APRIL 2-7, NEW YORK — This year’s Spring Break Project brought together students, educators, and workers committed to building a stronger, more organized fight against capitalism. Over the course of the week, comrades and friends stepped away from the routine of school and work and into collective political activity—learning from each other, sharpening our ideas, and preparing for the struggles ahead on the road to communist revolution.
What follows is a day-by-day account of the week’s events.
As PLP gears up for its Summer Project 2026, we invite all workers to help us continue the struggle for revolutionary communism by joining us for “a summer of struggle, and a lifetime of commitment!”
Day One: May Day History & Group Guided Tour
We kicked off the week with participants learning about the history of PLP’s May Day with veteran comrades sharing stories of how those May Days were organized. We looked at photos and read about historic May Days from as far back as 1974 to as recent as last year. We highlighted the 1974 motorcade from all corners of the country all the way to DC, the 1975 May Day in Boston where PL’ers faced off against a fascist gang and sent them running, the 1979 May Day and driving Nazis from Marquette Park in Chicago, and the 1992 May Day in which we defied martial law in LA.
Following the May Day discussion, we headed out for a self-guided walking tour of a couple neighborhoods of Brooklyn: from the corners where rallies demanding justice for Shantel Davis and Kyam Livingston were held month after month (and got a surprise visit from Kyam’s mother who never stops fighting!) to a fierce community fight against eviction by eminent domain, a high school with a long history of student organizing, and an intersection which has long been a location of our Flatbush CHALLENGE sales and rallies.
Day Two: Learn from the past, organize for the future!
On the morning of Day Two, we met in front of Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx for a CHALLENGE distribution and after a potluck lunch and discussion. We read selections from “Talks on Organizing” by Epifanio Camacho, who organizationally led mass farmworkers strikes across California in the 1960s and 70s, in what became the United Farmworkers Union (UFW).
PL’ers under Camacho’s leadership exposed the rotten opportunism and corruption of the formal leadership under racist, sexist misleader César Chávez and successfully made revolutionary communist ideas mass ideas amidst these reform struggles for better labor contracts. These lessons were especially powerful for our Spring Project students.
In this dark night of low international working class consciousness amidst rising fascism and sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry, students shared vivid experiences working in mass movements despite opportunism and reformism. Two college students joined the party, with a high school student saying they’re interested in continuing to meet.
Day Three: Rally & Movie discussion
Day Three fused political action, entertainment, and political discussion. Our multiracial contingent rallied on Flatbush Avenue, a working-class Brooklyn neighborhood where the Party has dug roots in the antiracist fightback for our class brothers and sisters Kimani Gray, Kyam Livingston, and Shantel Davis — murdered by killer kkkops blocks from where we stood. We sold over 200 copies of CHALLENGE, while a teacher gave a bullhorn speech about her own fight against racism at a school nearby. Transit workers, school workers, comrades from every corner of our class connected the dots from racist terror in Brooklyn to imperialists’ war on Sudan.
After the rally featured Chinese takeout and Persepolis (2007), Marjane Satrapi's animated memoir, followed by a sharp discussion. Satrapi's family were communists who helped overthrow the Shah, then were murdered by the Islamic fundamentalist regime that replaced him. We closed the night putting the film in sharp political context: understanding U.S. imperialism against Iran and every war burning today, from Gaza to Sudan. The future belongs to those who fight for it: Let's go win it!
Day Four: Dialectical Materialism
On day 4, we held a study group on dialectical materialism. Along with an activity, we read parts of the key PLP document Jailbreak. This led to a discussion about where racist ideas come from, and how the ruling class uses them for their own profits. The main topic of discussion was the nature of change, particularly what is holding back real change. The discussion ended on a revolutionarily optimistic note with students sharing personal anecdotes of antiracism in their lives.
Day Five: Immigrant Fightback History Tour
Our multigenerational group gathered at the Brooklyn waterfront and toured this historic district that was once a site of bustling maritime activity and class struggle and is now a high-rent, gentrified tourist destination. In 1741, a multiracial rebellion rocked the early NYC ruling class, showing the might of the working class and the U.S. ruling class has never extinguished the growing abolitionist impulse we traced to the neighborhood. A scavenger hunt invited participants to think about communism and the transformation of society, with a closing lunch celebrating a steadfast high school organizer committed to joining a PLP club.
The lessons from the week don’t stay in Spring Break. They carry forward into our classrooms, our neighborhoods, and the streets. As we head toward the Summer Project, we do so more connected, more confident, and more prepared to fight. Join us!
