The National Black United Front (NBUF)
has reached an historic point in its history. That point in its
history, is the convening of the 30th
Annual National NBUF Convention that will
be held July 16-19, 2009 in Chicago,
Illinois at the Jacob H. Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies. This year’s convention theme is: “Turning
Point 2009: Connecting the Black Power Generation to the Hip-Hop
Generation.”
The
National Black United Front, over a thirty-year
period, has related to, and organized around,
numerous issues that have impacted on the African World Community.
 Whether
it was combating the numerous cases of police brutality in New
York, Chicago, Los Angeles,
and other urban centers, NBUF was there. Whether it was fighting to save people from the death
penalty in Texas and Chicago, NBUF was there.
NBUF has constantly challenged
the racist and white supremacists public policy positions of the
Criminal Justice System and to that end our Prison Correspondence
Program keeps us in contact with our sisters and brothers behind
the walls throughout America.
NBUF was at the forefront
of the Free South Africa Movement and played a leading role in forcing
economic sanctions against South Africa’s Apartheid regime. Our picketing
of entertainers who were on the South African Entertainers Hit List
for performing in South Africa, against
the will of the movement in South Africa,
brought great public attention to the plight of our brothers and
sisters in that region of the world.
Our work with the New Jewel Movement in Grenada
was significant. Whether it was the Summer Work Study Project, working on the runway at the airport or volunteering in the schools,
NBUF was there.
In our international work, the Commission on Women’s Issues of NBUF organized a delegation of NBUF sisters who attended the United Nations World Conference on Women,
held in Nairobi, Kenya in July 10-19, 1985. The NBUF sisters made a significant
contribution at this conference by networking with African women
from all over the world and presenting a paper on “The Presence
of African Women in America.”
NBUF was there for Jesse
Jackson’s presidential runs in 1984 and 1988, and the successful mayoral bids of African in America in Chicago, New York, St, Louis, Kansas City, and Houston
in the 1980s.
NBUF participated in other
electoral campaigns for seats in Congress and state offices in several
districts around the country. In fact,
one of our own, Rev. Jew Don Boney won
a council seat in Houston, Texas. NBUF member,
Lee Barnes successfully won a school board seat on the same board
in Kansas City, Missouri.
NBUF played a key role
in the efforts to organize the African American Leadership Summit
in 1994.  NBUF
members were key organizers in the historic Million Man March in
October of 1995.
On the education front, over the past twenty years, NBUF
has been, and continues to be, the key grassroots
organizers in the African Centered Education Movement. Our World
African Centered Education Plan is a model for addressing the various
areas of education.
As a response to revelations that the CIA was involved
in the explosion of crack / cocaine in the African Communities in
America
in the summer of 1996, NBUF launched a historic Genocide Petition Campaign Against the United
States Government. This Genocide Petition Campaign produced over
200,000 signatures and in May 1997, the
NBUF-led delegation traveled to the United Nations Human Rights
Center in Geneva,
Switzerland and
presented these petitions and other evidence on behalf of African
people in America.
Out of our successful Genocide Campaign,
NBUF collaborated with the December 12th
Movement that organized the Durban 400 to participate and helped
successfully lobby the United Nations World Conference Against Racism
(WCAR) to declare that the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery
were Crimes Against Humanity in the summer of 2001.
As a follow-up to our successful participation in
this conference, NBUF continued to collaborate with the December 12th Movement in organizing
the Millions For Reparations Rally that was held August 17,
2002 in Washington, D.C. where over 50,000 African people attended from 38 states,
67 cities, and viewed by millions on CSPAN.
In the spring of 2003, as NBUF National Chairman,
I requested that Minister Louis Farrakhan convene a meeting of the
key reparations organizers, activists, researchers, scholars, and spiritual workers. This meeting occurred in July 2003 at the Salaam
Restaurant in Chicago and
out of that meeting the NDABA Movement unfolded.
On September 13, 2003, NBUF joined the Millions For Reparations Rally at the United Nations
in New York and helped to link the Reparations Movement with the Pan African
struggle worldwide. The NDABA Movement meetings were convened in
October 2003 in Jackson, Mississippi and in March 2004 in Houston, Texas. This process has greatly helped strengthened
the unity in the Reparations Movement in America.
Through the NDABA Movement process, I proposed the
establishment of a Reparations Petition Campaign that was adopted
by the NDABA forces with the goal of securing one million signatures
by the fall presidential election.
 Since
our inception, NBUF has consistently sponsored a variety
of cultural programs throughout the United States, including our Frontlines Album Project, our sponsorship of annual Kwanzaa Programs, and African Liberation Day activities. This has been a major part
of NBUF’s work.
Through our Frontline Newsletter,
Front Page Newspaper, NBUF’s website, e-mail, letters, phone calls, and the traditional grapevine,
NBUF communicates with the world.
Most importantly, in our organizing efforts, NBUF
has maintained strict financial independence,
and has recently become a certified organization with the National
Black Federation of Charities, an arm
of the National Black United Fund, Inc.
We are now able to receive donations through payroll deduction from
people in the federal workplace throughout the world.
We encourage everyone to attend this year’s historic
NBUF Convention. For more information
call: 773.493.0900 or 773.718.1153 or e-mail: [email protected].
BlackCommentator.com Columnist, Conrad W. Worrill, PhD,
is the National Chairman of the National Black United Front (NBUF). Click here
to contact Dr. Worrill. |
