AFRE Speakers Bureau
Contact us to arrange for speakers on the subject of Afro-descendants, the lingering effects of slavery, and the human rights and reparations effort. Please e-mail our Speakers Bureau with your request.
Interested parties may feel free to inquire about the availability and fees of the Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Silis Muhammad.
Attorney Harriett AbuBakr, Attorney at Law, AFRE Legal Counsel
Atlanta
Our experience is an example for the civilized world of a holocaust wherein
identity is exterminated. Within our experience is the example of the means
that a State can use to forcibly, intentionally and permanently sever a
people from their identity. Within our experience is the example of how a
people in such a deprived condition by their very nature, and against
terrible opposition, will seek without rest to find their lost identity.
Within our experience is the example of how a State systematically, for the
benefit of the majority, can obstruct the attempts of a people to identify
themselves. Within our experience is the example of what extraordinary damage
can be sustained when a people's identity is lost and the identity of the
majority is forced upon them. Because of our experience with plantation
slavery, we know how human dignity is attached to identity. We are a people,
living within the United States as a minority. Without identity we have no
legal/political status or recognition internationally, no respect from the
majority population domestically, and no dignity among our fellow human
beings.
Ajani Mukarram, President
Chicago
And today, America is an independent nation isn't she? Flies her flag. Walks around the world holding herself as the world police. Doesn't she? But you haven't even policed your own inner shores, America. You are the biggest criminal in the history of the world - to steal a people from a land and to rape them, to take their language, to take their culture, to take their religion, and leave them in a state of civil death. You are the biggest criminal the world has ever known. So we who were brought here as slaves want to live again as a People. Some of us, one day, want to live as a Nation. Because I one day want my son to aspire to be a Senator, to be a Congressman, to possibly be the President of his own Nation. What about when Shabazz is building cars in his own Nation? What about when you pull out money and it's a Black man on the money? I want us to live again.
Ishmael Abdul-Salaam, Vice-President
Atlanta
Along with my Captain, Hasan Shaheed, I stood straight up in the meeting and walked out in military fashion; out the church doors and into the streets. We began to pass out copies of the message that I had intended to give. While passing them out we created a whirlwind. All of a sudden a group of approximately 10 youth began to call my name. Mr. Abdul! they shouted. They were my students. The student I teach at the local middle school. They began to grab copies of my speech. As the students grabbed more people came over and grabbed it as if we were handing out their reparations. The students asked, "Can we pass them out?" I said , "Please." They grabbed all of my stack and half of Captain Hasan's. All of a sudden the cameras came over to record what all the activity was about. I began to speak. My words were a mixture of my text along with appropriate street lingo for the youth that surrounded me. As I got warmed up and focused the camera was off. They did not want to hear a radical black man in a suit with a real message.
Ida Hakim-Lawrence, CFO
Atlanta
What about white people in the United States: what should we be thinking and doing in relation to this effort? First, we should be willing to submit to the truth. We have arrogance as a people, so much so that we feel comfortable with the fact that our language, culture and religion have been forced upon others. Some of us may actually believe that our civilization is superior and should be dominant. Standing in a position of power we seem to want to forget the vile deeds that gave our civilization dominance today. I assert that as long as we accept ill-gotten wealth, power and position as rightfully ours, we have no individual human dignity and our civilization is not a civilization at all. Think about it. In the United States, what have we been if not inhumane to African Americans? Today when the lingering effects of slavery are brought to our attention, the U.S. Government and the masses of white people still refuse to acknowledge responsibility even to the degree of apologizing. This is a savage, arrogant, shameful, inhumane response. Gratefully, increasing numbers are standing against the stream. We who have the heart to try and change the present condition are supporting the movement for recognition, restoration and reparations for African Americans. We know we have to make reparation for our own sake.
