Joseph Littles-NGUZO SABA Charter School Walkathon!

A 1000Mile Walkathon for African-Centered Education
We will keep you up-to-date on this historic and vital 1000 mile walk. It will not be on TV. But, we can push our local southern news stations to cover the cover. I have only included the last 20+ minutes of the press confab. You can look at the first half of the press confab on youtube.

Wednesday July 15 at 9AM the 1000mile journey will begin in West Palm Beach and wind its way up to Jacksonville, FL via Route 1.

Thursday 13 August will be when we all can join the trekkers from West Palm Beach at a celebration whose time and location will be announced later.

For all those interested in joining the Walkathon for African Centered Education, please go to: http://jlnscs.org/index.php/walkathon for details. Of course, financial contributions are greatly appreciated! And, I'm sure they will take in-kind services like, copying, computer/camera/software donations, bottled water, walking shoes, sweat bands, first aid needs...

SCHOOL’S FOUNDER TO WALK FOR AFRICAN-CENTERED EDUCATION

Florida’s only African-centered public school today announced that its co-founder and current Board Chairman, Amefika D. Geuka will walk from the school to Washington, DC to dramatize the urgent need for African-centered education for children of African descent. Geuka and his colleagues have dubbed this venture a “Trek for African-Centered Education,” to be conducted from July 15th through August 12, 2009. In addition to gaining credibility for African-centered education, the walk is expected to raise money to close the funding gap for Geuka’s Joseph Littles-NGUZO SABA Charter School which completed ten years of continuous operation on January 20th of this year. Overall coordination and planning for the walkathon has been contracted to iZania, LLC based in Columbus, Ohio.

Geuka’s walk will cover 1,011 miles, with pledges being sought for every mile walked by him and dozens of expected collaborators along the route. Geuka and surrogate walkers plan to average 33 to 35 miles per day, requiring 10 to 12 hours. Walkers will depart from the school at 5829 Corporate Way in West Palm Beach at 9:00 AM on Wednesday, July 15th, and culminate on or about August 12th with ceremonial stops at the U.S. Department of Education and White House where prepared statements in support of African-centered education will be read.

African-centered schools in the nation’s capital will be asked to host a victory rally after the statements have been read. Both President Barack Obama and his Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have spoken strongly in favor of public charter schools, which are designed to explore creative and innovative approaches to educating students who do not fare well in traditional public schools. Geuka and other advocates and practitioners of African-centered education argue that theirs is the most effective way to encourage children of African descent to aspire to be successful in education and personal development.

The African-centered approach to providing a strong cultural foundation for children of African descent is being adopted across the country by school districts, public schools, private schools, and charter schools. This pedagogical approach is gaining acceptance as an important and necessary component in the development of Black children. They draw parallels between the ‘ACE’ approach and the generally accepted contention by Jews and Catholics that their respective students learn best when their formal education is rooted in study and appreciation of their own heritage history, and culture.

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Capitalism's Crises Analysed

Video: Anwar Shaikh on Marx and the Global Economic Crisis

Submitted by Erin on June 9, 2009

Anwar Shaikh, Professor at the New School for Social Research, gives a Marxist account of historic fluctuations in the capitalist economy and how the current crisis fits in the overall picture. From the Marx and the Global Economic Crisis panel at Left Forum 2009, New York.

Shaikh's homepage, which includes an extensive selection of his articles on economics, can be found here: http://homepage.newschool.edu/~AShaikh/

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Video: David McNally on Marx and the Global Economic Crisis

Submitted by Erin on June 9, 2009 - 2:59pm.

David McNally, Professor at York University and leading member of the New Socialist Group (Solidarity's sister organization in Canada, www.newsocialist.org), talks about the roots of the the financial crisis and its precise role in the worldwide economic downturn--as well as the depth of its social costs. From the Marx and the Global Economic Crisis panel at the 2009 Left Forum in New York.

WALL STREET INTERVIEW WITH SAM ANDERSON

Dr. Samuel Anderson, at March on Wall St. from All Things Harlem on Vimeo.

An interview given on April 3 at a Bailout the People! Rally on Wall St. Produced by All Things Harlem: A Black Independent VideoJournalist and Creative Collective dedicated to making progressive and positively Black videos to help uplift our people and push the Black Liberation Movement forward.

Elder Veteran FreedomFighter
Speaks Truth To Power

Subtley, Rev. Lowery gives props to Liberation Theology, Black History of Resistance & Struggle and Rev Wright. Since his closing benediction there has been a ton of commentary... most of which has been negative by whitefolks and their negro allies. But, the millions of ordinary everyday Blackfolk and veteran Black activists who listened/watched knew what he was trying to do: That Barack Obama's rise to being the most powerful man on Earth comes out of a long history of Resistance and Struggle that Obama and the world must honor and never forget.

Rev. Lowery, in essence, did what any African Elder would do: Charge Obama with being a righteous being out to preserve and advance humanity. Anything short of that will be the work of the Devil capitalism loves.

Without True Black History, There Would Be No WORLD History

Without True Black History, there would be no WORLD History... much less American History (North, South, Caribbean). True Black History is not only a history of Resistance & Struggle. It is also a history that reveals that capitalism was shaped by it... from its very inception. It is a history that reveals that European culture was shaped by it from its very inception.

Black History is a way of exposing the TRUTH about Humanity's journey to Now. What we should be celebrating/remembering/passing on is the inextricable link between the history and struggles of African Peoples- captive and free- and the evolution of US History/ Civilization and World History/Civilizations. Not promoting a history of assimilation into a beastly culture as the Tuckers of the world get trotted out to spew and legitimize.

We can no longer separate from the US or any other part of the Americas as we can separate from our melanin: we are in and of the Americas... just like we are in and of Africa. We are that dualness that Dubois spoke over over a hundred years ago... but now even more so. This does not mean that we have to embrace assimilation and submit ourselves to whims of whitefiolks and capitalism. This means that we recognize we were capital producing capital with our bodies, brains and wombs....This means that at the very core of our ancestors' daily existence was resistance and struggle so powerful that it shaped nations and economies the world over.

So... it is not about getting into white history books. True Black History ERASES those white history books. White supremacy ideas and policies get exposed for our children and the world to see when True Black History is taught and studied.

Black History Week was a political and psychological weapon used by Carter G Woodson and others to counter the in-your-face-racism Black encountered everyday of their lives in the early part of the 20th Century. Black History Month today- right now -must have the same purpose because in-your-face-racism is still here along with a deeper in-your-mind-racism never dreamed of by Brother Woodson. We use this month's celebration and commemoration to recruit and rejuvenate. Recruit even more of our people into understanding that Black History IS World History and a history of Resistance and Struggle for Liberation and Self Determination. Rejuvenate those of us who are weary of the Struggle to Be Free... and, in turn, rejuvenate our organizing and institution-building efforts.

If we celebrate Our History of Resistance and Struggle in this manner, the rest of the year will be about applying what we have learned from our ancestors' unrelenting quest for Liberation... and making them beam with pride.

In Struggle,
Sam Anderson
Feb2009

My Open Letter to President-Elect Barack Obama On the Gaza Invasion

Note: I sent this to change.gov's foreign policy section on January 8, 2009.

President-elect Obama must come out and condemn what Israel is doing in Gaza. Otherwise, US citizens and the world who voted for him and supported him for the sake of change, have only been awarded with a change in personnel in charge of using Israel as a surrogate Middle East cop to help maintain imperial and racist rule. President-elect Obama can speak as a Public Human Being. He does not have to hide behind his not being president yet.

The world interprets his silence as support for Israel's genocidal invasion into Gaza. Just look at the millions of people demonstrating all over in every manner possible. If he does not come out with a strong condemnation of this invasion, this will be one of President-elect's Achilles Heels... tripping him up thruout his tenure as the 44th US president.

Obama can be the real agent of change on this issue. He has the majority of US citizens and the world behind him. Hence, he need not cave in to the rightwing Israeli lobbyists and US proIsrael military-industrial complex forces so emboldened by the Bush-Clinton policies.

Here's what progressive Palestinian people have to say to President-elect Obama:


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Obama's deadly silence

Ali Abunimah The Electronic Intifada 2 January 2009

"I would like to ask President-elect Obama to say something please about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced right now by the people of Gaza." Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney made her plea after disembarking from the badly damaged SS Dignity that had limped to the Lebanese port of Tyre while taking on water.

The small boat, carrying McKinney, the Green Party's recent presidential candidate, other volunteers, and several tons of donated medical supplies, had been trying to reach the coast of Gaza when it was rammed by an Israeli gunboat in international waters.

But as more than 2,400 Palestinians have been killed or injured -- the majority civilians -- since Israel began its savage bombardment of Gaza on 27 December, Obama has maintained his silence. "There is only one president at a time," his spokesmen tell the media. This convenient excuse has not applied, say, to Obama's detailed interventions on the economy, or his condemnation of the "coordinated attacks on innocent civilians" in Mumbai in November.

The Mumbai attacks were a clear-cut case of innocent people being slaughtered. The situation in the Middle East however is seen as more "complicated" and so polite opinion accepts Obama's silence not as the approval for Israel's actions that it certainly is, but as responsible statesmanship.

It ought not to be difficult to condemn Israel's murder of civilians and bombing of civilian infrastructure including hundreds of private homes, universities, schools, mosques, civil police stations and ministries, and the building housing the only freely-elected Arab parliament.

It ought not to be risky or disruptive to US foreign policy to say that Israel has an unconditional obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention to lift its lethal, months-old blockade preventing adequate food, fuel, surgical supplies, medications and other basic necessities from reaching Gaza.

But in the looking-glass world of American politics, Israel, with its powerful first-world army, is the victim, and Gaza -- the besieged and blockaded home to 1.5 million immiserated people, half of them children and eighty percent refugees
-- is the aggressor against whom no cruelty is apparently too extreme.

While feigning restraint, Obama has telegraphed where he really stands; senior adviser David Axelrod told CBS on 28 December that Obama understood Israel's urge to "respond" to attacks on its citizens. Axelrod claimed that "this situation has become even more complicated in the last couple of days and weeks as Hamas began its shelling [and] Israel responded."

The truce Hamas had meticulously upheld was shattered when Israel attacked Gaza, killing six Palestinians, as The Guardian reported on 5 November. A blatant disregard for the facts, it seems, will not leave the White House with George W. Bush on 20 January.


Axelrod also recalled Obama's visit to Israel last July when he ignored Palestinians and visited the Israeli town of Sderot. There, Obama declared: "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

This should not surprise anyone. Despite pervasive wishful thinking that Obama would abandon America's pro-Israel bias, his approach has been almost indistinguishable from the Bush administration's.

Along with Tony Blair and George W. Bush, Obama staunchly supported Israel's war against Lebanon in July-August 2006, where it used cluster bombs on civilian areas, killing more than 1,000 people.

Obama's comments in Sderot echoed what he said in a speech to the powerful pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC, in March 2007. He recalled an earlier visit to the Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona near the border with Lebanon which he said reminded him of an American suburb. There, he could imagine the sounds of Israeli children at "joyful play just like my own daughters." He saw a home the Israelis told him was damaged by a Hizballah rocket (no one had been hurt in the incident).

Obama has identified his daughters repeatedly with Israeli children, while never having uttered a word about the thousands -- thousands -- of Palestinian and Lebanese children killed and permanently maimed by Israeli attacks just since 2006. This allegedly post-racial president appears fully invested in the racist worldview that considers Arab lives to be worth less than those of Israelis and in which Arabs are always "terrorists."


The problem is much wider than Obama: American liberals in general see no contradiction in espousing positions supporting Israel that they would deem extremist and racist in any other context. The cream of America's allegedly "progressive" Democratic party vanguard -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Howard Berman, New York Senator Charles Schumer, among others -- have all offered unequivocal support for Israel's massacres in Gaza, describing them as "self-defense."

And then there's Hillary Clinton, the incoming secretary of state and self-styled champion of women and the working classes, who won't let anyone outbid her anti-Palestinian positions.

Democrats are not simply indifferent to Palestinians. In the recent presidential election, their efforts to win swing states like Florida often involved espousing positions dehumanizing to Palestinians in particular and Arabs and Muslims in general. Many liberals know this is wrong but tolerate it silently as a price worth paying (though not to be paid by them) to see a Democrat in office.

Even those further to the left implicitly accept Israel's logic. Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive, criticized Israel's attacks on Gaza as a "reckless" and "disproportionate response" to Hamas rocket attacks that he deemed "immoral." There are many others who do nothing to support nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation and colonization, such as boycott, divestment and sanctions but who are quick to condemn any desperate Palestinian effort -- no matter how ineffectual and symbolic -- to resist Israel's relentless aggression.

Similarly, we can expect that the American university professors who have publicly opposed the academic boycott of Israel on grounds of protecting "academic freedom" will remain just as silent about Israel's bombing of the Islamic University of Gaza as they have about Israel's other attacks on Palestinian academic institutions.

There is no silver lining to Israel's slaughter in Gaza, but the reactions to it should at least serve as a wake-up call: when it comes to the struggle for peace and justice in Palestine, the American liberal elites who are about to assume power present as formidable an obstacle as the outgoing Bush administration and its neoconservative backers.

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, Ali Abunimah is author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (Metropolitan Books, 2006). This essay was first published in The Guardian's Comment is Free and is republished with the author's permission.



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Arnie Duncan As Ed Secretary is Great News for the Privateers and Bad News for US Education

Here are a couple of reactions to Obama's choosing of Chicago Schools head Arne Dunce to be his Secretary of Education.

From me...
Arne Duncan is a very WRONG choice for Ed Secretary if Obama's seeking CHANGE in the nation's education crisis. Arne Duncan is a Continuator of the No Child Left Behind Mess. He is another noneducator who is pro-privatization, pro-hi stakes testing... a minimizer of parental and student involvement, a- at best -middle of the roader when it comes to curriculum reform. He is NOT an advocate of nonEurocentric curriculum development. Rather, he favors the replication of elite white private schools' a la KIPPS Academy- not cultural literacy and culturally relevant teaching and learning. Obama's choice of Duncan tells us that is in agreement with the Bush-Bloomberg-Klein policies of further institutionalizing public schools as cash cows for big business and anti-intellectual centers for workingclass children. Further, the selection of Arne Duncan signals the continuation of Schools-as-preprisons within our mainly Black and Latino urban centers. He may last two years in this position, furthering the spiralling national education crisis and throwing billions at big business's versions of "education solutions." Fellow Educators for Real Change, our fight for quality free public education, our fight to repeal the No Child Left Behind Mess, our fight to mandate antiracist curricula continues.... We clearly have our work cut out for us. Sam Anderson
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From brianroa@hotmail.com...
Arne Duncan called Englewood students a "culture of failure" as Chicago Public Schools worked on charterizing that school. Senn High School got called a "dumping ground for immigrants" at a school board meeting by an advocate of a naval academy being bulldozed into Senn. Senn has students from over 50 countries. Julian High School students have endured being called 'trash' by those who demonize it for being a school which accepts students displaced by Renaissance 2015. Renaissance 2015, AKA Renaissance 2010, is the school 'reform' plan trumpeted by Duncan, designed by Chicago business interests, and unrolled by Mayer Daley.

Duncan and his cartel want to privatize schools and need radical rhetoric in order to justify the destruction of this public good. Students and the teachers get demonized and become collateral damage in this violence .

Schools are badly in need of improvement. Parents and the community are desperate for good schools in an environment where schools are starved for funds.. Well funded schools and slick PR campaigns, followed by Duncan's talking points of 'choice,' 'accountability' and 'children first,' deceive the public into believing that we are receiving the best possible schools for children. A false dichotomy of "accept the status quo or accept privatized education is spewed throughout." No viable alternatives are considered.

Education is a basic human right. All people have a right to equitable education. Chicago's two-tiered school system showers a small minority of schools with vast resources and warehouses the rest of the students. The warehoused students then get slandered and attacked when their school needs to be shut down to make way for 'better' students.

This is the system that Duncan represents. He is a smooth-talking destroyer of the public good.

Now's the Time for a National Black Education Agenda

Sisters and Brothers in Education,

We all know the dire state of Black Education in every sector: preK-16, public and private. We all may not agree on how we got into this state of education emergency. We all, therefore, not agree on how we can stop this downward spiral. But we all can agree that we gotta do something NOW!

I suggest that we have an opportunity to start on that hard, bumpy spiraling road to victory with a set of unprecedented historical convergences: Obama becoming president of the US, the economic crisis, the environmental crisis and the national educational team assembled under Sister Prof.Linda Darling Hammond.

Obama's presidency has inspired millions of Blackfolk to come out of a decades long political slumber. Among these millions are millions of young Blacks 35 and under who are directly or indirectly inspired to see themselves in a more positive light. It may not be an immediate effect, but positive effect it will be. Hence, over the next few years, there will be great opportunities to recruit more Black men and women into the education field.

The economic and environmental crises are hiliting the need for the US to take bold economic steps in the field of public works on rebuilding the US infrastructure and new forms of producing energy. The fallout from the US auto industry will also bring new industry- but not as labor intensive as auto production. President-elect Obama has proposed a 2.5 million jobs producing economic stimultant that will require thousands of educators in all education levels.

In order for us Blackfolk not to repeat history and continue to be on the edges of major social and educational reform, we a need to put together a bold vision of we can be at the very center- and, at times, its leadership -of the educational developments needed to support this economic and environmental challenge.

It is in this context that I offer an outline for us to discuss and build upon to present to our Good Sister Prof Linda Darling Hammond and her transition team. She knows, like you and I, there are many great Black minds out here who have thought thru and implemented brilliant educational policies. I think in this historical moment (and that's all we have- a moment) we can find a way to maximally tap into thos great Black minds and deliver a proposal from national united body of Black Educators to her transition team who would have no option but to incorporate all or major parts of our proposal into the nation's challenge to make education relevant to reversing the economic and environmental crises and to bring antiracist reform directly into US education policy.

What we should present to Prof. Linda Darling Hammond (and I'm sure you have many other proposals!);

• Repeal the NCLB Act

• Education is a Human Right. Have US policy abide by the International Declaration of Human Rights mandates around education

<http://nesri.org/fact_sheets_pubs/Right%20to%20Education.pdf>

• Create an African American Education Commission/Dept/Working Group that would create and oversee policy relevant to the education goals and needs of people of African Descent in the US. It would be a distinguished group of scholars, education activists, students, public school teachers and administrators. This would be a permanent and fully funded group within the US Dept of Education (Obviously, this implies a Latino/Asian/Native American groupings as well- even tho Native Americans already have theirs)

• Mandate the teaching of Black History/Latino History a central curriculum core from PreK to 16

• Create a Black History/Latino History Teacher Training & Curriculum Development Department that links to Education schools (public and private)

• Create a national Urban Science & Technology Department that:

(a) institutionalizes the recruitment and retention of Blacks/Latinos from preK to 16 to join the teaching and/or industry sectors of science and technology

(b) brings skilled science and technology jobs and training to the Black and Latino neighborhoods

• Guarantee that our HBCUs get First Call on all of the above efforts by having them represented at all levels of the National Program (the "Devil's in the Details" here)

Like I said, there are obviously a lot more national proposals we can and should add on. And there are a lot of complex details that need to be worked out. We have the Black Talent to do this. I am suggesting that we submit to Prof. Darling Hammond a proposal that has the necessary skeleton to be fleshed out within the US Dept of Education.

Our time is very short. We need to submit our proposal while the Transition Team is still working. This means we have about two or three weeks of deliberation to do among ourselves. Then, by the first week in January, have it in the hands of Prof. Darling Hammond with signatures of all those individuals and organizations who support this proposal.

No matter who is the next Secretary of Education, we need this proposal. Even more, OUR Children need to know that we progressive Black Educators came together, discussed, argued, united and created a powerful National Black Education Mandate for the First Black President.

I look forward to your critiques, queries, proposals, strategies and tactics.

In Struggle,

Sam Anderson