Seattle Black Panther Party to Run Two Candidates for State Assembly by Debbie Leonard and Will Reissner SEATTLE- E
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THE MILITANT BERKELEY Published in the Interests of the Working People see pages 4,5,6,7 ,8,and 9 Vol 32- No. 29 Friday, July 19, 1968 Price 10c Seattle Black Panther Party to run two candidates for state assembly By Debbie Leonard and Will Reissner SEATTLE- E. J. Brisker, minister of Panther Party was running a political education of the Seattle Black Panther campaign in its own name. The campaign Party, told a crowd of nearly 100 at a will be based on the Black Panther Party's Militant Labor Forum sponsored by the 10-point program which calls for "freedom Young Socialist Alliance here July 5 that and power to control the destiny of the the Panthers will be running independent black community" and demands full em black candidates for the state legislature ployment, decent housing, exemption from this fall. the draft and decent education for Afro On July 7 Black Panther captain Aaron Americans. Dixon officially announced the candidates The program further demands an end at a rally of over 100 young Afro-Amer to the robbery of the black community icans. The two candidates will be Brisker by white businessmen, an end to police and Curtis Harris, Black Panther minister brutality, the release of all black prisoners of defense, and they will run in the black and trial of Afro-Americans by their community's 37th district, challenging two peers-Afro-Americans of similar age and white Democratic incumbents and a black economic status. Democratic candidate supported by the Locally, the Black Panther Party is 37th-district Democratic Committee. calling for a civilian police review board, Brisker is well-known in Seattle as a composed of members chosen by the com leader of the University of Washington munity, with the power to subpoena, obtain Black Student Union and Seattle SNCC. police records, and indict cops for brutality. Dixon, who announced the candidates at They are also demanding that several an outdoor rally, was recently sentenced Afro-American "public defenders" be on to six months in jail along with two other call whenever needed to counsel arrested defendants on charges stemming from a black citizens. sit-in at Franklin High School. They are Brisker stressed that the focal point of planning to appeal their convictions. (See the program is ''black control of the black July 5 Militant.) community"- control of housing, radio, E. J. Brisker, speaking at the rally, newspapers, cops, schools, businesses, projected the independent Black Panther places of entertainment. "There should be campaign as "the start of something very a Malcolm X movie theatre, a Malcolm X big- a history-making event." He pointed coffee house and Martin Luther King and out that this was the first time the Black (Continued on page 3) Student Mobilization, Resistance picket Humphrey in Philadelphia By Fred Feldman PHILADELPHIA - The Philadelphia crimes" and "Support our G Is-bring them Student Mobilization Committee andPhila- home alive." delphia Resistance organized a demonstra- Speakers who addressed those gathered tion of over 100 to march and leaflet to hear Humphrey included Rich Feigen- here, as Hubert Horatio Humphrey ad- berg of SMC, Josh Markel of Resistance CANDIDATE. E. J. Brisker (front) at meeting announcing his candidacy for dressed the traditional annual patriotic and Swarthmore professor Thompson state assembly. Also nominated by the Black Panther Party was Curtis Harris. "event" at Independence Hall. Since the Bradley. To the left of Brisker is Black Panther captain Aaron Dixon, and behind him demonstration was called on only two During the previous July 4 Independence are two unidentified members of the Black Panther Party. days' notice, the turnout surprised many Hall demonstrations the police had ar- participants. rested leafleters. This time, Resistance won The group enthusiastically chanted a significant victory for civil liberties by "Bring the troops home now" and other coming armed with an injunction directing antiwar slogans. Among the signs were the police not to make arrests for Black transit workers "Hubert Humphrey-wanted for war leafleting. lead Chicago strike By Dan Styron a vote by secret ballot, the meeting was CHICAGO, July 9-Waymon Benson, adjourned. Dissatisfied members remain a leader of the transit strike which para ed, and after discussing their grievances, lyzed Chicago's transportation system they called for a wildcat strike effective over the Fourth of July weekend, an immediately. nounced today that a telegram has been Waymon Benson said that the leader sent to the International Transit Workers ship of the union was not representing Union demanding that Chicago Amalga the interests of the bus drivers. The leader mated Transit Local 241 be placed in ship hasn't been fighting for safer equip receivership pending new elections of ment and cleaner working conditions, for union officers. This is the latest in a series an end to three-piece work schedules of dramatic moves by the Concerned on weekends, and for regular procedures Transit Workers, a well-organized, pre in handling customer complaints and dis dominantly black caucus, which is success ciplinary action against transit workers. fully challenging the transit union's pre Bureaucratic Leadership sent leadership. Standing in the way of these and other A wildcat strike was called the evening demands, he stated, is a conservative of July 2 by the Concerned Transit Work leadership backed by the 3,500 retired ers, following an unusually heated regular workers. This leadership doesn't repre membership meeting of Local 241. In sent the 8,340 working bus drivers. To the course of the meeting, a motion was change this situation, the Concerned photo by Bruce Marcus made to end the practice of allowing Transit Workers demand that only those retired workers to vote at regular union presently working be allowed to vote at PICKET HUMPHREY. July 4 demonstration in Philadelphia. meetings. After the local's leadership re regular union meetings. The Concerned fused to take either a standing vote or (Continued on page 9) Page 2 THE MILITANT Friday, July 19, 1968 THE MILITANT Moncada Garrison, lS years ago Editor: BARRY SHEPPARD Business Manager: BEVERLY SCOTT Day of Solidarity plant where I work. Initiated by Published weekly by The Militant Publishing Ass'n., 873 Broadway, New York, an ex-mineworker with a flair N.Y. ~0003. Phone .533-6414. Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. for writing, letters were sent in Sub;;cnplton: domesltc, $3 a y~ar; Canada and Latin America, $3.50; other with Cuban people fo_reign, $4.50. By fi_rst class mwl: domestic and Canada $9.00; all other coun dividually to I. W. Abel [president tnes, $14.00. Au prmted matter: domestic and Canada,$12.50; Latin. America, of the United Steel Workers). Said $2~.00; Europe, ~27.00; Africa, Australia, Asia (including USSR), $32.00. Havana, Cuba Wnte. for sealed air postage ,rat~s. Signed articles by contributors do not nec. As you well know, the 15th an one: "I can't believe, sir, that you essanly represent The Mllitant s views. These are expressed in editorials. niversary of the assault on the will be content to agree to the Moncada Garrison will be com continuation of our bowing to Vol. 32- No. 29 .128 Friday, July 19, 1968 memorated on the 26th of July, ... political pressures applied to 1968, the year that was pro our union, resulting in the shame claimed by the Cuban people in ful economic position we hold This column is an open forum a mass rally as the Year of the in our community." Another: 'Do you realize that for all viewpoints on subjects of Heroic Guerrilla, in posthumous general interest to our readers. homage to Major Ernesto Che nearly haif our people work for less than $2. 7 5 an hour? Are Please keep your letters brief. Where Guevara, embodiment ofthehigh necessary they will be abridged. we giving up all hopes to regain est expression of proletarian inter Writers' initials will be used, names nationalism of our day. the protection of the cost-of-living clause?' being withheld unless authorization On that 26th of July in 1953, is given for use. a group of young people, con Another: "As our ... principal spokesman, don't you think a tinuers of the heroic fighting tra I am clear that this is the key ditions of the Cuban people, con more concrete statement of our aims in the coming contract nego to ")the spirit sickness of the West vinced of the justice of their cause and thus the area where revolu and certain of final victory, struck tiations should be issued; to bolster the sagging confidence tionaries must concentrate their at the powerful military garrison work in strategy, tactics, forces, of the Batista tyranny. in your determination to lead us to individual solvency?' etc. Fifteen years have elapsed since Thus I am not criticizing The the beginning of our struggle, and "The loss of hope for a future in the economic sun is ... de Militant's competence in the areas almost 1 0 since the triumph of with which it deals-political and our last liberating feat, and yet stroying faith and pride in . economic. As a whole, though, the Cuban people live under the the higher echelons of our union it is not comprehensive, in failing perpetual menace of its century leadership." And more such appeals and explanations about to deal with the radical mutations old enemy, Yankee imperialism conditions on the job. of the sense (scientific), style the great genocide of the Viet Henry Austin (urban) and symbols (secular) namese people, the great exploiter that are overwhelming the East of all the people of the Third and the West as the cultural revo World.