Greetings To African Deligates African Union Meeting in Atlanta

October 13, 2007

I am filled with a sense of awe as I welcome you to the city of Atlanta. We have long awaited this day when African people from across the world will begin to unify. This is no happenstance, but an act of God Almighty, who in His own time and way is making all things new.

Less we forget almost five centuries ago the Peculiar Institution of slavery was instituted. We endured the Middle Passage, over 250 years of “chattel slavery,” 100 years of Jim Crow, the unleashing of dogs on our children’s as we boldly stood to secure our “civil rights” in these United States. We well remember the dark days of colonialism when our Mother Continent was under the domination of cruel inhumane western system that hoarded the natural resources of Africa while diminishing the value of the most important resource, the people of Africa.

Let us make no mistake, we must face the history of the past five centuries, and endeavor that we will together, begin a new day as we embark upon this 21 century, the century for African reunification. As in ages past, we wish no ill will toward any human kind, but we are determined to take full charge of our destiny!

Our dialogue must be open, frank and transparent. Africa is shackled with an unjust debt to the World Bank! Every African baby owes the World Bank $200.00 at birth. The International Monetary Funds insistence on privatization of the natural resources must be challenged. The World Trade Organization has virtually excluded the world’s finest products from the marketplace of the world. It is no longer acceptable that the cotton of Mali cannot reach market due to the fact that 7 of every 10 bales of cotton grown in the US is “dumped on the world market suppressing the prices of the product that made “cotton king” here in Georgia based on over 250 years of free labor.

At the end of this conference it is my prayer that we will lay a framework that will create hope for the people of Africa both in our homeland and those of us that hover on the margins of society in the western world.

God bless each of you to the end that we will begin to create a more equitable world beginning here in Atlanta.

Best Wishes,


Joe Beasley