Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from FENSUAGRO, the largest agricultural workers union in Colombia. Nidia Quintero the Secretary General of FENSUAGRO is attending the Labor Notes Conference in Chicago starting on April 1, the same day as the large teachers union protests in Chicago. DECLARATION OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE TEACHERS AND STUDENTS OF CHICAGO

Minneapolis, MN – Wayne Wittman, age 86, a longtime activist in the labor and peace movements in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, died Feb. 23. Wayne suffered a heart attack while on a bus coming home from a labor meeting where he introduced a resolution that was passed. His wife Joan said, “He died doing what he loved to do.”

It is with great sorrow that we in Freedom Road Socialist Organization learned of the passing of the outstanding revolutionary, Nelson Peery. We extend our deepest condolences to his comrades, family and friends.

Minneapolis, MN – On August 9, hundreds of activists and intellectuals gathered at Northrop mall on the University of Minnesota -Twin Cities campus for a memorial rally and march in honor of Jesús Estrada-Pérez, who passed away earlier that week.

La noche del 17 de Junio en la iglesia Emanuel AME de Carolina del Sur, el supremacista blanco Dylann Storm Roof de 21 años de edad abrió fuego sobre un grupo de oración. Este acto de violencia racista acabó con la vida de nueve Afro Americanos, incluyendo la de un Senador de Carolina del Sur que era pastor de la Iglesia.

On the night of June 17, at the Emanuel AME church, a 21-year-old white supremacist named Dylann Storm Roof shot up a prayer meeting in Charleston, South Carolina. This act of racist violence resulted in the deaths of nine African American people, including a South Carolina State Senator who was the pastor of the church.

Minneapolis, MN – Sharon Rice Vaughan, a longtime and respected member of Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) and the Twin Cities peace and justice movements, died in a car crash in Havana, Cuba on March 24. Her sudden and untimely death leaves a big hole in our community.

Minneapolis, MN – More than 200 people gathered January 30 to celebrate the life of Twin Cities activist Gabriel Johnson-Ortiz, who passed away Jan. 17 at age 34 after a four-and-a-half-year struggle with brain cancer. His passing is a great loss to his family, friends and comrades from a variety of progressive political and cultural movements.

Author’s note: Leslie Feinberg preferred the pronouns ze (vs. she) and hir (vs. her) so I use those in this piece.

Berkeley, CA – I just heard about the passing of Yuri Kochiyama from my father, another Nisei (second generation Japanese American) political activist, who lives in Berkeley about a mile from where Yuri was living. I didn’t know Yuri well, having only met her once when we were both attending the same program in the Asian American community. Nevertheless, she was the single most prominent individual Asian American activist of the 20th century and her life and politics pioneered the Asian American movement born in the late 1960s.