From the Negro World to the African World Report: Picking Up the Legacy

Uhuru Sasa, and welcome to the first edition of the African World Report – News and Information from African People, for African People. The African World Report Online (AWRO) is a production of the Ujima People’s Media Group, a Pan-African Internationalist media organization that is part of the overall African independence movement. For those who are not familiar, if you check around the site you’ll find information that will explain Pan-African Internationalism, African independence, and other subjects.

As the Lead Coordinator of the UPMG and one of the editors for AWRO, I am personally proud as today marks the beginning of a new period of our work. For little more than a year now, the members of the UPMG have worked to establish the AWRO and after some significant struggle and a long time coming, the AWRO is finally a reality. On this day, August 17^th, 1918, almost one hundred years ago, another publication was launched that would forever change the way that African people struggle for our freedom and independence: the Negro World.

The Negro World was the main news organ of the Universal Negro Improvement Association, organized and lead by Marcus M. Garvey. After having struggled to establish an organization like no other in the U.S. and the Caribbean, the UNIA went on to begin publishing its newspaper, the first of a number of do-for-self projects that would separate the UNIA from other black organizations during that time. Engaged in the fight for African human rights, dignity, and independence, the Negro World, under Garvey’s leadership, would become a significant weapon to combat the ideology of racism and its destructive effects on the African community. It would go on to assist the UNIA in exposing white power and engaging it all over the globe. The Negro World was, at its height, a place where African artists, writers, and scholars were introduced to African people. It reached out to upwards of a half million people and helped to extend the UNIA’s abilities in the real world. The UNIA tool on the struggle to build factories, commercial businesses, and so on, it employed thousands of African people during the height of the “Great Depression”, and made the first steps towards an African Unity throughout the Diaspora. Every step of the way, the Negro World was there and at critical points, it was the deciding factor in the success of the UNIA programs. The Negro World would become one of the first institutions that would proclaim the beauty of being black, the dignity of being African, whether by birth or descent. And so, as the first organization to seriously organize and mobilize the African working class continued to make leaps towards ending the oppression and uniting the African world, it was the Negro World that was one of the weapons the UNIA used to achieve its success. It is this great legacy that the African World Report Online attempts to pickup and carry forward.

It is common knowledge that African people are still locked in a fight for our dignity, for our freedom, and for our independence. We have been struggling for this for centuries, and until we reach the objective of true justice, we will continue. A big part of this struggle is the struggle for the hearts and minds of African people, and the African working class in general. Daily, our people are bombarded with the ideas of white supremacy and capitalist imperialism. We are, every moment of our lives, overwhelmed with the ideas of the forces that are responsible for creating the current situation we find ourselves in. Throughout our struggle we have fought these ideas and developed better ideas that have served our interests and helped us to move forward. A main battleground in this war of ideas has been the news media.

Since the inception of corporate media, the news has been used to undermine African people while winning us to unite with our oppressors. The task of the AWRO is to reverse that trend. We don’t pretend to be unbiased or without slant. In fact, we are clear from the very beginning that reporting the news is never done without some kind of bias. Every news outlet answers to someone and the people that the media answers to dictate the agenda for the news media it controls. We answer only to African people, and so we take it as our job to tell the truth about what is happening in the world and to show how current events affect the lives of African people. The AWRO joins the ranks of the information warriors who battle daily to defeat the ideas and practices of white supremacy, exploitation and oppression. We salute those who have been carrying this struggle forward and look to add to the impact they are making.

So, in celebration of the founding of the Negro World, we are proud to bring you the African World Report. We hope our contributions are helpful.

Uhuru Sasa!

(Freedom Now!)

Brother-Comrade Abasi ShomariBaruti, UPMG Lead Coordinator

Posted in: Abasi Baruti,AWRO Writer,Editorials,North America,OpEd,Political Prisoners-Prisoners of War'