Fight Back News Service is circulating this call from the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression inviting organizers in the South to attend a regional organizing conference.

This December 6th-8th, the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (NAARPR) is convening our inaugural Southern Regional Organizing Conference in Jacksonville, Florida. This conference will bring together progressive forces in the South fighting for Black liberation, Indigenous rights and land sovereignty. We are fighting back against police crimes and political repression to free all those unjustly incarcerated as well as defending all progressive movements fighting for a just society. NAARPR, which arose out of the movement to Free Angela Davis, was refounded in 2019 with well over two dozen branches and affiliate organizations nationwide. Since the 2020 George Floyd uprisings, NAARPR has seen a growth in new organizing struggles in cities across the country; specifically, in the Black Belt Region of the Deep South, the historic homelands of Africans trafficked to North America, where the majority of their descendants still live today.

This conference will be taking place in Jacksonville, Florida. As we have seen the past few years, Florida has been home to some of the harshest forms of political repression happening today. This includes the passage of anti-protest laws such as HB1, attempted repression of the Tampa 5 and others fighting against racism, right wing government attempts seeking to ban the teaching of Black history in education, bigoted laws targeting reproductive rights, immigrants, the LGBTQIA+ community. In spite of all this, NAARPR branches and affiliate organizations, notably those in Jacksonville, Tampa, Tallahassee, New Orleans, Atlanta, the District of Columbia, Dallas, and Charleston have made great gains in fighting back and building the people’s struggle. These branches join in the struggle and fight for the movement’s right to demand: community control of the police, land sovereignty, labor rights, universal housing, reproductive freedom, quality health care and education; reparations; and environmental justice.

Our work across the South today is a continuation of a longstanding liberation struggle being waged by Black and Indigenous people. Since the first Africans were trafficked here to provide free slave labor on stolen Indigenous land, we have struggled for our freedom. As a national mass defense organization, we fight for self-determination and political power, a right that has been denied to Black people in the South since Reconstruction. NAARPR branches nationwide understand the significance of international solidarity with oppressed people across the globe. We have extended our unequivocal support to the Palestinian people’s struggle and the liberation of all oppressed nations. We acknowledge that our liberation is inextricably connected.

The NAARPR Southern Regional Organizing Conference is a chance to hear about and learn from the work of organizers from across the South against the backdrop of this history. We call on all those nationwide to converge and join us. We know the South is ground zero for the repressive forces that are sure to touch the rest of the country. By uniting our movements, we become invincible. Join us this December because—THE SOUTH GOT SOMETHING TO SAY!

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