Newark, NJ – The People’s Organization for Progress held a march here, Feb. 26, to commemorate the second anniversary of the murder of Trayvon Martin. Martin was murdered in Sanford, Florida. The state of Florida refused to convict his killer, George Zimmerman.

Dozens of people came out in the freezing cold for the protest. The acquittal of Michael Dunn for the murder of Jordan Davis, also in Florida, gave even greater impact to the march.

POP Chairman Lawrence Hamm told the gathering, “Never forget – because forgetting is the first step toward having it happen again. Violence has been used against us since the first slave ships tore families apart. More states are actually passing ‘stand your ground’ laws, but they all have to be repealed.”

#NewarkNJ #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #TrayvonMartin #GeorgeZimmerman #InjusticeSystem

Newark, NJ – The struggle to get justice for Trayvon Martin continued here, July 20. Over 500 people turned out at the Federal Building to demand a federal civil rights investigation of his murder by George Zimmerman. The rally was called by the National Action Network (NAN.) Speaker after speaker denounced the Zimmerman verdict and contrasted it with the 20-year sentence given Marissa Alexander in the same state of Florida for firing a warning shot in her own defense that harmed no one.

Another common point was to build the Aug. 24 march in Washington, D.C. in observance of the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic March on Washington. Goals of thousands of buses from New Jersey alone and over a million in attendance were projected.

Bashir Akinyele of the Newark Anti-Violence Coalition (NAVC), urged four points for action: a federal investigation of civil rights violations by Zimmerman; the repeal of 'stand your ground' laws in all states that have them; a boycott of consumer products made by companies owned by the infamous Koch brothers, who financed Zimmerman’s defense; and a United Nations declaration of the national identity of African-American people.

He said we need a united front of struggle—NAN, NAVC, NAACP, People’s Organization for Progress (POP), Bloods, Crips, unions, teachers, everybody.

The main address of the day was given by Lawrence Hamm of the People’s Organization for Progress. He introduced Earl Williams, father of Earl Faison, killed in 1999 by police in Orange, New Jersey, to the crowd.

Earl Faison was just 27 when his life was taken. The police told his father he had died an “accidental death” – that he had fallen off a chair. What Earl Williams saw was that his son had been beaten so badly that boot marks were visible on his body. One eye was hanging out of its socket.

As in the case of Trayvon Martin, the police destroyed evidence and tried to cover up the crime, Hamm said. They didn’t count on the determination of the people. POP and the family of Earl Faison stayed out in front of the police station, with protest after protest. They marched for justice in 13 different cities. Eventually five police were found guilty on federal charges of civil rights violations. It took five years of fighting through all kinds of official delays and evasions before the perpetrators were finally sentenced.

“We have to be in it for the long term,” Hamm said, “even if we have to come back here a thousand times!” The gathering roared its agreement.

He noted that the NAACP had already been working on the murder of Emmett Till when the Montgomery bus boycott was being planned. “The struggle for Trayvon Martin will be the forerunner of many other struggles for justice, just as was the struggle for Emmett Till.

“We stand here today 150 years after the Civil War,” he said. “Our ancestors gave their lives so that we would no longer be seen as chattels. Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, and Fannie Lou Hamer rose up to put Jim Crow in the garbage can.

“Since then we have been electing senators, representatives and governors. We even have a man in the White House. We even have an attorney general. Those officials can’t just sit there. If we can’t send this racist to jail, our ancestors will look down on us!

“Attorney General Holder has a representative here,” he said. “We demand that Federal Attorney for New Jersey Paul J. Fishman meet with leaders of our community to discuss our demand for a civil rights violations investigation of Zimmerman.

“Tell Obama dialogue is good but justice would be better. . . A voice calls from beyond the grave,” he said, urging attendance on Aug. 24 in Washington.

POP meets every Thursday night at 6:30 p.m. at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, 224 W. Kinney Street in Newark.

#NewarkNJ #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #TrayvonMartin #GeorgeZimmerman #NationalActionNetwork

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from People's Organization For Progress (POP) chair Lawrence Hamm, from a May 10 Newark, New Jersey press conference.

Newark, NJ – The People's Organization For Progress (POP) calls upon the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to remove Assata Shakur (Joanne Chesimard) from its ‘Most Wanted Terrorists List.’ She does not belong on the list because Ms. Shakur was never charged nor convicted of an act of domestic or international terrorism.

To place her on such a list is fundamentally unjust. It is a perversion of justice and involves the ex post facto application of terrorist laws and definitions of terrorism that were not in existence or applied to her case at the time of her arrest and conviction.

Furthermore, she did not commit the crime she was accused of. She was placed on the list because her conviction connected her to the murder of a police officer. However, evidence in her case shows that she could not have shot and killed that officer. She became a fugitive because given the circumstances of her case, the atmosphere of repression, and the racism of the criminal justice system she could not get justice in this country and to remain here may have cost her life.

The move to place her on the list and the doubling of her bounty to $2 million has little to do with justice and everything to do with politics. It is an opportunistic attempt to use the criminal justice system to score political points in this highly charged post Boston bombing environment.

Placing Assata Shakur on the terrorists list when she was not convicted of a “terrorist act” is in essence falsely accusing her of a crime that she did not commit. It is the abandonment of the law in the name of enforcing the law.

Like the war in Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, preemptive strikes, and the abandonment of international law, it is the establishment of a false premise as a rationale for violent action, which has no legal basis but for which political support may be imagined or conjured up. Placing Assata Shakur on the terrorists list sets a dangerous precedent.

With the false premise established what will be next? Will Cuba be given the ultimatum to give up Shakur like the Afghanistan government was told to give up Osama Bin Laden before the U.S. invasion of that country? Will there be a drone strike of Shakur's supposed residence in Cuba? Will Navy Seal Team “7” be sent on a covert mission to assassinate Assata Shakur who is an American citizen?

By identifying Shakur as a terrorist the FBI is taking the terrorists list and making it a “political enemies” list, which is an instrument of state terror. And why not? This fits in perfectly with unjust and illegal trillion dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, extraordinary renditions, black site secret prisons in foreign lands, torture, assassination of U.S. citizens, military courts, secret trials, Guantanamo, elimination of habeas corpus, indefinite detention, government domestic spying, arbitrary arrests, police brutality, racial profiling, stop and frisk, mass incarceration, school to prison pipeline, suppression of dissent, COINTELPRO type operations, ignoring the Constitution, trashing the Bill of rights, and trampling upon our civil liberties.

And let's look at her accusers. Who is calling her a terrorist? The FBI who spied on Dr. Martin Luther King. The FBI whose Director J. Edgar Hoover made it his mission to destroy Dr. King. The FBI who engaged in acts of state terror that included assassination against people and organizations in the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements.

And the New Jersey State Police who shot up Newark and killed innocent people during the rebellion. The New Jersey State Police who for years engaged in the worst forms of racial profiling. The New Jersey State Police, a department so rife with racism that the federal government had to put it under a “master” to force it to reform its racist ways.

With this precedent the rights of all Americans are placed in greater jeopardy. Now, anyone can be deemed a terrorist, not because this was proven in a court of law but by fiat, proclamation or declaration by the President, U.S. Attorney General, FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, or some other agency of the federal government.

And this can be done not just for transgressions of the present. It can be done retroactively for sins of the past, ten, twenty, thirty, and forty years ago. If the government doesn't like someone just put them on the terrorist list.

Of course, this exercise of twenty-first century U.S. democracy would not be complete unless accompanied by the economic incentive that American capitalism can provide. In this age of robber billionaires a $1 million dollar bounty on the head of Assata Shakur was not enough. It has been doubled to $2 million.

Who are the $2 million pieces of silver for? Are they for enterprising U.S. citizens? No. Assata Shakur has been given political asylum in Cuba. This pot of gold is to entice elements within Cuban Society to violate the laws and policies of the Cuban government.

The FBI and company hope that in Cuba there are corrupt persons within the police, or criminal elements, or people opposed to the government who will take the bait and do this bit of subcontracting work and keep some of the heat off the bosses in the US.

They hope that there are Hamid Kharzais in Cuba who would like to have bags of money delivered to them on a monthly basis. “Bring Assata Shakur to us and you to can be a millionaire.” Dead or alive has not been specified.

The placing of Assata Shakur on the terrorist list while portrayed as a noble act in the attempt to get justice for a slain police officer is in fact a shameful act of revenge, opportunism, political manipulation, and authoritarianism. It is part and parcel of a corrosive trend eating away at the democratic processes and institutions in our country for half a century and which has accelerated since 9/11.

Assata Shakur should not be on the terrorist list. She should be removed from that list just as Nelson Mandela was removed from that list several years ago. When the threat of terrorism and the terrorist label is misused in this manner the victims of real acts of terror are dishonored.

#NewarkNJ #Newark #InJusticeSystem #Cuba #AfricanAmerican #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #PoliticalRepression #AssataShakur

Newark, NJ – The People’s Organization for Progress (POP) put a Hands off Social Security picket line in front of the Essex County Social Security building, April 16. Hundreds of drivers blew horns. Passersby stop to talk and show solidarity. Other participating organizations included the International Action Center, One People One Nation, Veterans for Peace and the Coalition to Save Our Homes.

The protest was in response the Obama administration’s proposed cuts in cost of living adjustments for Social Security. A new “chained Consumer Price Index” would replace the established CPI with a lower percentage. The expectation is that Social Security outlays would be reduced by several hundred billion dollars over the next ten years. It is another proposal to support Wall Street profit demands by plundering the living standards of the masses.

That a Democratic administration would propose such a thing has caused widespread shock. The impact would be far broader than senior citizens, since families and dependents are also supported by Social Security. The protest showed that neither POP nor the other organizations nor the masses will have any of it. Wall Street’s attack on Social Security must be stopped.

#NewarkNewJersey #NewarkNJ #POP #SocialSecurity #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress

“POP demands that criminal investigations of bank misconduct in the mortgage bubble be undertaken and federal and state levels. The first priority must be to find out what happened to the supposedly ‘missing’ mortgage notes. The investigations must also look into the actions of the banks in the overpricing of homes, selling them for much more than they were worth. Finding of both civil and criminal wrongdoing must be prosecuted.”

POP and C2SOH scheduled a Nov. 1 protest rally in Trenton, the New Jersey state capital, to demand an investigation. Other demands are that Governor Chris Christie release $300 million in federal funds for distressed homeowners that has been held up, and that mortgage principals be reduced to reflect the true market value of overpriced homes.

“Every government program to supposedly help distressed homeowners has turned out to be a bank bailout in disguise,” said a spokesperson for the campaign. The Home Affordable Mortgage Program as a case in point. Millions of homeowners have been strung along for months by banks, having to file extensive applications time after time only to be denied and then saddled with charges and fines by the banks for the delay!

Bank criminality in abusive loans that were designed to fail and the Three-card Monte games they played with mortgage notes were criminal violations. There has not been a single criminal prosecution for any of it.

POP and C2SOH are reaching out to other organizations and people in a petition addressed to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Already it has met with an eager response. Work is under way for a coordinated effort. Everyone wants this to happen.

#NewarkNJ #HousingStruggles #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #AttorneyGeneralEricHolder #CoalitionToSaveOurHomes #HomeForeclosures

Newark, NJ – A protest against predatory lending took place here, Sept. 15, at the Broad Street branch of Wells Fargo Bank. It was the joint effort of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP) and the Coalition to Save Our Homes (C2SOH).

Demands included immediate mortgage reduction, an end to foreclosure by banks that do not own the mortgage, and a five-year moratorium on foreclosures. The overall demand was to end Wall Street’s lawless reign of financial terror and make banks obey the law.

Many speakers, including distressed homeowners, took turns on the bullhorn to denounce predatory lending. The Newark area is hard hit by the depression. There are many issues. Foreclosure and homelessness are epidemic. Community violence claims lives every few days. The public schools are being closed and privatized in the areas where black people live. Mayor Cory Booker, a ‘rising star’ of the Democratic Party, is trying to sell off and privatize the city water system against intense community resistance.

Many protesters spoke on the bullhorn. Housing is a human right! There should be no poverty at all in the United States. Everyone should have a nice place to live. No one should ever have to worry about where their next meal is coming from. The problem is that capital’s need for profit eats up every human need.The government must take action against predatory lenders.

Protesters mingled with passersby throughout the event. A couple of people took POP and C2SOH literature and passed it out. Several distressed homeowners were given self-help information and were told about C2SOH. People raised their hands in solidarity. It became clear that everybody hates Wall Street, homeowner or not.

A key demand that was voiced at the protest is that special prosecutors be appointed at federal and state levels to investigate civil and criminal wrongdoing by financial corporations. There has been vast financial misconduct, much of it criminal, as well as predatory lending. The economy is in depression. Financial chaos is everywhere. Yet no one has been investigated, no one has been prosecuted and no one has gone to jail for all the harm that has been done. Regulators do nothing, Congress does nothing.

It is time to appoint special prosecutors to get the job done. It is important to clear up what happened to those millions of ‘missing’ mortgage promissory notes. We do not believe the usual excuses about ‘slicing and dicing’ in financial trading. The banks are hiding something. Let prosecutors investigate and find out. Let the chips fall where they may. As protesters chanted, the banks are “Not too big to fail, not too big to jail.”

#NewarkNJ #WallStreet #HousingStruggles #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #CoalitionToSaveOurHomes #HomeForeclosures

Irvington, NJ – A march and rally against foreclosures was held here on July 21. It was sponsored by the Coalition to Save Our Homes and the People’s Organization for Progress (POP). The event tied the suffering of homeowners directly to the predation of Wall Street. The demands were: end robo-signing; reduce mortgage principals to current value; prosecute banksters; make banks obey the rule of law.

Speakers denounced the banks for causing the mortgage crisis. Sharon Hand of POP and Carol Gay of the Solidarity Singers condemned lenders for issuing mortgages that they knew homeowners could not repay. They said the banks’ actions were violations of human rights. The affected homeowners must take action to prevent foreclosure, including demands on public officials to meet their responsibilities to citizens.

Another speaker said all issues of people’s economic justice trace directly to Wall Street. The main way the financial sector makes money now is by fraud, theft, embezzlement and gambling. JPMorgan Chase dropped $7 billion at the tables of the Wall Street big casino and nearly triggered another 2008-style financial collapse. Meanwhile young people in the cities are killing each other in the streets because they don’t have jobs and are desperate. They need to stop fighting each other and fight their real enemies.

Susan Newton of POP, who has worked as a mortgage underwriter, gave practical advice. She said if you need credit, always talk to several lenders. Remember the banks are not interested in your needs; instead they are looking out for ways to make money from you.

The Solidarity Singers performed several songs during the program, including Tom Bias’s anthem, Foreclosure Song. Bias also related how the banks had worked him and his family over in their struggle to avoid foreclosure.

The Black Orchid Drummers performed at the end of the rally. The gathering headed off to march through Irvington’s business district. The town authorities had denied a permit to march in the street, first on one pretext, then on another. We marched on the sidewalks anyway and it worked to our advantage. Passersby raised fists, shook hands and called out in agreement, and took informational fliers. Some defied the permit denial and marched in the street.

The protest proceeded to the local branch of Wells Fargo to “pay a visit.” The marchers chanted “You can’t rob the bank, but the bank can rob you!” and “Banksters: Not too big to fail, not too big to jail!” The Black Orchid Drummers played throughout the march, pulling people out of shops and stores. The community was with us.

Marchers headed back down to Civic Square and heard from POP Chairmen Lawrence Hamm. He said that the way banks raised mortgage payments amounts to stealing. Monthly payments are increased by thousands of dollars per month and homeowners simply cannot pay that much. He emphasized that Black people lost more personal wealth in the mortgage collapse than at any time since the Civil War. Bankers never think about the suffering they cause because the problems never affect them that way. He congratulated all the participants for holding a great event, and said we will continue to build a powerful movement against foreclosure.

To conclude the day, it was said that we will continue the local struggle and the focus on distressed homeowners. The longer term strategy is to look closely into the millions of ‘missing’ mortgage promissory notes that give rise to the robo-signing abuses. There was massive financial wrongdoing by the banks in the issuance of mortgage based securities. When we know what happened to all those notes we will know will where the bodies are buried in the mortgage mess. Then we will be able to lay the struggle of the homeowner right at the doorstep of Wall Street.

#IrvingtonNJ #WallStreet #Foreclosures #HousingStruggles #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #CoalitionToSaveOurHome

Newark, NJ – The People’s Organization for Progress (POP) marched and held a speaking program Jan.15 in observance of the 83rd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. An excellent turnout of 150 people representing many different organizations marched from the Lincoln Monument through the downtown area. The gathering marked the 204th day of POP’s Daily Picket for Jobs, Peace, Equality and Justice.

For the second year, the program was held in the chambers of the Newark Municipal Council. Councilpersons Mildred Crump and Ras Baraka spoke, as did representatives of the NAACP, the New Black Panther Party and others.

Veteran activist Amiri Baraka recounted a visit from Dr. King. Baraka was at home in the city’s South Ward, when he saw police cars drive past and heard helicopters overhead. A little later the doorbell rang. Baraka opened the door. Martin Luther King was standing there. “Hello, LeRoi,” he said. He wanted to talk about a united front within the Black Liberation Movement. King had recently met with Elijah Muhammad.

A few days later, Dr. King went to Memphis, Tennessee to support the strike of the city’s sanitation workers.

#NewarkNJ #AfricanAmerican #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #DrMartinLutherKingJr

Newark, NJ – On May 15, 2009, Basire Farrell, 30, was mercilessly beaten to death on the street at 2:00 a.m. by five Newark cops. He was dead, murdered, at the scene. Nothing has happened since to the killers because they are cops.

“He was calling out to everyone to come help him,” said his aunt, Sharonda Smalls. “He was calling out, Mommy, Rhonda, come help me. When he died he had a look on his face like he was in pain. He wanted justice.”

She was speaking to a May 15 protest to commemorate the second anniversary of the murder, called by the family of the victim and the People’s Organization for Progress. The family of Dawoo Culver, 16, killed by a Newark policeman on April 2 of this year, also spoke. With extraordinary courage, Cynthia Johnson told of being raped by a Newark police officer, only to be treated as a criminal when she sought justice.

“This makes two years,” said Sharonda Smalls. “We need to fight back. They want us to give up. They want us to live in fear. Don’t give up because that’s what they want.”

The rally then marched to Newark’s infamous Fifth Precinct station house. Cynthia Johnson told of the assault on her by a police officer. “I feel sick to my stomach to stand in front of a police station knowing my rapist is free,” she said. She told of going to Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Councilman Ronald C. Rice, who represents the ward where the assault took place. She went to Internal Affairs, the police agency responsible to look into police misconduct. Nothing came of any of it, she said.

She was herself charged with resisting arrest and other charges. She had to hire an attorney to get the charges dismissed. Courts would not listen her complaints. “I have PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder],” she said. “It’s easy to say I’m crazy.” She vowed to “put on my big yellow POP shirt” and continue the struggle. During the day other victims said they were only able to survive and continue the struggle because of the support of POP.

“Once we rise up and take charge of our community we will not have another Basire Farrell or Cynthia Johnson,” said Bertha Smalls, who raised Basire Farrell. “We got to hold Obama accountable,” she said. “We put him in there but he hasn’t done a damn thing for us.”

Fuquan Culver told of the killing in the West Ward of his nephew, Dawoo Culver, 16, on April 2 by a Newark cop. He said no other people are brutalized by police the way Black people are brutalized. “Our leaders when they get to a certain level get pacified,” he said. “We’re headed in the right direction now, but we need to get more people,” he said. He announced a protest march around the killing of his nephew for May 20.

POP Chairman Lawrence Hamm said the Department of Justice needs to come in and investigate the Newark Police Department, noting that the ACLU has filed a case for an investigation. He said the development of modern police forces parallels the experience of black people after emancipation. They were based on state militias that existed to protect against slave rebellions in southern states. “That’s why it’s so hard to break police brutality, that’s why we need to keep up the fight,” he said. “This wicked system is held in place by the most naked brutal force imaginable. We need a revolution. There’s a time for thunder and lightning in the United States of America in the struggle for justice, and the time is now.”

#NewarkNJ #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #BasireFarrell

Newark, NJ – A joint labor-community rally held here April 26 marked a significant step in unity. The Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, the People's Organization for Progress and many of the city's veteran activists spoke and turned out among the crowd of more than 200. Newark is one of the richest cities in the United States in traditions of people's struggle, and it showed.

On the labor side, a large contingent from the America Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) turned out. The Reverend Al Sharpton, who is working on a Newark chapter of his National Action Network, also spoke, as did Ras Baraka and Mildred Crump, two members of the Newark Municipal Council.

Common themes were opposition to human services cutbacks, threats to bargaining rights of labor and threats to pension funds. Bank bailouts and tax cuts to the rich while the masses suffer were condemned. Newark Mayor Cory Booker and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie were the foremost targets of the people's defiance.

The call for unity between labor and the community was heard constantly. “We're like crabs in a barrel,” said Rev. Sharpton. “We need to get out of the barrel and go after the people who put us there in the first place.” Hetty Rosenstein, New Jersey Director of AFSCME, blasted the idea that “there is nothing we can do.” The crowd took up the chant, “We are one.”

POP Chairman Lawrence Hamm denounced the attack by the right wing. “They are trying to take us back before 1960 on voting rights,” he said. “They are trying to take us back before 1930 and the right to form unions, back before 1920 and women's right to vote, back before 1900 and the eight-hour day.” He called for advancing a broad people's agenda that would include housing, jobs, health care and other concerns. He warned the crowd that even the achievement of a human needs program would not end the struggle, pointing out the need for fundamental social transformation.

“We need to have demonstrations every day for 385 days,” he said, commemorating the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56. “We have to be out here every day until our voices are heard, we have to be able to shut it down,” Hamm added. The people roared their approval.

The reason some unions are turning to community support is because of the systematic attack on public workers’ bargaining rights. Gov. Christie is one of the worst offenders. The state botched its handling of its public employee pension fund from the middle of the 1990s until now. As a result the fund is around $60 billion dollars short of its obligations. If the unions can be destroyed Christie can rob the workers of their pensions with relative ease. Also the unions are tightly aligned with the Democrats. The old reliance on the Democrats will not do, however. Organized labor needs to fight and it needs other mass forces.

Organized labor has to do a lot better overall. The difference must come from the rank-and-file, in terms of militant class struggle unionism. It is a hard fight, as shown by the experiences of Teamsters Local 743 in Illinois. In January of this year its principled elected leadership was removed by Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. on a rotten little administrative pretext. Broad rank-and-file militancy is the only antidote to misleaders like Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.

Events in Newark show the way forward. Unity of organized labor and community forces, unity of the working class and the oppressed peoples will grow in a mighty wave in response to the capitalist crisis.

#NewarkNJ #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #NewarkAntiViolenceCoalition #AmericaFederationOfStateCountyAndMunicipalEmployeesAFSCME

Newark, NJ – A joint labor-community rally held here April 26 marked a significant step in unity. The Newark Anti-Violence Coalition, the People's Organization for Progress and many of the city's veteran activists spoke and turned out among the crowd of more than 200. Newark is one of the richest cities in the United States in traditions of people's struggle, and it showed.

On the labor side, a large contingent from the America Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) turned out. The Reverend Al Sharpton, who is working on a Newark chapter of his National Action Network, also spoke, as did Ras Baraka and Mildred Crump, two members of the Newark Municipal Council.

Common themes were opposition to human services cutbacks, threats to bargaining rights of labor and threats to pension funds. Bank bailouts and tax cuts to the rich while the masses suffer were condemned. Newark Mayor Cory Booker and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie were the foremost targets of the people's defiance.

The call for unity between labor and the community was heard constantly. “We're like crabs in a barrel,” said Rev. Sharpton. “We need to get out of the barrel and go after the people who put us there in the first place.” Hetty Rosenstein, New Jersey Director of AFSCME, blasted the idea that “there is nothing we can do.” The crowd took up the chant, “We are one.”

POP Chairman Lawrence Hamm denounced the attack by the right wing. “They are trying to take us back before 1960 on voting rights,” he said. “They are trying to take us back before 1930 and the right to form unions, back before 1920 and women's right to vote, back before 1900 and the eight-hour day.” He called for advancing a broad people's agenda that would include housing, jobs, health care and other concerns. He warned the crowd that even the achievement of a human needs program would not end the struggle, pointing out the need for fundamental social transformation.

“We need to have demonstrations every day for 385 days,” he said, commemorating the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56. “We have to be out here every day until our voices are heard, we have to be able to shut it down,” Hamm added. The people roared their approval.

The reason some unions are turning to community support is because of the systematic attack on public workers’ bargaining rights. Gov. Christie is one of the worst offenders. The state botched its handling of its public employee pension fund from the middle of the 1990s until now. As a result the fund is around $60 billion dollars short of its obligations. If the unions can be destroyed Christie can rob the workers of their pensions with relative ease. Also the unions are tightly aligned with the Democrats. The old reliance on the Democrats will not do, however. Organized labor needs to fight and it needs other mass forces.

Organized labor has to do a lot better overall. The difference must come from the rank-and-file, in terms of militant class struggle unionism. It is a hard fight, as shown by the experiences of Teamsters Local 743 in Illinois. In January of this year its principled elected leadership was removed by Teamster President Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. on a rotten little administrative pretext. Broad rank-and-file militancy is the only antidote to misleaders like Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.

Events in Newark show the way forward. Unity of organized labor and community forces, unity of the working class and the oppressed peoples will grow in a mighty wave in response to the capitalist crisis.

#NewarkNJ #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #NewarkAntiViolenceCoalition #AmericaFederationOfStateCountyAndMunicipalEmployeesAFSCME

Newark, NJ – The People's Organization for Progress held a protest at the busy Bergen Street and South Orange Avenue intersection, April 16. The call for the demo was “Gas Prices Are too Damn High!” It was a small rally but one of the noisiest ever. “If you think gas prices are too high,” said POP Chairman Lawrence Hamm over the bullhorn, “honk your horn!” Beep! Beep! Be-beep!

#NewarkNJ #US #PeoplesStruggles #Protest #gasPrices #economy #peoplesOrganizationForProgress

Newark, NJ – Around 600 people turned out on here April 4 for a March for Jobs, Peace, Equality and Justice initiated by the People’s Organization for Progress. The date marked the 1968 assassination of Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. A speaking program followed at Essex Community College.

Dozens of organizations joined in support of the march. The Communications Workers of American turned out hundreds of its members. The themes of the event were workers’ rights, civil rights, the need to end the wars and meet human needs at home. Speaker after speaker noted that Dr. King’s life was taken as he was engaged in support of the efforts of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee to unionize and gain a better life.

The turnout was a strong show of working class unity in the face of acute crisis in the capitalist system.

#NewarkNJ #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesOrganizationForProgress #DrMartinLutherKingJr

Trenton, NJ – People gathered here to rally and hold a press conference, March 29, on the need for uncompensated write-down of overpriced mortgages contracted during the housing bubble, the period after 1997. The event marked a court hearing aimed at elimination of ‘robo-signing,’ foreclosures undertaken by banks that cannot prove ownership of the mortgage.

Participating organizations included the People's Organization for Progress (POP), the Irvington Branch of the NAACP, the Newark Teachers' Association, New Jersey Citizen Action (NJCA) and the Fair Share Housing Center.

Robo-signing is a terrible abuse. Rally participants all said it must be ended. But the end of robo-signing will prevent no one from being foreclosed. In fact the stated aim of the court hearing was to make the foreclosure process in New Jersey more efficient.

In the hearing a court-appointed attorney presented an agreement he had worked out with six of the largest mortgage lenders. The essential point is the banks agreed to proceed only in foreclosures based on “personal knowledge and accurate business records.” Several homeowner advocates objected that the agreement was vague or that it was procedurally inadequate to protect homeowners. Judge Mary C. Jacobson found in favor of the agreement. Whether or not it eliminates robo-signing will have to be seen from experience.

The people's forces said at their press conference that what really has to happen is enforced write-down of overpriced mortgages to the level of true market value at the time they were contracted. A POP statement was read by Debby Strong. It said the banks had harmed millions of people. They didn't care at all about t