Blacks Are Asked To Develop Stronger Links With Africa

By Hazel Trice EdneyNNPA Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) – The head of a leading Africa advocacy organization has called for the Congressional Black Caucus to develop stronger ties with African diplomats. “One of the things we’re trying to do is get the Congressional Black Caucus and the African Diplomatic Corp to meet,” says Melvin Foote, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Constituency for Africa. “They’ve never met in history. The two most powerful Black groups in this country have never met. They have never sat across the table from each other to talk about a common agenda. Marcus Garvey is turning over in his grave.” Foote was speaking during a lunch forum that brought together African ambassadors and the National Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation, an arm of a trade group that represents 200 Black-owned newspapers. The forum, held at Africare, a Black-owned non-profit organization founded 34 years ago, was sponsored by CFA to discuss ways to develop stronger ties between Africans and African-Americans. Foote, an NNPA Foundation board member, says involvement must go beyond the fair reporting of stories, but the active participation by Black institutions on all levels. “We have 35 million of us over here, and when we think a lot of ourselves, that’s insignificant when we’re talking about the globe,” Foote says. “It behooves African-Americans to link up with 800 million in Africa, to link up with the 600 million in Brazil and the Caribbean. These are our people.” U. S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the CBC, says some members of the 39-member Caucus have met with some of the more than 40 members of the corp during his 20-month tenure. “But we haven’t gotten very much accomplished,” he concedes. Foote is hoping for a fall meeting. He says South Africa Ambassador Barbara Masekela will help to make it happen. Masekela told NNPA publishers that Africa’s relationship with Blacks in America and in other nations will be critical. “We need the participation of Africans in the Diaspora, no matter at what small level, in the economic development of Africa – which means infrastructure building,” Masekela says. “We need Africans in the Diaspora involved at whatever level in those developments because that is the story of Africa. Not to mention that we don’t have pollution. We have beautiful wild animals.” Often in daily newspapers – and even in many African-American newspapers – the only stories about Africa, the second largest continent in the world behind Asia, are ones about death and dying from AIDS, famine, or civil war, such as in the Sudan. Although there is much suffering, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, this is not the whole story. The CBC has established task forces on Africa and has drafted legislation for jobs, economic development and trade, including the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). Enacted by Congress in 2000, the bill brought together an unlikely pair the next year, President Bush and U. S. Rep. Charlie Rangel, for a Rose Garden announcement of a U.S. sub-Saharan African Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum, one of the mandates of the bill. Bush signed an extension of the Act into law this summer. Both Africans and African-Americans have seen the impact that can be made through fair reporting in the press. From the Civil Rights Movement in the U. S. to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and now the movement to stop the war in Sudan. Much more can be accomplished on other issues, simply through greater communication, says Dorothy Leavell, publisher of the Gary Crusader. “There is a very important need for us to get the right word out about the issues and we need to be brothers and sisters,” she says. “Starting this dialog is extremely important. And I think, more than that, we’ve got to really walk the walk and talk the talk and we’ve got to communicate so that we can help get your story out.” Masekela is pushing for exactly that. “I think it is incumbent upon all of us to have this kind of sharing,” she says. “I’m tired of going places where people have been talking all the time, but I think that maybe because you are newspapers, we have had a meaningful dialog.”