 For a long time, we've been wanting to do something like something that has to do with anarchism and Black struggle. I mean, that's been like locally and like the center of most of the really important organizing that's happened to me over the past, you know, six or so years that I've lived here, and I'm sure longer than that. You know, just like through my own introduction into anarchism, it wasn't like, like the very first anarchist conference I went to was organized by queer Black women anarchists, and the very first like anarchists, like someone who I thought was like a real anarchist revolutionary, you know, at the top was, you know, Chauncey Alston, former, you know, Black Panther, you know, Black Liberation fighter of decades, and so sort of like my understanding of anarchism was not like this white sort of subculture notion, you know, peri bourgeois, you know, white boy kind of stuff that people say anarchism is. It was, you know, people who are really like, there's a lot of Black and Brown people who are, you know, dedicated to revolutionary ideas. And, you know, when I look around me at who's actually struggling, it was oftentimes it was not just people of color, but specifically Black people. And yet when you see like the people writing about what is anarchism, it was always like a white academic you've never seen in the streets next to you. And so I always felt like, you know, we need to hear the voices of the people who are actually doing the organizing. We're not, you know, we're not always getting like, if we're only listening to like, and I don't have a problem with like academics, I'm an academic, but we're only listening to like academics who are sort of like right about struggle, and not listening to the people who are actually doing the organizing, then we're not getting, you know, there's a lot of important lessons that we're missing. So, first we want to start, so we have a comrade who was a journalist with a background in history and sociology and he's a Black internationalist who's been sort of covers Black liberation struggles globally. And he was in Sudan during the uprisings and was going to talk about some of the lessons from a sort of a Black anarchist perspective, what are the lessons of the uprisings of Sudan, what can we get from that. And he was going to live stream in, but he's been traveling, he's actually, so it just wasn't going to work out. So yesterday he recorded this message that he wanted to, specifically he recorded this message for this crowd. And so we're going to hear that first. He was in Sudan, but he's recording this from Chile, and he's just constantly traveling. So he's in Chile talking about what he learned during the uprising while he was in Sudan. So I'm going to do that first and then we're going to introduce a panel of some of our Black Rose comrades from different parts of the United States and here, some of the important things that they have to say. I'll introduce them after we play this message from Mohamed first. So let's do that. Hello, everybody. I'm Mohamed Al-Na'im. I am not in Sudan right now. I was in Sudan and I was a participant in the revolution, but I'm currently talking to you all from Chile. But I wanted to talk about the Sudan revolution. I want to go too deep into the historical context, but I wanted to mainly go on how it can help people in the United States and elsewhere reflect on the art of revolution. But just to be brief, Sudan protests began on December 13th in the peripheral city of Damazin, before they reached Adhura on December 19th, and then domino effects happened where each city began to protest. They were protesting against austerity measures, which made prices really, really cheap and really, really expensive. Unaffordable ATM machines, empty and life miserable. But it wasn't just these were not just bread riots. They were protests against a dictatorship that had entrenched itself, a military dictatorship that entrenched itself into that for 30 years. The protests began in the neighborhoods. They began mainly among the youth. But quickly, the Sudanese Professionals Association came and became the leader of organizing the protests, at least within the central city of Khartoum when they hit there. The Sudanese Professionals Association is actually a coalition of illegal banned unions that were operating underground and preparing themselves for a time when a revolution like the one that did happen happened. And they quickly gained the support of the streets. And they demanded, they set up the declaration for freedom and change, which was released on January 1st, demanding a complete transition to civilian rule, saying that the organization, that the revolution is not just against the dictator, but is against the whole system that's existed for 30 years and demanding a complete transition to democratic and civilian rule. The opposition parties joined in with the Sudanese Professionals Association and together they created the forces for freedom and change. Now, within the neighborhood level, neighborhoods were rising up and they were also becoming really organized into neighborhood councils. And the neighborhood council movement is independent from the Sudanese Professionals Association, but until very recently has worked in tandem with the Sudanese Professionals Association and the forces for freedom and change. Now, in order to stop people from getting constantly exhausted of going out into the streets and risking arrest, risking being beaten up and risking being hurt, there was an ingenious decision to do a sit-in and various sit-ins across Sudan in front of the military headquarters demanding an immediate transition. They did these on April 6th, 2019, and these were done right outside the military headquarters on April 11th, Omer el-Bashir, the dictator of 30 years, was finally overthrown. And the next day they tried to bring someone else to replace him, but because they saw him as the transitional military council, the people that deposed Omer el-Bashir brought someone else. The people didn't like him either because they said that he had blood in his hands too. Within 24 hours, the next dictator in chief, the dictator to be, was overthrown. And then he was finally replaced with a safe person. Now, the people who were responsible for doing all of this overthrowing were terrified at the fact that people were getting organized in the streets who were terrified by the fact that general strikes were shutting down the country. And were just terrified by the fact that workplaces were being shut down and occupations were happening in front of the military headquarters. These people were called the transitional military council. The forces of freedom and change have the support of the streets and have the support with the money from the diaspora. People live outside. The transitional military council has the support of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, counter-revolutionary Egypt. All the other countries were terrified of a transition to democracy in Sudan. They've been at a, for the past few months, they have been at their deadlock in conversations. For freedom and change, they've demanded civilian rule. They're demanding some kind of rule, some kind of rule in the transitionary period, which has been agreed upon to be four years, so that they can dismantle the deep state. Then the massacre happened. This is the thing that made everyone sort of aware of what was going on in Sudan. The massacre happened on June 3rd and sort of immediately after that, there was a huge social media campaign. They raped people, killed them, threw bodies in the Nile. And this was all done by the transitional military council, which is led by the military, supposedly, not really. But actually a group called the Rapid Support Forces, which emerged out of the Genjuid and militia that was sponsored by the government to commit the genocide in 2003. Those people support the UAE in Saudi Arabia, Egypt. Those are the people that were responsible for the disgusting massacre that we all heard. Thankfully on the day of the massacre, I wasn't there, but a week later, I had to go to Kenya with some other activists and continue organizing there. We created the first, one of the first Pan-African declarations of Sudan. But that's on the side. The most important thing right now is within the occupations, the military, the occupations outside of the military headquarters, we saw a world that we wanted to see. There was radical solidarity, there was radical democracy, there was mutual aid. All of the sort of under the most important principles of anarchism were being practiced in real life. We saw that we didn't necessarily even need the nation-state to be able to find bonds of love and solidarity in ways that don't exist even in the so-called most advanced Western capitalist societies. Now, I could continue talking about how amazing this revolution was, and I'm sure that I could do that a lot, and I'm sure that you'd all be very interested in that. But I think what's much more important is to talk about modes of organization and how this journey's experience is useful. So that we move beyond the mentality that often plagues the American and European left of solidarity with those struggles over there, from actually learning from each other and seeing each other as being in one struggle and the struggle for human emancipation. Now, Sudan, I think, was a very sophisticated struggle that hasn't gotten its due, and I think it's still unfortunate that we always have to see ourselves in the cycle where only when a tragedy happens, like the massacre in June 3rd, do people actually understand what's going on? What's happening in Sudan, I think, comes from the fact that Sudan has a rich revolutionary history. Sudan was one of the first post-colonial countries to have a revolution against its own dictators for the Revolution in 1964, against General Arboud in the Revolution in 1985, against General Nimeri. And for a country that's very young, it's also been the country that's had the most cruel attempts, and it's the country that would only within six years or seven years, since the independence that we even had civilian rule, the vast majority of the time we've been under military dictatorships. But what this has meant has also been, and there's been a cultivation of a strong cultural resistance. We talk about the revolution beginning in December 2018, but in reality for the past 30 years, there's been an underground movement of people risking arrest, often getting arrested to organize and prepare for something like this to happen. Within Sudan, a huge vehicle for this underground movement has been the Sudanese Communist Party, which, with the onslaught of neoliberalism, of course, meant that it used to have its base in the workplaces, but with the factories closed down, its base has changed, but it still has a strong base of support among the intelligentsia, among university students, and among professors and these kinds of things. I think it's these kinds of groups have a culture that I think the U.S. and many other groups, many other countries can learn from, because I think one of the first things is that it genuinely believed and believed the 30 years and took the risks and got arrested in a space where you don't have liberal democracy, you know, that revolution was possible. When you genuinely believe a revolution is possible, then you're willing to actually make the sacrifices that are needed to make personal sacrifices, right? I think one thing that people in the United States and Europe tend to do is you have a protest against police brutality, that's what you do, you go to the police station and they write down a statement for you saying, okay, you can protest at this specific time and we'll escort you. So you have this paradox where you're walking and you're marching with everyone else, marching against police brutality, and you're being escorted by the police, right? It's all part of this sort of skeptical, skeptical of liberal democracy where you have, you know, people joining in and reinforcing the liberal democratic sphere, so the forces in power can say, ah, you see, we allow you to protest. Isn't this why democracy is so great, right? And so protests become this way of reinforcing the liberal democracy. They also become sort of like carnivals, you know, like, you know, you can protest today, you know, the police have this sort of list of protests that are going to be happening today. And number one, you know, is going to be the protest for the whales and number two is going to be like the protests for against police brutality. And then, oh, number three, the fascists are going to protest against the Afghans refugees, you know. I mean, that, and nothing really happens from there, you know. You don't have, one of the things in Sudan, for example, is you had the sacrifice within the universities. You had strong culture of constantly, just like the soapboxes in Harlem that you hear about in the 1920s. You had constant talks and discussions, but you also had a strong system of building a cadre base of dedicated activists who will travel across the country and spread the word and entrench themselves in different neighborhoods and build neighborhood councils so that if the situation was to occur, they'd be prepared. People who were well known in the neighborhood, people who have achieved the respect from their neighbors. But one of the problems you have in the United States is you don't know your neighbors, you know. And so we can have all these deep conversations about radical democracy and sitting down in neighborhood councils. But if you don't know, if you live in a building and you don't know the person living right next to you and the person living right there, how is the revolution going to happen? So what you end up having is you have subcultures of activist communities who tend to be like, don't genuinely, genuinely don't really believe revolution is possible. And subcultures of activist communities are like any subculture. You've got the cyberpunk subculture, you've got the otaku, you've got the activists, you know. It's all, again, all part of the spectacle of liberal democracy. I think one of the things is, there has to be a level of seriousness of building neighborhood councils and starting somewhere you're at, you know. And there has to be the belief that things can actually change. That's something that, I mean, I have, believe me, when I talk about the Sudanese revolutionary class or whatever you want to call them, intelligence or whatever, I am extremely critical. But these are things that I can't deny that within the only way in which a group like the Sudanese professionals association could come to the fore is because of the sacrifices of people who for decades have brought down cultural resistance. And this cultural resistance, not just through the Sudanese Communist Party, but that's one of the vehicles, has allowed for them to be able to seize the moment, develop a declaration, draw a roadmap for the future. And throughout that process, they've had to endure so much torture. You know, you don't, you don't, if you want to start protesting Sudan, you can't. It's not even, you know, it's not, it's not even something like that. And I think at the end of the day, it's also one of the things that I found quite refreshing. That sort of the activist culture was that it wasn't about like, you know, I mean, I make this complaint a lot. And for me, especially since coming back from Sudan, I've been making it a lot. It's like, it wasn't about the performances that you could make about your identity or, or, or, you know, how oppressed you are or whatever. It was about what you do. And that was the basis that was a fundamental basis for how a person or an activist was judged, right? Maybe they might not speak the right lingo. They might not, they might not be able to read the most deep texts and they don't know the biggest concepts, but these are people, a person who's a revolutionary, is a person who is trusted because in their community they're able to talk to the elders and they're able to talk to children and they're able to connect with them. They're able to deal with teachers and they're able to deal with students. They're able to deal with the community in ways that they're seen as members of that community and they're able to build a neighborhood council. They're able to find out who's starving in the community and provide some support and food for them. These are the kinds of people who are delegated authority within the neighborhood council movement. These are horizontal movements that spur spontaneously throughout the revolutionary process. There are lessons there. There are lessons in building neighborhood councils. There are lessons in building organizations of dedicated cadres. And all of these lessons can allow for a genuine, you know, throughout the process. Anarchism perhaps is the most important philosophy, not because people have read Kropotkin or whatever, but because in struggle and in scarcity when things are not, you know, have an abundance of things, they do anarchism in practice and in that sense, you know, mutual aid has sort of been a motor. I think that the same could be done in the United States or in Europe, but it would have to be, first, a move away from anarchism as a subculture to anarchism as something that's genuinely concerned with building mass movement and move away from just the reading groups to actual action and building your basis of support. And being prepared for when things happen. And I think, again, another thing that's really important is also to have an international consciousness. What can you learn from Haiti? What can you learn from Zimbabwe? What can you learn from Sudan? Where are the pitfalls? What are the consequences? Reaching out to different activists? Finding out what worked and what didn't. These are all things that can happen that can allow for reinvigoration to happen. But if our preoccupations and our concerns, or whether or not Black Panther is a Hollywood movie, the cause is the revolution we've been waiting for, or whether the Oscars are white or not, and if our energy is in the wrong place, then these kinds of revolutionary movements and actions won't happen. And how much of this kind of subcultural stuff is actually just consolation for people moving up the ladder and becoming the next presidential candidates or business people or whatever. How much of this is a phase that you'll grow out of? These are questions that need to be asked. Once that spell gets broken, then I think we can start to see tangible actions that take inspiration from these different movements. And I think it's possible that maybe I am having a hard time adapting back to the old activist spaces I'm in, but these are some of the reflections I've had. And I think that it's important to have a base of activists so dedicated and prepared for a revolution. It's important to have neighborhood councils and to build community where there is none, because capitalism destroyed those communities. I think then we can start to talk about a Black anarchist vision. And nothing taught me that more than my experiences incident. So those are sort of some of my jump-up thoughts and some of the historical background and context. And I'm looking forward to hearing how the discussion goes later. Thank you. So we've got our Comrade Morgan from Little Rock, Arkansas. And then following Morgan we're going to have, we're going to hear from our Comrade Servio from Providence. And then following that we'll hear from Amber from Miami. And I want to turn the mic over to them. Hi everyone. I'm Morgan. I guess I just tell something about myself. I have started doing organizing, actually anarchist organizing around three or four years ago. I've started in anti-fascist organizing. I think one of the challenging things as someone who's Black and working in that kind of space, I started having challenging myself with these questions like what is anti-fascism? And I guess one of the common misconceptions, or I will call it misconceptions, people think it's just against neo-Nazis. I remember Charlottesville when that question was really critical. I think that was one of the critical moments where people had to question like what is anti-fascism? Is it just a bunch of angry white men marching in the street? Or is it something that's systemic? And we started questioning like even the micro transgressions against so-called allies who told, who tried police-like behavior at Charlottesville. And I think even still today, even Kumball or Urban had like a message or a warning to the anti-fascist movement. Not let it become another white rights movement where white people, one, take center of the platform, it seems like it's like an adventurous and some kind of game where you just get some kind of clout and not actually like leave, or not relieve, but fight against systemic oppression where you have the police, ICE, capitalism that's in communities where there's electrification, there's labor and all like multi interlinks with one another. But that's one of my few experiences I want to talk about. Thank you for that. Thank you. We're recording a lot today. I'm going to media. So yeah, frankly, I haven't decided yet on what to speak on. Everybody who's part of my organization kind of knows that at this point because I'm good at it. But so, you know, I'm trying to like balance whether to talk about experiences stuff or more theoretical stuff. I guess I'll talk about the experiences. I'm personally involved in the incarcerated workers organizing committee locally in Providence, Rhode Island. And for those who don't know, the incarcerated workers organizing committee is a section of the industrial workers of the world. I walk is a committee dedicated to a committee dedicated to supporting incarcerated people who are organizing themselves against the carceral system. And also of outside comrades who are also fighting against the same carceral system. And it's a challenge, you know, to do that type of work. I myself am not formally incarcerated. But it's one of the things that brought me to that work is, you know, recognizing the shortcomings of the protest movement that emerged after the Ferguson uprising, right. And, you know, recognizing that obviously, you know, there's a need to develop grassroots basis of struggle in all areas of society within Black Rose. There are ongoing debates of how to interpret those different areas of society. One way that we've come to understand it or interpret it is by recognizing that there are different sectors of social struggle. And so, you know, I've been trying to reflect again on the shortcomings of the protest movement after Ferguson. And then, you know, understanding that struggle as a struggle that occurs on the neighborhood level, right, or rather, police violence and racialization occurs on the territorial neighborhood level. But at the same time, it's in inextricably connected to the prison as a site of domination and control. Right. So therefore, if we are going to want to be able to challenge police in a broader sense, one, we're going to get arrested. After we get arrested, what do we do? If we find ourselves further in the carceral system, do we interpret ourselves as like not being able to organize anymore? Or do we continue organizing? Some of those things are, you know, are what had been running through my mind, you know, since 2014. And in 2015 is, you know, when I learned about I walk a little bit more and got involved. I mean, the prison as a site of struggle is one that is extremely important or has featured prominently in contemporary black thought. But the topics of confinement have been found through all black thought, you know, since enslavement and colonization. And so, I mean, one of the things that I was, you know, debating whether or not to discuss here is the legacy of Martin Sostre. How many of you do know who Martin Sostre is? Okay. Interesting. Cool. So for those who don't know Martin Sostre was a black Puerto Rican who lived in upstate New York in Buffalo. He helped found the Afro-Asian bookstore, which was exactly that, a bookstore. But beyond that, it was a record shop and a place for literature and learning for people in the neighborhood. It could have been in 65 or 66, something like that. The police in Buffalo had killed a young black kid and a riot ensued or a protest ensued that then turned into a riot and full rebellion. One of the things that had occurred is that the police targeted the Afro-Asian bookstore and framed Martin Sostre as the supposed, you know, orchestrator of this thing. Right. And, you know, he was arrested alongside another person that had also been working there. And the reason why I bring up Martin Sostre and his, and that experience is because Martin went through a political transformation from having been in the nation of Islam. And then turning to black nationalism and then while inside turned to anarchism. And what people know today as black anarchism arguably emerges from Martin Sostre. A lot of folks may be more familiar with Lorenzo Camboba-Urban. Martin Sostre was his mentor. And the reason why I think that genealogy is important is because, for one, we tend to not... Well, for one, we are more familiar with the genealogy of classical anarchism, that being Kropakian, Bakunin, Houdon, who the fuck else, Emma Goldman, etc. Right. But when we talk about black anarchism, it tends to be in a tokenized way, to be quite honest. Where we point to Ashanti Alston, then we point to Lorenzo Camboba-Urban. And then we kind of... And then that serves as a recognition that they're black and that they're anarchists, serves as a stand-in for, let's say, anti-racist politics or whatever. Right. So I learned about Martin Sostre through Lorenzo Camboba-Urban, following him online and stuff like that. And the genealogy is important, or this history is important, because Martin encountered anarchism through having received support from anarchists internationally. There was an international campaign that formed to free Martin Sostre. People are a lot more familiar with Free Huey as a defense campaign of the 60s. But there was also many other defense campaigns throughout the 60s and 70s. And Martin Sostre's case was one of those. And I think that his struggle and his contributions intellectually to anarchism are extremely important. And I think one, a thing that we have to return to. When I say that his struggle itself was, or the struggle around him, I think would more so be accurate. Because the reason why I think it's important is because in having been framed up, right, and there's actually a documentary if you want to go see it, it's called Frame Up. Focus specifically on Martin Sostre. The way that he handled his legal case, he knew that he was not going to get a fair trial. And so what he did was use the court as a venue through which to educate those who were in support, who were attending the actual court sessions, right? And he was there, you know, like challenging, like directly challenging the judge, the lawyers and all this. And laying out an analysis of colonial society, of the way in which, and this is actually pretty important, they try to describe him as like, what the hell was it, as paranoid. And so he challenged those things directly, asking, well, what exactly is paranoia? You know, how can this court recognize me as paranoid simply because these white doctors describe me as such, right? And so it's interesting that he challenged those dynamics of racial domination. Because I think he was pretty attentive to the psychological aspects of colonialism, domination, etc. And that's something that I personally believe is missing in contemporary anarchism and, you know, anarchism more broadly, attentiveness to the psychic aspects of domination. And those weren't the only things that he had, you know, challenged at that time, right? The legitimacy of the police to even have detained him and all this other stuff, right? At the time he cited a lot of the Vietnam movement that was occurring, so the anti-war movement, but also the actual struggle in Vietnam, right? And so what I think that type of stuff points to is that at the time that the trial was going on, he was not yet an anarchist but was a black nationalist. And his turn to anarchism, I would argue, was, I think his turn to anarchism, he brought with him all the other previous influences and more specifically the anti-colonial influences. And when it comes to anarchist thought and the anarchist, you know, historical tradition, when there's not much attention paid specifically to colonialism. There was this guy, his name was Camilo Bernieri, and apparently he was an Italian internationalist that was involved in the Spanish Revolution and was also reflecting on the Spanish Revolution. One of the arguments that he brought up was that in order for the Spanish Revolution to have won or to win, because I think this was in the midst of it, in order for that, yeah, this is 36, 37, in order for that to have to win, the Spanish Revolutionary Forces had to declare their support for Moroccan independence. And it wasn't like a simply like a moralistic thing of like we need to show our support to, you know, to oppress people who's elsewhere type of thing. It was more so a recognition that the Spanish, I don't know enough about the Spanish Revolution, but the reactionary forces, basically the state and reactionary forces were using Morocco, the colonial base as the place from which to launch their counterattack against the movement. So that I think points to, it's a thread that I haven't really seen picked up in many other places, and I only came across this because of a publication in Brazil called Anti-Colonial Anarchism that we're working through trying to translate. And, you know, in that they engage the topic of colonialism and anti-colonialism and what it might mean for anarchists and anarchist thought to incorporate more anti-colonial perspectives. So I don't know, how am I on time? You have as much time as you want. Okay. So, yeah, the reason why I bring that up in relation to Sostre is because he had an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist perspective. While, again, people refer to Lorenzo Comboa-Urban and Ashanti Alston, I don't feel that there's enough engagement with actual black thought, with anti-colonial thought, with anti-racist thought, abolitionism, etc. So I think there's a challenge for us to actually deepen our understandings of these topics and to not simply incorporate those analyses and understandings, but deepen them. What does it mean today to gain a better understanding of, you know, colonialism and anti-colonialism today? Right? What does that mean in relation to black people's autonomous struggles today? And, you know, if we do look at the way in which black anarchism has emerged since Sostre, he does call out directly, as a matter of fact, you know, what he calls Uncle Tom's at that, you know, in that moment, those black middle-class professional people who threw him under the bus when he was being, you know, targeted and stuff like that. This, in later anarchist thought, develops as an analysis of neocolonialism, right? And neocolonialism, new forms of colonialism, the ways in which former or colonized subjects get incorporated into certain power structures, etc. So, you know, these understandings of colonialism and neocolonialism, I think, again, point us to a direction of how to deepen our thought and where to go in our understandings of how to get free today. And, I don't know, for the sake of time and coherence, I guess I'll end with a quote from the introduction to Martin Sostre in court. This was a zine that was produced by the Martin Sostre Defense Committee in 1967. It has recently been republished and recirculated by Southern Chicago anarchist black cross zine distro. The intro was written by Lorenzo and he was part of recovering this piece of text and getting it out there. And the thing is that, you know, he wanted to bring this back into circulation so as to recognize the legacy of Martin Sostre and place a, you know, to give certain respect to that history, but also to lay out, you know, some ideas for what contributed to his conversion, to anarchism, what contributed to his turn to anarchism, and what the task might be for black and other anarchists of color today, right? So here he's talking about, you know, how, while he was inside, while Lorenzo Comboa was incarcerated, that's when he met Martin Sostre. Comboa Irvin had been at that time imprisoned for, I think it was like hijacking a plane from East Germany going to Cuba because it was socialist, so he thought he was going to be good. And, well, he got extradited and sent back to some shit. So, you know, he's talking about his discussions with Martin Sostre and, you know, the way in which Sostre was trying to impart on him some, you know, some ideas about libertarian socialism or anarchist socialism or whatever. And he says, the initial ideas for black autonomy within the overall anarchist movement came from these sessions. As a black Puerto Rican, Sostre felt alienated from his community. And since much of the analysis about black oppression on socialism was by white radicals, he had originally gravitated into black nationalism. It was only later during his time in prison that he gravitated into anarchist socialism. He told me endlessly that socialism and anarchism were for all people, not just Europeans, and well-to-do intellectuals. It was universal. At first, I had serious doubts about all this, as it seemed to me just more white radical student ideology. They were not sympathetic to the black struggle, and they were not working class or poor. Sostre's ideas, however, were that anarchists of color must build their own wing of the anarchist movement. He didn't call it black autonomy, but that's what it was. So, you know, I think what stands out to me about that is the last lines, right? That anarchists of color must build their own wing of the anarchist movement. And I think that's a task that we have to figure out, you know, what that actually looks like, right? I won't fully read the rest of the thing because I'll probably bore you. But the other section that's relevant here is, like Sostre has said, actually what he talks about a little after that is the ways in which we tend to think of, again, anarchism as a European thing, simply because it emerged from in the continental Europe and then amongst European migrants here. What he argues is that each ethnicity and, you know, each group had its own character of anarchism, right? So Italians had their own forms of anarchism in the U.S. when they moved here. Germans did as well, Jewish did as well, right? And so he argues that it should be no fucking surprise that there is a thing as black anarchism that emerges. And, you know, I think we are at a point where we are now where black anarchism has more circulation as an idea, but I think we still, again, have to deepen what these things mean in practice. Like Sostre has said, we must manufacture our own anarchist of color school of thought and revolutionary practice. Nobody can truly speak for us and fight in our name. Black autonomy means independence of thought, culture, and action. We are not racial separatists, but we must be sure that we are strong enough to insist on our politics, leadership, and respect within any broader universal movement. We have been sold out, left out, betrayed and tricked too many times by internal racism inside majority white coalitions and movements. Black voices matter. That is why I wrote a small pamphlet in 1972, Anarchism in the Black Revolution while I was in prison in 79. So, you know, that, I guess that's my thought. What does it, what will it mean or what will it take for us to actually build our own wing of the anarchist movement and to continue building our own independent revolutionary movements to actually get free? Hello. My name is Amber. I'm coming from Miami. And currently in Champaign, Illinois, I wanted to touch a bit more on, I guess, the general subject of genealogy and collective memory revisionism. But I guess using anecdotes that I've personally experienced, particularly from the last six months to a year that I've been involved in particularly tenant organizing and also trying to develop my creative voice as a writer for red voice news, particularly writing on behavioral economics and how the 2008 financial crisis affected Black lives in particular. A couple of days ago, we arrived in Chicago and the first thing we did when we got off the play was go see the Haymarket Affair Memorial. I believe it's in the Forest Park. It's in a very nice cemetery, very clean. Nice statue. Emma Goldman also had her own bust. Someone left the condom. And near Emma Goldman were about two dozen revolutionaries, anarchists, persons who purported themselves to be revolutionaries and closer to the actual Haymarket Affair statue, but a very eschew into the right and very hidden was Lucy Parsons grave. No flowers, a bare gravestone. It seemed as though it was the same type of gravestone used for the journalists and the individuals that were closer to Emma Goldman's grave and bust that had been added at a later date. So it was very clear to me that not only was her gravestone an afterthought, but it was eschew. It wasn't aligned correctly with the other gravestones. It was nowhere near Albert Parsons name. It was nowhere. I think that I personally could find the first couple of times walking around like graveyard and that experience really set in stone, so to speak for me. It's a memory as anarchists and how a lot of the times we love to just go to the Haymarket Affair, you know, memorial and like look at the statue and feel good and take pictures. You know, and not even really give it a second thought and not really even thinking about questions will probably be at the end. That will be at the end. But I guess my main point being that it seems collectively as anarchists though, not only do we lack understanding of black issues but we also lack memory. And I feel as though that's a really grave issue and also kind of drives from the point that separatism is valid and creating our own institutions and our own organizations and our own structures is unfortunately in most cases very much needed for black revolutionaries and more specifically for black anarchists. Because when we just put them all together, it seems like the black person's always askew into the side and dead like everyone else, but given less respect. We don't honor them in the same way. I guess I primarily wanted to talk about black genocide in the context of Miami, the city in which I currently live. So 37% of black people in Miami have zero network. And this is more than the 15% of black people in Miami who are unemployed. And the median income necessary to own a home in Miami is $71,000. Meanwhile, the median black income is 2122. So being very much aware of those realities being very much in touch with them have chosen to dedicate a lot of my time to tenant organizing. I live in the historic neighborhood of Overtown that has been left in a state of decay. However, a lot of our current tenant efforts are in another area known as Brown School, which is right off the train station. And about a 15 minute drive away. Every time we've had a public meeting for the tenants union, there has also been an accompanying shooting same day, sometimes same hour as the tenant union meeting. And in a lot of cases, it tends to scare those very individuals away from not only attending, but from even interacting with tenant organizers. And more to that point, it's not. I feel uncomfortable even calling them comrades, but our white comrades who go out and interact with these very communities often do so in ways that are counterproductive to building not only trust and relationships with said tenants but empowering those very tenants. And instance that comes to mind in particular. And I really hope this isn't too specific for anyone in Miami listening. But this is stuck in my mind for a couple months now. We were, I don't even think you were canvassing that particular day or just like, hang out in the area talking to people. Walking around really trying to get a lay of this particular complex as not only had it been left in a state of disrepair, but it was exceedingly hazardous to the residents living in that complex. And not only was there mold, but there'd been a fire, an electrical fire that had just kind of blown up an area and just was kind of left there with exposed wires and it just rained the night before so there were puddles in that area and this is low income subsidized housing. So there are a lot of children live in this very complex and we were there. It was about five organizers and a visibly white female organizer interjected in a situation where a black child was crying in a corner and she looked at the father of that child and she looked at the child and she didn't really think about what the situation may have been to lead to that situation and immediately went to this child and was like, hey, it's okay. What happened? Are they hurting you? What's going on? It turns out this child was 12 years old, being a three year old child and had pushed them into a puddle near this electrical area and had gone to cry to avoid discipline. And the father came over and fully ignored this organizer and went to speak to his son as any father would and told him that what he did was wrong and that he should know better by this point in his life and if he didn't then he needed to talk through his emotions because what he was doing was wrong. And I feel as though these biases prevalent in white organizers are more toxic to the community and more toxic to these relationships than even they realize and they could know. Because I have gone canvassing and I've interacted with this person since then and a lot of the times when they're door knocking a lot of people don't answer when they're at the door anymore in this particular building. And a lot of people were answering the door when they were knocking in the first place and it just makes everything a lot harder and it seems to be not only a lack of self awareness and a lack of, I don't even think it's a lack of self crit. It's not really applying and practice the theory that you purport to be following. And it's just turned out to be really difficult and tenant organizing because I believe I'll be at this area is for 80% black of the tenant organizers. Organizers not tenants that we've worked with only two of us are black and I am the only black woman in this organization. Furthermore, from that, particularly politically will go to speak specifically to health issues and to mold and to contamination in these apartments. And these other organizers will feel bold enough, comfortable enough to walk in there in a color coordinated Bernie Sanders 2016 t-shirt with their $500 bike curly blonde hair and blue eyes. I understand that to be particularly specific, but it's just it's a very serious problem and I feel like even within black rose day to day I feel as though it goes exceedingly unaddressed. I'm not going to speak to the demographic makeup of our local apart from to say that again, I am the only black woman. I am the only black person. And although my comrades have been accommodating accommodation isn't necessarily enough as it is not my role to educate you on your practices and on your biases every single day. That is not my role in the organization that is not what I have choose to do with my time and I don't believe that it is appropriate, particularly in a city where nearly 20% of residents in the city of Miami are black. However, I will say 71% of Miami is Hispanic or Latinx. However, in that number, it is unclear as to the ancestry of those people, indigenous, African or otherwise. So it's been difficult organizing around that and finding ways to cope with the biases that affect the movements of everyone around you all the time. And then also perhaps through tokenization perhaps because people just believe in me as an individual feel the weight and the pressure of having to not necessarily do everything yourself but being kind of the lone voice on a lot of issues. Or the lone person to represent myself. So I feel as though calling back to the Euro synthesizing anarchism, calling back to our genealogy as anarchists. I feel as though we look a lot at written history we look a lot at that record. However, it needs to be noted that that record is exceedingly incomplete in not just aspects of black liberation. But earlier today we had a discussion on disability justice and how integral these communities are in struggles and how unfortunately a lot of the times it ends up that we are the torch bears of these movements, and then the authors of the pieces that are movements are based off of tend to be white. Another thing that I wanted to address before we get to questions is my blackness. I view myself before my gender identity as black. You may not recognize me as my gender identity. However, based on how I look, you automatically recognize me as black. And I feel as though I come to you as flamboyantly as I am hoping to be heard. Because I feel as though when I enter spaces and don't present myself in a particular way, I am heard less or I am not heard at all. And it really sucks. So those are just a few anecdotes. I was hoping for a couple questions, comments from the audience and we can move from there. We had a couple things to plug at the end as well. I just wanted to leave some space open at the end. So if people are able to line up if they have questions or comments, because I feel as though if you just raise your hand and maybe you're further back, it would be more difficult to hear you than if we had sort of like a line of people, Comic-Con style coming up and talking. Just a logistical suggestion. There's a mic back right there. So another solution might be to circulate that mic. The problem is that it's not wireless. If people could come up the ramp on the right side of the stage, your right, my left, and use the mic there, that would be appreciated. I think it looks pretty sturdy, ma'am. I hope it's sturdy. It's not all sue. I love noise. I'm actually going to be doing a drone set in a couple months that I'm pretty excited for. It's probably going to sound exactly like that. Sir, on the second row, what was your comment earlier? Testing. I believe for other graveyards, other grave sites, you can actually raise funds rather to restore these sites. And particularly if they're run by the Illinois Historical Society, then I definitely believe that is a worthwhile campaign and something that should be emphasized and pushed. By any organized Illinois. I have a response to that. How many anarchists I have in this room right now? How many anarchists do I have in this room right now? Raise your hands. What does the term direct action mean? Right. So that's the lousy excuse. People can always fix pit holes. Everyone brags about those white kids in Portland fixing those pot holes, right? But you can't, like, ten, you know, eight graves of Lucy Parsons. So I don't get that. I'm sorry. First of all, I don't really have a car because I'm a disfranchised play person who's dying of cancer, but yeah. The thing is, look, even if that may be... Can you call off him leaving? Okay, well, bye. Wow. You prove everything. I just want to make a comment for the podcast. The gentleman who made the comment about the Illinois Historical Society has just now gotten out with his wife. He's seen the women buries and left the room. He also confronted one of our panelists and asked how many roses did you leave at Lucy Parsons grave in response to the objections to her treatment? It writes itself. Oh, really? Wow. What I was going to say to him, and I'll say to all of y'all, is that even if the things that he was saying are true, where's the writing? Where is the reflection of the efforts to actually challenge that historical society? Where are the efforts improved that anarchists have attempted to, you know, change how Lucy Parsons grave currently exists right now? To anybody who shares his thought. So are you in the interest of time for two more questions? Whatever's needed. Yeah, that's fine. Let's do two more questions and then wrap up to the time issue. I probably spoke too much. You really? I probably spoke too much. Are you coming to the kickback? This was like an afternoon here, and I didn't know how to go. It's time to go. And when I walked in, I thought, oh, I'm going to see all my comrades for the very first year. And I have it. And I don't know why. I feel like you know why. I know I know why. Okay. I've been a revolutionary for about 50 years. Okay, so I know a lot of things. And why? We're at war. Okay. Life goes a dime. It's a dime. Muslims, they want to, you know, they're killing them internationally. So I'm sorry, Lucy Parsons was given, you know, but everybody in the workforce, everybody in the education system is Lucy Parsons. Absolutely. And I'm going to share with a few stones. So at this point, I think one of the things I want to say is, is that your name? Servio. Servio. I really like what you said, because for me, it's been a very long time. And at this point, like I said, I've been here for a year. The only person I'm talking to on Facebook is God. So, you know, I think one that, that suggested France, the non, the non has studied you a long time ago. Okay, so before that, like you said, I can think about colonialism in the struggle in this country. Okay. I've been a revolutionary in New York. It was a black, a Puerto Rican, and a communist came together and made a group, compulsorily. And, you know, we didn't talk about colonialism because I used to tell the European thing that was up for this. We talked about anything here. So when I went to this reading room, it really, some of the things you said, it really opened up. It really just opened up a new, a new lane. And I think that people have to see, and I said this at another meeting, and I think it's true that, you have to see, there's an international struggle. Everywhere Trump has been, there's been a step up of oppression, whether it was Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, everywhere he's been. So that's one thing, just we don't see this as an international struggle. We take small, new issues, and we fight to the death. And it ain't, it don't mean nothing. It may, it may be an injustice. It may be too bad. But it's not the fight. We don't have the luxury, at this point in history, not to take on the struggle. They're, they're definitely organizing and have been for a long time. You know, they're training, they're weaponry, they're everything, they're training. A week that new, excuse me, okay? So I just think that that's one of the things that is one of the things you'll large crowds whenever I get in front of a large crowd, maybe. And the other thing is that we really have to look at slow news. Whenever the song gets the final conflict, we may be coming up on the final conflict. And if we don't win, then humanity will no longer be on this planet. Because the inhumane things that are happening now, there's precedence being set. So I think that, I mean, to figure about something like that little issue, give me a break. Kids are caged. Maybe for sex trafficking. You know, whole black community. When I was younger, you know, Friday night, you went downtown in Danville, and there were several bars that all kinds both in the parking lot. Now you can't even buy these. Now, everybody says, oh, they moved away to better places, whatever that is. But no, they were incarcerated. They were killed. So no, we're war, and it's serious. And so, you know, that's what I have to say. I really love and appreciate everything you said, and it's a war and it's also a genocide. And it's a genocide. The war on drugs is a genocide. Police are enforcing genocide. A lot of these state sanctioned structures are enforcing eugenics on the population. And I use Lucy Parsons grave as an example that is emblematic of greater systematic issues. And I feel as though the gentleman who got up and left was actually upset because he understood what I meant in that in not recognizing history. You're also likely not recognizing the black revolutionaries and the black anarchists before you here today. And it was very clear to me that he had not heard anything that my two comrades had said, or anything that I was saying as clear by his attempt to interject earlier in the presentation and getting up and leaving at the end. So I understand your point. I understand that this is tiny in the scale of things. But it's just an example. And everything I said was anecdotal and everything I said was just an example of greater systematic issues that I felt were already addressed by the other presenters and it didn't need reiteration in the same way in the same way. And I felt it interesting and important to use my experiences and my lens to craft it in a different light for you all. Because a lot of you I do not know. And I'm not sure what any of you would ever respond to. I don't have any marketing statistics on this room right now. So it's really difficult to know. So you try everything. And I try to try everything. I'm out of the interest of time. I'm just not going to comment on that. I have a lot to say, but I would like to hear from at least one more person if we have time. Yeah, let's keep it one more person. And then I know so we all have something important to announce as well before that. So this one last question and then we'll hear from any panelists comment on that. And then we'll hear from a serious announcement. If there's a last question, you can make it up to here. This question is just a comment and a great gratitude to all of you for giving us both historical knowledge that many of us didn't have prior to this and connecting it. Thank you, Amber for connecting us to the present day and adding to the history, which I think is incredibly important. So I really appreciate you getting the specifics of your personal life and what you see, because this is creating market keeping right. This is creating history. So thank you very much. Yeah, so the last thing I'll say, I guess, I guess I won't respond to that. But the one thing I do want to announce is that there's an ongoing fundraiser right now for Lorenzo combo urban. It's a call for support because actually he makes many great points. But one of the things is that for these people that we hold up as contemporary black anarchists and or contemporary, you know, are surviving political prisoners, we have to really like recognize what that fucking means for aging revolutionaries. What that means is that they use they use their time in their, you know, in their youth and their, you know, prime adulthood, engaging in things that later on in life won't give them a pension. You know, and so when it comes to survival of, you know, our elders, it's really important for us to show up and, you know, and well support. So he has an ongoing fundraiser to support his living and health care expenses. I wish I could give you like a short link, but it's on GoFundMe. So I don't know exactly how to do this. If you have cash, we can probably circulate a bucket, take account of that and then deposit it or something. You can go to Google to search this thing. I can give you the URL now it's GoFundMe.com slash support for Lorenzo Comboa Urban. Really simple. I'm quite sure y'all can remember. Yes, we can post it. We can post it on any public thing. If you have cash, contribute there, we'll take stock and you could also check our Black Rose Facebook page and Instagram and we'll shoot it up later tonight so that people can access it. And actually I would, I opened up the link and I think there's a quote here that is really relevant in general. Judge your friends by those who support and love you. Judge your comrades by those who would fight for common ideals and suffer slash die with you. So let's have one big hand for Mohamed, Marvin, Sergio and Amber.