Ajamu Sibeko Baraka is an American political activist.
25 Facts About Ajamu Baraka
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Ajamu Baraka was born in 1953 and grew up on the South Side of Chicago.
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Ajamu Baraka served in the US Army during the Vietnam War.
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Ajamu Baraka received his BA in international studies and political science from the University of South Florida, Tampa in 1982 and his MA and PhD in political science from Clark Atlanta University in 1987.
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Ajamu Baraka became involved in the Central America solidarity movement, organizing delegations to Nicaragua in support of the Nicaraguan Revolution.
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Ajamu Baraka then became an Amnesty International volunteer, eventually moving up to the board of the organization.
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From 2004 to 2011, Ajamu Baraka served as the founding executive director of the US Human Rights Network, a national network that grew to over 300 US-based organizations and 1500 individual members.
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Ajamu Baraka has served on the boards of several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Africa Action.
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Additionally, Ajamu Baraka directed Amnesty's National Program to Abolish the Death Penalty and was involved in most of their major death penalty cases.
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Ajamu Baraka has taught political science at the university level and is currently an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and a writer for Counterpunch.
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In 2008, Ajamu Baraka worked with the US Human Rights Network and over 400 organizations to develop a CERD Shadow Report, which concerned US compliance with the terms of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
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Ajamu Baraka had spray-painted the word "decolonization" on a bulldozer during the protest.
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Writings by Ajamu Baraka have appeared in Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Pambazuka News, CounterPunch, and other media outlets.
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In October 2014, Ajamu Baraka traveled to the Palestinian territories as part of an 18-member "African Heritage delegation" organized by the Interfaith Peace-Builders group.
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Ajamu Baraka questioned news stories about the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, which Israel blamed on Hamas members and which led to Israeli air strikes in the Gaza Strip against Hamas.
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Ajamu Baraka rejected the US position that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and the 2014 Syrian presidential election are illegitimate.
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Ajamu Baraka characterised Syria's opposition as "Salafi-Wahhabi fundamentalists who reject representative democracy and support the imposition of sharia law in Syria".
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Ajamu Baraka has described Ta-Nehisi Coates, Beyonce and Bernie Sanders as "media-driven pseudo-opposition".
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In June 2016, Ajamu Baraka criticized the family of Muhammad Ali for inviting Bill Clinton to deliver the boxer's eulogy.
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Ajamu Baraka referred to President Barack Obama as an "Uncle Tom president" after Obama condemned the 2014 riots and violence in Ferguson, Missouri that occurred in the wake of the police killing of Michael Brown.
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Ajamu Baraka was critical of the Obama administration's decision to not attend the 2009 UN World Conference Against Racism in Geneva.
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In September 2015, Ajamu Baraka initially criticized Cornel West for supporting Bernie Sanders, saying that West was "sheep-dogging for the Democrats" by "drawing voters into the corrupt Democratic party".
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Stein and Ajamu Baraka were formally nominated by delegates at the 2016 Green National Convention on August 6,2016.
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In 1998, Ajamu Baraka was one of 300 human rights workers honored by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
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In 2001, Ajamu Baraka was named "abolitionist of the year" by the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty for his efforts to end the death penalty in the United States.