Last summer I joined the Progressive Labor Party (PLP). I attended the Party’s school for CHALLENGE called the Summer Project, which we host in a different location around the world every year. We study, we rally, and we exchange lessons with our comrades about fighting this racist capitalist system. Learning how the Party puts their, anti sexist, multiracial, internationalist political line into practice during the Project ultimately won me to taking the leap and joining the fight, so here are three key takeaways from that experience.

The first key reason I joined the Party is the opportunity to build class consciousness amongst the masses with communist ideas.  In Boston during the week long school for communism, we had comrades from Colombia, Kentucky, Baltimore, LA, Newark, and NYC come together to learn about the antiracist organizing done by our PLP comrades in 1975. Fifty years ago communists from Progressive Labor Party fought against the racist agenda of the Boston ruling class, which sought to continue segregation between Black and white students in Boston public schools.

Our comrades organized Freedom Schools during the summer to offer children the education, resources, and care that the racist capitalist bosses in Boston denied them.

Learning about the Party’s history of fight back and mutual aid taught me that we must both break bread with people and take that collectivity to a higher level by showing people why we deserve more than just bandaids to our collective wounds caused by this racist capitalist system in crisis. Mutual aid is necessary during these trying times, but only  communism : an international economic system where workers run society in a way that serves our class and the planet can guarantee us what we need.

That is building class consciousness and that is the first key reason I joined the Party. The second reason I joined the Party is to agitate the masses with communist  ideas. In Boston during the school for CHALLENGE we do every summer in different locations, we sold CHALLENGE, our newspaper, in various working class neighborhoods. We started rallies in areas full of workers quietly struggling their way through the various crises we face in this for-profit system.

What I learned from rallying and selling CHALLENGE during the Summer project is that if we do not agitate the masses with communist ideas like multiracial unity, awareness of imperialist war and genocide; if we stay silent about the need for a revolutionary organization to end this system and build a new one, then some workers will never get the opportunity to join this fight to change the world, to wake up from their capitalist-induced pacifism.. I was surprised by how receptive people were to the paper, which taught me that we should not be afraid to tell the truth and stand up for what is right. .

The third reason I joined the Party is to organize on an internationalist line. The Party showed me many examples of what this looks like in practice.  During the summer project I learned about the militant fightback our comrades in Kentucky took up against the Proud Boys, knocking neo-nazi to the ground when they tried to intimidate workers during a protest. One of our LA comrades worked together with her fellow workers and students to rip a racist banner at her school in half  and put it in front of her principal’s office. One of our comrades delivered an empowering speech about capitalism in decay in Creole when we were rallying in a Haitian neighborhood in Massachusetts to bridge the gap between English and Creole speaking workers. The real-life application of the Party’s line  showed me that this is what workers taking ownership of their lives and the world looks like: It means standing up for one another against neonazis, collectively defying a racist school culture, and pushing our fightback to transcend the limits of language and borders.

Hearing our Party’s line in action ultimately inspired me to join. Learning how my comrades took ownership of their languages, workplaces, and environments along with their fellow workers inspired me to want to do the same. Now that I’ve joined the Party we are working to build a tenant union, hosting gatherings to bring our neighbors together who come from all parts of the world, some who speak Spanish and are afraid of ICE, and some who are older and are isolated in their homes. We are building a foundation with these workers through social events to eventually challenge the neglect of the slumlords owning our homes. 

It is only when we come together by the tens, thousands, and millions that we can destroy capitalism and win the world to communism. I know y’all have some fight in you, so Join us! No seriously. I want you to ask the person who brought you how you can learn more and join the Progressive Labor Party!

From 1946 to 1949, at City College of New York (CCNY), there occurred a long, well-planned, militant struggle against racism against Jewish and against Black students. This struggle was organized by the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) and involved many thousands of students and others. The struggle was successful in stopping officially sanctioned racism against Jewish students and professors and discrimination in college housing against Black workers.

There had long been complaints that William Knickerbocker, Chair of Romance Languages at CCNY, made anti-Jewish remarks, denied awards to Jewish students; and tried to stop the hiring of Jewish faculty members. The Board of Higher Education (BHE) refused to do anything and ignored a report filed by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) recommending Knickerbocker’s retirement.

Led by a communist student, a committee of the Hillel (Jewish) student organization studied the facts. The Anti-Defamation League, an elite Jewish civil rights group, tried to stop the students.

Building the case against racist professors

In the Fall of 1947 it turned out that William C. Davis, an instructor of economics who oversaw student housing in Army Hall, was segregating Black students from white students. A faculty committee charged him with racial segregation. Davis resigned as administrator of housing in March 1948 but remained on the faculty and received a salary increase.

Due to decades of diligent and militant union and antiracist work, CP members were in or close to leadership in a dozen labor unions in the city, even having two members plus other supporters on the City Council. On  June 22 1948, the New York City Council voted to recommend that Knickerbocker either retire or lose his chairmanship. In the Fall of 1948, led by a CP member, students organized a protest walkout from Knickerbocker’s class..

On September 29, 1948, 20 students held an all-night sit-in in front of the office of the CCNY president. The next morning five hundred more students joined them. Then a five-hour meeting of 2000 students passed two resolutions calling for the firing of Knickerbocker and Davis or a college-wide sit-down strike.

Students decide to fight

On October 2, 1948, the Student Council (SC) called for a referendum on the sit-down strike. The liberal SC leadership opposed any strike. To undermine the strike vote, President Wright declared that the students who had walked out of Knickerbocker’s class would not be penalized and would be allowed to transfer to other classes. On October 7, the referendum was defeated by about 2 to 1.

On 22 October 1948, Brooklyn College Dean of Students Frederick W. Maroney announced that he would take disciplinary action against fifteen executives of the Students for Wallace group as a response to their charge that the dean intimidated them in his effort to get them to cancel a campus march to protest the whitewash of Knickerbocker and Davis (“Wallace March Scored,” New York Times, 23 October 1948).

On December 15, 1948, a meeting was called to urge the CCNY president to suspend Knickerbocker and Davis. It was signed by members of many mass organizations including the NAACP (New York branch), the Civil Rights Congress, the Teachers Union (a militant union opposed to the anticommunist American Federation of Teachers), the Jewish People’s Fraternal Order, American Jewish Congress, National Inter-Collegiate Young Progressives of America, American Youth for Democracy, and Students for Wallace. The CP had helped to form, and CP members were activists and leaders of all these groups.

In January 1949, the CUNY alumni association appointed a committee to investigate discrimination at CUNY and appointed Judge Hubert T. Delany as a member. Delany was well-known for his antiracist activities. On March 6, 1949, Delany resigned from the Associate Alumni Committee to Investigate Discrimination, charging that the committee had been packed to block efforts to investigate discrimination at CCNY. This set the stage for the student strike. 

The Strike begins

On April 8, 1948, a two-thirds majority of the 2,800 students voting favored an immediate walkout. But the right-wing tried to confuse students into thinking the vote was only for a one-day strike.

That weekend saw feverish preparations for a strike. On Monday morning, April 11, students walking up the hill from the subway on 138th Street saw eight-foot-high letters splashed across the width of the entire street spelling out a one-word message: STRIKE! It had been drawn by vote in the American Veterans Committee. Small groups of students were picketing at every campus building entrance. Several dozen were walking in a circle in front of the main Administration Building on Convent Avenue, chanting militantly “Jim Crow Must Go!” (“Jim Crow,” a synonym for anti-Black racism, was a term used in the South). A great many of the students on the early picket lines were communists not only from the uptown CCNY campus but from colleges all over New York.

Standing across the street all along Convent Avenue there were about a thousand students, books under their arms, waiting to see what would happen. They had not decided to cross the picket line but had not decided to join the strike either. Suddenly NYC cops charged the picketing students, beating them and arresting 18. The other students fought back, trying to hold their line.

Then the high point of the strike occurred. Without a moment’s hesitation, the mass of students watching from across the street immediately formed a huge picket line 1,000 strong, moving back and forth on Convent Avenue from 138th Street to 140th Street. The strike was on full-scale! And the cops’ action had helped propel it forward. The campus was shut tight!

Students and comrades from D.C. and Kentucky led a week of working-class, multiracial fightback throughout the state. We held collaborative events with organizations on campus, joined protests, and shared our internationalist, revolutionary line with students and workers alike. 

On Wednesday, March 25, we held an event with our school’s African Students Association (ASA) on 21st Century Imperialism and Africa. Two days later, we held the first event for our school’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). We were joined by two party members from Baltimore and D.C. Right before the presentation, a party member from Kentucky led a workshop on making and giving presentations. At the SJP event itself, we gave a “Palestine 101” presentation and handed out the party’s 2025 pamphlet on the genocide in Gaza. We gave background on how Palestine has been caught in the middle of inter-imperialist rivalry since World War I. We explained how this has led to the situation we are seeing today, as the US has consolidated its power in Israel to compete against Iran. We spoke about how this is all due to the vast oil reserves in the Middle East and the U.S. losing Iran as an outpost in 1979.

Fightback and mutual aid on the road to May Day

Then, on Saturday, we split our forces to attend the “No Kings” demonstration in our town and also to hold a mutual aid event in southeastern Kentucky. Meanwhile, in western Kentucky, some comrades attended No Kings while others held a free lunch and Challenge distribution event. At this No Kings protest, the displays of nationalism were even more apparent than the previous ones. However, there were some moments that shone through. We spoke to many students from our school, distributed CHALLENGE, and shared our plans for May Day. In one instance, a comrade was holding a banner for Palestine when a woman came up to him saying, “Yeah! I support you! I have Jewish relatives in Israel, but I don’t support what’s going on or what Israel is doing.” Moments like these with members of our community boost our morale and help break nationalist illusions. 

On Sunday, we all went to southeastern Kentucky and had a workshop on mutual aid and natural disasters under capitalism. Together, we read a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) editorial written in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene (Disasters Made by Capitalism, 18 Oct 2024) which connected it to capitalist climate catastrophe. The effects of Helene are still impacting Appalachia today, and many communities in southern Appalachia have responded by forming mutual aid networks. We spoke about the value in these organizations but how we must struggle for genuinely revolutionary politics. We plan to use this workshop for a cadre school in the future. 

Learning to fight, fighting to learn

This week further proved to us the importance of multi-racial, internationalist fightback. We learned a lot about Africa, Palestine, and even our home state of Kentucky. In everything we did, the party line guided our work. We used the party’s literature in all of our events, and this really helped sharpen the politics of what we were doing and gave us a unified purpose. Joining the party is the most important thing you can do to effectively fight for revolution!

Kentucky, March 25­—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades held an event with our school’s African Students Association (ASA) on 21st Century Imperialism and Africa. We were joined virtually by a friend from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and a Party member. The professor and faculty advisor for the ASA even held a Zoom call of the event with his students. We handed out the Party’s leaflet “PLP Viewpoint: Inter-Imperialist Rivalry in Africa” and gave a presentation that was inspired by this leaflet. The friend from the DRC gave his knowledge and took questions from attendees of the event. 

Why does the ruling class want Africa?

The event was a huge success, as the room was packed with mostly Black students who attended our presentation. The talk featured an analysis of how inter-imperialist rivalry is shaping the lives of workers in various parts of Africa, and why specific regions are of strategic importance to the ruling class as they compete for control over markets and territory. Covering Southern Africa, Northern Africa, Democratic Repuplic of Congo, West Africa, and the horn of Africa, we tied together working-class struggles across the continent, showing that no matter national identity all workers share an interest in opposing imperialism and uniting under the international banner of the working-class. 

The presentation highlighted resistance to imperialism in Africa through figures such as Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrumah and others, while mentioning their limits, such as how the leaders of these movements relied on shaky alliances with national capitalists that led to newer forms of neo-colonial exploitation. The takeaway from this is that nationalism divides workers and creates false narratives about workers being able to ally with their exploiters as long as they share the same national birthplace. African workers must recognize their enemy as capitalism, the system that collectively exploits us all, and fight together to overthrow it! 

Congolese workers hit bosses hard

The friend from the DRC gave an excellent talk about the history of exploitation in his home country, beginning with the Belgian colonialism carried out by King Leopold II, forcing the native Congolese tribes into brutal slavery and making them harvest rubber, up to today where the DRC is largely seen by the ruling-class in terms of its mining potential, relying on the same old tactics of taking land and forcing locals to work for cheap. When asked for specific examples of how workers are fighting back, we heard an anecdote from a village where some capitalists were making plans to begin an operation that would have required the destruction of land and likely would have produced all sorts of environmental hazards for the nearby locals. 

Understanding lessons from their own history, the workers in the village collectively refused to allow this project to go through. When it was seen that the company trying to mine there would not listen to their concerns, they decided to take things a step further and attack bosses’ equipment, making it inoperable and costing them thousands of dollars in damages. This sent a message that these workers would not bend, and as a result the mining company decided to leave, abandoning the project. This showed how lasting victories can be won through militant organized fightback, while electoralism and other channels provided by the bosses often offer no real solutions.

After the presentation was over, we broke for food and discussion. One student in the ASA who attended the event commented that he was pleasantly surprised that many white students came to this event. Students commented on how most of the time, it is difficult to get non-Africans to care about Africa. We gave our Party’s line on multiracial unity and how this event is an example of it. One Latin student who attended the event shared how our study group feels very multiracial and makes him feel like he belongs. 

Identity politics will never liberate working class 

Still, our work is far from over. Many students still have illusions that identity is the most important factor in determining who should lead the fightback. We gave our analysis that it is in every worker’s interest to fight racism and the imperialist, capitalist system that endorses it. At the end of the event, we agreed with the ASA to continue to support each others’ organizations by attending each others’ events. Prior to this, we had attended a discussion put together by the African Students Association and the Black Student Union where we witnessed students expressing frustration at feeling isolated and unsupported on a campus that was predominantly white and dominated by right-wing politics. As one student put it, “Here the anti-Blackness is just in your face.” In Kentucky, a state dominated by the politics of small-fascist supporters of Donald Trump, it’s all the more important that we build a multiracial movement and fight openly against racism in our schools, workplaces, and communities.