Toward Justice: The Black/Palestine Solidarity Tour

When heavily militarized police in Ferguson, Missouri, confronted African American protesters angry at the police murder of Mike Brown in 2014, Palestinians watching events unfold from Gaza began sending tweets about how to cope with the teargas filling the streets.

Such an act of solidarity was more than a mere expression of support from people who, though half a world away, know firsthand about state repression. Police in cities across the U.S. – including police in Ferguson and Baltimore – have turned to Israel for training in how to deploy tactics honed in suppressing the Palestinian struggle for justice. The U.S. directly supports Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinians – to the tune of some $3 billion per year.
Many of the issues facing the Black community in the U.S. – police violence, job discrimination, poverty, and environmental racism – are the same problems that Palestinians face.

A new generation of activists is forging ties of solidarity between the struggles of Palestinians and African Americans – struggles for equal rights, for dignity, for freedom. This tour hopes to make a modest contribution to this project – by unearthing the inspiring history of Black/Palestinian solidarity and by making these lessons relevant for present-day efforts seeking to transform the future.

Featuring

Aaron Dixon is one of the co-founders of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party, chronicled in his 2012 book http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/My-People-Are-Rising. Dixon has since founded Central House, a nonprofit that provides transitional housing for youth, and was one of the co founders of the Cannon House, a senior assisted-living facility. Aaron ran for US Senate on the Green Party ticket in 2006.

Khury Petersen-Smith co-authored, with Stanford alum Kristian Davis Bailey, the influential 2015 Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine, covered by Ebony and other outlets. Khury is a member of the International Socialist Organization and is active in Palestine solidarity and anti-racist organizing. He has written about the politics of Black liberation for Jacobin Magazine and the International Socialist Review.

Wael Elasady* is a Palestinian-Syrian activist living in Portland. He is a co-founder of Students United For Palestinian Equal Rights at Portland State University and a member of the International Socialist Organization. He was co-host of One Land, Many Voices a community radio show bringing the question of Palestine to the Portland area.