Saturday April 10th, 2010 the St. Louis chapter of the National Black United Front (NBUF) convened its first "Black Unity Weekend." The purpose of the weekend was to unify the Black community of St. Louis and gain support around the following issues: community empowerment, operational unity, the prison industrial complex and the mass incarceration of Afrikans in America. Participants included Bertha Gilkey-Bond - Chairwoman of Black Alliance for Educational Options, Vera Thomas - New Life Victory Church and multimedia keynote presentation delivered by Kofi Taharka National Chairperson of NBUF. The overall message of all the speakers was that it was time to move from theory into practice.
Directly following the presentations, was an impactful community outreach and clean up. Leading by example, members of the National Black United Front went out into the neighborhoods of North St. Louis block by block, and began to organize and show the people how it could elevate the quality of the community through self-determination. NBUF members collected twenty bags of trash as it cleaned up a community park/basket ball court and made it safe for children in the neighborhood to play. During the community
clean up, residents of the community were engaged and educated on the need to become part of a liberation organization.The event was an overall success. Bringing together Black People of all ages, cultural and economic backgrounds for a common cause is essentially what the event and NBUF is about.
