Body and Territory: Report on the 2024 Advocacy Tour

A week ago, our 2024 Speaker’s tour through the southeastern United States ended. The focus was the protection and defense of territory by Black communities. It  highlighted Black women’s role in the healing of a land that has endured the violence of armed conflict but continues to live and resist.  

Deyanira Peña Carabalí, a Black maroon woman and social leader from northern Cauca  was entrusted with conveying these lessons. Deyanira, who is a counselor of the Community Council of the Cauca River Basin and a member of the Association of Victims Renacer Siglo XX, the first victims' organization of the Colombian armed conflict in northern Cauca,  shared during these 10 days of the tour not only the important lessons but also the moments of pain and healing that the Black communities of Cauca have experienced.  

After months of planning and organizing, Deyanira was able to visit various places in the southeastern United States including cities  and rural areas in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. There, Deyanira shared about the healing and process of defense of the Cauca territory undertaken by the Black communities of northern Cauca. She also learned about histories of Black communities in the Southeast region of the United States, as well as their historical resistance processes and the intersection of various struggles across the Americas.  

On this Speaker’s tour, which took place between September 14 and 24, Deyanira was accompanied by Jessica García, our co-director of the Colombia Program; Tirzah Villegas, our national director; and Georie Bryant, a board member of Witness for Peace Solidarity Collective. We are deeply grateful to everyone who joined the events and spoke with Deyanira, our colleagues, and everyone who opened their doors to host and accompany us during this tour.  

Lessons  

We thank all those who participated in the tour for sharing their energy and wisdom. In these days of long road trips, meetings, and many other encounters, we would like to highlight some of the key lessons from this tour that we hope will open doors to new proposals:  

• The recognition of collective land rights is an ongoing struggle, not only in Colombia but throughout the Americas, including the United States. Deyanira shared some of the historical victories and recent achievements of the Black people in Colombia, including the passing of Law 70. She also learned that Black communities in the United States still do not have access to collective lands in the same way as their Colombian counterparts.

• Rivers are alive, and as such, they have rights. In one of the most moving moments of the tour, Deyanira shared how, after years of struggle, they achieved recognition of the Cauca River as a victim of the armed conflict.

• The defense of territory is a struggle shared by all the peoples of the Americas. Territory is not just the land. We, as human beings alongside nature, are part of the territory, and that is why we must defend it.

• Women, particularly Black women, play a central role in the healing processes of bodies and territories affected by various forms of violence. With a drum made by her own hands, Deyanira shared the importance of music and shared musical practices in these healing processes.

• The ancestral African legacy that runs through various peoples of the Americas must be protected and upheld. History is part of our present, and we must share it with future generations so they are aware of their history and continue to defend the territory that belongs to them.

  
  

Challenges

Today we are faced with a major environmental crisis due to climate change, as well as the various genocides taking place around the world while being broadcast live. However, despite the prevailing violence and the helplessness in the face of the pain we endure, there still exists resistance on the planet, especially in this little part where we live. 

For this reason and because the defense of life has been a constant for people like Deyanira and so many other women and men we have accompanied in Colombia, Deyanira urged the Black communities we visited to fight for these collective rights. She also invited them to build a great alliance from the south to the north of the Americas.  

During our last visit in Portsmouth, Virginia, where several people wore T-shirts with the Palestinian flag or the kufiya, Deyanira played her drum and invited everyone to chant the famous Colombian slogan, “¡El Pueblo no se rinde, carajo!” or, "The people will not give up!".  

Thank you to all who accompanied us, shared their time, their story, their traditional foods, and their territory with us. The resistance of the people will continue until dignity becomes a habit.  

Partner Organizations and Individuals who supported us in this speaker tour

• Atlanta - Interdenominational Theological Center, BAP Atl, Citywide Alliance, END State Atlanta

• New Economy Coalition

• Geeche Kunda Center

• Winston, NC: Island Culturez, Other Suns, Carter G Woodson School

• Duke Divinity Hispanic House of Studies, Duke Center for Reconciliation, UNC Environmental Justice Action Research Clinic, Dissenters NCSU, Duke Center for Latin American Studies

• Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum 

• Stagville Historic Site

• The Penn Center

• Portsmouth - Symbodied,  Return to the Source, Esther Cooper Jackson Book Study

• Individual Supporters: Chef BJ Dennis,Chef Kweisi Brownlee, Dr. Jamal Toure, Hazel Mack