Two Oaklands: One Solution This Thursday!

Thursday, April 30th, 7pm:

Two Oaklands: One Solution

Economic Development for the African Community and an End to the Policy of Police Containment
390 - 27th St., Oakland, CA

Donation Requested (no one turned away)

The killing of four Oakland police officers and Lovelle Mixon on March 21st has brought to the surface the economic and political crisis in our city.

40% of the Oakland general fund budget goes to police services, while only a half of one percent goes towards economic development

The Uhuru Movement invites concerned members of our community to discuss solutions for peace and justice.

We can develop Oakland into a model city for shared prosperity and true social justice!

Speakers:

Shanrika Turney, Local Uhuru moement organizer presenting on the current campaigns of the Uhuru Movement

Bakari Olatunji, member of the African People's Socialist Party presenting on the history of the Black Panther Party

Wendy Snyder, Uhuru Solidarity Movement presenting on the roots of the crisis in the city of Oakland.

The Uhuru Movement is building the African Village Survival Initiative, a collective response to the economic crisis to ensure the African community can meet its own needs through self-reliant programs and institutions: community gardening, solar energy, rainwater catchment, holistic health practices and economic development.

Call 510-625-1106 or email oakland@uhurusolidarity.org to find out more about the event and/or how to volunteer for the programs.

Uhuru Solidarity Movement Study: From the Black Panther Party to the Uhuru Movement

Tuesday, April 14th, 7pm
Humanist Hall, 390 - 27th St., Oakland
(between Broadway and Telegraph)
oakland@uhurusolidarity.org
510-625-1106

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement invites people interested in learning more about the historical legacy and current campaigns of the Uhuru Movement and how to join in solidarity with the struggle for African liberation and justice.

The Uhuru Solidarity Movement will hold a study to provide an orientation to people interested in studying the history of the Black Power Movement in Oakland from the Black Panther Party to Uhuru.

We want to educate and understand COINTELPRO, the military disinformation and assassination campaign of the FBI and the tactics the U.S. government has used to discredit and undermine struggles of the oppressed for national liberation.

We are interested in discussion and dialogue about how to address the serious conditions that the African community in Oakland and the SF Bay area faces.

We believe that we must join in solidarity with the African led movement for liberation, sustainability and shared prosperity.

Come to the study and you will learn about the Uhuru Movement campaigns including:

** The struggle for economic development, not police containment in Oakland and around the U.S.

** The "City Hall 2" in Philadelphia, where the city attacked the African community's right to free speech in challenging Philly Mayor Nutter's war (police) budget

** The Campaign to Free Ajamu Bandele, Uhuru Movement organizer in York, PA who has been framed up for his work exposing the drug economy as part of the war on the black community

** The African Village Survival Initiative and its collective response to the global economic crisis through community gardening, solar energy, rainwater catchment, sustainability and economic developent

** The African Socialist International building in East and West Africa and North America, uniting African people into one organization

** The Uhuru Solidarity Movement first national conference on Saturday, May 2nd in Philadelphia, PA to build organization everywhere of white people and other allies taking a stand against police violence, economic attacks and injustice against African people everywhere.

Upcoming Uhuru Movement Events

The solution to the economic crisis
and violence in Oakland:
Economic development
to the African community
and an end to the policy
of police containment

The killing of four Oakland police officers and Lovelle Mixon on March 21st has brought to surface the economic and political crisis in our city.

The Uhuru Movement invites concerned members of our community to discuss solutions for peace and justice.

We can develop Oakland into a model city for shared prosperity and true social justice!

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, April 14th, 7 to 9pmUhuru Solidarity Movement Study Group, Humanist Hall, 390 – 27th St., Oakland

Tuesday, April 21st, 7 to 9pmUhuru Movement & Uhuru Foods Organizing Meeting, Humanist Hall, 390 – 27th St., Oakland

Sunday, April 26th, 2 to 6pmEarth Day at the Uhuru HouseSupport the African Village Survival Initiative

Thursday, April 30th, 7 to 9pmCommunity Forum:A Solution to the Economic Crisis & Violence in Oakland: Economic Development, Not Police Containment, Humanist Hall, 390 – 27th St., Oakland

Come out to the Uhuru Foods breakfast booth every Saturday at the Grand Lake Farmers Market & Shop at Uhuru Furniture & Collectibles at 3742 Grand Ave in Oakland
For more info, email Oakland@uhurusolidarity.org or call 510-625-1106

Support Economic and Social Justice, Not Police Containment in Oakland

Why & How We Must Participate in the Solutions to Oakland's Problems

Two weeks following the killings of four Oakland police officers and Lovelle Mixon, many in Oakland are still trying to make sense of what happened and put forward solutions to the underlying problems that we face in our city. As the economic crisis deepens throughout the country, we see the rapid escalation of violence - in nursing homes, family homes, immigration offices, and yesterday's killing of two police officers by a 22 year old white man in Pittsburgh, PA who had just recently lost his job and was concerned about losing his guns.

We can see that the economic crisis is at the root of many of these killings - people losing their jobs and with it their ability to feed themselves and their families. In these troubled times, many people are suffering. And yet, African communities across the U.S. have faced an economic crisis for a long time now. The unemployment rate in the black community has always been disproportionate to the rest of society. Joblessness, homelessness, poverty and oppression follow the historic legacy of a two tiered system and reality that maintains the wealth and privilege of white people in opposition to the impoverishment of African and Mexican communities. This oppression coincides with the lucrative prison economy of California, fueled by the lives of young black men like Lovelle Mixon who are caught up in the poverty and hopelessness and forced into a fierce struggle just to survive.

The Uhuru Movement has stated that the events in Oakland are the result of the failed policy of police containment, which offers no future for the African working class communities. The police are part of the state, an apparatus that encompasses the courts, the prisons, the navy and the army. They exist to maintain the divisions between the wealth and poverty, the employed and the unemployed, the imprisoned and the free.

While we can only surmise what was in the mind of Lovelle Mixon when he shot and killed the Oakland police officers (what happened in the house on 74th Avenue, we still do not know), there are some things we do know. The city of Oakland spends 40% of its billion dollar budget on its notoriously brutal police department, infamous for the "Oakland Riders," fabricated search warrants, consistent killings of young black and Mexican men and unsolved homicides in East and West Oakland. This portion of the budget going to a militarized police force does not include the amount in overtime monies paid to officers nor does it include the thousands of dollars paid by the city in police brutality settlements.

It is commonly understood that the same public policy functioned in the brutal public killing of Oscar Grant III on January 1st by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. This police killing is in the consciousness of every young African person as they face the daily presence of the OPD in their neighborhoods and the constant reminder that they could be the next victims of deadly police violence.

We also know that the city government spends just one half of one percent of its budget on community economic development in a city one in five households in our city live on $5,000 or less. Oakland is a city of haves and have nots maintained through the violence of the state. This is a city of the hills, the cool hip, artsy neighborhoods versus the impoverished and desparate flatlands where black children live 15 years less than white children in the hills.

The Uhuru Movement has always provided a forum and a voice for the most oppressed sector of the African community. The Uhuru House community center in East Oakland provides this space through which the African community has stood up on numerous occasions for economic and social justice and struggled for community control of the police, housing and education.

The black community-led Uhuru Movement has recently initiated an international collective response to the deep economic crisis we are experiencing that is hitting the African community especially hard, called the African Village Survival Initiative.

For those of us who want to see social justice and peace in our city, the African Village Survival Initiative is a program and a vision for the future we can all support. This program is a prototype for creating green, sustainable energy, farming and economic self-reliance programs that can be reproduced anywhere in the U.S. & worldwide. This is a program that we can support that will be led by the African working class community themselves to grow their own food, build their own programs, meet their own needs and hasten the transformation of this terrible reality into something new and something good for everyone.

We can struggle for genuine economic development and an end to the failed policy of police containment that has created the volatile conditions in East and West Oakland. We can support programs like the African Village Survival Initiative in Oakland and beyond. The more of us who can participate in real community based solutions the sooner we can bring about the change our city and our world needs.

Learn about the African Village Survival Initiative and the campaigns and programs of the Uhuru Movement. Join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement and Uhuru Foods that raise funds and support for the Uhuru movement. Attend our study this Wednesday, April 8th from 7 to 9pm at the Jump 'N Java Cafe, 6606 Shattuck Ave, Oakland

Call (510) 625- 1006
oakland@uhurusolidarity.org