WASHINGTON, D.C. – New York State Assemblyman Charles Barron will be one of the noted speakers at the January 14, 2017 National Rally for Black Self-determination in Washington, D.C.
Barron, a controversial figure on the New York political scene for decades, has a 40-year history of activism that includes membership in the Black Panther Party in 1969.
From 2001 to 2014 when he was elected to the New York State Assembly Barron was a member of the New York City Council, a seat he used to win major benefits for his district and from where he attempted to advance legislation for reparations for African people.
The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is the organizer of the D.C. Black Self-determination rally that comes on the heels of its successful November 5th and 6th National Black People’s Convention.
Two days after the Washington, D.C. Black People’s Convention Donald Trump was elected president of the U.S. to the dismay of the Democratic Party and many black people who depended on Hilary Clinton’s election as U.S. president to function as protection from the demagogic billionaire white nationalist real estate mogul.
The Black is Back Coalition, chaired by Omali Yeshitela, has been engaged in a nearly 8-year-long effort to win the African population in the U.S. to a stance of self-reliance, independent of the Democratic party that it has defined as just another tool, along with the Republican Party, of the ruling capitalist class responsible for the exploitation and oppression of blacks and the oppressed of the world.
In addition to Barron, speakers will include Glen Ford, executive editor of the Black Agenda Report, Margaret Kimberley, Marsha Coleman-Adebayo and Toni Taylor, mother of a son murdered by the St. Louis Police Department in 2014.
The list of speakers and endorsers continue to grow, according to Yeshitela who stated, “Our Coalition is determined that the January 15th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King will not be celebrated by bigots who see the inauguration of Trump as a new beginning in the annals of U.S. oppression of African people.
“Our January 14th, Rally for Black Self-determination is our statement that our struggle continues and, indeed, Black is Back,” he declared.
