More than 50 years after the formation of the Organization of African States, known today as the African Union, two important questions about the state of the project that’s African Liberation remained to be answered: 1.) What is African Liberation? and 2.) How far along are we as African people in realizing this goal?

During the May installment of the AllEyesOnDC news and artist showcase at Sankofa Video Books & Café, We set out to answer these questions.

In essence, defining African Liberation and making an honest assessment of our situation globally should be a perpetual process, especially for a group of people living in a world that propagandizes anti-Blackness in all forms of the mainstream media. Our failure to define and measure African Liberation so that it benefits us, and solely us, will ensure that outside actors, European and traitorous African alike will never be able to consolidate power and work against the interests of working class Africans across the world.

For a new generation of freedom fighters, that means including women and children in the equation. Our pivot away from a male-centered examination of our Homeland and other communities populated by people of African descent allows us to create solutions that are more wholistic and reflective of Maatic, matriarchal values imparted upon us before the European touched the African continent.

In comes in Mama Hasinatu Camara, elder freedom fighter and confidant of Kwame Ture, and Yejide Orunmila, president of African National Women’s Organization, an entity formed to address the oppression that African women face globally as a result of colonialism. Both women defined African Liberation and assessed our current situation globally. You can definitely watch the video for yourself, but in short understand that African Liberation, according to these women, mean fully and wholistically embracing a way of life in which sexism and capitalism no longer exists.