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| - The members of the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance (PASCA) are pleased to invite you to PNC Park on September 5, 2010, to tell the story of our dear friend and colleague Dennis Brutus, who died in December of 2009. An activist, scholar, educator, and poet, Dennis was one of two expatriates of South Africa (also known as ) File:Flag of South Africa.svg, along with Mongezi Nkomo, who co-founded Azania Heritage International and the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance. They infused us with the ideas of Black Consciousness and our insistence that our sports teams can be leveraged to achieve social equity.
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| - The members of the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance (PASCA) are pleased to invite you to PNC Park on September 5, 2010, to tell the story of our dear friend and colleague Dennis Brutus, who died in December of 2009. An activist, scholar, educator, and poet, Dennis was one of two expatriates of South Africa (also known as ) File:Flag of South Africa.svg, along with Mongezi Nkomo, who co-founded Azania Heritage International and the Pittsburgh Anti Sweatshop Community Alliance. They infused us with the ideas of Black Consciousness and our insistence that our sports teams can be leveraged to achieve social equity. We should all learn and share and continue to remind ourselves of Dennis’s life story and accomplishments. On April 28, 2010, at the August Wilson Center we hosted the Bangladesh Center for Workers Solidarity. Together, we discussed the legacy of Dennis Brutus and how the human rights community in Pittsburgh contributed to the dismantling of Apartheid. We set goals aimed to reinvigorate our memory of Dennis’s life and our continuing activism. These goals are to: " Convince the August Wilson Center Board of Directors to add a permanent exhibit recalling Dennis Brutus’s contributions." Integrate Dennis’s Olympic story into Pittsburgh’s sports narrative, at the Heinz History Center, and at the Pittsburgh International Airport, for example. Consciousness and pursuit of justice in sports were “shots heard around the world!” Here are some examples of how you might tell the Dennis Brutus story at PNC Park: In Apartheid South Africa: Black, Colored, Indian, and White. Dennis organized athletic events, in violation of Apartheid laws, between them. At these athletic events, he worked the crowds, talking about how Blacks, Coloreds, and Indians were arbitrary divisions created by the White supremacist regime to divide the masses of South Africans. He explained how the people could be united by the ideology of Black Consciousness. It was very clear that, although the Whites were only a small portion of the South African population, their weapons and control of the state made it impossible for them to be overthrown without pressure from outside of South Africa. Dennis began a letter writing campaign to pressure the International Olympic Committee to ban South Africa (also known as ) File:Flag of South Africa.svg from the Olympics. He was shot and then jailed for these activities. Thousands of Pittsburghers participated in the campaign against Apartheid. They did so by collecting used clothes, inviting African National Congress representatives to speak, and protesting against the sale of South African gold currency in downtown Pittsburgh. They convinced the University of Pittsburgh to stop investing in South Africa. The end of Apartheid demonstrated to us that we can help stop global injustices and that we can WIN. Dennis Brutus’s presence in Pittsburgh and participation in our ongoing solidarity efforts inspire us to push the limits and give us a mandate to lead by example. Check the Thomas Merton Center’s eblasts or the announcements on Dennis Brutus monument--an aluminum leaf on the relocated Forbes Field wall behind the Bill Mazeroski statue--and tell the Dennis Brutus story to your companions. You can learn more about Dennis Brutus by watching “Let’s Talk About Sweatshops at PNC Park” on PCTV, Comcast channel 21 or Verizon’s 47.
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