Peoples' Convention 2005

The Peoples' Convention 2005 will create a comprehensive and progressive political platform to
present to Mayoral, City Council and other candidates for public office in New York City during Election Cycle 2005. The Convention will be convened by, for, among and with the diverse racial, national, faith, sexual communities and organized labor forces of New York City.

We, request progressive activists and organizations from all five boroughs of New York City to join us on Thursday March 10, at 6:30pm at CUNY Graduate Center, Room 5414 to help us lay the organizational foundation for building a long term, human rights based politics in New York City. See our "Meetings" section for more details.

New York City People's Convention 2005

We were disgusted by the Republicans. We were let down by the Democrats.
Don't Mourn, Organize! Join Us!

Express your opinions and share your vision for progressive government in New York City. Please come to the First General Meeting for organizing a New York City People's Convention 2005.

We, request progressive activists and organizations from all five boroughs of New York City to join us on Saturday March 5, at 6:30pm at St. Mary's Church in Harlem, to help us lay the organizational foundation for building a long term, human rights based politics in New York City.

We invite you to join us in building a broad based unity of organizations and vision to help frame policy platforms for the immediate and long term future of our city as we go into the 2005 Mayoral and City Council elections and beyond.

New York City's exceptional wealth of cultural, racial and national diversity, dynamic people of all ages, creative and intellectual capital, great institutions, interfaith communities, neighborhoods, open spaces and gardens is an invitation to humanist visionaries to pioneer an exemplary, twenty first century, energy and environmentally sustainable metropolis of humane culture.

All who believe in the integral dignity and inalienable rights of all people- regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, national origin, immigration status, sexual preference, ability or age - to live in a socially just, patriarchy and racism free, ecologically sound, openly informed, politically free society please join us. We hope you see YOU identified in this invitation, and will join us to leave standing room only at our first mass public gathering.

St. Mary's Church is located on 126th Street between Amsterdam and Old Broadway. Take #1 or #9 train to 125th Street and Broadway

Keynote Speakers:
Sam Anderson- Veteran Educator/Activist & an initiator of the People's Convention
Jamila Thompson- Student of Eugene Lang College of the New School University and a member of the student organization Diversity in Practice Coalition

A People's Convention Movement is a mobilization for power.
A People's Convention Movement is a mobilization for human rights.
A People's Convention Movement is a mobilization for People's Democracy.
A People's Convention Movement is a mobilization for Dignity.

www.peoplesconvention-nyc.org

Download a copy of the March 5 press release: Click Here

Download the Activist Call for the PC 2005 in NYC: Click Here

On October 27, 2004, the BMCC Student Government Association overwhelmingly voted the following resolution: "The Student Government Association of the Borough of Manhattan Community College steadfastly condemns any college program or curriculum that would teach, train, endorse or otherwise support "Homeland security" at BMCC". "We call on faculty to speak out against this program, reject it, and vote it down". "We call on students to help protest and expose it". "We demand that the administration stop the program, cancel it and throw it out, NOW!"

WE, the undersigned, unequivocally support the BMCC SGA resolution. It is utterly mis-guided and reprehensible that the President of an Academic Institution should undertake to be the spokesman for such a blatantly anti-democratic program. We unequivocally condemn the falsely named "Security Management Certificate Program" and name it for what it is, a program designed to sow the seeds of fear, repression, social chaos and further the divide between races, nationalities and religions.

We suggest in its stead, two optional, special academic and extra-curricular programs: one that covers progressive conflict resolution as designed by internationally renowned peace and social justice activists and another that celebrates the cultural diversity of the BMCC campus, bringing to it inter-faith amity and understanding, informing and building the shared humanity that alone can ensure mutual security. The courses can be taught by the great diversity of New York's eminent intellectual community of writers, philosophers, journalists, artists and creators, free thinkers including progressive, inter-faith theologians.

New York City owes its reputation as one of the pre-eminent "cultural and intellectual capitals" of the world to its extraordinary cultural diversity. There can be no room in such a rich human community for the seeding of a neo-Nazi culture.

By joining together to resolutely nip in the bud the fascist intentions of the falsely named "Security Management Certificate Program" the citizens of New York will send a clarion call across the nation for people to resist- through organizing and struggling -and rout the barbarian 'national security state' attempting to root a fascist empire in the USA.

PLEASE JOIN THE STUDENTS & FACULTY OF BMCC & the PEOPLES' CONVENTION OF NEW YORK IN ENSURING BMCC & ALL NY CAMPUSES ARE FREE OF "SECURITY STATE" APPARATUS.