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Topics
- Activism / Philanthropy / Civic Engagement
- Black Culture
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Hispanic/Latino/Chicano/Xicano
- Politics
- Racial Issues
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Rosa Clemente 2008 US Vice-Presidential Candidate, Journalist, Political Commentator, Scholar-Activist
Rosa Alicia Clemente is a Black-Puerto Rican woman born and raised in the Bronx, NY. She is an organizer, producer, independent journalist and scholar-activist. Rosa was the first ever Afro-Latina women to run for Vice-President of the United States in 2008 on the Green Party ticket. She and her running mate, Cynthia McKinney, were to this date the only women of color ticket in American presidential history.
Rosa’s academic work has been dedicated to researching national liberation struggles inside the United States with a specific focus on The Young Lords Party, The Black Panther Party for self-defense and Black and Brown Liberation Movements of the 60s and 70s, as well as the effects of COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) on such movements. She has also written extensively on politics, the intersection of race, gender and class, Hip-Hop feminisms, media justice, United States Political Prisoners and the end of colonial rule and domination in Puerto Rico.
From Cornell to prisons, Rosa is a leading scholar on the issues of Afro/Black-Latina/Latino/Latinx identity. Rosa is a leading scholar on the issues of Afro-Latinx identity. Her groundbreaking article, Who is Black? published in 2001, was the catalyst for many discussions regarding Blackness in Latinx culture. As an activist with Black Lives Matter, she has continued to address issues of Afro/Black-Latinx Identity and anti-Blackness through her writings.
As an independent journalist she traveled to Vieques, Puerto Rico to document the US Naval withdrawal from the island after 67 years of US military control. She was in New Orleans and Mississippi, as an independent journalist, a mere ten days after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the area. Her on-the-ground reports were distributed to media outlets around the world. Along with Hip Hop artist Talib Kweli and poet Jessica Care Moore she went to Ferguson, Missouri during the uprisings in 2014 over the death of Michael Brown.
In September 2017 days after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico she created of PR (Puerto Rico) On the Map, an independent, unapologetic, Afro-Latinx centered media collective. On January 8th, 2018 Rosa and 6 other women of color organizers joined actresses from Hollywood as part of the Times Up initiative and the #metoo movement. Rosa was the guest of Oscar winner Susan Sarandon and stated that evening, “We are human beings who deserve the right to dignity, whether we are working on a Hollywood set, or working at Wal-Mart, whether we’re a mother in the South Bronx, or a mother in Beverly Hills. So, we are here not only to walk the red carpet we are here to work the red carpet and give voice to the many millions of women who are often marginalized.” Recently Rosa was a producer for the Warner Brother movie Judas and the Black Messiah (release date 2021) produced by Ryan Coogler, Charles King and written and directed by Shaka King. Rosa was instrumental in getting both Fred Hampton Jr. and his mother, Akua Njeri on board. The movie is inspired by true events of the life of Illinois Black Panther Party chairman and eventual assassination carried out by the Chicago police and the FBI on December 4th, 1969 in Chicago. Rosa is currently completing her PH.D at the W.E.B. DuBois Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.