All Panelists Confirmed!! “THE ATTACK ON BLACK LEADERSHIP” Forum Sun. March 6th Hibernian Hall 5-8pm

-Boston, MA- Local activists have joined in order to conduct a community forum which will be an examination into what is widely perceived as a deliberate “Attack on Black Leadership”.  The forum will be held Sunday, March 6th from 5pm – 8pm @Hibernian Hall 184 Dudley St. Roxbury.  Speakers will consist of Prof. Charles Ogletree (who serves as Sen. Dianne Wilkerson’s Attorney), King Downing (formerly of the ACLU, currently Ex. Dir. Human Rights Racial Justice Center), Prof. Robert Johnson (UMass Boston Africana Studies Dept., Author of “Race, Law & Public Policy”) and a presentation on surveillance in Boston by Kade Crockford (ACLU of MA, Privacy Rights Coordinator).

Organizer Jamarhl Crawford said “This forum will seek to answer the very basic question ‘Is there an ongoing effort by the US Government to destabilize the Black Community by targeting its leadership?’ While this question may sound like conspiracy theory to some, we have to examine the fact that the United States government has used its resources *to monitor, frame and in many cases assassinate Black leaders. Now that we have the information on programs like CoIntelPro and **Operation Fruehmenschen which were standard practice in the not so distant past, we must ask and answer this question to determine if the very same thing is happening in our present.”

The forum will discuss historical practices of the government’s targeting of Black leadership and organizations, modern day surveillance and information gathering tactics as well as an open discussion of the recent local federal cases against Chuck Turner and Dianne Wilkerson.

EVENT Sponsors:  New Democracy Coalition, Center for Church & Prisons, Union of Minority Neighborhoods, Human Rights Racial Justice Center, Blackstonian.com, 10,000 Strong Boston, Voices of Liberation, Pastor Bruce Wall, Bishop Filipe Teixeira, ACLU of Massachusetts, National Action Network-Boston

*Individuals & Organizations Targeted by the Government: Adam Clayton Powell, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, W.E.B. DuBois, Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, Stokely Carmichael, Fred Hampton, Marcus Garvey, Paul Robeson, NAACP, SNCC, Black Panther Party, Nation of Islam, New Black Panther Party

**Operation Fruehmenschen (launched by no later than 1977) was the FBI’s own designation for the Justice Department/FBI campaign to frame-up, jail, & drive from office, hundreds of African-American elected officials, because, in the words of one FBI agent, high ranking officials at the Bureau believed that “black officials were intellectually and socially incapable of governing major governmental organizations and situations.”