2 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 5 FROM THE BLACK ACTIVIST, JBLUN.ORG ............................................................................................. 7 Summer 2013 ................................................................................................................................... 7 01 Forging Unity of the Black Left: A Major Task of the Black Liberation Movement! ................ 7 02 We Condemn the U.S. Refusal to Participate in the Durban Review Conference: African Americans and People Of Color Speak for Ourselves! ................................................................. 8 03 Victory to the Ongoing Bolivarian Revolution: U.S. Imperialism Hands Off Venezuela! ........ 9 04 Justice For Trayvon Martin: Wear Your Hoodie, Protest This Racist Murder and Rebuild the National Black Liberation Movement ......................................................................................... 11 05 Assata is Not a Terrorist: She is a Freedom Fighter like Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King ...................................................................................................................... 13 06 Stop The War on Black America! ........................................................................................... 14 Fall 2013 ......................................................................................................................................... 16 07 Rethinking Political Struggle: Black Liberation is a Fight for Power ...................................... 16 08 A Call to Organize! The Black Liberation Movement Cannot Advance Without the Revolutionary Organization of Women ...................................................................................... 28 Spring 2014 ..................................................................................................................................... 29 09 Memory and Power: When Warriors Fall, It’s Time to Rethink and Rebuild ........................ 29 Fall 2014 ......................................................................................................................................... 33 10 Building a National Movement after Ferguson ..................................................................... 33 POLICY ................................................................................................................................................ 37 11 Preparation for our Next Gathering—Assessment—Follow Up from the Atlanta Meeting at the US Social Forum .................................................................................................................... 37 12 The BLUN: Who Are We and What is Our Basic Outlook and Perspective: Developing a 3- Year Plan ..................................................................................................................................... 40 13 A New Phase for the Black Left Unity Network ..................................................................... 47 14 Proposal: A BLUN Meeting to Advance the Politics of Black Liberation ............................... 53 15 Opening of the December 21, 2013 BLUN Meeting of Black Activist Organizations in Washington, DC .......................................................................................................................... 54 STATEMENTS ...................................................................................................................................... 58 16 BLUN Presentation at Black Is Back Conference November 13, 2010 .................................. 58 17 What is to be Done when Revolutionaries Run for and Win Elected Office? ....................... 60 3 18 A Solidarity Economy Must be Part of the Black Liberation and All of the Movements for Radical Social Transformation .................................................................................................... 64 19 Open Letter to the Jackson Rising Conference...................................................................... 66 20 Two Tactics: Implementing a National Strategy for Black Liberation: Thoughts on the Jackson Rising Economic Conference ......................................................................................... 69 21 Moral Mondays: the Emergence and Dynamics of a Growing Mass Human Rights Movement .................................................................................................................................. 71 22 The Ferguson Rebellion: Why Rebuild the National Black Liberation Movement?! ............. 77 23 Black Workers: A Call to Action for Rank-and-File Democratic Social Movement Unionism!82 24 8th Pan-African Congress: Black Labor and Black Liberation by Abdul Alkalimat Black Left Unity Network (USA) .................................................................................................................. 86 LEAFLETS ............................................................................................................................................ 95 25 May Day and the Black Working-Class .................................................................................. 95 26 Stop the War on Black America! We Charge Genocide! Human Rights for All! ................... 95 27 Ferguson is the Heartbeat of Our Movement ....................................................................... 97 28 African Americans: The Struggles for Peoples Democracy in Tunisia, Egypt, Throughout North Africa and the Middle East Region are Linked to Our Struggle! ...................................... 98 29 Black left Unity Network’s Call to Actions: U.S. Hands off Syria! Not Another War! ............ 99 30 Wilson Pulled the Trigger, but the US System Killed Michael Brown ................................. 101 31 Self-Determination is a Human Right: Forward to Black Liberation: An Invitation from the Black Left Unity Network (BLUN).............................................................................................. 104 4 INTRODUCTION This volume contains the dispatches of the Black Left Unity Network (BLUN). By dispatches we mean the following: a. Editorial articles in the four issues of the BLUN journal, The Black Activist b. Policy positions on the mission and strategy of the BLUN c. Statements prepared by BLUN leadership for unity meetings, including sessions at the US Social Forum and at international forums d. Leaflets injected into the protest motion of the various battlefronts of the Black Liberation Movement The BLUN is a transitional organizational form toward the consolidation of a left tendency to provide leadership to the Black Liberation Movement. This process does not hope to achieve total agreement on ideological line. It does seek to establish a democratic discussion of leading organizations and individuals to fight for political consensus. Ideology includes our general views of the world and involves religious beliefs, historical interpretations, and general value orientations. Political line is about gathering social forces who want to fight against all forms of oppression and planning general strategy and tactics. This is what the BLUN is about. We face a major challenge: Can the leading forces (organizations and individuals) fighting for Black liberation sit together and find ways to build a broad inclusive unity? There are contradictions: 1. Maintaining organizational integrity while being in a unity motion of the BLM? 2. Leaders of each organization accepting each other as equals? 3. Compromising by uniting on some questions and not on others, what we call the 80-20 principle? 4. Finding ways to meet organizational budgets while sharing resources for a united national movement? 5. Balancing recruitment for each organization without disrupting the general process f building a national movement? This volume is to share what we have said and done over the last few years that the BLUN has been in motion. The impact of the struggle at Ferguson after the murder of Michael Brown, coupled with the massive outrage of the many such police assassinations, has taken us to a decisive moment for Black left unity. Many of us have stepped forward with courage and militancy. Now is the time to find ways to sit in council, all of us together who have an anti- capitalist orientation and are focused on Black liberation. All of us – workers and trade unionists, youth and students, women, LGBT activists, seniors, immigration activists, intellectuals, 5 environmental activists, cultural activists, mental health activists, communist cadre, and all the rest of us. Please read and comment on these documents. We are a process in transition and welcome your contribution as we need it for the unity that we must build. 6 FROM THE BLACK ACTIVIST, JBLUN.ORG Summer 2013 01 Forging Unity of the Black Left: A Major Task of the Black Liberation Movement! The Black Liberation Movement must be more than the spontaneity of the Black masses. It must provide a national framework with an internationalist perspective and strategic organizing components that seek to unite the thinking and actions of the many struggles around a program for revolutionary change. Thus the Black liberation movement must have conscious activists that work together to give the spontaneous struggles a conscious program and direction; an assessment of the balance of forces on the side of the oppressor and the oppressed; and