When: February 10 or 11
Where: ?
What: Ashanti Allston: "LIGHT THAT BORDER-CROSSED FROM THE SOUTH: The Resurgence of Funky Liberation within the Babylonian Imperial Brain This talk will focus on the impact of the Zapatista movement in Mexico on People-of color self-determination movements above the so-called southern US border. Why does their small "r" indigenous revolution challenge us so deeply and give us reason to believe that our freedom dreams and sense of dignity are the guides to changing the world?"

Ashanti Alston, Black Panther and long-time activist in Black liberation movements, will report on recent developments in the struggle for self determination and community autonomy currently underway in both the African American and Latino communities. Drawing from his own history in the black liberation movement in the United States, Alston will examine the intersections and solidarity between these communities as well as investigate the critical role of popular education strategies for the Black Panthers and more recently the Zapatista communities of Chiapas, Mexico. More recently, as a member of Estacion Libre, an autonomous organization of people of color in solidarity with the Zapatistas, Alston has been a prominent activist in the decentralized, networked global resistance to neoliberal structural adjustment as it manifests in the prison industrial and military industrial complex.

Ashanti Alston is a Black Panther and ex-political prisoner who has served on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies and currently publishes the zine, "Anarchist Panther". He has spoken widely on the Panthers and the history of Black Nationalist movements, including as a lecturer at the Institute for Social Ecology in Vermont. After studying the autonomous struggle of Zapatista communities in Chiapas, he has linked his knowledge of Black nationalism and indigenous autonomy to his anti-racist work with such organizations as Critical Resistance, a national organization committed to ending the Prison Industrial complex. His academic interests include the Black Panther Party, History of the Black Nationalist Movements, Black Anarchism and the Zapatista Rebellion.