NEW YORK CITY, Nov 1— Enraged workers had planned to march from Washington Square Park on the eve of the Day of the Dead to denounce the deaths of two precious children: Kohen Wiley, a Black 1-year-old killed by Mississippi kkkops, and Nolan Wells, a Black teen who allegedly drowned in a river while out with friends, a group of mostly white male teens.
Workers are furious that Wells’ death was ruled an accident because no water was found in his lungs. The police and the coroner are covering it up.
The march was canceled because of the New York City Marathon, which runs through all five boroughs. Instead, a large crowd, mostly Black workers, built a traditional Day of the Dead altar and placed photos of the two children, along with photos of others killed by police and ICE. They defied the cops who had denied the organizers’ permits. The crowd shouted militant slogans and gave speeches denouncing police abuse and killings.
A multiracial contingent of PL’ers joined the action. We handed out dozens of copies of CHALLENGE to people at the altar, to passersby, and to people sitting in the park. Even without a march, our presence advanced the Party’s line, as several of us spoke with workers in attendance.
Don’t forget their names!
Mississippi kkkops murdered 1-year-old Kohen Wiley and called it “justified.” He died in his mother’s arms after a bogus shoplifting claim led cops to open fire on her car as she drove away.
It should enrage us all that a precious child’s life is cheaper than a pack of diapers under this racist system. Over the summer, Nolan Wells’ body turned up after a boat trip with friends off the Mississippi coast, under mysterious circumstances. The “justice system” insisted that a Black teen vanishing with no logical explanation was perfectly logical, and found no “evidence” of wrongdoing.
Both children died in a state with a vile history of racist violence and segregation. But New York is no “progressive” paradise. This city runs one of the most segregated school systems in the country and has a long history of racist terror of its own. Last month, Victor Romero, a retired kkkop, gunned down Con Edison worker Koran Irvine, a Black father of two, in a road-rage incident on the George Washington Bridge as Irvine drove home from work. Then Romero went home to eat dinner with his family as if nothing had happened. The NYPD rushed to shield one of its own, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani hasn’t said a single word.
These killings aren’t isolated. They are part and parcel of a rotten capitalist system that attacks us 24/7, here and worldwide. ICE thugs are shooting immigrant Latin workers in the Bronx while the U.S. bankrolls the genocide in Palestine. Black youth and workers are at the center of this gutter racist repression. As many as 83 suspected modern-day lynchings of Black workers occurred between 2000 and 2026 (JULIAN, Crimson Record, 2000-2025).
We can’t vote or pray this away. The system is working as designed, and it means permanent death and terror for our class. Under capitalism, Black babies’ lives don’t matter, and it doesn’t matter who we vote for. Not the openly racist Republicans led by Donald Trump. Not the Democrats who smile in your face while dropping bombs. Not the DSA, whose support carried Mamdani into office. This is the same mayor who fired Haitian immigrants after their TPS expired and who kowtows to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a billionaire heiress whose cops have carte blanche to terrorize workers to their heart’s content. No “blue wave” will fix anything. We must always be present in mass movements to grow the ranks of the PLP and build a massive international party for the struggle for communist revolution and the seizure of power by the working class.
