On Tuesday, July 12th, the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) will host its annual memorial rally to observe the 44th anniversary of the epic 1967 Newark Rebellion!
The rally will take place at 5:30pm at the Newark Rebellion Monument located on Springfield Avenue at the intersection Irvine Turner Blvd and 15th Avenue. It will feature presentations by area activists and surviving family members of the Rebellion’s casualties.
On July 12, 1967, Newark erupted in a rebellion against the scourge of police brutality and oppressive racially-biased living conditions. Tragically, the rebellion prompted a massive police riot and a brutal armed crackdown marked by the National Guard and other police forces occupying the city for several days. It would lead to 39 people, overwhelmingly unarmed Black civilians, getting killed in that dramatic upheaval.
The Rebellion proudly marked the beginning of the end of ‘Municipal Segregation’ in New Jersey’s largest city, and it spawned similar rebellions in at least 75 other cities throughout the country, the majority of them taking place throughout the state. It marked the beginning of the ‘Black Power’ explosion that would lead to African-Americans electing mayors and Black city council majorities in cities with majority African-American populations. In Newark, that would mean the election of Kenneth Gibson in 1970. It would mark the emergence of Amiri Baraka, who survived a brutal police attack early on in the Rebellion, as a world reknown leading voice and organizing figure of the new movement direction. Only days later, with his still bandaged from the attack and beating he endured, Baraka hosted a National Black Power Conference in his beloved, but battle ravaged city on July 20, 1967.
“In this era of gentrification and privatization efforts, many would like for our people to forget what happened here, and why that was so important,” explained POP chairman Lawrence Hamm, whose own public life would be born from the organizing surge of that period.
“It is something so important that it ought to be studied in every school throughout the country and it something we will never let them forget,” he finished.
In 1971, Hamm was appointed by Mayor Gibson to the Newark Board of Education after leading a walkout of city high school students and a student sit-in. He was a senior at Arts High School at the time.
POP RALLYS IN EAST ORANGE AGAINST POLICE BRUTALITY!
On Saturday, July 16th, the East Orange chapter of the Peoples Organization for Progress will again rally to memorialize the police killing of Randy Weaver on this same date in 1999.
Weaver was killed when East Orange police officers fired upon a vehicle in which he was a passenger on the assumption that the vehicle was stolen, critically wounding him. He was then denied emergency medical attention at the scene by the police that could have saved his life.
Weaver, known to his family and friends as ‘Prime Time,’ was an only child. His mother, Mary Weaver, has held memorial vigils for her son every year to the day since his death, and has become a nationally regarded advocate for justice against police brutality in her own right. She is the chairperson for POP’s East Orange branch.
The vigil will take place at East Orange City Hall Plaza at 11am.
Later that evening, the East Orange chapter is hosting an important fundraising bus ride to Atlantic City to continue their critically important work.
For more information on the East Orange rally and the fundraiser, please call 973 674 8613…
POP SUPPORTS STOLEN LIVES INDUCTION CEREMONY
On Sunday, July 17th the Peoples Organization for Progress will participate in the annual induction ceremony of the ‘Stolen Lives’ Project.
Organized by the New York based October 22nd Coalition To Stop Police Brutality, the Stolen Lives project has documented the incredible numbers of lives ‘stolen’ by police brutality!
In 2000, they produced a book ‘Stolen Lives’ documenting over 2000 lives lost at the hands of the police!
At a recent POP rally, they presented with a banner that listed over 1000 lives stolen by the police!
Dawud Culver, a Newark high school student killed just months ago at the hands of the police, is among the inductees this year. His family co-hosted a rally with POP recently to bring attention to that tragic case.
The ceremony will take place at Project Reach, located at 39 Eldridge Street, on the 4th floor. Eldridge Street is located between Canal and Hester Street, in Manhattan at 1pm.
For more information, call the Coalition at 866 235 7814. The project also has a website www.stolenlives.org...
POP CONTINUES ITS DAILY PROTESTS,
ENTERS ITS 3RD WEEK
The Peoples Organization for Progress continues its daily protests entering their third week of sustained protest against the conservative backlash and militarism of this moment.
On Monday, June 27th, the Peoples Organization for Progress (POP) launched what it is boldly and proudly calling a ‘Daily People’s Campaign’ for ‘Jobs, Peace, Equality, and Justice!’
The campaign is into its third week of daily rallies around the issues that affect and impact ordinary people.
Among the issues the campaign will address are a need for a national jobs program, a call to end military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, a call to stand against police brutality, a call to preserve workers rights and collective bargaining, a call for a moratorium on foreclosures, a call for national health care and for affordable higher education, and more.
POP is calling on a broad range of organizations to endorse and participate in the campaign. This is in an effort to contribute to the forging of a progressive united front for social justice for this
area.
“There have been times in history when the people have been faced with grave challenges, and they have met those challenges with profound, sustained actions that have made a difference,” said Lawrence Hamm, chairman for the People’s Organization for Progress.
“We believe that this is one of those times,” he finished pointedly.
On Tuesday, July 26th, POP will host a meeting to seek the endorsements and participation from other organizations to join the Daily Campaign at a site yet to be determined. Supporters interested in participating, please call to be contacted once the time and location for the meeting are secured.
The daily actions continue daily from 4:30pm to 6:00pm at West Market Street and Springfield Avenue, near the Lincoln Monument and will take place their everyday for an indefinite period of time.
On Saturdays, the actions will take place from 12 noon to 2:00pm on corner of Broad and Market Streets in Newark.
On Sundays, the actions will take place from 2:00pm to 3:00pm at West Market Street and Springfield Avenue, near the Lincoln Monument.
For more information, please call 973 801 0001.
THE PEOPLES ORGANIZATION FOR PROGRESS
PO BOX 22505
NEWARK, NJ 07101
CONTACT:LAWRENCE HAMM 973 801 0001
https://theblacklist.net/
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