Ivory Muhammad, President of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement (InPDUM) will be a featured speaker at African People’s Solidarity Day events, October 13-21.

Since 1991 InPDUM has organized and protested the conditions faced by African communities in cities throughout the U.S. From police brutality to the black incarceration rates, from school suspensions to unjust evictions, InPDUM has led demonstrations, packed city council meetings, knocked on doors and held events demanding self-determination and democratic rights for African people.

Born in Jackson, Mississippi, Ivory Muhammad grew up in the midst of the struggle for justice. Her father had been an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). His house was fire bombed in the 60s and her mother was the leader the New Afrikan Women’s Taskforce.

As a child Ivory’s family moved to Harlem, New York, where she “became more and more aware of the harsh conditions of life for African people” and where her own brothers experienced police harassment.

Growing up, Ivory’s family participated in the All African People’s Revolutionary Party and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Ivory has traveled throughout Africa, is a dancer, a long distance track athlete and holds a masters degree in social work. She has been a member of the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement since March of last year.

Currently InPDUM is involved in the struggle to free the Jena 6, six black high school students in Jena, Louisiana who are being given long sentences for defending themselves against white harassment at the school where white students hung nooses on a campus tree, known as the “white tree.”

InPDUM is also leading the movement to free Shaquanda Cotton, a 14 year old Texas high school freshman sentenced to 7 years in prison for allegedly shoving a hall monitor during a dispute.

InPDUM has members in New York, Philadelphia, Oakland and many other cities in the U.S., as well as in London, England.

Muhammad has committed herself to leading InPDUM in its task of organizing African people to transform the oppressive conditions they continue to face every day. “2.3 million people are in prison in this country and the majority of them are African,” she states. “One in every 8 young African men is now locked up mostly on drug charges, yet white people are 75 percent of drug users and sellers!

“There was a large turn out in Louisiana in support of the Jena 6—and this was excellent,” Muhammad continues. “Yet these kinds of things are happening in every city in the U.S.—in the schools, on the streets, on the job, in the housing situation. InPDUM represents the movement of African people getting organized for self-determination and democratic rights.”

Ivory Muhammad will present at the following African People’s Solidarity Day events:

October 13 – 14 in Oakland, CA at Beebe Memorial Church, 3900 Telegraph Avenue
October 20 – 21 in Philadelphia, PA at International House, 3701 Chestnut Street

For more information on African People’s Solidarity Day events contact (215) 387-0919 or visit www.apscuhuru.org.

More about InPDUM can be found at www.inpdum.org.