Currently (May 2011)
Calling for "Teach
Ins" - Similar To
Early Anti Vietnam
War Era - to Protest
& Seriously
Challenge American
Foreign Policy &
Propaganda By United
States
& Euro-Centrists
Directed Toward the
Long Term - Anti
Imperialism -
Revolutionary
Country:
The Great Socialist
Peoples Libyan Arab
Jamahiriya
Colia L. Clark, a committed Pan Africanist has spent a life time in activist work in the areas of civil rights, human rights, womens rights, workers rights and rights for the homeless and youth. Colia is a member of the International Liaison Committee and sits on the board of directors of the Capital region Solidarity Committee of New York.
Colia was born in rural Hinds county Mississippi and spent most of her growing up years in the capital at Jackson, Mississippi. Each fall until her late teens, Colias family migrated to the Mississippi Delta for cotton picking season. She was born into a land owning clan, but her young father and mother secured a share cropper contract with a local white farmer. The family was an activist family with her father and maternal grandfather working on projects with the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in the neighboring County of Copiah. During the great flood of 1927, Colia father, maternal grand father and great grandfather were conscripted along with all black men within 150 miles of the flood to work on building of levees in the Mississippi Delta. The household was regularly filled with stories, puns and jokes on the horrors and good times of levee camp life and working organizing tenant farmers. The violence associated with her fathers and grand fathers work was in good part of the reason the family decided to move to the City of Jackson. Colia was educated in the Jackson Mississippi Public Schools, received her BA from Jackson State University, MA from State University of New York at Albany where she also begun a doctors of Arts program in humanistic studies.
Honors and Awards (Selected)
Received the Solidarity Committee of The Capital District of Upstate New York International Solidarity Award for Labor Day, 2005, Citations and Annual Day of commemoration in name of Colia Liddell Lafayette Clark established, Niagara Falls Legislature And City Council, April, 2000; Hero of the Year, Metroland Newspaper, Albany, New York 1999; NAACP WOMEN of Distinction Award, 1995; Student Association (Albany State University) Teacher of the Year 1991; MAP, NAACP and Albany State University Black Alliance Teacher of Year and Community Service Award 1991; Green Prison Black Cultural Center Volunteer Service Award, 1988; National Organization of Women Albany Chapter Award 1986; Delta Sigma Theta State University of New York at Albany Chapter, Woman of the Year 1985; SUNYA NAACP Award 1986, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committees James Meredith National Freedom Award,1962
Colia has served on numerous boards of directors and received a large number of citations and awards recognizing her work. This August, 2005, she received the Solidarity Committee International award for her work organizing for workers rights internationally. Colia conducts workshops in conflict resolution and mediation for elementary, secondary schools and college students, lectures and speaks widely. She has performed scores of poetry recitals and One Woman shows and three professional television acting credits. A folklorist uses her drama to present one woman shows on Africana womens biography. She has her own consulting firm, NEFEROHU.
Ms. Clark is a
veteran of the civil
rights movement. Her
work has included
activism in the
fields of women's
rights and workers'
rights, as well as
activism and
advocacy for
homeless people and
youth. Most
recently, she has
worked with the
Cynthia McKinney for
President campaign
with "Power to the
People". Clark is a
chair of
Grandmothers for the
Release of Mumia Abu
Jamal. During the
Civil Rights era,
Colia Clark was a
Special Assistant to
Medgar W. Evers,
field Secretary for
the NAACP. Clark
later joined the
Mississippi Student
Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee (SNCC)
doing voter
registration work.
Ms. Clark has
recently been active
in humanitarian
relief efforts for
Haiti. She believes
that the rebuilding
of Haiti starts with
the removal of
occupying troops
from the UN and the
US.
"As Senator from New
York, I will stand
for legislation
which encourages the
US Congress to end
the longstanding US
policy of meddling
in the affairs of
our southern
neighbors. The age
of the Monroe
Doctrine has long
been outdated. Our
Southern neighbors
in the Caribbean,
Mexico, Central and
South America are
becoming more and
more distant because
of the USA bully
economics, politics
and social policies
and programs. Its
time for a new way
of doing business on
Capitol Hill. The
USA must free itself
from the arrogance
of power and work in
cooperation and
equity with its
neighbors. We need
to bring American
troops home not only
from Iraq and
Afghanistan but the
hundred other
countries where we
waste our tax
dollars acting as
the bullies of the
world."
Lets tell Obama and Congress that we are not leaving without jobs, justice and an end to the bloody wars in Asia and UN occupation of Haiti. I welcome your company at the Peace Table. Please join me in battle for justice and jobs at home and peace all over the world.
Real Change is Putting People First.
All Aboard For a Green New Deal, Colia Clark New York Candidate US Senate
"Cuomo, We Need Real Leadership Not More Tea"
I believe Cuomo when he made this claim of being a tea partier. Some one should tell Cuomo that New York kids need an education not cookies and tea. Please tell him that the homeless and battered women need housing not American Tea. Wake this man out of his tea party slumber and demand that he recognizes that New Yorkers need jobs, single payer health care, affordable mass transit, money for family farms and small businesses.
Wake him! Shake him! Don't let him sleep too late. He must be told that New York needs a sane energy policy that ends hydrofracking before our water supply becomes filthy syrup for his dainty tea cup.
Stop Cuomo from partying and sleep walking with his cup of hot tea.That hot tea is dripping and spilling all over the place burning a hole in the funds needed to close the gap in the endangered budgets for fire departments.
In 1959, then former Presidential candidate, Adlai E. Stevenson drew a profound parallel on the state of the nation and the African community residing within it. Stevenson remarked "What is more difficult, to think of an encampment on the moon or of Harlem rebuilt? Both are now within the reach of our resources. Both now depend upon human decision and human will.” It would be a profound choice which would restore and reconstruct Black humanity while moving the nation towards a non racist society. On the other side of the coin, America could choose to make the moon and space investment its number 1 goal and simply ignore Harlem.
In 1967, Dr Martin L. King, the primary spokesperson for the civil rights and peace struggle in the USA, released a new book entitled, Where Do We Go From Here: Community or Chaos. King proposed that either America would redefine and enhance its human values making choices to reconstruct and rebuild Black and urban communities or enter and age of Chaos.
Among Dr. King's Choices was a proposal that America should either provide employment for all of its workers or a guaranteed annual income. King proposed full time meaningful work with a living wage. The music of the King movement said it best, "Listen here to me Mr. LBJ no more full time work for no part time pay."
On the issue of national health, King called for socialized medicine guaranteeing every resident of the nation government sponsored health care. In Kings, view, It was a shame that the richest nation on earth did not provide health care for all of its citizens.
With the violent silencing of the voice of the great drum major for human justice and peace in 1968 came an unexpected outcry from Black and poor in urban communities. Political eruptions blazed across the nation. Blacks and poor in more than three hundred cities and towns showed their disapproval using the match as a potent weapon. For days flames and smoke lit the day and evening skies. A sad spiritual came from the down deep grabbing the heart of America to remind her that "when the stars are falling down there ain't no time".
Within days of the silencing of Dr. King, President Johnson set up a Commission to study the violent upheaval and eruptions. Former governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner was assigned to head the panel. The panel findings shocked white America while affirming what Black America always knew. "There were two Americas, one white and rich, one Black and poor" and the panel should have made a further statement that the Black nation was oppressed.
A brief look at the USA from 1960-2010 shows in a profound way America's choices. Americas choice is crystal clear whether one looks at primary issues of political campaigns, federal, state and national budget line items, education, the criminal justice system, hiring practices, apartheid practices in federal, State and city zoning and housing legislation, practices for loans and grants for business development, red lining for insurance required for business development or the creative arts.
The African in the USA had become urban by design of corporate businesses beginning with migration out of South between 1890 and 1960. Millions of Africans abandoned their Southern slave home for northern slums and ghettos in search of jobs, education for their children and the "promised land" of freedom. The story of that sojourn is chronicled in hundreds of books, journals and news. The story of that journal is the story of the cultural remaking of America in the image of the image of Africa.
This huge population of new arrivals walked into a hornets nest in housing segregation and homelessness as they searched 'looking for a home'. They managed to reconnect the old African way forming new families and new alliances as way of establishing themselves in the cold bitter dismal environment of the Promised Land: Five, ten, fifteen men and women to a three room flat sharing bed and floor space.
As the African struggle to locate housing, the cities, townships of the north set up new restricted housing codes blocking their path and in many cases that of other arrivals, especially: Latinos, Asians and Jews. The promised land became a cold, insensitive and unwelcome environment for the new Black immigrant from the South.
Employment was minuscule with meager wages and hash working conditions. Those ads in papers like the Chicago Defender which enticed the African out of the South never said that police brutality; racial assaults would be as common place as the fields of cotton, tobacco and sugar cane and lynch mobs that made up the landscape of more than 200 years living in Dixie.
Down home remained as it had always been until the civil rights struggle lit a new light in the heart of Blacks in urban and rural communities. The new movement brought a broad diversity of Americans into a new struggle that would end in a Civil Rights Bill and Voting Rights Act. It would also open the way for the emergence of a struggle to end poverty, homelessness and unemployment.
In that hour of freedom and glory the assassins made their move killing Dr. King, and other civil rights activists and numerous members of the Black Panther Party. The assassins used the bullet for their target. America made her choice for development, too. America chose the moon.
For the African descendant of US slaves the picture remains dismal and dangerously genocidal. America Chose the moon for investment and "benign neglect" for the Black America. America prefers chaos over community. America dumped its workers into the trash heap while embracing the policies and practices of big business. America prefers "two Americas, one white and one Black poor and dispossessed."
Colia L Clark - Candidate for US Senate
Colia Clark Releases Video in Support of Medical Marijuana
Speaks in Favor of Acquittal of Joe Barton in Kingston
Colia Clark, one of the Green Party candidates for US Senate, spoke earlier this week in support of Joe Barton, a 62 year old Vietnam veteran in Ulster County, New York. Ms. Clark spoke outside of a court hearing in Kingston for Mr. Barton, who is on trial for a marijuana growing operation. Mr. Barton has been a vocal advocate for the legalization of marijuana since the early 70s. A video of her statement is available here and below.
Ms. Clark relates how access to medical marijuana would have helped her late brother in his battle with cancer.
Congressman Barney Frank has introduced H.R. 2835, the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act. This legislation would allow for the medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various States. H.R. 2835 has been referred to the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, earlier this year spoke in favor of the legalization of marijuana.
"The 'war on drugs' has turned into a war on young people, the poor, and African Americans, Latinos, and other people of color. My opponents in the Democratic and Republican parties ignore the human and economic devastation in many communities caused by the war on drugs. Instead, the two major parties posture about law and order and endorse failed measures, wasting tax dollars, ruining lives and increasing violence in our neighborhoods. We need to stop spending $50 billion a year nationally on the drug war, and use that money for treatment and rebuilding poor communities of color," said Hawkins.
A study by the American Civil Liberties Union ("Cracks in the System: Twenty Years of Unjust Federal Crack Cocaine Law," October 2006) found that 37% of people arrested, 59% of people convicted, and 74% of those sent to prison are African American, even though only 15% of drug users are African American. Thousands of New Yorkers annually are arrested for small amounts of marijuana possession, even though the possession of two ounces of marijuana was decriminalized in New York more than three decades ago. The rate of incarceration for marijuana offenses in New York for blacks is nearly 3.8 times that of whites. In some communities like Syracuse, the rate is nearly ten times that of whites.
"Law enforcement should focus efforts on organized crime, including the laundering of drug money at banks, rather than on street-level drug trade, in which kids who get arrested -- or killed -- are quickly replaced," said Hawkins. "Addictive use should be treated as a medical and social problem. Locking up addicts in stressed prison environments, with minimal effort to address the addiction itself, and then freeing them to go back into the same circumstances that led to their abuse of drugs has only aggravated the problem of addiction. We need rational solutions to the problems of drug abuse that are based on science and health, compassion for addicts and their families, reduction of harm rather than moral judgment, and respect for basic civil liberties and principles of justice."
Colia Clark for US Senate - Green Party
Howie Hawkins for Governor - Green Party
Colia
Clark,
speaking
about
the
need
to
make
a
quality
education
a
right
for
all
New
Yorkers,
regardless
of
their
race
or
economic
status.
"A
quality
education
is
essential
to
equality
of
opportunity.
Too
many
working
families
and
communities
of
color
find
their
children
trapped
in
an
education
system
that
fails
them.
And
a
college
education
is
an
unrealistic
dream
for
too
many
New
York
families,
and
even
if
they
succeed,
they
are
drowned
in
debt.
The
voters
of
NYC
approved
making
CUNY
tuition
free
but
this
right
was
stripped
from
us
by
the
backroom
dealings
of
the
bondholders
and
other
Wall
Street
barons.
The
Greens
will
reclaim
the
right
to a
college
education
for
the
average
New
Yorker,"
said
Ms.
Clark.
Ms.
Clark
is a
veteran
of
the
civil
rights
movement.
Her
work
has
included
activism
in
the
fields
of
women's
rights
and
workers'
rights,
as
well
as
activism
and
advocacy
for
homeless
people
and
youth.
Most
recently,
she
has
worked
with
the
Cynthia
McKinney
for
President
campaign
with
"Power
to
the
People".
Clark
is a
chair
of
Grandmothers
for
the
Release
of
Mumia
Abu
Jamal.
During
the
Civil
Rights
era,
Colia
Clark
was
a
Special
Assistant
to
Medgar
W.
Evers,
field
Secretary
for
the
NAACP.
Clark
later
joined
the
Mississippi
Student
Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee
(SNCC)
doing
voter
registration
work.
Ms.
Clark
has
recently
been
active
in
humanitarian
relief
efforts
for
Haiti.
She
believes
that
the
rebuilding
of
Haiti
starts
with
the
removal
of
occupying
troops
from
the
UN
and
the
US.
"As
Senator
from
New
York,
I
will
stand
for
legislation
which
encourages
the
US
Congress
to
end
the
longstanding
US
policy
of
meddling
in
the
affairs
of
our
southern
neighbors.
The
age
of
the
Monroe
Doctrine
has
long
been
outdated.
Our
Southern
neighbors
in
the
Caribbean,
Mexico,
Central
and
South
America
are
becoming
more
and
more
distant
because
of
the
USA
bully
economics,
politics
and
social
policies
and
programs.
Its
time
for
a
new
way
of
doing
business
on
Capitol
Hill.
The
USA
must
free
itself
from
the
arrogance
of
power
and
work
in
cooperation
and
equity
with
its
neighbors.
We
need
to
bring
American
troops
home
not
only
from
Iraq
and
Afghanistan
but
the
hundred
other
countries
where
we
waste
our
tax
dollars
acting
as
the
bullies
of
the
world."
Channel 34 of the Time/Warner, Channel
83 of the RCN, & Channel 33 of the VerizonFiOS
Cable Television Systems in Manhattan, New
York.
The Program can now also be viewed on the
internet at time of cable casting at:
WWW.MNN.ORGw.
NOTE: You must adjust viewing to reflect NYC time
& click on channel 34 at site
