Our special guests are:
Bro. Ldr. Mbandaka: Resident guest who is Spiritual Leader of the Alkebu-Lan Revivalist Movement and UNIA-ACL Ambassador for the UK. A veteran activist of over 30 years standing, a featured columnist in The Whirlwind newspaper and author of Mosiah Daily Affirmations and Education: An Africentric Guide To Excellence
Luwezi Kinshasa: is the Secretary-General of the African Socialist International (ASI),. Born in Congo, he is currently exiled in Britain as one of the tens of thousands of Africans from Congo who were forced into political exile by the Mobutu regime. He speaks and organizers throughout Europe and in Afrika, working to liberate and unite Africa and African people everywhere.
It has been a weekend of remembrance…
17/01/1961
6½ months after being elected Prime Minister of independent Congo Patrice Emery Lumumba (02/07/25 – 17/01/61), alongside his trusted aides Joseph Okito and Maurice Mpolo was barbarically murdered and dismembered the result of a campaign orchestrated by the governments of Belgium, USA, UK as well as the United Nations (and the deployment of some treacherous countrymen). Lumumba was one of the brightest lights of Afrika’s independence era and considerations of his life often evoke contemplations of what might have been for Afrika had he lived. In his independence speech he famously declared: “Let us show the world what Afrika can do when we work together in freedom.” 54 years after his physical death, activists like those of the Uhuru Movement, who held a Lumumba Day event on 17/01/15 at the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in Tottenham to honour his life and legacy, strive complete his work and achieve that freedom.
17/01/2013
The Pan-Afrikan world reeled from the news that Professor Anthony ‘Tony’ Claude Martin (21/02/42 – 17/01/13), the leading and official historian on The Most Eminent Prophet and King His Excellency Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the Garvey Movement passed into the Ancestral Realm. Dr. Martin burst on to the academic scene in the early 70s with a bold and selfless mission to slay the decades old white supremacist mission to consign the legacy of Papa Garvey to oblivion. He provided the concluding academic chapter in the Baba John Henrik Clarke edited Marcus Garvey & The Vision of Africa (1974) and two years later posted his epic Race First: The Ideological and Organizational Struggles of Marcus Garvey and the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Others works from the New Marcus Garvey Library followed including: Marcus Garvey, Hero: A First Biography (1983); Literary Garveyism: Garvey, Black Arts and the Harlem (1983); The Poetical Works of Marcus Garvey (compiled and edited, 1983);.African Fundamentalism: A Literary and Cultural Anthology of Garvey’s Harlem Renaissance (1991); The Pan-African Connection: From Slavery to Garvey and Beyond (1983) and Amy Ashwood Garvey, Pan-Africanist, Feminist and Mrs Marcus Garvey No. 1, Or, A Tale of Two Armies (2007). In addition he published two volumes on the Grenada Revolution and the political masterpiece The Jewish Onslaught (1993) a battle cry for cultural self-determination in the face of the racist academe. :In sum, it’s difficult to overestimate how much our knowledge and understanding of Papa Garvey has been influenced by this intellectual giant. To this end the Alkebu-Lan Nommo will be hosting a Tony Martin Commemorative event, Women In The Garvey Movement, presented by Queen Mama Nzingha Assata on Friday 30/01/15 7pm at Mama Afrika Kulcha Shap, 282 High Road Leyton E10 5PW.
18/01/1981
In the early hours on 18/01/15 a vigil, organised by the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament took place outside 439 New Cross Road to remember the victims of the massacre that took place at that location 34 years earlier the result of a purported racially motivated firebomb attack: Andrew Gooding (18/02/62 – 18/01/81); Owen Thompson (11/09/64 – 18/01/81); Patricia Johnson (16/05/65 – 18/01/81); Patrick Cummings (21/09/64 – 18/01/81); Steve Collins (02/05/63 – 18/01/81); Lloyd Hall (28/11/60 – 18/01/81); Humphrey Brown (04/07/62 – 18/01/81); Roseline Henry (23/09/64 – 18/01/81); Peter Campbell (23/02/62 – 18/01/81); Gerry Paul Francis (21/08/63 – 18/01/81); Glenton Powell (18/01/66 – 25/01/81); Paul Ruddock (19/11/60 – 09/02/81); Yvonne Ruddock (17/01/65 – 24/01/81). Anthony Berbeck (17/08/62 – 09/07/83). It is important to remember that the greatest single tragedy to befall the Afrikan community in the UK is still an unsolved crime. The massacre that was the key catalyst from mass protests like the National Black People’s Day of Action (NBPDA 02/03/81) also proved beyond any doubt the UK society/state’s indifference to Afrikan suffering. Nevertheless, the events of 18/01/81 are a source of contention to this day with some asserting that the fire was not the result of a racist attack and that there are those that know who is responsible but have been “sworn to secrecy because of the outrage it would cause.” Proponents of this view also claim that if the community didn’t believe the fire was as a result of a racist attack then most people would not have attended protests like NBPDA. However, such perspectives are belied by the extensive police cover of the case and fact that such a conclusion would be the state’s ideal outcome that they have yet been able to evidence.
Honourable Mentions
Rev. Dr Martin Luther King Jr (15/01/29 – 04/04/68) was the leading civil rights leader of his generation. European media invariably casts him as an integrationist dreamer. Yet he was a man of great courage, conviction and increasing radicalism in his speeches (e.g. Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence, 04/04/47, Where Do We Go From Here?, 16/08/67). Dr King has been honoured with a public holiday in the USA that takes place on the 3rd Monday in January. In this year’s case, today 19/01/15.
Amilcar Cabral (12/09/24 – 20/01/73) was a Guinea-Bissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and an outstanding nationalist thinker and political leader. He was also one of Afrika’s foremost anti-colonial leaders. Many of his speeches and writings are collected in the books Unity and Struggle and Return to the Source.
Obi Egbuna (18/07/38 – 20/01/14) was a Nigerian born activist who became one of the pioneers of the Black Power in the UK in the 1960s. His son Obi Egbuna Jr continues his father’s activism, now based in the USA is the USA correspondent of the Zimbabwe Herald Newspaper.
The Most Eminent Prophet and King His Excellency Marcus Mosiah Garvey famously said : “We must canonize our own saints, create our own martyrs, and elevate to positions of fame and honour black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history.” Yet some proffer the view that leads us to romanticise our past as an escape route for dealing with the past or planning for our future.
So we ask the question:
Do commemorations keep us stuck in the past?
- Do you think it’s important to “honour black men and women who have made their distinct contributions to our racial history?”
- Do you attend any commemorative events over the weekend or will you be attending any upcoming ones?
- Where would Afrika be today if Patrice Lumumba had lived?
- What would our knowledge of Marcus Garvey without the works of Tony Martin?
- What is the evidence for and against the New Cross Fire being the result of a racist attack?
- Is it true that if the attack wasn’t racist then most people wouldn’t have participated in the National Black People’s Day of Action?
- Who or what could compel people who claim to know the truth about the New Cross Fire to secrecy?