The 2015 Ida B Wells Conference was amazing! Please check out the videos of the discussions which are being uploaded on our YouTube channel. Click here to go to go the Ida B Wells YouTube channel
Additional information about the 2015 conference…
This year’s conference will be Saturday and Sunday, May 23-24 in Kansas City. We will also have socials/events/demonstrations the evenings of May 21st and 22nd and in the daytime on May 25th.
Apply to attend here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1_yQm30x4CQVBbed0u6fgZBJBfGZK-FnL-Iya2FC4gUY/viewform
Donate funds here:
https://fundly.com/the-ida-b-wells-coalition-against-racism-and-police-brutalit
Conference Description:
See the fundraising page for video clips from the 2014 conference as well as coverage of other events attended by IBWC members.
Three key objectives of the conference are:
1. Devise a plan for creating a National Body Count, which would list the names and other information about people who have killed by the police.
2. Begin building a regional and global network of organizers and activists against deadly police force. For example, some of the activists who have been consistently protesting in Ferguson, Mo., say they will attend the IBWC conference, and we want to invite anti-police activists in other cities.
3.Begin building a regional and global network of organizers and activists who can work together to fight mass incarceration and prison slavery.
We are excited to host the following presenters and panelists: Lorenzo Ervin and JoNina Abron Ervin of Black Autonomy Federation, Zero Prophet of X-Vandals, Daryle Lamont Jenkins of One People’s Project, Ferguson Protesters (Lost Voices, FFL, Artivists, etc), Anthony Rayson of Southside ABC Zine Distro, and also members of KC Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, Englewood Liberation School, AGIT Army, Denver ABC, Kansas City IWW, Missouri CURE, Free Alabama Movement, Killed by Police, Ricanstruction, Detroit ABC, and more!
There will be workshops in which activists can discuss their local work and can share strategies with others. We also have to deal with mass imprisonment and the rise of prison slavery in America. Since the destruction of the radical and black-led prison movements of the Attica era. In the 19790’s by the use of behavior modification, special handling and control units, prisoners have been subject to ever increasing conditions of solitary confinement. Now, there are the Communications Management Units (CMU) where prisoners have been held incommunicado for years. With such rebellions as the Georgia state prisoners’ strike of 2010 and the 2013 California prisoners’ hunger strike, prisoners across America served notice that they intend to resist but have had no strong support movement on the outside to help them. Many prison campaigns are focused on the cases of individual political prisoners, and although these prisoners deserve support, it is unwise to focus solely on them and ignore the new prisoner campaigns emerging inside as well as the new line of attack by the state. The new prison movement is based on prison labor and conditions of confinement, such as long-term solitary confinement. We have yet to build a powerful movement in the streets as an answer. We need to build a new radical protest movement at this time, a movement that challenges the state in the streets. We need to radicalize our thinking and tactics as activists, and not accept the limitations of the state.In conclusion, we are not trying to replace the work of other groups doing work around fatal police shootings or mass imprisonment, but rather to bring such groups and activists together in a broader coalition, with an understanding that we are fighting fascism, a program by the government itself, not a “few bad cops”. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed over the last few decades, just like the highly publicized cases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, but had their cases ignored by the media, the government, and public at large. Children as young as five years old and senior citizens as old as 107 have been shot by the police.
Fundraising for the conference is underway. We need money for travel expenses especially and lodging. If you would like to contribute, click the “DONATE” button and please plan to be in Kansas City, Missouri, for the IBWC conference and help us build a new anti-fascist united front.
The Ida B Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality conference is an advanced activist course and we expect many of the participants to host workshops or panels. IBWC initially formed out of relationships that started with activists in Kansas City responding to a call from Memphis to witness and raise awareness about conditions there in March of 2012. In March of 2013 we worked together again to shut down the supposed “biggest Klan rally ever” in Memphis and a month later we had our first training session in Kansas City. After our first conference in March of 2014, we began to refine our aims and goals and launched the IBWC Campaign Against Mass Incarceration. In 2015, we expect to introduce new panels and workshops designed to strengthen our existing bonds and build new ones by bringing together dedicated and dynamic activists from half a dozen US states.
Lodging will be available for all. Most of the space available will be camping and floor space. Meals will be provided. Donations of food and money are deeply appreciated and will be used to cover travel costs and food for participants. For those who need more comfortable lodging, a list of hotels will be listed after the draft of this year’s itinerary.
Rough Draft of 2015 IBWC Itinerary
Day 1 ~ Saturday
9:00am – 10:00am Breakfast
10:00am – 11:00am Sign in, Introductions
11:00am – 12:15pm Combating Police Violence Locally (Lost Voices & Friends)
12:15 – 12:30 Break
12:30pm – 1:45pm Community Organizing (JoNina and Lorenzo)
1:45pm – 3:00pm Lunch
3:00pm – 4:15pm Mass Incarceration (ABC, IWOC)
4:15pm – 4:30pm Break
4:30pm – 5:45pm Hip Hop, Art, The Streets and the Struggle (Zero Prophet)
5:45pm – 7:00pm Dinner and After Hours Field Trip Planning & Preparation
Day 2 ~ Sunday
9:00am – 10:00am Breakfast and Sign In
10:00am – 12:00pm Feedback, next steps, assessments, taking roles (fundraising, outreach, logistics, messaging)
11:00am – 12:00pm Fighting police brutality and white supremacy (Daryle Lamont Jenkins
12:00pm – 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm – 2:45pm Acting Globally (Devy)
2:45pm – 3:00pm Break
3:00pm – 4:15pm Needs Title (Artivists and Friends)
4:15pm – 4:30pm Break
4:30pm – 5:45pm National Body Count Database
5:45pm – 6:15pm Dinner
List of hotels:
Residence Inn Kansas City Downtown/Union Hill
2975 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64108
(816) 561-3000
Fairfield Inn Kansas City Downtown Union Hill
3001 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64108
(816) 753-7006
Americas Best Value Inn & Suites – Kansas City/Downtown
3240 Broadway Street, Kansas City, MO 64111
(816) 531-9250
Embassy Suites Kansas City – Plaza
220 West 43rd Street, Kansas City, MO 64111
(816) 756-1720
AC Hotels By Marriott Kansas City Westport
560 Westport Road, Kansas City, MO 64111
(816) 931-0001
Days Inn Kansas City
5100 E. Linwood Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64128
BEST WESTERN PLUS Seville Plaza Hotel
4309 Main St, Kansas City, MO 64111
(866) 430-9014
Holiday Inn
801 Westport Rd, Kansas City, MO 64111
(816) 931-1000
Days Inn Kansas City
5100 E Linwood Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64147
(800) 329-1073
Days Inn
5100 E Linwood Blvd, Kansas City, MO 64128
(816) 216-1622
Coalition Description:
The Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality (IBWC) is an anti-authoritarian group, with working class leadership shared among people of color, women, LGBT persons, and white activists. Its revolutionary work is to authentically support and enable a mass protest tendency against capitalist unemployment, war, racism, police brutality, and mass imprisonment. As a pro-liberation protest movement, IBWC’s current efforts to bridge the racial and class gap in the U.S. include calls to activism, which you may read about in more detail at the group’s website, http://idabwellscoalition.noblogs.org/In solidarity with its parent organization, the Black Autonomy Federation, the Ida B. Wells Coalition holds the needs of the most oppressed persons as their highest consideration in all things and recognizes the needs of black and other people of color as most essentially emblematic of the demands of the entire working class. IBWC efforts to unite all workers in a common struggle preclude pro-government relationships with current elected or appointed government officials, nor does it work with current or past law enforcement officers.As it develops what is needed to adopt a mass program that supports a genuinely national liberating potential, IBWC has identified structural elements of that valence:• Build a mass unemployment movement to fight poverty and joblessness in communities of color;• Defeat racial profiling and police brutality of black workers and people of color communities;• Stand in opposition against mass imprisonment of blacks, people of color workers, and the poor;• Stand in opposition to government and corporate austerity measures and against the diversion of funds from schools, hospitals, and community centers. To read more about the Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality, to see the information that it is collecting about racism and police brutality nationally and in the Kansas City area, and to communicate with the IBWC community please visit its website at http://idabwellscoalition.noblogs.org/ Ida B. Wells Coalition Against Racism and Police Brutality (IBWC) is an anti-racist liberation support group created by the Black Autonomy Federation to support its programs and its movement.Black Autonomy is a mass protest tendency against capitalist unemployment, war, racism, police brutality, and mass imprisonment. IBWC is pro-liberation protest movement, an anti-authoritarian tendency whose major purpose is to bridge the racial and class gap in U.S. capitalist society by uniting IBWC with Black Autonomy movement in its anti-racist/anti-colonialist platform. IBWC: Not the usual liberal or phony radical support, but genuine revolutionary working class support and solidarity. Needs of oppressed must be the most important consideration. Must be a mass organization to unite all workers in a common struggle – BUT – must be able to recognize the duty to support and adopt the special demands of black and other people of color as those of the entire working class. IBWC does not have to recruit or organize black people, but does have to make it possible for BA to do that in KC and elsewhere, while carrying out a local program around local issues. IBWC not a true national tendency, we need to adopt a mass program:- build a mass unemployment movement to fight poverty, joblessness in the black community, defeat racial profiling, police brutality of black workers, people of color communities stand in opposition against mass imprisonment of black and people of color workers and poor people, the diversion of funds from schools, hospitals; community centers stand in opposition to government; corporate austerity measures. IBWC is an anti-authoritarian group, with leadership shared among people of color, women, LGBT, and white activists. IBWC does not work with current elected or appointed government officials or with current or past law enforcement officers.
Who we are:
The Ida B Wells Coalition is made up of individuals, not organizations. The IBWC Steering Council is comprised of phenomenally dedicated and determined individuals who are founders and/or lead organizers of significant grass roots organizations including: Black Autonomy Federation, AGITArmy, New Abolitionists Radio, Free Alabama Movement, One People’s Project, Committee to Abolish Prison Slavery, Food Health and Environmental Justice Coalition, X-Vandals, SouthSide Chicago ABC Zine Distro, Missouri CURE, Move to Abolish 21st Century Slavery and Human Trafficking, IWW’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee, and the author of the book Prison Slavery. IBWC members seek to build a mass movement between people in prison and out. We are in direct contact with thousands of prisoners and through our extended networks, we are able to reach thousands more with messages of solidarity, hope, and revolution. On the outside we are actively engaged in the current Ferguson-inspired uprising against racism and police brutality as well as ongoing struggles dating back more than 50 years.