NAVC’S OWN PASTOR BRYANT ALI
APPT’D TO NEW CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD!
The mighty Newark AntiViolence Coalition (NAVC) is proud to announce that one of our own, elder member advisor Pastor Bryant Ali, has been appointed by Mayor Ras Baraka to sit on Newark’s new Civilian Review Board that will oversee the Newark police department.
Mayor Baraka made his appointments last week. The Board still needs an inspector general before it becomes fully functional. He courageously implemented the Board, perhaps the first in the country to have subpoena power over the police, by executive order in January.
Newark has both a long history with police brutality. Its epic uprising in 1967 was triggered by police brutality.
Newark also has a proud tradition of protest against police brutality. Protests from the last several years led to a federal investigation that came back with condemning conclusions about policing in Newark. It has ultimately led to a federal monitor being placed over the police to oversee significant reforms.
NAVC’s protests against police brutality have been some of the boldest in the city’s recent history. Their six day shut down of Broad and Market Streets, protesting the acquittal of George Zimmerman in 2013, joined by the late Amiri Baraka initially, and then demanding elder marchers who were doing a less confrontational march at the same time to join them in an important show of unity to the community, was the stuff of NAVC legend.
Pastor Bryant Ali has been a strong antiviolence violence voice in the greater Newark area for decades. He is one of the first to hold mass mock funerals to dramatize the plague of gun violence. He is the longtime presiding pastor the Psalmist Worship Center on Lyons Avenue in Newark.
“I consider it a privilege to have the opportunity to serve our community at large,” said Ali humbly upon receiving word of his appointment…
SOURCE: Muhammad Zayid
https://theblacklist.net/
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