A Plea from Amiri Baraka

Ras Baraka Must Be Reelected

in the June 13 Run-Off Election

By waiting till day last to tell the world he was leaving the battlefield, Sharpe James left a lot of people hanging. Some people say that it was the Bush Feds who told Sharpe that if he ran they would run him in, for whatever. Others say it had to do with the sudden firing of Black police director Rankin, and replacing him with Ambrose, from the family that owns the infamous C&J Towing Company.

The fact that the courts recently ordered James to pay Rankin around 400,000 for damages seems to make the last claim close. The courts have also ordered the Newark City Council to stop “the fire sale” as the New York Times calls selling off Newark Land for about 4$ an acre. The Times also said that if the City Council had followed Ras Baraka’s earlier proposed resolution for a Moratorium on the operation they could not be accused of impropriety.  But, so be it!

Anyway, now Corey Booker has won the May 9 election and brought in three of his “team”. The Booker T’s, if you will. And that’s not an empty phrase. Booker is looking to sweep the entire city with his Booker T. But in most of the races there is a June 13, 06 Run-Off Election.

Ras Baraka finished 3rd among 12 Council At Large Candidates. Now there are only 8. Since none of the candidates got  50% plus l of the total votes a state law aimed at eliminating young and progressive candidates calls for a run off.

Ras Baraka represents the only really grass roots candidate left standing. For 12 years he has “labored in the vineyards” of Newark politics, the last four as Deputy Mayor as well as Vice Principal of Weequahic High School, the largest in Newark. He also affected a truce between sets of the Bloods and Crips youth organizations and was voted the Urban League “Man of the Year” in 2004.

The recent scam in which the Star Liar (Ledger) claims that Booker has been threatened with assassination (by the Bloods) is a double dose of poison to come. First it shows what Booker intends for our youth. It seems obvious that Booker’s pr people have conjured up this phoney threat to create a sensation throughout the city (and on the same day his new Booker T literature reached Newark Citizens)!  This is a way of re-hyping his Booker T’s and drawing sympathy from the ingenuous!

Even worse, as one observer pointed out, it now prepares his “Newark Citizens must be safe” anti crime campaign placing the blame on the heads of Newark’s youth. Remember Corey Booker is a man who says he admires Rudy Giuliani and now NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg.

THESE ARE SOME OF THE REASONS THAT IT IS ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL THAT RAS BARAKA WIN RE-ELECTION IN THE JUNE 13 RUN-OFF ELECTION.

RAS NEEDS MONEY AND HE NEEDS ELECTION DAY VOLUNTEERS. CALL 973  623-9009 or send Checks to

COMMITTEE TO ELECT RAS BARAKA / BOX 1207 NEWARK ,NJ , 07101                                                          

Amiri Baraka   6/8/06 Amirib@aol.com

posted 9 June 2006