The late Kwame Ture
[COMMUNITY EVENTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS]
1. BROTHER BOB BROWN ON KWAME TURE
On Sunday, March 9th at 3:00 PM, Brother Bob Brown of AAPRP will speak on the topic. “Countering the War to Destroy, The Revolutionary Kwame Ture AKA Stokely Carmichael” at John Henrik Clarke House located at 286 Convent Avenue, Harlem NY 10031. Admission is Free Call 347-907-0629 to RSVP.
OPEN LETTER FROM BROTHER BOB BROWN
My name is Bob Brown. I am an organizer for the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC). I have had the honor to serve in and support the student and youth, civil and human rights, Black Power, national liberation and unification, Pan-African, socialist, peace, anti-repression and other movements since 1963, almost three-fourths of my life. I have also had the privilege to work with Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) from 1967 to 1998, as a member and/or supporter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party (BPP), the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG), the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP), the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania (South Africa) and a host of other movements and organizations throughout Africa, the African Diaspora and the World. Click here, for more information.
It is with extreme sadness that I write this open letter to SUNY Press. Our allies in the American Indian Movement have requested that I do so. I hope that it is taken with the honest and sincere intent in which it is written. I was contacted recently by Dr. Charles Jones (University of Cincinnati) and Dr. Akinyele Umoja (Georgia State University) regarding a manuscript that they are producing about Kwame Ture. They informed me that SUNY Press was interested in publishing a book about him, and had requested that they submit a manuscript for review and possible approval. We thank you for your interest. Please understand that Dr. Jones and Dr. Umoja enjoy our warmest respect and highest regard.
They asked me to submit a chapter on “Ture and COINTELPRO,” and to possibly serve as one of the co-editors. After much discussion with the A-APRP (GC), Kwame’s Family, the leadership of the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council, and several academicians and organizers whom I respect, I declined to participate in this Project. I had several reasons for doing so. Frankly, the proposed chapter outline and list of presenters presented too many challenges and land mines, and few, in my view, had any real substantive knowledge about Kwame Ture. The most important reason was because Ward Churchill had been asked to write a chapter on “Kwame Ture and AIM.”
To his credit, Churchill allegedly asked the editors if they had talked to me about this Project. To his discredit however, he failed to tell them why he thought it necessary for them to do so. Perhaps he hoped that I had some how mellowed after our previous confrontations; had some how forgotten or misplaced my letter to him dated March 4, 1994; or forgiven what I considered then and now to be his “factual, legal and historical inaccuracies” regarding his misunderstanding—to put it diplomatically and mildly—about several projects that the A-APRP and AIM worked on jointly. See the links below to my 10-page letter to Churchill and Russell Means in 1994. It is posted on the American Indian Movement Grand Governing Council’s website:
Churchill has never apologized for nor corrected these lies, this slander, libel and defamation despite repeated offers on my part to produce uncontestable proof of their inaccuracy. I can forgive his ignorance about AIM’s and the A-APRP’s affairs, but I can never forget, nor forgive his arrogance and COINTELPRO-like behavior, especially from one who purports to be an expert on COINTELPRO.
I cannot perpetuate, or aid and abet in the perpetuation of the lie that Ward Churchill knows about, or will correctly portray the truth about Kwame Ture’s relationship to the American Indian Movement. Dr. Martin Luther King is right, “a time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for me once again. I could never lend my name or credibility or silence to Ward Churchill’s lies. He knows little or nothing about Kwame Ture’s and our relationship to the American Indian Movement, and cannot be trusted to write it truthfully or with the integrity and dignity that it deserves.
As a historical and continuing victim of COINTELPRO and academic censorship, I do not ask that SUNY Press refuse to print this book, or whatever rubbish Churchill might write. I do expect however that you will uphold your legal, ethical, moral and academic obligation to review it, especially Churchill’s chapter, seriously, and vet it legally, before publication.
Our thirst for “academic freedom” and for more information about the history of the 1960s cannot be misused to peddle fiction and lies, or miseducate generations of youth, many of whom are as yet unborn. The historiography and iconography of Kwame Ture is encumbered with enough myths and errors—omissions, half-truths and lies. We do not need or want anymore of Ward Churchill’s lies.
This open letter has been sent to several Indigenous and African media outlets and webpages, and will be posted publicly, worldwide! It is circulating on the Internet and various social networks. I am sure that you will hear from members and the leadership of several Indigenous and Chicano Nations and organizations soon.
Again, we hold Dr. Jones, Dr. Umoja and SUNY Press in the highest regard and thank you for your efforts to “give voice” to Kwame Ture.
Sincerely,
Bob Brown
2. BROTHER HUGH HAMILTON AT CEMOTAP
On Saturday March 22, 2014 at 2:00PM WBAI Host, Hugh Hamilton will speak at CEMOTAP CENTER, located at 135-05 Rockaway Boulevard, South Ozone Park, NY 11420 Admission is Free Call 347-907-0629 for further info or to RSVP
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Hugh Hamilton is a professional journalist of wide-ranging experience spanning more than two-and-a-half decades in broadcast (radio) and print media. He is currently host and executive producer of “Talkback!”, an interactive news-talk-analysis program specializing in political discourse and public policy on WBAI, Pacifica Radio, in New York 99.5 FM (http://www.wbai.org). Since 1993, he has combined his extensive journalistic experience with a parallel interest in legislative analysis and advocacy, serving in related capacities for two members of the New York City Council.
Hamilton is a former news editor and newscaster with the Guyana Broadcasting Corporation. He is also a former interim Bureau Chief of the Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency in Georgetown, Guyana; International Editor of The City Sun, a weekly African American newspaper in New York, and has held correspondent positions with the Caribbean Broadcasting Union and Caribbean News Agency.
As a political reporter, Hamilton has covered summits of the Non-Aligned Movement and Commonwealth Heads of Government in New Delhi, India; Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government meetings in Jamaica, Antigua-Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago and Nassau, Bahamas. He was among the first reporters allowed into Grenada following the 1983 U.S.-led intervention, and accompanied official delegations of the Guyana government to trade and economic negotiations in Cuba, North Korea, Mexico, and Britain.
In 1985, Hamilton was awarded an international fellowship to cover the 40th special session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, where he was assigned to the Caribbean Radio Unit of the Department of Public Information. That fellowship also included a working visit to the Tanjug News Agency in Belgrade.
Since immigrating to the United States in 1988, Hamilton has covered extensively the impact of public policy on the African American and other “minority” communities, in areas ranging from politics and voting rights to issues of economic parity, public funding of social infrastructure (health, education), and the environment. His 24-page special report documenting the complexities of the urban environmental movement has been widely acclaimed by social-justice advocates (Uptown Eco-Blues: Environmental Woes in Harlem, The City Sun, June 5-11, 1991). Other special reports included similarly expansive studies of New York’s diverse immigrant communities, desegregation efforts in Yonkers, N.Y., identity politics in the redistricting process and the African American experience in the social-service sector.
Following an eight-year hiatus from full-time journalism — during which he served as director of communication and legislative affairs to New York City Council Members Una Clarke and Rev. Dr. Lloyd Henry – Hamilton returned to radio as host of WBAI’s afternoon public-affairs program “Talkback!” in January 2001. As executive producer and host of the program – heard Monday through Thursday, 3-5pm — Hamilton has consolidated his reputation as an engaging yet incisive interviewer, challenging the ideological orthodoxies of both the right and left. Arbitron figures reflect substantial and consistent increases in listener numbers and loyalty throughout the tri-state signal area, and call-in segments reveal a dedicated and far-flung listenership via the internet.
In addition to his work as a journalist, radio host and policy analyst, Hamilton has also served in an advisory capacity to several community development organizations in the predominantly African American and immigrant working-class communities of New York City. His work as a journalist and public-interest advocate was honored with a proclamation from the New York City Council in 2001.
Hamilton is married, the father of two children
3. FROM NAKO: Chairman Lawrence Hamm of the Peoples Organization for Progress (POP) is in ICU at University of Medicine and Dentistry, E level, room E-444.
He is in stable condition and alert. He has 17 broken ribs, a broken arm, and collapsed lung. We are very grateful that he survived this accident and want all to send good vibrations his way.
He is unable to talk to anyone at this time as his phone is dead. He can, however, receive visits from 8:00am til 3:00pm, and 6:00pm til 10:00pm with the exception of shift change between 6:00pm til 8:00pm.
We will keep you updated on his progress, in the meantime, please keep him in your prayers, thoughts and send good vibrations for a speedy recovery.
Chairman Lawrence Hamm of the Peoples Organization for Progress (POP) is in ICU at University of Medicine and Dentistry, E level, room E-444.
He is in stable condition and alert. He has 17 broken ribs, a broken arm, and collapsed lung.
We are very grateful that he survived this accident and want all to send good vibrations his way. He is unable to talk to anyone at this time as his phone is dead.
He can, however, receive visits from 8:00am til 3:00pm, and 6:00pm til 10:00pm with the exception of shift change between 6:00pm til 8:00pm.
We will keep you updated on his progress, in the meantime, please keep him in your prayers, thoughts and send good vibrations for a speedy recovery.
