Category Archives: Black Liberation

Solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux and all the Struggles of Indigenous Peoples

The Black Workers for Justice support the struggles of the indigenous peoples to defend their land and treaty rights and their struggles for environmental justice. And in this moment we are in full support of the resistance of the Standing Rock Sioux to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). We call on all people to support them politically and materially. Continue reading →

BWFJ Statement on Charlotte Uprising

BLACK WORKERS FOR JUSTICE STATEMENT ON ROLE OF POLICE & Call for GENERAL STRIKE…BLACK SOLIDARITY DAY

It is time for something different. According to the Charlotte Observer, the killing of Keith Lamont Scott makes the sixth in Charlotte and with Terence Crutcher, makes the 163rd killing of a Black person in the U.S. in 2016 by law enforcement or sanctioned extra-legal forces .

On the one hand, the Black (and Brown) Community is told that the problem is bad community relations, inadequate training by police to be more “sensitive”, bad equipment and that its a “few bad apples”. On the other,there is righteous outrage as yet another Black man woman father mother sister daughter son cousin is snuffed out; shot down in the street. And the youth escalate the pushback — pushing back against institution, symbolic or otherwise, of the exploitation, oppression or occupation of our community. Then, the sanctioned -so-called leaders are trotted out to “call for calm,” sensitivity training and body cameras for the police. Then another Black person gets shot down in the street, and the scenario starts all over again. Continue reading →

A Draft Manifesto to Rebuild the Black Liberation Movement

A Draft Manifesto to Rebuild Black Liberation Movement

The Black Liberation Movement has reawakened. Militant activists are fighting against police terror, for jobs and a livable wage, for housing for the homeless, against environmental racism, for quality education, for human rights for our LGBT brothers and sisters, and more. This manifesto is a contribution toward uniting our diverse forces into one mighty movement for Black liberation and the transformation of the entire society.

This manifesto is for workers in trade union locals and worker centers, students on campus and in high school, brothers and sisters locked up in the prison camps, activists on all battlefronts in every community. Capitalism stinks and is not the system that we need to lead decent and meaningful lives.

Please send suggestions for this document. Rewrite it. Create your own. The point is to have a revolutionary festival of ideas to advance our consciousness and take our struggle to a much higher level. When we can meet in a national assembly for Black Liberation, every document can be part of creating one declaration for us all.

This manifesto is the work of veterans of five decades of struggle and young activists in the current struggles. First came a 2014 version. The Black Left Unity Network revised it in 2015. Now in 2016 a national Black Left Study Group, brothers and sisters in 10 cities, studied both versions for ten months and offers this revision.

Read Black Liberation Movement Manifesto HERE or click below[gview file=”http://bwfj.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DRAFT-MANIFESTO-3-for-phone.pdf”]

Commemorating the Birthday of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz)

May 19 marks the 91st anniversary of the birth of Malcolm X, the great 20^th Century leader of the African American struggle for freedom, justice and equality; for self-determination and liberation. His assassination in 1965, at the hands of those working in the interest of white supremacy, capitalism and imperialism, marked a horrible chapter in our history of struggle and the beginning of the modern Black Power Movement.

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Statement from Clarence Thomas 2016 Self-Determination Award Recipient

“On Sunday May 1, 2016, International Workers Day, ILWU Local 10 for the second consecutive year will be shutting down all Bay Area ports for 8 hours. This year we will commemorate a National Day of Mourning in memory of the Black and Brown lives that have been taken by racist police and vigilante killings across the country”

At the 33^rd Annual Martin Luther King Support for Labor Banquet two individuals and two organizations were awarded the Black Workers for Justice’s Self-Determination Award. North Carolina based Muslims for Social Justice and Charleston’s Healthcare Workers United were the group recipients. The individual award went to two trade union activist. ILA Local 1422 activist Leonard Riley received an individual award. The second was awarded to Clarence Thomas a labor activist, member of ILWU Local 10 and longtime freedom fighter. Thomas was unable to attend but submitted this statement to share with the participants. Note his call for action on May Day. Continue reading →