Wednesday, February 1, 2012

From Africa to Abya Yala, from Alabama to Arizona, from Selma to Phoenix: Building Understanding and Solidarity

YouTube:
Press Conference at NAHUACALLI

 January 26, 2012

“Their understanding of history is based completely on falsehoods.  There is an effort I understand to cut out in Tucson, Arizona and state-wide the teaching of Mexican history, of culture in the schools and that is very similar to what we experienced in Selma, where there was a tracking system that was instituted by the Board of Education where black student were allowed to integrate into the formerly all white schools but when their kids got to the sixth grade they were directed and scheduled for classes that led to vocational work vocational schools but not to a college education…



The majority of back kids were trapped in that system until we actually campaigned for weeks and weeks: The campaign on the taking over of City Hall, of taking over the mayor’s office, and it was a very active type of rebellion that the Black Community did in order to bring about a change but it did happen.


And I know that that is really the same kind of philosophy that is behind the cutting out of these kinds of classes for the students.



It is a denial or an attempt to deny as much as possible a knowledge of one’s own history, and if one does not know his history, one does not know his own self.”



From Africa to Abya Yala, Selma to Phoenix, from Civil Rights to Human Rights, Indigenous Rights and the Rights of Mother Earth!


“Justice is always compelling,
not always popular.”





 


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