------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 6, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
BLACK HISTORY MONTH FORUM: "KING WAS AN INTERNATIONALIST" By Bill Hackwell San Francisco A multinational crowd celebrated Black History Month here in the African American Art and Cultural Complex on Feb. 22. The educational event was co-sponsored by the Inter national Action Center and the African American Historical Society. LeiLani Dowell, a student and youth organizer with ANSWER, chaired the event. She explained that ANSWER was serious about creating a genuinely multiracial movement. "Poor Black students are being offered two career paths," she said, "the military and the prison-industrial complex. We need to link up the struggle for civil rights with the anti-war movement." Jean Damu from the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America explained that the reparations movement isn't just about the huge sums stolen from Black people beginning with slavery, but is also about retrieving the culture of Black people and providing an economic future. Other speakers included Glen Nance from the S.F. African American Historical Society and chair of the African American Studies Department of City College, and Bill Jennings, editor of It's About Time, a newsletter of alumni of the Black Panther Party. Jennings focused his remarks on the legacy of the Black Panther Party and its relevance to today's struggle for civil rights. Ted Frazier of the NAACP told the crowd that when he was in Florida investigating the stolen election that put Bush in office in 2000, it became clear to him that the Democrats were as negligent in assuring a fair election as the Republicans. The keynote speaker was Clayborne Carson, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University. He explained the importance of not letting the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. be reduced to a few of his well-known speeches. The media do this, implying that he struggled for civil rights and now this has been achieved. Martin Luther King Jr. was an internationalist, said Carson, and should be seen in that context today because we live in a world that is still built on a system of colonialism and oppression. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
