Coalition of Black organizations to hold United Nations protest against Trump insults February 15
12th February 2018 · 0 Comments
(TriceEdneyWire.com) — #ProudAfricans, a coalition of African, Caribbean, and African-American human rights and professional organizations, will lead a protest rally outside the United Nations Headquarters at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Park in New York City on Feb. 15 to denounce the recent racist and bigoted anti-Africa comments by U.S. President Donald Trump, according to the Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW), a member of the coalition.
The “Repudiating and Educating Trump” Protest Rally will take place at 11 a.m. on 47 Street between First and Second Avenues.
Recent insults from Trump, reportedly referring to Haiti and African nations as S***hole countries during an Oval Office meeting, have apparently sparked an uprising in which numerous other issues are being brought to the surface. Those issues include the relationship between Africa and the U. S. and the widespread mistreatment of nations of color.
“The rally will also highlight the past and continuing contributions by people of African descent to the creation of wealth and prosperity in the United States and other Western countries. In addition, the coalition will denounce the brutal exploitation of African migrants whose plight was highlighted in a recent CNN exposé showing auctions of African migrants who have been enslaved in Libya,” states a release from IBW.
It continues, “At the U.N. rally, the coalition will raise public awareness of the thousands of young Africans who continue to drown during desperate voyages across the Mediterranean to seek employment in Europe because the economies of their own countries have been ravaged by policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF in collusion with corrupt regimes generally maintained in power by U.S. and European governments.”
IBW says the coalition aims to issue “a set of demands to the White House, the United Nations, and other International organizations to address the socio-economic and political marginalization of Africans and African descendants all over the world.”
#ProudAfricans Coalition has been organized by the United African Congress (UAC), a New York-based organization representing African immigrants in the U.S. The UAC is led by Dr. Mohammed Nurhussein, chairman, and Sidique Wai, president and national spokesperson.
“We are Africans of diverse backgrounds from across the continent and the diaspora who are proud of our heritage, who have come together to denounce strongly, without stooping to his level of depravity, the vile and racist characterization of people of African descent by the current occupant of the House that enslaved Africans built,” states Dr. Nurhussein, A retired physician, in the release, which also quotes other leaders.
“As an immigrant from Morocco and as a human rights activist and community organizer, I also denounce the hateful words used to describe my beautiful motherland Africa,” said Ms. Souad Kirama, founder and director of New Horizon Center for Advocacy and Development. “We are here in this wonderful newly founded coalition to say it loud and clear #ProudAfrican!”
IBW President/CEO Ron Daniels, a distinguished CUNY professor, is one of the chief organizers of the protest rally at the U.N. “As president of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century and convener of the Pan African Unity Dialogue, I am proud to stand with our sisters and brothers in the diaspora in repudiating the foul-mouthed insults that spewed recently from the current occupant of the White House. We will not be disrespected,” Daniels stated.
Bourema Niambele, a leader of New York City-based African Diaspora Coalition for Justice, one of the protest organizers, says, “Donald Trump represents the kind of racism towards Africans and African immigrants that we see around the world today. As the world now knows from the recent CNN exposé, Africans are even being auctioned into slavery in Libya. This is the 21st century and we will not stand for it.”
The rally is expected to draw large numbers of people from the continental African immigrant, African-American, Caribbean-American and Latino communities from the Tri-State area and across the nation.
The coalition’s priorities are anchored by the framework of “Protest, Policy, Power” and speakers will challenge the current socio-economic policies that negatively impact African communities at the local, national and international levels and will offer a number of solutions. In so doing, participating organizations will broaden and deepen their alliances for unified actions moving forward.
In addition to United African Congress (UAC) and the IBW, the protest rally is endorsed by Give Them A Hand Foundation, African Diaspora Coalition for Justice, Nextmedia.tv, The Black Star News, African Women Solidarity Action for Development, African Hope Committee, African Commission of Newark, New Jersey and the African Human Rights Commission.
For more information on the protest, call (212) 340-1975; info@nextmedia.tv; or Facebook: proudafricansempowerment.
This article originally published in the February 12, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
