Taking Measure of the Black World

By Karen Juanita Carrillo
SeeingBlack.com Contributing Writer

This year's State Of The Black World Conference, scheduled for Nov. 28 through Dec. 2 in Atlanta, is being held under the theme: "Creating Our 21st Century."

Ron Daniels, organizer of the conference, promises that it will be similar to an international town hall meeting. He is calling it one of the first "great global gatherings of people of African descent in the 21st century."

Last year, the conference featured a week-long cruise to Haiti, Jamaica and Mexico while participants took part in seminars. This year, Daniels says there is a need to continue a world-wide focus following the exchanges that took place among French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, English-speaking and other African people at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa.

"We embraced each other," Daniels said. "And we need to continue that feeling."

Sponsored by the African American Institute for Research and Empowerment and the online publication, The Black World Today, this year's conference is scheduled to feature Rep. Maxine Waters; activist Haki Madhubuti; Johnny Cochran; poet/activist Sonia Sanchez; Dr. Conrad Worrill of the National Black United Front; Jomoke Ogunkeyde of the United Committee to Save Nigeria; Rev. Jesse Jackson; Karl Rodney, publisher of the Carib News; Rev. Al Sharpton; the NAACP's Kweisi Mfume; Martin Luther King III; Rep. John Conyers; the Marcus Garvey Foundation's Dr. Julius Garvey; and Zainab Bangura of Sierra Leone's Campaign for Good Governance.

The conference will feature briefings on the WCAR, and further a link with participants in that international event. The briefings will discuss why the U.S. and Israel walked out on the conference and where the movement for reparations from this country and the European Union is now headed.

This year the State of the Race Conference wants to focus on two key questions: what it means to be a Black person in the 21st century and the principles of Ma'at, particularly as those principles relate the ideals of keeping African descendants who prosper in Western societies connected to the masses of Black people who do not.

"It's the difference between a Thurgood Marshall and a Clarence Thomas," Daniels contended. "They're both Black in skin color and they both sat on the Supreme Court. But look at the obvious differences between the two."

Within that agenda, the conference will look at the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, but mainly to focus on what kind of response African-Americans and African people of the world should take. "Part of our striving here is to keep our prophetic voice," Daniels said.

"The United States needs to find those who did this and they need to be brought to justice," Daniels said. "But we do not support the concept of violence and assassination by the state. We don't want civil liberties encroached upon in this country because we know what it is to be abused by this country when the handcuffs are taken off the police, as [Attorney General John] Ashcroft has suggested.

"The real impact of Sept. 11th is that we need to be even more vigilant now," Daniels added. In his role as director of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), Daniels noted that center was in settlement talks with the New York City Fire Department regarding cases brought against the FDNY for discrimination in hiring and promotions of Blacks and Latinos. There was also a suit against the department for refusing to hire any Muslim imams, although Catholic and Jewish representatives are in place. The talks are currently stalled, while the recovery mission at the former site of the World Trade Center continues.

"Our tone is muted somewhat, after the attacks," Daniels continued. "But you see that the Supreme Court has gone on with its business. We have to continue standing for justice. We can't say 'oh my God, our country has been attacked,' and then go ahead and dismiss the racial profiling, the discrimination in housing and health care, the prison industrial system and all of the other legitimate issues we have. We can't relent in continuing to fight for an equitable America. Black people are what makes America stronger."

Ultimately, Daniels is looking for the conference to end with concrete plans for an International Black Arts and Cultural Festival in Haiti in 2004. The festival would commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, the first Black-led revolution in the Americas to free African people from slavery.

The conference also wants to develop concrete plans for an Institute of the Black World, which would be a "clearinghouse for the Black World Network and Pan African Councils and a center to engage in critical research, provide ongoing technical assistance, leadership and skill development training for activists and organizers."

-- November 30, 2001

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