The Homecoming Tribute for The Action Figure, The Instrumentalist of Words, The Writer, The Master Teacher Amiri Baraka

The Homecoming tribute of writer and revolutionary icon Amiri Baraka shut down a section of one of downtown Newark’s main streets, dignitary style. African drummers flanked the entry to Newark Symphony Hall, greeting each attendee with ancestral rhythms and setting the tone for what would be a service filled with music, poetry, remembrance and fire; the fire you light when a world-changing, shape-shifting native son has left us.   

Inside, every seat was taken by those who came from around the corner and around  the world for Amiri Baraka, beat poet, Black Nationalist, Marxist, Griot, Shaman, Lighter of Fires; a man whose intellectual and spiritual breadth was reflected in his perpetual search for his truest place in the world and to free others to realize theirs. 

Poet Saul Williams intoned “This is a stick up. Amiri get out of the coffin”– and with that  he conjured up Amiri Baraka’s spirit and lifted ours as did Woody King Jr. and Danny Glover, Asha Bandele, Michael Eric Dyson, Jessica Care Moore and Tony Medina.  And Sonia Sanchez was there with an offering from Maya Angelou. And Sister Souljah was there. And Haki  Madhubuti was there. And Cornel West was there. And Larry  Hamm was there.  Oliver Lake, Kevin Maynard and Avery Brooks were there. And Glynn Turman was there. And Ras Baraka was there; the son. The chosen son, the next Mayor of Newark, rhapsodizing, channeling the spirit of his father in an epoch offering - Amiri announcing from the grave the power of a father to shape his son into a reflection of himself and into his own man. 

This was a revelatory moment for those present at the tribute for Amiri Baraka, The Action Figure, The Instrumentalist of Words, The Writer, The Master Teacher who was forever seared on my cerebellum and soloing in my nervous system. The entire experience was evidence of our collective genius. The People were there…because they could not imagine not being there” and now you’ll be there to.  We’ll take you there and you’ll be imbued with the passion of the beloved community,  socially engaged people 
working for empowerment.  And amongst the brilliant tributes and 
encouraging instruction for activism to continue, we’ll weave the poetry, the speeches of Amiri Baraka beckoning us to fan the embers and reignite the struggle for justice.

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Working for an Economy, By the People, for the People withProfessor Stanley Aronowitz
 
Stanley Aronowitz is the director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Technology and Work at the CUNY Graduate Center, a distinguished professor of sociology and urban education, author of 23 books , and ran for governor of New York in 2002.  He is one of the great public intellectuals of our times.  Author of 23 books, he’s known around the world for writing classics like False Promises: The Shaping of American Working Class Consciousness, 40 years ago, and The Crisis in Historical Materialism nearly 30 years ago. His more recent books such as The Jobless Future, How Class Works, Implicating Empire, The Politics of Identity: Class, Culture and Social Movements, and upcoming The Death and Rebirth of American Labor: Toward a New Labor Movement define the philosophic road to travel and offer a foundation for our thinking about the solution to our economic quagmire, our growing wealth inequality and deepening poverty.

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In Response to Responses to the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
withRiham Barghouti, Palestinian American, who worked lived in Palestine for 10 years and worked at Birzeit University, founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
and Adalah-NY
and Andrew Ross,  Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, N.Y.U. Member, American Studies Association

NYS Senate co-leader Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx) and Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill that would give colleges and universities in New York 30 days to withdraw their support from groups like the American Studies Association, which recently voted for such an academic boycott, or NYS lawmakers Senate co-leader Jeffrey Klein (D-Bronx) and Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) want to strip aid from universities whose faculty participate in academic organizations that urge a boycott against Israel.  The bill passed the Senate but is stalled in the Assembly. This is in response to the American Studies Association (ASA), which recently voted for such an academic boycott. Cornell,  New York University, Columbia, SUNY Buffalo and SUNY Stony Brook are among the institutions with faculty affiliated with the ASA, made up of 5,000 professors. The ASA over-whelmingly voted to refuse to enter into formal collaborations with Israeli academic institutions, or with scholars who are expressly serving as representatives or ambassadors of those institutions , or on behalf of the Israeli government, until Israel ceases to violate international law. and human rights. We’ll discuss the growing efficacy of the boycotts, divestiture and sanctions movement.

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Could This Be the Year in NYS for a Single-Payer 
Health Care System?
with
Assemblyman Richard Gottfried,Chair NYS Assembly Health 
Committee
and
Dr. Mary O'Brien, Board Member,Physicians for a National 
Health Program, primary care physician at Columbia University who also participates in the medical economics section of the clinical practice course for 4th-year medical students.

Assemblyman Richard Gottfried,  is rolling out his bill establishing a statewide single-payer health care system, a structure often shorthanded by advocates nationwide as “Medicare for All.”  Even though the nation is only beginning to implement the federal Affordable Health Care Act, Gottfried said the Empire State shouldn’t have to wait years before seeing where it falls short. “Federal health care reform has done a lot of good, but it still leaves us in the hands of insurance companies.,” “It would save the billions of dollars that we now spend on insurance company administrative costs. … You and your doctor would work to keep you healthy. New York Health would pay the bill with funding from broad-based revenue based on ability to pay,” Gottfried said and “New York can do better.”

Plus
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Jim McDermott discuss the state by state approach to enacting Medicare for all single payer health insurance plan as pioneered by Vermont which could become the model for the nation.

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PRESENTE: In Conversation & Song with Pete Seeger  

No, death cannot silence our beloved Pete Seeger.  His rhythms and tunes will find their way beyond time and across borders to wherever people toil and yearn to build a way for humankind against greed and hate.  His songs will forever inspire a chorus and when sung by enough people  the choir can tear down walls, overthrow tyrants and, break the chains of serfdom. Not overnight in a crescendo, but little by little.  Pete Seeger knew a song could not stop a bullet, could not stop a truncheon, but he believed that from little things, big things grow. He was a messenger of a power invisible and indivisible. As he once wrote: ''Songs won't save the planet, but then neither will books or speeches. Songs are sneaky things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons.Penetrate hard shells.''  Pete Seeger never tired and indeed was inspired and energized to make the world a better place through his music and activism. His lifelong commitment to the cause of peace and to addressing the plight of the downtrodden has been an inspiration to all those who have championed society's victims and have done what they could to combat injustice.

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A Building Bridges Expose  - How  the U.S. Government Profits from Child Labor, Forced Overtime, Wage Violations, and Other Illegal, Dangerous and Inhumane Conditions
with Ian Urbina,  N.Y. Times investigatory reporter
and
Molly McGrath, International Campaigns Coordinator, AFL-CIO

Just as major brands and retailers buy from thousands of global suppliers who fail to comply with laws, protect workers and respect workers' rights, the federal government’s system for purchasing goods and services has failed to ensure that workers who produce these goods in global supply chains do so free from danger and exploitation. From its workers’ uniforms, to clothes using the logo of its armed forces, to goods sold at large stores on military bases, the U.S. government is the buyer, brand owner or retailer of more 
than 1 billion dollars of clothes. Yet it pays virtually no attention to the conditions in the many thousands of workplaces around the world (including the U.S.) where the goods are made 

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