Uhuru Solidarity Supporters and Comrades!
Read article from Uhurunews.com below and CALL-IN!
Black Is Back Coalition
The NYPD is up to its same old tactics of repression, this time in its attempts to deny the Black is Back Coalition a march and sound permit to hold the highly anticipated March for Black Justice.
Therefore, the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is calling on all lovers of freedom and social justice to unite with the struggle to hold this important march by calling the 28th Precinct of the NYPD and demanding that it overturn its refusal to grant the Coalition with sound and parade permits required to hold the march in the street.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Call the main line AND Community Affairs Division of 28th Precinct and demand the following:
I am calling to voice my outrage at the 28th Precinct’s refusal to grant and sound and parade permit to the Black is Back Coalition so that they can hold the March for Black Justice, scheduled for this Saturday, August 17. I demand that you overturn this decision immediately and grant the permit.
28th Precinct Main Line: (212) 678-1611
Community Affairs Division: (212) 678-1622
This EMERGENCY CALL-IN CAMPAIGN is the final of a long process of beaureacy that BIBC organizers have been forced to undergo in order to secure the permits. Prior to this the BIBC submitted all of the necessary forms and met all necessary deadlines required to be granted the permits. The following is a timeline of such footwork BIBC forces carried out:
July 31 – Brought Parade Permit and Sound Permit Application to 28th Precinct and PO Kenya Brooks took everything except money order, which she said would be taken when sound permit application is approved. PO Brooks also asked if BIBC had a permit to be at the State Building. BIBC clarified that would not be on the grounds of the State Office Building, but rather on the public sidewalk in front of it, at the corner of Adam Clayton Powell and 125th St. Brooks said she would need until Monday, August 5 to get approval from her supervisor. August 5 – PO Brooks called to say that they wouldn’t allow the march to occur because a parade was scheduled for the same day as the March for Black Justice and that therefore there would not be enough NYPD forces to “staff” both event. Brooks asked if March date could be changed, the response to which of course was “NO!”
August 7 - BIBC forces called PO Brooks to ask if sound permit (a different process than march) could be approved. Brooks said she had to again talk to her supervisor to confirm that sound permit would be approved.
The BIBC has not heard from PO Brooks or anyone else from the 28th Precinct since August 7. In the interim we have consulted with a representative of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). The NLG made the strong recommendation to RESUBMIT both permits, this time insisting that the police accept the money order as well.
While we will take full legal action to overturn the NYPDs apparent determination to deny us the permit itself, the BIBC understands that this is NOT a legal question – nor has it ever been.
The NYPD’s refusal to grant us the permit is an attack on the democratic rights to free speech and political association of the African community.
On any given day, on the main outdoor pavillion of the Harlem State Office building, one can stumble across a religious event or a rally sponsored by some elected official. Such events, which pose no challenge or threat to the status quo, usually use sound systems far louder than anything the BIBC would have the capacity to produce. Despite this, the NYPD has never intervened in such activities.
However, when the African community itself declares its intentions to hold a march and rally designed to criticize the NYPD all of a sudden the NYPD becomes concerns with sound ordinances.
The NYPD’s refusal to grant the BIBC a permit to hold a rally and march for Black Justice is clearly political. It is an attempt to stem the tide of resistance that is rapidly building up in NYC and beyond.
The NYPD’s stance of censure of the African community through violence, or the threat of violence, is consistent with historical relationship to the African community.
This is the same NYPD who, over the last 10 years, has stopped and frisk 4.4 million people, 87% of whom were African Latino men. Among those stopped only 12% were even arrested or charged with anything. And most of those who were arrested were not charged with what they were initially stopped for.
This is the same NYPD who have been on a murderous rampage in the African community for decades. In fact, the NYPD was the original Gang of New York, and the African community has always been its primary target. The murders of Kimani Grey, Ramarley Graham, Shantel Davis and Shaaliver Douse are but the most recent in a very long list of casualties in the NYPD’s war against he Black community.
The 28th Precinct’s refusal to grant the BIBC a permit to hold the March for Black Justice is an attempt to prevent the very community that has been a victim of NYPD terror from expressing its criticism and disapproval of such a war.
It is an attempt to stop Frank Graham, father of Ramarley Graham, from voicing his outrage at the way in which the cop Richard Haste broke into his home and shot his unarmed 18 year old son Ramarley as he stood in the bathroom.
It is an attempt to prevent the African community from holding the District Attorney’s office accountable to its obvious cooperation with the police in the mass murder of young Black men in this city and throughout the U.S.
It is an attempt to prevent the international African community from coming to the political and organizational defense of our brothers and sisters anywhere on the planet who are being victimized by the same U.S. and European-led colonial state violence that we experience in such places as Haiti, Congo and Paris.
Through their refusal to grant a permit to March for Black Justice the police are telling us that they are going to keep killing us, despite what the oppressed African community or even the U.S. law may say.
In fact, the police stance on this question is evidence that the recent determination of U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin that Stop and Frisk was “unconstitutional” and “amounts to racial profiling” is meaningless. One of the highest levels of the U.S. court system has recently and essentially outlawed the policy the NYPD has utilized for more than the last decade. Despite this fact, the police, in saying they will not allow for the Black community march for BLACK justice to put forth our own criticisms of stop and frisk, is defying the ruling of the very legal system it is sworn to uphold.
This is a political question, pure and simple.
Therefore, even as we seek legal intervention from our friends of the National Lawyers Guild and other civil liberties and progressive lawyers who have come to our aid, we are calling for POLITICAL ACTION by the international African nation itself!
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Call the main line AND Community Affairs Division of 28th Precinct and demand the following:
I am calling to voice my outrage at the 28th Precinct’s refusal to grant and sound and parade permit to the Black is Back Coalition so that they can hold the March for Black Justice, scheduled for this Saturday, August 17. I demand that you overturn this decision immediately and grant the permit.
28th Precinct Main Line: (212) 678-1611
Community Affairs Division: (212) 678-1622
