UN Trusteeship Council

About UN Trusteeship Council

78 years ago, the landmark UN Charter which guaranteed peace and security came as a daybreak light of hope to millions of indigenous people of color who had been seared in the flames of colonization for centuries.

When the architects of the United Nations wrote the magnificent words of the Trusteeship System, they were signing a promissory note to which every inhabitant of Trust Territories was to fall heir.

The Trusteeship System was a promise to supervise and promote the advancement of inhabitants of Trust Territories and their progressive development towards self-independence.  

Instead of honoring its sacred obligation, it is obvious with hindsight that the United Nations defaulted on that promise insofar as its Trusteeship Council is concerned.

Suspicious of the ever-increasing decolonization ambitions of the UN General Assembly,colonial powers who had imperial claims on their former colonies effectively hijacked the Trusteeship Council and ensured it broke from the norms of the UN, set a new standard of barbarity, and largely ignore decolonization appeals.

The new racial order within the Trusteeship Council was one in which it was entirely natural for colonized peoples to be imprisoned, terrorized, and exterminated.

Colonial powers made it clear that if folks of color try to resist enslavement, if they try to prevent the partition of their kingdoms, deny their master’s language, or insist on gaining independence - in other words, if they do anything that upsets or complicates White supremacy, White dominance, and political power they will be killed.

Under the watchful eyes of the Trusteeship Council, conquered territories across the world were drenched in the blood of their revolutionary heroes, who were killed in the worst of circumstances - from targeted assassinations to extrajudicial executions, massacres, and genocide.

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Though on November 1, 1994, the UN Trusteeship Council suspended its operation, colonization under its authority or previously the League of Nations and the General Act of the Berlin Conference were not just brutal footnotes in history. It reflected a belief in racial differences that reinforced Apartheid, Jim Crow Segregation, and systemic racism that is an all-too-present reality.

An ugly past that never passed, colonization did real psychic damage not just to Black people, but to White people too. It resulted in the pattern of racial discrimination today that is define in far too many ways by prejudice and overt bias. It also strengthened tribalism that has resulted in some of the world’s most violent conflicts crippling developing countries, with the effects still visible.

UNCM will advance a new era of truth, inform present-day discussions of race relations, and help the world recover from centuries of racial injustice.