Detroit, Michigan – On January 16, Martin Luther King Jr Day, the Detroit MLK Day Committee organized a large gathering, which took place at Historic Saint Matthew's-Saint Joseph's Episcopal Church with the theme of “Six Decades of Mass Movements, The Struggle Continues.” Issues addressed included winning full funding for the Right to Counsel Ordinance and ensuring that all Detroit residents have access to quality housing, water services, good schools, environmentally sound communities, and healthy food. Marchers also demanded an end to police crimes, no more funds to NATO and ending the proxy war in Ukraine. Several FRSO members took part in and provided logistical support for the event.

Detroit has a long legacy of struggle based around Martin Luther King Jr. Sixty years ago on June 23, 1963, it was the site of the Detroit Walk to Freedom, which was the largest civil rights demonstration to ever take place in U.S. history, with attendance ranging from 125,000 to 500,000 with the keynote speaker being delivered by Martin Luther King Jr, who gave an early version of his “I have a Dream” speech.

The Detroit MLK Day Committee continues to strive for equality, housing rights, economic justice, social justice and anti-militarism.

After a speakout, there was a short march down Woodward Avenue to a new Black food cooperative down the street which is in the process of being built.

Chants during the march declared that housing, water, jobs, education, right to counsel are human rights (“Fight, fight fight!”) and to free Palestine.

#DetroitMichigan #DetroitMI #AfricanAmerican #DrMartinLutherKingJr #MLKDay

New York, NY – Over 50 people gathered on January 18, in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The crowd rallied at the 125th Street and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard in Harlem, a neighborhood that has had a long history of Black revolutionary organizing. Along with the rally, others participated in a car caravan that passed by the rally.

The event was organized by the People’s United Front, with speakers from organizations such as the New Abolitionist Movement, Cuba Si Coalition, New York Community Action Project, Families for Freedom, and many others.

Each of the speeches addressed one of the issues laid out by the People’s 10 Demands, which included an end to mass incarceration and release of all political prisoners; an end to police terror, affordable housing for all; amnesty for all undocumented people; an end to U.S. military interventions abroad, and others.

Along with speeches, speakers also led the crowd in chants, including “Free them all!” and “How do you spell racist? N-Y-P-D!”

The rally ended with an African American young person reciting from memory a portion of MLK’s famous I Have a Dream speech.

#NewYorkNY #PeoplesStruggles #DrMartinLutherKingJr #Antiracism

In November, Lumen, formerly known as CenturyLink, announced that the company would, for the first time, be giving non-union workers the holiday in an effort to make Lumen more “diverse and inclusive.”

“We are deeply disappointed by Lumen’s recently announced decision to give the MLK Holiday to everyone except union members,” the letter reads. “In your announcement, leadership cited listening to employees and the significance of Dr. King’s message. Yet this decision directly undermines Dr. King’s legacy of fighting for civil and labor rights. We are asking you to make it right and extend the MLK paid holiday to all Lumen workers.”

The letter was accompanied by signatures from 1500 Lumen workers and community supporters who signed a petition asking Storey to include union members in the holiday.

#WashingtonDC #DC #PeoplesStruggles #DrMartinLutherKingJr #CommunicationsWorkersOfAmericaCWA

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), is proud to sponsor the upcoming program “ The Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr: The George Floyd Rebellion, Black Liberation, and the Struggle for Socialism.”

The program will draw lessons from the rebellion and offer direction for the peoples’ struggle in the year to come. It will feature Frank Chapman, speaking for the Central Committee of the FRSO and Aislinn Pulley, of Black Lives Matter-Chicago. The program will be moderated by Michael Sampson of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression or NAARPR, from Jacksonville, Florida.

2020 was a disastrous year for the people of the United States, with tens of millions thrown out of work in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and hundreds of thousands dying in the country’s worst pandemic since 1918. Both of these catastrophes were aided and abetted by President Trump who anti-science views combined with incompetence made the United States number one in COVID-19 infections and death in 2020.

But 2020 was also the year of the historic uprisings after the murder of George Floyd as millions of people across the country protested continuing killing by police. The cases of Breonna Taylor in Kentucky and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia had already led to protests in African American com