Community group honors women organizers

Operation POWER (People Organizing and Working for Empowerment and Respect), a Black grassroots activist organization, held a special International Women’s Day forum March 20 at the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn, N.Y. March 8 marked the 100th anniversary of the founding of IWD.

Inez Barron, Monica Moorehead, Gwen Debrow, Collette Pean, New York City Councilperson Charles Barron and Paul Washington, former aide to Charles Barron. Photo: Daniel K. Osei

The program organizers presented awards to three women organizers for “years of dedication and activism” — Pam Africa of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Collette Pean of the December 12 Movement and Monica Moorehead of Workers World Party. Gwen Debrow from the New York Free Mumia Coalition accepted the award on behalf of Pam Africa.

Debrow spoke about an important mobilization where activists will be traveling to Washington, D.C., on April 26 to demand that the U.S. Department of Justice grant a civil rights investigation on behalf of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal, a victim of racist and prosecutorial abuse, is once again facing the real threat of being executed.

Pean spoke on the ongoing efforts by the Brooklyn-based D12 Movement to assist the Haitian people still recovering from the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake. Pean was born in Haiti before her family moved to the U.S. when she was a toddler.

Moorehead dedicated her award to two of her mentors who have passed away — Dorothy Ballan, a founding member of WWP, and Consuela Lee, Moorehead’s mother, who was a jazz musician and executive director of the Spring Tree/Snow Hill Institute for the Performing Arts. Moorehead invited the audience to attend the March 27 “Stop the Violence Against Women” march and rally in Manhattan.

The program was chaired by New York State Assemblyperson Inez Barron. Brenda Stokely from the Million Worker March Movement also made remarks.