Black History and the Class Struggle
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®~759.C A Spartacist Pamphlet $1 Black History i! and the Class Struggle No. 18 Page 24 ~iI~i~·:~:f!!iI'!lIiAI_!Ii!~1_&i 1·li:~'I!l~~.I_ :lIl1!tl!llti:'1!):~"1i:'S:':I'!mf\i,ri£~; : MINt mm:!~~!!)rI!t!!i\i!Ui\}_~ How the Liberals and Reformists Derailed the Struggle for Integration For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! Page 6 VVorkers protest manager's use of "N" word and fight for union recognition, demanding: "Stop the Plantation Mentality," University of Virginia at Charlottesville, , 21 November 2003. I '0 ;, • ,:;. i"'l' \'~ ,1,';; !r.!1 I I -- - 2 Introduction Mumia Abu-Jamal is a fighter for the dom chronicles Mumia's political devel Cole's article on racism and anti-woman oppressed whose words teach powerful opment and years with the Black Panther bigotry, "For Free Abortion on Demand!" lessons and rouse opposition to the injus Party, as well as the Spartacist League's It was Democrat Clinton who put an "end tices of American capitalism. That's why active role in vying to win the best ele to welfare as we know it." the government seeks to silence him for ments of that generation from black Nearly 150 years since the Civil War ever with the barbaric death penaIty-a nationalism to revolutionary Marxism. crushed the slave system and won the legacy of slavery-,-Qr entombment for life One indication of the rollback of black franchise for black people, a whopping 13 for a crime he did not commit. The frame rights and the absence of militant black percent of black men were barred from up of Mumia Abu-Jamal represents the leadership is the ubiquitous use of the voting in the 2004 presidential election government's fear of the possibility of "N" word today. In this country, the "N" because of felony convictions (mainly militant struggle against a system that has word has historically been a program of through the racist "war on drugs"). But stripped black youth of a future in this racist violence. The fact that "gangsta" as our article, "Black Disenfranchisement society, condemned them to prison in rappers and black intellectuals use it and American 'Democracy'" spells out, unprecedented numbers in the racist "war today doesn't change the truth that the the Democratic Party is no alternative to on drugs," or recruited them to the impe word symbolizes the dehumanization of George Bush and the RepUblicans. The rialist armed forces carrying out a bloody black people in this country, which has Democrats supported the Iraq war and colonial occupation of Iraq. Our review of its origins in chattel slavery. Black oppres campaigned for a more effective "war on Mumia Abu-Jamal's book We Want Free- sion is the bedrock of American capital terror," which, since the September 11 ism, and as Marxists we oppose any con attacks, has particularly targeted immi cession to the pervasive racist ideology, grants. The centrality of the fight for black which is an. obstacle to the conscious freedom in relation to immigrant rights is mobilization of labor and the oppressed explained in the 1999 article, "Full Citi Table of Contents in their own interests. zenship Rights for All Immigrants! Down "How the Liberals and Reformists With Capital ist Rulers' War Against Blacks, From Death Row, This Is Mumia Abu-Jamal Derailed the Struggle for Integration," a Immigrants!" In the post-September 11 In the Shadows speech by Spartacist cadre Don Alexan climate, the perspective of mobilizing the of Abu Ghraib Prison ............. 2 der, examines the reasons why there is an labor movement and black people in all-sided attack on black rights today, and defense of immigrants is an urgent focus motivates our fight to link the segregated of work for the Spartacist League and Finish the Civil War! and ghettoized black masses to the power Labor Black Leagues, and central to our Black Disenfranchisement and of a labor movement in struggle against task of forging a revolutionary work American "Democracy" ........... 3 the whole system of class exploitation and ers party. The previous issue of Black His the racist oppression which helps prop it tory and the Class Struggle (No. 17) was How the Liberals and Reformists Derailed up. This must be a struggle on behalf of devoted to this subject, and we urge read- the Struggle for Integration all the oppressed, as explained by Karen ers to order a copy.. For Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution! .............. 6 The "N" Word in Racist America . ................. 17 A Life in the Black Panther Party We Want Freedom Review of a Book by Mumia Abu-Jamal ... 24 In the Shadows Join the Labor Black Leagues! ... 31 of Abu Ghraib Prison Racism and Anti-Woman Bigotry The color photos coming out of the women, is the height of humiliation, and For Free Abortion on Demand! dreaded Abu Ghraib prison on Baghdad's tells everyone who can see, that Ameri Stop Bipartisan Attack on outskirts are racing around the world, cans hold the Iraqis, and by extension, Women's Rights! ................... ; 32 silent yet eloquent testament to what other Arabs, in utter contempt. Americans really think about the people "This is not America," a politician Full Citizenship Rights for All Immigrants! they allegedly came here to "liberate." huffs. Down With Capitalist Rulers' War The photos, especially in the age of "I am appalled!," yet another exclaims. Against Blacks, Immigrants! ..... 39 the internet, are racing through the Arab Yet, what is truly appalling, and and Muslim world, and showing a side perhaps more chilling than the naked, of the American character that seldom human pyramids shown, is the sheer glee Spartacist Publishing Co. gets to be seen, especially abroad. shown in the faces of the Americans. Box 1377 GPO The photos of naked Arab men, The photos flashed in British tab New York, NY 10116 some posed with laughing, jeering US continued on page 5 January 2005 3 reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 833, 1 October 2004 1965: In Selma, Alabama state troopers attack black civil rights demonstrators marching against registration procedures. 2000: Protesters against racist intimidation of black voters in Florida. " Black. Disenfranchisement and American "Democracy" In the 2000 elections, Florida made General, f.or a seat in the U.S. Senate in other oppressed minorities, we are intran headlines across the globe as its electoral a stinging repudiati.on.of Ashcroft's fanat sigent defenders of the hard-won right to machinery worked to spit out a result fav.or ical oonservatism-and with a heavy vote. The bloody Civil War that smashed able to George W. Bush-an outcome sub turn.out .of black v.oters. chattel slavery won black men the right sequently assured by the blatantly partisan Florida was not alone. In many black of the franchise, which was then largely intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court, precincts in Chicag.o, as many as one in stripped from them in the South dur whose chief justice, William Rehnquist, six ballots were tossed out. The Republi ing the Jim Crow era. Black people in launched his career 40 years ago by purg cans have forgotten none of this and are the South regained voting rights through ing blacks from Arizona's voter rolls. hatching new plans to prevent black peo the courageous struggles of the civil rights While confusing ballots that led many ple, who overwhelmingly vote Dem movement-struggles that faced brutal old Jewish women to vote for sinister ocrat, from voting. A RepUblican state police repression and KKK nightriding rightist Patrick Buchanan dominated the legislator in the bitterly contested state of terror. Civil rights activists Andrew news, black people were the target of a Michigan, John Pappageorge, has stated Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James concerted effort to rob them of their right bluntly, "If we d.o not suppress the Chaney, whose bodies were dredged to vote. Police roadblocks barred the Detroit vote [in a city that is over 80 per from a muddy dam in Neshoba County, ways to polling places, and many black cent black], we're going to have a tough Mississippi in 1964, were am.ong those people who managed to get through found time in this election" (New York Times, lynched for fighting for black people's themselves barred from voting even if 13 September). Florida election officials right to the franchise. they carried a voter registrati.on card. drafted a list of th.ose disqualified due to In a throwback to that era, Florida's Nearly 140,000 black men in Florida 'past felony convictions; of some 48,000 Department of Law Enforcement has sent were denied suffrage in the last presi felons, roughly 22,000 were blacks. armed state troopers into elderly black dential electi.on due to felony convic Strikingly, the list included only 61 His voters' homes on an "investigation" .of tions, many of them resulting from the panics, who in .s.outhern Florida are voter fraud--despite the department hav racist, bipartisan "war on drugs." In Jack largely anti-Castro gusano reactionaries, ing decided in May that the charges were sonville, an astounding 9 percent of bal a key Republican c.onstituency. baseless! The president of the Florida lots cast were invalidated, over a third .of These are n.othing less than a frontal V.oters League. (a group that w.orks to them cast by black people. Meanwhile, attack on the basic democratic right of increase black electoral turnout), Eugene over in Miss.ouri, the c.orpse of Democrat blacks to vote. While there is not a candi Poole, stated: Mel Carnahan beat the still breathing date in this election who represents the "These guys are using these intimidating J.ohn Ashcroft, n.ow Bush's Att.orney interests of w.orkers, black people and methods to try and get these folks to stay .--.....