On Saturday, January 19th, Malik Rhasaan, one of Time Magazine’s People of the Year and key organizer for ‘Occupy The Hood,’ an independent movement of ‘People of Color’ now in 23 cities throughout the country, will be one of the special guest speakers at the highly anticipated 17th annual dinner tribute to ‘our political prisoners and their families’ sponsored by the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee .
This event will take place at the Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center, 1199 Union Headquarters, 310 West 43rd Street, (near 8th Avenue), in Manhattan.
The event will be from 3-7pm with dinner served promptly at 4pm. Donations for this now time-honored event are $40 in advance and $45 at the door. Proceeds from this gathering go to the commissary of the political prisoners who are represented at the dinner by their families.
The theme for this year’s dinner is “Transforming Solidarity: Working Together To End Political Imprisonment and Mass Incarceration.”
Rhasaan’s current work started as a response to an Occupy Wall Street Movement that struggled with addressing their platform to people of color. Through Rhasaan’s efforts,that changed dramatically. It began with him and Detroit based organizer Johari Uhuru launching a Facebook outreach page to identify ‘People of Color’ interested in organizing their own responses to Occupy Wall Street. It ‘blew up,’ or grew, into 23 cities having their own chapters of ‘Occupy The Hood.’!
The response of People of Color to the Occupy Wall Street Movement has been qualitatively more stable and enduring than the media spotlighted Occupy Wall Street Movement itself,” said an appreciative Zayid Muhammad, press officer for the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee.
“Whereas Occupy The Wall Street has already been relegated to last year’s news, Occupy The Hood chapters are continuing to do good and ongoing work.”
Time Magazine, in a recent rare tilt to the left, named ‘The Protestor’ the 2011 person of the year. It is against this background that Rhasaan received their critical recognition.
“What young people like Malik have been doing is extraordinary,” exclaimed Dequi Kioni Sadiki, co-chair for the Malcolm X Commemoration Committee and cohost of WBAI’s Where We Live.
“We hope the struggle for the release of our freedom fighters, activists who have been jailed for over 40 years in some cases, receives a healthy infusion of caring young people like those driving the Occupy The Hood network.”
Other guests for this year’s dinner tribute include critically acclaimed hip hop emcee Jasiri X and activist scholar Johanna Fernandez, producer of the potent film Justice On Trial, highlighting the near deadly frameup of Mumia AbuJamal, arguably the best known political prisoner in the world right now.
For more reservations and more information, please call 718-512-5008. ‘Like’ us on Facebook at Facebook.com/Malcolm X Commemoration Committee…
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