[act-ma] Toward Justice: Black/Palestine Solidarity Tour

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      | Wednesday, April 6 at 7 PM |


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Dudley Branch of the Boston Public Library65 Warren St, Roxbury 02119 |



Presented by Haymarket Books

Co-sponsored by:
International Socialist Organization - Boston
Northeastern University Students for Justice in Palestine


Recently, the movement in solidarity with Palestine has faced an unprecedented assault, especially on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign on college campuses. This assault has come in the form of punishment and reprisal of students in solidarity with Palestine, the firing or public smearing of pro-Palestinian professors, the de-funding of pro-Palestine students groups, and the prohibition of the Palestinian flag on campuses. Politicians support this assault. In a speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Hillary Clinton characterized activists in solidarity with Palestine as anti-Semitic and maligned the BDS movement as an “alarming” attack on Jews in the U.S. and Israel, even though BDS vocally stands against every form of oppression. Such attacks seek to crush a movement that is staunchly anti-racist in order to legitimize the suppression of Palestinian civil rights and leave unquestioned US’ direct support—to the tune of $3 billion per year—for Israel’s apartheid state.

The Black Lives Matter movement is experiencing the same push-back, as we see Black people remain targets of police brutality and organizing on campuses is restricted. However, many on our side are drawing parallels between anti-racist struggles on an international scale, as evidenced by the success of the 2015 Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine (http://www.blackforpalestine.com/read-the-statement.html) and campus Black Lives Matter chapters demanding divestment from Israel’s apartheid state. Many of the issues facing the Black community in the U.S.—police violence, job discrimination, poverty, and environmental racism—are the same problems that Palestinians face.

The solidarity poses a significant threat to US’ global hegemony and the racism on which it relies. A new generation of activists is forging ties of solidarity between the struggles of Palestinians and Black people—struggles for equal rights, for dignity, for freedom. This tour hopes to make a modest contribution to this project—by unearthing the inspiring history of Black/Palestinian solidarity and by making these lessons relevant for present-day efforts seeking to transform the future.


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Featured speakers:
Khury Petersen-Smith co-authored, with Stanford alum Kristian Davis Bailey, the influential 2015 Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine, covered by Ebony and other outlets. Khury is a member of the International Socialist Organization and is active in Palestine solidarity and anti-racist organizing. He has written about the politics of Black liberation for Jacobin Magazine and the International Socialist Review.

Aaron Dixon is one of the co-founders of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party, chronicled in his 2012 book My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain. Dixon has since founded Central House, a nonprofit that provides transitional housing for youth, and was one of the cofounders of the Cannon House, a senior assisted-living facility. Aaron ran for US Senate on the Green Party ticket in 2006.




You can read the original statement here: http://www.blackforpalestine.com/read-the-statement.html