Panelists
Panelists Bio's (Click on Image)
Chokwe Lumumba - New Afrikan People's Organization
Omali Yeshitela - African People’s Socialist Party
Glen Ford - The Black Agenda Report
Ajamu Sankofa* - National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America
Ivory Sobukwe-Sodaye - Internation People's Democratic Uhuru Movement
Dr. Aisha Fields - All African People's Development and Empowerment Project
*Affiliation for Identification Pursposes Only
Chokwe Lumumba is the National Chairman and a co-founder of the New Afrikan People's Organization (N.A.P.O.). He has served as NAPO's chairperson since its inception in 1984 having been re-elected to the position in 2001. As a member of NAPO, Lumumba has led and/or participated in the organization's community youth programs, anti-crime patrols, political education forums, legal service clinics, and various other community service activities.
Brother Chokwe, in 1978-79, was a co-founder of both the National Black Human Rights Coalition and the Detroit Black Human Rights Coalition. Brother Chokwe has not only pursued and protected human rights on the streets, but he has championed the same in the courts. He graduated with honors from Wayne State University Law School in 1975 after finishing first in his freshman law class in 1973-74. As an Attorney, Lumumba served as co-counsel and a plaintiff in a successful anti-racism lawsuit against Wayne State Law School in the 'winter of 1979.
In 1977, Chokwe Lumumba briefly served as Attorney for Black Liberation Army Solider, Assata Shakur, in a murder case which was dismissed in Brooklyn, New York. Brother Chokwe has also defended Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Fulani Sunni Ali and Bilal Sunni Ali. All three were charged in the 1981 Brink's case (The Free the Land Case). All charges were dismissed against Fulani and Bilal was found not guilty of all charges against him. Dr. Shakur was also charged with the liberation of Assata Shakur from Clinton Prison in 1979. He was unjustly convicted of all charges in 1988 and is now a prisoner of war at Atlanta Federal Prison in Atlanta, Georgia.
Lumumba is a member of the National Conference of Black Lawyers. He is the Senior Attorney of Lumumba, Freelon and Associates in Jackson, Mississippi and of counsel to Jeffery Edison and Gerald Evelyn in Detroit, Michigan.
Fiery, uncompromising and courageous as the leader of the movement for a liberated Africa, Omali Yeshitela has struggled for black freedom for 40 years.
Leader of the Uhuru Movement, and Chairman and founder of the African People’s Socialist Party, Yeshitela continues to be on the frontlines of struggle, building African-worker controlled institutions, developing ground-breaking political theory, writing countless books and articles, speaking worldwide, fighting for reparations, galvanizing allies, influencing the popular culture and bringing African people together to liberate Africa and all its resources.
Omali Yeshitela has faced arrests, trials, imprisonment and personal sacrifice in his struggle to complete the Black Revolution of the Sixties. Chairman Omali never stopped building fighting organizations in the interests of the African working community. He survived the U.S.
government's attack on the Black Power Movement of the 1960s that imprisoned, assassinated or silenced most black revolutionaries by driving them underground. For this he has been called "the last man standing.
- Built the African Socialist International, an organization made up of African people in Africa, the U.S., the Caribbean and around the world to liberate and unite Africa and all its resources as the birthright of African working people everywhere. Its founding congress is scheduled for March 2008 in West Africa.
- Made reparations for African people a household word after he launched the first International Tribunal on Reparations for African People in New York in 1982. The Tribunal ruled that African people are owed $4.1 trillion in reparations for stolen labor alone. Twelve subsequent sessions of the tribunal have been held in various cities around the country. The latest session of the Tribunal will be held in Berlin, Germany in June 2007.
Campaigns and organizations:
- Freed Dessie Woods, sentenced to 22 years for defending herself against a white man who tried to rape her in 1975.
- African National Prison Organization, 1980.
- African National Reparations Organization, 1982.
- Measure O, the bold Community Control of Housing Initiative that won 22 percent of the vote in Oakland, CA in 1984.
- Acquitted in 1990 when brought to trial for defending African youth being harassed by the police;
- International Peoples’ Democratic Uhuru Movement in 1991 to defend the democratic rights of the African community.
- Led the community fight back after the police murder of 18 year old TyRon Lewis and the subsequent police attack on the Uhuru House in 1996. The Clinton administration was forced to send in his HUD chief and hold hearings by the Human Rights Commission.
- Ran for mayor of St. Petersburg in 2001, winning all the black and mixed precincts but one.
- Built the Florida Alliance for Peace and Social Justice in 2001, the only African-led anti-war organization.
Built African working class-led institutions and businesses:
- Umoja restaurant, St. Petersburg FL, 1970s
- African Connection Bookstore, Louisville, KY, 1980
- Florida Black Voice newspaper, Gainesville, FL, 1981
- Spear Graphics printing, Oakland CA, 1980s
- Uhuru Bakery Café, Oakland CA, 1987
Historic "firsts," "mosts," and "onlys" are the hallmarks of Glen Ford’s long career.
The son of famed disc jockey Rudy “The Deuce” Rutherford, the first Black man to host a non-gospel television show in the Deep South – Columbus, Georgia, 1958 – Glen was reading newswire copy on-the-air at age eleven. Glen’s first full-time broadcast news job was at James Brown’s Augusta, Georgia radio station WRDW, in 1970 – where ‘The Godfather of Soul” shortened Glen’s surname to “Ford.”
Glen Ford worked as a newsperson at four more local stations: in Columbus, Georgia, Atlanta, Baltimore – where he created his first radio syndication, a half-hour weekly news magazine called “Black World Report” – and Washington, DC. In 1974, Ford joined the Mutual Black Network (88 stations), where he served as Capitol Hill, State Department and White House correspondent, and Washington Bureau Chief, while also producing a daily radio commentary. In 1977, Ford co-launched, produced and hosted “America’s Black Forum” (ABF), the first nationally syndicated Black news interview program on commercial television.
ABF made Black broadcast history. For the next four years, the program generated national and international headlines nearly every week. Never before – and never since – had a Black news entity commanded the weekly attention of the news services (AP, UPI, Reuters, Agence France-Presse – even Tass, the Soviet news agency) and the broadcast networks.
While still host and co-owner of ABF, Ford in 1979 created “Black Agenda Reports,” which provided five programs each day on Black Women, History, Business, Sports and Entertainment to 66 radio stations. The syndication produced more short-form programming than the two existing Black radio networks, combined.
Ford also produced the McDonald’s-sponsored radio series “Black History Through Music,” aired on 50 stations, nationwide.
In 1987, Ford launched “Rap It Up,” the first nationally syndicated Hip Hop music show, broadcast on 65 radio stations. During its six years of operations, “Rap It Up” allowed Ford to play an important role in the maturation of a new African American musical genre. He organized three national rap music conventions, and wrote the Hip Hop column for Jack The Rapper’s Black radio trade magazine.
Ford co-founded BlackCommentator.com (BC) in 2002. The weekly journal quickly became the most influential Black political site on the Net. In October, 2006, Ford and the entire writing team left BC to launch BlackAgendaReport.com (BAR).
In addition to his broadcast and Internet experience, Glen Ford was national political columnist for Encore American & Worldwide News magazine; founded The Black Commentator and Africana Policies magazines; authored The Big Lie: An Analysis of U.S. Media Coverage of the Grenada Invasion (IOJ, 1985); voiced over 1000 radio commercials (half of which he also produced) and scores of television commercials; and served as reporter and editor for three newspapers (two daily, one weekly).
Ford was a founding member of the Washington chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ); executive board member of the National Alliance of Third World Journalists (NATWJ); media specialist for the National Minority Purchasing Council; and has spoken at scores of colleges and universities.
Ajamu Sankofa is a lifetime member of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) and its former National Secretary. He is also a long-time member of the National Conference of Black Lawyers.
His ideological perspective is Pan African with a committed African-centered approach to revolutionary Black Nationalism and revolutionary socialism.
Mr. Sankofa is a human rights public policy specialist. His expertise is in the area of criminal justice, public health, and healthcare. As a former trial lawyer for the ACLU National Prison Project, he represented incarcerated people throughout the United States against violations of their eighth amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. During this time, Mr. Sankofa directed the Prison Project’s AIDS Project and wrote the first in the nation model policy for the prevention of AIDS among incarcerated juveniles.
As the Director of New York City PoliceWatch of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, he organized legal support for victims of police brutality that never makes the headlines. As the Executive Director of the NYC Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, he helped to lead community campaigns against environmental racism.
He is a founding member of the Private Health Insurance Must Go Coalition and is the National Co-Chair of the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Health Care. Mr. Sankofa also directs the Urban Leadership Program at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education of the City University of New York.
Ivory Muhammad is the International President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) with branches in the North America, Europe and Africa.
Born on August 17, 1975 in Jackson, Mississippi, her father was a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizer in the 60’s whose family’s home was bombed because of his constant agitation against the State and his inspiring determination to free African people. She is also the daughter of Sanovia Muhammad, a former member of the New Afrikan Peoples Organization (NAPO) and former leadership of the New Afrikan Women’s Taskforce.
While growing up, Ivory became more and more aware of the harsh conditions of life for African people as it began to affect her personal life consistently. She witnessed many police raids, and experienced unfair treatment by the police towards her own brothers.
Ivory was introduced to the All African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP) while living in New York. Her family moved from the AAPRP to become members of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement around 1985. While a member of this organization, Ivory participated in the New Afrikan Scouts and the New Afrikan Panthers, which was the youth wing of the movement.
These stepping stones in her life helped her to understand her role in the liberation struggle of African people and opened her up to the strategy of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM). Ivory began to recognize that African Internationalism was the foundation necessary to gain true freedom — politically and socially.
Ivory Muhammad is currently a member of the African Peoples Socialist Party, which gave her a true understanding of the war on African people across the globe and the necessary strategic plan to remove all borders in order for African people to be united as one. She began to recognize that capitalism handicaps African people worldwide, and that socialism is necessary to the healthy survival of African people.
Ivory Muhammad holds a Bachelors degree in sociology and has obtained her Masters degree in social work.
Dr. Aisha Fields is a physicist coordinating the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Projects, programs of the African People’s Socialist Party involving African working communities on the Continent of Africa and around the world.
The development and empowerment projects will put community-implemented and controlled power and water purification infrastructure on the ground in Africa and other places throughout the world that African people are located.
With her physics background, Dr. Fields is laying down plans for simple sustainable programs using solar energy, micro-hydro power and wind harnessing that will create electricity as a renewable resource on the African continent that has been devastated by plunder for 500 years.
Dr. Fields is also designing easy-to-implement community programs for rainwater harvesting and purification that can bring accessible water, hygiene and sanitation to parts of the African world with no access to clean water.
As a member of the African People’s Socialist Party, Dr. Fields explains that, “The underlying cause for the water crisis in Africa is the exploitation and purposeful underdevelopment by the U.S. and Europe which control the post colonial states of Africa.” The development and empowerment programs involve African people from the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean and the Continent of Africa as part of the struggle for one united Africa as the birthright of African people everywhere.
Dr. Fields holds a Ph.D. in Applied Optical Physics from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University.
