BOSTON, JUL 14-20—More than 100 comrades and friends of Progressive Labor Party (PLP) participated in a week-long summer project in Boston to commemorate the 1975 fight back against the racist anti-integration group ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights) and strengthen the 2025 fight against racist and fascist deportations. Summer projects provide opportunities for PLP to fortify our forces in specific areas, develop new leaders, and learn from one another’s struggles in different parts of the world. By the end of the week, at least eight more young people joined the Progressive Labor Party–that’s eight more nails in the bosses’ coffin! In addition, we gathered numerous contacts, sold 500 CHALLENGEs, and distributed 4,000 anti-ICE fliers.
Building on our history of fightback
On the first day of the summer project, several veteran comrades shared their experiences from the 1975 Boston summer project. During that months-long project, the comrades launched a battle against the segregation of Boston’s public schools. The liberal ruling class of Boston was building a racist movement against bussing, and our comrades came to smash that movement. They organized Freedom Schools and provided free summer camp activities and instruction for mostly Black youth, whose schools were in totally dilapidated conditions. They showed up on the first day of school to welcome Black students who were going to predominantly white schools and provided 24/7 security for a Black family who was being threatened by racists. They also went door-to-door in white neighborhoods to canvas and organize white workers in the fight for integration and pointed out that ROAR’s racist pro-segregation propaganda obscured the fact that white public schools were under-resourced too.
Many of the white stay-at-home moms they met held anti-racist ideas but were afraid to speak out because they feared ROAR would retaliate against their children. They were surprised to hear that other women on their block felt the same way. PLP helped connect these workers, who agreed to sign the pro-integration petitions together in house meet-ups.
PLP members in 1975 bravely faced off ROAR’s racist thugs in South Boston on more than one occasion. This included a physical confrontation on Carson Beach, which was previously considered “whites-only.” After six Black Bible salesmen got assaulted by racists on the beach, PLP called for a militant protest. The NAACP essentially told everyone to stay home, but later changed their plan to be a “picnic-in.” PLP, NAACP, a group of Black Nationalists, ROAR, and the cops on horseback all showed up. A fight ensued. The comrades pointed out that this was the day they “broke the back” of ROAR, which despite aspirations to become a national movement, disbanded around a year later.
Beefing up gutter racists
Throughout the week, we did two full-group marches and nine smaller rallies in working class neighborhoods and near train stations, including a bold march through downtown Boston to protest outside the ICE office. We distributed CHALLENGE and anti-deportation fliers and gave rousing speeches in Creole and Spanish, reaching a multiracial group of workers across Boston. Comrades, new and veteran, gave fiery speeches on the bullhorns about the necessity of building an international communist party to smash capitalism and end fascist deportations. One worker coming out of the train station recognized a comrade from a CHALLENGE sale a few months back and then stuck around and joined us for other summer project events.
We experienced a lot of positive reception to our anti-fascist/anti-capitalist view. In Worcester, the party’s anti-ICE sentiments met with a lot of enthusiasm. Cars passed our picket and continuously honked the entire time we were there. We contacted a local anti-ICE activist who instructed us how to identify ICE and explained how community members in Worcester keep one another safe by alerting one another.
In Roslindale Square, we encountered a predominantly white and older crowd who were participating in a “Good Trouble” protest in memory of John Lewis. While the liberal leadership of this march was unhappy that we had sharper anti-racist and anti-fascist chants than “No Kings!”, many participants flocked to us to check out our literature and chose to stand by our chanters. One worker lamented when our youthful multiracial crew had a lull in the chanting, “What happened to our cheerleaders?” and again when we left, “Don’t leave! We need you!” A college student who saw a comrade board a bus and hand out CHALLENGE got off, joined our rally, and started chanting “Smash racist deportations, working people have no nations!” with us on the bullhorn.
The interest didn’t stop on the streets: Many workers, from uber drivers to postal workers to baristas and commuters on the train were drawn to our communist literature and conversation wherever we went.
We also attended a Black history presentation given by a park ranger who focused on abolition and fights for integration throughout Bostonian history. We noted that Fugitive Slave Act kidnappings were eerily like ICE kidnappings today with family separations, needing papers to prove one’s freedom to the court, and crackdowns on those who tried to get in the way. The park ranger’s presentation showed that the fight for abolition required militant struggle. There were also those who engaged in the everyday organizing to create safehouses for the underground railroad system in which workers cared for workers. This legacy of fight-back is one that PLP hopes to extend into the present. Capitalism necessitates brutal repression of workers and we will pick up the weapons of our ancestors to fight for an egalitarian future.
We also had study groups on imperialism, fascism, and dialectical materialism, and we went to an anti-deportation play that was written by a comrade. We took time to socialize with one another, not only at a beach trip, but with multiple cook-outs and walks around town. We stayed together in houses, where we took turns making meals and cleaning up. Base-building involves not just political work but getting to know one another. It is also through these experiences that we gain glimpses of what it means to collectively run society. The week-long project was an important step forward for the growth of the Party both in New England and in the world.
