18th Annual Dinner Tribute
to the Families of our
Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War
In Honor of Herman and Iyaluua Ferguson
Saturday, January 18, 2014
3 to 7 p.m.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center
310 West 43rd Street
Dear Freedom-Loving Community,
We bring good news! The Malcolm X Commemoration Committee will host a very special 18th Annual Dinner Tribute to the Families of our Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War in honor of our Beloved and esteemed elders, chairman emeritus and “Dynamic Duo”, Herman and Iyaluua Ferguson.
This event – co-sponsored by the 1199 SEIU Activists – will take place on Saturday, January 18th 2014 at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Labor Center, 310 West 43rd Street (between 8th & 9th Ave) in Manhattan (validated parking available) from 3pm-7pm – dinner served at 4pm.
We who know and Love the Ferguson’s have long recognized them as a Dynamic Duo who exemplify what long distance commitment, revolutionary Love, courage and resistance looks like. Herman Ferguson, a revolutionary Black Nationalist, former exile/political prisoner due to the united states targeting and Cointelpro crimes against Black/New Afrikan freedom fighters and the Black Liberation Movement and Iyaluua Ferguson, educator, revolutionary, wife and comrade who left the u.s. to join her life partner in exile.
After 19 years in the Caribbean nation of Guyana, the Ferguson’s returned to the states where Herman was immediately captured and unjustly imprisoned by the NYSDOC for a period of seven years. Thankfully, the late great honorable Judge Bruce Wright granted and demanded his parole back to his family/community. Upon his release from prison, Herman got right back to his life’s work of serving and defending Black people’s right to self-determination, self-defense co-convening the Jericho Movement for Amnesty & Recognition of u.s. held PP/POWs, fighting for the freedom of our unjustly imprisoned Black/New Afrikan freedom fighters, visiting them, co-founding MXCC, co-authoring his autobiography, “An Unlikely Warrior, Herman Ferguson: Evolution of a Black Nationalist Revolutionary” with Iyaluua and a long list of revolutionary struggles.
It is these reasons and more why we pay tribute to this Dynamic Duo; their contributions and many sacrifices to the Black Freedom struggle are the examples many across the Afrikan diaspora aspire to. It is because Iyaluua said it was her personal experience of living with the ‘sheer terror’ of having a Loved one captured behind the wall as a PP/POW that led to the first Dinner tribute. That was 18 years ago, and today, we remain firm in our solidarity and support of the sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives and other family members of our PP/POWs.
This Dinner Tribute has become our collective response to Iyaluua’s call that we NEVER forget the decades-long sacrifices and commitment our unjustly imprisoned freedom fighters and their families have made to the Black Freedom struggle.
So on Saturday, January 18th, 2014, we invite and look forward to your support and participation in this timely and well-deserved tribute not only to the families of our PP/POWS, but to our very own “Dynamic Duo,” two of the greatest and most exemplary examples of revolutionary Love and Struggle.
Your donation continues at $40 in advance and $45 at the door. We ask that if you cannot attend that you please make a donation as all proceeds go to the commissary accounts of our PP/POWs represented by family. The larger your community support, the larger our donation to our captured freedom fighters.
On behalf of our PP/POWS and their families, we say Asante Sana for making this annual fundraising Dinner Tribute a much valued community institution!!!!!
FREE THE LAND!
Let’s “Pick up the Work” to Educate, Agitate & Organize to
Free our Political Prisoners & Prisoners of War
Malcolm X Commemoration Committee
d??qui kioni-sadiki
& Mani Gilyard, co-chairs
“What you and I need to do is learn to forget our differences … We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator…. once we all realize that we have a common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common.”
– Malcolm X “Message to the Grass Roots”