"History is a clock people use to tell their historical culture and political time of the day. It's a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography. The history tells them where they have been, where they are and what they are. But most importantly history tells a people where they still must go and what they still must be" Dr. John Henrik Clarke
Malcolm's Plan is a plan that we should have implemented after his death. This
plan was to be presented to the membership of the Organization of Afro-American
Unity on the day of his assassination and it's a shame that we did not honor
his life by utilizing his plan to the best of our ability. As we look back we
were given a Civil Rights movement that didn't address the problems of the
masses of our people. So today I present you Malcolm's plan so we can now honor
a man who had cared more for the people then we cared for him. The people of
the Civil Right's movement failed, for the movement only helped the people who
were allowed to benefit from the system which was set into place.
So I appeal to the Youth to take these plans that I will present on this site
and work them to the best of their ability. No longer shall you have the excuse
that we have no plan, you will also be allowed to present your own plans, and
the best of them will be placed on this website so your peers and the masses of
our people may judge them on it's merits and it's possibility of being implemented.
No change has come without the actions of the youth. Let's take a look at
what the youth of South Africa
accomplished in their country, if not for the youth South
Africa might still be under apartheid.
I will ask the youth of South Africa
and other countries of the Diaspora to help our youth and to help each other in
life's journey. It's a shame that we in America
don't communicate more with our brother's and Sister's in the rest of the Diaspora,
and that will change. Hip Hop community you have the power in your voices and
words to create this change for the youth of the world listen to you. So use
that power to do something that the Civil Rights generation and the rest of
society doesn't think that you are capable of doing, and that is to ORGANIZE
your people. No generation of people has the power to do this more so then your
generation. You have the power and the ability to ORGANIZE your people and it's
your duty to do so. So let's study, debate the feasibility and implement these
plans that will be presented. So let's get started!
Basic Unity Program Organization of Afro-American Unity !
PLEDGING UNITY
PROMOTING JUSTICE
TRANSCENDING COMPROMISE
We, Afro-Americans, people who originated in Africa and now reside in America,
speak out against the slavery and oppression inflicted upon us by this racist
power structure. We offer to downtrodden Afro-American people courses of action
that will conquer oppression, relieve suffering and convert meaningless
struggle into meaningful action.
Confident that our purpose will be achieved, we Afro- Americans from all walks
of life make the following known:
ESTABLISHMENT:
Having stated our determination, confidence and resolve, the Organization of
Afro-American Unity is hereby established on the 15th day of February, 1965, in
the city of New York.
Upon this establishment, we Afro-American people will launch a cultural
revolution which will provide the means for restoring our identity that we
might rejoin our brothers and sisters on the African continent, culturally,
psychologically, economically and share with them the sweet fruits of freedom
from oppression and independence of racist governments.
1. The Organization of Afro-American Unity welcomes all persons of African
origin to come together and dedicate their ideas, skills and lives to free our
people from oppression.
2. Branches of the Organization of Afro-American Unity may be established by
people of African descent wherever they may be and whatever their ideology as
long as they be descendants of Africa and dedicated to
our one goal: Freedom from oppression.
3. The basic program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity which is now
being presented can and will be modified by the membership, taking into
consideration national, regional and local conditions that require flexible
treatment.
4. The Organization of Afro-American Unity encourages active participation of
each member since we feel that each and every Afro-American has something to
contribute to our freedom. Thus each member will be encouraged to participate
in the committee of his or her choice.
5. Understanding the differences that have been created amongst us by our
oppressors in order to keep us divided, the Organization of Afro-American Unity
strives to ignore or submerge these artificial divisions by focusing our
activities and our loyalties upon our one goal: Freedom from oppression.
Basic Aim's And Objective's
SELF DETERMINATION:
We assert that we Afro-Americans have the right to direct and control our
lives, our history and our future rather than to have our destinies determined
by American racists .
We are determined to rediscover our true African culture which was crushed and
hidden for over four hundred years in order to enslave us and keep us enslaved
up to today.
We, Afro-Americans enslaved, oppressed and denied by a society that proclaims
itself the citadel of democracy, are determined to rediscover our history,
promote the talents that are suppressed by our racist enslavers, renew the
culture that was crushed by a slave government and thereby to again become a
free people.
NATIONAL UNITY:
Sincerely believing that the future of Afro-Americans is dependent upon our
ability to unite our ideas, skills, organizations and institutions .
We, the Organization of Afro-American Unity pledge to join hands and hearts
with all people of African origin in a grand alliance by forgetting all the
differences that the power structure has created to keep us divided and
enslaved. We further pledge to strengthen our common bond and strive toward one
goal: Freedom from oppression.
The Basic Unity Program
The program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity shall evolve from five
strategic points which are deemed basic and fundamental to our grand affiance.
Through our committees we shall proceed in the following general areas:
I. RESTORATION:
In order to enslave the African it was necessary for our enslavers to
completely sever our communications with the African continent and the Africans
that remained there. In order to free ourselves from the oppression of our
enslavers then, it is absolutely necessary for the Afro-American to restore
communications with Africa.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity will accomplish this goal by means of
independent national and international newspapers, publishing ventures,
personal contacts and other available communications media.
We, Afro-Americans, must also communicate to one another the truths about
American slavery and the terrible effects it has upon our people. We must study
the modern system of slavery in order to free ourselves from it. We must search
out all the bare and ugly facts without shame for we are still victims, still
slaves still oppressed. Our only shame is believing falsehood and not seeking
the truth.
We must learn all that we can about ourselves. We will have to know the whole
story of how we were kidnapped from Africa, how our ancestors were brutalized,
dehumanized and murdered and how we are continually kept in a state of slavery
for the profit of a system conceived in slavery, built by slaves and dedicated
to keeping us enslaved in order to maintain itself.
We must begin to reeducate ourselves and become alert listeners in order to
learn as much as we can about the progress of our Motherland Africa.
We must correct in our minds the distorted image that our enslaver has
portrayed to us of Africa that he might discourage us
from progress of our Motherland Africa. We must
correct in our minds the distorted image that our enslaver has portrayed to us
of Africa that he might discourage us from reestablishing
communications with her and thus obtain freedom from oppression.
II. REORIENTATION:
In order to keep the Afro-American enslaved, it was necessary to limit our
thinking to the shores of Americato
prevent us from identifying our problems with the problems of other peoples of
African origin. This made us consider ourselves an isolated minority without
allies anywhere.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity will develop in the Afro-American people
a keen awareness of our relationship with the world at large and clarify our
roles, rights and responsibilities as human beings. We can accomplish this goal
by becoming well informed concerning world affairs and understanding that our
struggle is part of a larger world struggle of oppressed peoples against all
forms of oppression. We must change the thinking of the Afro-American by
liberating our minds through the study of philosophies and psychologies,
cultures and languages that did not come from our racist oppressors. Provisions
are being made for the study of languages such as Swahili, Hausa and Arabic.
These studies will give our people access to ideas and history of mankind at
large and thus increase our mental scope.
We can learn much about Africa by reading informative
books and by listening to the experiences of those who have traveled there, but
many of us can travel to the land of our choice and experience for ourselves.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity will encourage the Afro-American to
travel to Africa, the Caribbean
and to other places where our culture has not been completely crushed by
brutality and ruthlessness.
III. EDUCATION:
After enslaving us, the slave masters developed a racist educational system
which justified to its posterity the evil deeds that had been committed against
the African people and their descendants. Too often the slave himself
participates so completely in this system that he justifies having been
enslaved and oppressed.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity will devise original educational
methods and procedures which will liberate the minds of our children from the
vicious lies and distortions that are fed to us from the cradle to keep us
mentally enslaved. We encourage Afro-Americans themselves to establish
experimental institutes and educational workshops, liberation schools and
child-care centers in the Afro-American communities.
We will influence the choice of textbooks and equipment used by our children in
the public schools while at the same time encouraging qualified Afro-Americans
to write and publish the textbooks needed to liberate our minds. Until we
completely control our own educational institutions, we must supplement the
formal training of our children by educating them at home.
IV. ECONOMIC SECURITY:
After the Emancipation Proclamation, when the system of slavery changed from
chattel slavery to wage slavery, it was realized that the Afro-American
constituted the largest homogeneous ethnic group with a common origin and
common group experience in the United States and, if allowed to exercise economic
or political freedom, would in a short period of time own this country.
Therefore racists in this government developed techniques that would keep
the Afro-American people economically dependent upon the slave masterseconomically
slavestwentieth century slaves.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity will take measures to free our people
from economic slavery. One way of accomplishing this will be to maintain a
Technician Pool: that is, a Bank of Technicians. In the same manner that blood
banks have been established to furnish blood to those who need it at the time
it is needed, we must establish a Technician Bank.
We must do this so that the newly independent nations of Africa
can turn to us who are their Afro-American brothers for the technicians they
will need now and in the future. Thereby, we will be developing an open market
for the many skills we possess and at the same time we will be supplying Africa
with the skills she can best use. This project wifi therefore be one of mutual
cooperation and mutual benefit.
V. SELF-DEFENSE:
In order to enslave a people and keep them subjugated, their right to
self-defense must be denied. They must be constantly terrorized, brutalized and
murdered. These tactics of suppression have been developed to a new high by
vicious racists whom the United States
government seems unwilling or incapable of dealing with in terms of the law of
this land. Before the Emancipation it was the black man who suffered
humiliation, torture, castration, and murder. Recently our women and children,
more and more, are becoming the victims of savage racists whose appetite for
blood increases daily and whose deeds of depravity seem to be openly encouraged
by all law enforcement agencies.
Over 5,000 Afro-Americans have been lynched since the Emancipation
Proclamation and not one murderer has been brought to justice!
The Organization of Afro-American Unity, being aware of the increased violence
being visited upon the Afro-American and of the open sanction of this violence
and murder by the police departments throughout this country and the federal
agencies do affirm our right and obligation to defend ourselves in order to
survive as a people.
We encourage all Afro-Americans to defend themselves against the wanton attacks
of racist aggressors whose sole aim is to deny us the guarantees of the United
Nations Charter of Human Rights and of the Constitution of the United
States.
The Organization of Afro-American Unity will take those private steps that are
necessary to insure the survival of the Afro-American people in the face of
racist aggression and the defense of our women and children. We are within our
rights to see to it that the Afro-American people who fulfill their obligations
to the United States government (we pay taxes and serve in the armed forces of
this country like American citizens do) also exact from this government the
obligations that it owes us as a people, or exact these obligations ourselves.
Needless to say, among this number we Include protection of certain inalienable
rights such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In areas where the United States government has shown itself unable and/or
unwilling to bring to justice the racist oppressors, murderers, who kill
innocent children and adults, the Organization of Afro-American Unity advocates
that the Afro-American people insure ourselves that justice is donewhatever
the price and by any means necessary.
National Concern's
GENERAL TERMINOLOGIES:
We Afro-Americans feel receptive toward all peoples of goodwill. We are not
opposed to multi-ethnic associations in any walk of life. In fact, we have had
experiences which enable us to understand how unfortunate it is that human beings
have been set apart or aside from each other because of characteristics known
as radar characteristics.
However, Afro-Americans did not create the prejudiced background and atmosphere
in which we live. And we must face the facts. A racial society does exist in
stark reality, and not with equality for black people; so we who are non white
must meet the problems inherited from centuries of inequalities and deal with
the present situations as rationally as we are able.
The exclusive ethnic quality of our unity Is necessary for self-preservation.
We say this because: Our experiences backed up by history show that African
culture and Afro- American culture will not be accurately recognized and
reported and cannot be respectably expressed nor be secure in its survival If
we remain the divided, and therefore the helpless, victims of an oppressive
society.
We appreciate the fact that when the people involved have real equality and
justice, ethnic intermingling can be beneficial to all. We must denounce, however,
all people who are oppressive through their policies or actions and who are
lacking in justice in their dealings with other people, whether the injustices
proceed from power, class, or race. We must be unified in order to be
protected from abuse or misuse.
We consider the word integration a misleading, false term. It carries with it
certain implications to which Afro- Americans cannot subscribe. This
terminology has been applied to the current regulation projects which are
supposedly acceptable to some classes of society. This very acceptable
implies some inherent superiority or inferiority instead of acknowledging the
true source of the inequalities involved.
We have observed that the usage of the term integration was designated and
promoted by those persons who expect to continue a (nicer) type of ethnic
discrimination and who intend to maintain social and economic control of all
human contacts by means of imagery, classifications, quotas, and manipulations
based on color, national origin, or racial background and characteristics.
Careful evaluation of recent experiences shows that integration actually
describes the process by which a white society is (remains) set in a position
to use, whenever it chooses to use and however it chooses to use, the best
talents of non-white people. This power-web continues to build a society
wherein the best contributions of Afro-Americans, in fact of all non-white
people, would continue to be absorbed without note or exploited to benefit a
fortunate few while the masses of both white and non-white people would remain
unequal and un-benefited.
We are aware that many of us lack sufficient training and are deprived and unprepared
as a result of oppression, discrimination, and the resulting discouragement,
despair, and resignation. But when we are not qualified, and where we are
unprepared, we must help each other and work out plans for bettering our own
conditions as Afro-Americans. Then our assertions toward full opportunity can
be made on the basis of equality as opposed to the calculated tokens of
integration. Therefore, we must reject this term as one used by all persons
who intend to mislead Afro-Americans.
Another term, negro, is erroneously used and is degrading in the eyes of
informed and self-respecting per sons of African heritage. It denotes
stereotyped and debased traits of character and classifies a whole segment of
humanity on the basis of false information. From all intelligent viewpoints, it
is a badge of slavery and helps to prolong and perpetuate oppression and
discrimination.
Persons who recognize the emotional thrust and plain show of disrespect in the
southerners use of nigra and the general use of nigger must also realize
that all three words are essentially the same. The other two: nigra and
nigger are blunt and un-deceptive. The one representing respectability,
negro, is merely the same substance in a polished package and spelled with a
capital letter. This refinement is added so that a degrading terminology can be
legitimately used in general literature and polite conversation without
embarrassment.
The term negro developed from a word in the Spanish language which is
actually an adjective (describing word) meaning black, that is, the color
black. In plain English, if someone said or was called A black or A dark,
even a young child would very naturally question: A black what? or A dark
what? because adjectives do not name, they describe. Please take note that in
order to make use of this mechanism, a word was transferred from another
language and deceptively changed in function from an adjective to a noun, which
is a naming word. Its application in the nominative (naming) sense was
intentionally used to portray persons in a position of objects or things. It
stamps the article as being all alike and all the same. It denotes: a
darkie, a slave, a sub-human, an ex-slave, a negro.
Afro-Americans must re-analyze and particularly question our own use of this
term, keeping in mind all the facts. In light of the historical meanings and
current implications, all intelligent and informed Afro-Americans and Africans
continue to reject its use in the noun form as well as a proper adjective. Its
usage shall continue to be considered as unenlightened and objectionable or
deliberately offensive whether in speech or writing.
We accept the use of Afro-American, African, and Black Man in reference to
persons of African heritage. To every other part of mankind goes this measure
of just respect. We do not desire more nor shall we accept less.
General Considerations: Afro-Americans, like all other people, have human rights
which are inalienable. This Is, these human rights cannot be legally or justly
transferred to another. Our human rights belong to us, as to all people, through
God, neither through the wishes nor according to the whims of other men.
We must consider that fact and other reasons why a Proclamation of
Emancipation should not be revered as a document of liberation Any previous
acceptance of and faith in such a document was based on sentiment, not on
reality. This is a serious matter which we Afro-Americans must continue to
re-evaluate.
The original root-meaning of the word emancipation is: To deliver up or make
over as property by means of a
formal act from a purchaser We must take note and remember that human beings
cannot be justly bought or sold nor can their human rights be legally or justly
taken away. Slavery was, and still is, a criminal institution, that is a crime
en masse. No matter what form it takes: subtle rules and policies, apartheid,
etc., slavery and oppression of human rights stand as major crimes against God
and humanity. Therefore, to relegate or change the state of such criminal deeds
by means of vague legislation and noble euphemisms gives an honor to horrible
commitments that is totally inappropriate.
Full implications and concomitant harvests were generally misunderstood by our fore
parents and are still misunderstood or avoided by some Afro-Americans today.
However, the facts remain; and we, as enlightened Afro-Americans, will not
praise and encourage any belief in emancipation. Afro-Americans everywhere
must realize that to retain faith in such an idea means acceptance of being
property and, therefore, less than a human being. This matter is a crucial one
that Afro-Americans must continue to re-examine.
WORLD-WIDE CONCERNS:
The time is past due for us to internationalize the problems of
Afro-Americans. We have been too slow In recognizing the link in the fate of
Africans with the fate of Afro- Americans. We have been too unknowing to
understand and too misdirected to ask our African brothers and sisters to help
us mend the chain of our heritage.
Our African relatives who are in a majority in their own country have found it
very difficult to gain independence from a minority: It is that much more
difficult for Afro-Americans who are a minority away from the motherland and
still oppressed by those who encourage the crushing of our African identity.
We can appreciate the material progress and recognize the opportunities
available in the highly industrialized and affluent American society. Yet, we
who are non-white face daily miseries resulting directly or indirectly from a
systematic discrimination against us because of our God-given colors. These
factors cause us to remember that our being born in America
was an act of fate stemming from the separation of our fore parents from Africa;
not by choice, but by force.
We have for many years been divided among ourselves through deceptions and
misunderstandings created by our enslavers, but we do here and now express our
desires and intent to draw closer and be restored in knowledge and spirit
through renewed relations and kinships with the African peoples. We further
realize that our human rights, so long suppressed, are the rights of all
mankind everywhere.
In light of all of our experiences and knowledge of the past, we, as
Afro-Americans, declare recognition, sympathy, and admiration for all peoples
and nations who are striving, as we are, toward self-realization and complete
freedom from oppression!
The Civil Rights Bill is a similarly misleading, misinterpreted document of
legislation. The premise of its de sign and application is not respectable in
the eyes of men who recognize what personal freedom involves and en tails.
Afro-Americans must answer this question for themselves: What makes this
special bill necessary?
The only document that is in order and deserved with regard to the acts
perpetuated through slavery and oppression prolonged to this day is a
Declaration of Condemnation. And the only legislation worthy of consideration
or endorsement by Afro-Americans, the victims of these tragic institutions, is
a Proclamation of Restitution. We Afro- Americans must keep these facts ever in
mind.
We must continue to internationalize our philosophies and contacts toward
assuming full human rights which include all the civil rights appertaining
thereto. With complete understanding of our heritage as Afro-Americans, we must
not do less.
COMMITTEE'S OF ORGANIZATION OF AFRO-AMERICAN UNITY
The Cultural Committee
The Economic Committee
The Educational Committee
The Political Committee
The Publications Committee
The Social Committee
The Self-Defense Committee
The Youth Committee
Staff Committees Fund-raising Legal
Membership
"Africa and it's people are figuratively and symbolically knocking at the door of the twenty-first century. Africans caught in the crossfire of the struggle for world power are learning some painful lesson's they should of learned long ago: Mainly, freedom is not free. Freedom is something you take with your own hands. You maintain it with your own hands. Freedom is not handed down from one generation to another. Each generation must assume the responsibilty of securing their manhood, their womanhood, the definition of their being on earth that in the final analysis is nationhood. In knocking at the front door of the twenty-first century, the Africans of the world are saying the progression of circumstances has changed us from being a people begging and pleading to a people insisting and demanding. It is futile for anyone to say that African people are not ready to rule themselves. They are ready as any people in the world. But ready or not here they come." Dr. John Henrik Clarke
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