NC Freedom Papers

NC BLACK LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZING COLLECTIVE

NC FREEDOM PAPERS

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WHO WE ARE North Carolina Black Leadership and Organizing Collective (NC BLOC) is a state network composed of strong, publicly-active, left, Black-led institutions and community leaders who are dedicated to implementing strategies focused on shifting the social, material, economic, and political conditions and improving the quality of life of Black and working class people in NC. At BLOC We: Believe in transformation and a radical realignment of power.

Are abolitionist.

We believe that prisons, police and all other institutions that inflict violence on Black people must be abolished and replaced by institutions that value and affirm the flourishing of Black lives.

We believe the current systems we live inside need radical transformation, which includes a realignment of global power, creating a proactive, movementbased vision instead of reactionary ones.

Are anti-capitalist.

We believe and understand that Black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system. So we work to build alternatives.

Center those most directly affected.

We believe in centering the experiences and leadership of the most marginalized Black people, including but not limited to those who are trans and queer, women and femme, currently and formerly incarcerated, immigrants, disabled, working class, and poor.

Believe in organizing, and organizations.

We believe that Black people building kinship with one another, drawing political lessons, growing in our leadership, and expanding our base are the building blocks of a strong movement.

Are committed to addressing patriarchal violence.

We believe that in order to move towards our liberatory goals, we must address and end violence against women, femmes, trans, and non-binary folks.

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INTRODUCTION This country and state was built on the backs of our ancestors and is drenched in the blood of our sisters, brothers, mothers, cousins, and beloved community members. To this day, the 1% stand on our backs while we struggle to keep our heads above water. They profit off of our grief, bodies, minds, imprisonment, and culture.

No longer will we take this!

Our communities are Black, strong, and resilient. We stand strong in the radical traditions of our ancestors, pulling strength from North Carolina’s longleaf pines and red clay.

Now is the time for us to ensure that our hard work doesn't go unnoticed, that no overtime goes unpaid, and that we no longer have to choose between paying for food or keeping the lights on. It is time to reclaim and repair the crumbling schools in our communities, close the prisons that kidnap our loved ones, fire the police who murder us, and replace the civic leaders who stand against us.

It’s time for us to start envisioning a world we can thrive in, develop the alternatives that will help us get there, and heal our minds, bodies, and spirits in order to reestablish our once strong communities. It’s time for us to stand with the organizations and formations who are fighting to make sure that all Black and working class people on our blocks, in our communities, and across the state can access food, experience joy, trade services, and build relationships with each other.

Today is the day we, the forgotten, battered, trafficked, tired, and dispossessed, start to reclaim our time in order to shift our political, economic, and material conditions. Today we dream, create, and change North Carolina into the state we need it to be—a place where we and our loved ones are no longer at risk of being murdered, pushed out, locked up, underpaid, undereducated, and underserved.

Stand with us as we demand livable wages; low-cost, affordable and safe housing; clean public spaces for us to gather; and an investment into Black communities while divesting from the systems that kill us.

We are North Carolina’s true power and light and we declare NOTHING ABOUT US, WITHOUT US! 1

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Adapted from the Dream Defenders’ Freedom Papers

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These are the Freedom Papers...

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Untitled 2 Jade Wilson

Freedom to Be Unapologetically Black Free from Anti-Black and Systemic Racism Unapologetically Black My ancestors gave me this Black, and I love it Afro big Dashiki Strong Our Voices Loud Ungawa Black Power ringing in my head I’m in time with the magic and defy all odds You can tell that I’m Black, seeing stars Or the fact that I’m humming like cars From the seed comes the tree. Flowers bloom and turn to fruit This ain’t just my story; it’s the story of Black youth Reparations is a debt that is due No police, no prisons, jobs stealing our babies We deserve policies, not charity Imagine Black life free Can you see the seeds?

Blackness in full bloom Blackness that does not need approval Blackness that shows up Loud Vibrant Power Black Blessed and Beautiful PERIODT

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Freedom to Heal, Love and Be Heard Free From Fear, Violence, and Generational Trauma Healing takes place once we have been heard.

We have a voices that will not be silenced.

We want carefree Black babies who know only of safety and beautiful communities with deep love, connectedness, and interdependence.Not repeated and normalized violence.

We deserve to live in joy, peace, and happiness without worry, for our generational pain to heal like cotton candy when it touches our lips.

For the soil of our communities to be fertilized by our children's smiles, fellowship, and laughter and not by their blood.

We deserve to experience deep unconditional love free from trauma created by the fears of wearing a hoodie, walking in a neighborhood alone, shopping, and wondering if this is the last time we will hear from our loved ones.

We deserve to have our own beliefs, ideas, aspirations, dreams, hopes, thoughts, and feelings honored and come to life.

Simply, for us, healing is not an option; it's mandatory. So let's create spaces for healing—the healing of ourselves, communities, and families.

For our future generations, land, and ancestors.

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Room for Living 2021. Mixed Media 24x36 inches Greensboro, NC. Essence I. Foster

Freedom to Steward and Be in Right Relationship with the Land Free from Environmental and Climate Destruction We are air.

Down east, we have always been environmentalists.

Future generations deserve seasons Clean water and fresh air.

It's an ancestral practice to grow and be one with the environment.

Red clay makes the fruit taste sweet.

We deserve to thrive where we live, dance, plant, protect and walk towards freedom that allows us to become entwined in the vines of life.

We thrive as we move.

The light shines, and you feel the breeze.

Water saves us on the journey.

We are water.

You don't lose indigeneity in 400 years.You go back to the dirt, the ash, and fertilization for new seeds.

We are land.

We continue We move and birth more seeds.

We acknowledge the intertwined fates of Indigenous and Black peoples and recognize the heritage and ancestry that we share.

There can be no justice and liberation without returning this land to its rightful Indigenous caretakers. We need to take our land back from the corporations who steal our homes and kick us out of our neighborhoods. So, starting today, we will join the fight to be in right relationship with the land, one plot at a time.

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Their Eyes Were Watching Gods Hand cut paper collage 2021 Clarence Heywrad

Freedom to Nourish Our Minds Free from Educational Inequities The mind is a terrible thing to waste, and the cards have been stacked against us.

Since we arrived on this land, colonizers have tried to strip away our inherent right to knowledge and belonging. They've tried to stop us in every way. Even kidnapped Indigenous children to brainwash them into accepting western ideals.

The colonizers understood that an educated people is far more difficult to dominate, so they made laws like Jim Crow, blocked us out of their schools, and gave us torn books.

Yet, still, we rose. We started our own schools, from primary to HBCUs, and guess what? They are still trying to co-opt these too!

The US education system is built with a hidden curriculum to produce exploitable workers instead of full humans, misrepresenting our history and erasing the murders and mistreatment of our ancestors.

Now, administrators and school boards have zero tolerance for Black and poor kids and deliver punishment at disproportionate rates. Our schools are built on racist foundations. Notebooks are replaced with achievement gaps, children are seen as criminals, and teachers push our babies into prisons rather than towards their potential for greatness.

Know that our story does not begin with slavery and ends with Civil Rights.

We embody all we need, not neoliberal measures of "progress," to reclaim our memories, narratives, recipes, and paths to power.

Knowledge is political. Teach truth. Invest in the arts, HBCUs, and Black dreams.

Hughes and Lamar Linoleum / Monotype 16” x 12” Cameron Johnson

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Freedom to Build Solidarity Economies Free from Poverty We are deserving and worthy of a world where we can thrive and not just survive. We can create our own abundance through culture, practicing Black economies, bartering our skills, trading our services, and sharing with our neighbors. We are deserving of stable roofs over our heads, beds to rest, full bellies, health, and our 40 acres and a mule.

Our ancestors did not dream of us slaving nine hours and for corporations that murder us, poison our water, and break our spirits.

They did not want corporations standing on our backs, stealing our wages while governments take away our rights. They did not want us fighting for crumbs amongst ourselves because they knew, as we know now, that there is enough for all of us.

They envisioned a world where Black people, communities, and businesses thrived.So in honor of them, we will no longer bear the burden of budgets that fund prisons, police, and the death of our babies while providing unlimited support to the 1%.

We demand worker rights, power that protects us daily, and wealth that extends generations and provides us with peace of mind without breaking our pockets. We demand to be stakeholders. We demand power within the companies, businesses, and corporations we work for now. We demand control of our work environments, the ability to dictate how we earn, and how products are produced and distributed.

So we stand in solidarity and support local farmers in their attempt to feed us, with workers in their fight for more than $15.00 an hour, with the older Black lady who watches all of our babies and the local family that has a fish fry every Friday to help pay their rent.

We stand with the healers who provide care when health systems fail us and the Black business folks building new economics that are affirming and free of extortion and wage theft.

What Are we Spoon Fed? CHD:WCK!

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Freedom to Keep Our Communities Safe Free from Policing, Prisons and War Being born Black is not an abdication of our freedom.

Our lives are not disposable.

Every breath has a purpose.

Every smile deserves a tomorrow; everybody deserves freedom.

There is no ideology deserving rubble and ritual mourning, no sense in a judge sealing our future fate with a gavel.

No Black person deserves to be target practice.

No Black person should fight in wars that are not ours when the USA is at war with us. No Black person deserves to fight to stay out of our prisons and against police to protect our bodies.

Prison cells should not replace classrooms.

Prison cells should not replace cubicles.

Prison cells should not replace homes.

Safety is self-determination.

To be us.

To be free.

To be safe To be alive.

None of us are free until all of us are free.

So we commit to never forget those of us on the inside, who are incarcerated and kidnapped by the state.

We commit to caring about the lives and livelihood of Black people, even when the state doesn’t.

We will resist slavery in all of its forms by any means necessary.

We will keep our communities safe by putting an end to the Prison Industrial Complex.

Defund the Police.

Abolish Slavery.

Freedom.

Only abundance in Black Futures.

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Where Will I Go? Hand cut paper collage 2021 Clarence Heywrad

Freedom to Thrive in Our Own Communities Free from Displacement Community is more than proximity—it's family, and displacement leads to dissolution.

How is it that we've been here for generations, yet they still call us squatters, immigrants, un-American?

They the ones talking about "stand your ground," but gag when we do just that!

Move us by way of police, demolishing our homes, poisoning our water, calling our hoods dangerous, then renaming them when they want to come in.

Affordable housing for who?! Not me or you, but for the Beckys and Karens who troll our children...

We've been here for ages and ain't going nowhere.

We see clearly the logic of colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy, and we choose to stay rooted in this land that our ancestors tended to.

Where I live in the future, developers don't get the only vote, my house ain't got mold, Cops can't police there, And generations of my family will know they can live there.

Our communities will be enriched with resources, cultural awareness, accountability, and love. We are self-reliant, self-sufficient communities loving Blackness. Everyone learns from one another intergenerationally, building the minds of the youth and respecting the elders' wisdom.

Marcus Smith's memory lives in us. The hoods we drive past but no longer stay in, live with us. Our homeless comrades who build their own cities live with us. Folks living in hotels and motels and everyone creating something out of nothing lives with us.

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Freedom to Express and Be Whole in Our Bodies Free from Patriarchal Violence Give me liberty without the enticement of death.

Give me peace to wear whatever I want without fear of violence, ridicule, or criticism.

Death only destroys the body, and my body is me.

There are no safe spaces— only brave people.

Allow me to live in the space that feels right for me.

We deserve safety, care, and love without utilizing a narrative that demands us to minimize what's best for our bodies in terms of gender, medically, sexually, and sensually.

They do not know the first thing about girls like me, bois like them, Black bodies like us.

We are dem folks who ain't like nobody else. Whose moves are cosmic blueprints that glide and dance with the sea. Full hips, lips, and bodies.

We deserve to be recognized in our fullness and given flowers while we are still here. We are human beings and deserve autonomy, which means transaffirming medical care. No gatekeeping. No condoning Blackness as a rare commodity. No kitchen table conversation. No blaming survivors for violence that happened to their bodies without their consent.

We deserve the right to be whole, free, and safe in our bodies

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Rhythm of Reality (Strength) 40x30” Oil on Canvas $2,000 Lakeshia Reid

Freedom to Form Families That Thrive Free from Reproductive Racism The world is so much bigger and more complex than the notion of a cishet man and a cishet woman forming "the perfect union."

As Black femmes, women, queer, trans, and intersex people, we have loved one another, lived together, formed families, community, and raised children long before "Black marriage" or "marriage equality" was ever considered.

We determine the if and when of another Black child. Life-giving will not be made both a requirement and a tragic trope.

Right to safe and accessible abortions.

Right to safe and inclusive reproductive care.

Right to fully funded childcare.

Right to parental leave.

Right to anti-racist medical care.

Right to high-quality public education.

Right to have babies and live to see them breathing Right to not be shackled to prison beds while birthing our babies Right to have clean water, blocks, and hoods our babies can play in.

Our tribe will not be mandated by policy. Blessings will not be forced.

Forced sterilization is not an option. We will not be made invisible by policies that seek to control our bodies.

The situation of our families is our own blueprinted destinies, and we will thrive.

Untitled Digital collage Jasmine Best

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Freedom to Self-Determine and Self-Govern Free from a Racist Demoracy We are sovereign. We possess ultimate power because we are: Each other's harvest.

The breath in our lungs.

The love in our hearts.

The power in our Blackness.

For centuries, we have worked together towards our collective vision of freedom. Building up towns, breaking down barriers, growing community, and dismantling the systems that attempt to keep us down.

Can’t no racist laws or limits of the state hold us! Every step of the way, racist lawmakers, big companies, and politicians try to stop us so that they can continue to steal our wages, our homes, and our time.

However, we come from radical roots that defy cistems that disenfranchise, discriminate against, and diminish the power of Black people. Kujichagulia!

We stand firmly and boldly in our ability to decide and govern ourselves and our inherent ability to choose, name, create, and cultivate.

From the history of maroons in the Great Dismal Swamp, the Wilmington massacre, Moral Mondays, statewide uprisings, and HB2.

We are determined to be free.

I choose me.

I choose you.

I choose us.

Untitled 1 Jade Wilson

Ubuntu.

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GRATITUDE Special thanks to Dream Defenders for the original vision of the Freedom Papers.

Thank you to poet, educator, scholar, and performing artist Dasan Ahanu for being the realest ever and graciously leading the collaborative process to draft the freedoms.

Thank you to all the community members that joined the drafting sessions and offered their time, energy, and brilliance to this project.

Thank you to the Black, North Carolina artists who enthusiastically answered the call to create beautiful visuals which accompany our freedoms.

Thank you to the staff and advisory of NC BLOC whose leadership and perseverance made this possible.

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