What's the Movement?

Anarchist People of Color (APOC) is a political tendency made up of collectives and individuals across the United States and elsewhere who discuss and organize around projects of importance to people and communities of color.

APOC came to visibility on February 20, 2001 with the founding by Ernesto Aguilar of an email list and website focused on APOC and various theorists and activists of color. Its purpose is to give radicals of color the tools to agitate among communities of color for anti-authoritarian solutions, and to give those who identified with anti-authoritarian political ideals a space of cultural acceptance and engagement.

APOC activists attracted about 150 attendees to a national APOC conference held in Detroit, Michigan in 2003. Articles on the conference are posted here, here and here. You can also check out APOC: A Brief Summary.

While there was no explicit inspiration for APOC, work by Black anarchists such as Kuwasi Balagoon and Martin Sostre, and especially Ashanti Alston and Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, has been cited as a precursor. In the early 1990s, organizing by the defunct collectives Black Autonomy International (formerly Black Autonomy and previously the Federation of Black Community Partisans) and Black Fist has also been referenced as part of the roots from which APOC was created.

Not only does APOC need you to join the movement, but we need organizers, artists, theorists, activists, performers and everyone to help build the movement from the bottom up.