12th Street Reunion – continuing to build for the New Afrikan Nation

by Chairman and Co-Founder of New Afrikan Liberation Collective and National Director of Prison Lives Matter Kwame “Beans” Shakur

In 2020, we bought back the block. We purchased land next to the lot where I was raised. My family owns the first three lots of land on the corner of 12th and Cruft. This is the location where NALC/ The Social & Cultural Development Fund will build The New Afrikan People’s Center.

This will serve as a central organizing hub for FROLINAN (Front for the Liberation of the New Afrikan Nation) as well as the Prison Lives Matter Campaign. Hence, it will host Our decolonization programs and multimedia platform that will serve as a virtual network of New Afrikan Independence-controlled content to assist in the education and rebuilding of our nation. 

The National Strategy for FROLINAN has 10 decolonization programs designed to develop cadre and infrastructure. NALC has adopted five of these programs to initially launch the New Afrikan People’s Center. These programs include National Alliance of New Afrikan Students Associations, New Afrikan Independence Academy, New Afrikan Children’s Centers, New Afrikan Food Co-Op Program, and New Afrikan P.O.W. Assistance Program.

1. National Alliance of New Afrikan Students Associations (NANAS)

It is important that New Afrikan students know they are the future of the independence movement and essentially are the principal leaders of the movement. With this understanding, they will be able to apply themselves in education and in other extracurricular activity to the well-being of the movement and the security of the Nation. 

Students must recognize that their education is not solely for individual gain and pleasure, but rather, for the building of minds to serve the movement and the Nation. They must become politically aware of their relationship to the Nation, and it is the responsibility of NANAS to assure New Afrikan students are an organized support of FROLINAN’s Program for Decolonization. This program dealing in the area of education will allow NANAS to become the motivating factor in assuring development and success.

The following are the NANAS programs:

1. Election of community control boards to supervise schools in the New Afrikan community.
2. Establish an education system and curriculum which meet the needs of New Afrikan children, prepare them for the future in economic and technical skills, and technical security of the New Afrikan Nation, and gives them a knowledge of themselves and an understanding of the true history and culture of the Afrikan people.
3. To involve parents in every phase of school life as part of the development and community involvement in the political life of the independence movement.
4. Under the direction of FROLINAN, to support a program to train Black academicians, historians, (so-called) intellectuals and administrators in the principles and policy of class and national liberation struggle, and the objective of community control of the education system.
5. To support FROLINAN’s position that community groups should be entitled to use school facilities to promote activities for the benefit of the community and the independence movement.
6. In the support of FROLINAN’s direction, to call for the dismissal of all school officials who victimize or insult students or racial groups, or are found to be directly in cahoots with colonial government efforts to suppress FROLINAN’s education Program for Decolonization.
7. Support the establishment of community liberation schools to introduce special tutoring programs for all students who have fallen behind in their studies and to offer a full program of adult education to teach the political motives and direction of the New Afrikan Independence Movement, the prospect of a national social democratic society.

For High School Students:

1. Establishing student policy-making boards to run student activities in the high schools, handle disciplinary problems and participate in the general supervision of the schools.
2. To hold regular school assemblies to discuss school problems and ascertain the will of the student body in conjunction with the independence movement.
3. Maintain the rights of all students and teachers. These include the freedom of expression, freedom to organize and to pass out literature, freedom from censorship of school newspapers, freedom of assembly and the right to invite outside speakers regardless of their political views.
4. End disciplinary expulsions and suspensions. If there is a problem with a particular student, it must be brought to the policy-making board, for them to deal with the problem, without having the student lose in education.
5. Special tutoring for all students who fall behind in their studies, and for the development of a study program teaching New Afrikan history and the real nature of monopoly-capitalism, colonialism and imperialism. To further upgrade job training programs and adequate preparation for all students to attend college.

In this aspect of the Program for Decolonization, NANAS will be able to organize students on both the high school and college levels, working in conjunction with one another in support of FROLINAN’s political program. In this way, the political development of the independence movement becomes a total part of the education process of students, each working for the benefit of the other for as long as New Afrikan students must attend schools controlled by the colonial government.

The primary objective is to control the schools in the ghettos/barrios and within the development of the class struggle for national unity, to have New Afrikan educators become responsible to the needs and development of the independence movement. It is in the process of freeing our minds of cultural imperialism that our oppressed nation will be able to free ourselves from national oppression and colonial domination.

The building of NANAS will be the forging of a youth movement on school campuses under the auspices of FROLINAN. This youth movement will have a practical program to develop directly in relation to education and the political development of FROLINAN. Hence, NANAS is the spirit of the independence movement, New Afrikan youth organized in a national network of groups and activists to establish FROLINAN’s Program for Decolonization in the heart of the New Afrikan community, strengthening the foundation of the New Afrikan Nation.

2. New Afrikan Independence Academy (NAIA)

The building of the New Afrikan Independence Academy is the essential tool with which FROLINAN broadens its organizing ability in the New Afrikan community. The New Afrikan Independence Academy is the needed liberation schools established for the purpose of teaching and training New Afrikan youth, adults and members of FROLINAN in the political direction of the independence movement. These liberation schools will be organized in a national network by New Afrikan members of NANAS, NUNAW (National Union of New Afrikan Workers), political educators and activists in support of the independence movement. 

It is FROLINAN’s position that the New Afrikan community should have universities which are in support of the New Afrikan independence struggle and against national oppression, cultural imperialism and colonialism; Where such universities do not exist, the New Afrikan Independence Academy will serve this program.

These academies will be education centers, established in urban and rural communities to forge education in Afrikan history, political and social science, economics, business and organization administration, and technical training conducive to the preservation of the independence movement. The curriculum of the academy will be divided to serve youth and adult education, specially developed to evolve leadership quality amongst New Afrikans and fulfill the needs of the national program and strategy of FROLINAN. 

The New Afrikan Independence Academy will be established by a national education board consisting of progressive Black academicians, historians, intellectuals, FROLINAN political activists and students, who will be responsible for developing a national curriculum instituted in all academies across the country. This national curriculum will serve to assure those involved in the independence movement understand the ideals and practice of the struggle in a single or similar viewpoint, which also assists the struggle against sectarianism and narrow nationalism that retards the growth and development of the liberation struggle.

3. New Afrikan Children’s Centers (NACC)

The New Afrikan Children Centers are child day care centers established by FROLINAN and operated by members of the oppressed New Afrikan community and FROLINAN organizers. These day care centers will operate to serve the needs of working parents and political activists who need someone to look after their children, while they are out securing a livelihood and/or fulfilling the political objectives of the independence movement.

These centers, depending on location, will also serve free breakfast for school children in the neighborhood, and generally be supportive of the development of the community in respects to the growth of children in conjunction with the Panther Youth Corps (PYC) and other student related programs. Although the New Afrikan Children’s Centers will mostly be responsible for children from the age of one to five years of age, these children will be taught basic skills and practices that will enhance their intelligence, aptitude and understanding of the world around them.

It is in the development of the New Afrikan Children’s Centers that will further the building of FROLINAN and forge its program in the heart of the New Afrikan community – fulfilling a need and concern that affects most families. Having the community support the centers would be to have New Afrikan families support the political motivation by which FROLINAN seeks to build the independence movement.

4. New Afrikan Food Co-Op Program (NAFCOP)

The New Afrikan Food Co-Op Program is a FROLINAN project to organize members of the New Afrikan community to unite in cooperative economic planning in securing wholesale produce and food stuff. With the development of food co-ops and the socio-economic interaction of members of the community, the community will formulate working relationships for the improvement of the entire group. This also is the basic means in which FROLINAN educates New Afrikans on the ideals of community responsibility, development and survival during the course of the independence movement. 

Efforts will be made to develop farming cooperatives, whereby agriculture will be used in the supplying of food co-ops in urban areas. The establishment of food co-ops will ensure the growth and development of FROLINAN’s national program and strategy.

These food co-ops will strengthen the political determination of the need to free the land as an essential and recognized objective, as New Afrikans understand the need for us to feed ourselves. The food co-ops will become a practical organizing tool both politically and organizationally, a central foundation to serve other aspects of FROLINAN’s national strategy, such as the free breakfast program for school children. It is when New Afrikan Food Co-Op Markets are established, comprising hundreds of community co-op groups through the New Afrikan community, that FROLINAN will be able to gauge the strength of its political determination in organizing New Afrikans under the auspices of its national program towards self-government and independence.

5. New Afrikan POW Assistance Program (NAPOWAP)

The New Afrikan POW Program will be developed to assure that New Afrikan captives are assisted in their efforts to be released from prison. Such assistance will be formulated in legal support in defense of our captured, pre-release programs for those about to be released on parole or discharged, political assistance in building programs, and campaigns of national impact concerning the prison movement, and when possible, financial aid for the families of captives. 

In the past, the prison movement has lent significant political support to the general independence movement. Many of those captured had been principal leaders in the movement on the streets. Where they might be able to continue to give leadership and enhance the development of the independence movement, it will be the responsibility of NAPOWAP to ensure they are provided the essential assistance in mutual regard to the independence movement and FROLINAN’s Program for Decolonization.

Emphasis will be given to the development of national campaigns for amnesty and/or exchange of political prisoners of war, the ending of prison slavery and repeal of the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as it upholds prison slavery, call for unionization of prisoners’ labor and minimum wage renumeration for their labor, call for the release of New Afrikan prisoners nationally, for them to return to the national territory of Kush and support the agricultural development of the New Afrikan Nation, for the immediate end of the death penalty and for the release of New Afrikans in military prisons. All of this is part of the Program for Decolonization and Ten Point Program.

We have organized around the gentrification of the land and institutions in the Booker T. Washington community in Terre Haute the past three years, in particular the city’s takeover of the center and the denial of our access. Now the city is attempting to force the elders out of their homes so that they can bulldoze the block and rezone it for commercialization. We have to take the time to assemble boots on the ground and educate these elders, their families and the community around the social/cultural and environmental GENOCIDE that is taking place, and how We can combat this and win through organization and unity. 

On May 21, 2022, We are having the 12th Street Reunion BBQ cookout on the land. The objective is to bring family and community together and build support for my defense committee as well as raising awareness to Our aims for the New Afrikan People’s Center, and how the people can get involved.

WE ARE OWN LIBERATORS!
REBUILD TO WIN!
Chairman Kwame “Beans” Shakur

Send our brother some love and light: Michael Joyner, 149677, WVCF, P.O. Box 1111, Carlisle, IN 47838.

NALC, NALC  Land Fund, PLM