Lenora Fulani: Biography from Answers.com

psychologist; party leader; therapist

Personal Information

Born Lenora Branch on April 25, 1950, in Chester, PA; daughter of Charles (a railroad worker) and Pearl Branch (a licensed practical nurse); changed name to Lenora Branch Fulani, 1973; divorced; children: Ainka (daughter) and Amani (son).
Education: Hofstra University, B.A.; Columbia University Teachers College, M.A.; City University of New York, Graduate Center, Ph.D.; New York Institute for Social Therapy and Research, post-graduate training in social therapy.
Memberships: Transnational Radical Party, General Council; Committee for a Unified Independent Party, Chair; Patriot Party, co-founder, 1994.

Career

East Side Center for Short Term Psychotherapy, New York City, psychotherapist; National Alliance Party, founder, presidential candidate, 1988 and 1992; Independent Black Leadership in America, Castillo International, contributor, 1990; "This Way for Black Empowerment" newspaper column, columnist; All-Stars Talent Show Network, founder; "Fulani!," television show, host.

Life's Work

For more than 20 years, Dr. Lenora Branch Fulani has established herself as one of the leading voices in national independent politics and working class advocacy. She is a community organizer against discrimination and violence. She is the first woman and first African American to have appeared as a presidential candidate on all U.S. ballots. She also practices social therapy in order to make a difference on an individual level.

Fulani was one of the founders of the Barbara Taylor school in New York City. This independent school adopted the social development model first outlined by Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotski {tag about social development model?}. She is a main supporter of the Castillo Cultural Center in Manhattan, founded in 1984, which supports multicultural art and theater. Fulani is the founder and co- producer of the "All Stars Talent Show Network," an anti-violence television program for urban children in the United States.

Lenora Fulani was born just outside of Philadelphia in the working class city of Chester, Pennsylvania. She spent her first 18 years in Chester progressing through the public school system and attending church. According to an article published in Ms. Black Shopper International Network, Fulani first became interested in changing the world at the age of 12, when her father, Charles Branch, "died of a seizure after her family could not get an ambulance to come into their neighborhood in Chester." Even at such a young age, she was aware that the economic considerations of others had an effect on the health and well-being of African Americans.

In her book, The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992, Fulani explained that the firing of her church's choir director also convinced her to assist people whom she terms "disenfranchised." "Everybody sort of knew [the choir director] was gay, but nobody said anything about it until they decided to replace him so they could do something else with his salary line. They used his homosexuality as an excuse to get rid of him." The injustice of the situation enraged the young Fulani so much that she advocated his retention, even against the urging of her mother to simply participate in "`prayer meetings ... like everyone else.'"

Another example of Fulani's early activism was related in the Philadelphia Inquirer Daily Magazine. "As a senior at predominantly black Chester High in 1968, she [threatened] to organize a walkout if her class were forced to integrate its all black class cabinet, the first in the school's history. The administration backed down." Fulani's cousin, Yvonne Mann, was quoted as saying in the article: "All her life she knew she was going somewhere.... She thought about `when,' not `if.'"

Fulani told of her time at Hofstra University in The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992 as one of growth. While there she learned about her own prejudices and how to overcome them. She noticed that women and their contributions to society and the civil rights movement remained in the shadows of men. Fulani did not enjoy this unequal treatment, but she was unsure about what she could do to change anything as prevalent as sexism.

During the early 1970s Fulani married. The two children from this relationship--a daughter, Ainka, and a son, Amani--received the majority Fulani's attention while she also worked to support the family and complete her various degrees. As she acknowledged in her book, the effort was taxing, but it made her stronger. The hard work and desire for change lead Fulani in new directions.

Fulani began exploring activism and social change in the 1970s. While completing her doctorate work and working at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, she attended a therapy group run by Dr. Fred Newman, a psychologist who practices what he calls social therapy. The group helped her eradicate her prejudices against different kinds of people. She wrote in The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992 that "what I had learned about [people different from myself] was a pile of bull and very hurtful. I worked aggressively to do something about that." With Dr. Newman's help, she recognized that she had been raised with "certain expressions [and] attitudes" that were unfair assessments of people she did not know. "[Prejudices are] so deeply embedded in how you think that they make you insensitive and hurtful even to people you love very much. I worked hard in that group to provide leadership around these issues...."

Dr. Newman has continued to play an important role in Fulani's life outside of the therapy group by serving as campaign manager during most of her political campaigns. As Fulani admitted in her book, she consults Newman about her most pressing concerns because he shares Fulani's hope of improving the lot of disenfranchised people through political means.

After finishing her doctoral work, Fulani chose to remain with the New York Institute for Social Therapy and Research. She began her therapy practice working with people in Harlem. Fulani also founded a political party known as the National Alliance Party (NAP) in order to effect political change without resorting to the policies of the Republican or Democratic parties. As an independent party, she looked for support wherever she could find it, but the majority of NAP's original followers were women and African Americans from Fulani's work place and the local community.

As Fulani's and others' political starting point, the NAP described itself, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, as "black-led, multiracial, pro-gay, and pro-socialist." Over the years Fulani often served the party as its standard bearer in elections. She campaigned for lieutenant governor of New York in 1982, mayor of New York City in 1985, governor of New York in 1986 and 1990, and president of the United States in 1988 and 1992. In her run for the presidency, she distinguished herself by becoming the first woman and the first African American to qualify for the ballot in all 50 states. She also became the first woman to qualify for federal primary matching funds during her 1992 bid. In fact, she was so successful in 1992 that she garnered more in matching funds than mainstream candidates Jerry Brown and Douglas Wilder.

Fulani's brand of independent politics has involved many tactics. She has led drives for voter registration. She has initiated lawsuits to open up ballot access to independent parties. Fulani has fought to be included in debates with major candidates on the state and national levels. She gained much attention in the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primary by fighting for the inclusion of Larry Agran and Eugene McCarthy {tag} in the Democratic Party debates, so that they could provide a more independent voice to the event. She later led Agran and McCarthy's fight to be included on the New York primary ballot.

During her bids for public office, Fulani received endorsements from disparate people and groups. One of her supporters over the years has been the controversial minister Louis Farrakhan. Fulani has endured a great deal of criticism from more mainstream politicians because she has refused to denounce Farrakhan. Fulani stated in The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992, however, that "black leaders--like white leaders--have the right to have differences without having to repudiate each other." She also received a great deal of bad publicity for her support of gay rights.

Fulani insists, though, that it is possible to derive support from these very different sectors of the country and build a movement that is unified in its thinking. In her run for the Democratic party's nomination for governor of New York in 1994, she showed this statement to be true by collecting 21 percent of the total vote in the primary elections. She gathered more than 30 percent of the vote in many black majority areas and more than 40 percent of the vote in the six northern New York counties where industrialist Ross Perot scored very high percentages of the vote in the 1992 presidential election.

In addition to her grassroots runs for political office, Fulani has often taken to the streets to push for action issues or solve problems of the working class. She has played a major role in attempting to serve justice in the rape case of 15-year-old Tawana Brawley in which she originally implicated three white men, was defended by black social activist Al Sharpton, but eventually admitted that she fabricated the story. Fulani organized marches, again with Reverend Al Sharpton, in regards to the Howard Beach, New York, incident in which three black men with car problems were severely beaten, one fatally, by whites in a white neighborhood for just being there. Fulani took to the streets for more than 25 marches through the the predominantly white Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, in which Yusuf Hawkins, a black youth, was killed. She spent several hours in the streets of the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn "helping to avert a bloodbath [between African American and Jewish residents] in the wake of the death of Gavin Cato [a black child run over by a car]," according to Ms. Black Shopper. This event led to her endorsement in the 1990 gubernatorial race by the Guardian Association of the New York City Police Department.

Fulani continues her work with what she calls "the overtaxed and under served population" in her political activities, said her spokesperson Madelyn Chapman. In 1994, Fulani assisted in forming a unified front of the disenfranchised and other independent voters who supported the presidential campaign of Ross Perot. At a meeting that year of the Federation of Independent Voters in Arlington, Virginia, the Patriot Party was born through this organizing effort. The NAP has since folded itself into the Patriot Party for the 1996 elections, hoping to strengthen the power of independent voters.

Although Fulani has achieved great success in organizing independent voters, it has not been without obstacles. Both Political Research Associates of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Nation magazine have published material highly critical of Fulani and the NAP. Nation likened the party to a cult run by Dr. Newman. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, however, "Fulani's followers have heard all the criticism and remain fiercely loyal. Many of the most ardent, from the most disaffected quarters of society, say she has revived their interest in politics."

However she is viewed by others, Fulani is sure to persist in working hard for independent politics and the reform of the current system. In 1996 she reached out to people through a newspaper column carried in more than 140 newspapers, entitled "This Way for Black Empowerment." She also is the host of her own cable television show, "FULANI!," seen in more than 20 cities each week. In these ways, Lenora Fulani has expanded her efforts to include everyone in the democratic process.

Works

Writings

The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992.

Early life

The youngest daughter of a registered nurse and a railway baggage handler, Fulani was born Lenora Branch in 1950 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Her father died of pneumonia when she was 12.^[7] As a teenager in Chester in the 1960s, Fulani was active in her local Baptist church, where she played piano for the choir.

In 1967, Fulani was awarded a scholarship to study at Hofstra University in New York. She graduated in 1971, and went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University's Teacher's College. In the late 1970s, she earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the City University of New York (CUNY). Fulani was a guest researcher at Rockefeller University from 1973-1977, with a focus on how learning and social environment interact for African-American youth.

While in college, she became involved in black nationalist politics, along with her then-husband Richard. Both had adopted the African tribal name Fulani as a surname when they married in a traditional West African ceremony. During her studies at City University, Fulani became interested in the work of Fred Newman and Lois Holzman, who had recently formed the New York Institute for Social Therapy and Research. Fulani studied at the Institute in the early 1980s.

Electoral politics

Fulani became active in the Newman-founded independent New Alliance Party (NAP) and emerged as a spokesperson who often provoked controversy. In 1982 Fulani ran for Lt. Governor of New York on the NAP ticket but was unsuccessful. She has also been involved in the affiliated (or some say, secret) Independent Workers Party, the Rainbow Alliance, and other shifting groups led by Newman.

She helped recruit the NAP's 1984 presidential candidate Dennis L. Serrette, an African-American trade union activist. Although he was quite involved with the party for years, Serrette left and published critical accounts of what he described as its cultic operation.^[8]

Fulani ran for President in 1988 as the candidate of the New Alliance Party. She received almost a quarter of a million votes or 0.2% of the vote. She was the first African-American independent and the first women presidential candidate on the ballot in all 50 states. In 1990 Fulani ran as a New York gubernatorial candidate. She was endorsed that year by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Although in 1987 Fulani and Newman began an alliance with minister and activist Al Sharpton, in 1992 he ran for the U.S. Senate from New York as a Democrat rather than as an Independent. Since then, Sharpton has kept his distance from both Fulani and Newman.

Fulani again ran as the New Alliance candidate for President in the 1992 election, this time receiving 0.07% of the vote. She chose former Peace and Freedom Party activist Maria Elizabeth Muñoz as her vice-presidential running mate. Muñoz ran on the NAP ticket for the offices of U.S. Senator and governor in California but was unsuccessful. In 1992 Fulani self-published her autobiography The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992.

In 1994, Fulani and Newman became affiliated with the Patriot Party, one of many groups that later competed for control of the Reform Party, founded by Ross Perot. She also joined with Jacqueline Salit to start the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), formed to bring together independent groups to challenge the bipartisan hegemony in American politics.

During the 2000 election, Fulani surprisingly endorsed Pat Buchanan, then running on the Reform Party ticket. She even served briefly as co-chair of the campaign. Fulani withdrew her endorsement, saying that Buchanan was trying to further his right-wing agenda. Fulani and Newman then endorsed the Presidential candidacy of Natural Law Party leader John Hagelin, a close associate of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Later, Fulani unsuccessfully sought the Vice Presidential nomination at the national convention organized by a faction of the Reform Party.

In the 2001 election for Mayor of New York City, Fulani endorsed the Republican candidate Michael Bloomberg and organized city members of the IP to work for his campaign. Bloomberg, once elected, approved an $8.7 million municipal bond to provide financing for Fulani and Newman to build a new headquarters for their youth program, theater and telemarketing center. The Bloomberg alliance with the Independence Party in part was due to New York's fusion rule, which allowed Bloomberg to aggregate his votes on all ballot lines. The 59,000 votes that Bloomberg received on the Independence Party ballot line exceeded his margin of victory over the Democratic (and Working Families Party) candidate Mark J. Green.

In the municipal election of 2003, Fulani was among those who endorsed Bloomberg's proposed amendment to the New York City Charter to establish non-partisan elections. Although Bloomberg spent $7 million of his own money to promote the amendment, voters rejected it.

In September 2005 the State Executive Committee of the Independence Party of New York dropped Fulani and other members from the New York City chapter. This was part of a fierce power struggle that has brewed between members from upstate and Long Island, and Newman, Fulani, and the New York-based members. The majority of party members were disaffected by the ideology of Newman and Fulani. The party's state chairman, Frank MacKay, a former ally of Fulani, claimed the action followed Fulani's refusal to repudiate an earlier statement which many considered antisemitic.^[9] According to the New York Times, "In 1989, Dr. Fulani wrote that the Jews 'had to sell their souls to acquire Israel' and had to 'function as mass murderers of people of color' to stay there."^[10] Fulani said she did not intend the statement as antisemitic but wanted to raise issues which she believed needed to be explored. She has since repudiated the remarks, which she characterized as "excessive". She publicly apologized to "any people who had been hurt by them".^[11]

Citing the "anti-Semitism" allegations, Independence Party State Chairman Frank MacKay initiated proceedings to have nearly 200 Independence Party members in New York City expelled from the party. Each case MacKay brought to the New York State Supreme Court was dismissed. In one instance, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman wrote that the charges were "more political than philosophical."^[12]

Fulani formed a coalition to organize Independence Party support for the re-election campaign of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The local press described the coalition as composed of "union officials, clergy, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, district leaders and others who work at the grassroots level."^[13] Spirited defenses of Fulani have appeared in the city's black press; writing in the Amsterdam News, columnist Richard Carter wrote "there is little doubt that the main reason for the negative press, which, by the way, is not unusual for this brilliant, outspoken political strategist, is because she is a strong, no-nonsense Black woman. So strong she makes the city’s political establishment and lockstep white news media nervous."^[14]

Community work

Fulani has worked on a number of community outreach and youth development projects. In 1984, she helped found the Castillo Cultural Center in New York City, which produces mostly plays written by Newman, in an unusual arrangement. In 1998, the Castillo Center merged with the All Stars Project youth charity and broadened the single base for Newman's work. Fulani has been active in the development of educational programs associatedd with the [4] All Stars Project, including the Joseph A. Forgione Development School for Youth and the All Stars Talent Show Network, which create enriching experiences outside school for poor inner city youth, using a performance model.^[15] Fulani described her approach in Derrick Bell's 2004 book Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform:

We teach young people to use performance skills to become more cosmopolitan and sophisticated—to interact with the worlds of Wall Street, with business and the arts. In becoming more cosmopolitan— in going beyond their narrow and parochial and largely nationalistic identities—they acquire a motivation to learn as a part of consistently creating and recreating their lives.^[16]

In 2004 the Anti-Defamation League criticized the All Stars/Castillo theater troupe for its play Crown Heights, accusing the playwright of blaming the riots on the Jewish community.^[17] The play dramatized events of the 1991 riots in Crown Heights, Brooklyn after a motorcade of the Lubavitcher rabbi accidentally killed a seven-year-old Caribbean-American child. The accident ignited long-standing tensions in the community; in street violence, a visiting Australian rabbinical student, Yankel Rosenbaum, was stabbed to death by Lemrick Nelson, a 16-year-old Crown Heights youth.

A local Brooklyn paper described the play favorably.^[18]

Criticism

Newman and Fulani's leadership, as well as various manifestations of the political party, such as the secret Independent Workers Party, have been strongly criticized by former members through the years, including party candidate Dennis Serrette and five-year member Marina Ortiz. In addition, Political Research Associates published a critical report on the NAP in 1987, and updated and revised it in 2008 on their website www.PublicEye.org.

After working with Fulani for several years, Serrette, who also had a personal relationship with her, has questioned his experience and publicly criticized Newman and Fulani's leadership of the party and its members. "[I]t was clearly a tactical ...a racist scheme of using Black and Latino and Asian people to do the bidding of one man, namely Fred Newman, that's my opinion, and to use other whites as well, you know through the therapy practices."^[19]

After he raised his concerns internally, Serrette said his treatment by other NAP leaders worsened dramatically. He also questioned the way in which therapy was used in the political work: "...[T]herapy was a way of getting people to not only operate in an organizational way, but also a way of controlling every aspect of their lives...you certainly couldn't straighten anybody out. But it was certainly effective in terms of controlling a lot of people to do the kinds of things that were asked of them...they would do anything, just about, that he would ask them to do." ^[20]

In an article published after he left the NAP, Serrette stated:

"I knew when I joined NAP that it was not black-led, and I knew when I left it was not black-led. It took longer to understand that NAP was not even a progressive organization as it also pretends. Be that as it may, I probably still would not take the time to write about the organization. However, as a long-time activist who made the mistake of joining NAP, and who served on the organization’s “Central Committee,” I believe I have a responsibility to reveal the intense psychological control and millions of dollars Fred Newman employs to get well-meaning individuals in our communities (they target the black community), to viciously attack black leaders, black institutions, and progressive organizations for purposes of building Newman’s power base."

^[21]

Fulani dismissed his charges as related simply to the end of their personal relationship. In her self-published autobiography The Making of a Fringe Candidate, 1992 (1992), Fulani wrote that Serrette frequently fought with black women in the New Alliance Party and would "criticize and ridicule" them for their relationship to Newman.^[22]

Notes

^ Interview by Rob Redding, Redding News Review, March 12, 2002. Transcript accessed online 24 December 2006.
^ eNewsletter Volume 1, All Stars Project Inc., March 18, 2004. Accessed online 24 December 2006
^ Lenora Fulani bio, Speakers Platform, Accessed 20 February 2006
^ Michael Slackman, "In New York, Fringe Politics in Mainstream", New York Times, May 28, 2005; Accessed online 24 December 2006.
^ The All Stars, New York Voices, Thirteen WNET, New York. Accessed online 24 December 2006.
^ Edmund W. Gordon, Carol Bonilla Bowman, Brenda X. Mejia, "Changing the Script for Youth Development: An Evaluation of the All Stars Talent Show Network and the Joseph A. Forgione Development School for Youth", Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME), Teachers College, Columbia University, June 2003, Accessed 24 December 2006
^ James McKinley, Jr., "Tilting at the Same Windmill, but on a Faster Steed", New York Times, September 11, 1994, p. 56. Abstract available online; full article online by subscription only.
^ Dennis L. Serrette, "Inside the New Alliance Party", first published in Radical America, Vol.21, No.5 [1], accessed 14 May 2008
^ Marc Humbert, "I.P. Moves Against Fulani", Associated Press, September 18, 2005, Accessed 27 December 2006
^ Sewall Chan, "City Plan to Aid Arts Group Draws Fire From 4 Officials", New York Times, 09/12/06.
^ Lenora Fulani Announces Possible Mayoral Run. NY1 News, August 9, 2007
^ Barbara Ross, "Fulani ban nixed", New York Daily News, August 15, 2006, Accessed online 27 December 2006
^ Sametta Thompson, "Democrats Can Reelect Mayor Without Voting Republican", Queens Chronicle, October 20, 2005. Accessed online 27 December 2006.
^ Richard Carter, "Lenora Fulani is here to stay despite the white-bread naysayers", Amsterdam News, March 2 – March 8, 2006. Accessed online 27 December 2006.
^ Derrick Bell. Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial ReformOxford University Press, 2004
^ Derrick Bell. Silent Covenants: Brown V. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial ReformOxford University Press, 2004
^ "ADL Says 'Crown Heights' Distorts History and Refuels Hatred", accessed 14 May 2008
^ Abby Ranger, "Youth Theatre, 'Crown Heights', Seeks to Soothe Racial Tensions", 26 Jan 2004, accessed 14 May 2008, pdf on All Stars Website
^ George Gurley, "Guru Fred Newman Enchants Loyal Followers and Pat Buchanan"The New York Observer, December 6, 1999
^ Chip Berlet, Clouds Blur the Rainbow: The Other Side of the New Alliance Party, Cambridge: Political Research Associates, 1987 [2]
^ Dennis L. Serrette, "Inside the New Alliance Party", first published in Radical America, Vol.21, No.5 [3], accessed 14 May 2008
^ Lenora B. Fulani. The making of a fringe candidate, 1992. New York: Castillo International, 1992. ISBN 9780962862137.

External links

Party political offices
Preceded by Dennis L. Serrette	New Alliance Party Presidential candidate 1988 (lost), 1992 (lost)	Succeeded by —
Preceded by Nancy Ross	New Alliance Party New York Gubernatorial candidate 1986 (lost), 1990 (lost)	Succeeded by —
Preceded by —	New Alliance Party New York Lieutenant Gubernatorial candidate 1982 (lost)	Succeeded by Rafael Mendez

v • d • e United States presidential election, 1988

Democratic Party	1988 Democratic National Convention · Primaries

Candidates	Bruce Babbitt · Joe Biden (campaign) · Michael Dukakis · Dick Gephardt · Al Gore (campaign) · Gary Hart · Jesse Jackson · Lyndon LaRouche · Patricia Schroeder · Paul Simon

VP Candidate	Lloyd Bentsen

Republican Party	1988 Republican National Convention · Primaries

Candidates	George H. W. Bush · Bob Dole · Pierre S. du Pont, IV · Ben Fernandez · Alexander Haig · Jack Kemp · Paul Laxalt · Pat Robertson · Donald Rumsfeld · Harold Stassen

VP Candidate	Dan Quayle

Libertarian Party	Ron Paul/Andre Marrou

New Alliance Party	Lenora Fulani

Populist Party	David Duke

Socialist Party USA	Willa Kenoyer/Ron Ehrenreich

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Donate to Wikimedia

	Laurence Holder
	Fulani (disambiguation)
	Clouds Blur the Rainbow

	What is the meaning of the name Lenora? Read answer...
	Is lenora the most evil sorceress in the universe? Read answer...
	Are the fulani one of the 10 lost tribe of Isreal? Read answer...

	Who was Lenora Fulani's vice presidential running mate in New York in 1988?
	Who was Saint Lenora?
	What is the Government of Fulani?

		Black Biography. Contemporary Black Biography. Copyright © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lenora Fulani". Read more

Lenora Fulani

Contents