Cape Girardeau, MO – On No Kings Day, October 18, protesters gathered at Freedom Corner in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. At the same time down the street, Southeast Missouri State University was holding its annual homecoming game as fireworks from the stadium went off in the background.

The No Kings protesters held up signs, waved flags and cheered at the many supportive honks from passing drivers. Organizers provided sign-making materials, bottles of water, and “know your rights” business cards. However, many people brought signs from home; slogans included “No Kings!” “Power of the people > people in power” and slogans for public education and public services. Protesters wore costumes to mock President Trump’s attempt to label them terrorists, including an inflatable shark, Kenny from South Park and a unicorn.

Despite taking place in a historically Republican area, only a few backwards Trump supporters gave thumbs-down or more rude gestures, and a couple of trucks did tire burnouts at the traffic light. Three counter-protesters with sloppily written signs angrily screamed at No Kings protesters, before wandering off.

The No Kings protest had a crowd of as many as 600 people, with many coming and going throughout the two-hour event. Attendance was increased from the previous No Kings protest in the summer. Volunteers collected signatures for both Respect MO Voters and People Not Politicians petitions.

Respect MO Voters is seeking a ballot initiative to enshrine voter rights in the constitution and prevent legislators from overriding voter choice. People Not Politicians is fighting to put the recently gerrymandered congressional map onto the ballot. This petition in particular has been attacked by Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, who has spread misinformation about the process, going so far as to claim signing it is illegal. The Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has filed a federal lawsuit. Over 100,000 signatures have been collected so far.

Learn more about these initiatives at https://peoplenotpoliticiansmo.org/ and https://respectmovoters.org/

For weekly No Kings Actions, see https://www.nokings.org/alliance

#CapeGirardeauMO #MO #NoKings #PeoplesStruggles

On Nov. 24, a Ferguson grand jury decision cleared police officer Darren Wilson of the murder of Michael Brown. Michael Brown was an 18-year-old African American youth shot and killed by the white police officer as he walked to his grandmother’s house in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9. Witnesses stated that Brown, who was unarmed, had his hands up in the air when officer Darren Wilson shot and killed him. With blatant disrespect to Michael Brown, his family and the neighborhood, the police left his body lying in the middle of the street for hours after the police killing.

For the people of Ferguson, a mainly African American suburb of Saint Louis, enough was enough. Residents were fed up with their all white city government and almost all white police force. The next evening, a rebellion broke out that lasted more than a week. Despite the police showing their true face as a military occupation force complete with armored personnel carriers, the people of Ferguson, joined by neighbors in and around Saint Louis and supporters across the country, kept protesting night after night.

The Saint Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch is known to have close ties with the police and he refused to arrest Officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Brown. However, the government did assemble a grand jury to ‘investigate’ the killing. The government’s plan from the beginning was that the grand jury would cool out protests with the hope of an indictment. This hope is now shown for what it was: a false dream. Now people are even angrier.

The ‘justice system’ of police, courts and prisons in the U.S. is in fact an ‘injustice system’ designed to suppress African Americans to the benefit of the rich and powerful. We must be clear. Having African Americans at the top of the government, including the president and the attorney general, does not change the nature of the injustice system. The law, the police, the courts and the prisons are there to maintain the political power and economic privileges of the monopoly capitalists – the billionaires who are the ruling 1%. The police are the front-line enforcers of this all around political, economic, legal, cultural and social inequality of African Americans and other oppressed nationalities (Chicanos, Mexicanos, other Latinos, Asians, Arabs and indigenous peoples) in the U.S.. Every time an African American person is killed and the police or a racist vigilante gets away with murder, we must organize and protest to put an end to the officially sanctioned state violence and murder.

What will it take to win Justice for Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and all the other African Americans who are the latest victims of police and racist vigilante violence?

Our experience is that the struggle for justice and for full equality does not mainly come from elections or from the courts. What can push forward the struggle for justice is the militant mass movement based in the working class, using militant tactics that are effective and teach people to understand their own power. We can demonstrate our power through masses of people taking to the streets, combined with occupations and civil disobedience, or even strikes and work slowdowns, or possibly direct action and confrontations with the uniformed killers like we saw in Ferguson in August. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon certainly understands the impact of people protesting for fundamental social change, that is why he called out the Missouri National Guard.

The Freedom Road Social Organization fully supports the struggle of the people of Ferguson to get justice for Michael Brown, as well the fight of Black and Brown communities across the country to put a stop to killer cops and racist vigilantes. The struggle for justice and equality will continue in the streets, and activists in the community, workplace and campus must continue to organize the working masses for political power. The struggle against police brutality and racist vigilantes is a key part of the Black Liberation Movement that will inspire others fighting for freedom including the Asian American, Chicano, Mexican, Latino, Native American and other indigenous people, as well as women and LGBTQ people.

As the oppression of African Americans is rooted in the slave system that was one of the foundations of capitalism the U.S., only the replacement of capitalism with socialism can lay the basis for full equality for African Americans. As Mao Zedong stated after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, “The struggle of the Black people in the U.S. for emancipation is a component part of the general struggle of all the people of the world against U.S. imperialism, a component part of the contemporary world revolution.”

Stop Police Terror! Jail the Killer Cop! Justice for Michael Brown!

Flyer PDF

#UnitedStates #MO #OppressedNationalities #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #Racism #grandJury #InjusticeSystem #MichaelBrown #JusticeForMichaelBrown #DarrenWilson

Minneapolis, MN – About 150 people gathered, Aug. 21 on Minneapolis’s West Bank, carrying signs and banners demanding an end the U.S.-backed Israeli siege of Gaza. The demonstration also called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and a halt to state sponsored violence “from Ferguson to Palestine.” The rally was organized by the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.

Minneapolis has been the scene of constant protests since Israel launched its assault on Gaza, killing more than 2000 Palestinians – many of them young children.

Sophia Hansen-Day, of the Anti-War Committee, told the crowd, “We must follow the lead of Palestinians who have offered up their solidarity to protesters in Ferguson. We must demand an end to the siege of Gaza backed by the U.S. government while also demanding the immediate halt of state violence within U.S. borders. We must demand an end to U.S. funding of the Israeli military, while also demanding the demilitarization of domestic police who the Pentagon has supplied with $4.3 billion in weaponry – weaponry used to terrorize communities of color.”

Protesters were encouraged to attend a solidarity rally for Mike Brown and all victims of police brutality on Aug. 28, 6pm, at the Hennepin County Government Center, 300 S 6th Street, in Minneapolis.

#MinneapolisMN #Gaza #Palestine #PoliceBrutality #Minnesota #MichaelBrown #Ferguson #Missouri #MO #MikeBrown

Ferguson, MO – Around 150 people gathered shortly after 12 noon today, Aug. 14, in Ferguson, a suburb of Saint Louis, across the street from Ferguson Fire Station. They are preparing to march to the Ferguson Police Department, demanding “Justice for Mike Brown.” Brown, an African American 18-year-old teenager, was ruthlessly gunned down by the Ferguson Police Department on Aug. 9. So far, the Ferguson Police Department has yet to release the name of the officer who killed Brown.

#FergusonMO #PeoplesStruggles #PoliceBrutality #MichaelBrown #Missouri #MO #MikeBrown

Two witnesses say that Michael had his hands up in the air when the police officer fired several shots, killing him. After murdering him, the police left his body for hours on the street, showing a total lack of respect. The next day, during a candlelight vigil, clashes broke out once again in Ferguson. The people's rebellion lasted late into the night. The police had wrongly murdered a community member and the people of Ferguson wanted justice.

The murder of Michael Brown, as well as the murder of others like Eric Garner, Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin, shows that the system of national oppression is alive and well in the U.S. The police are the day-to-day enforcers of this system and they remind us of this with every Black man they murder.

Just as one of the foundations of the U.S. economy was profits from slavery, the U.S. legal system began with a constitution that said that African Americans were only three-fifths of a person. In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that African slaves and their children have no rights in the U.S., in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford. Then in 1896, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was constitutional in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson. And early last year, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, opening the door for racist local and state governments to exclude Black and Brown voters from the polls.

Even though an African American man has been elected president and there is a Black Attorney General, the law, the police and the courts are not about justice. They are there to protect the property, privilege and power of the monopoly capitalists – the richest 1% who own and control the companies and government that dominate the economy and society. They enforce the national oppression that African Americans face: the all-round, social, political and economic inequality of oppressed nationalities in the U.S.

The struggle for full equality and liberation by African Americans has been a powerful force for progress in the U.S. The sit-in by four African American college students at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter on Feb. 1, 1960 started a national movement of direct action to desegregate the South and to fight for Black political power. This movement, and the organization that arose out of it, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was an inspiration to other oppressed nationalities, especially Asian Americans, Chicanos, Native Americans and Puerto Ricans, as well as the women’s movement, and the struggle of LGBTQ people.

Our experience has shown us that justice does not mainly come from the courts or elections. Nor does it mainly come from economic struggles, like boycotts. The fight for justice advances when the masses of working class people organize and show their power in the streets through militant mass actions such as rallies, marches, pickets, occupations, strikes, etc.

The way to get justice for Michael Brown lies through these militant mass actions. The Freedom Road Socialist Organization is calling for rallies and marches to demand justice for Michael Brown and to demand that the murderous cop be jailed. The people, not the police, are the makers of history and they will make their justice in the streets.

Stop Police Terror! Jail the Killer Cop! Justice for Michael Brown!

#FergusonMO #PeoplesStruggles #Racism #TrayvonMartin #Antiracism #MichaelBrown #Missouri #MO #PoliceBrutality #JusticeForMichaelBrown