AtteBds Black
Congress
By Carol Ben-Davies
The month of June was a great
time to be in Chicago, IL. I
and thousands of other peo
ple set out on planes, trains, and
buses headed to the Windy City for
a historic event. Suprisingly, it was
not to celebrate the Bulls sixth
World Championship title. Close to
2,000 activists, scholars, organiz
ers, and artists, converged on the
campus of the University of Illinois
for the first Black Radical Congress
(BRC). The term “radical” may
have deterred some from attending,
but it was an event I did not want to
miss.
Two years went into plan
ning the BRC whose theme was
“Setting A Black Liberation
Agenda for the 21st Century .” The
call was made by five individuals:
Barbara Ransby, Manning Marable,
Leith Mulling, Abdul Alkalimat and
Bill Fletcher Jr. This call was in
response to the void in African-
American leadership as well as the
digression of 30 years programs
used to uplift minorities.
The recent attacks on
Affirmative Action, service to the
poor and homeless, on subsidized
Previously featured in the September 1998 issue of The Prism.
housing, the increase of unemploy
ment rates, welfare reform and the
various issues surrounding the
criminal justice system were just a
few of the critical issues the
founders of the BRC saw that
stirred the initial efforts. They
established a National
Continuations Committee with 200
representatives from Boston,
Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.,
Atlanta, Seattle, Raleigh-Durham,
and Chicago.
This Committee gained the
support of Angela Davis, Cornel
West, Amiri and Amina Baraka,
Sonja Sanchez, Charlene Mitchell,
Kathleen Cleaver, Robin D.G.
Kelley and many others.
Information about the BRC was
made through the internet, email,
radio interviews and word of
mouth.
I first heard about the BRC
through the UNC-CH Black
Student Movement list-serv. I then
met the Local Organization
Committee members for Raleigh-
Durham, Ajamu and Rukiya
Dillahunt. I joined them in plan
ning for our trip to Chicago by sell
ing raffle tickets and organizing
transportaion. The long trip to
Chicago was offset by the great
people I traveled with, individuals
who were equally excited about
what we would experience.
We were all embraced with
brotherly and sisterly love as we
made our way into the Chicago
Circle Center on UIC’s campus. An
Inter-generation Dialogue on
Cultural, History and Politics,
occurred at the Opening Plenary.
Activists of the 1960s, Angela
Davis and Kathleen Cleaver were
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Black Ink