PRAXIS
A Phrontistery for Black Revolutionaries
HOW TO QUALIFY FOR PRAXIS:
Step 1: Application
Deadline: Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.
Our process begins with a comprehensive application that analyzes lived experience,
assesses skill level, checks for value alignment and indicates readiness to join 400+1's next cohort of vanguard members.
Step 2: Interview
Deadline: Interviews are conducted on a rolling basis.
400+1's Ministers of Cohesion visit applicants in their home cities for a two-step interview. This allows us to share space, determine energetic compatibility and begin the process of forming intentional community.
Step 3: Orientation
Deadline: October 27, 2021
Inactive Member Status Achieved
400+1's Ministers of Cohesion will guide new members through an orientation. (1-4 weeks)
Orientations are quartered and facilitated either daily or weekly to ensure complete comprehension of and enthusiastic consent for the process that follows.
Step 4: Disruption Container Participation
Deadline: November 27, 2021
Inactive Member Status Achieved
400+1 uses disruption as a radicalization and value alignment tool that leverages sensory experience in pursuit of authentic interrogation. New members will have the opportunity to attend a virtual disruption container to prepare for study group participation.
Step 5: Study Groups
Deadline: November 29, 2021 - May 29, 2022
Inactive Member Status Achieved
400+1's Ministers of Cohesion guide new members through a seven month study engagement, for which we will meet weekly. Our collective study grounds new members in historical and contemporary contextualization of the federation’s principles, movement theory, movement strategies, and collective culture.
Step 6: Retreats
Deadline: June 6 - September 25, 2022
Inactive Member Status Achieved
New members attend two retreats; one that is exclusively available to the collective to which they’re assigned and the All Federation Retreat at which all members of the federation are present.
This is the last step in preliminary matriculation before new members move on to Praxis: A Phrontistery for Black Revolutionaries.
Step 7: Praxis: A Phrontistery for Black Revolutionaries
Probationary Status Achieved
Praxis is a seven year institution founded to help Black revolutionaries develop theoretical and practical skills with which to pursue liberation. After graduating from Praxis, members are welcomed to active vanguard duty.
FINAL STEP:
Assignment & Active Duty
Active Status Achieved
Vanguard members are assigned specific roles within their collectives and enjoy a greater level of autonomy in their work.
Destroy Capitalism.
400+1’s connection to Marxist-Leninism, and Black Marxism is undeniable. Take a deep dive into anti-capitalist theory and imagine, construct, and plan for the classless, moneyless, stateless society we all deserve. Don’t forget to learn to bear arms, and enhance your ability to communicate with other members of the Diaspora.
Eat the Rich.
We are socialists of no nation, but what would happen if that dynamic shifted? Join us in our pursuit of Cuba’s collective truth through the collection of the thoughts, opinions, anecdotes and experiences of everyday people. Analyze Cuba’s journey from home to the Ciboney Taino people to a formidable Marxist-Leninist socialist state. Our time in Havana will be spent interrogating the Cuban revolutionary vanguard, Castro’s choices, and the republic’s potential to evolve from socialism to communism. Help us confront the anti-Black racism that survived in what should be a liberated society. Guerilla warfare is both a principle and a project during this meditation on revolution. Be ready.
Off the Pigs.
If your vanguard isn’t developing alliances with the colonized and positioning itself to defeat imperialism, then what are we talking about? Practice? Build connections in Loiza, Puerto Rico; a Yoruba settlement of escaped slaves that, for centuries, has preserved its culture in the face of colonial occupation. Study the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist work of Frantz Fanon and place Puerto Rico in the context he’s provided us. Place the debt crisis in the context he’s provided us. Place Hurricane Maria in the context he’s provided us. Place Rosello in the context he’s provided us. Puerto Rico’s resistance is significant to revolutionary struggle. How are we in support of it? Black love, and spiritual action are all centered principles and projects during this exploration of our own potential to win. Your body is a weapon.
Revolutionaries Are Welcome Here // Africa for Africans.
The Continent’s position within Diasporic revolutionary struggle has always been and has only grown more complicated over time, with the fight against colonial and imperialist powers being one of few crystallized moments of potential Pan-Africanism. It was different with Ghana. It was different with Nkrumah. His vision of African socialism and a synchronization of African tradition with equitable distribution a Black Marxist dream, where did his revolutionary praxis fall short? As we look toward building a socialist and, eventual, communist Black future what are the ways we envision systemizing just transition? As we dream of Black autonomy, how do we envision the global interdependence and fierce allyship that may be necessary to support post-revolutionary life? When should we begin developing those relationships? Now seems as good a time as any.
Black Power.
Imagine that we’ve physically driven the oppressor from our space. It’s just us now, but the intangible remnants of white supremacy remain. Imagine that the structures upheld by capitalism and toxic democracy, albeit maintained by our own skinfolk, are beginning to crumble around us. Revolution is a long process. Now what? Come with us to Port-au-Prince, Haiti to sit, humbly, at the feet of our ancestors; the revolutionaries who established the first Black republic so that we might honor them by taking another step toward liberated land, toward free Black society. Spend seven days with the Avril family, connecting with those ancestors through the art and practice of Haitian fencing. Embrace the opacity of Hatian Creole. We won’t let you leave without learning. Most importantly, put our conceptualization of the L3 village to the test through contextualization and practice.
Shoot to Kill.
The history of resistance in South Africa is strong, with the legacy of The ANC and Nelson Mandela in his early years nestled firmly in the minds of Pan-Africanists across the globe. Mandela’s momentum was ultimately compromised by nearly thirty years in prison and his eventual release revealed a man whose revolutionary spirit had been stolen. Today, revolutionaries in South Africa are forced to proclaim themselves a discontinuation of Mandela’s trajectory. Julius Malema and the Economic Freedom Fighters are poised to fight for a new South Africa. What might we learn and how might we help?
Our Word Is Our Weapon.
In Chiapas, Mexico, Praxis students will pour over the history of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. What nuance exists within the concept and practice of decentralization? The vanguard may catalyze revolution, but party politics can’t carry us all the way to freedom. Experiment with the power of narrative, autonomy, and charismatic leadership. We must give EZLN its flowers while it’s here.
Phase Three
Read below.
Phase Two | Feb.-Dec. 2022
On Gang: Vanguardism, Charismatic Leadership, and Revolution in the Global South
January - April 2023
Enjoy the breathtaking views of The Basque Country while exploring the constellation of connection between Spain’s notorious and revolutionary Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, the strength of U.S. influence on and support of counterrevolutionary movements after September 11th, and the impotency rendered upon revolutionary movements by neoliberalism.
May - August 2023
Join 400+1 in Ha Noi, Vietnam to break down communism’s momentous victory in the face of determined, U.S. imperialism. Strategic propaganda, brilliant narrative building, unmatched political organizing, charismatic leadership, unyielding revolutionary spirit, and domestic unrest are all the heart of this case study for resistance. Examine the position in which America found itself in 1975 and explore the possibility of recreating those very conditions.
Sept. - Dec. 2023
Spend the final wave of Praxis’s existence as a traveling institution in Lebanon with 400+1’s L1 collective. Dive into U.S. Foreign Policy and interrogate its impact on the Palestenian struggle. Learn the intricacies of the United Nations as a political entity and position yourself in relation to international law.
Our Word Is Our Weapon.
Read below.
Phase Three | Jan. - Dec. 2023
Studying the Opps: Victories and Losses of the Imperialist Machine
Jan. 2024 - Spring 2028
Details of Phase Four will be shared only with those who are accepted to the final stage of the program.
Phase Four | Jan. 2024 - Spring 2028
Praxis: A Phrontistery for Black Revolutionaries is an incubator for the next Black, revolutionary vanguard.
Learn about the praxis of 400+1's vanguard in real time!
Podcast Episode Description:
"400+1 is a Black, cooperative federation that exists to leverage vanguardism, destabilization, and Black and autonomous alternatives to build a world beyond survival. The federation is currently engaged in a protracted struggle against the state for Orisha Land, an autonomous zone in Texas.
We talk to them about their organization, how it’s structured, what political education looks like to them, and their analysis, which argues for the necessity of the Black Vanguard at this historical moment.
We also talk to them about their struggle for Orisha Land in the area commonly known as Austin Texas, and about their mutual aid work during the recent winter storm that left people in Texas without heat and basic necessities for days."
Podcast:
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism
Creating revolutionary political education, one episode at a time.