The Importance for the global African Community to Support the 8th PAC 1:
A Letter to Africans at Home and Abroad from the Council of Pan African Diaspora Elders
by Bro. Baya Kes-Ba-Me-Ra (Duane Bradford) -
former President (Kichwa) Pan-African Associations of America
Pan-Africanism actually became a practice by the African people who experienced the African Slave Holocaust in the western hemisphere from North America to South America and in the Caribbean islands. African people, speaking different languages and coming from different ethnic groups, experienced the horrors of the African Slave Holocaust together without any differentiation of suffering and death. They had to set their differences aside to survive this Maafa*. Out of this need to survive under enslavement in North America, Mexico, Central and South America and throughout the Caribbean Islands, they became integrated African people.
They resisted the horrors of the Maafa and fought back in all of these communities. This was an unconscious Pan-African resistance to those who would rob them of their humanity.
Out of this resistance rose traditions of resistance that would not bow to the exploitation of their bodies, minds and spirits.
Out of this tradition of resistance they produced great African minds that organized for resistance physically, intellectually, socially and spiritually.
Out of this seed of resistance emerged African thinkers who wrote and preached the need for African people to collectively work to defend themselves in the western hemisphere and protect African people from the ongoing aggression against African people taking place in the western hemisphere and through colonialism in the Motherland.
Names that emerged that spoke to this aggression included Prince Hall, Paul Cuffee, Bishop Henry M. Turner, John B. Russwurm, David Walker, John Chilembwe, Simon Kinbangu, Edward W. Blyden, Rev. Alexander Crummell, Benito Sylvain, Rev. Orishatukeh Faduma and Dr. Mojola Agbedi, and many others.
Out of these ideas African intellectuals felt the need to meet to find solutions to this western aggression against the humanity of African people.
In response, in England, the Afro-West Indian lawyer, Henry Sylvester Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, helped to form the African Association. From July 23rd to the 25th, 1900 the African Association convened the Pan-African Conference (Congress) through the efforts of Henry Sylvester Williams and those men and women who made up the Pan-African Conference Committee of the time. Since the convening of the first Congress, African people have come together at different times to discuss, organize and unify to protect themselves against their exploitation and the exploitation of the lands and resources by others and thereby ensure a better future for African people.
Now we convene the 8th Pan-African Congress Part 1, as recommended by His Excellency President Yoweri Museveni, endorsed by the Council of Elders and facilitated by the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI) to determine what we will do to protect, defend and build to our benefit rather than continue to benefit non-African people who are not interested in the development of African people on the continent nor in the Diaspora. 8PAC Part 1, with its focus on specific concrete actions, will be a turning point in the more than 400 years of Maafa.
Recognizing the mammoth weight, magnitude and responsibility to convene the 8PAC Part 1, we salute H.E. President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa for becoming just the third African President to host the Congress. We will convene once again with each other at the 8th Pan-African Congress Part 1 taking place in Harare, Zimbabwe to take control of our economic destiny on our own terms as a global African people. We will discuss the pathways to dual citizenship in addition to developing strategies to ensure that financial resources are shared between African people on the continent and in the diaspora for the sake of generations to follow. These two conversations are critical to our ability to control our destiny on our terms within the global African community.
We are calling for African people in the Diaspora and in Mother Africa to support the convening of this 8th Pan-African Congress Part 1 by talking about it, discussing the issues that it will bring forth, and helping to organize pathways to dual citizenship and economic liberation. It is only with your support that we can achieve these two goals in the years to come.
This is a call to unity no matter what other beliefs you may have. In indigenous African thinking there is a philosophy that best defines what we must do and why we must do it for the sake of future generations of African children in the Diaspora and on the African continent. It is Ubuntu which states, “I am because we are, therefore we are because I am.” That is the spirit with which we convene this 8th Pan-African Congress Part 1. Join us because we have the opportunity to build a future that our children will sing about for generations to come.
Yours in African Ascendancy, In Ubuntu, The Council of Pan African Diaspora Elders
________________________________________________________________
A Letter to Pan Africanists
by Dr. David L. Horne, Ph.D, -
Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC) and Pan African Diaspora Union (PADU)
Dear Pan Africanists,
Whether one espouses and works on Pan Africanism as an ideology, a philosophy, a theoretical position, a form of ubuntu, or through a programmatic perspective of some kind, wanting—no, needing—some specificity in steps forward is critically important now more than ever. The wolves of the world are antsy again, and Africa looks especially appetizing in resources and human capital. Africans worldwide (those resident and nonresident) must unite in common effort to help build the Africa we want (and need) in this world.
A group of Africanists led by Dr. Arikana Chihombori-Quao, President of the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI), is planning a massive Ndaba in Zimbabwe (calling it 8th PAC, Part I) in a few months that should help chart the way forward. We, who are practical Pan Africanists and not inclined to quibble over the small stuff, support the call for this gathering out of which should come positive agreements for present and future Pan African work. We urge you to join us.
H.E. Ambassador Arikana Chihombori-Quao, President of the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI); Damian Cook, Vice-President of the African Diaspora Development Institute (ADDI); Siphiwe Baleka, ADDI 8th PAC Part 1 Coordinator and President, Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society; Aku A (Sharon Lee Minor) King - A Minor Enterprise, Founder/Consultant USA; Sydney Samuels - Nelson Mandela Association, Guatemala; Melvin Brown - State of the African Diaspora (SOAD), President of Parliament, Panama; Cliff Kuumba - Maryland State Facilitator, Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC), - Member, North America Regional Coordinating Committee, Pan African Federalist Movement (PAFM), - Moderator, Maryland Pan Afrikan Cooperative Coalition (MPACC); Bro. Baya Kes-Ba-Me-Ra (Duane Bradford) - Pan-African Associations of America, former President (Kichwa) USA; Sydney Francis - Central America Black Organizations (CABO); Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC), Presidente ADEPHCA, Nicaragua; Tutmose Sankara (on behalf of Dr. Leonard Jeffries) - World African Diaspora Union (WADU); Atlanta Pan African Coalition, USA; Fabian Anthony - Pan-African Council , Chairman, South Africa; Hazel Marshall - African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA),Guyana; Eddly Hall Reid - Central America Black Organizations (CABO), Costa Rica; Mawlimu Mboya - USA/Guyana; Kwame Wilburg - Friends of the Congo, Member, Board of Directors; Coordinator, Atlanta Support Network, USA; Cletus Prince - CEOAfrica, Nigeria; Sis. Iman Uqdah Hameen- New York Organization of the Sixth Region Diaspora Caucus (SRDC); Facilitator Emeritus (2006 – 2012) USA; Bongo Wisely Tafari - Caribbean Rastafari Organization (CRO), Chairman; Lazare Ki Zerbo - Joseph Ki-Zerbo International Center for Africa and its Diaspora (CIJKAD); Pan Afrikan Federalist Movement, Vice President, French Guiana; Mwalimu Kbailia - National Black Council of Elders, Presiding Elder, USA; Jocelyn Tchakounte - African Diaspora International Trade Association (ADITA), President, USA; Haki Ammi - Teaching Artist Institute, President, USA
ADD YOUR NAME TO THE LIST
Nkechi Taifa, Reparation Education Project
Maynard Henry, Maynard M. Henry, Sr., Attorney At Law, P.C.; National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in AmericaAgrippa Ezozo, ADDI
Dr.Hamet Maulana Maulana, Ministry of the Future (MOF)
Enola Aird, Community Healing Network
Professor Donnie I. Ali-McClendon, All-African People's Revolutionary Party
Kevin Edwards, ADDI
Sengbe El Bey, The Balanta B'urassa History and Genealogy Society in America
June Lewis, IDOAD Coalition UK
Gordon Manker, Balanta B’urassa History & Genealogy Society,
Andre Queen, Balanta B'urassa History & Geneology Society
Dr Victor Okhai, Directors Guild of Nigeria
Mar6 Sephocle, Howard University
LUCETT WATLERFORO NACIONAL DE MUJERES AFRODESCENDIENTES
Rev Edward Pinkney, Black Autonomy Network Community Organization
Jami Luqman, New Afrikan Network519 Association,USA
Dr. C Sade Turnipseed, Khafre Inc. / Sankofa Empowerment Initiative / Jackson State University
Beulah Okonkwo, NCOBRA
Queen Mother Wakeelah Martinez, The African American Council of Elders of South Central Kansas located in Wichita Kansas
Kofi Ansa, Balanta Brassa
Orrin Williams, CUT Chicago
Miguel Avila, Movimiento Federalista Panafricano de América Latina y el Caribe Hispano -MFPA/ALCH-Ecuador
Nicole Holmes, ADDI
Imhotep Alkebu-lan, UNIA-ACL
Baye Kesbamera, Pan-African Associations of America
Jocelyn Tchakounte, African Diaspora International Trade Association
Donald BROWN, Heritage Connection
ROY GUEVARA ARZU, MOVIMIENTO FEDERALISTA PAN AFRICANO DE AMERICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE HISPANO (MFPA/AL/CH) and AFROAMERICAXXI HONDURASM
Denise Lovett Hampton, Huduma Services
Sekani Perkins, (ADDI) African Diaspora Development Institute & (ADNC) African Diaspora Nation Coalition
Kandace Walker, Sojourner Enterprise
Christopher Buchanan El, C&M Interior Design Enterprises LLC
ABENA DISROE, A-APRP & DCHA CITY-WIDE ADVISORY BOARD
Thomas L. Mitchell, MPW Advisors, LLC.
Michael Barber, Industrial Workers of the World
Laurie A Calkins, LN2S Consulting L.L.C., ADDI Member