Chicago, IL – The congregants at Healing Temple Church on Chicago’s West Side welcomed veteran community organizers to a rally against attacks on their beloved city, on March 1.

150 people came to the church to defend Mayor Brandon Johnson, who, along with several other progressive mayors has been called to testify before racist Republicans in Congress. This is a continuation of the Trump agenda's attacks on Chicago for being a progressive city with strong movement forces.

Billed as a “Sendoff rally for Mayor Johnson,” when the mayor entered the church, it was clear this was a crowd of his supporters.

The crowd raised the roof with a chant made famous in the 1960s on the West Side by Fred Hampton, the chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party: “all power to the people!” During the 60s, this slogan meant that Black people, Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, Native Americans, and the working class in the U.S. are the people, in struggle against the tiny minority referred to today as the billionaires.

Start of a new movement?

Jitu Brown, a new member of the first elected school board in Chicago history, was early among the speakers at the rally. He framed the advances in the history and current characteristics of the struggle here.

A veteran of the Kenwood-Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), Brown is perhaps most well-known for the 34 day Dyett High School Hunger Strike to stop the closing of schools in Black communities during the Rahm Emanuel administration.

Brown reminded us that the ruling class has closed over 160 schools in the Chicago Public Schools system, stating, “They didn’t want to improve public education: they wanted to remove Chicago as a Soul City.” A soul city refers to a city that is a majority Black. In the year 2000, 54% of Chicago public school students were Black. Today only 35% are Black. 47% are Latino, and 70% are low income.

The Dyett Hunger Strike took place in 2015, following Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s closing 50 schools in 2013, mostly in Black neighborhoods.

Standing against anti-immigrant attacks

Brown added, “Today a lot of the energy is anti-immigrant.” From his history being schooled by the Black power movement, he said, “We will not support the oppression of any people.”

Speaking of the history of the Black community struggle for good public schools, Brown went after Brandon Johnson’s enemies, stating, “A lot of the negativity that you are hearing about our mayor are from those people who have been using the city of Chicago as a pig’s trough for decades.”

“It is time for the city to do right by Black and brown people. We’re sitting in a city that has never had an elected school board, now with one.”

“We are in a city that has had privatizers running the city, and through our collective work, we put one of our own on the Fifth Floor.” The fifth floor of City Hall is where the mayor’s office is located.

Referring to Mayor Johnson’s appearance before the Republican-dominated Congress, Brown said, “This is just a little pit stop to let the world know we are building a better Chicago.”

“No matter how loud they bark, they are not going to disrupt what we call the soul of Chicago.”

Mayor Johnson: “Beauty of liberation”

Johnson took the pulpit as the crowd roared support. After speaking about the Republicans he will face in Washington, he said, “It’s important that we honor those that had enough foresight to put measures in place to ensure that the voices of marginalized people would never be squashed by the federal government or law enforcement. There was a brother by the name of James Montgomery, the first Black corporate counsel in Chicago history. He was also the legal counsel for the Black Panther Party.”

The mayor went on to say that “James Montgomery sent a note to Mayor Harold Washington that we should not allow federal agents to run through our city. Nor should we allow them to force local law enforcement to do their job.”

“They understood how the brutality of law enforcement could harm people. Whether you are undocumented or a descendant of slaves, James Montgomery understood that we cannot allow the federal government to suppress or oppress our people.”

Johnson closed his remarks with this: “We’re going to make sure that the roar that comes out of Chicago ignites a movement across America and across the globe. No matter where you’re from, you get to have the beauty of liberation in the city of Chicago.”

“We fight for working people! Are you with me, Chicago?”

The people united can never be defeated

Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR), the lead organizer of the rally, spoke after Mayor Johnson.

“If you consider yourself a Black freedom fighter, engaged in the struggle for the liberation of our people, you cannot be guilty of hating on the immigrants. You cannot fall for the seeds of division planted by Trump and his reactionary minions, that somehow, some way, poor people coming from the south of our borders, seeking asylum; poor people seeking freedom from terror in their own lands, encouraged and supported by our government; that somehow this poses a problem for Black people.”

“This doesn’t pose a problem for us! We got a problem with the same people they have a problem with. We stand united with these people because we share a common oppressor: the billionaires that have always used the tool of racism to divide and conquer.”

Chapman called for support of the Sanctuary City laws that prohibit local law enforcement from engaging in immigration enforcement. “We reject the ideas that immigrants are criminals and deporting them would take the crime rate down.”

“What would take the crime rate down is to deport Trump!”

Black/Latino coalition

About one quarter of the crowd in the church were Latino activists and community members from the nearby Chicano/Mexicano neighborhoods. Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez was one of the Latino activists who joined the rally, representing the 25th Ward of neighborhoods like Pilsen and Little Village on the Lower West side of Chicago.

Sigcho-Lopez explained, “Chicago is a target. Trump targets us for deportations, but Chicago is also our hope.”

As his three small children gathered around him, Sigcho-Lopez said, “This is why we fight for the quality public education that all our children deserve.”

Sigcho-Lopez called for unity of all working people – Black, Latino, Asian and white – against attacks on immigrants and against the closing of public schools and unionized charter schools like Acero. In addition, last week ICE seized a father dropping off his children at Acero.

What do these two movements of resistance have in common? Sigcho-Lopez said, “The billionaires in DC and the billionaires in Chicago don’t have enough, so they take from the poor.”

“When we see parents being grabbed from their communities, we have to stand for the dignity of our people.”

“There’s no place I would rather be than Chicago, the city of Rudy Lozano and Mayor Harold Washington!” Sigcho-Lopez referred to union organizer and Chicano community leader Rudy Lozano, who supported the election of Harold Washington in 1983. This created for the first time a Black and Latino coalition, making possible the defeat of the white racist Democratic Party and election of Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor.

Chicago Alliance: On to Washington

In support of Mayor Johnson when he appears before the racist Republicans in Congress, Chapman announced, “Black History Month is over, but Black history is still going on, and we’re going to make some today. On the 5th, we’re going to Washington, DC to support our mayor and our city.”

Sigcho-Lopez gave special mention to the role played by CAARPR in organizing the rally. Crystal Gardner, one of the West Side organizers, also said afterward about this rally, “A big shout out to the Chicago Alliance for having the blueprint, vision, mission and base to activate spaces and communities. This is only the beginning, and I look forward to many more!”

#ChicagoIL #IL #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #ImmigrantRights #BrandonJohnson #CAARPR #NAARPR #CTU

Tacoma, WA – Community members gathered at the South Tacoma Library on Tuesday, February 25, for a “Black Liberation and Scientific Socialism” panel hosted by Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) and the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (AAPRP).

The program featured speakers from both organizations and lively discussion on the oppression faced by Black people in the U.S. and on the African continent, as well as the road ahead under the Trump administration.

“Under neocolonialism the masses toil under stagnant and worsening conditions but must produce substantially more,” said Terrence McCall of the AAPRP.

McCall gave a history of the development of Pan-Africanism, noting the contributions of leaders such as W.E.B. Du Bois from the United States, and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

Next, Mathieu Chabaud of the FRSO presented on the history of the Black Liberation Movement in the United States. Drawing from the book Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism by Frank Chapman, Chabaud started with an analysis of the economic driving forces behind the American Civil War, stating, “The reason the South lost was not because of the noble efforts of white abolitionists, but because 186,000 former slaves revolted in general strike and joined the Union Army.”

Chabaud continued with a history of Reconstruction in the South, and the development of the Black Belt thesis by Black communists such as Harry Haywood.

Lastly, Talison Crosby of the FRSO analyzed the continuation of the Black Liberation Movement into the 21st century and the tasks ahead for the people’s movements. “During the George Floyd Rebellion of 2020, something happened that had never happened before,” said Crosby. “Millions of people in all 50 states took to the streets. It was a Black-led uprising, but the majority of people who participated in it are not Black.”

“I remember hitting the streets during the uprising in 2020. I remember volunteering at the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,” said Gemini Gnull. “I’m a member of the Osage Nation. Full indigenous sovereignty and liberation for my people is not possible without socialism. And socialism in the United States is not possible without Black liberation. We’ve all got a common enemy. Black people and Indigenous people are natural allies in the fight against oppression.”

In general, attendees were angry about Trump’s attacks on the people and in agreement that a clear-eyed analysis of the conditions were necessary in order to achieve their political goals and defeat Trump’s agenda.

Concluding the event, Crosby quoted Frank Chapman: “As Frank says, ‘We stand in the rosy dawn of a new movement.’ It’s our responsibility to finally complete the unfinished revolution of the Reconstruction era. The tasks ahead are tremendous, but the future is certainly bright.”

#TacomaWA #WA #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #BlackHistoryMonth #FRSO #AAPRP #NAARPR

Minneapolis – More than 100 people gathered at the New City Center for “We Keep Us Safe: A Teach-in on the Black History of Community Control of the Police,” hosted by Twin Cities Coalition for Justice (TCC4J) and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). The program featured panelists from National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression branches in different cities – all in various stages of the fight for local community control of the police.

Jae Yates, a leader in TCC4J, opened with a presentation on the Black history of community control. TCC4J is leading the campaign for an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Commission (CPAC) to establish community control over Minneapolis police.

“At its core, community control of police is about giving power to the communities most-affected by police violence, often composed of the Black working class,” explained Yates. “TCC4J organizes for community control because we believe that’s the first step to dismantling the violent systems of policing and incarceration that are currently brutalizing and tearing apart our communities.”

Yates outlined the history of policing in the U.S., which started with slave patrols and so-called Black Codes to criminalize and repress Black people. They also described the period of Reconstruction, when Black people in the South had democratic community control over how the law was enforced and who enforced it. The end of Reconstruction also symbolized the end of Black political power, including control of law enforcement. Decades later, the Black Power movement revived the demand for community control of police. Yates also described historical connections between the Black liberation movement, and movements in support of gay liberation and Palestinian liberation.

Syd Loving, a national leader of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, spoke about the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR), from its founding in 1973. “The 80s and 90s were tough on the Black Liberation Movement. They killed our leaders, put our leaders in jail and repressed our movement.” During those years, most Alliance branches stopped operating. “The good news is the Alliance was refounded in 2019, and as of today we have 30 branches across the country. The beautiful message there is that the struggle for community control of police is alive across the country!”

Loving also described how the struggles for community control and for Black Liberation are part of “the broader struggle to pull up all forms of oppression and exploitation from the root. In FRSO we talk about our strategy for revolution, and it’s the united front against monopoly capitalism. At the core of that united front is the strategic alliance between the national liberation movements and the entire working class.”

She described how the coalition of the Alliance and other Black-led organizations with working with progressive labor unions was the key to victories in Chicago. “When we come together and recognize that we have a common enemy, that we have something to win, that takes us so much further on the road to pulling up monopoly capitalism from the root and building a world where everyone can be free.”

Toni Jones of New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police (NOCOP) described how she got involved in organizing: “The movement that had been spurred on by what happened in Minneapolis in 2020 was dying down. The nonprofits were saying things, but they weren’t fighting for anything. They weren’t standing up for our community. So I realized that I would have to be the fight that I wanted to see. We formed NOCOP to stand up for the community.” Jones added, “The end goal of this struggle was never about fighting the police. It’s fighting for power.”

Jones continued, “When we support community control it’s so we can get those police and move them out of our way, so we can directly take the fight to those in city hall, take the fight to those in the Pentagon, take the fight to those in White House, without worrying about our heads getting beaten in for supporting those that we love.”

Merawi Gerima, co-chair of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) also got involved in the movement in 2020. “The George Floyd rebellion kicked off while I was up here, and I remember seeing a flyer for a National Day of Action with some organization with too many letters in the name. I ended up going. I had never seen anything like that in my life in downtown Chicago.” That organization was CAARPR, which Gerima joined. “The following year, the year that we were able to pass the ECPS [Empowering Communities for Public Safety] ordinance establishing these two bodies in our city which are the beginnings of community control of police in Chicago. It’s the most-advanced, democratic police accountability system in the country and it’s only just beginning.”

Panelists discussed how to respond to community fears that CPAC may stop cops from protecting them, or other concerns about community control of police. They explained that police departments aren’t showing data to prove that massive budgets (hundreds of millions of dollars in large cities) are reducing crime or solving cases.

Gerima said, “We’re fighting to hold the police accountable, for the things that they do, and the things that they don’t do in our communities. Black people are overpoliced and under protected and we want power to be able to change that.”

Gerima also warned listeners against putting a call for police abolition at the forefront, stating, “The fastest way to lose Black people on the Southside is to say we want to get rid of the police. And that’s not to say that it’s not a reasonable goal in the future. It’s to say that conditions right now don’t support that. Black people want to hold the police accountable, they want justice for the things that police do to them, they want them to be punished for the crimes that they commit against us and they want to be able to call them when they need them. The people that we need to win this fight understand the equation perfectly.”

When asked what motivates their commitment to keep working, Jones said, “I know that what’s at stake is the personal stories of the people that we meet in this work. They don’t get to hang up their struggles and the tears when they go home at night. They go to sleep thinking about whether they’ll ever get justice for their sons. If I keep them in mind, I know it’s way too soon to start calling it quits.”

In that spirit, Tiffany Jackson, sister of Allison Lussier, was invited to the stage after the panel discussion. Lussier, a native woman, was murdered by her boyfriend after the Minneapolis police failed to act on numerous 911 calls and orders for protection. Instead of investigating the case as a murder, MPD Chief O’Hara began a public smear campaign against Lussier. He claims her death was caused by a drug overdose, despite the medical examiner’s office saying they were unable to determine how Lussier died. Pressure from family and community supporters recently pushed the city council to order a formal audit of MPD’s handling of Lussier’s case.

Several activists stood beside Jackson, including Alissa Washington, of the Wrongfully Incarcerated and Over-sentenced Families Council-MN. Washington urged the crowd to keep an eye on this case, “We do need all nations to get together on this, you guys. We are Black, white, native up here. We need everybody to mobilize, because we don’t know what will happen.”

#MinneapolisMN #MN #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #BlackHistoryMonth #InJusticeSystem #PoliceCrimes #TCC4J #NAARPR

Los Angeles, CA – In East Los Angeles, the grassroots organization Centro CSO has been fighting to ban the Fort Apache logo that East Los Angeles Sheriff's deputies proudly wear on the front right pocket of their uniform. The logo is disrespectful to Chicanos, as it was created by deputy gang members from the Little Red Devils gang out of the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (ELASD) station to glorify their attacks on Raza.

The logo depicts a riot helmet on top of a combat boot with the words “Low Profile” and “Siempre Una Patada En Los Pantalones (Always A Kick In The Pants).” The East Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputies created this logo after beating and killing Chicanos during the Chicano Moratorium on August 29, 1970, in East Los Angeles. The Chicano Moratorium was a large Chicano march, and protest against police brutality as well as the Vietnam War, where countless Chicanos were being sent to the front lines to die in the name of U.S. imperialism. Chicanos demanded an end to the draft and the presence of military recruiters in schools.

The East Los Angeles sheriff's deputies were given orders by then acting Sheriff Peter J. Pitchess to keep a “low profile.” The deputies, who were mostly white and members of one of the first deputy gangs in Los Angeles, the “Little Red Devils,” ignored those orders and decided to attack. When it was all said and done, three Chicanos were dead, including Rubèn Salazar, an award winning journalist with the LA Times.

After the brutal attacks, the East Los Angeles Sheriff deputies created the Fort Apache logo as an unofficial logo for the station. The emblem also takes inspiration from the movie Fort Apache by John Ford as the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies see themselves as an occupying force surrounded by “savages.” In this case, the savages are the working-class Chicanos of East LA.

After the 1970 Chicano Moratorium, the Fort Apache logo was used at the East Los Angeles Sheriff's Department Station. In 2016, then sheriff Jim McDonnell, who himself collaborated with ICE and turned over thousands of Chicanos to ICE during his time as sheriff, banned it. Even McDonnell acknowledged in his own words that the station logo was “disrespectful to the East Los Angeles community”

Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who served from 2018 until 2022, brought the logo back. It’s important to note that under the “leadership” of Sheriff Villanueva the deputy gang problem grew larger all over LA County, as Alex Villanueva is a rumored leader of the Banditos deputy gang.

The fight to eliminate the Fort Apache logo reignited in October 2024, after East LA Sheriff’s deputies teargassed Centro CSO members and Raza from East Los Angeles, including women and children, who were celebrating in their barrio the Dodgers' NLCS pennant victory.

During the attack, the East LA Sheriff’s deputies were wearing Fort Apache pins on their shirts.

In the days after the incident, Centro CSO organized and mobilized. They put out a statement condemning the attack. They also publicized eyewitness videos of the attack on social media. They organized a press conference right outside the ELASD station along with local organizers like Lorraine Quinones, who has been actively fighting for the right to cruise without being harassed by ELASD deputies. Other Chicanos who were hurt during the ELASD attack on Raza were also in attendance demanding justice.

After the press conference, Centro CSO continued the fight against ELASD by holding regular police accountability committee meetings, doing outreach in the barrio of East Los Angeles, and talking about the need to ban the Fort Apache logo.

Centro CSO held an educational event going over the history of deputy gangs in ELASD with the main focus of educating Chicanos on the Fort Apache logo and how Centro CSO is fighting to ban it.

In late December, Centro CSO found out that their hard work was paying off. The Civilian Oversight Commission, which is appointed by the LA County Board of Supervisors to oversee the Los Angeles Sheriff's department, was going to hold a town hall in East Los Angeles to discuss the brutal repression of Chicanos by Sheriff’s deputies during the Dodger celebration and the use of the Fort Apache logo.

Centro CSO mobilized to get the world out and has been seen tabling and flyering all over East Los Angeles for months in order to talk to Raza, who in many instances are well aware of the deputy gangs in East Los Angeles as they themselves have experienced oppression first hand.

“It’s clear that the Fort Apache logo must be banned. Raza from East Los has been demanding it but LASD Is dragging its feet. This makes the argument for community control of ELASD clear! Our barrio should have power over the deputies that patrol our neighborhood,” says Gabriel Quiroz Jr, one of the co-chairs of the Police Accountability Committee of Centro CSO.

The Fort Apache logo is more than just a logo to Chicanos in East Los Angeles, as they see it as a symbol of the oppression Chicanos go through at the hands of police. For 55 years the logo has been active.

If you would like to attend the town hall on the brutal repression of Chicanos by ELASD and the use of the Fort Apache logo, it will take place on February 27, at 6 p.m. at the East Los Angeles Service Center, which is located at 133 N Sunol Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90063.

Centro CSO is a grassroots organization in Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles that fights for public education, Legalization for All and Community Control of Police. Centro CSO is also an affiliate of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR). You can reach them at CentroCSO@gmail.com and/ or on Facebook, X, Instagram and Tik Tok under the username CENTROCSO.

#LosAngelesCA #CA #OppressedNationalities #ChicanoLatino #InJusticeSystem #PoliceCrimes #CentroCSO #Feature

San Jose, CA – 30 community members gathered at the San Jose Peace and Justice center, February 22, to celebrate the release of Leonard Peltier from prison and his return home.

Peltier, a leader of the American Indian Movement, had been the longest-held political prisoner in the U.S. After five decades of constant advocacy from activists worldwide calling for his release, Peltier finally returned home on February 18 after former President Biden commuted his sentence just before leaving office.

Members of the community gathered to watch a video of Peltier's welcome home celebration, hosted by the NDN Collective on the Turtle Mountain reservation, in North Dakota. After the video, the crowd assembled outside to watch a series of spoken word, dance and musical performances to celebrate the occasion.

Donna Wallach, a leading organizer with Leonard Peltier Support Group Silicon Valley, said, “I’m so happy. I won’t say I never gave up but I always had it in my mind that he was going to get free. If he could struggle from inside for all that he’s been through then who am I to give up on his freedom? He sacrificed 50 years for unity and for freedom for indigenous people and their sovereignty.”

Wallach continued, “I think he will be a force to unite all the tribes together to lead the land back movement. Even with this horrendous administration we have right now – this is the struggle for sovereignty, land back and indigenous recognition.”

Bob Jung of Vigil for Gaza said, “This is great, people fight for social justice and it seems like there’s very few times we win and it’s time to really savor this.” Jung continued, “I’d like to see all the allies coming to support each other – whether it’s the American Indian Movement, immigration, or what’s going on in Palestine.”

Drusie Kazanova of San Jose Against War, which is a member organization of the International League of People’s Struggle, read the ILPS statement on Peltier's release. “While Biden was the one who signed the act to commute Leonard’s sentence, it is not due to any goodwill from the former president who poured endless amounts of money into the genocidal war on Palestine, sold off indigenous lands to fossil fuel corporations and led a campaign of massive state repression against peoples’ movements in the U.S. and abroad,”

Kazanova continued, “It was the mass movement that held high the demand to free Leonard while exposing the imperialist system for keeping him imprisoned unjustly for a crime that was widely known to have been charged under falsified evidence.”

After the performances the event included a open mic segment for community members to speak their mind in honor of Peltier’s freedom.

Wallach expressed the desire to continue organizing to shine a light on other political prisoners such as Mumia Abu Jamal, The Holy Land 5 and many others.

#SanJoseCA #CA #OppressedNationalities #IndigenousPeoples #InJusticeSystem #PoliticalPrisoners #LeonardPeltier

Chicago, IL- On Friday night, February 21, Freedom Road Socialist Organization held an event celebrating Black history and international solidarity in the Black liberation movement. The event took place in the office of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) on the city’s South Side and consisted of a panel of speeches and some performances representing Black, Palestinian and Chicano liberation, as well as youth and labor struggles.

The night was electrified by music from Faayani Mijana and poetry from Brian Young Jr, both members of CAARPR. Their art lifted the spirits of attendees and provided a cultural connection to the political tasks raised by panelists in a discussion facilitated by Jae Franklin of the Anti-War Committee, Chicago.

“We are currently living in a state of siege, and our government is the enemy of the people,” FRSO Central Committee member Frank Chapman said about the Trump administration’s attacks against immigrants in particular and working and oppressed people in general.

“We must oppose all these racist policies put forward by Trump and his minions,” Chapman continued. “As oppressed people we must all unite and fight back!”

The main focus of the night was solidarity. Speakers pointed to the common enemies of working and oppressed people.

“The only way out is together. Black people and Chicanos are both oppressed nations. We face, for example, similar police repression and defunding of education,” said Angel Naranjos, a leader within Students for a Democratic Society at UIC and CAARPR’s recently formed Immigrants Rights Working Committee.

The panel noted that U.S. imperialism is an enemy of people internationally in addition to the multinational working class in the U.S.

“Our enemy is global so our response must be global,” said Nicholas Richard Thompson, the Chicago chair and Midwest organizer of Black Alliance for Peace. Thompson and other speakers emphasized the need to stand with oppressed people around the world against U.S. imperialism.

Panelists and performers specifically spoke about Trump's threats against South Africa’s sovereignty and his stated intentions for the U.S. to “own” Gaza. The panel also discussed how oppressed people have won in the past against imperialist representatives like Trump.

“The solidarity between Black and Arab communities is not new. Our movements have stood together in the face of imperialism, colonization and systemic oppression,” said Nadiah Alyafai of the US Palestinian Community Network. She explained the lineage of solidarity from the Black Panther Party to the Ferguson uprising, and then connected this history to the past year of protests for Palestine and against the U.S. backed Israeli genocide in Gaza.

Alyafai also encouraged organizations to join the newly formed Coalition Against the Trump Agenda, which was convened to unite a range of movements in resistance against the overt attacks that have already been coming from the White House and will continue for at least four years.

One of Trump's main targets is public education. This is why the Chicago Teachers Union is currently negotiating contract proposals such as academic freedom for teachers and elimination of racist evaluation practices, designed to protect Chicago’s oppressed communities from Trump and other racists.

“The battle for civil rights also takes place in the classroom. Knowledge of self and representation matters,” said Kevin Moore, a social studies teacher and Chicago Teachers Union member, also explaining why it is critical to stop the Trump administration’s attacks on Black history in schools and its broader attacks on the education system.

CTU recently continued its history of working together with community organizations by joining the CATA alongside CAARPR, USPCN, SDS, AWC, Casa Dupage Workers Center, and dozens of other organizations.

The coalition being built in Chicago is one of many around the country. It shows in practice a lesson from Black history that every panelist on Friday uplifted: united resistance is the best defense against the divide and conquer strategy of oppressors.

“Understanding Black history gives us a blueprint for the struggle,” Moore said. “The Trump playbook is not new. We beat it before, and we'll beat it again.”

#ChicagoIL #IL #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #BlackHistoryMonth #NAARPR #CAARPR #FRSO #Feature

The event was well attended and discussed systemic racism, historical repression and solidarity efforts in Fort Worth, Arlington and Dallas. Topics spanned education inequities, Confederate symbolism, police violence, and grassroots resistance, linking past injustices to modern struggles.

Speakers detailed Fort Worth’s segregated education history, including I.M. Terrell High School, the sole secondary school for non-white students before Brown v. Board of Education, and contrasted it with today’s diverse Trinity High School. Discussions about UT Arlington centered on its Confederate past, including the “Johnny Rebel” mascot, and pro-segregation university presidents like E.E. Davis and Jack R. Woolf. The speakers also addressed the 1921 lynching of Fred Rouse, which underscored Fort Worth’s legacy of racial terror.

Presenters a talked about the history of the Little Mexico barrios, established during the 1910s Mexican Revolution and the 1954 Hernandez v. Texas ruling that extended 14th Amendment protections to Mexican Americans, but noted that police violence yet persisted. The 1973 killing of 12-year-old Santos Rodriguez – abducted without a warrant, tortured and executed by officer Darrel Cain – sparked outrage. Cain served just two and a half years.

“We see that there are points where history repeats itself,” said a speaker at the event, linking Santos Rodriguez’s murder to modern cases like Atatiana Jefferson’s killing by Fort Worth police. “The state chooses to put their weight behind these wrongdoings. This is why we must demand community control of the police.”

The town hall closed with a call for united action against systemic racism, emphasizing that collective struggle, not isolated efforts will drive change.

#DallasTX #TX #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #ChicanoLatino #InJusticeSystem #ImmigrantRights #NAARPR

St. Paul, MN – On February 8, in honor of Black History Month, the Minnesota Anti-War Committee (AWC) presented an educational panel titled “Black Against Empire: Perspectives On Liberation In Haiti, Congo, Sudan, and the U.S.A.”

The panel was held at Macalester College in Saint Paul. Experts, activists and community leaders spoke about the timelines, struggles and victories of African people throughout history against imperialist oppression.

The panelists included Frank Chapman, head of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR); Nick Tolliver, member of the AWC; Mohammed Farah, member of Healthcare Workers For Palestine, along with a written statement submitted by Ruben Joanem of the Haiti Justice Committee. Facilitating the event were Liz Bolsoni from the AWC and Trahern Crews from Black Lives Matter Minnesota.

“The bottom line is, we have to fight our way out of this. We can’t analyze our way out of it. We can’t pray our way out of it. We’ve got to fight our way out of it,” Chapman said. “We’re building a mass movement, and we’ve got to build even greater.” Chapman is the Executive Director of NAARPR, field organizer of its Chicago chapter, the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and sits on the Central Committee of Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

“The exploitation of the Congo is the beating heart of the global capitalist system and our collective liberation from imperialism and capitalism is bound together with the liberation of the Congo,” said Tolliver, who provided a history of liberation struggles in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Tolliver is an anti-war activist and self-proclaimed “Black history nerd” who is passionate about Congo solidarity and African liberation.

Farah was born and raised in Khartoum, Sudan, and works as a hospital pharmacist in Minnesota while pursuing a graduate degree in public health. Farah expanded on the cultural foundation of Sudan found in art and poetry. He said, “Poets are the embodiment of the soul of a nation. It creates the spirit of Sudanese nationalism.”

As presentations and speeches concluded, a dialogue was opened between the panelists and the audience to further discuss issues that Black people have historically faced and how they tie in with modern struggles connected with capitalism and imperialism.

The final question asked was about the future of community organizing around Black liberation, to which Chapman closed with the statement, “Well, the future is always now. And the future belongs to those who are willing to fight for it.”

#StPaulMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #BlackHistoryMonth #International #Africa #Sudan #Congo #StudentMovement #NAARPR #MNAWC #BLM

Denver, CO – On Monday, January 20, Denver held its annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day “Marade” – a combination march and parade. Despite single-digit temperatures, roughly 600 people showed up to honor the legacy of Dr. King.

This year, the march happened to fall on the same day as the inauguration of Donald Trump. This was not lost upon the attendees, many of whom carried signs and banners opposing Trump’s racist agenda.

“Trump represents the worst of the worst when it comes to students, the environment, immigrants and all other oppressed people,” said Khalid Hamu of Students for a Democratic Society. Part of Trump’s agenda includes abolishing the Department of Education and the ability to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

During the march, a contingent of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) led chants and carried a large banner reading “Fight for MLK’s dream, reject Trump’s nightmare!” At the end of the march, Brandon Rincon of the FRSO addressed the crowd, encouraging ongoing resistance to Trump’s attacks.

#DenverCO #CO #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #MLK #FRSO #SDS #Trump

New Orleans, LA – On January 20, around 100 students, workers and New Orleans community members representing 20 organizations commemorated MLK Day by marching in the streets. They gathered to march against Donald Trump’s agenda on the day of his inauguration.

Throughout the march protesters carried signs against deportations, attacks on abortion rights and many other issues representing the people’s movements. Black protesters led chants from a truck leading the march, followed by the main banner of the coalition that stated, “Unite & fight the racist Trump agenda.” Drummers played along with the crowd’s chants, such as “Say it loud! Say it clear! Immigrants are welcome here!”

The coalition to march on MLK Day/Inauguration Day was initiated by New Orleans for Community Oversight of Police (NOCOP). The event kicked off with a rally at A.L. Davis Park, named for the local civil rights leader who helped to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with Martin Luther King Jr. Toni Jones from NOCOP opened the march, saying, “We’re out here because we are organizations made up of people who decided that they want to stand up and not take oppression lying down.”

Union Migrante, a local immigrant organization, gave one of the first speeches. One member told the crowd, “To hell with the dictator! We will be here fighting back whenever a politician comes along trying to push racist laws against the immigrant community or Black community here in New Orleans!”

After some speeches, demonstrators loudly took the streets, marching on one of New Orleans’ busiest streets, South Claiborne Avenue. The march then turned right at the corner of S. Claiborne and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, which features a bust of the civil rights leader on a tall pillar.

Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard travels through the Black Central City Neighborhood of New Orleans and intersects with Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard, named after another civil rights icon of New Orleans. At that intersection sits a sculpture of many hands joined together dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr. The march ended there and concluded with speeches from other organizations in the people’s movements.

Jasmine Groves, NOCOP member and daughter of Kim Groves, who was murdered by a member of New Orleans Police Department, gave a powerful speech. She delivered statements by Mona Hardin and Arlene Robertson, the mothers of Ronald Greene and Daviri Robertson. Greene was murdered by Louisiana State Police while handcuffed in 2019, and Robertson was murdered by Jefferson Parish Sheriff officers that same year.

Groves told the crowd, “Our criminal justice system is broken. Why should I have faith in a system that is not for us as a people? We as a people have to come together and realize who has the voice and who has the power. We have had so many great leaders to pave the way. From the Black Panthers to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, even to my mom.”

Other speakers represented LGBTQ and environmental rights organizations, both of which face increased threats in Louisiana because of Governor Jeff Landry’s reactionary agenda. A republican federal government that will strip all environmental protections means that the remaining Louisiana landmass will be delivered to oil-extracting companies on a silver platter.

Speakers from Palestinian Youth Movement and New Orleans Stop Helping Israel’s Ports (NOSHIP) spoke about the recent achievement of a ceasefire in Gaza by the Palestinian resistance. They highlighted Trump’s racist views towards Palestinians and uplifted the need to honor martyrs of resistance such as MLK Jr and Tawfic Abdeljabbar, a Palestinian-American student from New Orleans who was killed by the IDF while visiting Palestine in January 2024.

Students for Democratic Society member Juleea Berthelot told the crowd, “Today we gather not just to honor the legacy of MLK Jr but to keep his fight for justice alive, to speak truth to power and to demand that our voices be heard.” Berthelot shared their motivation for participating in the march, saying, “My identity as a Black person, as a student and as someone who’s been arrested for speaking out compels me to fight for a future that honors Martin Luther King’s dream. Not just in words, but in action. That is why we are here today. We will not be silent in the face of a president who is intent on reversing the progress that we fought so hard to make.”

#NewOrleansLA #LA #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #MLK #Trump #ImmigrantRights #InJusticeSystem #NOCOP

Atlanta, GA – On Monday, January 20, the streets of downtown Atlanta were filled with activists, community and youth groups, and a number of labor unions who all marched to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Among the unions present were Teamsters Locals 728 and 396, as well as the IBEW, CWA, SEIU and Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council.

For UPS Teamsters this is the second year in history that MLK day is a paid holiday, following the “Deliver on the Dream” campaign in 2023 that saw the holiday added to the Teamsters contract. King was a staunch ally of organized labor; he spoke to labor unions across the country about the need to fight racist discrimination and led marches demanding improved rights for workers.

The demands of organized labor are especially dire this MLK day, as it coincided with the inauguration of Donald Trump to the presidency. Teamsters led chants against union busting and workplace abuses. Trump used hollow rhetoric in an attempt to appeal to the working class during the 2024 election, calling out the rising costs of living and exorbitant spending on foreign wars. In the same breath, Trump incites xenophobic and anti-Black racism. From Trump’s promise to deport a record number of immigrants to his support for a national right-to-work law, there can be no doubt that he will be an enemy of labor while in office.

Martin Luther King Jr himself drew the connection between the rights of labor and the fight against racism in a 1961 address to the AFL-CIO convention, stating, “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs – decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.”

Amazon Teamster Hunter Richau from Local 728 spoke on King’s legacy regarding labor, saying, “As much as his image gets whitewashed, MLK was fighting for the working class. The fight we wage on his birthday every year from here on out will be a fight for the working people here in Atlanta. The working class is already here, and we need to stick together. If MLK were here today he would champion nothing less.”

#AtlantaGA #GA #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #MLK #Teamsters #Labor

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization shares its condolences with the family, friends and comrades of Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez, chairman of the Young Lords Organization. He died on January 10, 2025, at the age of 75 in Chicago.

All those who knew him appreciated Jimenez’s determination and his ability to motivate others to action, all the while teaching about the need for revolution and socialism. A revolutionary to the end, he often quoted Mao Tse Tung on the united front strategy, “Unite the many to defeat the few!”

The Young Lords Organization was founded by Jose “Cha Cha” Jimenez in 1968 in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. Puerto Ricans and other working people were being forced out of the now wealthy neighborhood by big financiers and real estate firms working with Mayor Richard Daley’s Democrat political machine.

At that time, Jimenez turned a street gang into one of the most successful political movements of its day, resisting community displacement and opposing the U.S. war in Vietnam. Their militant tactics attracted masses of people to protest for better housing, education, childcare and health care in Chicago. The Young Lords spread to New York and many other cities, inspiring Puerto Rican people who were forced to move from the island by U.S. domination and exploitation. Cha Cha popularized the slogan, “Tengo Puerto Rico en mi corazón!” [I have Puerto Rico in my heart]

The Young Lords travelled and met the Brown Berets, whose stance for national self-determination for the Chicano people was an inspiration. They also took leadership from Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party in Chicago, beginning to study Marxism-Leninism and devising ways to oppose the violent repression and assassinations they faced from the FBI, COINTELPRO and the Chicago Police.

It was the Young Lords who had ties to the Young Patriots, an Appalachian youth group in the Uptown neighborhood. This was key to Fred Hampton and the Black Panther Party forming the first Rainbow Coalition.

In recent years, the Freedom Road Socialist Organization organized closely with and supported Cha Cha Jimenez and the Young Lords. We promoted the Young Lords and their lessons while participating in the Trayvon Martin protests and the George Floyd uprising. There was the launch of the Young Lords Archive at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, the 50 Years of Young Lords Anniversary Conference at DePaul University in Chicago, and the “Young Lords Pass the Torch, Honor Cha Cha Jimenez” event in Humboldt Park on June 4, 2022, recognizing a new era of Young Lords leaders.

In one of his last interviews, Cha Cha Jimenez told Fight Back!, “Ours is a protracted struggle until victory and beyond!”

Long live the legacy of Jose Cha Cha Jimenez!

#OppressedNationalities #PuertoRico #NationalLiberation #YoungLords #ChaChaJimenez #FRSO #Statement

San José, CA – Alrededor de 20 miembros de la comunidad se reunieron en el Centro de Paz y Justicia de San José, el 10 de diciembre, Día Internacional de los Derechos Humanos, para honrar a Leonard Peltier, líder del Movimiento Indio Americano y prisionero político por casi 50 años.

El evento fue presentado por Donna Wallach, presidenta del Grupo de Apoyo a Leonard Peltier de Silicon Valley y una firme organizadora comunitaria de toda la vida. Dan Battaglia, miembro activo del Grupo de Apoyo a Leonard Peltier de Nueva York, y Paulette Dauteuil, miembro de la junta del Movimiento Jericó y el Comité Ad Hoc Oficial por Leonard Peltier, ambos asistieron por llamada al evento. Ellos describieron la mala conducta del FBI que llevó al arresto, juicio y encarcelamiento ilegal de Peltier desde 1978. También enfatizaron la importancia de la lucha continua por su libertad.

Julie Dominguez, embajadora de la Tribu Muwekma Ohlone, lideró un reconocimiento de tierras de parte de la tribu. Dominguez dijo que la Tribu Muwekma Ohlone está viva, yéndole bien, y continuando la lucha por el reconocimiento federal.

Philip Nguyen de San José Contra la Guerra habló de uno de los pilares de la organización siendo la solidaridad con la resistencia indígena en contra del colonialismo y el robo de tierras. Nguyen mencionó que la continua supervivencia de Peltier estando encarcelado ilegalmente es la resistencia misma y una “señal para endurecer nuestra determinación para luchar como el infierno por los vivos – por Leonard, por los palestinos y por todos los otros pueblos oprimidos.”

John Paul Amaral, presidente de la Organización Estudiantil Nativo Americana en la Universidad Estatal de San José leyó un poema que escribió llamado, Ternura en Humo, que describía su rabia y pena por el descubrimiento a principios del anterior año de fosas comunes sin nombre de niños nativo-americanos que fueron forzados a entrar a internados, una práctica común para oprimir y borrar culturalmente a los nativos americanos.

Brian M. Smith, miembro del Grupo de Apoyo a Leonard Peltier de Silicon Valley, leyó la declaración de Peltier del Día Nacional de Luto.

John Duroyan de la Organización Socialista Camino de la Libertad resaltó que “el encarcelamiento es una de las muchas herramientas que la clase dominante usa para reprimir nuestros movimientos, sabotear nuestros líderes, e intimidar a la gente en todas partes donde debemos resistir con fuerza,” y continuó, “la Organización Socialista Camino de la Libertad se solidariza con Leonard Peltier y su lucha por libertad y justicia.”

Después del programa, Wallach dio el llamado a la acción para llamar al presidente Biden para que perdone a Leonard antes de que deje el cargo. La comunidad nacional continuará movilizándose para liberar a Leonard Peltier, solidarizarse con las comunidades indígenas en todas partes y resistir la represión política.

#SanJoseCA #CA #OppressedNationalities #IndigenousPeoples #InJusticeSystem #LeonardPeltier #AIM #FRSO

San Jose, CA – About 20 community members gathered at the San Jose Peace and Justice Center, December 10, International Human Rights Day, to honor Leonard Peltier, American Indian Movement leader and political prisoner of almost 50 years.

The event was emceed by Donna Wallach, chair of Leonard Peltier Support Group Silicon Valley and a staunch and lifelong community organizer. Dan Battaglia, an active member of Leonard Peltier Support Group of New York City, and Paulette Dauteuil, board member of the Jericho Movement and Official Leonard Peltier’s Ad Hoc Committee, both called in to the event. They described the FBI misconduct that led to Peltier’s wrongful arrest, trial and imprisonment since 1978. They also emphasized the importance of the continued struggle for his freedom.

Julie Dominguez, ambassador of Muwékma Ohlone Tribe, led a land acknowledgement on behalf of the tribe. Dominguez stated the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe is alive, doing well and continuing the struggle for federal acknowledgement.

Philip Nguyen of San Jose Against War spoke about one of the organization’s pillars being solidarity with indigenous peoples’ resistance against colonialism and land theft. Nguyen mentioned that Peltier’s continued survival while wrongfully imprisoned is resistance itself and a “signal to steel our resolve to fight like hell for the living – for Leonard, for the Palestinians and all other oppressed peoples.”

John Paul Amaral, president of the Native American Student Organization at San Jose State University read a poem that he authored called, Tenderness in Smoke, which described their rage and sorrow upon the discovery early last year of the unmarked mass graves of Native American children who were forced into boarding schools, a common practice to oppress and culturally erase Native Americans.

Brian M. Smith, member of Leonard Peltier Support Group Silicon Valley, read Peltier’s statement from the National Day of Mourning.

John Duroyan of Freedom Road Socialist Organization highlighted that “imprisonment is one of the many tools that the ruling class uses to suppress our movements, sabotage our leaders and intimidate people everywhere that we must strongly resist,” and he continued, “Freedom Road Socialist Organization stands in solidarity with Leonard Peltier and his fight for freedom and justice.”

After the program, Wallach gave the call to action to call President Biden to pardon Leonard before he leaves office. The national community will continue to mobilize to free Leonard Peltier, be in solidarity with indigenous communities everywhere and resist political repression.

#SanJoseCA #OppressedNationalities #IndigenousPeoples #InJusticeSystem #LeonardPeltier #AIM #LeonardPeltierSupportGroupSiliconValley #JerichoMovement #MuwékmaOhloneTribe #SJAW #NativeAmericanStudentOrganizationSanJoseStateUniversity #FRSO #Feature

Jacksonville, FL – On Friday evening, December 6, the air was electric as the inaugural Southern Regional Organizing Conference (SROC) of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR) kicked off with a rally outside Café Resistance. Over 200 attendees gathered to connect, reflect and prepare for the intensive days ahead.

Florida State Representative Angie Nixon welcomed attendees to the venue, which serves as a hub for activists and community-building in Jacksonville. In light of the recent Trump victory, Nixon remarked that it is up to us to, “keep up the fight. We gotta get back to the basics: Grassroots organizing.”

“When I say people, you say power!” Monique Sampson, a conference organizer and member of the NAARPR National Desk began, “We are here to organize and resist. They say the South is too far gone. This weekend shows that it is a lie! We are here to fight. This weekend is about struggle. It is about justice and continuing to fight. Because when we dare to struggle, we dare to win!”

Organizers and participants expressed enthusiasm about the weekend’s agenda, which is set to address critical issues such as community control of the police, political repression, and liberation struggles across the Deep South. Many noted the significance of convening in Jacksonville, a historic Black city marked by both resilience and repression.

In his speech, NAARPR Co-Chair Michael Sampson highlighted the need to struggle against undemocratic and racist state laws like Florida’s HB-1 and Texas's HB-9, two measures that will criminalize protests and block police accountability. Sampson emphasized, “We are going to keep pushing for real political power. All the harsh repression we have faced in Florida; they are trying to snuff out our voice and harm our movement. Our presence and organizing here is a message and a clear shot across the bow: they cannot stop us.”

Frank Chapman, the executive director of the Alliance, told the crowd, “When we were born 51 years ago, all of our first major cases came out of the South. Wilmington 10, Atlanta 6, Joann Little. Today, the National Alliance continues to press the legacy of fighting repression in the South. The SROC is about building the people’s power. The South has always been a battleground for the Black liberation movement, and we are here to take the struggle to a new level.”

The evening’s rally set a powerful tone for the weekend. The night buzzed with conversations about the transformative potential of the strategizing sessions and discussions to come.

As the rally concluded, NAARPR Co-Chair Sydney Loving addressed the crowd, grounding the event in its historical significance. She led attendees in a unified chant: “It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win!”

“Our job is not to tell people they are oppressed,” Loving continued. “The people feel it – we feel it heavily in the South. Our job as organizers is to show our communities that we can step into our power together and do something about it. We can and always will fight back.”

The night ended with the crowd chanting, “The South got something to say!”

#JacksonvilleFL #FL #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #USSouth #NAARPR #SROC #Feature

Comrades and friends:

On behalf of the Central Committee, and indeed the entire membership of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, we thank the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and its member organizations for organizing this important conference. We salute all of you who are gathered here. Having a developed understanding of imperialism and national oppression, as well as the fights for national liberation, is vital for understanding the world as it is and what one needs to do to change it. This conference will no doubt further this end.

Trump and the decline of U.S. imperialism

The election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the U.S. is symptomatic of a monopoly capitalist power in decline. His return to power reflects a failure of the other party of monopoly capitalism (the Democratic Party of Biden/Harris) and its inability to address the needs and aspirations of the working class. Drawing from a toxic brew of national chauvinism and reactionary currents of all kinds, Trump’s return to the White House will signal the sharpening of a host of contradictions domestically and internationally.

Trump has referred to himself as “Tariff Man,” promising to slap 20% tariffs on all imports and substantially more – 100 or 200% – on things like electric vehicles from China. The people around him, like some of the Biden crowd, look towards “delinking” the U.S. economy from the People’s Republic of China.

In his outstanding work, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Lenin made the point that one of the features of imperialism, of decaying monopoly capitalism, was that big capital finds it increasingly difficult to utilize science and holds back advances in the productive forces. This phenomenon is on full display in the U.S., where someone like “vaccine skeptic” RFK Jr will be put in charge of public health, and where industrial policy is turning against technologies that cause less harm to the environment, such as electric vehicles.

The role of the U.S. in the world economy is shrinking. In 1960 the U.S. had about 40% of the world GDP. Today it is about half that. There was a day when U.S. imperialism championed free trade. For the past decade-plus, Washington DC has moved away from the neoliberal trade model, erecting a growing tariff blockade. The abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and paralysis of the World Trade Organization are signs of things to come.

After World War II, the United States constructed a web of economic intuitions where Wall Street and Washington DC occupied center place. That world is gone, and it has been replaced by a fragmenting world economy, where the decline of U.S. imperialism is picking up speed. Trump will accelerate the process.

One of the symptoms will be a sharpening of inter-imperialist contradictions, which will have political and military dimensions. For example, Trump’s view of the Ukraine is that it is mainly a concern of Europe and that too much U.S. time and treasure has been wasted on it. If implemented as policy, this shift on the Ukraine will force the European imperialist powers, especially Germany, to carry out a military buildup while putting new stress on NATO.

What we are seeing is clearer definition in the developing spheres of influence and domination – where the U.S. has a smaller role to play. Also worth noting is that the two other monopoly centers of monopoly capitalism, i.e. Japan and the European Union, are also producing a smaller share of the world GDP.

People vs. imperialism

The principal contradiction in the world today is between the peoples, nations and countries of the developing world versus imperialism. The U.S. is presently the principal imperialist power, and as such, it is the main danger to the world’s peoples. From Puerto Rico to the Philippines and Palestine, people are rising up and fighting for liberation.

The battle taking place in the Middle East is vital to the world revolutionary process in the current period. On one side you have Western imperialism, Zionism and Arab reaction. On the other, we have the heroic resistance of Palestine and Lebanon, and a whole axis of resistance, which encompasses Yemen, Syria and the popular forces of Iraq and Iran. This is a battle of world historic importance.

The U.S. cannot continue to exist as a world empire without dominance of the Middle East, and this fact explains why the bond between imperialism and Zionism is so strong. The broad masses of people throughout the Middle East hate foreign domination and want it to end. Israel is the cop on the beat for Western imperialism, a reliable nightstick that can be used against those who want freedom and independence. This means that Trump will double down on the Gaza genocide facilitated by Biden/Harris.

It is also worth noting that things can turn into their opposite, that Israel can move from being an asset to a liability: if the genocide and carnage in Palestine and Lebanon provoke uprisings in the Arab world, the position of imperialism will be impacted.

The fact that many of the forces fighting imperialism and Zionism are not led by the working class does not change the revolutionary, anti-imperialist nature of the struggle that is taking place. Stalin, an outstanding Marxist-Leninist and pathbreaking theorist on national question, wrote in the great work, The Foundations of Leninism:

“The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism; whereas the struggle waged by such ‘desperate’ democrats and ‘Socialists,’ ‘revolutionaries’ and republicans as, for example, Kerensky and Tsereteli, Renaudel and Scheidemann, Chernov and Dan, Henderson and Clynes, during the imperialist war was a reactionary struggle, for its results was the embellishment, the strengthening, the victory, of imperialism.”

That said, the struggle for working class leadership in the movements for national liberation is important, and as communists we have the responsibility to support other communists who are contending for leadership in the national movements – be it in Palestine or anywhere else.

Marxism-Leninism and the fight for national liberation

In an environment of declining imperialism, there are some important things to keep in mind.

First, there needs to be a strategic alliance, a “union” as Lenin put it, between the working class in the advanced capitalist countries, and the broad masses of the oppressed in the developing countries. There are hundreds of millions of people in rural areas locked in semi-feudal property relations, which in part provides the material conditions for people’s war.

Second, while there has been a resurgence of the communist and national liberation movements, party building and the construction of revolutionary, communist organizations is a vital task in the present period. Ending, or breaking free of imperialism is not easy, and to successfully do so over the long run requires organizations that embody the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism. Building a new communist party should be the central task of revolutionaries in the U.S., and great progress is being made on this front.

Third, national liberation movements which weaken imperialism are objectively progressive and will hasten imperialism’s end. Self-determination of oppressed nations is a democratic demand, and, to the extent and degree that the fight for self-determination weakens imperialism, those fights should be supported. This has an application in multinational states, including the U.S.

Fourth, monopoly capitalism is a law-governed system where the drive to seek the highest rate of profit is basic. While capitalism is always incapable of genuine long-range planning, imperialism in decline is animated by the shortest of short-term gain and contingency. One of the things that makes the Trump administration dangerous is precisely a reactionary pragmatism that is reshaping the U.S. empire. It is a recipe for more wars and intervention, particularly in Latin America and the Pacific.

Finally, we need to be proletarian internationalists who are serious about uniting the working and oppressed people of the world. Looking around this room, that is exactly who we are. Mao made the point that imperialism is strategically a paper tiger. He was right – in the short term imperialism is an “iron tiger,” it is dangerous. In the long run it will certainly be defeated.

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Long live the unity of the people of the world!

Long live the unity of working and oppressed people – we have nothing to lose but our chains!

#RevolutionaryTheory #FRSO #Statement #Imperialism #Trump #NDFP #OppressedNationalities

The purpose of Marxist analysis is so that we can know how to make revolution, so that we understand the terrain of struggle, formulate correct strategy and tactics, and identify our friends and enemies. We must understand the contradictions at work in society and unite all who can be united if we want to win. So, we need to be very careful and precise in that analysis.

It is also important to challenge and correct theoretical errors that can lead us in the wrong direction. There’s a tendency from some on the left to argue that the United States should be understood today as a settler-colonial state. Such a position may seem at first glance to be obvious; many accept this position without careful consideration, simply taking its correctness as given. By automatically accepting the correctness of this position, these perhaps well-meaning revolutionaries fail to understand the ways in which this theory deviates from Marxism, and fail to consider its deeper implications for revolutionary strategy.

Overall, this is a relatively amorphous tendency, with a lot of varying positions that don’t always agree on the particulars. But, so far as there is one, the basic argument from the proponents of this theory goes something like this: The United States remains today a settler-colonial state. People of European descent, regardless of their actual class position, are settlers, and are seen as continuing to benefit from and perpetuate a colonial system. In other words, the people of the United States are divided into two camps, with the colonized in one camp, and the settlers in the other. Some even go so far as to say that this makes up the principal contradiction in the U.S. This is furthermore viewed as a fundamentally antagonistic contradiction.

This ought to be contrasted with the Marxist-Leninist view, which sees the United States as an advanced imperialist country. Again, we see a division of U.S. society into two camps. On the one hand there is the camp of the capitalists, and on the other the oppressed and exploited masses of workers and oppressed nationalities. The principal contradiction is therefore between the capitalist class on the one hand, and the multinational working class and its allies on the other, particularly the oppressed nations. Historical development is a law governed process, and it is a law of capitalist development that this basic class struggle is the fundamental contradiction inherent to capitalist society.

What’s at stake in the debate over settler-colonialism in the United States?

To put it as plainly as possible, if the proponents of the U.S. settler-colonialism theory are correct, then there is no basis whatsoever upon which to build a multinational working class communist party in this country. Indeed, such a view sees the “settler working class” as instruments of colonialism, hostile to the interests of the colonized people, rather than viewing all working and oppressed people as natural allies in the struggle against imperialism, our mutual oppressor.

Obviously, this is a very important strategic point, and it cannot go unaddressed. We should examine where this theory comes from and look at how it can be answered by Marxist-Leninist science.

Some points of historical development

We can all agree that the United States began as a settler-colonial project, founded on the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans. We can furthermore agree that the legacy of this period of U.S. history persists. National oppression and the oppression of indigenous people continues.

However, some people believe it's as simple as “once a settler-colony, always a settler-colony.” This is metaphysical thinking. While it is true that the legacy of settler-colonialism in the United States certainly persists, the systems of oppression have not remained static. Dialectical materialism understands that the nature of a thing is defined by the contradictions inherent to it. Things aren’t fixed, but always changing and developing according to these contradictions. This is true of capitalism in the U.S. as it has developed as well. At different periods in U.S. history, different contradictions have taken the principal, determining role. As contradictions shift, so too does the terrain of struggle.

U.S. settler-colonialism is a particular social formation with a particular set of contradictions at the heart of it. Historically it is a transitionary period in the early development of the capitalist mode of production. It is characterized by the dominant role played by the contradiction between settlers on the one hand and colonized people on the other. This contradiction is the main thing shaping the trajectory of the capitalist mode of production in the period of “primitive accumulation” during its nascent development. In this way, settler-colonialism fueled the rapid growth of the capitalist mode of production in the early United States.

Those who came to the American colonies, of course, were not an undifferentiated, classless mass. As Philip S. Foner notes in the first volume of his History of the Labor Movement in the United States, “Probably half the immigrants to Colonial America were indentured servants. By 1770 a quarter of a million had entered America, of whom more than a hundred thousand were victims of kidnaping or prisoners sentenced to service.” This is, of course, in addition to “five hundred thousand Negro slaves, approximately 20 per cent of the colonial population.”

As the capitalist mode of production developed, this transitional settler-colonial period had to give way to mature competitive capitalism, bringing forth new contradictions. These contradictions changed and developed enough that the United States underwent two bourgeois revolutions, the War of Independence which overthrew the British colonial system and the Civil War, which overthrew the slave system of the Southern planter class.

As the book An Economic History of the Major Capitalist Countries by Kang Fan puts it, “American victory in the war [of Independence] and the subsequent establishment of the United States overthrew England's colonial rule in North America. Domestically, it swept aside many feudal remnants, and it opened the road for the development of capitalism.” Lenin called the War of Independence “one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few,” and after that war the U.S. was no longer a colony.

Industrialization brought about heightened contradictions between labor and capital. After the intensified industrial buildup of the Civil War, monopoly capitalism emerged in the United States out of the merger of banking capital with industrial capital into finance capital, bringing the capitalist mode of production into its most fully developed and final stage. The rise of monopoly capitalism brought about the end of competitive capitalism.

In a relatively short span of time, the U.S. went from being a colony to an imperialist power. The old colonial system based on the export of commodities was transformed into an imperialist system based on the export of capital. The financial oligarchy which came to dominate the U.S. sought to solve its growing crises through the oppression of whole nations and peoples, at home and abroad, in order to extract super-profits to prop up its rotten system. The multinational working class and the liberation movements of oppressed nationalities found themselves with a common enemy – the monopoly capitalist class. Thus, a united front against monopoly capitalism, based on the strategic alliance of the multinational working class and the oppressed nations, became both possible and necessary.

The national question in the U.S.

When we talk about oppressed nations in the United States, we have to be very clear. The United States is the greatest imperialist power in the world. It isn’t a colony. Like Tsarist Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution, it is a “prison house of nations.”

Within the borders of the U.S. there are oppressed nations. What is an oppressed nation? As Stalin defines it in Marxism and the National Question, “A nation is a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture.” These oppressed nations are nations without states. They don’t govern themselves. The oppressed nations in the U.S. are the African American nation, with its homeland in the Black Belt South, the Chicano nation in the Southwest, and the Hawaiian nation. This national oppression exists to allow the U.S. monopoly capitalist class to draw super-profits from a higher rate of exploitation of the oppressed nationalities. This national oppression is the material basis of racist ideas, and uprooting national oppression is therefore the key to demolishing racist and white chauvinist thinking.

To be perfectly clear, it is important to note that oppressed nations are not the same thing as colonies. The correct demand for a colony is immediate independence. This is the demand we must put forward regarding Puerto Rico and other colonies, where basic democratic rights are denied and which are merely objects of plunder. The demand that must be raised regarding an oppressed nation, on the other hand, is self-determination. This is a very important distinction.

Self-determination is a democratic demand. It means that the oppressed nation ought to democratically determine its own destiny. Historically imposed obstacles to genuine political power must be systematically dismantled. And most importantly, self-determination means the right to separate in its historically constituted national territory and govern itself however it sees fit. But self-determination isn’t forced separation, just as the right to divorce isn’t forced separation. Indeed, the purpose is to create the basis for unity on a truly equal footing. Thus, self-determination is the demand of the oppressed nations in the U.S.

The demands of indigenous peoples deserve special consideration and are distinct: full sovereignty and national development of indigenous peoples, and the protection of their cultures, languages and traditions.

Finally, it must be noted that in the era of imperialism, the national question is bound up with proletarian socialist revolution. No longer is the bourgeoisie a revolutionary class. Imperialism closes off the path of independent capitalist development for the bourgeoisie of the oppressed nations. The national liberation movements therefore must ally themselves with the working class struggle, with an orientation towards socialism – or find themselves diverted into neocolonialism. In the U.S. this means that the strategic alliance between the multinational working class and the liberation movements of the oppressed nationalities is central to the united front against monopoly capitalism.

The multinational working class

For any of this to be any more than wishful thinking, a real revolutionary movement is necessary. For such a movement to be successful in the United States, such as it really is, it must have working class leadership, and the working class in the U.S. is fundamentally multinational in character.

What does this mean? The U.S. isn’t an apartheid system, like “Israel” or “Rhodesia” for example. The horrific system of Jim Crow segregation that followed the betrayal of Reconstruction was itself uprooted by the Black liberation movement. While national oppression remains, de jure segregation no longer exists. The working class, as a result of its historical development, is therefore multinational in character.

This is because workers of all nationalities, both oppressed nationality workers and white workers, toil shoulder to shoulder on assembly lines and shop floors, in kitchens, warehouses and offices, from coast to coast. Even as national oppression puts greater pressure on oppressed nationality workers, they are still forged into one multinational working class together with their white siblings as they suffer exploitation together under the same bosses.

This is also true within the territories of the oppressed nations, though there tend to be greater numbers of oppressed nationality workers proportional to white workers in those places as a simple demographic fact. The higher rate of exploitation in the oppressed nations drives down living standards for the entire multinational working class.

Mao Zedong famously said, “In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles that oppress the black people.” Mao was explaining that while many white workers may have racist and white chauvinist ideas that have to be overcome, those ideas are the ideology of the class enemy. It is that class enemy, the capitalists, who wield the instruments of oppression against the oppressed nationalities. The ruling class, not white workers, are the bosses and the landlords. The ruling class are the ones who control the police and the courts. It is the monopoly capitalist class who reap the super-profits from national oppression.

Sources of the error

The facts of the matter are clear. Where then, does the confusion on this question come from? There are two main ideological factors leading to the development of the theory of U.S. settler-colonialism. These are, first of all, petty bourgeois radicalism, and second, a desire to “copy and paste” from the Palestinian experience.

First let’s talk about petty bourgeois radicalism. As Mao once put it, “In class society, everyone lives as a member of a particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is stamped with the brand of a class.” So what is the material basis of this theory about settler-colonialism in the U.S.? Petty bourgeois radicalism is characterized, as Lenin puts it, by “the instability of such revolutionism, its barrenness, and its tendency to turn rapidly into submission, apathy, phantasms, and even a frenzied infatuation with one bourgeois fad or another.” The petty bourgeoisie, the class of small business owners or petty capitalists, is under immense pressure. They are under pressure from the working class on the one hand, whom they exploit generally, and the monopoly capitalists on the other hand, with whom they cannot compete. Because they are driven to ruin by the monopoly capitalists, and ultimately have no future as a class, they sometimes take up radical, even revolutionary, ideas, however inconsistently. These petty bourgeois radicals pride themselves on taking the most outwardly revolutionary position, regardless of whether or not it holds up to scientific analysis. Lenin writes that the petty bourgeois radical “easily goes to revolutionary extremes, but is incapable of perseverance, organization, discipline and steadfastness.” They are not members of the working class and do not grasp the centrality of the working class in the socialist revolution. They take up all sorts of petty bourgeois ideas about the backwardness or ignorance of the working class and take a pessimistic and defeatist attitude regarding the revolutionary potential of the working class. So, they seek revolutionary potential elsewhere. The only way to make such a position fit into a Marxist analysis is to revise the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism – namely the key role of the working class.

Second, many see the heroic struggle of Palestinian resistance against Zionism and wish to copy and paste an analysis of the Palestinian struggle onto U.S. conditions. Largely this comes from a desire to use what is happening in Palestine to draw attention to the need for revolution in the U.S. As admirable as this is, the United States is not Palestine, and so this obscures as much as it illuminates.

The contradictions at work are not the same. This is a fact clearly understood by the Marxist-Leninists in Palestine. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine themselves say in “Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine”, their main programmatic document, “The class structure in an underdeveloped community naturally differs from that of industrial communities. In an industrial community there is a strong capitalist class opposite a numerous working class, and the basic struggle in such communities is a sharp clash between these classes.” In other words, we have to understand the strategic array of various forces based on the class contradictions at work. The Palestinians have done their own analysis of their concrete conditions, and we must likewise analyze our own.

The Palestinians find themselves occupied by an apartheid state, much like Zimbabwe prior to liberation. The principal contradiction in Palestine is certainly that between the Palestinian resistance movement on the one hand and the Zionists and their imperialist supporters on the other. That is the contradiction that is clearly driving things forward. In the U.S., where people of all nationalities are forged into one multinational working class, there is a basis to build a multinational working class party. Under Israeli apartheid, there is no such multinational working class. The analogy breaks down when faced with concrete reality.

Indeed, the situation the Palestinian comrades find themselves in isn’t the norm on a global scale. In fact, it is quite rare. Some of the most recent examples include Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau, none of which remain settler-colonies. Unlike in Palestine, which is occupied by the Zionist apartheid state, in much of the underdeveloped world neocolonialism holds sway, where a class of compradores and traitors rules on behalf of the imperialists, creating a show of nominal independence while the economic life of the country is in fact entirely subservient to the imperialist powers. Settler-colonialism is used in Palestine because Israel is the lynchpin of U.S. hegemony in the Middle East. Because U.S. power in the Middle East depends on the survival of its regional proxy, oppression is especially sharp.

Strategy for revolution

Revolution in the United States requires Marxist-Leninist analysis. Furthermore, it requires the leadership of the multinational working class, organized in a Marxist-Leninist party. The misguided theory of settler-colonialism in the United States has to be overcome if we are to accomplish this historic task.

This erroneous theory of settler-colonialism is an obstacle to building the strategic alliance that must be at the core of any revolutionary strategy that can hope to be successful. We have to base that strategy on the contradictions that are truly driving things forward in the real world, and that contradiction is between the capitalist class on the one hand, and the oppressed and exploited masses of workers and oppressed nationalities on the other.

We live in the belly of the beast, in the heart of the most vicious imperialist power in the world. We have to turn the whole order of things upside down, and, if we’re going to do that, then we have to accomplish several major tasks.

Our central task is party building. We have to fuse Marxism-Leninism with the multinational working class and build a revolutionary communist party that can contend for power. And we have to build around that party a united front against monopoly capitalism, with the strategic alliance of the multinational working class and oppressed nationalities at its core. In order to do this, we have to be crystal clear in our analysis, so that we can put that analysis to work.

Only the multinational working class, allied with the liberation movements of oppressed nationalities, can overthrow the rule of the capitalists, smash the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, build socialism, and end exploitation and oppression once and for all.

#RevolutionaryTheory #MarxismLeninism #NationalQuestion #OppressedNationalities

Roughly 25 community members came together to watch two films that spotlight the city’s pivotal role in the fight for liberation: Agnès Varda’s Black Panthers 1968 and Shola Lynch’s Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners. The films offered not only a window into the past but a mirror reflecting the struggles and solidarity still needed in Oakland today.

Agnès Varda’s Black Panthers 1968 is an on-the-ground documentary capturing the resiliency of the Black Panther Party as they rallied to free Huey Newton, co-founder of the movement. Filmed in Oakland at the height of the Panthers’ activism, the film is a testament to their ability to unite working-class people and oppressed communities against police violence and systemic injustice. Varda’s work doesn’t just document history; it brings to life the defiant hope of the movement and its roots in the city’s streets.

The second film, Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners, is an account of Angela Davis’s trial and the international movement to secure her release. Davis, a scholar, communist and activist, was charged with crimes related to a 1970 courthouse shootout. Lynch’s documentary recounts the global solidarity campaign that demanded her freedom, framing it as both a personal and collective story of resistance. It’s a powerful reminder of what can be accomplished when movements cross borders and people stand united against oppression.

FRSO Oakland members led the program, situating these stories in Oakland’s broader revolutionary history. They reminded attendees of the Black Panther Party’s core mission – building unity between oppressed nationalities and working-class people to fight systemic inequality. They also illuminated the government’s counterattacks, particularly through COINTELPRO, the FBI’s covert program that sought to dismantle revolutionary movements.

The discussion didn’t stop with history. Participants connected the lessons of the films to ongoing struggles in Oakland, particularly the work of the newly formed Oakland Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression (OAARPR). This group, a local chapter of the national NAARPR which emerged from the fight to free Angela Davis, works alongside families of police violence victims and pushes for community control of the police.

In this context, the group also critiqued the failures of Oakland’s Community Police Review Agency, highlighting its ineffectiveness as a key example of the city's ongoing systemic issues with police corruption and violence. This discussion tied the historical and contemporary struggles together, underscoring the urgent need for real change.

Adding a tangible connection to the past, CARP displayed a collection of artifacts that captured the spirit of the Black Panthers and the Free Angela Davis campaigns. Old political pins reading “Free Angela Davis and all political prisoners” and “Black Panther Party: All power to the people” sat alongside the Panthers’ iconic “Ten-Point Program”, photo books, and pamphlets from the 1980s. These materials bridged generations, underscoring the enduring relevance of these struggles.

The films and discussions drove home a powerful message: the fight for justice is as urgent today as ever. In a city shaped by revolutionary victories and ongoing battles, the event called on everyone to organize, educate and resist with renewed purpose.

Oakland's legacy as a beacon for liberation movements lives on – not just in history books but in the work unfolding right now. From the Black Panther Party’s bold defiance to today’s campaigns for police accountability, the message resonated loud and clear, the struggle continues, and our commitment must match its urgency.

#OaklandCA #CA #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #BlackPanthers #NAARPR #FRSO #CARP

Atlanta, GA – Since August 2024, a dozen Black men at Virginia’s Red Onion supermax prison have set themselves on fire in a desperate attempt to escape conditions that amount to prolonged torture.

Red Onion is infamous for the abuses it has carried out against prisoners since its opening in 1998. Most of its prisoners spend 23 hours a day in solitary confinement, some of them for as long as 14 years. Red Onion has been known to use attack dogs on prisoners who speak out and organize against the guards’ abuses.

This recent series of self-immolations has been brought to light through Prison Radio communiques by a veteran of the Black liberation movement, longtime political prisoner Kevin Rashid Johnson, who is currently held in Red Onion.

Johnson describes a prisoner known as Econ and his cellmate Trayvon Brown setting themselves on fire in the most recent acts of self-immolation. Econ informed Johnson that the self-immolation was an attempt to get transferred out of Red Onion, even if just temporarily to a hospital, as the conditions have become so intolerable. These acts of desperation come on the heel of Johnson’s 71-day hunger strike that was launched in protest of Red Onion’s inhumane conditions. Guards have been serving food with maggots, carrying out religious persecution, using racial slurs, and denying medical treatment.

In an interview with Prison Radio, Ekong Eshiet gave his reason for self-immolation, “I would rather die before I stay up here, because every day I’m dealing with discrimination, whether it’s about my race, my last name, or my religion.” Eshiet is a Muslim from Africa and has been subjected to frequent beatings that included rubbing pepper spray in his burn wounds. Guards often deface their Quran during these attacks. Eshiet has also launched a hunger strike, “I’m doing my best, like I’m going about this the right way, I guess, like with the hunger strike way. But if I have to, I don’t mind setting myself on fire again. This time, I would set my whole body on fire before I have to stay up here and do the rest of my time.”

27-year-old Demetrius Wallace was one of the first to set fire to his leg in August. Upon being taken to the medical wing of the prison he was denied any treatment. The guards waited three days to transfer him to the VCU Health burn unit. Wallace told The Virginia Defender, “As soon as the doctor sees me, he said, ‘When did this happen?’ I said, ‘Friday.’ He said, ‘Why haven’t you been here?’ I said, ‘I’m not trying to be funny, but I can’t drive myself from the prison.’” Because of this delay, doctors were forced to cure an infection that had developed before they could even begin treating the burn itself.

The trend of medical negligence in American prisons is used as a form of extrajudicial punishment and retaliation. By fostering the conditions for prisoners to develop medical issues, and then denying treatment for said issues, jailers have created a means to murder inmates. This tactic is part and parcel with the systematic inequality imposed on Blacks, Chicanos and other oppressed nationalities by the monopoly capitalist class.

This practice is not limited to prisons either. In the Black Belt south, overcrowded jails such as the Fulton County jail are just as dreadful as prisons. In 2024 alone there were ten inmate deaths in Fulton County. In Dekalb county outside of Atlanta, which is 53% Black, the jails conditions are similar to Fulton county.

Earlier this year, Fight Back! reported on the death of 27-year-old Christon Collins at Dekalb County jail, the result of blatant medical negligence after Christon fell and hit his head. According to Christon’s mother Jonia Milburn, “My son laid on the floor for three hours with no care. Nobody noticed. No guards, no supervisors, no one but the inmates.”

Fight Back! will continue to monitor the ongoing resistance and hunger strikes at Red Onion prison.

#AtlantaGA #GA #InJnjusticeSystem #Prison #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization – Wisconsin District denounces the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) decision to reroute Enbridge’s Line 5 Pipeline through the lands of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. We call on all progressives and revolutionaries to oppose this move and demand the immediate shutdown of Line 5. Motivated by profit, this decision infringes on the sovereignty of the Bad River Tribe and puts the ecosystems of the Great Lakes region as a whole in danger. The DNR, state, and federal government have made it clear that they are only paying lip service to indigenous people while upholding the interests of the ruling monopoly-capitalist class.

The U.S. government and those seeking to make a profit have continuously trampled on the sovereignty of indigenous peoples. Today, the DNR did this on behalf of Enbridge Inc., the company with the largest oil export pipeline network in the world. This decision by the DNR shows exactly what the U.S. ruling class thinks about indigenous peoples and their lands – they see nothing but dollars signs and markets.

In 2019, Wisconsin’s Democratic Governor Tony Evers passed a repressive law meant to prevent protests at property owned by “energy providers”. This was primarily in response to the mass protests against Enbridge Inc. Today, Evers’ policies of upholding private interests and ignoring the will of working and oppressed people remains the same. Evers and the Democratic Party at large have doubled down on their support for extractive industries, especially fossil fuels. Along with support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz ran on a platform of support for fracking in their failed campaign. At best, the Biden administration has a dubious track record with environmental issues the last four years. October 2024 was the hottest October ever recorded, with temperatures being nearly 60 degrees Fahrenheit, 5 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than averages in the 20th century.

The U.S. empire’s involvement in Israel’s genocide in Palestine has resulted in CO2 emissions greater than that of dozens of countries put together. As the rest of us deal with the consequences, the DNR is upholding the interests of those who are driving the world further into the climate crisis. The incoming Trump administration only plans to exacerbate all these issues and make life harder for everyone except for the rich. Every day, it becomes more obvious that the capitalist parties do not take the needs of the masses of people into account.

FRSO supports the struggle for full sovereignty and national development for indigenous peoples. The Bad River Tribe and all oppressed nationalities in the U.S. have a proud history of fighting for liberation. We see the struggle against Line 5 as connected to a wider process of imperialist struggle and national liberation. Imperialism is the highest and final stage of capitalism, and the movement to take it down is growing. It's becoming more clear that the U.S. is an empire in decline and is grasping at straws as its worldwide dominance dwindles. We need to continue building up the movement to bring this backward system to an end. Those exploiting natural resources and casting oppressed people aside won’t be defeated unless we organize and fight back.

We encourage our friends and allies to call demonstrations in solidarity, organize protests in their city, or join upcoming protests called on by the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.

Full sovereignty for indigenous peoples now! Down with the black snake! Fight capitalism, build socialism!

#WI #Environment #OppressedNationalities #IndigenousPeoples #Line5