From Ukraine to your Hood. Black Perspectives on the War in Ukraine

Come for the revolutionary rhetoric--because EVERYONE needs some revolutionary rhetoric in their lives. Stay for important messages:

--The Blank Panthers FED CHILDREN

--VOTING MATTERS

--Everyone needs to understand family toileting and basic household access to water.

RantWoman believes passionately in engaging about complex subjects EVEN when one strongly disagrees with some threads of the conversation.

RantWoman here posts an announcement for an event she just attended. The event was stimulating. Many Friends will find some of the language off-putting. Listen anyway. Hopefully by the time this posts, RantWoman will have received a specific link to the recording. If not, RantWoman recommends checking the Facebook page or links mentioned in the announcement.

RantWoman promises to try to extract key points but cannot guarantee a timeline.

Reminder to join us next Tuesday April 19th, 2pm PT / 5pm ET for "From Ukraine to Your Hood: Black Perspectives on War at Home and Abroad," a conversation hosted by the It Takes Roots Black (African Descent/Diaspora) Caucus featuring Black panelists conversing about the war in Ukraine & its impact on our communities, people & world from a Black perspective. Register at: https://bit.ly/ITRBCukraine We will also livestream the event from the It Takes Roots Facebook account. Program: Opening Ceremony & Grounding - Ronel Remy Welcome & introduction to ITR Black Caucus & Program - Trenise Bryant Introduction of Panel - Natasha Erskine, About Face Veterans Against The War Reading of Joint Anti War statement - National Black Liberation Movement National Unity Initiative Panelists: *Michael Simmons International Human Rights Activist *Onyesonwu Chatoyer All African Peoples Revolutionary Party *Ajamu Baraka Black Alliance for Peace *Maureen D. Taylor Chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization Michael Simmons has been an international human rights and peace activist for over 50 years, beginning as an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s in the United States. Over his career Michael has taken his work to Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, pursing issues of social justice and social change organizing in a wide variety of contexts. For more on his international human rights work, please visit Michael's personal website at msimmons.org.   Onyesonwu Chatoyer is an organizer with the All African People's Revolutionary Party and the All African Women's Revolutionary Union, an editor with Hood Communist, and member of the National Coordinating Committee for the Venceremos Brigade. A human rights defender whose experience spans four decades of domestic and international education and activism, Ajamu Baraka is a veteran grassroots organizer whose roots are in the Black Liberation Movement and anti-apartheid and Central American solidarity struggles. Baraka has appeared on and been covered in a wide-range of print, broadcast, and digital media outlets. For more on his work, please visit Ajamu’s personal website at https://www.ajamubaraka.com/about   Since 1993, Maureen Taylor has served as Chair of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, a union of public assistance recipients, low-income workers and the unemployed that organizes members to fight for their rights and to eliminate poverty in this country. She was a key consultant on two award-winning documentaries about water rights and affordability. Maureen has a MSW in Social Work and is a Detroit school counselor who is improving student and teacher success rates.

#ItTakesRoots centers the leadership and power of urban and rural communities on the frontlines of racial, gender, housing, environmental, energy and climate justice in the United States to advance regenerative economies and healthy communities. ITR is a multiracial, multicultural, intergenerational alliance of networks and alliances representing over 200 organizations and affiliates in over 50 states, provinces, territories and Native lands in the U.S. and Canada, and is led by women, gender nonconforming people, people of color, and Indigenous Peoples. It is an outcome of years of organizing and relationship building across the Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ), Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), and Right to the City Alliance (RTTC).