August 2020 was 100 years since Marcus Garvey and the U.N.I.A. held a plebiscite in New York City. 20,000 people attended the signing of the Declaration of Rights of the Negro People of the world on August 13, 1920.
Ice Cube got a lot of attention…a lot of publicity…but also a lot of opposition becasuse of his Contract With Black America. Just like the UNIA met and held discussions of delegates about what the content of the Declaration of Rights should be, the CWBA needed input from more people than Cube. What are the questions that CWBA answers? What issues does it address? A plebiscite would create political support for the CWBA that would make it not only supported by a majority of the African-American population of the USA but also that they know what they are supporting.
Once the CWBA has a buy in from enough people then we let the two parties know which ever one commits to the solutions we present in the CWBA gets our vote. Simple.
The process of conducting a plebiscite ensures the major issues are addressed and everyone is heard. The plebiscite is a process that began during what is known as the colored conventions movement. It seems that with the advent of the “talented tenth” such meetings seem to have fallen out of favor. CWBA is a step in the right direction. It just needs a historical context to see that we have power but for some reason we have stopped using it.
People haven’t helped and publicly supported the CWBA because they are not organized to do so. That is the legacy of The Colored Convention Movement and the 1920 UNIA plebiscite. Organize people locally to do exactly a political agenda. The plebiscite has local, state and then a national convention. The local and state conventions are to identify issues in each jurisdiction. The national convention then consolidates the issues presented at the previous levels. By the time the contract or declaration or whatever it is named is put up for a vote at the convention everyone knows what it contains and why it has the issues in it. Right now most people only know there is a CWBA but have little idea of its content. That is why they are not talking about what parts of it they are in favor of or against. It’s hard for people to support something when they don’t know what it is they are supporting or how it benefits them personally. A plebiscite would have resolved this before now.
With the election less than a month away it is too late. This is a conversation we should have had last year this time
