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THE BLACKMAN
Ordinary and Active members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League (August 1929) of the World, it is with a heavy heart that I greet you in the name of our founder the Right Excellent Marcus Mosiah Garvey.
We are all aware of the present impasse or standstill situation that our organization is going through. Let us also be fully aware of the violations that the present administration have committed and the consequence of lies, wrong doings and disrespect of the constitution that was laid down by the founding fathers and mothers of this organization. We can not function as a united organization with cliques in our governmental structure. These cliques act as nothing more than private interest groups that go as far as to target members through intimidation tactics. By using the techniques of divide and conquer the present administration of President General Redmond Battle has proven to be incompetent and unprogressive. The only true solution to this serious problem is to call for a convention to deal with the wrong doings and to move forward in our work. This past year has been one of the most difficult and trying periods of my time in this Association and I pray that the Almighty will guide us in our endeavors to see justice prevail in the cause of African redemption. I was elected to the post of First Assistant President-General of this great association at our annual international convention in 2004. Since then I have witnessed the crimes perpetuated against our constitution and the members of our association by a corrupt and unprincipled leadership. As an elected member of the Executive Council (Parent Body) I can not excuse myself from being a part of the problem but I can absolve myself before our membership at large by voicing my conscience and speaking the truth without reservation. It was the Right Excellent Marcus Garvey who said, “Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences”; and so I am prepared to suffer, longer than I already have and as long as may be necessary to expose the corrupt and unjust actions of this Parent Body. This is my solemn duty to those who have elected me to serve and I will not betray them by abandoning my post. As Elders of this historic confraternity we have an obligation to teach the youth and to prepare them for leadership; they are the vessel that will carry the work of our illustrious founder into the 21st century. It is in carrying out this task that we have stumbled and fallen. By our actions as parents, we have failed to teach the youth the very respect that some of our leaders demand but are undeserved of. These same leaders have disrespected, dishonored and disregarded the constitution that has been handed down to us from our founders; the very document from which their executive authority is derived. Furthermore, whenever members have been bold enough and brave enough to stand up for their constitutional rights and defend the law and ordinances that our ancestors fought so hard to establish, they have been misaligned, misrepresented, intimidated and ultimately expelled from an organization that was founded for the very purpose of uniting our race. In the past few months I have been in contact with a number of divisional officers across the globe and our situation is dire. Where members are not misinformed, they are either disappointed in our leadership or they are afraid to take a stand because they have been warned (and I quote the 3rd APG), “if you come down on the Parent Body, then the Parent Body is going to come down on you hard!” Still, what I find most discouraging is the attitude of apathy and indifference that plagues some of the officers even at the highest executive level of this association. There are a number of members who know that what is happening around them and what is happening to us as a body is WRONG. They know that it is not only unconstitutional but immoral, and yet they fail to stand up and speak out so that their voices can be heard. By their actions, they too are sowing the seeds of our destruction for all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to stand by and do nothing! What are we afraid of? Is it more important that we pretend to the world and ourselves to be wholesome while we are empty and rotting from the inside? In the past year, the executive council and the President General has assumed dictatorial powers and, as I am informed, will soon attempt to remove me from my office, even as they have tried to disband my New York Division as well as the Divisions in Washington D.C. and Toronto. Even after they physically abused some of our members and prevented them from entering the convention last year they have continued to try to intimidate them by phone and lately have been sending letters by mail ordering them to pay their dues to the Parent Body. Fortunately, the members of the New York Division refuse to be taken for fools. There can be NO TAXATION WITHOUT RESPRESENTATION and until our members are satisfied that our grievances will be resolved and due process paid to the constitution that governs us, we will continue to fight for our inalienable rights as active members for we are not afraid. The Right Excellent Marcus Garvey teaches us that “fear is a state of nervousness fit for children and not men. To fear is to lose control of one’s nerve, one’s will- to flutter, like a dying fowl, losing consciousness, yet, alive”. Shall this be the state of our great association after 92 years? Is this the legacy we wish for our children to inherit? Members of this great confraternity, I say to you now without reservation that what has transpired in the past year and a half is the greatest insult we could pay to the memory of our founder. We have removed the power from the convention which is suppose to be the highest authoritative body of this association and we have allowed the President General to be corrupted and manipulated by the machinations and selfish designs of the 3rd APG. Firstly, we have violated the constitution by allowing members to vote as delegates of the Parent Body at conventions when in fact the Parent Body can not have voting delegates in a convention. Those who were there in 2004 should recall this as even I myself was fooled by this motion and voted as a member of the Parent Body while my four delegates from New York voted as the division. This was wrong! Secondly, we disenfranchised the members of this association by failing to hold the constitutional convention last year as we were instructed to do by the 2004 convention. Following this debacle, not only were the recommendations of the divisions ignored but the very same constitutional amendments which were tabled at the convention and to be reviewed at the special constitutional convention in 2005 were drafted in a new constitution which was printed. I myself received a copy of this new constitution at the convention of 2005. As we all know, it takes two thirds of a convention fully assembled to approve constitutional amendments. So the very fact that this new constitution was printed without due process being observed and by sly manipulation of the mandates of the convention is outright corruption! Thirdly, members who have brought grievances against the actions of some officers of the Parent Body, namely the 3rd APG and the office of the President General, have been expelled without being proven as traitors of the race and even without prior suspension. Furthermore, those who have shown support for these brothers’ and sisters’ constitutional right to due process have also either been expelled or removed from their respective divisional offices without cause, but merely because they have provoked the wrath of the dictators who continue to dominate the Executive Council. This is not only unconstitutional but down right immoral. This is not a dictatorship! The ancestors deliberated too long and worked too hard to draft our constitution, and those who believe we can merely trample upon it and spit on their memory to serve our own selfish endeavors shall be made to answer not only to us as a collective body but to the spirit of our founders. Fourthly, my division has been accused of using the internet for propaganda and putting the business of the association on the World Wide Web. I make no apologies for this but only wish to remind the members at large that before one iota of information concerning our grievances was placed on our website, our website was hacked and hijacked by Parent Body members and none of them were reprimanded for it, yet we have seen members expelled for lesser offences than that. Shouldn’t our high executive officers be held to a higher standard of accountability than rank and file members? Prior to this assault, for one year the New York Division did not publish a new issue of the Negro World online. It was not until the Parent Body began expelling our members and hacking our website that I gave the authorization for my division to use the website as a vehicle for keeping the members, ordinary and active alike, informed of the injustices that were being carried out against them. I still stand by this decision now without apology and without fear. If recent history is the landmark by which we will be directed then I have little hope that my words will be voiced at the Executive Council meeting this weekend, let alone be heard. Still, I will not abandon the members or my obligations to them as the 1st APG. I am disgusted that I am apart of a Parent Body that promised to recruit 1000 new members but has instead expelled almost every young and active member that was working for this great association. My own two most promising and productive officers have been casualties of this unnecessary and immoral internal war. The former Minister of Education who aspired to his office with such zeal and innovative ambition has been forced to abandon his post and has now launched his own movement. The Parent Body has been saturated with the personal friends and flunkies of the 3rd APG and the other executive officers can only grumble under their breath or whisper their grievances in the shadows. We can not allow this to continue, it is destroying the fabric of our great confraternity which appears now to be held together by mere threads. I have been accused of being medically unfit. My wife and family have received letters warning them to keep me away from the business of the UNIA-ACL for my own “protection and safety”. I have been betrayed by our President General and attacked continuously by the 3rd APG. Still I will not give up this fight. I urge you all again as active members and especially those of you who are elected officers, STAND UP! Fight for what you know is right. Do not betray the vision of our founders to the machinations of corrupt men. Do not abandon our constitution and succumb to the intimidation of loud talking, fork tongued snakes that have no more right to be heard than you do. Most of all do not suffocate from indecisiveness or die from apathy and the inability to act while you still can. I remain your humble servant. THE BLACKMAN Vol.2  
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