BY ASMA MUHAMMAD

“From Minneapolis to Johannesburg: Our Shared Fight To End Police Violence,” a virtual global forum aimed at dismantling the current systems and structures that threaten black lives, will be held this Wednesday, July 8 at 6 p.m. GMT (2 p.m. EDT). The event organizers say it will hold roundtable discussions “where attendees guided by community organizers will collaborate and put forth action steps to enable a coordinated community-driven effort to inform policy, institutions, and industry practices.”

The forum will feature high-profile speakers from Africa, Europe and the United States. The big minds will include Andre M. Perry from the United States, a fellow on the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution, a research group founded in 1916 on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C.; Assa Traoré from France, an activist and a 2020 BET International Global Good Award recipient, founder of the “Justice for Adama” Movement; Monifa Bandele from the United States, a Policy Table Leader in the Movement for Black Lives; Nomsa Mazwai from South Africa, a social activist and Fulbright Scholar, founder of #Funkitimwalking; and Yemi Adamolekun, from Nigeria, founder & executive director of Enough is Enough.

To register to attend the forum visit: https://www.africanxt.com/united-we-standBLM/

“Our Shared Fight To End Police Violence” is an unprecedented initiative aimed at bringing greater awareness about police brutality against black people around the world, in an effort to emphasize the need for broad coordination to build a worldwide coalition. The participating organizations are Black Liberation Collective (Canada,) Black Lives Matter (Switzerland,) Cross Rhodes (Trinidad and Tobago,) Foundation for Human Rights (South Africa,) International Alert (Nigeria,) Liberation of Black Folks (Canada,) and Social Justice (Bermuda.)

“Our Shared Fight To End Police Violence” is an initiative of AfricaNXT, a black organization committed, according to its founder, Ngozi Odita, to “create space both online and offline to celebrate  African ingenuity and empower the creatives, entrepreneurs, organizers and all around remarkable individuals moving Africa forward.”

The AfricaNXT’s founder describes the context of the “Our Shared Fight To End Police Violence”:

“The police murders of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Collins Khosa in Johannesburg, Tina Ezekwe in Lagos, Adama Traore in Paris, and countless others, are part of a long history of violence against Black people. Police violence is pervasive in Black communities around the world. The mistreatment of and deadly violence against Black people at the hands of the police are not random occurrences nor are they isolated incidents. They are the byproduct of the systematic injustices that we have been subjected to since the first Africans were stolen and forced to build the wealth of the west.”