New Jersey’s Amistad Law Marches to Dismantle White Supremacy

Hotep (An Ancient Afrikan / Egyptian/ Kemetic Word for Peace)!!!

Take notes!!!

“Just think that the race of Black men, today our slaves and the object of our scorn, is the very race to which we owe our arts, sciences, and even the use of speech.”

-Napoleon Bonaparte’s French Egyptologist Count C.F. Volney (Voyages on Syrie Et En Egypt on pages 74-77) in 1787.

In the streets of America, and around the world, masses of people are calling for justice. Under the banner of Black Lives Matter, community activists are rallying masses of support for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, and all victims of racial and police violence in America and in the world. However, there are social diseases plaguing the western world that prevents real justice in Black humanity. Those two conditions are White supremacy and her offspring called the systematic institutionalization of racism. However, in New Jersey, we have a progressive educational law that provides a pathway to destroy white supremacy and the systematic institutionalization of racism one classroom at a time. This law is revamping racist education curricula to include the missing pages of Afrikan / Afrikan American history in United States and world history. It is called the Amistad law. Out of the many Public schools in New Jersey still fighting against mandating their districts to be in compliance to the Amistad law, in 2020 the Newark Public School system made the decision adhere to the Amistad law for the students. But many people in New Jersey, and in America, still do not understand the importance of the Amistad Law.

This law is leading the way to help abolish centuries of White supremacy and systematic institutionalized racism plaguing humanity. The Amistad law cultivates the progressive and inclusive growth of our society by legally mandating the schools to teach the contributions Black people made to human civilizations in social studies classes and curricula throughout the state of New Jersey.

The Amistad law (A1301) is a educational law that requires all public schools to include Afrikan / Afrikan American history in all social studies classes. This bill was created by two former New Jersey State Afrikan American Assemblymen William D. Payne and Craig A. Stanley in 2002 (https://www.nj.gov/education/a... ).

The two former lawmakers named the Amistad Law after a rebellion aboard a European Spaniard slave ship named the Amistad. The revolt was led by a Mende born Afrikan named Sengbe Pieh (His European slave name was Joseph Cinque’) in 1839. Pieh and the Afrikans ended up in America. With the help of American abolitionists, Pieh and the Afrikans sued for their liberation in the US Supreme Court. Pieh and the Afrikans won their case. They eventually retuned to their freedom In Afrika.

Many people don’t understand that white supremacy is teaching racist based history lessons in our educational institutions in America.

Unfortunately, White people, and humanity, learn directly and indirectly every day that Black people contributed very little to the development of civilizations and religions in history. As a consequence, racist history lessons present White people in the classroom as the only race of people that contributed greatly to the world.

When humanity finishes matriculating through our educational institutions, they leave the classroom believing that whiteness is superior. But blackness is inferior.

These racist fabricated untruths about Black people became “truths” in American institutions and in the minds of all people. Unfortunately, these lessons have circulated in our educational system for centuries. And they still exist as legitimate history lessons in the millennium.

However, the Amistad law challenges these racist falsehoods and fabrications about Black people and Afrikan / Afrikan American history in the classroom. It forces educators to eliminate racial myths about Black people in the classroom.

The revolutionary Amistad law in New Jersey is on the cutting edge of progressive education. It is the first education law of its kind in America.

In all publics schools, the Amistad law forces textbooks to teach the horrific history of the enslavement and the colonialization of Black people. But the Amistad law also requires schools to teach social studies lessons on Black people before slavery and colonialism.

For example, some of the pedagogy it provides are lessons on Afrika being the cradle of humanity. And that Black people help to develop the world’s first civilizations, such as Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

But most importantly, Amistad requires all public school subjects to teach the contributions Black people made to mathematics, science, government, architecture, philosophy, medicine, military science, law, theology, democracy, language, writing, education, medicine, civil rights, human rights, and to the liberation movements of oppressed communities in America and in the world.

If there is not a Amistad education law in a state in America, then racist lies about Black people will continue to be “truths” in American institutions and in the psyche of all people, especially many White people.

Being a member of the Newark Public Schools Amistad Committee, I helped to develop a non-racist curriculum for our student’s classes. Newark, NJ, is the first major city in the state to adhere to the Amistad law for the 2020 -2021 school year.

Newark is leading the state of New Jersey, and the country, incorporating Afrikan / Afrikan American history into the curriculum of social studies and all subjects in our schools.

Little by little our school system will play a role in chipping away at the ideology of white supremacy in the minds of humanity that prevents Black lives from mattering in America and in the world. Because of White supremacy, slavery (American, European, and Arab), segregation, apartheid in South Afrika, and colonilaism, were all predicated on fictitious “truths” about Afrika being inhabited by savages for the purpose to enslave and oppressed Black people.

(To many Afrikan Americans, slavery is the Black Holocaust. It is called by an Afrikan Kiswahili term called the Maafa. The word Maafa means the great disaster causing the scattering of people of Afrikan descent to the world).

It has been a long struggle for our school system to see the value in progressive policies for our students and community, but we are moving in the right direction. However, this is largely due many grassroot community activists, Mayor Ras J. Baraka, and
Superintendent Roger Leon

After 23 years under state control, Newarkers, many whom are Black and Latino, are in the position to control their own school system to create programming and curriculua to empower our young people for the 21st century, particularly Afrikan Americans, Latino Americans, and LBGTQ Americans of color.

Since the creation of the city of Newark by Europeans, Black people and Latino people were the constant victims of White supremacy and systematic racism for centuries.

However, in 1967, under the national Civil rights and Black Power freedom movements for social justice, and the leadership of the late Black nationalist human rights activist leader Imamu Amiri Baraka; Black and Latino people were inspired to rise up to fight back decades of racial discrimination and abject poverty in the city.

(Imamu Amiri Baraka was a respected Black nationalist leader, writer, and poet. He lived from October 7, 1934 – January 9, 2014.
Baraka helped to organize two Black Power conferences and a Black and Puerto Rican conference in Newark, NJ. He also was the co-convener of the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana in 1972. The National Black Political Convention drew tens of thousands of Black people committing themselves to helping the Afrikan American community seize Black political power in America.)

Community activists and leaders have been working for years to help empower Newarkers, particularly Black and Latino people, from the wretched conditions of racial discrimination and poverty.

Unfortunately change has been slow. But with the election of Ras Baraka (the son of Amiri Baraka and a respected community activist) as the Mayor of Newark, the city is moving in the right direction.

Brother Baraka was elected into office in 2014 and re-elected in 2018. One of his priorities on his list as the Mayor was the liberation of the Newark Public Schools from state control. In 2018, state control came to end in the Newark Public Schools.

A special election took place to decide whether or not the Mayor of Newark would control the Newark Public School Board of Education, or the people of Newark would have an elected board controlled by the people. The people voted to have an elected board of education.

Then, a national and local search for a superintendent to lead the schools took place. Several great educational leaders were picked by the board as candidates for the people of Newark to vote for to become the first elected superintendent since state control. The people elected Newark’s respected, and long time progressive education administrator, brother Roger Leon. He also became the first Latino American of Cuban descent to head the Newark Public Schools in the history of Newark.

Progressive change has come for the betterment in our city’s school system.

But brother Baraka did not stop with helping to bring changes to the schools.

From the bully pulpit of the office of Mayor, Ras Baraka advocated for the Amistad law in the Newark Public Schools. But his support Black History as a subject to be included in social studies curriculum started years before 2020.

Ras Baraka, born of the Hip Hop generation, and a product of the post Civil Rights and Black Power era of the 1960s and early 1970s, spent most of the 1990s and early 2000s as an educator and as a Black conscious progressive community organizer and activist.

During these times, I joined with brother Baraka, and with the myriad of Newark’s local community activists calling for radical changes in city; especially around movements to address racism, classism, sexism, Black -self hatred, the abnormal levels of poverty in Black and Brown communities, Black empowerment, and ending police and community violence.

Some of our activist’s energies focused on our calls for community change in education, particularly for the implementation of Black history into the Newark Public schools social studies curriculum under the Amistad education law.

For example, in 2009 the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition (NAVC), a community-based organization advocating for the end to senseless violence plaguing the city’s Black and Brown neighborhoods, called for the Newark Public Schools to be in compliance to the state of New Jersey’s Amistad education law as one of our five demands. Brother Ras was the founder of the NAVC. I was one of several original co-founders of the NAVC. Some of the other co- founders were Dr. Delacy Davis, David Muhammad, Sharif Amenhotep, Baba Zayid Muhammad, Lamont True V Vaughn, Seeasia, Dawn Haynes Keesha Eure, Pastor Bryant Ali, Lamont Muhammad, Hasheem Reid, Al Tariq Shabazz, al Tariq Onque, Reverend Pat Council, Middy Murdock, Nuri Wilson, Kay Boog, Loose, Bishop, Tarrik Tucker, Street Doctor, Kasandra Dock, Donna Jackson, and Natasha Allen,to name a few. I wrote the Amistad demand for the organization. We understood that requiring the schools to teach Black history to our youth will help reduce crime and violence in our society. For over 200 weeks straight (5 years), the NAVC led protests against senseless community violence in the city of Newark.

But amongst Newark’s activists were many teachers. Both brother Baraka and I were educators. Ras Baraka went from being a classroom teacher in 1990s to an education administrator in the 2000s.

Many of us understood the value and importance of Afrikana Studies to students of color. We knew that teaching Afrikan History helps give our young people proper knowledge of history, purpose in life, respect for blackness, Black pride, and Black self-esteem. In every school he led, brother Baraka included Afrikan / Afrikan American history as the necessary subject to help Black students find the pathway to success.

For example, when brother Baraka was a Vice Principal at Weequahic High School. I was recruited by brother Baraka to come to Weequahic to teach history at the school. In the 1990s and early 2000s, I was teaching history at other schools in, and sometimes, out of the district. However, I began my long teaching tenure at Weequahic as a history teacher focusing on World and American history in 2002. (I am presently teaching history and Afrikana Studies at Weequahic now). But while he served as an administrator at Weequahic, brother Baraka established an Afrikana Studies class as an elective course in the history department. Brother Baraka ordered the books for the class. He picked Dr. Molefe Kete Asante’s middle and high school textbook called-African American History: A Journey of Liberation-to be used for the class. He then asked me to teach the class. I jumped at the opportunity. I have been teaching Afrikana Studies at Weequahic for about 16 years.

(After graduating from Seton Hall University with a degree in history, I first started teaching in 1993 at an Afrikan centered elementary and middle private school called Jamas Children’s University in East Orange, NJ.)

Ras Baraka has moved on to serve the public as Mayor of Newark.

Mr. Roger Leon is now in his second year as Superintendent of the Newark Public Schools.

And many of Newark’s community activists are still advocating for the improvement of Newark, particularly agitating for better socioeconomic conditions for Black and Latino people.

I have now been teaching history in the field of education for 27 years.

But all of us have played a role to get the Newark Public Schools to adhere to the Amistad law.

In 2020, Superintendent Roger Leon made the Amistad curriculum an official part of the schools’s teaching and learning. (https://www.nbcnewyork.com/new... )

With all this being said, we must continue to call for justice for the Eric Garners, Tamir Rices, Mike Browns, Sandra Blands, George Floyds, Ahmaud Arberys, and Breonna Taylors in America. However, to aid in our movement to end racism in our society, we as teachers have a social justice education law in New Jersey working to rid our society of racist thinking towards the Afrikan / Afrikan American community. The Amistad law is that law that begins to dismantle the stubborn foundations of White supremacy, and the systematic institutionalization of racism, that have made the lives of Black people subhuman for centuries. Amistad will help humanity understand that non-racist history will inspire our young people of all races to become the necessary change agents and leaders we need to make our society better than the way we leave it for each generation. The Amistad law is the framework that will help humanity with the prevention of any more senseless killings of unarmed Black people In America by the hands of racist police officers and racist White people. When we make use of the non racist Amistad education lessons in the classroom, it will help all people understand that Black people are as equally important as every other human being on the planet earth.

Hotep (An Ancient Afrikan / Kemetic / Egyptian word for Peace)!!!

-Bashir Muhammad Akinyele is a History and Afrikana Studies teacher at Weequahic High School in Newark, NJ. He is also the co-coordinator for ASCAC’s (the Association for Study of Classical African Civilizations) Study Group Chapter in Newark, NJ.
(https://ascac.org/)

Note: Spelling Afrika with a k is not a typo. Using the k in Afrika is the Kiswahili way of writing Africa. Kiswahili is a Pan -Afrikan language. It is spoken in many countries in Afrika. Kiswahili is the language used in Kwanzaa. The holiday of Kwanzaa is celebrated from December 26 to January 1.