2003 African American Outreach Proposal

Presenter: Diversity Committee on behalf of the USGP Black Caucus

Contact:
Jason Ravin, [email protected]
Joseph Mosley, [email protected]
Anita Rios, [email protected]

Background:
We have entrusted ourselves with the obligation of humanity. Our mission is a bold yet necessary attempt to construct a movement in American society in which the very fabric of our existence is maximized to its fullest capabilities. That fabric being democracy is the visionary attempt at governance that in theory edifies inclusion, an evolving market place of ideas, and sustained diversity. Then it is so, by our mission and political nature, that we have wholeheartedly committed ourselves to representing the exploited, discriminated, and disenfranchised populous of America. This ethnic minority although is beyond our representation until they are aware that freedom, by way of electoral revolution, has a new vanguard, The Green Party of the United States. Thus, we realize the importance of outreach. We recognize the end of this movement, as we know it, absent of people of color. Lastly, we concede that we have not done enough and that we vow to do more. Our focus, our commitment, and our sincerity, will be judged by where we place our time and money. With that stated, we must finally accept that the financial support rendered for efforts of outreach to communities of African descent will be the last word on whether this party is different from those that stand in the path of true democracy.

Purpose:
This plan is a project of the Green Party Black Caucus. The Director of African American Affairs will implement this plan under the direction of the GPUS Black Caucus, the Diversity Committee and the Green Party of the United States. The intent of this plan is one of orientation and development as opposed to long-term strategic stabilization. This is an attempt to circumvent the financial restraints of the USGP by empowering the Black Caucus to raise both funds and visibility for the Black Caucus and the Green Party of the United States. Initially, the Black Caucus is seeking the approval of the entire concept, but we are only requesting the funds for the position described herein as well as the monies for the first event. The monies for the following events are contingent upon the success of the fundraising aspect of this plan.

Proposal:
The GPUS Black Caucus, in conjunction with the State and National Green Parties and the Director of African American Affairs, would organize a tour of notable African Americans to speak at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other select schools on issues of specific interest to Black America. Each respective school would work in conjunction with the GPUS Black Caucus, as well the Director of African American Affairs to accomplish this plan by providing the venue (School Auditorium or Coliseum) and financial resources to conduct the forum in exchange for the notable figures that would come to their respective campuses. A nominal fee of between $5 and $15 will be charged for people to witness the most respected minds in Black America discuss issues of interest to our country from an African American perspective. This initiative will provide the exposure to the select group of the African American populous that is most likely to vote, (if given a viable option) and for that matter, those most likely to vote Green in terms of their educational background and age. Moreover, given the notoriety of those that will be solicited it is an expectation that this will be covered by C-Span giving “The Party” the most individual press that it has received save the 2000 Presidential Campaign. (Please see C-Span Video Archive “Tavis Smiley Presents”.) Most important, this initiative gives America the opportunity to see and hear from our own African American Green Party activists, as they will be featured in the forums as well.

”TOUR OF BLACK AMERICA”
Forums on issues from the Black perspective

Possible Forum Venues and Co-sponsors:
1. Washington DC-Howard University
Co-Sponsors: Black Student Union’s from-American University, Catholic University, George Mason University, The George Washington University, Georgetown University, University of Maryland. HBCU Co-Sponsors: Bowie State College, Coppin State College, Morgan State College, and The University of the District of Columbia.

2. Atlanta, Georgia-Morehouse College
Co-Sponsors: Black Student Unions from-Emory University, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, Jacksonville State University.
HBCU Co-Sponsors: Clark Atlanta University, Morris Brown College, and Spelman College.

3. New York, NY-Columbia University
Co-Sponsors: Black Student Unions from- Cornell University, New York University, Pace University, Fordham University, The City University of New York, Manhattan College, Queens College

4. New Orleans, LA-Xavier University
Co-Sponsors: Black Student Union’s from-Louisiana State University, Tulane University, University of New Orleans
HBCU Co-Sponsors: Dillard University

Possible Forum Discussion Topics for the First Event:
1. Black America and the War in Iraq *
2. A discussion on Affirmative Action: *
3. Black America and the Prison Industrial Complex *
4. Jim Crow, Dead or Alive? A discussion on Institutionalized Racism. *
5. Black America on President Bush: A discussion on how the polices of the Bush Administration affect Black America *
6. Capitalism and U.S Foreign Policy: The Black Perspective on American Militarism *
*-TOPICS DERIVED FROM THE NATIONAL GREEN PARTY PLATFORM

Possible Forum Participants:
(All participants are known to be Independents)
Alice Walker
Angela Davis
Bobby Seal
Jim Brown
Chuck D
Claude Anderson
Denzel Washington
Derrick Bell
Nikki Giovanni
Danny Glover
Dick Gregory
Harry Belafonte
Eric Michael & Rev.Marcia Dyson
Forest Whitaker
Walter Mosley
Gill Scott Heron
Dr. Greg Carr
Haki Madhubuti
Jaculyn Reed
Jeffrey Johnson
Jesse Jackson
Jessica Care Moore
John Singleton
Keenan Ivory Wayans
Lawrence Fishburn
Lauren Hill
Manning Marrable
Maya Angelou
Morgan Freeman
Myrlie Ever-Williams
Ossie & Ruby Davis
Queen Latifa
Randall Robinson
Saul Williams
Sidney Poitier
Sonia Sanchez
Spike Lee
Talib Kweli
Tavis Smiley
Terry McMillan
The Last Poets
Toni Morrison
Tony Medina
Wynton Marsalis

Proposal Budget:
With the exception of the initial event, each forum is expected to cover the cost for the subsequent events. Thus, the primary cost of the outreach plan will be $33, 980 for the initial event, the organizer, and the website.
Washington, DC
Atlanta, Georgia
New York, New York
New Orleans, Louisiana
Airfare for Speakers: 500x7x4 (airfare*speakers*4) $14,000
Lodging for Speakers: 100x2x7x4 (hotel*nights*speakers*4) $5,600
Transportation for Speakers: 100x7x4 (travel cost*speakers*4) $2,800
Advertisement and Ticket Master Fee: $4,000
Total Expenses: $26,400
Each venue has a minimum capacity of 1500 seats with the lowest ticket cost of $5. (1500x5x4)
Total Income: $30,000
Difference-Income vs. Expenses: $3,600
Proceeds: 1/3 local GP’s, 1/3 USGP, 1/3 GP Black Caucus
Please note that this budget is a projection of the total cost for the outreach plan. This is not an indication of monies anticipated by the GPUS or the GPUS Black Caucus, as it does not account for additional sponsors. Also note that all possible expenses have been maximized and all profits minimized for cushion room.

Website:
To assist in the fulfillment of this goal, we request that the Black Caucus have a website
(gpblackcaucus.org) to advertise the aforementioned forums and to also grow our membership by using this as an avenue of outreach.
Estimated Expenses: $15 per month x 12 Months=$180
Stipend for Webmaster=$400
Total: $580

Position:
This proposal will create the position of “Director of African American Affairs”.
The Director of African American Affairs will have the duty of growing African American Green Party membership by fulfilling this plan and instituting other efforts. He or she will be chosen by the Green Party Black Caucus in conjunction with the National Steering Committee. The Director will work in the Green Party National Headquarters and will use the resources (phone, fax, paper materials, computer.) provided therein. This individual will be a member of the USGP Fundraising Committee as a liaison between the GPUS Black Caucus fundraising efforts and the USGP. The Director of African American Affairs will also be the chief liaison between the Black Caucus and the USGP national office. He/she will be responsible for building coalitions between the GP and African American organizations, churches, and notable figures as well as serve as the chief architect of GP events that will attract the African American community.

Salary/Pay:
The Director of African American Affairs shall be paid at a rate of $20 an hour at a maximum of 20 hours per week. This position shall be held for 52 weeks, at the end of this period this program will be reviewed and this position will be renewed or eliminated.
$20 x maximum 20 hours a week x 52 weeks
20,800-Maximum pay (This position does not have any benefits.)
In accordance with the objectives of the above referenced plan, the Director of African American Affairs will need an operating budget. This budget shall include airfare, travel, and any other necessary expenses accumulated as a product of performing ones job. $6000
Total: $26,800

Epilogue:
The mobilization of people of African decent is a necessity for the survival of this party. If it is decided that this is not the avenue in which we should take to change the make up of this party, in sincerity I request, let there be another plan submitted. We cannot continue to be seen by those of African decent as yet another political party patronizing, contrite, and filled with self-righteous social justice rhetoric only for short term efforts to energize a disenfranchised populous. Many refuse to join the party because we, in this respect, are no different from the two major parties. We refuse to discuss the racial implications of issues; we cloak ourselves in platform mandates that go un-funded, and we resist the efforts of many to take the necessary steps to change our homogenous membership. We have an obligation to do more for this party, for this country, and lastly for those who hold on to the Green Party as an opportunity to see the democracy only read about, thought of and dreamt of.

Rochester, NY – Join the Green Party of Monroe County for our February Monthly Meeting, where we'll join members of the Rochester Black Panther Party to discuss the history of the Black Panther Party and what is currently happening here in Rochester.

We'll also be discussing the 2019 local elections and the role both the Black Panthers and Greens can play in them.

Ajamu Baraka, the 2016 Green Party vice-presidential candidate, will be one of the speakers at the Black is Back Electoral School. Other Greens currently scheduled to participate are Betty Davis and Ralph Poynter from New York and the Rev. Edward Pickney from Benton Harbor, Michigan.

The event will be on April 6 & 7 at Akwaaba Hall, Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Students in New York's public schools should be taught African-American history the entire year, not just during Black History Month, according to Anthony Beckford, who is leading an effort to change the state's education laws to make teaching the curriculum mandatory.

Beckford, president and founder of Black Lives Matter Brooklyn, said improving the education system is the foundation for achieving racial equality. "It will eventually result in reducing racism," he told this newspaper on Jan. 30.

Brooklyn, NY – Advocate Anthony Beckford, has officially decided to explore running for the 45th City Council District, which may be vacated and up for Special Election if Councilman Jumaane Williams wins the upcoming Public Advocate Race on February 26th. Anthony has a proven track record in advocacy, legislation and safeguarding of resources for the community.

I was born to working class parents, and raised on the south side of Chicago. By 1967 I was involved in the citywide organizing effort among black high school students demanding the first black history courses and opposing the war in Vietnam. In the fall and winter of 1967 we hooked up with young Marine and Army veterans just back from the war. We took them to nine or ten black high schools on the west and south sides of Chicago where we conducted teach-ins at which they recounted stories of rapes, murders and war crimes they either took part in or witnessed but were powerless to stop. They told us we had a political and moral obligation to resist the war and the draft and not allow us to be used in the shameful way they had been used.

In January 1969 I joined the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, in which I served as part of the education cadre, responsible for conducting the party's political education classes. I also served as a patient advocate in the party's free medical center. I left the BPP about August of 1970.

In 1974-75 Bobby Rush, former Illinois Black Panther Party's Deputy Minister of Defense ran for Democratic ward committeeman in Chicago's 2nd ward. I took part in the campaign, running 5 precincts, canvassing and training others to canvass for about 60 days prior to the election. This was my first brush with electoral work. Bobby is now of course congressman from the first congressional district of Illinois.

During the mid and late 1970s I took part in a series of ephemeral community organizing efforts in the Cabrini-Green public housing project on Chicago's near north side around issues affecting public housing residents including public education, police practices, jobs the corrupt practices of the Chicago Housing Authority and more. In 1979-80 I was part of a group that planned and executed a series of highly visible protests over the fact that Chicago residents could not register to vote except weekday business hours downtown in non-presidential election years. I was arrested a few times, but we embarrassed the city into allowing Chicago's first off-site voter registration drives, and signing up about 60,000 new voters in time for the 1980 Illinois gubernatorial election. From this time until the end of the century I was involved in contesting primary elections every cycle as a volunteer or consultant or staffer or precinct captain or one of the folks who trained precinct captains, always against the Daley Machine.

I was caught in a couple of plant shutdowns in 1978 and 1981, and the second time worked with other rank and file steelworkers to gain control of our union at Chicago's old Pullman passenger rail car plant and mobilize to prevent the shutdown. We seized the local union but were betrayed by our international, and 3,000 of us were put on the street that year. All through the 1980s I worked on campaigns against the Daley Machine in Chicago, including the 1983 and 87 mayoral campaigns of Harold Washington. In 1984 I worked in the congressional campaign of Danny Davis, who now represents the 7th district of Illinois, and the Jesse Jackson presidential campaign that season, and the 1987 Chicago mayoral campaign. I ran field operations for primary election campaigns in 1988 and 1990 in which we decisively beat the Daley Machine. I also recruited and trained the first Local School Improvement Councils for five Chicago Public Schools in the Cabrini Green neighborhood in the 1988-1991 period. I gained a reputation for running successful voter registration drives and field operations against the Daley Machine.

In 1992 I was tapped to be one of three field organizers responsible for the summer and fall voter registration drive leading up to the general election that year. Our director that year whose chief responsibility was fundraising was a guy fresh out of Harvard law with no political experience, but a quick study and a great fundraiser. We took him around to the people we'd organized in our previous 15 years, our union folks, our people in public public housing, in neighborhood organizations and the like. His name was Barack Obama. We signed up 133,000 new voters in four months and chased them out to the polls. Afterward I took a job in the Elections Department of the Cook County Clerk's office responsible for registrations and elections in the suburban half of Cook County, where my responsibilities included training deputy registrars and prospective candidates for local office, writing manuals and some other stuff.

I left Chicago at the end of 2000, and moved to Georgia. In 2002 I took a week off to work in the congressional campaign of Rep. Cynthia McKinney, and afterward published a critical assessment of the effort online. The article attracted the attention of Glen Ford and we began collaborating with Margaret Kimberley to produce an online journal called the Black Commentator, and in 2006 we founded Black Agenda Report, a weekly journal of news, commentary and analysis from the black left published each and every week.

In 2009 I joined the Georgia Green Party. To tell the truth the GA Green Party, like the national party had a lot of problems when I joined it, most of which I have learned are reflected in the experience of Greens in other states as well. Assessing, addressing and overcoming them is more than just a notion, it's been a journey of several years here in GA, but I believe we are in sight of being able to build a party with a mass base here, capable of putting a couple hundred people in a room in Atlanta, and a hundred or more in Macon, Savannah and Augusta within a year, leasing a permanent meeting place in Atlanta and one other location, and launching a successful drive for ballot access in Georgia, with or without aid from the national party or its presidential campaign.

I was also a staff person in the 2016 campaign of Jill Stein, until I had to leave because of illness. I contributed to the ballot access and campaign plans, to Jill's tour of NC and GA, composed a number of mailings, operated parts of the web site, and more.

At the GP's 2016 Annual National Meeting, I worked with Howie Hawkins of the NY Green Party to prepare and present what was undoubtedly the best attended workshop of that year's offerings, on the subject of transforming our party into a dues paying membership organization, the model followed by successful opposition parties almost everywhere in the world except the US.

The Green Party of the United States National Black Caucus has voted to endorse the National Prison Strike beginning on August 21st, 2018 and ending on September 9th, 2018.

Background: Incarcerated persons in prisons across the nation are declaring a nationwide strike in response to the riot in Lee Correctional Institution, a maximum security prison in South Carolina. Seven comrades were killed during an uprising that could have been prevented had the prison not been so overcrowded from the greed wrought by mass incarceration, and a lack of respect for human life that is embedded in our nation's penal ideology. These incarcerated persons are demanding humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation services and programs, sentencing reform, and the end of modern day slavery.

The national controversy over those who choose to protest racial injustice in America by placing one knee on the ground during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t seem to be going away. The NFL announced a policy last May that any players who protest the anthem while on the field will be subject to discipline from the league. Here in Carbondale, Illinois, where I reside, Southern Illinois University – or, as I like to call it, Self-Impaling University – impaled itself once again by announcing a policy forbidding student athletes, cheerleaders and spirit members from engaging in “displays of activism” while in uniform. Thankfully, after a public outcry, the university quickly reversed itself.

The AFRO recently ran an op-ed by an author who called out the Democratic Party for allegedly supporting immigrants’ rights over African Americans’ rights. While we wholeheartedly condemn the xenophobic nature of this line of reasoning – exemplary of the divide and conquer patronage-style politics of the Democratic Party – we agree that the Democratic Party has not done well by us in recent decades.

After years of being taken for granted and taken advantage of, our community has been left black and blue. Bruised up but far from beaten, many elder African American civil rights leaders in Baltimore, including the four of us, are participating in an exodus from the Democratic Party to become members of the Baltimore City Green Party (BGP). Here are three reasons why we think this is the strategic move for our community, our city, and our country.

Ho hum. Another racist murder. Another Trayvon Martin. This time in Clearwater, Florida. Raving racist Michael Drejka deliberately provoked a fight with a Black woman over a convenience store parking spot, got shoved by Markeis McGlockton, her boyfriend, and then took careful aim and drilled the Black man in cold blood.

Act two, as tragedy turns into farce. "He had to shoot to defend himself," said Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. "Those are the facts and that's the law."