LIBERATION LAB!
5th Annual May Day Free University with Rename&Reclaim /
5to Primero de Mayo de la Universidad Libre con Renombrar y Reclamar
Saturday, April 30th, 11:30am-5pm
Washington Square Park, Mannahatta, NYC

Contribute a workshop/teach-in/performance + volunteer: goo.gl/3KiLWf

RSVP/share: Facebook.com/events/1104928136231822

Free University-NYC, in collaboration with Rename&Reclaim, will host an afternoon of free social justice education – including workshops, teach-ins, performances, and interactive play – as part of the May Day 2016 weekend. Come celebrate and learn from each other. Uncover radical histories of the Village and New York City. Collaborate with social movements for labor, migration, and care across all ethnicities and races.

ANTICIPATED THEMES
***Know Your Histories:
– African, African American, Asian, Caribbean, Chicanx, European, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Native American, and Pacific Islander histories and presences in Washington Square Park, the Village, and NYC.
– People’s histories of May Day, labor, unions, wildcats, and workers’ centers.
– Umbra, the Beat Generation, and the origins of the Black Arts Movement and white countercultures in the Village.
– East Village origins of the Young Lords and Nuyorican Poetics.

***Know Your Presence:
– #BlackLivesMatter, #ICEFreeNYC, #AsiansforBlackLives, #MuslimsforBlackLives, #ShowingUpforRacialJustice, #RapeFreeNYC, #ShutDownRikers, #FreeCUNY, — building bridges to liberation.
– Prisons, NYPD / ICE, and the law (e.g., “know your rights,” protection from neighborhood raids, copwatch 101, prisoners solidarity).
– Race and migration struggles amidst election contests between Clinton, Cruz, Sanders, Stein, and Trump.
– Resisting gentrification and evictions under de Blasio’s new housing policy.
– Student and faculty strikes from Chicago to France to NYC to Puerto Rico.

***Cultures of Resistance:
– Poetry, literature, and music from African, African American, Asian, Caribbean, Chicanx, European, Latin American, Middle Eastern, Native American, and Pacific Islander presences in the Village and May Day celebrations.

 

The Free University of New York City is an experiment in radical community education and an attempt to create education as it ought to be, building on the historic tradition of movement freedom schools. First conceived as a form of educational strike in the run up to May Day, 2012, Free University-NYC has since organized over 20 events of free crowd-sourced education in community centers, museums, parks, and subway stations in New York City. We recognize that the current system of higher learning is unequal and unsustainable, while vast knowledges across communities are hidden and undervalued. With tuition increasing at public and private colleges, the exploitation of adjunct labor, and the larger amounts of debt that students are expected to take on, university education becomes a rarefied commodity only available to the few. As a study/action alternative, we welcome diverse networks of political education to learn, grow, and transform society together.
Contact: FreeUniversityNYC.org + FreeUniversityNYC@gmail.com + Facebook.com/FreeUniversityNYC + @FreeUnivNYC

Rename&Reclaim is a group that was born out of the desire to keep the conversation around #BlackLivesMatter alive in the Village, Manhattan. Beginning in Fall 2015 with “Critical Tactics Lab” dialogues at New York University, the group began gathering to advance the goals of critical awareness and momentum that #BlackLivesMatter achieved. Conversations led to the importance of “renaming” as a part of the process to bring awareness, overcome erasures, and honor the role that African Americans have played to intellectually, physically, and spiritually construct the city as it is today. In addition, we urge collective acts of uncovering, sharing, and “reclaiming” many more of these hidden histories of Washington Square Park, downtown Manhattan, and across New York City. These histories form a context against which white settler-colonial supremacy in NYC can be made visible and interrupted.
Contact: RenameandReclaim@gmail.com + @Rename_Reclaim