Ajamu Baraka

[7] As the Southern Regional Director of Amnesty International USA Baraka was instrumental in developing the organization's 1998 campaign to expose human rights violations in the United States.

[8] 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.

[8] In 2008, 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.

They felt the US government's reports did not adequately address racial profiling, displacement from Hurricane Katrina, and land rights for the Western Shoshone, among other issues.

[10] In an interview shortly afterward, Baraka said that he and Stein were "in discussions with our legal team about how we're going to deal with this" and described his action as an act of resistance against "corporate America and the colonial state.

"[13] Writings by Baraka have appeared in Black Agenda Report, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Pambazuka News, CounterPunch, and other media outlets.

[14] In October 2014, Baraka traveled to the Palestinian territories as a member of the African Heritage Delegation organized by the Interfaith Peace-Builders group.

[15] After its visit, the delegation issued six "findings and demands" signed by the sixteen members, including Baraka: specifically, they called the expansion of Israeli settlements "ethnic cleansing and 21st century colonialism"; called for an end to U.S. aid to Israel; accused Israel of apartheid; and praised the "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" (B.D.S.)

"[19] In the interview, he suggested that control of natural resources, such as the proposed Qatar-Turkey and Iran-Iraq-Syria natural gas pipelines, is one of the underlying reasons for U.S. and Turkish interests in the region: These are not just geopolitical fights based on principle, but these fights are based on real material realities, real material advantages.

[22] In a 2014 article, he wrote that the idea of Assad's illegitimacy had been "carefully cultivated by Western state propagandists and dutifully disseminated by their auxiliaries in the corporate media.

"[29] Baraka also claimed that observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe were "sent in basically as spies who showed up on the scene to quote-unquote 'monitor'.

"[32] Baraka also stated that while he was "outraged" by the kidnapping, he was also suspicious of U.S. humanitarian concerns in the region: "U.S. policymakers don't give a damn about the schoolgirls in Nigeria because their real objective is to use the threat of Boko Haram in the northern part of the country to justify the real goal of occupying the oil fields in the south and to block the Chinese in Nigeria.

[33] Baraka's "Je suis Charlie" article was republished in January 2016 in an anthology about the November 2015 Paris attacks, titled ANOTHER French False Flag?

... By appealing to African Americans, the group in the country most consistently opposed to the death penalty, state propagandists saw this as a perfect opportunity to undermine opposition to capital punishment and facilitate the process of psychological incorporation.

"[39] In an October 2016 interview with The Detroit News, Baraka described Obama as a "moral disaster" and one of "the worst things that has happened to African-American people".

[54] In his acceptance speech, Baraka said that he joined the Green Party effort to "build a multinational movement here in this country based on the needs and the aspirations of working people".

Baraka (left) with other recipients of the Vicki Sexual Freedom Award , 2011
Ajamu Baraka
Baraka and Stein, August 2016
The US Peace Prize plaque awarded to Baraka in 2019