TUPOCC Stipend Awardees

Dear friends:

We're writing to all of you - awardees of the TUPOCC travel stipend for 2011 - to send our warm greetings, and to begin a conversation that we hope to continue with you next week at the NLG Law for the People Convention in Philadelphia.

First, thank you for reaching out to participate in this convention and to share with us your commitment to organizing and eradicating oppression. You represent a group of diverse legal activists of color - law students, legal workers, and recent graduates - from different parts of the country and the world, engaged in organizing and solidarity work in immigration, education rights, self-determination and indigenous rights, human rights, criminal defense, international law, juvenile justice, civil rights, racial justice, LGBTQIA rights, environmental justice, prisoner rights, labor and employment - the list goes on. We are very excited to meet with you at the convention and to give all of you an opportunity to connect with each other and with TUPOCCers who are involved in the same kind of work that you are. Before then, please don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions about the Convention, TUPOCC, or the Guild.

Building a Stronger, More Accountable Movement

As you know, part of the travel stipend process this year involves engaging in thought and discussion prior to the Convention about anti-oppression principles to which TUPOCC, as a caucus of legal activists of color in the National Lawyers Guild, is committed. TUPOCC formed as a caucus within the NLG in 2005 at the annual convention in Birmingham, Alabama. At the time, legal activists of color came together out of a pressing need to address racial justice and anti-oppression within the NLG. In other words, the NLG, like other organizations in the Left, must work actively to ensure that the anti-oppression principles we fight for in the courts or on the streets are reflected within the movement and within our organization

The TUPOCC travel stipend is part of changing the fabric of the Guild. Encouraging TUPOCCers to run for positions of leadership is another part of that process. Ensuring that anti-subordination principles are internalized at the national leadership level, during our convention, and in the work that Guilders do is another important part of that movement.

Another very important part of TUPOCC's work involves creating a space for legal activists of color to come together. On Saturday, October 15, from 9 to 12, TUPOCC will be convening our annual TUPOCC session for legal activists of color. During that time, we gather to organize as legal activists of color to connect and heal with each other, build skills that we can use in movement and organizing work, and create a sense of unity amongst each other, so that we can rely on each other, as a network, as we move forward in this work together.

This year, our session is entitled "Critical Race Theory and Community-Based Activism: Building a Stronger, More Accountable Movement." The goal of the session is to help all of us take a closer look at the ways in which we can strengthen our activism through an anti-oppression analysis and practice.

Max Rameau - Take Back the Land
We are very honored to have Max Rameau join us as a presenter and comrade for the TUPOCC session on Saturday morning! Max is a Pan-African theorist and organizer. In the summer of 2006, in response to the severe housing and gentrification crisis impacting low income communities, Max helped form what would become Take Back the Land (http://takebacktheland.org). The organization took over a vacant lot in the Liberty City section of Miami and built a full urban shantytown, housing 150 otherwise homeless people in all, until a suspicious fire burned the settlement to the ground. Afterwards, Take Back the Land shifted attention to vacant government owned and foreclosed homes, "liberating" them and moving families in, without permission from the government.

In 2008, Max authored Take Back the Land: Land, Gentrification and the Umoja Village Shantytown, recounting the experiences and political theory behind the action. In 2009, organizations from across the country began expressing interest in Take Back the Land style actions and the organization went national.

Max will spend time with all of us at the TUPOCC session to discuss his experiences in organizing as an activist of color, with reflections upon the importance of the movement being led by impacted communities.

Critical Race Theory and Critical Coalitions

In addition to hearing and learning from Max, TUPOCCers will also facilitate, in the same session, a discussion of core principles of Critical Race Theory and related movements that have been developed by scholars of color to help identify, examine, and dismantle manifestations of racism and subordination in the legal profession and in the communities that we serve. The core principles, perspectives and tools that we are going to examine during our session include (1) identifying manifestations of white supremacy, (2) the importance of working in critical coalitions, and (3) organizing around intersectionality and multidimensional visions of justice.

These tools lie at the heart of what it means to organize for justice as a radical legal activist of color. They apply to the ways in which we read and dissect the "law" and interact in the legal "profession," the ways that we listen to and receive direction from those we represent, the ways that we identify and develop legal strategies to reflect the needs and leadership of the communities we serve, and the ways that we engage in the movement.

Reading Materials and Resources

In advance of the convention, we ask that you take the time to read the following attached materials. Each of these address, in some way, the principles we highlight above. Also attached is the Alabama Manifesto, TUPOCC's founding document drafted after the Birmingham convention when TUPOCC formed. You'll notice that TUPOCC was committed from its inception to organizing along principles we identify here. We also hope to send to you, in the next few days, some excerpts from Max's writings that also highlight these principles.

These materials are, by no means, an exhaustive list of resources- but they begin a discussion that we will expand upon at the convention. While reading these materials, please think about what they mean to you - jot down thoughts, ideas, or questions. Please feel free to respond to this list with thoughts or ideas about the readings, and to begin the discussion ahead of the convention with your comrades. As always, please feel free to contact us ahead of time with questions!

We will be in touch again as we lead up to the convention, with additional information about how you can connect with other Guilders and TUPOCCers engaged in movement work.

Until then, and in solidarity,

Ranya Ghuma and Malika Chatterji
TUPOCC Co-chairs