Jitu weusi biography of barack
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The result of this exchange led to a delegation of many of the musicians from the African community in the United States attending and participating in the Jazz African Heritage Concert in South Africa in 2007.
The life of Jitu Weusi was so full of the African Spirit that his contributions cannot be summed up in an article of this nature.
The result was the establishment of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Governing Board, a community school board that served central Brooklyn’s Black Community.”
As a result of the controversy surrounding his great contributions in the leadership of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville battle, the white controlled media, the Board of Education, and the United Federation of Teachers attempted to mutilate Jitu’s reputation and his contributions to the movement.
During this period, 1968-1969, Jitu describes this movement as the “most underrepresented yet most impactful era of Brooklyn history.” Jitu went on to explain, “the teachers and the community battled the Board of Education and the predominately-white United Federation of Teachers in a struggle that they hoped would finally create a structure for the empowerment of local communities.
Jitu Weusi, Maa Kherew (True of Voice)!
The Sun Rises in The East chronicles the birth, rise and legacy of The East, a pan-African cultural organization founded in 1969 by teens and young adults in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Jitu helped organize the Brooklyn Central Jazz Consortium, which led to the Brooklyn South African Cultural Exchange Project.
Jitu K. Weusi has now become a Great African Ancestor whose spirit will live on forever. Led by educator and activist Jitu Weusi, The East embodied Black self-determination, building dozens of institutions, including its own African-centered school, food co-op, newsmagazine, publishing company, record label, restaurant, clothing shop and bookstore.
Out of these discussions and the rampant cases of police brutality and the increase in deaths of youth at the hands of the New York Metropolitan Police Department, the Metropolitan Black United Front began to emerge under the leadership of Rev. Herbert Daughtry and the organizing genius of Jitu Weusi.
The organization hosted world-famous jazz musicians and poets at its highly sought-after performance venue, and it served as an epicenter for political contemporaries such as the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords and the Congress of Afrikan People, as well as comrades across Africa and the Caribbean.
In effect, The East built an independent Black nation in the heart of Central Brooklyn.
The Sun Rises in The East is the first feature-length documentary to explore this inspiring story.
He pursued his teaching passion and became a social studies teacher in Bedford-Stuyvesant at Junior High School (JHS) 35, where he found the white supremacy foundation of the curriculum stymying the growth and development of his African descended students.
My long time friend for over forty years and comrade in the struggle for African Liberation worldwide, Jitu Weusi, made his transition into eternity on Wednesday, May 23, 2013 at his home in Brooklyn, New York on Fulton Street.
Changing his name to Jitu Weusi, he went on to become a founder and headmaster of the Uhuru Sasa School, one of the most well known of the Black Liberation schools in New York City during the 1970's. Jitu Weusi 'also from Kiswahili' can be translated into 'Big Black' in English.
Weusi and the school's parent organization, the EAST, were primarily responsible for the promotion of Kwanzaa in New York perhaps more than anyone else.
Creator
Osei Terry Chandler
Source
A View from the East
Publisher
Syracuse University Press
Coverage
The East, Brooklyn, 1970
.
He was a member of Brooklyn CORE from its earliest days, partially due to his father's friendship with chairman Ollie Leeds, both of whom were Marxists.After attending Long Island University on a basketball scholarship, he became a teacher in Brooklyn's junior high schools.
Upset over the United Federation of Teachers' (UFT) decision not to support the 1964 Citywide School Boycott, he and other Black teachers (including now city councilman Al Vann) formed the Negro Teachers Association. However, a glimpse of his life demonstrates his profound impact as he leaves his legacy to his wife Angela Weusi, eight children, twelve grandchildren, hundreds of young men and women he has mentored, and a host of comrades, colleagues, and friends around the world.
Other teachers at JHS 35 included Al Vann, Oliver Patterson, Leroy Lewis, Randy Tobias, Joan Eastman, and Ola Cherry. Featuring interviews with leaders of The East, historians and people who grew up in the organization as children, The Sun Rises in The East delivers an exhilarating and compelling vision for just how much is possible.
The Sun Rises in The East is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play and Tubi.
photo of Jitu Weusi, Brooklyn CORE
Description
This is a photo of Brooklyn CORE member Jitu Weusi.
The spiritual energy of this call instructed me to say to my dear friend, “I love you.” And I was able to hear Jitu, who had been in an unconscious state to that point, say to me, “I love you too!”
Jitu Weusi was one of the great, unsung activist, organizer, educator, and thinker that came out of our movement in the 1960s.
The film also examines challenges that led to the organization’s eventual dissolution, including government surveillance, its gender politics and financial struggles. They joined with Black teachers in other schools to form the African American Teachers Association.” Further, as Jitu wrote, “the African American Teachers Association joined with the Ocean Hill-Brownsville Alliance around the concept of community control.
As a result, Jitu officially left the New York City Board of Education in April 1969.
The youth involved in the movement working with Jitu and community members began establishing The East “as a self-determining cultural-educational organization for African people in central Brooklyn, New York, and was armed with the theme ‘Freedom Now!’ and the philosophy of self-reliance under the leadership of Jitu K.
Weusi and the East Family.”
As noted in Kwasi Konadu’s book, Truth Crushed to the Earth Will Rise Again!, “Jitu was/is a central figure in the design, expansion and governance of The East organization, in both concrete and ideational terms.
Born and raised in Brooklyn, he was originally known as Leslie Campbell.
In vintage Jitu, master teacher style, he penned a composition chronicling his health struggles titled, “Cancer and the Biggest Fight of My Life.” This article was a profound documentation of Jitu and his fight against cancer.
On Monday, May 21st, Jitu Weusi’s extended family son from the East, Adeyemi Bandele, telephoned me from Brother Jitu’s bedside.
Renamed the African American Teachers Association, the organization played a leading role in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville controversy of 1968.