Pan Africanism in Today’s World

This panel explores Pan Africanism and its anti colonial and anti imperialist vision for liberation. In the context of a deepening global economic crisis and the increasing US imperialist offensive against the Global South, how do we understand Pan Africanism as part of the internationalist liberation project?

Photo credit: MIDIA NINJA

Speakers

Kambale Musavuli, Democratic Republic of Congo

Kambale Musavuli, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a leading human rights advocate and an analyst with the Center for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa. For over a decade he served as the Spokesperson for the Friends of the Congo. Musavuli lectures on conflict minerals, peace and security, advocacy, grassroots mobilizing, social movements, the role of youth in Africa, corporate social responsibility, gender-based violence and its connection to resource exploitation and poverty. He firmly believes that through Pan Africanism based on scientific socialism, Congolese and Africans have a chance to regain control of their land and destiny.

Hermela Aregawi, United States

Hermela Aregawi is a Los Angeles-based Ethiopian-American journalist and community organizer. She is a co-founder of the #NoMore movement at NoMore.Global. No More is a global, grassroots, pro-Africa and pan-African movement that originated in Africa. Hermela worked in Mainstream U.S. media for more than a decade and left in 2021 after being dismayed by western media coverage of the conflict in Ethiopia. Her resume includes CBS Los Angeles, Al Jazeera America, The Young Turks on Current TV — among others media outlets.

James Early, United States

James Early is the former Smithsonian Institution Director of Cultural Heritage Policy and Assistant Secretary for Education and Public Service. He is a longtime Cuba, Caribbean, and Latin American solidarity activist. Currently, he is the host of The People’s Forum’s New World Coming, a political education interview series.

Channing Martinez, United States

Channing Martinez is the Director of Organizing, Labor/Community Strategy Center and co-chair of the Bus Riders Union. He is the producer of Voices from the Frontlines, on KPFK. He is a graduate of Audubon Middle School, Crenshaw High School, and Otis College of Art and Design and the Strategy Center’s National Leadership School for Strategic Organizing where he is now a member of the faculty. He plays a significant role representing the Strategy Center in the Police Free LAUSD Coalition which defunded the LA School Police budget by $25 million so far, as they move to full defunding.

Thumbnail photo: Midia Ninja

Moderator:

Eugene Puryear, United States

Eugene Puryear is a journalist and community organizer. As a high schooler in Charlottesville, VA, he organized a walkout when the war in Iraq began in 2003 and continued to organize large demonstrations against U.S. wars and occupations. He was a key leader in the struggle to free the Jena Six. He founded the anti-gentrification group Justice First, the Jobs Not Jails coalition, DC Ferguson Movement and Stop Police Terror Project DC. Puryear was the lead host of “By Any Means Necessary,” the author of Shackled and Chained: Mass Incarceration in Capitalist America, and currently works for BreakThrough News.