Two Hundred Fifty UPS Workers Received Pink Slips
featuring 
. Jairo Reyes, fired UPS worker
. Letitia James, NYC Public Advocate
. Tim Sylvester, President Local 802, IBT

United Parcel Services (“UPS”) workers, numerous elected officials and Teamsters Local 804 members in Queens delivered 100,000 petition signatures in support of the 250 drivers whose jobs are on the line. UPS has issued termination notices to the Teamster drivers for participating in a walkout and protest after the company fired a union activist in violation of a signed agreement.  What began as a routine disciplinary matter has become a flashpoint for workers’ rights in New York City. 
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The Current Crisis In Newark Schools
featuring 
Larry Hamm, Chairman, People's Organization for Progress, Newark, NJ

Newark is in the throes of a broadening community based 
resistance of parents, teachers and longtime city residents to draconian efforts to privatize Newark schools without the communities consent by the state imposed superintendent Cami Anderson.  Anderson has proposed public school closings and job cuts, while advancing Charter  schools.  She wants charter chains in five troubled district schools that serve K-8 students. She has proposed charters take over management of the schools entirely.  She is also establishing nine more “renew” schools, in which she will give principals the right to select their own teaching staffs. Larry Hamm analyzes the Anderson plan and what is needed to help preserve and fix Newark’s troubled public school system.

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Part 2 of The Homecoming Tribute for Amiri Baraka Featuring the Euology of his Son Ras Baraka , the Next Mayor of Newark, NJ

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.

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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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Newark Unemployment Protest in 6th Month is a Model for the Nation
with
Larry Hamm, Chairman, People's Organization for Progress, Newark, N.J.

The U.S. economy is struggling, but in many black communities
Americans are in the throes of a depression. With unemployment
exacting an outsize toll on African-American men and women, a
coalition initiated by the People’s Organization for Progress has
been demonstrating daily for over 6 months in a busy intersection
in Newark flanking a statue of Abraham Lincoln outside the Essex
County Courthouse. This persistent and visible protest in one
location has received widespread attention throughout the City
and support from labor, student, religious and other community
groups including Occupy Newark who see unemployment as a
crucial civil rights issue emerging from the country’s economic
woe. "We are more than a half-century away from the Montgomery
bus boycott, but we are dealing with issues just as pressing,"
said Larry Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for
Progress. Hamm and like-minded activists started the 381-day
protest modeled after one of the most famous battles of the
Civil Rights era — the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56.
They are calling on President Obama and Congress to institute
a jobs program akin to the Works Progress Administration of
the Great Depression, that employed millions of unskilled
Americans in public works jobs. Unemployment is 16 percent
among black Americans, a rate rivaling those of the 1930s.
Newark’s jobless rate hovers around 15%, while the national
rate is 8.6 percent.


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Newark Activists In Fifty-Fourth Day Of Protest Calling on U.S. Government To Institute Jobs Program
with Larry Hamm, Chairman, People's Organization for Progress, Newark, N.J.

The U.S. economy is struggling, but in many black communities Americans
are in the throes of a depression. With unemployment exacting an outsize
toll on African-American men and women, a coalition of community groups
sees it as a crucial civil rights issue emerging from the country’s economic
woe. "We are more than a half-century away from the Montgomery bus
boycott, but we are dealing with issues just as pressing," said Larry Hamm,
chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress. Flanking a statue of
Abraham Lincoln outside the Essex County Courthouse, Hamm and like-
minded activists started a 381-day protest modeled after one of the most
famous battles of the Civil Rights era — the Montgomery bus boycott in
1955-56. They are calling on President Obama and Congress to institute
a jobs program akin to the Works Progress Administration of the Great
Depression, that employed millions of unskilled Americans in public works
jobs. Unemployment is 16 percent among black Americans, a rate rivaling
those of the 1930s. New Jersey’s jobless rate is 9.5 percent, while the
national rate is 9.1 percent.
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AFL-CIO Pres. Trumka:
History Will Judge Pres. Obama If He 'Nibbles' at the Jobs Crisis

At a recent forum sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, AFL-CIO's.
Richard Trumka urged President Obama to “propose bold solutions on the
jobs crisis,” and not nibble around the edge of the issue and that, “history
will judge him and I think working people will judge him. on what he
proposes on the jobs crisis. Trumka said that, in a conversation with
Pres. Obama “I urged him to propose what was necessary to solve the
problem” as opposed to what the president thought was politically possible
given Republican control of the House of Representatives. Mr. Trumka
added, “I said to him,'Do not look at what is possible, look at what is
necessary. The American public wants solutions and just because [of] the Republicans, you think this is the only thing that is politically possible, that
doesn’t mean you should propose that. That means they control the agenda.' ”

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