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News :: Civil & Human Rights

El-Amin Greene: Friday Funeral Will Mourn Community Leader

Englewood community activist and passionate advocate of Pan African ideals Irish El-Amin Greene died late last week after a long battle with cancer. His funeral will be held on Friday, January 23 at 2PM at the Rhodes Funeral Home, 1018 W. 79th St. in Chicago. Repast will follow the ceremony at Bethel All Nations Church at 63rd and Justine one block east of Ashland. More info on the repast will be available at the funeral.
Englewood community activist and passionate advocate of Pan African ideals Irish El-Amin Greene died late last week after a long battle with cancer. His funeral will be held on Friday, January 23 at 2PM at the Rhodes Funeral Home, 1018 W. 79th St. in Chicago. Repast will follow the ceremony at Bethel All Nations Church at 63rd and Justine one block east of Ashland. More info on the repast will be available at the funeral.

Greene was the founder of the Nkrumah-Washington Community Learning Center in Chicago's Englewood community, created in 1988 with the mission to educate minority students displaced from the standard school system because of social disadvantages and economic barriers. The project adopted the motto "WE EDUCATE TO LIBERATE", and NWCLC implemented literacy, general education, and adult basic education programs as a catalyst to build a sense of community, self-worth, social consciousness and hope among student-residents. Over time, the center expanded the scope of its services in an effort to provide clients with the necessary resources to empower themselves, including a "Rites of Passage" program for young women, a "Manhood Development" program for teenage boys, and a substance abuse program that provided clients with shelter and food, as well as emotional and legal support, educational and career development assistance, health and fitness training, family planning, and financial management.

Greene was a key organizer of 1995's gang summit, and was well known among street organizations as a peacemaker of passion and principle. He also worked extensively with fellow former inmates, in arenas that ranged from developing life skills to building grassroots community projects. He was deeply committed to the ideals of progressive Pan Africanism, and hailed among his most powerful influences Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of the first Black African country to shake off the chains of colonial rule. Greene shared with Nkrumah and his comrades a fundamental opposition to predatory capitalism and Western corporate domination of Africa's resources and peoples, and incorporated this worldview into his work with oppressed people of color in Chicago, often drawing parallels between disinvestment, economic exploitation and police repression in Englewood with similar patterns in countries in the African homeland. The police were not unhappy to comport to the analysis; the center was raided by the cops more than once while holding social or political gatherings.

Greene was 46 at the time of his death. He leaves behind his companion Delphia "Sweetie" Ellis, her son Kevon, his children, and a large extended family.
 
 

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