(This Program will go for 2 hours with Q&A)
Call meeting to order, welcome, the introduction of co-chairs:
Nesbit Crutchfield — Involved in Progressive Solidarity activities and movements for over 52+ years. Starting with his involvement and imprisonment with the BSU/TWLF Strike @ San Francisco State University in 1968, to his activism with the Anri-Apartheid Movement in support of the ANC in the establishment of a Democratic South Africa.
A long term veteran and activist in Puerto Rican, Haitian, and Cuban Solidarity work, and is now active in the Bay Area and National Venceremos Brigade.
Co-Chairs
Jamilah Bourdon—Organizer, All-African Revolutionary Party; Jamilah has been studying and organizing around anticapitalism for over half her life; She has participated in community defense organizing, anti-foreclosure security, free breakfast programs, and liberation schools. Forward ever!
Kennedee Geffinger — Universal Zulu Nation Hip Hop for Humanity Committee; Children’s Programs Director, JCC Harlem; Founder, Keys to Ubuntu
Panelists
August Nimtz – Author: “Why There Are No George Floyds in Cuba.”
Co-coordinator of the Minnesota Cuba Committee; Professor of Political Science and African American and African Studies, University of Minnesota; Co-Author (with Esteban Morales), The Dynamics of Racial Discrimination in Cuba, Past and Present; Author, Marxism vs Liberalism: Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis.
Yanet Pumariega Pérez – Third Secretary, Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C.
Rodney A. Gonzalez Maestrey – Counselor to the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC (October 2018). Master Degree, International Relations (2011). Major in Economics, University of Havana, (2005).
Soffiyah Elijah, Esq – Long Time Activist, Organizer, and Friend of Cuba
Michael Washington — Longtime Oklahoma-based Black Liberation freedom fighter and supporter of Second Amendment rights for African Americans in the tradition of Robert F. Williams and Malcolm X; Organizing project documenting African Americans killed by US police authorities to present a petition to International World Court; Certified Paralegal; Founder, Empower People Inc.; Leading organizer and participant of peaceful, legal mass actions, self-policed by Black and white-armed veterans, Oklahoma City on Juneteenth and in counter-protest to Trump’s Tulsa appearance.
Ahjamu Umi — Organizer, All-African People’s Revolutionary Party for 36 years; Ahjamu does a weekly webinar series on subjects from formulating revolutionary parties and alternatives to the policing system; He has engaged in community defense for many years, standing in the face of armed white supremacists; Ahjamu has contributed to formulating liberation schools for youth in Oregon and California and around the clock anti-foreclosure house security and shutdowns. His writings can be seen at www.abetterworld.me
Gabriel Prawl — President, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 152. Leading organizer of an unprecedented strike of ILWU members up and down the West Coast in solidarity with Black Lives Matter against police murder and brutality.
César Omar Sánchez — Organizer, New York/New Jersey Cuba Sí Coalition, Advisory Board Member of ProLibertad: Free All Political Prisoners Campaign.
Chelliah Phillips — An activist and organizer for POC Bergenfield Alumni and 4Change Bergen County. Also a leader and creator of a nonprofit organization 4Change Scholarship. Passionate about fighting social injustices and Human rights issues.
Vanessa Amoah — Ghanaian-American 24-year-old Graduate Student fighting against racial injustice and part of POC Bergenfield Alumni and 4Change Bergen County organizations.
Pacey Hackett — LA activist and organizer at massive Black Lives Matter protests. Member, Bay Area Amazonians working to organize and unionize California warehouse workers. Active in LA US Hands Off Cuba Committee.
Mark Ginsburg — Professor, University of Maryland. Mark has taught recently at the University of Havana in Cuba. Longtime activist with DC Metro Coalition in Solidarity With the Cuban Revolution. Participated in mass Black Lives Matter protests in Washington, DC.
Today, the movement is redefining its focus after a successful end to the long campaign to secure the release of the Cuban Five (Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, René González and Fernando González); an overwhelming victory for the island and its supporters
Author: Nuria Barbosa León | informacion@granma.cu
january 10, 2017 12:01:05
Kenia Serrano Puig, President of ICAP noted that over 25,000 visited Cuba as part of solidarity brigades in 2016. Photo: Juvenal Balá
A year of intense work is how Kenia Serrano Puig, President of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) described 2016, while speaking to the national press in Havana in honor of the institution’s 56th anniversary, and the lead up to the anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution,onJan.1
Also a deputy to the National Assembly, Kenia highlighted the multiple expressions of gratitude sent from around the world, praising Fidel Castro’s contribution to the struggle for just causes, and noted that actions in solidarity with Cuba undertaken at the end of the year were dedicated to the 90th birthday of the Comandante en Jefe, who founded ICAP and promoted efforts to help other Third World nations.
”Various tributes took place, expositions were organized, friends found different ways of reproducing Fidel through various mediums, taking him to the tops of mountains. Encounters were held, anecdotes collected, all underscoring Cuba’s position with regard to its principles, the main architect of which is Fidel,” added Serrano Puig.
She noted that the Cuba Solidarity Movement is composed of 2,045 unique organizations in 152 countries, featuring members of diverse ages and represents a vanguard that has supported the Caribbean island for almost 60 years.
Exemplifying this support are the over 25,000 visitors affiliated with different solidarity projects, from around 60 countries who visited Cuba over the last 12 months, Serrano noted.
Today, the movement is redefining its focus after a successful end to the long campaign to secure the release of the Cuban Five (Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, René González and Fernando González); an overwhelming victory for the island and its supporters. The Cuba Solidarity movement is now looking to strengthen unity among its ranks in order to create a united front against attacks by right wing political forces in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and the United States
Continue reading Solidarity with Cuba in 2017 and beyond ( ICAP )
