June 24, 2021 Issue
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Socialismo y liberación trans 12 Workers and oppressed peoples of the world unite! workers.org Vol. 63, No. 25 June 24, 2021 $1 PRIDE Coverage * Bigotry behind SCOTUS ruling 3 * Cleveland: Defend Buffalo, N.Y., Pride trans youth 6 march, June 12. Page 6. PHOTO: WILLOW BEVERLY Struggle goes beyond Juneteenth Emancipation and resistance editorial By Mirinda Crissman After decades of struggle for recognition, Juneteenth has been made a federal holiday by Congress and was Reparations signed into law by President Joe Biden June 17. Federal workers had Friday, June 18, off as a paid holiday, as June 19, the official date, falls on Saturday. This is the and abolition first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Day was enacted and signed in 1983, although not officially Finally, the U.S. has a federal holiday recognizing the observed until 1986. emancipation of Black people from slavery. Congress Two and a half years after the Emancipation passed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Juneteenth Freedom March, June 19, 2020, on June 15— barely four days ahead of a day that Black Washington, D.C. Lincoln, the news of freedom reached the still-enslaved people have been celebrating every year since 1865. people of Texas by way of Galveston June 19, 1865. Lawmakers were pushed to vote by a massive outpour- Rebellions carried out by enslaved people had ulti- that Texas was a safe haven for enslavers. Galveston, ing of anti-racist outrage at the police murder of George mately forced the signing of the 1863 Proclamation. with its deep-water port, has the oldest known police Floyd last May. Millions of people, led by Black Lives Manisha Sinha states in “The Slave’s Cause: A History force in the state. The police protect the property and Matter, protested that Black people should— at the very of Abolition,” “Prominent slave revolts marked the turn wealth of the richest people. Like many early police least— be free of the threat and reality of cop killing. toward immediate abolition, and fugitive slaves united forces on this continent, they served as slave patrols. This holiday certainly doesn’t guarantee that— it all factions of the movement and led the abolitionists to Henry Louis Gates explained: “Since the capture doesn’t even mandate a paid day off. And the same justify revolutionary resistance to slavery.” (New York of New Orleans in 1862, slave owners in Mississippi, Congress just refused to pass a voting rights act that Times, June 18, 2020) Louisiana and other points east had been migrating to would especially protect voters of color! Major General Gordon Granger and his Union troops Texas to escape the Union Army’s reach. In a hurried What continues to happen are bold and repeated acts marched through Galveston on June 19, 1865, reading reenactment of the original middle passage, more than of Black self-liberation. These are part of a glorious his- General Order No. 3, which stated: “The people of Texas 150,000 enslaved people were moved west to Texas.” tory of Black resistance in the U.S.— carried out for hun- are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation (“What is Juneteenth?” PBS.org) dreds of years with no blessing from bosses or owners from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are After news of emancipation reached Texas, the rich on high. still relied on the labor of those who were once legally free. This involves the absolute equality of personal As soon as African peoples, kidnapped and forced considered their property. They did what they could to rights and rights of property between former masters into slavery, set foot on what later was called “U.S. soil,” and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing maintain that dominance and superexploitation. they began to fight to free themselves. They ran away between them becomes that between employer and from owners, established maroon communities with hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly Convict leasing = enslavement Indigenous peoples forced from their lands and mounted at their present homes and work for wages.” (Galveston That exploitation evolved into systems like share- armed uprisings against plantation masters. (Herbert Historical Foundation 150) cropping, where the formerly enslaved still worked in Aptheker, “American Negro Slave Revolts,” 1936) It took years for this message and Union troops to the same Texas fields under similar conditions. Another In “Black Reconstruction in America: 1860-1880,” reach the hundreds of thousands of enslaved people in way the ruling class carried out their will was through the great Marxist sociologist W.E.B. DuBois argued Texas; and even then, not all enslaved people were freed the system of convict leasing, which was designed to that the thousands of Black workers who walked away instantly. In fact the material conditions of Black people keep freed Black people in “legal” slavery. This was remained largely the same in many ways via sharecrop- sanctioned through a clause which still exists in the 13th from enslavement during the Civil War did so not “from ping and the system of convict leasing. Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. merely the desire to stop work. It was a strike on a wide Leading up to the general’s message, it was known Continued on page 10 Continued on page 10 Consuewella Africa remembered 2 South African ex-political prisoner Reproductive rights under attack 3 No Pride in prisons, jails Indigenous victory over pipeline 4 and detention centers Kamala Harris & Wall Street 8 Biden, G7 and NATO 10 5, 7 Peru 8 Haiti 9 Palestinian resistance 9 Salute to China 11 Page 2 June 24, 2021 workers.org ‘A fighter from beginning to the end’ By Betsey Piette this week Consuewella Africa, 67, a beloved sister in the In the U.S. MOVE Organization, passed away June 16 follow- ◆ ing hospitalization for breathing problems due Juneteenth: Emancipation and resistance .......1 to stress. Her family cites the probable cause as ‘A fighter from beginning to the end’............2 revelations surfaced in April that the University Ballot initiative to hold police accountable.......3 of Pennsylvania and the City of Philadelphia still held the remains of her daughter Katricia “Tree” Bigotry behind the fig leaf of religion ...........3 Africa, 14, who was murdered by the government Attacks on reproductive rights .................3 May 13, 1985. Indigenous and environmental victory ..........4 Learning that the University of Pennsylvania On the picket line............................4 Museum and Princeton University used remains believed to be from Tree had troubled and Anti-apartheid guerrilla fighter interviewed......5 WW PHOTO: JOE PIETTE weighed heavily on her, according to MOVE Consuewella Africa (right) with MOVE sisters Janet and Janine Africa, Buffalo: Second annual People's Pride ..........6 member Janine Africa. At a press conference in May 30, 2019. Crush anti-trans legislation in Ohio! ............6 April regarding the mishandling of the remains, LGBTQ2S+ people overrepresented in prisons ...7 Consuewella tearfully denounced the state, saying, “It’s among MOVE members collectively charged in the death just continuous, nonstop, vicious, violent, sadistic, ongo- of a police officer, who many suspect was killed by another Atlanta: ‘No Pride in Detention’................7 ing abuse of the MOVE organization. Why? Because we cop. She spent 16 years in state prison for simple assault Kamala Harris, Wall St. in Central America..... 8 stand up and tell the truth about this rotten world system.” before being paroled in 1994. Her daughters were killed Compounding the agony, weeks after the April 26 while she was imprisoned. ◆ Around the world press event, the city revealed that Health Commissioner Consuewella was well-known and respected by the Peru: Fujimori threatens pre-emptive coup ..... 8 Thomas Farley had ordered the remains of other MOVE movement in Philadelphia and beyond. Described by members cremated and discarded without notifying rela- many family members as “no nonsense,” she is remem- Haiti: Guerrilla warfare and COVID break out....9 tives in 2017. After Farley was pressured to resign, another bered by Sue Africa in the same Inquirer obituary as Palestinian resistance to Zionist regime .........9 medical examiner’s office employee reported that Farley’s “very vibrant, very alive, a very strong runner, very strong Biden, Blinken, Burns: imperialism is back .....10 orders were not carried out. period, very vocal and assertive.” China’s Tiangong space station ...............11 Janine Africa stated, “The situation just put so much Pam Africa, Minister of Confrontation for the MOVE on her that it tore her down, and she couldn’t come out of Organization, recalled meeting Consuewella in May 1977 Salute to Communist Party of China at 100 . .11 it.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, June 17) MOVE family mem- during the police blockade of the family’s Powelton Village bers expressed hope that Tree and Consuewella could be home. “She never waivered,” Africa told WW. “I remem- ◆ Editorial buried together. ber her sitting in the sun with her son Lobo. I saw her go Reparations and abolition.....................1 Consuewella Africa suffered decades of assault from the through the Aug. 8, 1978, confrontation with the police. system. Her daughter Zanetta “Netta” Africa, 12, was also “When she and Alberta Africa were in state prison, ◆ Noticias en Español killed in the 1985 fire ignited when the state dropped a on Dec. 3, 1981, the guards tried to mess with Bert. Socialismo y liberación trans .................12 bomb on the family’s home in West Philadelphia, result- Consuewella confronted one ‘white shirt’ officer and ing in the deaths of six adults and five children and the knocked him out cold. destruction of over 60 homes. She is survived by her son “Consuewella was kind, loving, caring, but you messed Lionel “Lobo” Dotson, 44, and spouse Frank Edwards.