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NCBL-NY: Mass Defense and the Collective

Updated: May 27, 2022

by Ajamu Sankofa


NCBL Legal Observer Flier 2015
NCBL Legal Observer Flier 2015

Good Morning NCBL New York Organizing Committee, 

Welcome to Fall,

I am writing this as a member of the NCBL New York Chapter and the the Black and Brown Activism Defense Collective (formerly BIEAC) of which NCBL is a founding member organization.


OUR MISSION: 


Our mission is to mobilize awareness about and end government efforts to destabilize or destroy Black and Brown activists and their organizations, as well as others, through surveillance and suppression techniques. 

I need not remind you of the rise of street level political resistance to state power as well as the rise of white supremacy in the population and the White House, the deepening criminality of the Executive  Branch of the US government - abetted by the DOJ, the dithering of the corporate wing of the Democratic Party regarding defending the rule of law; the threat of imperialist war, and the the thread of a new domestic terrorism law that overtly and covertly will target Black and Brown people as criminal who dare to dissent. 


THE PROPOSAL:

  • Later this Fall when the chapter meets, we should reboot our Mass Defense work beginning with our Legal Observer (LO) Project; We have trained numerous Legal Observers with our excellent training materials. See one of our LO flyers (attached, below). 

  • We need to turn our materials into a PowerPoint that includes new developments in the militarization of the NYPD as well as their use of new advanced surveillance technologies. King and I have already been discussing the development of the PowerPoint. I think that Efosa and King would be excellent trainers.

  • Inform the NCBL Board that our intent is to persuade other NCBL Chapters to use our work as a model for them to develop their LO Project.This accomplishment will enhance the work of the Collective because we would be able to provide critical direct evidence to other activists in real time of the nature of FBI and NYPD surveillance of Black and Brown activists who demonstrate in the streets.

OUR VISION:

Since the founding of this nation, African-American protest has been part and parcel of the conscience and the bedrock of American democracy, despite concerted efforts aided and abetted – and often initiated – by government to silence Black voices of dissent.


Black and Brown Activism Defense Collective works to ensure that Black and Brown people and others who have been victimized by state-sponsored discrimination and repression can exercise their constitutional and human rights to speak, act, assemble, and protest without being subjected to government surveillance, intimidation, harassment, disruption, or violence because of who they are or what they believe. In solidarity, Ajamu



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