In April 2022, the New Black Nationalist Network (NBN) launched its project to create a governance model for a future majority-Black-led nation-state on North America's continental land mass.
As an independent thought group of vision holders, NBN was formed in 2018, to provision the Black Nationalist movement with analytical and theoretical products. While NBN resources the Black diaspora with news and thought documents, our circulating concern supports the founding of a sovereign Black nation-state and residual black polities within American Empire's metropole.
Today, New Black Nationalists are pleased to announce on June 19, 2024, the release of the Vesey Republic government model for a future Black nation-state. The release is in conjunction with the 158th observance of the Juneteenth celebrations.
Named to honor Denmark Vesey, the former slave who planned the most extensive slave rebellion in American history in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, NBN will propose the creation of the Vesey Republic Estate Parliament system of government.
Vesey's Estate Parliamentary model affects a radical departure from America's dysfunctional presidential-based constitutional republic system and modification of the United Kingdom's Westminster system.
Vesey's Estate Parliamentary system creates a unicameral and unilateral parliamentary republic that fuses legislative, executive, and judicial functions in one governing body. The First Prime Minister as the leader of the majority party or head of the majority coalition is both the head of state and government. There is no formal separation of powers or second legislative. As proposed, the Vesey Republic is a unitary state, with one majority Women-Led Autonomous Region.
The proposed Vesey Republic governance model, its political project, and its theory of governance signal the arrival of the Fourth Wave of historical Black Nationalist movements. New Black Nationalists' genealogy identifies the three previous waves as follows.
1st Wave - 1850s-60s: Martin Delaney's praxis and articulation of Black self-determination in his publication of The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (1852).
2nd Wave - 1919-1928: The post-First World War and Russian Revolution era. The African Blood Brotherhood and Harry Haywood's theory of the Black nation-state and designated homeland in the Black Belt South was adopted by the 6th Comintern in 1928 in Moscow.
3rd Wave - 1962-1969: The evolutionary collaboration of Max Stamford (Revolutionary Action Movement), Malcolm X, Imari and Gaidi Obadele, Queen Mother Moore, Betty Shabazz, and Robert Williams to form the Provisional Government-Republic of New Afrika in 1968 in Detroit.
The 4th Wave is marked by Black Nationalists' response to American Empire's precipitous decline and rising authoritarianism that threatens to collapse the federal government. The election of an authoritarian white nationalist president in 2016, and the subsequent armed January 6, Barristers Coup at the U.S. Capital to seize power ushered in a new pre-revolutionary period.
A substantial minority of Americans, including the Republican Party, no longer considered elections as a reliable or legitimate means to democratically select the countries' political leadership. The new order of the day is the partisan rejection of election results won by the adversary party, fomenting armed insurrection against the certified winners, and race-based replacement theory to substitute civil war and secession as legitimate remedies to resolve political differences.
Legally, America's "constitutional" republic is on the precipice of reverting to Europe's medieval "Trial by Battle," doctrine. The doctrine first introduced during the Norman's 1066 invasion of England asserts that the outcome of war rather than the rule of law determines the legitimacy of state sovereignty. In the case of the Civil War, the Union’s military victory proved secession was illegal. Desperate to ensure the Union's battlefield victory wasn't the last word on the legitimacy of secession, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was charged with treason by federal authorities. But he was never prosecuted. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salman Chase later presided over the 1869 Texas v. White case and famously applied some creative legal maneuvering to rule that Texas never ceased being a state during the Civil War because secession was illegal. The case created more questions than it provided answers on the illegality of secession.
In today's threat environment marked by the Civil War's historical precedents, it would be irresponsible for Black Nationalists not to offer the Black Commons an alternative path to Democrat'’ corporately managed sham democracy and Donald Trump's attempt to impose an authoritarian American Apartheid system on the country by any means necessary.
Moreover, Black Nationalists are obligated to provide the Black Commons with analysis, recommendations, and theoretical tools to navigate the impending constitutional crises, a possible government collapse, and the breakup of the country into a concert of sovereign states. Not to do so rejects the historical precedents set by free and enslaved Blacks during the 1776 Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
During those existential conflicts, some cohorts of Blacks fought on the side of the U.S. Continentals. Others shouldered arms with the British Redcoats to win their freedom and safe passage to Canada, Trinidad, London, and Sierra Leone to establish free communities and nation-states.
For all these reasons, developing a plan for governing a future Black nation-state is both relevant and urgent. The elections are eight months away. Trump's MAGA forces have been planning and preparing for the past three years.
The Vesey Republic's Estate Parliamentary model will spell out the essential elements of the new governing model.
-- The distribution of government powers
-- The relationship of government institutions to each other
-- The limit on the government's powers
-- The rights of citizens and residents of the Women-Led Autonomous Region
-- The role of ballot initiatives and referenda
On Juneteenth 2024, New Black Nationalists will present its final draft of four foundational documents to establish a government structure of a future Black nation-state. These documents have been previewed over the past year. They have been withdrawn from the site and will be reposted on Saturday, June 8, 2024, in advance of the Juneteenth 2024 observance.
In the interim period, the following two documents will remain accessible on the site. We encourage our visitors to review them.
What New Black Nationalists Believe
Governance Theory of Elasticity
Beyond enumerating the articles and principles comprising the fundamental law controlling the exercise of political power and the rights of its citizens, New Black Nationalists must articulate a theory of the Vesey Republic's governance model.
What principles will guide the Vesey Republic and serve as the foundation to develop a sense of national purpose and identity? What social policies and public goods will be derived from Vesey's government for individuals, families, and communities? What considerations will factor into the Vesey Republic's national defense and national security portfolio?
From now until Juneteenth and beyond, New Black Nationalists will continue to provide commentary and analysis on the vital issues raised by the project to create a Black nation-state. On March 1, 2024, we will begin posting all discussion and thought documents on these subjects on the Vesey Republic of Letters page.
These questions and others speak directly to our vision of who we are, what we aspire to be, where we want to travel, and what the destination of our journey looks like. The Black Commons are deserving of the most visionary, energetic, and serviceable program to build a new majority Black-led republic and non-heteropatriarchal nation-state.