Black America in a “State of Emergency” 50 Years After The March on Washington “A deposit was made, but the check still bounced” IBW Releases a “Black Paper” with Analyses and Recommendations Washington DC, Aug, 20, 2013… Arguing there is a “state of emergency without urgency” in Black America today,The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) will launch a “Black Paper” at a public forum slated for the historic Metropolitan AME Church in Washington DC on Thursday, Aug. 22. A number of the contributors who wrote essays for the ‘Black Paper’ will speak at the forum including Dr. Julianne Malveaux, Dr. Michael Fauntroy, George Curry, Atty. NkechiTaifa, Jacqui Patterson, Dr. Zachary Williams,Dr. MtanguiliziSanyika and Don Rojas. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Ron Daniels, President of IBW. Rev. Jesse Jackson is a specially invited guest and the forum will be streamed live on IBW’s Web site (ibw21.org) beginning at 7:30 pm EST. “The Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) has been crying out for some time with “urgency” imploring Africans in America, first and foremost, but equally important, calling on private sector actors, policy-makers and the nation as a whole to act on the multiple crises afflicting what I have come to call America’s dark ghettos—distressed and marginalized, inner city communities across this country”, said Dr. Daniels. “It is this ‘state of emergency’ that compels IBW to release a Black Paper on the eve of the Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington”, he added. Daniels is a prominent African-American activist/scholar who was the deputy campaign manager for the Jesse Jackson presidential campaign in 1988 and himself ran for President on the Peace & Freedom Party ticket in 1992. He was the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights from 1993-2005. Today, he serves as a distinguished scholar at York College, City University of New York. “It is termed a Black Paper, not in opposition to any other race, ethnicity or nationality,” said Dr. Daniels,“but, because there is an urgent need to address the particular and peculiar successes, failures and plight of Black people a half century after the great gathering on the National Mall in 1963”. The Black Paper is comprised of essays by several Black scholars and activists and was produced for IBW by Dr. Zachery Williams and Dr. MtanguliziSanyika, Executive and Production Editors and Don Rojas, Associate Editor. “We have assembled a document which reflects the thinking of some of the country’s brightest and best progressive, African-centered, scholar-activists on the status of Africans in America and the Pan African world fifty years after the historic March on Washington” said Dr. Williams, director of IBW’s Research Consortium. “In the best tradition of scholar-activism, this Black Paper is comprised of historical reflections and compendiums of pertinent data”. IBW hopes that the Black Paper will serve as a resource to inform the deliberations of organizations, activists and grass roots organizers in formulating action agendas to address the crises in Black communities. “We have seized on the occasion of the Commemoration to renew and revive the process of utilizing progressive, African-centered data collection and research to empower Black people to finish the journey toward full freedom, dignity, equality and equity in America and the world”, said Dr. Sanyika. “Fifty years ago, ‘a deposit was made, but the check still bounced’ and until America deposits sufficient resources to cover its debts, the future of democracy and the American experiment will be in doubt.” “This Black Paper is not conceived as an academic exercise to confirm the myriad crises and the recurrent insufficiency of the promissory note afflicting distressed Black communities”, said Daniels. “It is ultimately a call to action to Black people and all people of good will to end the class divide and to do whatever is necessary to revitalize America’s dark ghettos”.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 21:38:38 +0000
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