The work of Carolyn’s life speaks for her
I met Carolyn in Tupelo, Mississippi in the summer of 1979. David Duke, leader of the KKK, had declared that Tupelo would become the national headquarters of the Klan. Progressive Labor Party and INCAR, an organization we were building at the time, refused to accept this and launched a campaign to make Tupelo the headquarters of antiracism and the fight for communism. Over 40 volunteers joined the Project at various times. Carolyn was there the entire summer.
The Project dug deep roots in the Black working class of Tupelo. We organized public CHALLENGE sales, rallies and lots of visiting to make and consolidate friends who joined the Project. Carolyn was involved in it all.
I actually met her when she was sitting on the balcony of the apartment where volunteers were living. She was making “sun tea.” She had a gallon jar filled with tea bags, sugar and lemon slices. We had a long talk as the hot summer sun brewed the tea. I realized later that she was lounging there because she was recovering from her gunshot wounds.
Mid-way through the Project a march was organized from the Black worker’s housing project where we had a base to downtown Tupelo, where there was a rally. Carolyn and Findley Campbell were standing at the sound truck giving speeches when a racist, who we later learned had been released from jail that morning and given the shotgun, opened fire into the crowd.
Carolyn and Findley were sprayed with birdshot. Our security team leaped into action, tackling the shooter and keeping him from firing again. Suddenly the police, who had not been visible before, swarmed over our team, arresting many. Birdshot, used for shooting birds, sprays small pellets. Carolyn was shot down one leg. Although the doctors were able to find and remove some of the pellets, many remained in her leg the rest of her life.
Our comrade, Floyd, was charged with attempted murder and held without bail. I arrived in Tupelo at that point to work on the legal case. No defense attorney in the state of Mississippi would take the case. The district attorney called Carolyn and Findley to appear before a Grand Jury conniving to get them to testify against our comrade charged with murder! I warned them that we were all probably going to jail for what we were going to do. There was no hesitation. Carolyn and Findley were each called into the room and refused to say a word. Ranting and raving, the prosecutor called me into the room. I told the whole story, since I was not a witness to any of it. As Carolyn had come out she whispered to me that she recognized some of our CHALLENGE readers on the Grand Jury! The workers of Tupelo were on our side. The charges were dismissed.
The Project immediately organized a second march. Walking in the first row as we headed downtown was Carolyn proudly waving a red flag. That’s how I will always remember her–proudly waving the red flag!!
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It’s good to see the big picture
I was disappointed that I could not attend Progressive Labor Party’s May Day march in Brooklyn on Saturday, April 29. However, on Monday, May 1, I accompanied a comrade to a march in Trenton, NJ being led by Cosecha. Cosecha is an organization that struggles to improve the conditions of undocumented workers. They fight for driver’s licenses, paths to citizenship, etc. My comrade has worked with that organization for a few years. On the drive down, he was expressing his frustration about how little he thought he had accomplished with them in all that time.
When we arrived, there was a lot of evidence to the contrary. The members of Cosecha had adopted several of PLP’s chants – “La clase Obrera, No Tienen Fronteras” and “Obreros, Unidos, Jamas Seran Vencidos” (The working class has no borders, and Workers, united, will never be defeated). Although my Spanish is intermediate, I could tell there was much more class analysis in the speeches.
I congratulated my comrade on the impact he has had over the years. It pays to be in it for the long haul.
In addition, we distributed many DESAFIOS (spanish version CHALLENGE), not only to the marchers, but to the residents of the largely immigrant neighborhood where we marched.
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A Neighbor’s story with CHALLENGE
This past Saturday a couple of comrades, including an awesome high school student, came to do another CHALLENGE newspaper sale at the 15 floor building where my partner and I live. A neighbor had the following to say after we asked him what he thought about it. The first time he saw the newspaper outside his door he did not pay it much attention. Eventually, he grabbed it and left it in his car. Then, during his lunch break he began looking through it and even started to discuss some of the ideas with a coworker. He told us, “When I read the paper I feel strongly. By now I know I’m going to get another. And look forward to it.”
He also spoke about how challenging life as an immigrant father and husband from Ghana is in the U.S. How supervisors at his job have used his ideas in a way that has discouraged him from wanting to contribute further. How he wishes we lived in a world where people were encouraged to freely contribute our naturally endowed gifts to provide for each other. We responded by saying, “That’s communism!” He shared how more recently a bill collector called him to get their money for a Covid test his family had received way back when the pandemic was more intense. He was trying to say how backwards capitalist society is in that it puts profits first over people’s wellbeing. He also expressed that what the paper is communicating reminds him of parts of his life where he has been vocal about what is wrong with this system. We told him that the fact that the paper’s ideas have hit this key cord within him to the extent that he felt compelled to share it with a coworker is a really powerful thing! We asked him if he would be open to coming over to our apartment in the near future to talk more about these communist politics. To which he said definitely!
Our neighbor’s growing confidence in our ideas and willingness to get closer to us represent another nail in the coffin of a profit system that depends on keeping us divided in order to keep exploiting us. This new development - one of many recently in our building - is the product of becoming more disciplined and committed about distributing CHALLENGE where we have lived over the last 4+ years and fighting to be more communist in the way that we live, share with our neighbors, and respond to each other’s needs.
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I protested: rent is too damn high!
I attended a protest in Jersey City titled The Rent is Too High put on by a local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). While the march attracted some vocal young workers, the majority of the downtown crowd they were speaking to seemed indifferent.
Maybe it is due to their call to action, which involves passing a measure before the city council for a right to counsel for tenants paid for by developer taxes in the future. If that sounds far off to you as well, you are right. While local agitation and engagement is good, without a permanent solution of communist hope and revolution, the struggle will continue.
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Remember: it was the reds who smashed the Nazis
May 9th is the day that the Soviet Union celebrates the defeat of Nazi Germany and its allies. In the largest land war in history with 27 million dead, the Soviet people, led by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin, smashed, at least for a time, the most evil doctrine yet to appear on our planet. Had the Nazis defeated the Soviet Union, many if not most of us would not be here to talk about it.
Even though Germany and other countries banned the flying of Russian and Soviet flags during the demonstrations there, people all over the world celebrated the Soviet victory.
Today the PLP is attempting to learn from and advance upon the lessons of the USSR. Visit the PLP.org website for more information.
Pro-U.S. generals in Pakistan move to sideline Khan from elections
Foreign Policy, 5/17–A week after his arrest on corruption charges, former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan faces an escalating confrontation with the country’s political establishment. Recent developments suggest Pakistan’s military leadership is going full throttle to sideline Khan and his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party from politics. National elections, currently scheduled for October, loom. Khan blamed Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir for ordering his arrest by paramilitary forces last Tuesday; he was released a few days later. Just before his arrest, Khan repeated allegations that a senior military officer was behind a November assassination attempt against him, which the military denies.
U.S. decline and China’s rise in Middle East– a review
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2023–In March 2023, China’s announcement that it had brokered renewed diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran threw into sharp relief the United States’ rapidly diminishing role in the Middle East…the United States completed its inept withdrawal from Afghanistan, a country that Washington had spent 20 years trying and failing to bring into the Western fold. Then the president [Joe Biden]…soon found the Saudis rebuffing a U.S. request to increase oil production during the war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, U.S. diplomatic efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal faltered…And the administration looked on helplessly as the most far-right government in Israeli history came to power, threatening the country’s claims to democracy, fueling a new wave of violence, and jeopardizing the Washington-backed Abraham Accords. Observers may be forgiven for wondering whether U.S. influence in the region has declined permanently.
Workers in U.S. and around the world are becoming poorer
Brookings, 5/16–Current inequality levels are high. Contemporary global inequalities are close to the peak levels observed in the early 20th century, at the end of the prewar era (variously described as the Belle Époque or the Gilded Age) that saw sharp increases in global inequality. Over the past four decades, there has been a broad trend of rising income inequality across countries. Income inequality has risen in most advanced economies and major emerging economies, which together account for about two-thirds of the world’s population and 85 percent of global GDP. The increase has been particularly large in the United States, among advanced economies, and in China, India, and Russia, among major emerging economies.
Peaceful change in Sudan transforms into bloody war
Der Spiegel, 4/22–Starting in December 2018, Sudanese author Shadin Al Fadil wrote one of the most impressive chapters of the Arab democracy movements for their country - one which has been ravaged by massacres, famine and crises over the years. They managed to achieve what no one had believed possible: They protested until they drove dictator Omar al-Bashir from office. After 30 years of dictatorship, democracy suddenly seemed within reach. Sudan had become emblematic of what can be achieved through peaceful resistance.
Since then, though, hopes for democracy have been further and further destroyed by the country’s powerful military. And now, those dreams could be buried for good in a hail of bombs. Since the early hours of Saturday morning, Africa’s third-largest country has been in a state of war. There is fighting in almost all parts of the country, with two rival generals and their armies facing off against each other. On one side is Sudan’s regular armed forces, commanded by the de facto president, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. On the other is the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), under the command of his deputy Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemeti.
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MAY DAY ... CHICAGO: ‘Celebration of workers’ potential’
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- 11 May 2023 638 hits
As we start our march today, keep in mind that the only way we can create a society that works for our class is that we must fight like hell to get it. We will not win through the ballot box, we will not win it through prayer -- We will win it through building a conscious international working class that is woke to revolutionary communist ideas!
CHICAGO, May 6 –With these true and inspiring words, a veteran Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member helped kick off our International Workers Day (May Day) celebrations. Close to 70 multiracial comrades, youth, co-workers, neighbors and friends enthusiastically rallied and marched through the Uptown neighborhood this afternoon with open calls for communist revolution and workers’ power.
In contrast to many May Day events around the world which have become reformist circuses pushing the bosses’ ideas, PLP unapologetically stays firm in our fight for nothing less than a worker-run egalitarian world. Let the red flag of communist internationalism continue to unite us against capitalism’s racism, sexism, and endless wars for profit!
Rallying our worker forces
The decision to hold May Day in Uptown this year was made in consideration of the sharpened class struggle taking place in this part of the city. In the last year alone, Uptown has been home to some of the most militant fights against capitalist-driven displacement and rotten health care (See CHALLENGE, 9/7/22 and 1/19). Many immigrant and unhoused workers living in the neighborhood have given key leadership to these struggles, and we have been proud to fight alongside them.
Our initial rallying point for the day was a busy intersection next to public transit routes and a city college. Having held weekly CHALLENGE sales and rallies at the same site for months leading up to today, PLP and our communist politics have made an impression already with workers and students in the area.
As more of us filled up the rally area, a pair of comrades led us in chants (including some brand new ones) to get the energy up. We unfurled our communist banners as well as colorful signs that we designed at an art event the weekend before. Along with the veteran comrade’s kickoff speech, another Latin worker highlighted her work organizing among immigrant families in public schools and explained the pitfalls of nationalism:
Nationalism is another one of the problems that we have been fighting to abolish… Internationalism is the goal to end prejudice, injustice and exclusion among the working class.
Take the streets, spread communist politics
With our forces at critical mass, we took the streets and began our march. A security team of marshals helped protect everyone involved and helped guide the pace. A team of CHALLENGE distributors helped ensure the Party’s ideas got into the hands of the masses, getting out approximately 300 newspapers. Many honked their horns and raised their fists in support of our calls for communism. Some even heard our chants and spontaneously joined the march!
We made our way to the site of a clinic associated with Howard Brown Health, one of the bosses’ networks that infamously laid off dozens of workers just before the latest holiday season. At the site a comrade with experience working in nonprofits blasted their exploitative nature with a rousing speech:
We’ve seen schools and mental health clinics close across the south and west sides while racist politicians pour money into policing. Howard Brown is no exception; the cuts and layoffs are happening in the same places where they always make cuts, in Black and Brown communities.
We need to build collective power and abolish capitalism. Under communism we can begin to build a new system where there is mass participation, where workers have real power and control over their labor, and where we can prioritize people and not profits!
Get with the revolutionary program
We concluded our march close to the lakefront, just a stone’s throw from the site of the heroic #RiseUptown anti-displacement struggle last year. A comrade who lives in Uptown shared his analysis of that struggle and the international connections he has built in the neighborhood:
Capitalism can never be reformed… Let’s use the international ties that can be built in Uptown to export our Party’s ideas to more corners of the world, to the international working class!”
We were treated to a delicious lunch along with some pro-worker poetry, May Day greetings from comrades in other countries, and moving performances of Bella Ciao and the Internationale. Lastly, for the keynote speech, another veteran comrade highlighted the power of communist politics and the Party:
The imperialist crisis is providing an opportunity for the international working class and PLP. We are faced with the choice to follow the bosses down the road to war and fascism or to rise as a class to fight for communist revolution and workers’ power. Only communist revolution can end the bosses’ wars!
May Day represents a communist future
May Day will always be a celebration of workers’ power and potential. It is a day when we reinforce our unity, build morale, and are offered a glimpse at a communist future beyond capitalist ideas of race and borders. Let’s live every day like it’s May Day, and win the world we deserve!
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MAY DAY ... ‘For a communist state from the river to the sea’
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- 11 May 2023 527 hits
I send you revolutionary greetings from Israel-Palestine, on the forefront of the struggle against fascism. Here, the bosses' dogfight over state power and profits led to the rise of an openly fascist government. This administration makes no liberal pretense and viciously attacks the working class, especially women, workers from Palestine, and refugees.
The old, liberal wing of the ruling class opposes this, fearing that the end of the liberal charade will destabilize the regime and endanger their ties with the international business class, which also prefers to wear the liberal mask.
Meanwhile, the newer, less well-established wing of Israel's bourgeoisie welcomes the new regime, hoping that it will rob the older part of the ruling class and distribute the spoils among the newer wing.This led to mass protests of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly staunchly nationalist (Zionist) in character. We, as communists, participate in the Block against the Occupation, reminding the "patriotic" protesters of "The Elephant in the Room" they would otherwise gladly ignore, namely colonialism.
This May Day, we participate in marches in Nazareth and Jaffa against the regime, against fascism, and for one communist state from the River to the Sea, with equality and freedom for all working class people.March on May Day - smash capitalism and fascism!
BAY AREA, May 6—Today, Progressive Labor Party held a BBQ-social to share May Day history, solidarity, and struggle with our comrades and friends. On May 1, PLP members and friends joined an Immigrant Rights’ May Day March in San Francisco with our Red Flags flying high. There were about 400 participants, immigrants, families and supporters from many countries. We marched with the TPS (Temporary Protected Status) contingent demanding a path to permanent residency, adding our class-oriented chants to the march. We continue to focus on the international working class as the power that can challenge capitalism in the U.S. and Imperialism around the world.
NEW YORK CITY--Several comrades attended a May Day rally and march on May 1 sponsored by the Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA), Teamsters and other unions and community organizations. About 800 workers marched from Washington Square Park to Foley Square in NYC. We distributed 300 CHALLENGE/Desafio newspapers to workers who enthusiastically received it, many of whom already know the paper from PLP’s long term work in community organizations.
