Ms Coumba Toure, Leader, Farafina-The Blank Link Tour, has said that the objective of the tour was to reclaim and rebuild a grassroots peoples’ solidarity movement linking Africa and the USA.
She said this in a statement by Ms Ann Lorna, Communication and Media Outreach Consultant, African Rising, a PAN-African Movement on Sunday in Abuja.
Toure explained that the tour was a walk down history to document stories of connections and solidarity between Africans on the continent and Africans in the Diaspora, particularly in the United States.
She said the tour which commenced on March 1, in Selma Alabama, would end on March 20, in New York after a stop over in St. Francisco, California, Tenesse, Gastonia, Oakland, California and Washington DC.
Toure said the tour aimed to strengthen solidarity between Africa and the United States.
She added that while the classic period of decolonisation featured resistance against colonialism and explicit white supremacy, global issues demanded that we focused on confronting common global issues.
She noted that Africans on the continent and in the Diaspora could and must take the lead both for their own sake and for the future of the human race and the planet.
“Young people, women and artists making use of new technologies and innovative pathways for radical change must build on the work of earlier generations and mobilise broad inter-generational and transnational linkages.
“The first step is dialogue which must be in person as well as through virtual communication channels,’’ she said.
Toure, added that it was important to make a connection between Africans on the continent and Africans in the Diaspora.
According to her, this is especially because we share the same type of struggles against white supremacy and exportation and the dismissal of our lives.
She stressed that more connections was needed to document our common historical heritage, even more today for our future generation.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Toure is a Pan-Africanist, feminist and a children’s book writer and storyteller (NAN)
