50ᵗʰ Anniversary Conference

We issue this call to our third National Conference, this November, following our re-founding national conference in 2019 and our last conference in 2021. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first founding of our national organization. We issue this call to action due to the increased gains in growing our movement, but of course the increased repression and backlash our movement faces following the historic rebellion of 2020 and the subsequent victories our movement has won.

Our National Alliance, re-founded in November 2019, just six months before the murder of George Floyd, was ready, willing and able to participate and mobilize hundreds of thousands of people during the great rebellion. NAARPR branches and affiliate organizations have taken part in building a national and local mass movement to demand community control of the police. The Alliance and its branches have also continued the fight for the wrongly incarcerated after decades in prison. We worked to free activists arrested during the rebellion and other protests, and continued our work to support political prisoners.

In Chicago, the National Alliance branch continues to be an inspiration for our movement. They have fought for and won local and citywide bodies for civilian oversight that gives us a pathway to community control of the police. CAARPR then organized pro-accountability candidates to win the majority of Council seats in 14 of Chicago's 22 local Police Districts in the February 28th, 2023 elections. The lessons from Chicago are a historic advance in which our people have fought for and won the democratic demand to determine how our communities are policed, where the community has a decisive voice. Alliance branches and its affiliate organizations from Minneapolis/Saint Paul in Minnesota to Milwaukee, from Dallas, Texas, to DC and New York, and from Los Angeles, California to Jacksonville, Tallahassee and Tampa, Florida are building and growing. Our Alliance branch in the Twin Cities is close to putting a referendum on the ballot for community control of the police. Our comrades in LA successfully fought last year for a measure to strengthen local civilian oversight on the path to community control, with divisive political battles happening in Tampa, Jacksonville, Dallas, New Orleans, Milwaukee and many other cities where the rubber is meeting the road in regard to the people’s demand for community control.

However, as stated earlier, we have seen the rise of reactionary politicians in Florida and Texas along with in other areas working hand in hand with a right wing Supreme Court to repress our movements and stifle our gains. Our ability to defend our movement from the forces of racist and political repression must increase. Since the 2020 rebellion we have seen the storming of the Capitol by an organized mob of white supremacists and avowed fascists, we are presently witnessing inaction from Congress and the White House reneging on passing the George Floyd and Voting Rights bills, and we have witnessed a spike in police killing Black and Latino people with impunity, with an unprecedented wave of repressive legislation designed to suppress the right to vote of Black, brown people and poor people. It is becoming clear to growing masses of people that more police doesn’t keep anyone safe, and that accountability is a necessity.

Alliance branches and affiliate organizations have worked hard to oppose increases in police budgets and to support efforts to divert police funding to meet the material demands of the people. If ever there was ever a time to defend and extend the democratic rights of the people to organize and protest, that time is now and that is precisely why we need to call for and build this National Conference, to consolidate our organizational gains as well as make plans for further expansion and political sharpening among our ranks.

We must use this conference to hone in and focus on organizing ourselves to meet all the challenges we face at this moment and future ones. We are reaching out to all strands of the peoples’ movement to join us and get involved in the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression.

JOIN US!