Community Growth & Development Conference in honor of Malcolm X

Dear Community:

The Community Growth & Development Conference in honor of Malcolm X will be held Saturday, May 21, 2005, 11am – 4pm at New Hope Baptist Church.

Why a Community Growth & Development Conference?
Because our community is in a state of emergency! How long must our youth continue to fail in school and lose their priceless lives to jail and death? Our community is being destroyed by gentrification while we are not participating in the billions of dollars of development yet black men have the highest unemployment rate leaving Black women to fend for themselves and Black children to be underdeveloped.

From the CRISIS in the Seattle Public Schools, to the ongoing systematic removal of Black people from Seattle, to the attempt to replace the African American Heritage Museum & Cultural Center with condominiums, to the recent savage beating of Makoyo Alley-Barnes by Seattle Police, we can see things getting progressively WORSE for our future in Seattle. The ONLY people that can truly solve our problems is US. We must come together and use our mental power and resources to create a STRATEGY to change things for the better.

All concerned community members, organizations, business owners and youth are invited to help develop a PLAN to preserve and develop our community and youth. This will NOT be a whining session about what has happened and is happening to us. It will but a strategic planning session where we will use our intelligence and reason to identify the problems and create a PLAN OF ACTION that we can begin acting on IMMEDIATELY. We are not going to beg anyone to help us but rather to get a game plan to do for self in the best interest of our future generations.

We have the POWER, we just need to organize and use it to help us the way we help NBA, NIKE, Hennessey, Old English, Newport, etc. make billions of dollars every year.

Our ancestors invested their blood, sweat and tears into building this country into the richest and most powerful country on this earth, it is only logical that we use that same energy to build our communities. We cannot expect others to do for us what we are not willing to do for our selves.

Winning teams have a game plan, work together and play hard. Successful businesses have a good business plan that they put into action. Likewise we as Africans/African Americans/Blacks (whichever your prefer) need to PLAN and ACT to preserve and develop a prosperous community for our future generations to grow and realize their higher potential.

Join us Saturday, May 21, 2005 as we take a critical step towards the development of our youth and community at the Community Growth & Development Conference in honor of Malcolm X.

Please RSVP if you will be in attendance. Also, if you have any specific issues that you would like addressed, send them via email and we will do our best to include it in the agenda.

Remember: No to gentrification/ethnic cleansing of Seattle and yes to Africatown-Central District.