NBUF FACT SHEET
The National Black United Front /NBUF, over a
twenty-five year period, has related to, and organized around, numerous issues
that have impacted on the African World Community. Whether it was combating the
numerous cases of police brutality in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other
urban centers, NBUF was there. Whether it was fighting to save people from the
death penalty in Texas and Chicago, NBUF was there.
NBUF has constantly challenged the racist
and white supremacists public policy positions of the Criminal Justice System
and to that end our Prison Correspondence Program keeps us in contact with our
sisters and brothers behind the walls throughout America.
NBUF was at the forefront of the Free South
Africa Movement and played a leading role in forcing economic sanctions against
South Africa's Apartheid regime. Our picketing of entertainers who were on the
South African Entertainers Hit List for performing in South Africa, against the
will of the movement in South Africa, brought great public attention to the
plight of our brothers and sisters in that region of the world.
Our work with the New Jewel Movement in
Grenada was significant. Whether is was the Summer Work Study Project, working
on the runway at the airport or volunteering in the schools, NBUF was there.
In our international work, the Commission on
Women's Issues of NBUF organized a delegation of NBUF sisters who attended the
United Nations World Conference on Women, held in Nairobi, Kenya in July 10-19,
1985. The NBUF sisters made a significant contribution at this conference by
networking with African women from all over the world and presenting a paper on
"The Presence of African Women in America."
NBUF was there for Jesse Jackson's
presidential runs in 1984 and 1988, and the successful mayoral bids of African
in America in Chicago, New York, St, Louis, Kansas City, and Houston in the
1980s.
NBUF participated in other electoral
campaigns for seats in Congress and state offices in several districts around
the country. In fact, one of our own, Rev. Jew Don Boney, won a council seat in
Houston, Texas. NBUF member, Lee Barnes successfully won a school board seat on
the same board in Kansas City, Missouri.
NBUF played a key role in the efforts to
organize the African American Leadership Summit in 1994. NBUF members were key
organizers in the historic Million Man March in October of 1995.
On the education front, over the past twenty
years, NBUF has been, and continues to be, the key grassroots organizers in the
African Centered Education Movement. Our World African Centered Education Plan
is a model for addressing the various areas of education.
As a response to revelations that the CIA
was involved in t he explosion of crack/cocaine in the African Communities in
America in the summer of 1996, NBUF launched a historic Genocide Petition
Campaign Against the United States Government. This Genocide Petition Campaign
produced over 200,000 signatures and in May 1997, the NBUF led delegation
traveled to the United Nations Human Rights Center in Geneva, Switzerland and
presented these petitions and other evidence on behalf of African people in
America.
Out of our successful Genocide Campaign,
NBUF collaborated with the December 12th Movement that organized the Durban 400
to participate and helped successfully lobby the United Nations World
Conference Against Racism (WCAR) to declare that the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade
and Slavery were Crimes Against Humanity in the summer of 2001.
As a follow-up to our successful
participation in this conference, NBUF continued to collaborate with the
December 12th Movement in organizing the Millions For Reparations Rally that
was held August 17, 2002 in Washington, D.C. where over 50,000 African people
attended from 38 states, 67 cities, and viewed by millions on CSPAN.
In the spring of 2003, NBUF National
Chairman, Dr. Conrad W. Worrill, requested that Minister Louis Farrakhan
convene a meeting of the key reparations organizers, activists, researchers,
scholars, and spiritual workers. This meeting occurred in July 2003 at the
Salaam Restaurant in Chicago and out of that meeting the NDABA Movement
unfolded.
On September 13, 2003, NBUF joined the
Millions For Reparations Rally at the United Nations in New York and helped to
link the Reparations Movement with the Pan African struggle worldwide. The
NDABA Movement meetings were convened in October 2003 in Jackson, Mississippi
and in March 2004 in Houston, Texas. This process has greatly helped
strengthened the unity in the Reparations Movement in America.
Through the NDABA Movement process, NBUF
Chairman Worrill proposed the establishment of a Reparations Petition Campaign
that was adopted by the NDABA forces with the goal of securing one million
signatures by the fall presidential election.
Since our inception, NBUF has consistently
sponsored a variety of cultural programs throughout the United States,
including our Frontlines Album Project, our sponsorship of annual Kwanzaa
Programs, and African Liberation Day activities. This has been a major part of
NBUF's work.
Through our Frontline Newsletter, Front
Page Newspaper, NBUF's website, e-mail, letters, phone calls, and the
traditional grapevine, NBUF communicates with the world.
Most importantly, in our organizing efforts,
NBUF has maintained strict financial independence, and has recently become a
certified organization with the National Black Federation of Charities, an arm
of the National Black United Fund, Inc. We are now able to receive donations
through payroll deduction from people in the federal workplace throughout the
world.