Nkechi Taifa: Black, Power, Black Lawyer and Reparations on Fire
Nkechi Taifa also writes in her memoir, Black Power, Black Lawyer,
"The spark for [the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America - NCOBRA] founding emanated from a 1987 conference on Race and the Constitution spearheaded by the National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) and held at Harvard University. . . . [Note, in Reparations on Fire, Taifa adds, “Aiyetoro invited Imari Obadele, President of the Republic of New Afrika, Chokwe Lumumba, co-founder of the New Afrikan People’s Organization, and me, along with economist Richard America, to address the issue of the constitutionality of reparations on a panel at Harvard and to discuss whether a U.S. constitutional amendment was needed to effectuate reparations.”] We also examined an act authorizing negotiations between a commission of the U.S. and a commission of the RNA to determine kind, dates and other details of paying reparations. We discussed the significance of 'government to government' reparations as the negotiated settlement that follows the conclusion of war . . . . Out of that historic September 26, 1987 gathering, the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparation in America (NCOBRA) was born, bringing together diverse groups under one umbrella. Black Nationalist politics clearly dominated the room. . . . Since the creation of NCOBRA, the demand for reparations in the United States has substantially leaped forward, generating what I've dubbed, the modern day Reparations Movement. It was the perfect storm. The Black Power Movement was open and receptive to a broad-based approach to further the issue of reparations. The Black legal community sanctioned the largely Black Nationalist effort . . . . I am appreciative that leaders in the New Afrikan Independence Movement had the humility to tone down their analysis and distinct ideological position in favor of facilitating broader acceptance of the concept of reparations and allowing new voices to come to the fore." (pp. 174-179)
Nkechi Taifa continues in Reparatios on Fire:
“Broad national attention to the call for reparations for descendants of Africans enslaved in the U.S. unquestionably accelerated with the 1987 founding of N’COBRA. . . . Our presentation both at the Haarvard convening and in our co-authored 1987 book [Reparations Yes!] were replete with historical precedents for reparations. New Afrikan Political Science, and analysis of international law including our revolutionary fervor promoting the right to self-determination. Indeed, we felt the issue of self-determination for the descendants of Africans held as slaves in the U.S. to be key and central to a reparatory justice remedy. After the enslavement era Black people never had the opportunity to decide what our future would hold, with full appreciation of our options and reparations to put our choices into reality. Would we repatriate back to Africa? If so, how? Would we settle in the independent Haiti Republic or somewhere else in the diaspora? Would we accept the U.S. offer of 14th amendment citizenship into the new white nation it was developing and strive to make a multiracial democracy real? Due to severed homeland ties, would we plant our own flag in the ground in this country that we worked and built, negotiated with Native peoples, and establish our own independent Black Nation on soil claimed by the U.S.?
Our theory was that a reparations settlement must include the manifestation of each of these options through a national plebiscite, inclusive of both direct and group benefits. For those who wish to repatriate, we wrote that they should have sufficient resources to make that reintegration a reality, as well as for those who seek to emigrate elsewhere. For those who wish to force this country to respect our rights as full citizens, that option must be accompanied by transformative changes in policies and practices, closure of the Black/white wealth gap, elimination of educational and health disparities, cessation of mass incarceration disproportionately impacting black people, and release of Black political prisoners and prisoners of war. And for those who wish to establish an independent New Afrikan nation-state on this soil, following the model of five states in the Deep South or elsewhere, should likewise have the economic resources and political diplomatic recognition to make that self-determination choice a reality. . . .
‘Making’ a free people citizens without their informed consent is a limitation on that people’s freedom. If the informed consent exists from the population in question, then the population is ‘made’ citizens, but have become citizens under their own volition.
The imposition of US citizenship on New Afrikans without their express consent offends our human right to self-determination, and leaves true realization of other human rights in doubt and/or in jeopardy. The distinction making us citizens of the U.S. and voluntary choice of such citizenship, by New Afrikans desiring the same, is important. First, many of us do not want to be citizens of the United States. In fact history suggests that this has been the case since the inception of the United States (i.e Denmark Vesey, Gabriel Prosser, Nat Turner, Henry Garnett, Afrikan Blood Brotherhood, Marcus Garvey, Nation of Islam, etc.).
Second, it should be noted that an imposition on those of us (New Afrikans) not desiring the same is a badge of slavery. But fo our enslavement no such ‘citizenship’ could be imposed.
Third, imposed citizenship offends the 13th Amendment. It limits the freedom declared by that amendment, and subjects many so called free persons to an unwanted political status, merely by virtue of their presence in the United States - a presence which emanates from the enslavement that the 13th Amendment is purported to have abolished. No person or population so disposed can be said to have received full reparation for slavery.
The political essence of slavery is not merely found in economic exploitation of labor, but in the illegal and imposition of United States jurisdiction on the slave, or the slave’s descendants. Full reparation must relieve those imposed upon of any political status forced on them. Recall that Sister Collins has appropriately defined reparation as ‘redress for an injury, or amends for a wrong inflicted.’ A wrong doer certainly cannot amend for a wrong inflicted by inflicting another wrong. . . .
Black Reparations Commission President Dorothy Benton Lewis, . . . who worked closely with the Republic of New Afrika and the African National Reparations Organization. . . Working closely with the RNA and its Foreign Affairs Task Force, . . . urged Brother Imari to convene a national gathering on reparations to discuss how to increase its exposure in the U.S. and make the issue of reparations a household word. I credit Brother Imari Obadele for downplaying the New Afrikan independence politics outlined in Reparations Yes! and agreeing to issue the call for reparations-loving people to convene in Washington to discuss, among other agenda items, dealing with an independent Black foreign policy, how to move the issue of Reparations for Black people in the U.S. forward. . . . Obadele could have demanded that the diverse organizations and individuals he summoned to Washington had to refer to Black people as ‘New Afrikans.’ But he didn’t. He could have demanded that the only way forward must be ‘nation-to-nation’ reparations. But he didn’t. . . . .The higher ground was taken, and Obadele made the unifying national call for a mass-based gathering of activists not beholden to any specific ideology, and it was out of that historic September 26, 1987 gathering, that N’COBRA was born, bringing diverse groups under one umbrella.”
Here it must be emphasized that Imari Obadele, the RNA, and the Nationalists in general made a concession for the sake of unity and moving forward. Downplaying the Nationalist position did not mean abandoning it. Now that reparations is, indeed, a household word, the reparations movement owes a debt to the Republic of New Afrika to fervently pursue the manifestation of each of the options through a national plebiscite which would include, on equal footing, the nationalist demand for land and independence.
Again, both logic and the data show that this is the only way to establish a Reparations United Front with maximum COMPELLING FORCE. This is especially true due to the division in the Reparations movement that occured with the emergence of #ADOS and Foundational Black Americans (FBA) movements.
Reparations: A Proposed Act Submitted to Some Members of Congress in September 1987
The REPARATIONS: A PROPOSED ACT TO STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE UNITED STATES AND COMPENSATE, IN PART, FOR THE GRIEVOUS WRONGS OF SLAVERY AND THE UNJUST ENRICHMENT WHICH ACCRUED TO THE UNITED STATES THEREFROM prepared by President of the PGRNA Imari Obadele (September 1987) proposed the following, simple and logical formula for reparations:
1. One-third of the annual sum shall go directly to each individual;
2. One-third of the annual sum shall go directly to the duly elected government of the Republic of New Afrika and to any other state-building entity of New Afrikan people; and
3. One-third of the annual sum shall be paid directly to a National Congress of Organizations. And all of this to be framed and manifested through a PLEBISCITE.
PROPOSED REPARATION AMENDMENT
All descendants of Afrikans (New Afrikans, Liberians, etc) previously held in slavery within the United States and its occupied territories during any period of time when the laws of the United States, or any states thereof, protected and/or permitted this enslavement and all descendants of Africans transported in slave commerce permitted under United States law, or the law of any state which is part of the United States shall be entitled collectively and individually, to reparations from the United States government and full compensation for all physical, educational, economic, political, cultural, and mental loss and injuries that such Afrikan descendants have suffered as a consequence of their Afrikan ancestor’ enslavement. All such persons shall also be collectively and individually entitled to reparations from the United States government and full compensation for injury and loss due to all other violations of their human rights, or the human rights of their ancestors, by the United States government, by any state of the United States, or by individuals subject to United States or state laws, whose commission of such violations were allowed by, and kown to, or which should have been known to officials of the United States government, or to government officials of a state of the United States.
This Amendment shall require payment of reparations by the United States Government directly to individual Afrikan descendants entitled under the Amendment, to representatives of Organizations, chosen by the entitled persons and to the Afrikan states and Nations in the Western Hemisphere and Afrika to which the entitled persons belong. In addition to reparations payments received on behalf of entitled individuals, and groups, the Republic of New Afrika and any Afrikan state shall be entitled to reparations for any damages suffered as a nation or state, because of slavery, the slave trade and other human rights violations perpetrated by the United States or one of its states against the nationals of these nations or states, or against their ancestors. This Amendment shall allow such nations or states reparation for belligerent acts committed against them by the United States, or any state organization, or individual operating under United States authority or protection, where the Act was designed to facilitate the continuation of slavery, the slave trade or other human rights violations against Afrikans, or their descendants.
Reparations under this Amendment shall be paid and money with interest, and machinery, technology, land and in any other appropriate form as determined by the United States Congress, after consultation with representatives of the Afrikan Nations, states, and individuals entitled to reparations payments. The amount to be paid shall also be determined by Congress after such consultation.
The United States and each state of the United States and each individual under its jurisdiction shall hereafter recognize and respect the human rights of all persons and nations, including those entitled to reparations under this Amendment. Such recognition and respect shall include an absolute recognition of the right of Afrikan descendants (New Afrikans) in the United States and its occupied territories, to self-determination.Thus neither the government of the United States or the various states, nor individuals under the jurisdiction shall restrict the right of New Afrikans to (a) repatriate to Afrika, (b) emigrate to another country, (c) become full citizens of the United States, or (d) establish an independent nation state in the New Afrikan territory in America.
The United States, the states of the United States, and individuals under United States jurisdiction shall make no effort to impose United States citizenship on Afrikan descendants in America and elsewhere.
To the extent that any prior provision of this constitution is inconsistent with this amendment it is hereby repealed.
Congress shall have the power to enact the appropriate legislation and take necessary steps to implement and enforce the provisions of this amendment.
SUMMARY
The following should now be clear:
1. The people captured from their homelands in Africa and brought to the American colonies were not Christian. Most black Americans trace their ancestry to areas of Africa that, centuries ago, were not primarily part of the Christian world. However, nearly eight-in-ten black Americans (79%) identify as Christian. This means that one of the tragic effects of surviving the middle passage was religious conversion under conditions of violence and trauma that persists until today.
2. Oral history, slave songs (coded), and modern scholarship record that the desire of the enslaved was to return to Africa or to escape to liberated territory and NOT to integrate into the Anglo American colonies..
3. The enslaved people from Africa were willing to rebel, revolt, risk death and kill their white Christian enslavers in order to obtain their freedom.
4. Christianity was formally introduced to the enslaved in 1847 following the Nat Turner Rebellion TO PREVENT INSURRECTIONS AND TO ENCOURAGE DOCILITY, OBEDIENCE TO THE WHITE SLAVE MASTER, and INTEGRATION while COLONIZATION was adopted for the same purpose by removing free blacks who were considered the most troublesome segment of the population as well as slaves who desired to return to their homelands.
5. The indoctrinated Christian free colored people held meetings which the enslaved population could not do, and based on a Christian idealism and an extremely naive understanding of the US Constitution, decided that the white slave masters would be persuaded to grant them all the rights and privileges provided for in the U.S Constitution.
6. The United States, through the American Colonization Society, were prepared to grant the desire of the slaves and begin returning them to Africa (repatriation as a form of reparation). Rightfully suspect and critical of the Society’s motives, some indoctrinated Christian free Negroes, led by Frederick Douglass, used their advantage of position to propagandize and misrepresent the will of the vast majority of slaves and free Negroes. These indoctrinated Christian free Negroes sabotaged the return of tens of thousands of slaves just prior to the Civil War.
7. So-called Black Leadership, instead of working together to see that all interests were advanced, instead fought bitterly against each other.
8. The current #ADOS movement is making the same arguments and the same mistakes as the first #ADOS movement.
9. The lesson to be learned is that what is needed is enough COMPELLING FORCE to exercise SELF-DETERMINATION so that all groups and interests are achieved. Black people, African American people - whatever you want to call them - must stop framing all the issues as EITHER/OR and instead frame them as EACH/AND/ALL. Such a framework and corresponding organization/centralization of political energies, could bring about the long desired, never achieved UNITY of black people in America.
10. THE FRAMEWORK FOR UNITING BLACK PEOPLE IN AMERICA IS THROUGH A UNITED NATIONS SPONSORED PLEBISCITE FOR SELF DETERMINATION FOR THE DESCENDANTS OF PEOPLE WHO SURVIVED THE CRIMINAL AND GENOCIDAL MIDDLE PASSAGE TO THE COLONIES WHICH BECAME THE UNITED STATES. Such a process will unite all the diverse political energies around the four basic natural choices: (1) US citizenship with ALL rights, privileges and protections, (2) return to Africa, (3) emigration to another country and (4) the creation of a new African nation on American soil.
Excerpt from WAR IN AMERICA by Imari Obadele, first drafted in October 1966 and revised and published January 1968.
THE ANSWER TO FEDERAL OPPOSITION
“THE answer to federal opposition to black state power is a complex of studied moves POLITICAL, DIPLOMATIC, ECONOMIC, AND MILITARY.
The crucial first step is the early acceptance of an essential and inevitable decision by those who seek black state power. This is the decision to withdraw the state (ultimately, withdraw the entire, new, five-state union of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina) from the United States and establish a separate nation.
This is necessary because the inevitable opposition of the federal government would be irresistible so long as it operates within the state; it must be put OUTSIDE the state.
Of first importance are the diplomatic moves. As Malcolm X taught, the black man’s struggle must be INTERNATIONALIZED, for it is only within the United States that we are a minority. Joined with other peoples of color beyond the American borders, black men bestow upon white men the status of a minority.
The struggle must be internationalized for an even more basic and directly negotiable reason: we must draw to our cause the moral and material support of people of good will throughout the world; this support, correctly used, could impose upon the United States federal government an amount of caution sufficient, when coupled with the military viability of the black state itself, toprotect that state from destruction beneath certain and overwhelming federal Power.
In short, the effort to win public support for the black struggle from the Afro-Asian nations, started in earnest by Malcolm X and maintained so resolutely by Robert Williams, MUST BE CONTINUED AND INTENSIFIED; we must, moreover, continue and intensify the effort to raise serious, substantial questions concerning the status of black people in the United States and bring these questions before the United Nations and the World Court. Fortunately, the groundwork for this effort has already (by 1966) been faithfully laid by such men as Robert A. Brock, founder of Los Angeles’ SELF-DETERMINATION COMMITTEE, and Baba Oserjeman Adefumi, founder of the New York-headquartered YORUBA COMMUNITY.
As Adefumi, Brock, and their fellow workers have shown, the central questions to be brought before the United Nations and the World Court are Two:
A. THE RIGHT OF BLACK PEOPLE AS FREE MEN TO CHOOSE WHETHER OR NOT THEY WISH TO BE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES.
This right was never exercised: freed from slavery by constitutional provision, black people were given no choice as to whether they wished to be citizens, go back to Africa or to some other country, or set up an independent nation. Instead, the OBLIGATIONS of citizenship were automatically conferred upon us by the white majority, while the RIGHTS of citizenship for black people were made conditional rather than absolute, circumscribed by a constitutional provision that “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation," and subjected to 90 years of interpretation and reinterpretation by the courts, the Congress, and the state legislatures.
Adjudication of this question must bestow upon those black people wishing it a guarantee of their right to be free of the jurisdiction of the United States and assure that their right to freedom shall not have been jeopardized by the payment of taxes, participation in the election process, or service in the military during the period before adjudication. These later acts are participated in by the blacks in America who seek adjudication, only under coercion and as defensive measures.
B. THE RIGHT OF BLACK PEOPLE TO REPARATIONS FOR THE INJURIES AND WRONGS DONE US AND OUR ANCESTORS BY REASON OF UNITED STATES LAW.
Reparations have never been paid to black people for the admitted wrongs of slavery (or since slavery) inflicted upon our ancestors with the sanction of the United States Constitution — which regulated the slave trade and provided for the counting of slaves — and the laws of several states. The principle of reparations for national wrongs, as for personal wrongs, is well established in international law. The West German government, for instance, has paid 850 million dollars in equipment and credits, in reparations to Israel for wrongs committed by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe. Demands for reparations, funneled through a united black power Congress, must include not only the demand for money and goods such as machinery, factories and laboratories, but a demand for land. And the land we want is the land where we are: MISSISSIPPI, LOUISIANA, ALABAMA, GEORGIA, and SOUTH CAROLINA.
The bringing of the first question to the United Nations — the question of black people’s right to self-determination — creates a substantial question demanding action by that world body and puts the black power struggle in America into the world spotlight where the actions of the United States against us are open to examination and censure by our friends throughout the world. It provides these friends, moreover, with a legal basis for their expressions of support and their work in our behalf.
The raising of the demand for land, as part of the reparations settlement, infuses needed logic and direction into the American black struggle and increases the inherent justice of our drive for black state power and the separation of the new five-state union from the United States.
The separation is necessary because history assures us that the whites of America would not allow a state controlled by progressive black people, opposed to the exploitation and racism and organized crime of the whole, to exist as a part of the whole. Separation is necessary because black people must separate ourselves from the guilt we have borne as partners, HOWEVER RELUCTANT, to the white man in his oppression and crimesagainst the rest of humanity. Separation is possible because, first, it is militarily possible.
When the 13 American colonies declared their independence from Britain, they also forged an alliance with France, which not insignificantly contributed to the colonies’ victory. When the Confederacy separated from the United States, it formed alliances with Britain and other European powers, and these alliances might have sustained her independence had not this creature been so severely weakened by sabotage and revolts of the slaves themselves and their service in the Union Army. In more recent times the state of Israel was created in 1948 and maintained against Arab arms by her alliances with the United States and Britain. In 1956 the independence of Egypt was maintained against invasion by Israel, supported by France and Britain, by her alliance with Russia: Russia threatened to drop atomic missiles on London if the invaders did not withdraw. In 1959-1960 an independent, anti-capitalist Cuba was saved from invasion and subjugation by American might (as American might would invade and subjugate another small Caribbean island republic, the Dominican Republic, in 1965) because, again, of an alliance with Russia.
The lesson is clear: black power advocates must assiduously cultivate the support of the Afro-Asian world. MORE, that moment when state power comes into our hands is the same moment when formal, international alliances must be announced. Indeed, these alliances may prove our only guarantee of continued existence.”
Excerpt from Imari Obadele speech to the Toward a Black University Conference at Howard University, November 1968:
Government Must Be By Consent
“Ever since the American Declaration of Independence an accepted principle of international law has been that men need only be bound by government that arises from the consent of the governed. That is to say, a group of persons must consent - must agree - to be governed by a government or else that government is a creature of oppression and its rule is tyranny. A group of people has a right - indeed, they have a duty to throw off such tyrannical government and institute such new government and new forms as to themselves seem most likely to assure their future happiness and success.
Thus, because the founders of the Republic of New Africa understood that the government of the United States rules black people without our studied consent, and because the founders understood, therefore, that for black people the United States government is tyranny and an exercise in oppression, we created a new government - The Republic of New Afrika - to which black people can freely and with great hope and justification, give their consent. The new forms which we are instituting to assure our future happiness and success are those to which black people throughout the United States have traditionally aspired, in order to achieve freedom, justice, prosperity, progress, and brotherhood. And they are spelled out in the ‘Aims of the Revolution’ contained in the Republic’s Declaration of Independence (March 31, 1968).
Primary Objective of the Republic of New Afrika: Win Consent of the People
Therefore, the primary objective of the government of the New Republic of of New Africa, in our peaceful campaign to win soverignty over lands on the continent that righfully belong to black people, has been to create opportunities for black people to show that the government of the United States does not have our consent, and that the Republic of New Africa does have our consent.
This continues to be our policy and the primary strategical objective of the Republic of New Africa. Wherever our Consulates and pledged citizens exist - whether in our subjugated colonies in the Northern cities or our subjugated territories in the South - the policy is the same and constantly pursued: to create the means for black people to express their consent to be governed by the Republic of New Africa.
Massive Mis-Education of Black People in America Concerning Citizenship and Building a Separate Independent Black Nation
Because of the massive mis-education of black people in America concerning rights and obligations, the Republic’s campaigns for consent are often described as, and often become campaigns to win consent. For most black people do not understand that their present evidences of consent (payment of taxes, voting, serving in the Army, etc.) have been forced from us by a tyrannical government that has never allowed us a free choice - free consent - in the matter of citizenship. . . .
To break through the massive mis-education of our people . . . it is necessary to make them understand - not just in their brains but in their gut-bottom emotions - that the only answer to ending the oppression and misery under which they daily live is to join in building a separate, free, powerful black nation of our own right now, right here on this continent. The next step is to convince them that it can be done.
But the first, most difficult, but most important step is to convince them that our new nation is the only answer to misery and oppression.
Winning Consent for the Republic of New Afrika is Dangerous Work
This work - the work of convincing people anywhere in our subjugated areas within the United States, that our separate nation is the only answer and to join us in building it - is fraught with danger wherever we conduct it.
Even though the Republic’s official pronouncements have made it clear that (1) we wish to negotiate a peaceful settlement of our differences with the United States and that (2) we do not seek to overthrow the United States government or alter its form but only to set up our own independent government - despite this, the United States government is fully capable (though wrong under its own law and international law) of harassing and jailing our workers and leaders. Indeed, the likelihood of this happening increases geometrically as we become more successful and as mis-informed whites (the majority in America) feel tht we are seriously threatening their prestige and power (that is: their white supremacy and white domination).
Moreover, every state in the Union has its own laws on subversion, overthrow, syndicalism and the like. In the five states of the South these laws could be used against us with considerably more justification than similar federal laws - and almost certainly will be. . . . Then, there is the use of uniformed and uninformed white violence.
Workers and officers of the Republic face all these dangers . . . merely for organizing people to express their free consent for a government. It can be no other way. And because we understand the call of history, we can do nothing else but to press on for the freedom of our people, along this certain course: Independence.
Excerpt from Revolution and Nation Building; Strategy for Building The Black Nation in America, by Imari Obadele, 1970:
Eight Strategic Elements
“There are eight strategic elements which are required for the successful establishment of an independent black state on the American mainland. They are these:
Brains
Labor
Natural Resources
Internal Domestic Support
International Support
A Limited Objective
Inherent Military Viability
A Second-Strike Capability
The combination of brains, labor and national resources is what produces wealth, without which no country can contemplate true independence. . . .
Non-New Afrikan Blacks in America Must Support the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika
“Non-New Afrikan blacks in America must support us in a variety of ways. Support of the campaign for reparations is essential. Black Congressmen must take the lead in campaigning through Congress for a reparations settlement which includes substantial payment to the black nation, to the Republic of New Africa, even if it includes direct payments to individuals. But we are completely against reparations payments which go to whites or to U.S. government agencies to use for us - this is no reparations at all. We are also against using funds from our reparations settlement to pay capitalists for the plants and mines which we take over in the South. If at all, payment for these should be arranged in negotiation with our government. But the cold cash of our reparations settlement, and the trading credits, must be largely used to acquire the machine, to improve and expand industrial plants.
The support of non-New African blacks in America must, obviously, include sending dollars and gold, silver and diamonds, which we have in abundance in our jewelry to New Africa so that however long it takes to achieve a meaningful reparations settlement with the U.S. or however destructive our warfare in the South, we will not be without acceptable media for acquiring the machine through international trade. Blacks remaining within the U.S. must also - and importantly - use their influence, so long as it exists, to restrain the hand of the United States in using its court and military establishments against us. Indeed, to put this positively, blacks remaining in the U.S. must exert every influence to help us force the United States to settle with us justly - on the basis of plebiscites and international law - our claims to sovereignty and reparations.
International Support is Equally Important
But international support is equally important in staying the hand of the U.S. government against us. International Support is a crucial factor in assuring that our war for independence will neither be interminable nor unsuccessful. It is not only a matter of direct material or arms aid; just as the deployment of United States forces on alert status in such places as the Sea of Japan and Korea has been of some value to the VIetnamese, so the same or similar deployments would be of value to us. Too, on the military side, the possibility - however remote, however logistically difficult -that Chinese troops might, if asked by us, make an appearance in the United States such as Alaska or Hawaii, or at some oversees point where the United States has military commitments; the possibility that African nations in retaliation for U.S. military action against us might take action against the U.S. within their countries, which could include breaking off relations, seizures of property and concerted military action against . . . . allies of the U.S. and supported by and relied upon by the U.S. - these two possibilities count as major elements in our calculated use of foreign support to stay the hand of the U.S. against us and move that government toward a peaceful settlement with us.
Thus, in New Africa we have upon us the obligation to cultivate unilaterally and through regional associations the support of foreign powers. Ultimately we look to the United Nations as the power where world opinion - supported by the pressures generated by the operation of these eight strategic elements which we are discussing - will validate our independence and our claim against the United States for reparations. But it seems clear that the enforcement of our claims, whatever validation we receive beyond these shores, will depend on our own success at arms.
We follow a classic principle of political science; that for a small nation (us) to maintain itself against a big nation (the United States), it is necessary for the small nation to have an alliance with another big nation (China) or groups of nations (the anti-imperialist nations of Africa and Asia).
The Sixth Strategic Element - the Limited Objective - Has a Clear and Undeniable Importance
This success is made not alone on the battlefield, or even in the very important - indeed vital - preparations behind the battlefield. It is made also through the terms of the war, through the objectives being sought or defended. The sixth strategic element - the Limited Objective - has a clear and undeniable importance.
What we are talking about here is that instead of seeking the overthrow of the U.S. government of the control of 50 states or even 25 states, we seek merely five states. This is only one-forth of the states, and we are one-tenth of the population. Together they are five of the poorest states in the Union. They have great numbers of black people, suffering both a relative and absolute educational poverty, severe health and nutritional problems, and, in many areas, an endemic culture of poverty. They are underdeveloped. In short, the land we seek is an area which white Americans may feel is well worth giving up - once they have reached the point where giving up something seems inevitable or, at least, a better course than destruction and death.
Military Viability
Now, how do we get white people to this point? We would hope that polemics and reason would do it. We would hope that things like this book and diplomatic and political pressures would do it. Unfortunately history seems to teach us otherwise. We would love to be wrong. Yet what we learn from history is the unmistakable promise that the white man will fight us. And so, we must be prepared to fight him - and win - for our limited objective. We must have, therefore, an inherent Military Viability. Our army and our people must be able to survive destruction, and survive not just for a day or a few days but for many weeks and months, for years, if necessary, to establish our independence. And we must at the same time be able to inflict severe damage upon the enemy.
Sometimes the will of our people to suffer through war and persevere for years for our freedom - as the Vietnamese have done, as the black Angolans are doing, as the white American colonists did in the past - is doubted. So many of us are such comfortable slaves. Only time will tell. But if we do not have the will, if we do not persevere we will not win our freedom. It is that simple. Foreign aid and foreign alliances will not win it for us. Only through our own will. Only through our own perseverance in war, in the midst of suffering, deprivation, and death. Only out of this.
And the role of the people is crucial. In the South, where we must ultimately deploy the Black Legion as our main-force army, our strategy has to include the people on the land and in the cities as a vital element. The Army must be able to move in secret and conceal itself. It must be able to depend on the people for reconnaissance and intelligence information, against the enemy. And it must be able to depend on the people to deny to the enemy food, general supplies, transport and sanctuary in order to maximize for the enemy his supply, concealment, and logistical problems.
Finally, beyond the South, the black man’s SECOND STRIKE CAPABILITY must be believable. The second strike capability is the Underground Army, the black guerillas in the cities. So long as black people are able to remain in the cities - and there are over 120 major cities where the brothers have used the torch - and retain relative freedom of movement, the black man has, or can develop, the means for destroying white industrial capacity and - if need be - white America in general as mercilessly as a missile attack.
Although the Republic of New Afrika neither directs nor controls these guerrillas - nor is in anyway more positive than the rest of you that they even exist - to the extent that they do exist and support the national policy and objectives of the Republic of New Africa, and to the extent that their power is believable, to these extents is the war foreshortened and more quickly will come the success of our independent black state on the American mainland.”
Excerpt from FOUNDATIONS OF THE BLACK NATION by Imari Obadele, 1971:
“We know whence the ‘start-money’ for the nation should come. It SHOULD come from the nation of our former slave masters, from the United States, whose wealth today is ALL derived, in essence, from the tri-cornered trade - that is to say, from the body and exploitation of the African slave. Repayments for this is what is known as reparations.
The principle of reparations is well established in international law. Nations pay reparations to nations. They pay reparations for the damage to each other, such as for accidental sinking of a ship in time of peace. They pay reparations for war: Germany to France, after World War I. They pay damages for crimes against people, for genocide: after World War II, for instance, Germany not only paid reparations to France for war, Germany paid reparations (over $800 million) to Israel for having slaughtered six million Jews not only during but before the war.
This last is particularly important to us, because the state of Israel, founded in 1948, did not even exist when the Nazis abused the Jews. The Jews used their reparations for economic development, as all reparations are intended to be used. New Africa’s use of reparations will be for precisely the same purpose. We have proposed a settlement to the United States federal government: $10,000 per individual descendant of slaves, some 300 billion dollars. (The US defense budget every year is well over 70 billion dollars.) Because of the special nature of our oppression and a belief within the RNA Government that economic development would best be advanced this way, we have proposed that 40% - $4,000 of the $10,000 - go directly to the individual.
From every state government with a black population, for demonstrable discrimination and oppression in the years after slavery, We are demanding $15,000 for every family which comes to a New African New Community in the South or already lives in the five states. All of this would be used to build the New Community ($7,500,000 for every community of 500 families).”
𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐁𝐄 𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐙𝐄𝐃
See: NADCSC Presentation to the ADN National Plebiscite Teach In
Just after being sworn in as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PGRNA, Siphiwe Baleka presented the plan for organizing the 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐧 & 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 at the National Plebiscite Teach - In on January 14, 2024. This followed the Plebiscite Workshop at the New Afrikan People's Convention, December 30, 2023.
See: https://www.balanta.org/nadcsc-presentation-to-the-adn... and https://www.balanta.org/.../plebiscite-workshop-at-the...
A plebiscite vote of all eligible black voters in the United States - approximately 29 million people of voting age - will require a campaign. A campaign will require a campaign machine in each of the ten regions of the United States.
The New Afrikan Diplomatic and Civil Service Corps (NADCSC) is a private group that provides consulting and diplomatic service to the nation of New Afrikan people in the United States in their exercise of self determination in pursuit of freedom, independence and justice. Its ultimate strategic goal is expressed in its 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐊𝐀𝐍 & 𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐎 𝐃𝐄𝐒𝐂𝐄𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐒 which would establish an objective, qualified national body constituted to take responsibility for conducting the plebiscite.
The NADCSC plebiscite campaign is divided in several phases which are:
1. Exploratory;
2. Pre-Congress;
3. Preparation and convening of the First New Afrikan & Afro Descendant Plebiscite Congress in the United States;
4. Campaign for and conducting the Plebiscite which will allow the people to vote on the 4 options
5. The Convening of the Second New Afrikan & Afro Descendant Plebiscite Congress in the United States and other activities during the transitional phase after the Plebiscite to determine the implementation of all four of the Plebiscite options;
IMPORTANT REMINDER:
Contrary to mobilizing the masses of the people, 𝒂 𝒄𝒂𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒈𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒂 𝒍𝒐𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒏𝒐𝒊𝒔𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒃𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒕. This is comparable to building an army. First, you recruit generals who look for staff officers. Then, the hierarchy and the officers put together the troops to be trained for the war later on.
𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏 𝟏: 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐁𝐔𝐓𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋
Collect signed 𝑪𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑭𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝑵𝒆𝒘 𝑨𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒌𝒂𝒏 & 𝑨𝒇𝒓𝒐 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝑷𝒍𝒆𝒃𝒊𝒔𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒆 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 and return to newafrikandiplomaticcorps@gmail.com. An online version is available here: https://www.balanta.org/nadcsc-call-for-plebiscite-campaign
𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏 𝟐: 𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐁𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐘
Complete NADCSC-PEC online Initial Plebiscite Survey https://www.balanta.org/nadcsc-initial-plebiscite-survey After completing the survey, you will receive the 𝑩𝒖𝒊𝒍𝒅𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝑪𝒂𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒈𝒏 𝑴𝒂𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑫𝒐𝒄𝒖𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕
𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐏 𝟑: 𝐅𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐇 𝐀𝐍 𝐑𝐂𝐂
Anyone who completes the “Call” and checks “Organizer” and completes the Initial Plebiscite Survey is invited to “𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒑 𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒆𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒐𝒏” with NADCSC Coordinator and at least one member of the PEC. The training session will be no more than two hours and have two parts: 1) Fundamentals of the NADCSC and 2) Profile and Process for assigning individuals to key leadership positions in the NADCSC Plebiscite Campaign structures. Upon completion of the training, sign the “𝑻𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝑶𝒇𝒇𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝑨𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕''. At this point, the person becomes a member of the PEC for his region. As soon as a region has 5 Coordinators, that region is active. The RCC’s are responsible for establishing the SCCs and MCCs using the same 3 step process.
Strong teams - municipal coordinating committees (MCCs) - need to be set up in the top one hundred cities with the largest population of Black people to conduct the Initial Plebiscite Survey; other teams may be set up wherever 5 or more people agree to do so.
Collecting a minimum of 10,000 completed Initial Plebiscite Surveys - 1,000 from each of the ten regions - will complete the exploratory phase and provide the basis to determine the viability of the campaign and its marketing strategy.
In the process of collecting Initial Plebiscite Surveys, the PEC should establish at least 3 RCCs and 10 MCCs - the requirement for holding the Pre-Congress for the First New Afrikan & Afro Descendant Plebiscite Congress in the United States
