Fight for Kilmar continues
The struggle to free Kilmar Garcia continues with another court ruling and protest. (See CHALLENGE 5/21/25). The court continues to investigate the “evidence” that led to Trump’s deportation of Kilmar to El Salvador. Workers continue to demand action, and Progressive Labor Party continues to join the struggle and sharpen the analysis by sharing CHALLENGE to protestors at the courthouse. This week we added information about our campaign to remove ads in the transit system that are recruiting for Border Patrol Agents ( this letter will appear in our next issue). In addition, we joined a rally against fascism in the neighborhood led by a friend who led the march to the overpass on the Baltimore Parkway with signs that received overwhelming support from the drivers honking as they drove under the bridge. We are extending our connections in Maryland by stepping up after a great May Day event here.
*****
No exception to fightback
Organizing in the community I moved to offers different opportunities and different challenges from those I encountered living in a big city. We moved to a small city a couple of hours from New York City. I was surprised to find lots of organizing going on and had no trouble finding two mass organizations to join, both focused on combating the Gaza genocide. Last weekend one of the organizations screened “The Palestine Exception.” About 80 people showed up to watch the 2024 documentary film that vividly describes the unfolding conflict on campuses across the U.S. In dozens of campuses, students, professors and campus workers demanded a halt to the vicious extermination of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank; and university administrations, politicians and police responded by attacking the protestors, insisting that anything Israel did was justified, and criticism of their policies was “antisemitic.” Students have been expelled and professors fired.
After the screening we broke up into small groups to discuss what we had just seen. Despite the non-stop pro-Israel propaganda on TV and in the New York Times, no one I spoke to had any doubts about the “New McCarthyism” described in the film. In my group one person said the Gaza genocide, the attacks on immigrants in the U.S., and the increasing economic difficulty people are having are all connected to capitalism. There seemed to be general agreement with this comment.
I asked one young woman who had expressed similar views to describe her political outlook. She said, “I’m a communist.” I asked what group she might be part of and she said she had no affiliation. We decided to start a study group with some others we know, with the first meeting next week. Seems like, despite what I may have thought about small town life, despite seeing the occasional Trump bumper sticker, there are communists out there looking for leadership. We have a lot of work to do!
*****
Kentucky to Chicago: all out for May Day
Comrades from Kentucky spent our first May Day with the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) on Saturday, May 3rd. Four of us traveled by bus from Kentucky to Chicago on the Friday before the march. We had spent the months before deciding what we wanted to do for May Day, and it was between going to Chicago or going to a city in Kentucky that was having a May Day. We decided to go to Chicago because we wanted to get the experience of being in a march held by the PLP, especially since we had never been in a May Day march before. It turned out to be a very rewarding experience! As our first May Day march, we were glad that it was spent with the PLP, where our communist ideas weren’t watered down or the march focused on a specific issue, but aimed towards all the workers of the world. One thing we’ve noticed about the May Day events that were going on around the country, including in the state of Kentucky, is they were all directed towards Trump, with other issues such as Palestine sprinkled in, but without clear unity between these issues. This is the importance of having a communist march, where the root of all these problems, capitalism, is laid bare.
Something we appreciated about the march in Chicago is that it was done through a working-class, predominantly Latin neighborhood, where our march received much support. Comrades from Chicago made comments about how this differed from liberal marches, which usually only march through the Chicago Loop. Although there are workers in every part of the city, it is important that we spend our energy where it is most effective, and that is what was done during this May Day! It was very inspiring to see workers of all generations supporting us as we marched through, and some even joining the march. One moment that stuck with me was when an older woman came out on her porch with a little girl and they both raised their fists in solidarity.
We hope to be able to grow the party in Kentucky enough to the point where we can start having our own May Day marches here. We can do this by continuing to be involved in mass movements and growing our base here. We plan to bring back the strategies we learned from comrades in Chicago and how they carried out this May Day. We plan to use their strategy of doing CHALLENGE sales in a specific area over a long period of time in order to build support in this area and build excitement for events. We were also inspired by our comrades’ energy handing out CHALLENGE right before the march, making sure to cover every street corner nearby.
Across the U.S., nationalist misleaders tried to capitalize on the internationalist energy of May Day, primarily using it as an opposition to Trump, but not at our PLP March! This May Day showed us the importance of honoring the internationalist, communist history of the holiday and reminding workers of this history. March with the PLP!
*****
MD May Day memories: food & solidarity
I was part of the committee to set up for this event. We came up with numerous ideas where we would share poetry and information about our Party, the Progressive Labor Party, for what we wanted accomplished. Of course, we had a great dinner along with plenty of desserts and good people with plenty of discussions about the current state of the world. Articles from past CHALLENGE newspapers were decorated in a fellow PLP member’s home, spreading informative true stories that I wasn’t aware of, along with posters of different protests that PLP was a part of. And I believe that we had some people who were signing up to join the cause. It was a nice day and I believe that it turned out well for us.
*****
My first time planning May Day
As someone who never helped plan a May Day dinner, it was something to get used to. Everybody involved in the planning offered valuable input and advice to save time. There were three poems and six presentations at the event. Personally, I spoke on behalf of an organizer in Baltimore who fights for accountability for victims of police brutality. The program was received positively, with one comrade saying he enjoyed my section.
*****
Expose Baraka’s ICE photo-op
Whenever the ruling class gives us an opportunity to expose them, we should use it. On Friday, May 9, ICE agents arrested Ras Baraka, Mayor of Newark, NJ, for “trespassing” at an ICE facility under construction. A few hours later he was released, unlike the Tufts student who spent several weeks in jail. This entire episode was clearly pre-planned and rehearsed as part of Baraka’s hope to become NJ’s next governor (and most likely a try at the U.S. Senate)!!! But the worst part of this sordid story is what Baraka said about ICE on CNN a few days after his quick release. Even before the CNN interviewer asked Baraka a single question, Baraka went into a l-o-n-g description of “how nicely” the ICE agents had treated him. By the time he ended, he could have distributed invitations so that other people could experience the “wonderful hospitality” of being arrested by ICE.
*****