By Black Headline News
In an effort to directly confront the suppression of voter choice and participation by legacy political parties, independent candidate for president of the United States, Dr. Cornel West, announced the establishment of the Justice For All Party (JFA). The party will primarily be utilized as a grassroots, people-powered vehicle to secure ballot access in specific states. Additionally, JFA will grow into a larger formation that galvanizes people-powered initiatives to promote transformational change beyond the 2024 election cycle.
Dr. West noted, “The announcement of JFA is both a celebration of the power of grassroots organizing, as well as a proclamation to the derelict duopoly that the era of corporate political parties is coming to a precipitous and welcomed end.” He added, “JFA, first and foremost, provides a mechanism for our grassroots campaign to travel a path of least resistance that will require the fewest number of signatures to attain ballot access in states like North Carolina, Florida, and Washington. The campaign acknowledges the unique political climates of each state and respects the decision-making power of the movement in guiding the party's formation. At the same time, we’re establishing a new political and organizing home for candidates running for office at all levels of government, as well as everyday folk ready to take on myriad systems of oppression that prey on the poor and working class nationwide.”
JFA builds off the foundation and tradition of grassroots political parties like the Lowndes County Freedom Organization, founded under the leadership of Ella Baker, Kwame Ture, and John Hulett, and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party under the leadership of Civil Rights titans like Fannie Lou Hamer and the legendary Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Both were formed, in part, to confront racism, classism, and voter suppression of corporate political parties that ignored the immediate needs of poor and working class people and their calls for mutual justice.
“We stand on the shoulders of freedom fighters like Martin Luther King, Joshua Abraham Heshcel, Dorothy Day and so many others who dared to bear witness to an iniquitous political system and directly confront it,” West emphasized. “JFA takes inspiration from these amazing souls and the sage words of Sister Ella Baker who reminded us we are not just fighting for the freedom of Black folk alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit that encompasses all of us; that is the essence of this new political formation that strives to deliver truth, love, and justice for all.”
About Cornel West For President 2024:
Dr. West, affectionately known to many as Brother West, is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary.
Dr. West is the former University Professor at Harvard University, Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and the first Black person to receive a Ph.D. In Philosophy from Princeton University. He has written 20 books and he is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. He will deliver the historic Gifford lectures at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in Spring 2024.
Dr. West enters the 2024 Presidential contest at a time in which he describes a national crisis of moral bankruptcy and spiritual obscenity driven by a derelict duopoly of both major parties that equally places profits over people and the planet. West asserts that running as an Independent candidate affords him the opportunity and duty to deliver policy prescriptions incorporated by and for the people, instead of political parties beholden to corporations and special interest groups who feel no solidarity with poor and working-class people of all races, gender identities, and age groups.
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