BALANTA B’RASSA, CHICAGO: THOSE WHO RESIST REMAIN
Celebrating the Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society in America
Founders Day
Saturday, August 1st, 2020
Marcus Garvey Center, 330, East 37th Street, Chicago, IL
11:00 am - Montu (traditional African Martial Arts) Presentation
All Ages, with Sansau Tchimna, Council Member, Historical African Martial Arts Association (HAMAA) - see videos below
12:00 Noon - Reparations: Re-Reading African History Using African Ancestry DNA Testing
Siphiwe Baleka, Founder and President, Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society in America; former Director, African Union 6th Region Education Campaign
1:00 pm - Free Lunch
2:00 pm - Balanta B’urassa, Chicago: New Narratives in the Resistance Struggle
Presentation by: The 21st Century Pan Africanist From Chicago That You Never Heard Of: Siphiwe Baleka
On October 5, 2000, Siphiwe Baleka, a native of Chicago, presented the Ethiopia to Chicago Exhibit to the Association of African Historians (AAH) at the Center for Inner City Studies at Northeastern University. The presentation was so extraordinary, that he was invited to present it again one month later, November 4, 2000 to the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC). Five years later, Nana Baffour Amankwaitia II (Dr. Asia Hilliard III) said, “I still have my copy of the excellent piece that you did. I am waiting for more of your work. . . I am not at all surprised at the work that you have pursued and know that much more is to come.”
Biography
Siphiwe Baleka was born on April 14, 1971 to Jeremiah and Yolanda Blake and given the colonized name of Anthony “Tony” Nathaniel Blake. Jeremiah graduated from the historical black college Fisk University, where, in 1962, he participated in the Nashville civil rights movement and was met with bricks and stones. He became determined to give his son the opportunities he didn’t have. At the age of ten, Tony became an Illinois State Swimming Champion and by the time he graduated from high school, was one of the nation’s fastest swimmers. At Yale University, he became the first African American on the All -Ivy League Swim Team. In 1992, Tony failed to qualify for the 1992 Olympic Trials and fulfill his boyhood dream of becoming the first black swimmer on the United States Swim Team.
At about this same time, Tony suffered an “identity” crisis. While studying African American history at Yale, he realized that he was part of what W.E.B. DuBois called “the talented tenth” and that he had a duty to excel on behalf of the race. On the other hand, after reading the Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey and books by Franz Fanon, that though he was black and African, he had been socialized and educated by white Americans and thus, as Marcus Garvey said, required a “racial re-education” if he was going to be any use to the black race. Having internalized this, and following the example of his heroes, Walter Rodney and Ken Saro Wiwa, Tony decided to become a scholar activist. That’s when he joined the black liberation struggle in America.
After leaving Yale during his senior year in 1993, Tony became attracted to the Rastafari Movement and began growing dreadlocks. He returned to Yale in 1995 to finish his final semester as Ras Nathaniel.
While still on campus, Ras Nathaniel felt compelled to join Union Local 34’s strike against Yale University, demanding a living wage for its mostly black workforce. He spoke at University forums, marched on the picket lines, and along with a group of students, boycotted their graduation ceremony from this prestigious University. At the same time, Ras Nathaniel was mentored by George Edwards of the New Haven Black Panther Party and began organizing and raising money for Black Panther political prisoners, and started working with the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal and the MOVE Organization.
Returning to and graduating from Yale University, Ras Nathaniel rejected opportunities to enter the corporate world and instead became an instructor and grant writer for the Nkrumah Washington Community Learning Center in the Englewood neighborhood. During this time, he became a member of N’COBRA under Republic of New Afrika legend Baba Hannibal Afrik and Sister Erline Arpo. He also worked with Aonde T. Dansby Shaka, founder and President of the Marcus Garvey Institute and one of the last students of General Charles L James of Gary Indiana one of the original graduates of Marcus Garvey’s School of African Philosophy in 1937.
Under the tutelage of Dr. Y.N. Kly of the International Human Rights Association of American Minorities (IHRAAM) and his protégé, Irish “El Amin” Greene, a product of the National Council of Black Lawyers Community College of Law and International Diplomacy (NCBLCCLID) later re-named for Fred Hampton, Ras Nathaniel began studying the curriculum. He completed the Petition of the Nkrumah-Washington Community Learning Center On Behalf of their Members, Associates and Afro-American Population Whose International Protected Human Rights Have Been Grossly and Systematically Violated By the Anglo-American Government of the United States of America and Its Varied Institutions. The petition was submitted under the United Nations 1503 Procedure.
In 2003, while serving as a journalist for the Rastafari Speaks newspaper published by Chicago’s very own Frontline Distribution, Ras Nathaniel. registered with the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Information & Culture Press and Information Department as a journalist and began working at the African Union and the Economic Commission for Africa. He is the only African American to attend both the 1st Extraordinary Summit of the Assembly of the African Union in Addis Ababa, as well as African Union Grand Debate in Ghana in 2007. As a result, Ras Nathaniel became the Director of the African Union 6th Region Education Campaign. He has appeared on South African Broadcasting Company (SABC TV), negotiated the Rastafari citizenship issues in Ethiopia, helped the Central American Black Organization to elect its representatives to the African Union at their 12th Assembly in Honduras, and gave the inaugural Marcus Garvey lecture for the Government of Barbados’ Commission for Pan African Affairs. In 2006 he was the roommate of Dr. Kamarakafego, counselor, consultant, official and friend to Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyere, CLR James, Walter Rodney and many others while organizing the 6th Pan African Congress in Tanzania in 1969. In 2007, while organizing the Global Unity Conference in Azania, Ras Nathaniel was given the name Siphiwe Baleka by a council of Elders.
Today, Siphiwe Baleka is known as “The Fitness Guru to the Trucking Industry” and has appeared in Men’s Health magazine, Sports Illustrated, the Huffington Post, Good Morning America, CBS Evening news, NPR, CNN, and BBC. He serves as the North American Regional Director of the African Sports Ventures Group, Senior Heritage Ambassador of the United House of Ancestry, and President of the Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society of America. He is instrumental in launching the Decade of Return Initiative of the Government of Guinea Bissau.
PLEASE JOIN US FOR THIS EXTRAORDINARY PRESENTATION ABOUT CHICAGO’S UNTOLD RESISTANCE MOVEMENT, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE!
Origin of the Pan African Movement in Chicago, 1893
First person to repatriate to Ethiopia from Chicago in 1908
The Chicago Origin (1913) of Marcus Garvey’s “Look to Africa for the crowning of a Black King”
Ethiopia sends Ambassadors to Chicago in 1919 and the Rastafari movement starts in Chicago
The Balanta influence in the Black Liberation Movement
Using DNA to trace your history, reconnect with your people in Africa, and re-write African American History
Getting citizenship in Africa
Much, much more . . . .