traditional Marxist Leninist backgrounds, who haven’t developed positions on how questions of gender, youth and queerness play a fundamental role in defining what is Black.A question posed by a comrade in Malcolm X Grassroots Movement was the difference between grassroots organizing in the 1960s (community based, focused on political power) and the prevalence of the non-profit industry as a site of youth activism. The non-profit sector has allowed for young people to do their politics full-time, yet missing the element of community or gazing and base building found among Black Power activists who did their activism in the factories and the fields. This critical tension has lead to a separation of the community from the Black left, as organizers become “professionals”.This question, was taken up in part by the legendary poet and activist Amiri Baraka. In reference to the question of Obama, Baraka questioned the sincerity of “symbolic politics” over real work. Do we as a Black left continue on the sidelines, decrying, or are we actually developing movements on the ground?

A Luta Continua

The conference ended with a development of regional continuation committee that will continue the work of the conference in the upcoming months, including local actions.

The conference in Chapel Hill, was a beginning of a much need conversation on rebuilding the Black left in the current period.

Via Black Man With A Library

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