On Friday, September 16th, 2011, members of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement joined the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, the MOVE organization, and Philadelphia mayoral candidate Diop Olugbala in the citywide mobilization to Free Troy Davis, an African man in Georgia who faced the death penalty on September 21st.
Activists from various organizations spoke of Troy Davis’s innocence and of the corrupt nature of the “justice” system in the U.S., but it was Diop Olugbala who correctly identified this system itself as criminal, stating that it doesn’t matter what they say Troy Davis did, it’s the fact that this system was built on slavery, genocide and colonialism, and the terror that has been waged at the hands of the U.S. government, in the streets of the African community in the U.S., in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, and on the land of the indigenous peoples, and through the court systems and prisons, must be overturned if we are to ever see Troy Davis, Mumia Abu-Jamal or any other African people freed from its colonial prisons.
Olugbala then got back up on the bullhorn and struggled that we acknowledge that while the majority of activists at this demonstration and many other rallies in Philadelphia are white people — and primarily the White Left — the true and correct role of white people in the struggle for justice and liberation for African and oppressed peoples is one in principled solidarity working under the leadership of African revolutionaries, recognizing the historic role as oppressor that white people have played and must confront and overturn that relationship in order to move forward.
Diop then introduced local Uhuru Solidarity Movement organizer Harris Daniels, who spoke on the historic complicity this imperialist system expects from white people, and how we have an opportunity right now to break from this complicity, and call out this system for what it is doing — building an entire economy for white people at the expense of African and other oppressed peoples, and using the prison and death penalty economy to build Philadelphia as a city that only benefits white people. Daniels called for white people to take the right stand by joining Uhuru Solidarity Movement, taking the pledge of solidarity with African people and participating in the Days in Solidarity With African People campaign, and joining the solidarity contingent at the November 5th Black is Back mobilization and conference in Philadelphia: “Stop the Wars and Build the Resistance!”
If you believe that there will never be peace on the planet without justice, reparations and reconciliation for African people and all the countless victims of imperialism past and present against whom terror, genocide, exploitation were carried out in our name and for our benefit, then Take the Pledge of Solidarity and contribute at least $10 to the African-led Uhuru Movement for liberation and self-determination for African people everywhere!
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Click Here for Video from the Demonstration
