If asked what I consider to be a defining moment of the 20th century, I would have to say that it was the moment on the Edmund Pettus bridge in 1965 that led to the historic passing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.

Let me talk about the things that I most distinctly remember. Jimmie Lee Jackson, a young Black man, was 26 years old when he was shot by the police while trying to protect his mother from being brutalized in Marion, Alabama. This was a peaceful demonstration for voting rights. Jackson was a Black worker who made $6 a day as a woodcutter before he was murdered on that fateful night. And here we are, over 60 years later, still following up on what Dr. King told us when he said, “now we must see that Jimmie Jackson didn't die in vain.”

We must see even now that all those who were murdered in Alabama, Mississippi and throughout the disenfranchised Black Belt South didn’t die in vain.

I was 21, turning 22 years old in the summer of 1964 and I had lived through four young Black girls being killed by a bombing in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 and three young men, two white and one Black, being murdered in Mississippi in the same period. Then I saw Bloody Sunday on TV, where hundreds of people, protesters, were teargassed and beaten for peacefully demanding the right to vote.

And as I was saying earlier, here we are 60 years later, where Black legislators in the deep South and in Tennessee are sitting down in the state legislatures in protest demanding that the right to vote not be taken away from them, demanding that all majority-Black political districts not be disenfranchised based on the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court to totally gut the Voting Rights Act. That's what they did, they just struck down the Voting Rights Act, which took us over 100 years to enact. They struck it down in a day.

And now there's a wave of protests throughout the South, mainly Black people, but not just Black people, saying to this Supreme Court, to the Congress, and particularly to the Republican-dominated Congress, and to the world, that we’re not going back. And the world will see that through our united actions, that we’re not going back. The world will see once again the ironclad determination of Black people and their allies, refusing to go back, protesting and demanding that we go forward.

Protesting and demanding that not only will we not be pushed back to Jim Crow, but that we’re going to put an end to those who are trying to take us back there: Donald Trump and his minions, Donald Trump and his Supreme Court, Donald Trump and his corrupt Congress, Donald Trump and his corrupt White House. You’re not going to take us back. We refuse to go back. We’re fighting to go forward. And in going forward, we will put an end to all of these travesties of justice. We will put an end to the so-called white backlash, which thinks it has a political destiny to make America worse again, not great again, to take the American dream and turn it into the American nightmare.

We will not go back, and we can’t say this strong enough, that what we need to do in the days ahead is protest what the Supreme Court has done, to confront and challenge what's going on in the state houses in the Deep South, and what the governors and congresspeople in the Deep South are trying to do to bring back Jim Crow, to bring back that period when Black people were terrorized, brutalized and murdered for trying to exercise their constitutional right to vote, which was earned through a revolution that took place in the 1860s.

There are three amendments that came out of that revolution. These were the 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, and the 15th Amendment. The 13th, abolishing the buying and selling of Black people. The 14th Amendment, giving equal protection of law, and making it a law that if you are born in America, you are automatically an American citizen. And the 15th Amendment, extending the franchise, the right to vote, to those who had been in bondage during slavery.

Since the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the political history of the Deep South has been about state governments in the Black belt states’ resistance to the voting rights of Black citizens.

Since 1877, the year when the North and the South agreed that the South was uniquely suited to be the guardians of the “Negro Problem,” they agreed on keeping Black folks out of politics and redeeming the South from biracial coalitions that protected and enforced the voting rights of Black folks and the masses of propertyless people who were denied the franchise.

1877, the year of the great betrayal, with the election of Rutherford B. Hayes for president, marked the beginning of the reign of white supremacist terrorists initiating campaigns of racist violence and political repression. Mississippi, a state whose population was 70% Black, led the South to hold state conventions to establish a movement of disfranchisement creating a system of obstacles between the voter and the ballot box, ushering in an era of disenfranchisement that lasted for over 75 years.

Electoral structures designed to keep Black folks from voting were not only profoundly undemocratic but helped to maintain a status quo that keeps the South the most economically, socially and culturally most backward quadrant of the nation.

Those amendments to the Constitution were revolutionary then, but apparently not enough to settle this question once and for all. So, that’s our task. Our task is to finish this revolutionary process that was started back in 1861, to finish this revolutionary process in the 21st century.

We will not go back, and if we’re not going back then we have got to go forward, and going forward means putting an end not for once but once and for all to these racist policies and the racist regime that sits in Washington instituting these policies.

All Power to the People!

#Commentary #VotingRightsAct #OppressedNationalities #FrankChapman #PeoplesStruggles #Featured

Chicago, IL -Chicago is preparing for May Day, which is again a national day of protest against Trump’s racist agenda. A broad coalition of immigrant rights, Black liberation, workers, youth and student organizations are preparing to rally and march on May 1, International Workers Day.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is going all out to build for May Day. One part of FRSO’s contribution is our annual Working Class Awards Dinner. Again, this year, it was held in the hall of the Chicago Teachers Union on Saturday, April 18.

The purpose of the event is to recognize individuals and organizations that have made contributions to the struggle of workers and the oppressed over the past year, celebrate some victories, and recognize the people who made them possible. It is also FRSO Chicago’s main annual fundraiser.

The event was very successful, with almost 300 people in the hall and over $20,000 raised.

A year of resistance to ICE: Four awards presented

Chicago was one of the first targets of ICE occupation, beginning in September 2025. ICE and Customs and Border Patrol officers terrorized immigrant communities, arresting 3000. They even staged a raid with 300 agents at 3 a.m. in the Black community of South Shore, with agents rappelling from helicopters onto an apartment building where Venezuelan refugees lived.

The Rapid Response teams, Migra Watch, and emergency response protests began before Trump surged agents here.

The awards dinner recognized four activists for contributions to resistance to Trump and ICE. Kathryn Zamarrón is an elementary school music teacher at the Walt Disney Magnet School, and a rank-and-file leader in the Chicago Teachers Union. She serves on the CTU Latinx Caucus and Elementary Education Committee. Zamarron played a crucial role in organizing sanctuary teams to protect students not only in her own school, but across the city. She was presented with an award named for Karen Lewis, the legendary president of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Corina Pedraza, a worker at the Chicago public library, played a leading role in helping the community provide services to the tens of thousands of migrant laborers bused here by the governor of Texas starting in 2022. She was also recognized for her leading role as an organizer of both Southwest and Southeast Side rapid response teams in 2025. Her award was in the name of Silverio Villegas González, murdered by ICE in a Chicago suburb at the outset of the ICE/CBP occupation.

Reverend Ciera Bates-Chamberlain received the Angela Davis Award for organizing faith leaders in opposition to ICE. As executive director of Live Free Illinois, when ICE threatened Chicago, she organized a multifaith, multiracial coalition including Black ministers and churches on Chicago’s South and West Sides. The network held a press conference, a protest in the pulpits, and rallied with the immigrant rights movement to defend our communities.

Finally, the Mexican Students de Aztlán (MeSA) at UIC received an award named for Rigo Padilla Pérez. A member of the Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance at UIC, Rigo was a leader in the Dreamers movement, which compelled passage of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals legislation. He died of cancer three years ago.

MeSA was honored because in October, ICE agents arrested two women near campus. Students protested, and ICE released the women, but the UIC administration failed to respond. MeSA then led a mobilization of over 200 students to oppose ICE on campus and demand a sanctuary campus.

Award for Palestine solidarity

Gabriella Martinez is a Special Education Certified Assistant in the Chicago Public Schools and a rank-and-file leader in SEIU Local 73. She organized coworkers to file ethics complaints against Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs for the purchase of Israel Bonds. Frerichs even purchased more bonds during the ongoing genocide in Gaza. For her work, Martinez received the Assata Shakur award. Together with several members and retirees from SEIU Local 73, Gabi’s family joined her for the event.

Lifetime Achievement Awards: Pete Camarata Award to Jim Fennerty for movement legal defense

Jim Fennerty has been a fixture at protests in Chicago for decades, wearing the lime green cap of the National Lawyers Guild. Jim is a people’s lawyer who has consistently defended our movement from attacks by the ruling class. Jim and his wife, Janet have been politically active in the movement for over 50 years. Jim represented Rasmea Odeh and the Anti-War 23, and he helped win a historic civil settlement representing 800 protesters arrested at the start of the Iraq War.

Fennerty’s award was named after the late Pete Camarata. Pete was a founder of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). In his fight against the criminals that took control of the union, Pete was one of the first to combine rank and file power with legal action.

Fennerty was introduced by family friend Hatem Abudayyeh of the Arab American Action Network and US Palestinian Community Network. Many tables were filled with Jim and Janet’s friends and family, including son Nate, daughter Dina, her husband Daniel Contreras, and grandson Quinn Contreras.

In addition, the family of Pete Camarata was there with the Fennertys, including his wife, Robin Potter, stepson Jackson and his wife, Joan; stepdaughter Aimee, and granddaughter Phoebe.

William L. Patterson Award to Frank Chapman

The night’s biggest moment was the lifetime achievement award for Frank Chapman. It came with recorded greetings from CTU President Stacy Davis Gates and Vice President Jackson Potter.

The William L. Patterson Award was introduced by Anthony Quesada, 35th Ward alderman:

“Through his leadership with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Frank has helped lead campaigns that have shaped Chicago. He has been central to the fight for justice for the wrongfully convicted and for community control of the police. His work helped push forward the movement that won elected police district councils, giving people a real voice in public safety. And today, Frank continues to advance this struggle through our fight for the Community Power Over Policing referendum.

“He has also mentored generations of organizers, many of whom are in the room tonight. Across Chicago and beyond, people have learned from him how to stay grounded, how to build collective power, and how to keep going through every phase of struggle. His impact lives in the people he has shaped and the movements that continue to grow.”

There were other elected officials present, including 33rd Ward Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, 35th Ward Democratic Committeeperson Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 25th Ward Alderman Byron Sigcho Lopez, and State Senator Graciela Guzman.

The award is named after William L. Patterson, the Communist Party USA attorney who led the International Labor Defense (ILD), and who organized the mass defense of the Scottsboro Boys in the 1930s. Later he headed up the Civil Rights Congress, and together with Paul Robeson took the We Charge Genocide petition to the United Nations. The formation of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression was based on the model of the ILD.

Chapman: “We’re part of a better world in birth”

Chapman is the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; field organizer and education director of the Chicago Alliance; and a Central Committee member of FRSO. In his remarks, he shared some perspective on the Trump regime and on change in this country from his vantage point having been born in 1942.

Referring to people who see Trumpism as an aberration when they say, “That’s not us,” meaning not what the U.S. stands for, Chapman responded, “The hell it ain’t. What they’re doing to the immigrants happened to me and my people…6200 children have been held in detention since Trump came in,” adding, “And shooting people on the streets execution style.”

“But we’ve seen this: we saw Laquan McDonald shot 16 times. And a few days ago, the state police shot a man 15 times, not far from my house,” and “Quit telling me this is something you haven’t seen before.”

“We’re demanding an end to Trumpism, but we’re going further than that. We’re part of a better world in birth!” Going on with the lyrics of The International, Chapman said, “Arise you prisoners of starvation. Arise you wretched of the earth. For justice thunders condemnation. A better world’s in birth.”

“Are you ready to get this done? Are you ready for the revolution?” he asked, to thunderous applause.

#ChicagoIL #IL #ImmigrantRights #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #FRSO #NAARPR #FrankChapman #Trump #PeoplesStruggles

Chicago, IL – The No Kings protests and demonstrations are both an organized response and a clear manifestation of a spontaneous uprising in resistance to Donald Trump’s agenda. Given the commentary and calls of the leaders and organizers of the demonstration, it’s clearly entrenched within the limited oppositional politics of the Democratic and Republican parties.

The Republican Party has gone so far to the right that it has actually deprived the Democrats of a lot of oxygen for carrying out their neoliberal programs. The Democratic Party’s neoliberal budget cuts leave us lean, but the Republican cuts are to the bone. This makes for an interesting kind of politics. You might say that the Democrats are for restoring the leadership of the Democratic Party to its neoliberal mission. It’s more about restoring the status quo of neoliberalism, and this shows up in how they are presently negotiating with the Republicans about ICE, government layoffs, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and so on. 

So where do we find the bottom line? If we look for the bottom line that the Democrats are drawing saying “Here’s where we stand. Here’s where we will fight, and we shall not be moved,” it’s hard to find that line. Just look at the fights around the budget. First they said ICE should be abolished. Then they said they had to be restricted. They had to show their badges, their warrants, and not wear masks. They went back and forth on that so much that we couldn’t keep track of what they are demanding, what’s the bottom line. Now that we’re in a period of trying to stop a government shutdown, they agreed to the Republican bottom line in the Senate. Now they’re being critical of the Democrats in the House for not going along with the Democrats in the Senate. 

And what’s wrong with this? They have been negotiated backwards to just the limited demand of giving ICE no more money, when ICE already has gotten hundreds of billions of dollars to function, and they don’t really need more money. So, it’s almost a meaningless demand. 

Both the liberal and the conservative parts of the Democratic Party unite and agree that the problem that people have with Trump is the price of eggs and the price of gasoline, and that he broke his promise to take prices down and instead prices have gone up. They have moved the economy to the front burner. This becomes their principal demand. 

But what about the Medicaid cuts? What about housing? What about the near-elimination of the National Labor Relations Board, where no government official is bound to respect trade union rights? What about the massive layoffs of all of the government workers, including air traffic controllers? And last but certainly not least, what about the white supremacy? What about the unchecked, blatant, gross racism that currently resides in the White House?

It becomes like a meteorite issue that flashes through the political firmament and then is no longer seen and no longer mentioned by the Democratic Party, even when their own leadership, like the Obamas, have been characterized as apes by the President. 

As harsh and mean-spirited as Trump’s racism is, it is not exceptional or unprecedented in the annals of American history. 

The masses of the people are way out ahead of the Democrats when it comes to opposing Trump’s agenda. We think this was demonstrated in Minneapolis, and we think it’s also been demonstrated at numerous Congressional hearings, but mainly in Minneapolis, where we heard an undisputable, unmistakeable protest against the ICE occupation and the police state tactics of Trump, coming from the masses of people. 

I’m not talking about the governor of Minnesota. He opposed it, yes. Nor am I talking about the mayor of Minneapolis. He opposed it, too. But they also did not draw the line when it came to aggressive, brutal and murderous actions of ICE on the ground. They let one face of ICE be replaced by another, switching out Bovino for Homan. 

So, the challenge to us is that in these momentous times, when you have political leaders clearly standing in contradiction and opposition to the popular demands and impulses of the masses, that we consciously intervene and make it clear that defeating Trumpism, or defeating the Trump agenda and all the social savagery that it unleashes on the people, means we must address the racism, xenophobia and gender-based oppression as vigorously and uncompromisingly while we also address the social misery caused by the rise in the cost of living. 

Our response to the neoliberal war cry coined by Bill Clinton decades ago, “It’s the economy, stupid,” is “It’s the politics, stupid.” 

Because of the extremism characteristic of this administration, we must not draw the conclusion that our demands are unreachable. We must take the fighting attitude that to get out of the situation that we’re in, our demands must be met. Our immediate demands to stop the Trump agenda must not be seen as a transitionary demand to tolerate the present moment until we get a better moment.

Trumpism is totally unacceptable now, and we must fight it to the finish.

#Opinion #Commentary #FrankChapman #Trump #PeoplesStruggles #ImmigrantRights

Frank Chapman: Quite a bit came out of it; but let me first address why it was important to have it. December 4th and 5th was just over two years since we held the re-founding conference in 2019. We held the re-founding conference six months before the outbreak of the George Floyd rebellion. At the time, we realized that the struggle for community control of the police was at the epicenter of the Black Liberation movement.

When the rebellion happened, we could see that the Black Liberation movement had grown considerably since 2012. We had 26 million people demonstrating in all 50 of the United States. This was a national rebellion led by Black people – the largest one in U.S. history.

Fortunately, we were prepared to give an organized response to it because we had a national organization we had re-founded in November 2019. When the rebellion came in Spring 2020, NAARPR called for a nationwide protest with the demands for Justice for George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, and for community control of the police. More than 22 different cities responded, with protests involving over 100,000 people.

This was clearly a new page in the history of our struggle. We put the demand for community control of the police on the front burner of the Black Liberation movement.

Fight Back!: What’s happening in the struggle against police crimes nationally?

Chapman: 22 cities came to our Second National Conference, all of which had participated in the rebellion. It was very revealing to look at the report backs organizers in these cities gave:

Toni Jones, New Orleans for Civilian Oversight of Police: The demand for community control of the police has made its way to New Orleans. We just started petitioning, but have been out there every week.

Adrian Romero, Utah Against Police Brutality, Salt Lake City: Police murdered Darien Hunt, permanently disabled Abdi Muhammad, both teenage boys. We fought for a police accountability council, the local legislature blocked it and made it illegal in retaliation, but we have continued to fight, bringing thousands of people onto the streets.

Sydney Loving, Dallas Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression: We led the largest protest in Dallas history during the 2020 uprising, with Black women and families leading the march. This led to the resignation of their police chief for her crimes against demonstrators.

David Jones, Tampa Bay Community Action Committee: Started their organization out of the uprising, raising money to get freedom fighters out of jail, bailed out 70+ people. Marched demanding justice for the 67 people arrested for demonstrating in a public park, got all 67 of those charges dropped.

Shut down a plan to move police headquarters into a Black neighborhood by marching to City Hall and demanding an end to increased police presence. City made a plan to evict over 1000 Black people to “decrease crime in the neighborhood,” we shut that program down, and continue to fight for those people to get housing.

Omar Flores, Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR): The NAARPR conference in 2019 gave us direction and certainty of what needs to be done. Taleavia Cole, sister of Alvin Cole, came to the conference, and has been organizing with MAARPR since the uprising. Alvin Cole was a 17-year-old Black child who was shot by Wauwatosa PD. The family of Jonathan Tubby, an Indigenous youth killed in Green Bay, also travelled with us to this conference.

The first march we hosted in 2020 for Thee Three, the three people murdered by officer Joseph Mensa, we got support from the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.

There was a park named after the Nazi Charles Lindbergh, they got this park renamed after Lucille Berrien, Milwaukee freedom fighter and founder of the MAARPR chapter back in 1973. From canvassing in the most-incarcerated zip code, we found people did not want more money going to the police, which currently take up almost 50% of the Milwaukee budget. So, they fought against that budget, and found out this week they took $2.4 million out of MCSO’s budget.

Regina Joseph, Tallahassee Community Action Committee (TCAC): NAARPR’s first call to action coincided with the week Tony McDade, a trans man, was murdered by TPD. The second call to action coincided with the George Floyd rebellion.

Then September 5, 2020, 14 of their members were arrested at a protest We got them out thanks to donations from our national movement. Three days after the action, one of their members was pulled out of his home and arrested, but we got him bailed out. He was facing 10 years in prison, $10,000 in fines, and they beat that case.

TCAC stopped TPD from building a $60 million police station on the South side. City commissioners told them it was a done deal, but we showed up in full force and shut it down, which caused the TPD Chief of police to step down. Three people have been murdered by TPD in 3 months since the new chief took over. We have protested every murder.

Angel Buechner, Twin Cities Coalition for Justice for Jamar (TCC4J): TCC4J is boots on the ground for community control of the police, setting up CPAC tables in neighborhoods and parks. Angel introduced a new chant: Rain, sleet, or snow, we demand community control!

Jae Yates, TCC4J: We are embedded with the families, and that is the strength of their campaign in Minneapolis. We began fighting for community control in 2017, that’s when they started drafting their legislation. We started by talking with the families about what police accountability would look like to them. We held a lot of community meetings in North Minneapolis in particular, that’s where Jamar Clark was killed. In those forums, we went through the legislation line by line, making it clear why this is the way to get the things people want.

We’re currently collecting signatures for a petition to get our legislation on the ballot, with the goal of getting it on the ballot in 2022. We’ve collected 4000 signatures, on-third of the way to the needed number of signatures

Sol Marquez, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Centro CSO, Los Angeles, CA: We came to this conference with the family of David Ordaz, Jr., killed by East L.A. Sheriff Dept., his sister Hilda, his daughter Emily, and his widow Jazmine. We uplift Chicano victims of police brutality because police violence has to do with Black folks, and it also has to do with Chicanos, Latinos, and Indigenous people.

Justice for Leo Chavez, Paul Reya, 16-year-old Jose Mendez, 14-year old Jesse Romero!

Luis Sifuentes, Centro CSO: Our current focus is on the Sheriff’s Department because we found out there are gangs within that department that deputies are initiated to by executing civilians. We successfully ousted a District Attorney, Jackie Lacey, who refused to prosecute any of these cops. We are working with the replacement, sending a report with recommendations.

Carlos Montes, Centro CSO: In LA we had hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets in the George Floyd rebellion. There was a rash of killings in the Black community in LA and also in the Boyle Heights community. The family of Anthony Vargas got involved not only in advocating on behalf of their son, but calling in to get rid of Sheriff Villanueva, and fighting for community control to give power to civilians.

Neal Jefferson, Jacksonville Community Action Committee (JCAC): Led the largest protest for the Black freedom struggle in Jacksonville history in the summer of 2020, over 10,000 people hit the streets on a rainy day. We have worked with the families of Jamee Johnson, Vernell Bing, Kwame Jones, Leah Baker, Reginald Boston Jr., and others.

Monique Sampson, JCAC: We started a campaign called Walking While Black because they noticed a lot of people that were getting traffic tickets were Black people, who were getting tickets for walking off of the sidewalk in neighborhoods where there are no sidewalks. We won that campaign.

Then Ahmaud Arbery was executed an hour and a half away from Jacksonville in Brunswick, Georgia.

Then the George Floyd rebellion took off, and they had 3000 people at their first rally, not including the people in cars

Since then, we have been fighting for a People’s Budget. The JSO [Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office] gets 40% of the budget, and has a 70% unsolved homicide rate.

Jazmine Salas, Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR): On May 30 alone, we had 10,000 people in the street and another 6000 in cars. The Uprising is what made it possible to pass our ordinance, Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS).

At the beginning of 2020 we had 100,000 CPAC supporters from every ward in Chicago. When we came to the table to build a coalition for ECPS, we had that backing us up. In City Council we got the support of the Socialist Caucus, the Black Caucus, the Latino Caucus, and the Progressive Reform Caucus, which together was 36 votes out of 50.

We also had this grassroots movement ready to take action, so when we identified 17 wards that were maybes, we hit the ground running in those wards, phone banking, flyering, engaging the community.

It was inspiring to watch that number drop from 17 to 15 to 10 until we had enough votes to pass the ordinance.

Next, we have this police accountability commission, and are working to ensure that nationally oppressed folks, Black, Puerto Rican and Chicano, people who have been impacted by police violence, are ready to run to sit on it.

Anthony Driver, CAARPR: As Political Coordinator for the City and County for SEIU HCII, last year with President Greg Kelley, the question was – how do we get HCII’s 90,000 members on board with ECPS?

HCII sent out 10,000 member surveys almost quarterly to figure out what the members support because we need rank and file support in order to move. Then we got to work educating their members at every meeting and event until it got to the point the surveys came back saying 83% of their members supported community control.

Then we came to the table with CAARPR, lent all our resources to it, and began reaching out to additional labor allies. We got a coalition made of 18 labor unions, over 150 community and faith-based organizations, and over 125,000 Chicagoans.

We were able to pass this ordinance in July, and we have a second round coming up with a ballot referendum that will give greater control to the people.

Fight Back!: The call to the NAARPR conference stated that riding on the crest of the George Floyd rebellion, NAARPR has emerged as a mass movement for community control of the police. Can you tell that story?

Chapman: Here are some more aspects of it: what we have demonstrated in the wake of the rebellion is that Black and brown communities throughout this country are ready to take up this fight. They’re sick and tired of the police tyranny going on in their communities, and able, willing and ready to engage in the struggle for community control of the police.

What our branches and allies have done is to reach out to these communities, particularly families that have been victimized by the police, and have begun to organize mass movements in these cities to bring about community control of the police. This is a very welcome development. It demonstrates that what has been going on in Chicago and Minneapolis is also going on in the nation.

Everywhere throughout this country, the police are actively engaged in a conspiracy to either stop the Black Liberation movement from happening at all, or to squash it where it has emerged. We must continue to organize and be prepared to wage the struggle for community control of the police. This is a very important democratic demand of our people.

Fight Back!: What has the struggle for community control meant for the Black Liberation movement historically? I’ve heard you say that community control of the police is the first line of defense for the BLM. What was meant by that?

Chapman: It’s been like that since the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. As is very well known now, after the Civil War, there was a ten-year period stretching from 1867 to 1877 where Black people were given considerable political control over the areas where they were in the majority. That period is known as Radical Reconstruction, or as WEB DuBois called it, Black Reconstruction. During that time, the police were reconstructed in Black communities to defend the revolutionary gains made by the Civil War.

Of course, prior to the Civil War, the function of the police was slave patrols to catch runaway slaves, and to imprison slaves for theft, and things of that sort. Those slave jails and slave patrols were eliminated by the Civil War. In its stead, Black people through Federal Militias, through the Union League, or through the election of their own marshals and constables, set up a police operation to defend those gains.

That situation was altered and changed permanently by the counter-revolution that was organized by Ku Klux Klan and ex-Confederate generals. Since 1877, when the North withdrew all the federal troops from the South, the struggle for community control of the police has been a very vital, democratic demand in the Black community.

Black people, as an oppressed nation, understand instinctively that the only thing that works for them in terms of policing is that they have a decisive voice, that they determine who polices their communities and how their communities are policed. Because it is precisely the police that are used as a military force against the Black Liberation movement. This has been true since Black Reconstruction was forcibly overthrown, and in its place a police state was set up called Jim Crow. This was true during the Civil Rights era when Blacks struggled against the police state to gain their democratic rights to vote and for public accommodations. It was the police who came out against them with dogs, fire hoses and weapons. It was the police who murdered them and jailed them.

It’s a fundamental understanding in the Black community that the struggle for Black liberation has to confront the police so long as we don’t have community control over those who police our communities.

Fight Back!: Any last thoughts?

Chapman: Recent events have told us that democracy in this country is facing the greatest crisis since the Civil War. In fact, there are forces in this country right now, inspired and led by Donald Trump and other factions of the Republican Party, who are calling for civil war. They’ve been doing it in Texas, to some extent in Florida. Why is this happening? It’s because the most reactionary forces of monopoly capitalism realize that they can no longer maintain their regime in a democratic way, even within the confines of the present state of democracy.

They are prepared to suppress the vote, to talk about secession of states, they are prepared to take states’ rights to the limit like they did during the time of slavery. They are prepared to do all of this rather than give the people of this country the democratic rights that they deserve.

Given that situation, it comes down to this: the Black Liberation movement and the forces of fascism in this country are confronting one another more openly and more clearly than ever before. That’s why our building of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression is going to be so important in the days ahead. This is the only national organization in this moment of our history that is capable of leading the struggle against these extremists who want to destroy every semblance of democracy that we have left in this country.

#ChicagoIL #InJusticeSystem #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #FrankChapman #NAARPR

Fight Back! interview with Frank Chapman, of the Central Committee of Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

The book can be purchased here. Fight Back!: Your book is the first major work on Marxism-Leninism, the struggle for Black liberation and socialism to be written in several decades. What prompted you to do this?

Frank Chapman: Several things. The relationship between Black liberation and Marxism-Leninism hasn’t been addressed in several decades. The last significant work I read about it was back in the 70s, when then chairman of the Communist Party, Henry Winston, a Black man, wrote Strategy for a Black Agenda. It was basically a polemic against the narrow nationalism of certain forces in the Black Liberation movement, and also pointing out the reactionary character of that trend of Black nationalism that followed George Padmore.

More to the point, I noticed that during the 60s, a period that I lived through, at a significant high point of the Black Liberation movement, the party had a strong tendency in it to liquidate the national question, to deny that Black people were an oppressed nation. There was a struggle around that – not everybody in the party had that view. I certainly didn’t, and I was in the party.

Since the 60s, what has happened? The Black Liberation movement was damn near destroyed by the COINTELPRO program. It basically came to a holding position where there were no major advances for a couple of decades. Then you had this upsurge that occurred after the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012. It was then that I started thinking about addressing this, because I saw a resurgence of the Black Liberation movement.

The big question that came into my head was, we’re not really learning the great lessons that were provided us by the communist movement in the 30s. We’re not taking those historic gains and building on them in the present, and we should be because it was those historic gains that set the stage for the Civil Rights movement.

So, I started looking at it back then, and decided to actually write the book when I saw that there were a lot of people who were Marxist-Leninists and in the socialist movement that really didn’t have a sound approach – didn’t have a Marxist-Leninist approach – when it came to the national question. I felt like this needed to be spoken to.

Fight Back!: You make the point that African Americans in the U.S. are an oppressed nationality. Why is this such an important point?

Chapman: Because we live in the age of imperialism. We live in an era of capitalism where oppressed nations throughout the world are fighting and striving for their right to self-determination. The Black liberation struggle in the United States is a part of that struggle. It’s another manifestation of the need to overcome the national oppression that capitalism imposes on peoples.

It was a tremendous contribution on the part of Lenin that he examined and correctly came out with an analysis that Black people were an oppressed nation within the U.S. As such, the communist movement throughout the world should stand in unconditional solidarity with them as they do with other oppressed nations. That was a significant advance for the communist movement, and it addressed directly and boldly the sellout, the betrayal that the Second International had done when they ignored the national question when it came to peoples of Asia and Africa, and the Black people in the U.S. To the extent that they recognized it at all, they only recognized it for certain European nations.

This is an important point to make because in the U.S., the basic democratic struggles being waged by Black people ever since we’ve been here have basically demonstrated that if you’re going to have a successful movement for socialism in this country, it has to be united with the struggle for Black liberation. Marx said it back during the time of the Civil War, labor in the white skin cannot be free if it’s sold and branded in the Black skin. This is a fundamental cleavage in the working class that impedes the development of revolutionary consciousness that prevents a mature movement to develop that can overthrow capitalism.

Fight Back!: Why do you think it is so important that activists in the Black Liberation movement study Marxism-Leninism?

Chapman: Because Marxism-Leninism has historically proven itself to be the greatest comrade in struggle to the Black Liberation movement. Communists have stood in unconditional solidarity with us for over a century. Marxism-Leninism has demonstrated to the more advanced forces – to the working class within the Black Liberation movement – that we can’t have Black liberation in the absence of a socialist future. In order for us truly to achieve our liberation, the Black Liberation movement and the working class movement must merge, to become one powerful movement against imperialism and capitalism. And at this stage of development, when capitalism is in sharp decline, it is becoming clearer and clearer that the Black Liberation movement – while a revolutionary movement in its own right – must join with the communist movement. That’s why we must study Marxism.

Fight Back!: In your book you spend time talking about the work of communists in the 1930s. What are some of the lessons we can learn from those efforts today?

Chapman: The great accomplishment of the communists in the 1930s, with the help of the Third International, they were able to see clearly the centrality of the struggle for Black liberation in the revolutionary movement. They were able to see clearly that a path to revolution in the U.S. has to be beaten out. The Black Liberation movement and the Marxist-Leninist movement together can find that pathway to socialism, because that’s the only pathway in the U.S.

The communists proved that in the 30s by going into the Deep South where you had Jim Crow states ruling with terror and brute force over Black people, to go into that situation to organize Black and white workers in a united fight against capitalist bosses and the landlords. That demonstrated, number one, that Black and white unity could be forged in the dirt and blood of class struggle. Number two, once that kind of unity was achieved, the Black Liberation movement and the working class movement were unstoppable. They proved that in the 30s with one victory after another.

Also, the communists in the 30s showed us the importance of the strategic alliance between Black people and the labor movement. It’s an alliance that objectively makes scientific sense, because what’s the class composition of Black people? 90% workers. So, this is only natural. This is an obvious connection. Black people have shown over and over again to be pro-union, and to be militant fighters for the union. Now today when we have millions of Black folks in the organized labor movement, we can drive these lessons home like never before.

What happened here in Chicago with the passing of the Empowering Communities for Public Safety (ECPS) ordinance is an example of that. We could not have won this historic victory without the support of the labor movement. It was the labor unions led by Black presidents that delivered the final blow for us, that brought the victory home.

We’re benefitting today by building on the experience of the communist movement in the 30s, by using the same strategy and tactics that were successful then, proving in the dirt and blood of battle they can be successful now.

#UnitedStates #InJusticeSystem #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #Interview #Socialism #FrankChapman #MarxistLeninistPerspectivesOnBlackLiberationAndSocialism

Minneapolis, MN – Some 80 people gathered at North Regional Library on August 22 to hear Frank Chapman speak about his book Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism. This event was the final meeting of a book club that had been meeting over the summer to read the book together with Freedom Road Socialist Organization. After outlining the book for attendees, Chapman took questions and signed books. Like his book, the discussion focused on both the fundamental revolutionary content of Marxism and the significance of what Chapman calls the George Floyd Rebellion. As he writes in his book, “We think it is deeper, we think it is the youth sounding the death knell of the racist police repression that stands like a blockade in the road to Black liberation. It is a call for mass resistance to the police terror that has stalked our communities and denied us the organizing space we need as a nationally oppressed people to wage the struggle for Black Liberation, to finish the unfinished revolution.”

#MinneapolisMN #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #Socialism #FrankChapman

On March 20, the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) will be launching its six-week long global campaign to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune of March 18 to May 28, 1871. The “Paris Commune at 150” campaign (PC150) will be a global mass commemoration to refresh, revitalize and sustain interest in the Paris Commune: its historical context and impact in the past 150 years, its lessons and continuing validity for the current era.

In March of 1871, the working class of Paris rose up and took over the city. For months, workers controlled production and distribution of goods; by universal suffrage, they elected a Commune, with workers having the right of recall. As Karl Marx wrote in The Civil War in France, “The police, which until then had been the instrument of the Government, was at once stripped of its political attributes, and turned into the responsible, and at all times revocable, agent of the Commune.” The commune cancelled rent as they were under siege by the militarist Bismarck.

Sadly, the French ruling class regrouped, gathered an army of mercenaries, marched into Paris and massacred the communards. But Marx declared the workers were an inspiration around the world for “storming heaven.”

To launch the effort, there will be a webinar Saturday, March 20 (9 a.m. Eastern Time, 8 a.m. CDT, 6 a.m. PDT) with Professor Jose Maria Sison, Chair Emeritus of the ILPS presenting a major address. Frank Chapman, Executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression will respond to Sison’s remarks. Chapman, also a member of the Central Committee of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, just released his book, Marxist Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism. In his book, Chapman discusses that the Paris Commune took place during the same period as Black Reconstruction in the U.S. South, the most democratic period for Black people in this country’s history.

To register for the webinar: bit.ly/ParisCommune150WebinarLaunch

#UnitedStates #PeoplesStruggles #InternationalLeagueOfPeoplesStruggle #Socialism #FrankChapman #ParisCommune

Chicago, IL – It is so befitting that Trump, the self-made tyrant, with his latest political stroke to upend the elections, has in fact opened a new era of struggle – an era that will be characterized by the desire of the ruling class to return to normal, to return to the norms of bankrupt neo-liberal policies which will portray itself as the only path to political stability and economic growth.

So, the first order of business, ushered in by Trump’s electoral defeat and articulated by President-elect Joe Biden, is to stop the spread of COVID-19 infections, provide treatment for the sick (including the uninsured), give stimulus relief to the nearly 30 million unemployed people and to small businesses on the brink of extinction. Of course, the banks and the monopoly capitalists will get the lion’s share of any stimulus package the Republicans sign off on.

Without the intervention of the progressive democratic forces, the Democrats and the Republicans will seek a way to embark upon the road of recovery from the coronavirus and economic disaster by turning the present situation into one that is profitable for Wall Street. In other words, ‘return to normal’ means bailing out the banks and Wall Street and maintaining the status quo for the working class and the oppressed Black and brown communities.

In this new era of struggle we must expose their call for ‘unity and reconciliation’ with the racist, white supremacist movement fermented by Trump and his Republican cohorts for what it really is: a formula for the way forward based on rejecting the demands of the Black liberation movement, and characterizing any and all attempts to regulate the economy for the benefit of workers as ‘socialist.’ Their rejecting of the demands of the Black liberation movement and the workers’ demands for safety and economic relief is in fact a formula for the way backwards.

In an open communication to Biden, Black Lives Matter addressed the formula for the way backwards thus: “Up until this point, the United States has refused to directly reckon with the way that it devalues Black people and devastates our lives. This cannot continue.”

Only we the workers and oppressed peoples can stop the Democrats from caving into this racist-dominated, white supremacist movement initiated by Trump and the Republican extremists. Now is the time for us to organize and fight back – and to do this based on the basis of the broadest, deepest unity of the masses, of the working class and the oppressed peoples.

Organization + Unity + Struggle = Victory. All Power to the People! Frank Chapman is the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #Elections #FrankChapman

Frank Chapman, a longtime leader in the Black liberation movement and Executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, talks about the upsurge against police crimes and the need for community control of the police.

Fight Back!: What are your observations about the rebellions and upsurge in the fight against police crimes?

Frank Chapman: The National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression initiated this campaign against police crimes back in 1973 – over 46 years ago. We have never seen an uprising like this, that confirms in the dirt and blood of battle that what we need is community control of the police.

The rebellion is not necessarily raising that demand, but that’s ok. They are raising issues around it, like defund the police, putting regulation on police behavior, such as outlawing choke holds, and more generally prohibiting brutality. Community control of the police is the vehicle for achieving all of this.

Once we have passed legislation that empowers our people to say who polices our communities and how our communities are policed then we can defund the police, we can demilitarize the police, and we can regulate the police. That’s what community control of the police does. And that’s what we can bring to this rebellion – it puts power into the hands of the people. A very important and very democratic demand, and this rebellion is bringing that demand forward like nothing that has happened in our history.

Fight Back!: What has the NAARPR been doing in the context of the upsurge?

Chapman: The main thing we’ve been doing is being in it, and I think that is so important. In fact, we called for a national day of protest before the rebellion really got underway. We called a national day of protest around the question of depopulating the prisons, the detention camps and the jails. Then when the rebellion got underway, we added demands for Justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others who had been murdered by the police or vigilante groups.

Shortly after we put out that call for a national day of protest these murders became the headlines throughout the country and the world. On May 30, our national day of protest, with less than a week of organizing, we were able to bring into the streets in Chicago over 20,000 people, and over 100,000 nationally in 23 cities [Washington DC; Los Angeles; Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Tampa, Miami and Pensacola, Florida; Chicago, Louisville, Baltimore, Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Saint Louis, New York, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio; Portland, Dallas, Austin and Houston, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Milwaukee]. It was phenomenal. In Chicago, we had 4000 cars in a caravan.

We were paid back in great advances: on May 30, over 700 people joined our national organization, and with over $30,000 in contributions, and now we have over $60,000 for the National Alliance. And in this spontaneous protest movement, we have been bringing forward the demands for community control of the police.

Fight Back!: Some are calling for “defunding the police.” Why is the fight for community control of the police so important?

Chapman: As I said earlier, once we have community control of the police, we can defund them. It’s important who controls the process here. Defunding, controlled by the powers that be – the city councils and the mayors – is going to work the way that they work it, and the way that they have been working the whole question of police accountability. We don’t trust them. We want the people to be in charge of the process, and that’s what community control of the police does – it puts the people in charge so that the people are controlling the defunding of the police.

We’re not against defunding the police, but this is a slogan without a program right now. Once we bring it into conformity with community control of the police, then it becomes a slogan with a program. In Chicago we call it CPAC – an all elected, all Civilian Police Accountability Council. In other areas it may go by another name. What it all comes down to is giving the community the power to say who polices our communities and how our communities are policed.

#UnitedStates #OppressedNationalities #Opinion #PeoplesStruggles #Interviews #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #Antiracism #FrankChapman #NAARPR