Million Youth March Takes Place at a Critical Juncture for the African Revolution!

On September 6, 2003, masses of young African workers will be taking to the streets of Brooklyn, New York to engage in a struggle that is likely to attempt to define the task of African people and so-called "youth". This Million Youth March (MYM) will be significant in its ability to pull young African workers together with the common aim of addressing the so-called "problems" that we face not as "youth," but as a colonized and oppressed people.

Numerous people, representing different viewpoints and class interests are scheduled to speak for about 2 minutes each during this march organized by the New Black Panther Party. This wide range of interests varies from attempting to lead African people into the tyrannical embrace of the Democratic party as is Al Sharpton’s aim, to being complimented by other groups that will try to address the "spiritual and moral poverty" that confront African "youths."

At best, there will be mixed messages stemming from this type of arrangement. At worst, people will leave the march with no more practical leadership and understanding than when they arrived.

The African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), which has been at the forefront of the African liberation struggle since 1972 and supports and has assisted in the organization of this event, is quite clear on what our problem as a people is and how we must move forward.

As the Chairman of our Party, Omali Yeshitela, has laid out clearly the responsibility of the slave is to "kill the slavemaster and destroy the system of slavery." It is as clear and as simple as that.

The reality is that we live in a world whose configurations are based upon a vicious attack on Africa, her people and her resources. In fact, it was this attack that has Africans reading this paper in the U.S. and not in Africa, because we were one of the resources kidnapped and taken to these shores.

This was a process that saw an impoverished and diseased Europe, which lost one-third to one-half its population from 1347-1351 in the bubonic plague rescue itself from certain destruction by setting out to enslave the world. With terrorist methods the world had never before seen, Europe catapulted itself to the zenith of "slavemaster mountain," which continues to bleed the blood of the people of Africa, Latin America and Asia from its jagged slopes, as it relies upon our exploitation for its continued existence. The entire world has been hi-jacked and held hostage to feed the gluttonous and insatiable appetite of imperialist white power.

This reality has pushed the world to a breaking point in which oppressed and colonized people are struggling everyday to destroy the system of slavery and enter a world characterized by life and abundance created by our own hands in our own interests with our own resources.

From 1947 to the end of the 1960s, revolution was the main trend in the entire world. From the heroic struggles of the people of Viet Nam, China and Cuba to the African liberation struggle characterized by entities such as Malcolm X, Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba, people were set into motion to seize their political independence and self-determination "by any means necessary." Everywhere across the globe, white power and direct white colonial rule was meeting its fate in a fiery maelstrom of righteous upheaval and chants of Black Power!

The reaction of the top slavemaster on the block (the U.S.) at that point was to launch a war, known in the military as a "counterinsurgency," to attempt to hold onto its colonies that this parasite requires for its existence. That includes the settler colonies in Africa and the domestic colony inside the U.S.

Under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who had been involved in the destruction of the Garvey Movement only several years earlier, the U.S. government launched the Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), to destroy the political leadership of the African working class. It identified among others, Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party as being the "greatest threat to the internal security of the United States."

COINTELPRO marked the official declaration of war against the African working class for the period. It planned to eliminate the threat the same way it was moving to eliminate the threat of free people in Viet Nam – militarily.

As the counterinsurgency waged on, in 1969 alone hundreds of members of the Black Panther Party were arrested and 27 members murdered at the hands of U.S. imperialism. The assassination of 21-year-old Fred Hampton, who had built the largest Panther organization in the world, on the west side of Chicago on December 4 effectively broke the back of the U.S. front of the African liberation struggle.

By its own admission, the "greatest threat" to the U.S. was African people led by a revolutionary organization that was able to defeat U.S. imperialism politically and ideologically. This left an all out military attack as the only option remaining for the maintenance of the internal colony as tanks and paratroopers filled the African community. The S.W.A.T. team was a military response especially created to deal with the African Liberation Movement.

After destroying the legitimate working class revolutionary leadership, the U.S. selected and propped up its acceptable Negroes. This is what Kwame Nkrumah called "neo-colonialism" or white power in black face. Negroes like Colin Powell, Nelson Mandela, Jesse Jackson and the like are protectors of the system of slavery and neo-colonialism.

On the backs of this military defeat and the demoralization of our people, the U.S. has tightened the counterinsurgency flooding the streets with crack – a form of chemical warfare. Although 75 percent of all drug use and sales occur in the white community, the purpose of this chemical warfare is to justify the massive imprisonment, containment and murder of what now more than ever represents the crucial strategical element of the African Revolution and therefore the destruction of U.S. imperialism. To put it simply, the U.S. is attempting to kill and jail the revolution. Its objective is to stop history and keep African people from ever rising up again.

This understanding must guide how we move. That we – the youths – are a part of a historical process that is incomplete. African people have been under assault ever since the first European set foot on our land. Now is the time for people participating in this MYM and those reading this article to take personal responsibility for making the future. The Million Youth March must facilitate the continuing efforts of the African Revolution to regroup, rebuild and reload block by block, project by project.

Our Revolution was not completed and we must organize with the understanding that we must take history into our own hands to destroy imperialist white power and neo-colonialism. It will not be enough to simply "bullet-mouth" about how much we don’t like police. We have to address tactics and strategies for winning liberation – not rhetorical talk fests.

We must have an organization armed with tested revolutionary theory that informs our practice on how to seize power in order to liberate and unite Africa and all of her people scattered abroad. We must have a program, a strategy and concrete work on the ground that facilitates a revolutionary agenda if we are to be free. This struggle must be led by the African working class and poor peasantry in our own interests.

The African People’s Socialist Party calls on the best sons and daughters of Africa to join the APSP and build to win our liberation. Review the platform and the struggles that we are engaged in on the ground in various places around the world and get in where you fit in. Each of us has a choice to make not as "youths" but as African workers with a responsibility to make the future by impacting the present. Forward to the Million Youth March! Complete the African Revolution! Uhuru Means Freedom!

Regroup, Rebuild, & Reload!