This month, workers in the U.S. will be reminded that the bosses’ racist system of chattel slavery officially ended in 1865 — but racist attacks and slavery continue today in other forms. The following is a reprint of a Challenge article originally published June 29, 2018, titled “Juneteenth Perpetuates Racist Myth” — published three years before racist crime bill architect Joe Biden signed it into law as an official federal holiday.
June 19, or “Juneteenth,” commemorates the end of chattel slavery. Juneteenth has been pushed on the working class with the sponsorship of major banks like Wells Fargo. Juneteenth perpetuates many racist myths about the U.S., including the myth that the images we’re given of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama supposedly represent the ‘real’ U.S., and Donald Trump is something different.
While the bosses promote their bank-sponsored Juneteenth holiday, they obscure the fact that racism and slavery never truly ended — and just as deliberately, they erase the long history of anti-racist struggle waged by Black and white workers together. These same bosses keep racism alive and entrenched in the 21st century, using it to divide Black workers from white workers, and to condition the U.S. working class to accept the bigger and deadlier wars already taking shape on the horizon.
Origins of Juneteenth
Two years before June 19, 1865 came Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which excluded slave states that were not in rebellion against the Union – Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri – and Texas, which was not a battleground. Many planters and other slaveholders moved to Texas with over 150,000 slaves in order to escape the raging Civil War. In June, 1865, after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee and the Union victory in New Orleans, word finally came to Galveston, Texas that the slaves were free. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, officially ending slavery throughout the country, was not passed until December, 1865.
Abraham Lincoln, the so-called “Great Emancipator” of slaves, was no believer in the equality of Black workers. His main motive for fighting the Civil War was preservation of the unity of the United States, not abolishing slavery. In 1858, Lincoln said, “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races…”
Lincoln favored setting up colonies for Black former slaves in Africa and Central America, and requested funds from Congress to deport freed slaves.
Another history we do not learn about or celebrate is that of the multitude of rebellions against slavery, many of them multiracial, from the 1600s to the 1800s. In their book The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker document many of these. Among them are:
- The Barbados rebellions in 1649, which united Irish and African slaves;
- Bacon’s rebellion in Virginia in 1676, which united slaves and white indentured servants;
- The ‘New York City Conspiracy’ of 1741, which united African workers, white indentured servants, sailors, and Irish immigrants;
- Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in Virginia in 1831;
- John Brown’s multiracial antislavery campaign culminating at Harper’s Ferry.
- The most successful was the Haitian rebellion, which abolished slavery and colonization on that island by 1804.
Racism never ended
At the end of the Civil War, freed slaves became wage laborers on former plantations, sharecroppers, or domestic workers. For a short time, their well-being was protected by federal troops during Reconstruction from 1865-77. Once this protection was withdrawn, white supremacist groups like the Ku Klux Klan flourished, often made up of local law enforcement. This Jim Crow era was characterized by the open murder of thousands of Black workers, rampant imprisonment, impoverishment and indebtedness of former slaves and total segregation.
Although many of these abuses were gradually mitigated through the Great Migration of Black workers to the North, landmark court decisions, and ultimately the Civil Rights Movement, racism has continued to flourish in all parts of the United States. Today, there are five times more workers trapped in modern slavery — through sex trafficking, forced prison labor, forced marriage, labor camps, and domestic servitude via the kafala system — than there were Black workers enslaved under chattel slavery in the 19th century (ILO, Walk Free Foundation, and the International Organization for Migration, Global Estimates of Modern Slavery, 2022). Racial wage differentials between white men and Black and Latino workers amount to nearly $800 billion a year, approaching half of total annual corporate profits. Disparities in social spending on education, health care, and housing add hundreds of billions more to that toll. The conclusion is inescapable: U.S. capitalism could not survive without racism.
Black workers continue to be incarcerated at five times the rate of white workers and are killed by police at a sharply disproportionate rate — at roughly two to three times the frequency of white workers, despite comprising just 13 percent of the population. Officers are almost never convicted for the killing of Black workers. Schools, hospitals, and neighborhoods remain as segregated today as they were fifty years ago. And just as under Jim Crow, migrant workers are routinely rounded up, deported, or imprisoned in detention camps — where adults are compelled to perform forced labor for as little as one dollar a day, and children have been held in metal cages, separated from their parents. As of mid-2018, the federal government had separated and detained more than 2,000 children, housing many of them in chain-link enclosures in temporary border facilities; in total, more than 5,400 children were ultimately torn from their families under the zero-tolerance policy (Southern Poverty Law Center, Family Separation: A Timeline, 2019; Susan Terrio, Whose Child Am I?, UC Press, 2020). These racist attacks have flourished under both Democrats and Republicans alike.
All workers are hurt by racism
Other ideas pushed on workers today include “white privilege”, as if white workers created racism, benefitted from it, or should be paralyzed or separate themselves because of guilt. While many white workers may temporarily hold racist views, anti-Black racism was purposely and methodically created by the U.S. bosses of the 1600-1700s to justify slavery and separate white indentured servants and poor farmers from Black slaves. Before that, there had been social mixing and intermarriage between whites and non-whites.
What the ruling class fears is us recognizing that the lowered standards and super-exploitation for one sector of the working class brings down the standards for all sectors.
Racism serves capitalism well to maximize profits and minimize rebellion. Separation into different schools, neighborhoods, job titles, unions, and neighborhoods keeps us divided when only multiracial mass action would enable us to fight back effectively. U.S. rulers also rely on racism to win workers, white, Black and immigrant, to fight imperialist wars for markets and resources by painting Muslim, Arab, Asian and other workers as enemies.
It is heartening to witness the mass uprising against the separation and incarceration of immigrant children, which has actually forced a minimal change in Trump’s policies. We must use this power of the unity of millions of workers to destroy this racist system once and for all and build an egalitarian worker-run society: communism.
It’s already been three months since our historic four-day strike in February, the first since 1979! There were many political victories, but we saw some representatives who were clearly sellouts (read CHALLENGE, 3/11 issue).
Punishing us for striking, the school district extended our school calendar to “make-up” for the lost instructional days. The union leadership said they “had” to agree to the plan. Our unity between credentialed teachers, therapists, nurses, and non-credentialed instructional aides, security guards, et al got stronger as we approached the end of the school year. Soon, we will be rejuvenating ourselves and preparing for the next full year of struggles AND education.
Our strike and everything leading up to it was not revolutionary, but 100 percent reformist. However, the struggle consisted of workers acting in solidarity and without individual incentive, which is a communist concept. We have a long way to go, but being present in the struggle helps us fight towards revolution.
This is the perfect time to analyze what we learned and what our next steps should be. Our party club had a meeting to discuss some of these issues:
Lessons Learned
Clearly, rank-and-file workers are ready for escalated action. We need to maintain and build on this momentum.
It is possible to expand struggles in our contracts beyond our working conditions to include “common good” demands such as housing for our unhoused students and their families and protection from ICE.
Workers were receptive to our line that the liberals are the main danger, especially in San Francisco where illusions of being “progressive” among city leadership are used to quell dissent. Working people did not go for this and responded with anger and disgust at the powers-that-be for not prioritizing a fairer contract for educators. One chant openly criticized the superintendent’s $385,000 salary (“Listen up, Maria Siu. You need us, we don’t need you. Please tell us why—-your salary is so damn high!”)
Youth are leaders in educational struggles and often have a stronger line than adults. One student spoke at a rally directly criticizing the state. She asked why there is always money for bombing Palestine and parts of Asia, but not enough for schools and workers.
In our huge bargaining team under the guise of our size being more “democratic,” there were examples of the leadership trying to dispel critical thinking and dissent from the rank-and-file. For example, the bargaining team was told that they were “not allowed to offer objections” to the union’s counter proposals. They were also told to “temper” our expectations and to be “realistic” about the budget.
That is what we learned. Our club also came up with a few important next steps for our work.
More to do
We need to work with youth organizations and clubs. We also need to consider our role within the unions. Would it be enough to focus on teacher-student communication and base-building?
We need to consistently put out the party line and study former labor struggles and even local labor history and make connections with non-unionized sectors.
Onward, educators and students! We have a world to win!
- Information
Pakistan: May Day, a revolutionary communist holiday
- Information
- 07 June 2026 310 hits
International Workers’ Day, observed each year on May 1, remains one of the most enduring symbols of proletarian struggle. In Pakistan, May Day 2026 was officially recognized as a public holiday. State institutions, banks, and markets remained closed, while rallies, seminars, and political gatherings took place in various cities. Yet beneath this formal recognition lies a fundamental contradiction: the gap between symbolic acknowledgment of workers and the harsh realities of their everyday lives.
May Day activities
Across the country, May Day was marked by a mixture of official rhetoric and organized activity. State representatives issued statements praising workers as the “backbone of society,” projecting an image of recognition and respect. Political parties and their affiliated labor wings held rallies and seminars, attempting to position themselves as defenders of workers’ rights. At the same time, different political forces prepared protests and mobilizations, reflecting a degree of political engagement around the day.
However, alongside these formal activities, real struggles of workers continued uninterrupted. In places like Peshawar, workers protested against unpaid wages and delayed pensions, highlighting the persistent neglect they face. Sanitation workers and contract laborers raised demands for regularization, job security, and basic rights—issues that remain unresolved year after year. This coexistence of ceremonial celebration at the top and ongoing exploitation at the base captures the true character of May Day in Pakistan today.
The May Day in Pakistan is increasingly reduced to a symbolic holiday rather than a day of militant working-class struggle. The radical spirit that once defined May Day has been diluted into routine observance.
These protests were not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern of unrest. Workers demanded higher wages, improved working conditions, and social justice, signaling a growing dissatisfaction with the existing order. This global wave of resistance reflects a systemic crisis of capitalism—one that is also acutely felt in Pakistan through inflation, unemployment, and austerity measures imposed on the masses.
PLP has consistently argued that trade unions operating within capitalism are structurally limited in their capacity to bring about fundamental change. While they may win temporary economic concessions, they cannot abolish the system of exploitation itself. Economic struggles, when confined to demands for higher wages or better conditions, do not challenge the underlying relations of production.
Reform won't liberate workers
In Pakistan, May Day activities largely reflected this reformist orientation. Many speeches and mobilizations focused on demands for wage increases rather than questioning wage labor itself. Appeals for legal protections were emphasized, but without confronting the capitalist system that necessitates exploitation. Moreover, reliance on political parties tied to ruling-class interests further restricted the scope of struggle. As a result, the working class was mobilized, but within limits acceptable to capital.
Another key contradiction lies in the role of the state. On the one hand, the Pakistani state declares May Day a holiday in honor of workers, projecting itself as a guardian of labor rights. On the other hand, it continues to implement policies that perpetuate exploitation, including privatization, austerity, and precarious employment practices.
Many May Day events in Pakistan were framed within nationalist narratives, emphasizing development, national progress, and state-centered solutions. While such rhetoric may appear unifying, it ultimately serves to divide workers along national lines and obscure their common interests.
Perhaps the most significant weakness revealed by May Day 2026 in Pakistan is the absence of a mass revolutionary communist movement capable of providing direction and leadership. Without such leadership, worker struggles remain fragmented and confined to immediate demands.
PLP stresses the necessity of building an international communist party deeply rooted in the working class. This involves transforming economic struggles into political struggles aimed at seizing power and dismantling capitalist relations. It also requires developing class consciousness that goes beyond immediate grievances to a broader understanding of systemic exploitation.
Fightback must continue to grow
May Day 2026 brought into sharp focus several contradictions within Pakistani capitalism. Workers are publicly praised and symbolically recognized, yet continue to face wage theft, insecure employment, and relentless inflation. Mobilizations and rallies take place, but they are often contained within boundaries that do not challenge the system itself. At the same time, while workers around the world are increasingly resisting capitalist exploitation, Pakistani workers remain divided along sectoral lines, political affiliations, and ethnic or regional identities, weakening their collective strength.
PLP is striving to unite the working-class people against capitalist exploitation, imperialist aggression, nationalism, fascism, racism, poverty, illiteracy, religious fundamentalism and oppression.
Boston, MA, May 2nd–Chanting all the way, Boston Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and our base, 30 strong, marched up a commercial street in Roslindale where we regularly distribute CHALLENGE and people recognize us. We brought our full line to the working class, chanting, “We’re fighting for a real solution, Fight for communist revolution!”And we brought our fighting organization as we chanted, “The Cops, The Courts, ICE, All Part of the Bosses’ Plan,” and “Asian, Latin, Black and White” and “Same Enemy, Same Fight, Workers of the World Unite.”
Bringing workers together!
We gathered in a park in the center of Roslindale to hear speeches before we marched. One comrade spoke passionately about the importance of the fight against the attacks on trans people. She said that even though they are few in number, their vulnerability makes them an easy target, setting a precedent for fascist attacks against the whole working class. A community college student, marching with us for the first time, was proud of distributing PLP leaflets to a few workers and seeing their support. Another student and first-time marcher said she felt comfortable and proud to be part of a march that she agreed with. It was an important opportunity for these friends to participate in the fighting spirit of an openly communist May Day march. Our leaflet called for “Students, Workers and Soldiers: Rebel Against Trump, Capitalism, War and Fascism!”
After the march, we gathered in a Party member’s backyard to have lunch. Even though it was rainy and cold, we enjoyed our comradeship by the fire pit. One weakness of the march was the small amount of street traffic (made worse by the rain) which limited our distribution of literature and contact with the community. Having workers respond to our march is both a source of morale for marchers, and a way we measure success. Also, our base in Roslindale didn’t come to the march, which we are evaluating.
A strength of the march is that we held it in Roslindale, an integrated working-class community, where we’ve been doing mass work for the last one to two years. At that time, we started distributing CHALLENGE in local shops and outside our local farmers market and food distribution sites. In March, newer comrades were instrumental in organizing a pop-up rally in front of the Family Dollar Store where a man was kidnapped and detained by ICE that morning. Our rally was well received, and neighborhood friends joined us then—new and old.
More recently we’ve been organizing against the ICE raids in mass organizations, both in RISE (Roslindale is for Everyone) and among families in a local elementary school where a comrade’s children attend. This is being done in connection with efforts to protect children and families from ICE by organizers in the Boston Teachers Union. PLP counters the reformist messages of voting for Democrats to make our lives better with the important understanding that racism and anti-immigration racism isn’t just the work of Trump but the product of capitalism. We must be persistent, learn from our mistakes, build our spirit and not become cynical!
It’s the whole damn system!
We brought our communist message to a large May Day March on the Boston Commons on May 1st as well where many organizations and unions marched. Although it was not anti-capitalist, it was inspiring to see so many young people choosing to fight fascism through their unions and open to our communist analysis. We talked to friends in our unions, distributed leaflets and CHALLENGEs and held up our banner IT’S NOT JUST TRUMP, IT’S CAPITALISM! We represented the heart and soul of the May Day communist holiday fighting for a world where the murderous profiteering of workers and our families is abolished forever.
Worcester, MA
At the PLP May Day in Worcester, we joined about 200 people, mostly young workers and students, who stood in solidarity with immigrant workers in fighting ICE and the rising tide of fascism. Many speakers called to fight the billionaire class. One of our members gave a passionate impromptu speech calling on workers and students to unite against anti-immigrant racism and to fight to get rid of the entire profit system. He shared how his mother was an immigrant garment worker and undocumented for a while. He said he understands what the immigrants are going through and that only by uniting in a multi-racial militant way can we fight to end this capitalist system and win an egalitarian world. His talk was well received as were the Challenges and flyers we passed out at our literature table. Several of our friends came by as well as a group of high-school students.
Strikes are schools for communism, and the workers, students, and indigenous movements in Bolivia have been on a general strike since May Day. Strikes are where the working class flexes itstheir power and takes hold of their organizations, their work places, and attempts to fight the bosses. The bosses in Bolivia are divided between the pro-China socialist wing and the Pro-U.S. imperialist wing that is currently holding power. Bolivian president Rodrigo Paz is a vital part of U.S. security at home and its imperialist interests in South America. The one thing missing from this general strike is for the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) to function as a central organization that can coordinate against these government attacks from within the struggle and at all levels in order to fight for a communist revolution.
The unintended effects of interimperialist rivalry of the U.S. war in Iran are cropping up in Bolivia. Causing the Strait of Hormuz to close severely affected gas prices that were government subsidized. On top of fuel skyrocketing over 90 percent, there is a shortage of it, and the little fuel that is available is polluted. Speaking of pollution, lithium mining is an important part of AI chip production and for lithium batteries.
Workers in Bolivia shut it down!
The continuing AI war between China vs. the U.S. means that the U.S. needs to control the mines, and they need the Bolivian government to provide the means to do so. Though the miners have struggled in the past against the mining conditions, the strikes are rooted in May Day and the history of struggle associated with the working class holiday. Unions marched and went on strike demanding more money, better working conditions, and for more control over what the state apparatus is doing to their lives. Learning from slave rebellions of the past, the striking workers set up barricades around La Paz and shut the city down. Capitalism has responded with concessions, but the bosses are threatening to send in the military in order to quell the protests.
Reject revisionist misleaders!
What role are the revisionists (fake revolutionaries) playing? Evo Morales’ MAS party for socialism is involved in the strike, but there is no single, cohesive party that is coordinating the struggle. Instead, what we are witnessing is the working class using its self-organizing skills to set up barricades, man them, and use dynamite and other weapons in battles with the police. Imagine how much more powerful a strike this would be without sellout union leadership or Chinese imperialism behind it. However, it does not appear to be an overt political move by China to support socialism in Bolivia, even though they would benefit from a pawn of U.S. imperialism being deposed.
Bolivia has one of the few conscripted militaries, and it’s spread out over the country. There are way more strikers than soldiers. On top of that, as PLP learned first-hand in Minneapolis, soldiers can be won to join the protesters. The Bolivian ruling class has attacked the strikers twice already, and each attack has only strengthened the barricades. So, though the ruling class can wield the military, they are wary of increasing the strength of the barricades. However, U.S. imperialism requires that this strike be smashed. This contradiction is still resolving.
Evo Morales represents the faction of the Bolivian ruling class that is aligned with Russia and China. The domino effect is being revisited in the Lithium Triangle. With students in Argentina and Peru occupying universities and beginning to take to the streets, seeing a movement where the working class has shut down a city and is forcing the outing of a loyal servant to U.S. imperialism is a spark. Is the fundamental contradiction in the world today shifting towards the working class taking hold of their organizations and challenging capitalism? The answer, unfortunately, is an unequivocable “no.” Without a revolutionary party organizing in the unions, in the military, in the schools, and with the ability to coordinate the working class against the bosses, this movement is a militantly reformist movement.
The bosses will give what they need to in order to keep state power. President Paz has slashed his salary, offered the teachers concessions, and given token appointments to indigenous groups, but that doesn’t change capitalism. Capitalism will still remain with the capitalists in power until the PLP sweeps them away.
Fightback is heating up
Regardless of how far this strike movement goes, whether or not the military joins the strikers or attacks them, without a revolutionary communist party organizing to seize and hold of state power, this struggle will lead to reforms and may topple a U.S. pawn, but it won’t lead to the dictatorship of the proletariat. We must learn lessons from and get excited by the new wave of protest getting ready to grip South America, but the ruling class can survive any crisis or catastrophe except communist revolution. With one of the few fully conscripted armies in South America and its size already dwarfed by the number of protesters, it is easy to understand why the Bolivian U.S. backed bosses fear a coup and the soldiers joining the protesters. It isn’t even summer yet and things are really starting to heat up!
