Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together. (Wikipedia)

Brothers and Sisters,

We were given this land to take care of it, help heal it when sick, enjoy its riches and glories. Live in the colors of nature. Eat when need to be fed of what is provided by the earth. Never taking to much! Always we are to replenish. We have destroyed this land and become consumed with materialism. We take and take. No one is listening to the cries of mother earth. We are killing ourselves, and not giving our children a future. I want to grow old. I want my great-grandchildren to have a future. We profit from local businesses, shop at local farms and support and replenish the trees, grow forests, walk the dirt roads and when we start thinking about what we cannot carry when die. We need to value and asses truth and how will we respond to our creator. We need to think about our creator, whoever you believe in, and think about the responsibility we were given and how much we are giving back. When being asked how have we taken care of the earth? How did we enjoy our journey? I fear what our answers will be. Taking care of nature is not our only concern, but how we have taken care of one another. How we respond to the natural crisis, are we feeding the poor? Why are children dying? Why do we murder one another? Why are pairs of sneakers more important than the home we live in? Why have we glorified one race and condemned another? You are my brother. You are my sister. Judgment must go. Hatred needs to cease. We need true love, authentic love; AGAPE love. We need to profit from one another. We need to support our dreams and goals. Education should be free! I could go on for days, but I’ll stop here. Ujamaa demands that we become our own entrepreneurs, spread money in the community and not for corporate businesses. We profit locally includes farming being organic. Never taking to much that we cannot give back. We have one earth and we are one race.

2019 let’s do better!

Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.

United we stand

Divided we fall

Our historical and ancestral African community

Cried together

Ate together

Worshipped together

Laughed together

Watched children for one another

Not one was a stranger, and everyone is family

No matter the texture of your hair

No matter how light or dark your skin

No matter level of intelligence

We stood and we stand together

Our Black lives mattered before it became a statement

We were proud of our roots

The curve of our hips

The broadness of our back

Together we were

Together we are

When one succeeds, we all succeed!

No one is greater than another

We aim to become a being of wisdom

The next one to tell the littles our history

How we fought the good fight

How we persevered and sacrificed

I am proud of being Black.

I am proud of my curly afro

Proud of my locs

Thick thighs

Multi complexion

Proud of those who went before me

I am the answered prayer of a slave

I am FREEDOM

I am INTEGRITY

I am GRACE

I am who I say I am

I am BLACK

I am TRANS

I am GAY

I am SMART

I am a fighter

Our dreams will be conquered

We History’s maker

And, World Changers!

Until I return to dust

I rise!

We Rise

I am not one without the other

United We Stand

Divided We Fall