The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) and the AJ Muste Memorial Institute join together for an historic and movement-changing gathering celebrating 50 years of alliance-building between forces in the Black liberation and anti-war movements. Echoing the slogan popularized by Stokley Carmichael (Kwame Ture), we proclaim:

“Hell No” We STILL Ain’t Going!

Join a panel of poets, speakers, artists and dancers including:

Bob Brown (AAPRP-GC organizer, who co-founded the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, directed the mid-west office of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and been involved in decades of other successful coalition efforts)

Leslie Cagan (co-founder of Mobilization for Survival, the Venceremos Brigade, the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, and United for Peace and Justice (serving as UFPJ national coordinator); co-chair of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights; former chair of the Pacifica Foundation; People’s Climate Movement-NY)

Johanna Fernandez (Baruch College history professor; co-coordinator of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home; author of the forthcoming A History of the Young Lords; board member, AJ Muste Memorial Institute)

Matt Meyer (educator, author, and organizer, War Resisters International; council member of the International Peace Research Association; co-editor of We Have Not Been Moved: Resisting Racism and Militarism in 21st Century America; board member, AJ Muste Memorial Institute)

Signe Harriday (Million Artist Movement; New Black Arts Movement)

Ian de Oliveira (New Students for a Democratic Society; Utah Against Police Brutality)

Brittany Williams (JustLeadershipUSA)

The Brooklyn Commons

Friday, May 26, 2017, 6:30—9:30 PM

388 Atlantic Avenue (between Hoyt and Bond), Brooklyn, NY 11217, +1 347-987-4966

Event will be Livestreamed!

“Hell No” Fifty Years ago! In 1967…

• On April 4: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” anti-war speech at a public meeting in New York’s Riverside Church, organized by Clergy and Laymen Concerned About the War in Vietnam. One year later, on April 4, 1968, he was assassinated.

• On April 11: In a speech at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, Kwame Ture and over 1,000 students chanted the slogan “Hell No! I Ain’t Going” for over ten minutes. On April 19, Kwame raised the slogan again in a speech at Garfield High School in Seattle. In July, Matt Jones and Elaine Laron wrote the lyrics to “Hell No! I Ain’t Gonna Go!” which was published in Broadside magazine. It became the anthem of the anti-draft movement.
• On April 15: An estimated 400,000 people, organized by the Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, convened by A.J. Muste and David Dellinger, marched from Central Park to United Nations Headquarters to protest the escalating Vietnam War. Dr. Martin Luther King, Harry Belafonte, James Bevel, Benjamin Spock and Kwame Ture spoke. 75,000 assembled in San Francisco, where Coretta Scott King and Eldridge Cleaver spoke.
• On April 28: Muhammad Ali refused induction into the US Army in Houston, TX, on the grounds that he was a conscientious objector to the war in Vietnam and that “the Vietnamese never called me a nigger, never lynched me, never set dogs on me.” On June 20, Ali was found guilty of draft evasion. He successfully appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court.
• From May 2-10 and November 20 to December 1: The International War Crimes Tribunal, which was organized by Bertrand Russell, convened in Stockholm and Copenhagen. James Baldwin, Dave Dellinger, Carl Oglesby, Kwame Ture and Alice Walker were members.
• On October 19: Thousands of students clashed with police at Brooklyn College in New York after two military recruiters appeared on campus. Students strike the following day.
• From October 20–21: 70,000 people join Mobe’s March on the Pentagon in Washington, DC. David Dellinger, the Diggers, Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman and others attempted to “exorcise” and “levitate” the Pentagon. About 650 people, including Norman Mailer, were arrested for civil disobedience on the steps of the Pentagon.

Fifty years later, in 2017, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), the Muste Institute, our friends and allies refresh and renew this call:

“Hell No! We Still Ain’t Going”

• We will not fight in “unjust wars” in any corner of the world!
• No to the Military-Industrial Complex world-wide!
• No to NATO and the UN Peacekeeping Operations!
• No to US AFRICOM, US CENTCOM, US EUCOM, US NORTHCOM, US PACOM and US SOUTHCOM!
• US Out of Guantanamo, Cuba! US Out of the Shannon Airport in Ireland!
• Resist War Taxes!

Organized by: All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) and the AJ Muste Memorial Institute Endorsers list in formation…