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.