Dallas, TX – On Saturday, November 26, more than 60 activists gathered at the Pan-African Connection bookstore in Dallas to celebrate People's Thanksgiving, a celebration honoring those who struggle against imperialism, capitalism and national oppression.

The event was emceed by Ammar Hussein of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, who gave an opening speech welcoming the many organizations and participants to the event as well as praising the struggle of indigenous peoples for whom Thanksgiving is a national day of mourning.

“We reject the colonialist myth of Thanksgiving, and we stand in unwavering solidarity with indigenous people in their struggle,” stated Hussein. “There are many organizations you will hear from today representing various movements – both domestic and international, and what unites us is that we all share a common enemy, the forces of imperialism.”

Jo Hargis of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization gave a speech stressing the importance of opposing the rising far-right movement and their increasing attacks on immigrants and trans people: “I'm so heartened to see so many people here who want to build a better world, in the face of rising attacks on immigrants and trans people – we have to be the ones to stand up and stop the attacks.”

Xavi Velasquez of Los Frontera Nos Cruzo, a local immigrant rights organization, stated, “Anti – imperialism and Chicano, Latino, indigenous national liberation go hand in hand,” and “We in Los Frontera Nos Cruzo are fusing anti-imperialism and national liberation into the immigrant

struggle, the indigenous struggle and the wider Latino struggle. One day we will have our land back.”

Jay Rodriguez of the Progressive Student Union at the University of Texas at Arlington gave a speech discussing the various struggles that PSU has participated in, saying, “We at PSU remind others that their lives are important, that they matter. That here we don't stand for transphobes, fascists, segregationists and sexual harassers. That the fight is still going and it's not gonna stop.”

Matt Leslie of the Dallas Anti-War Committee stated, “We stand in solidarity with international movements for self-determination, we stand in solidarity with the oppressed peoples of Palestine, the Philippines, Haiti, and all those who are victims of imperialism.”

Syd Loving, co-chair of the National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, gave a speech introducing NAARPR Dallas and their leading of massive protests during the George Floyd Rebellion in 2020, as well as the history of NAARPR nationally as an organization dedicated to freeing political prisoners such as Angela Davis.

The event was called by the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, National Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, Dallas Anti-War Committee, La Frontera Nos Cruzo, Progressive Student Union at University of Texas in Arlington, Malaya Texas, Dallas Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, Palestinian Youth Movement, Texas Organizing Project, Dallas Peace and Justice Center, North Texas Industrial Workers of the World, Communist Party USA Dallas-Ft Worth, and North Texas Democratic Socialists of America.

After the speeches, the event ended with a singalong to a rendition of Solidarity Forever.

#DallasTX #PeoplesStruggles #PeoplesThanksgiving #Socialism

Fight Back News Service is circulating the speech that was delivered by Kobi Guillory of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, December 5, at the annual People’s Thanksgiving event. The event raised more than $3000 for Fight Back!

Vladimir Lenin said there are decades when nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen. By that math, 2020 has been centuries long. It's been a year of crisis and uprising, a year in which it became clear that U.S. imperialism has been dying for a long time both internationally and domestically.

In January, the Trump regime assassinated Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Iraq. Soleimani was a leader in the fight against ISIS, and his death sparked protests of hundreds of thousands across the Middle East, as well as solidarity demonstrations in the U.S. Here in Chicago, over 1000 people marched through downtown and nearly took Lakeshore Drive while being physically attacked by CPD. America committed this war crime to reassert itself as the world police, and the masses internationally responded by calling for an end to U.S. presence in the Middle East.

This year has also seen continued struggle against U.S.-backed regimes. Palestinians have continued to demand freedom from Israeli occupation, and millions across the world have boycotted and called for divestment and sanctions against the apartheid state of Israel. Our kasamas from the Philippines are demanding an end to the terror law imposed by the fascist Duterte, as well as an end to U.S. military support of the Duterte regime. Recently, the people of Bolivia voted to oust the fascist, anti-indigenous government that came into power through a U.S.-backed coup. All around the world, in Puerto Rico, Chile, Iraq, Colombia, Somalia and so many others, U.S. imperialism is falling.

The weakness of the U.S. has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by the COVID-19 pandemic. While other countries such as China, Vietnam and Cuba enacted lockdowns, built hospitals and ensured that their people had the resources to stay home, America bailed out corporations while giving nearly nothing to the people. The profit-centered response from the government has resulted in over a quarter million coronavirus deaths in the U.S., compared to less than 5000 deaths in China, where the virus was first identified.

The people whose labor keeps the system alive have been dubbed essential workers, but the government and their employers have treated them as expendable by taking little or no precautions for their safety. Workers have had to fight for PPE, sick leave, sanitary work environments, and other measures that would be taken for granted in a country that values human life. Service workers and healthcare workers, most of whom are Black, Latino and Filipino, went on strike at UIC to demand safe working conditions and an end to racist policies this summer. CTU [Chicago Teachers Union] threatened to strike if the city opened schools with in-person teaching, a strategy which would have failed due to the city's complete lack of preparation toward making sure that schools didn't become COVID hotspots. In a country that doesn't care about us, workers have used strikes and other actions to take care of each other.

It's no surprise that the virus has hit Black, Latino and indigenous communities the hardest. Nationally oppressed people are the most likely to be essential workers and least likely to have access to quality medical care, so of course Black, Latino and indigenous people are dying of COVID at nearly three times the rate of whites. Decades of neoliberal disinvestment from Black communities has resulted in the closure of dozens of hospitals and clinics on the South and West sides of Chicago. The systemic racism of America has turned the virus into a weapon of white supremacy. This is especially clear in jails, prisons and detention centers, which have always been hazardous to the health of people imprisoned there.

Mass incarceration is a decades-old tool of repression against Black communities. Police have used torture and frame-up tactics to convict political prisoners like Assata Shakur, Jalil Muntaqim and Leonard Peltier, and later used those same methods against people like Gerald Reed, Tamon Russell, the Hernandez brothers, and hundreds of known survivors. The fight to free political prisoners, torture survivors, and the wrongfully convicted has been ramped up this year because of the coronavirus. It is impossible to maintain social distance in a cage, especially when prison guards spread the virus and wardens deny the prisoners PPE, sanitation, and basic necessities like clean water. Early on in the pandemic, thousands of people joined car caravans and virtual actions around the demand to “Free them all.” Those who have been kidnapped and locked up in prisons, jails, and immigration detention centers need to be set free, and those of us on the outside must continue to mobilize in greater and greater numbers until that happens.

Killings by police and other racists with guns are another feature of American racism. The militias who used to terrorize indigenous people and enslaved Africans now patrol cities wearing badges and blue uniforms. After the murders of George Floyd in Minnesota and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, millions of people took to the streets in all 50 states and around the world to fight for an end to police terror. Legalized lynchings have been a police practice since police have existed in the U.S., so every city has George Floyds and Breonna Taylors. In Chicago, Rekia Boyd, Pierre Loury, Ronnieman Johnson, Flint Farmer, and so many others were killed by CPD and denied justice. The uprising came out of the rage of people who have been exploited, dehumanized and terrorized for centuries. Local and federal police across the country responded to protests with tear gas, beatings and mass arrests. More and more people have learned that the police are enemies of the lives and wellbeing of Black people, which is why the demands of this Black-led rebellion have mainly focused on the police.

Two demands in particular – the demand for community control of the police and the demand to defund the police – have taken center stage. Calls to defund the police come from the recognition of what decades of neoliberal policies, defunding everything except police and prisons, has done to Black communities. We need schools, hospitals, homes and food, not police. Both capitalist parties oppose defunding the police because police protect and serve capitalists and their property. Some local governments have bent to mass pressure and taken tiny amounts from their police budgets or made empty promises about police reform. These promises or reforms have been walked back in less than a year because capitalists only make concessions to maintain power. In order to see the changes we want and to make those changes permanent, we need to take power away from capitalists. That's why we link the demand to defund the police to the demand for community control. If we want police to stop killing us, we need to take control of their budget and policies. We need to be the ones to defund the police. We, the people, need to hold police accountable and work towards a world without police. No politicians will make the changes we need to see.

Last month’s election, particularly the removal of Donald Trump, showed the results of the rebellion. Record high voter turnout showed that people are more politically engaged than they have been in a long time, but the lack of a party representing the interests of the working class means this election was a choice between covert racism and overt racism. Black organizers overcame systemic voter suppression to remove Trump, and the Democratic party has shown its gratitude by blaming its poor election results on the Black Liberation movement. Calls to defund the police don't alienate people from the movement, but police impunity and neoliberal policies are alienating people from the Democratic party. As we move into the Biden administration, with potential cabinet picks like Rahm Emanuel, who closed dozens of schools and hospitals and covered up the murder of Laquan McDonald, it is clear that the struggle continues.

With the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, tens of millions unemployed and facing eviction, thousands dying every day of COVID-19, and rampant racist violence from police and fascists emboldened by Trump, the Democrats are committed to helping corporations at the expense of people's lives and wellbeing. That is why FRSO is committed to building a party for the working class. U.S. monopoly capitalism is dying, but it won't be dead until we kill it.

As we honor those who have devoted themselves to the struggle this year, we should also focus on where the struggle needs to go. This year, solidarity has been building between the working-class movement and the movements for Black, Latino and indigenous liberation. The ruling class has spent centuries sabotaging solidarity because they know how much of a threat we pose when we fight together. The strategy of Freedom Road is an alliance between the movement of the working class and the movements for the liberation of oppressed people. Revolution is the only way forward, and unity of exploited and oppressed people is the only way to win a revolution. Over the coming years we will continue building and connecting these movements until we're strong enough to overthrow this system and build a socialist society that values people instead of profit. This year has been tough, but the fight will continue because we still have a world to win and nothing to lose but our chains.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving #ChicagoFRSO

Award recipients included Dian Palmer, president of SEIU Local 73; Doris Carroll, president of the Illinois Nurses Association; India Jackson of Good Kids/Mad City; Tanya Lozano of Centro Sin Fronteras; Regina Russell of the Chicago Alliance; and Alexis Grant of the Black Graduate Students Association at UIC.

Helping present the awards included Stacy Davis Gates, vice president of CTU; and Aislinn Pulley of Black Lives Matter-Chicago. Commenting on the victory of a strike this week by SEIU Health Care Illinois/Indiana at the Infinity nursing home chain, Davis Gates said their strike during the pandemic and economic crisis was made possible because Dian Palmer went first at UIC. Palmer was given the Sylvia Woods award, named after the Black woman trade unionist who led the Chicago committee to Free Angela Davis, and then the Chicago chapter of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

In presenting the Harry Haywood award to Regina Russell of the Chicago Alliance, Aislinn Pulley said, “In Harry Haywood’s speech in 1977, he said ‘We had seen that the Black liberation struggle would be, as it had always been, a spark, a catalyst pushing forward the whole working-class and people’s struggle in the U.S. Far from being simply a struggle for reforms, as the revisionists claimed.’”

Pulley continued, “We see this evidenced in the work of Regina and the Chicago Alliance this year, by taking a leading role in the movement for Black liberation, through calls for ‘Free them all,’ ‘CPAC now’ and an end to violent racist white supremacist violence.”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving

Chicago, IL – Thunderous applause greeted officers and strikers from the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73 at an event sponsored by Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). The 28th People’s Thanksgiving, a fundraiser for Fight Back! brought over 100 people together to recognize the historic Chicago Public School strike by the two unions.

In the words of CTU Vice President Stacy Davis Gates, “The work we do is to dismantle white supremacy.” She vowed that the union will be “bolder, more aggressive and impatient” and to have a “Chicago that reflects the needs of the many.”

Local 73 Secretary Treasurer Joe Richert and Executive Vice President Jeff Howard joined Davis Gates in receiving an award named in honor of the great working-class leader, Lucy Gonzalez Parsons. Gonzalez Parsons led the fight for justice for the martyrs of Haymarket, the leaders of the 1886 U.S. general strike. That movement for the eight-hour day was centered in Chicago. Eight trade unionists, socialists and anarchists, including Lucy’s husband, were framed by the ruling class, and five of them were executed. To honor them, the first of May was declared International Workers Day, which is celebrated worldwide.

Also awarded were five members of the city council: Sue Garza, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, Jeanette Taylor, Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez, and Byron Sigcho-Lopez. All elected since 2015, their awards called them “Tribunes of the People” for carrying the demands of workers and the oppressed into City Hall. Aislinn Pulley of Black Lives Matter-Chicago spoke of the movement for justice for the murdered teenager, Laquan McDonald, which brought down Mayor Rahm Emanuel. These alderpersons are among the 19 in the city council that stand for community control of the police through the legislation for an elected, civilian police accountability council (CPAC). The crowd responded to their awards with the chant, “All power to the people,” started by FRSO Central Committee member, Frank Chapman.

The community organization, Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) was given the “Harry Haywood Award,” “For defense of the Black community of Chicago’s South Side against the siege of gentrification.” STOP has led the fight demanding a Community Benefits Agreement to come with the building of the Obama Center. Funding for the center includes tax monies, but also contributions from billionaire donors. The movement is demanding that jobs be set aside for people in nearby communities, protections of housing for working families, and the strengthening of neighborhood schools.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving

Chicago, IL – The People’s Thanksgiving dinner is held each year as an anti-racist holiday event by Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) in Chicago. Usually a festive affair, this year included a note of sadness because local peace activist Pat Hunt had died only days earlier.

Pat had been a key leader in the anti-war movement in Chicago since 2004. As Libby Frank, her friend, said in her remarks at the dinner, “Pat became ‘woke’ after Bush was elected the second time. Launching the illegal and immoral war in Iraq and Afghanistan brought her into the anti-war movement.”

Pat was a co-founder of CODE Pink; a leader in the defense campaign for the anti-war and international solidarity activists raided by the FBI in 2010; and co-chair of the Coalition Against NATO/G8, which marched on the NATO Summit in Chicago in 2012. That march was the largest anti-war protest in the country during the Obama years. She also played a leading role in the Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, and Chicago Area Peace Action, among other groups.

In his remarks about Pat, Joe Iosbaker of FRSO, said that she made him think of a story told by Mao Zedong, leader of the Chinese revolution. “In a talk given by Mao in 1944, he said, ‘All men must die, but death can vary in its significance…it may be weightier than Mount Tai or lighter than a feather. To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.”

“Pat Hunt lived for the people, she served the people,’ stated Iosbaker.

The Dec. 3 dinner also gave recognition awards to leaders from a number of struggles, including: John Palmer, a Teamster reformer elected Southern regional vice president on the anti-Hoffa slate last year; Organized Communities Against Deportations (OCAD), the most prominent leaders in the fight to stop deportations in Chicago; Armanda Shackleford, Bertha Escamilla, Carolyn Johnson, and Anabel Perez, all prominent activist mothers whose prisoner sons were tortured by Chicago cops; the Rasmea Defense Committee, the grass roots committee that led the historic fight for the beloved Palestinian community icon, Rasmea Odeh; and the Restore the 34 Movement, a militant group of Chicago Teachers Union members who defeated Mayor Emanuel when he moved to eliminate their jobs.

The program also included the talk by Frank Chapman of Freedom Road Socialist Organization ( reprinted in Fight Back!); and a video message from Rasmea Odeh from Amman, Jordan. This year’s dinner, the 26th annual, raised $1400 for Fight Back!

#ChicagoIL #Remembrances #PeoplesThanksgiving #PatHunt

We are circulating the text of Frank Chapman’s Dec. 3 speech at Chicago’s 26th annual People’s Thanksgiving event. Frank Chapman is a veteran of the Black Liberation Movement and a leading member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Good evening comrades and friends,

Here we are coming together again to pay tribute to those who are fighting on the front lines for democracy, peace and socialism. Let us take a moment to clarify what we mean by the struggle for democracy, peace and socialism.

In the United States of North America is still believed by many to be the cradle of democracy for the modern world. Why? Because over 200 years ago a group of slave holders, landlords and capitalist merchants wrote a Declaration of Independence declaring that “All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Women were obviously excluded, for they did say and mean men. But they did not mean all men – they meant white men with property. They didn’t mean white indentured servants or property-less white people whose sole existence depended on the demand for labor, on the changing state of business and vicissitudes of the market place. They did not mean Black people who were chattel bought and sold in the market place like any other commodity and counted among the livestock and beast of burden on the plantation. And after they successfully carried out a revolutionary war against King George of England they established a limited democracy, a federation of slave holding and non-slave holding states that rested on land stolen from indigenous people.

It took another revolution, the Civil War, to settle once and for all the question of chattel slavery, the institutionalized practice of buying and selling human beings as property. The immediate fruits of this revolution were to usher in the most radical, democratic decade in the history of the U.S., wherein Black people were empowered politically, backed up by an armed Black militia, to claim their freedom and settle accounts with their former masters. Many of the gains of Reconstruction, like public education and elimination of property qualifications in voting, are still with us. But for the most part counter-revolution was triumphant in 1877 and out of the ashes of this short-lived democratic revolution arose the present-day system of institutionalized racism and national oppression that holds Black people in bondage.

This successful counter revolution justified by white supremacy and carried out by state-sanctioned terrorism historically set the tone for the struggle for democracy in the U.S. And it was able to do so because this republic was born out of land theft from the indigenous people and the congenital blood stain from the enslave of the African people.

Today the struggle for democracy is not only about overcoming the vestiges of slavery and the unbridled competition that keeps workers bond in wage-slavery. Today the struggle is about defending the democratic rights of the people to organize and struggle for democracy, peace and socialism.

What constitutes the driving force in the struggle for democracy? Is it freedom of the press, conscience, speech, assembly, the right to vote and due process? As important as these liberties are there is no mass struggles focused on them.

What then constitutes the heartbeat of the struggle for democracy is the fight for community control of the police, for an all elected Civilian Police Accountability Council. Until we have community control of the police we have no power to stop, on a daily basis, murder, torture and mass incarceration. The police, the jails and the prisons are the principal agents of racist and political repression in this moment of history and are therefore, the greatest violators of the democratic rights of the people to organize and protest against status quo. The only way to turn this around is that we the people hold the police accountable. And the democratic vehicle for this is an all elected Civilian Police Accountable Council.

This struggle is key to the survival of our movements. My comrades in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization are a living testament to this fact. For their participation in peace and solidarity movements they were targeted as terrorists by the FBI and threatened with indictments and imprisonment. Of course, the FBI was lying and falsely accusing us but nonetheless they are still holding this threat over our heads.

In the Rasmea Odeh case we have another living testament. Rasmea was targeted by Homeland Security because of her courageous and outstanding work supporting Palestinian women victimized by Israeli military aggression and deprived of their homeland rights. For standing with her people she was prosecuted and deported. The Rasmea Odeh case is clearly the government’s declaration of war against peace movements in solidarity with national liberation struggles against imperialism. We were attacked but FRSO, in unity with the Chicago Alliance, the USPCN and others, stood up and fought back. We kept Rasmea out of prison by putting the U.S, government on trial and building a mass movement in her defense.

As we continue to build a mass movement in defense of our democratic rights, as we continue to heighten and deepen our struggle for community control of the police we see the attacks against the immigrant community with the federal and local police being the cutting edge of mass deportations. So, we must raise the question what does it mean to have a sanctuary city, with rogue, racist cops who kill and trample on the rights of the people with impunity? It means you have what Rahm Emanuel is proposing, namely, a sanctuary city in form but still a city of police tyranny in content. The immigrant community must become united with the Black community in their demand for community control of the police. Together we can stop the ICE raids and the police tyranny in our communities.

We also seeing in this moment the FBI and Homeland Security gearing up to attack the Black Lives Matter Movement with their characterization of it being ‘Black Identity Extremist.’ Clearly this is setting the stage to use the police as battering ram against the Black Liberation movement. Again, our response must be to intensify the struggle for CPAC, to build a movement that is so powerful and mass based that victory becomes inevitable.

We can do this, and the proof is the recent exoneration of some 19 victims of police crimes and torture and a dozen who have been recently set free. The States Attorney Kim Foxx is not just another states attorney caught in the noose of corruption and dancing to the tune of the FOP. No, she’s not! She has publicly endorsed CPAC and she has called Chicago the torture capital of the U.S. Our movement must take full responsible for this because we are responsible for it. These are clear indications that we can make victory inevitable by keeping on the path we are on.

We believe the struggle for peace is of paramount importance at a time when the White House is the main perpetrator of wars and the rumor of wars today. Our pathway to the struggle for peace must be clear. We must stand in unconditional solidarity with the oppressed nations and people who are fighting against U.S. imperialism for their liberation. We support all the various anti-imperialist, national liberation movements because it is our duty as Marxist-Leninists, as internationalists, to stand in solidarity with them and to demand that the U.S. accept their demands for peace and freedom. Free Palestine, get out of the Philippines, hands off Libya, Zimbabwe, Southern Africa and all of Africa. Cease and desist in the undermining of democracy in Venezuela and all of Latin America. We are not confused; we stand united with the oppressed people of the world against all forms of imperialist domination and wars of aggression.

We are also not confused about the need to fight for socialism. In the last presidential election candidate Bernie Sanders raised the question of socialism. We got a lot of class analysis during Bernie’s campaign. There was lots of talk about the billionaire class and their crimes against the people, about how in 2007-08 we experienced the greatest transfer of wealth in U.S. history form the working class to the banks, about how we’ve got the best congress and best elections money can buy and so forth and so on.

Class analysis, as profound as it may be, does not lead to socialism. It is class conscious, class struggle that leads to socialism, and the class struggle is heating up as the crisis of capitalism deepens. As the government continues, like with the latest tax law, to play Robin Hood in reverse taking from the poor and giving to the rich.

It is our job as communists to spread the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat which Engels described as “That Class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence demands on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business...”

Due to the changing state of business our conditions either improves or worsens. And as long as the capitalist bosses own and control the means of production that is how it’s going to be. Class-conscious workers are those workers who are no longer fighting to become better fed and better clothed slaves, they are those workers who are fighting for abolition of wage-slavery so that our economic conditions are no longer determined by the need for profit of the capitalist bosses.

Freedom Road Socialist Organization sees and accepts the centrality of the struggle for Black liberation and the liberation of all the nationally oppressed people under the tutelage and rule of the U.S. Our organization can only develop as a class conscious, revolutionary organization by standing in unconditional solidarity with the Black Liberation movement. The fight against racism, white supremacy is essential to developing a class conscious working-class movement capable of bringing socialism to this country.

In concluding I want to appeal to our friends here in OCAD, CTU and the rest of labor to join in united actions with FRSO and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and Black Lives Matter because we are on the cutting edge of the struggle against white supremacy and the war declared against our people by the Trump administration. We invite you to join us at a summit table we are calling for Jan. 24 next year so that we can collectively explore ways in which our various movements can be united so as to increase our strength and capacity to muster and organize our people forces to meet the challenges we presently face so we can pave the road to victory.

I also want to make a special appeal to Black, Latino, Palestinian, Filipino, Asian and any and everyone from an oppressed community or nation to join Freedom Road and become a part of a great revolutionary struggle to rid humankind of the scourge of capitalism which daily increases our misery and threatens the existence of everything living on our planet. Workers and oppressed peoples of the world must unite, for we have nothing to lose but our chains and a world to gain.

All Power to The People!

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving #Socialism #FrankChapman

Chicago, IL – 130 activists from all the people’s movements gathered for the annual People’s Thanksgiving awards dinner, Nov. 19, hosted by Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). The event is a fundraiser for Fight Back News and for Rasmea Odeh.

25 years ago, Freedom Road Socialist Organization in Chicago held the first anti-Thanksgiving dinner to protest the racist campaign to celebrate 500 years since the ‘discovery’ of America by Columbus. Speaking about the 25th annual event, Joe Iosbaker of FRSO said, “This year, we wanted to provide support to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe for the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Unfortunately, our guest speaker, LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, the tribal historian, was snowed-in the Denver airport for 24 hours and missed her flight to Chicago.” Still, the crowd gave a warm welcome to a young indigenous woman who read a statement from Allard. Ninoshka Lozano is a student activist with the American Indian Support Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a member of the Quechua people of Peru in South America.

Awards were presented to: Aislinn Pulley, Black Lives Matter – Chicago; Michael Brunson, Recording Secretary – CTU and Chair – CTU Black Caucus; Cassie Robledo and Juan Rojas, leaders of the Dump Trump protest at UIC; and Dave Bernt, Teamsters United, the reform slate that almost unseated President Hoffa and his sell-out administration.

$1000 was raised for Fight Back! and over $1600 for the defense campaign of Rasmea Odeh – who is still being persecuted by the government and has a upcoming hearing in federal court in Detroit, Nov. 29. Many people in the audience responded to the appeal from Hatem Abudayyeh of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network to travel to Detroit to stand with the iconic Palestinian activist.

#ChicagoIL #AntiRacism #PeoplesThanksgiving #frso #FreedomRoad

Chicago, IL – Palestinian icon Rasmea Odeh; Black youth leaders Veronica Morris-Moore and LaCreshia Birts; Black Liberation Movement veteran Frank Chapman and Eric Koene, a striking worker from the Kohler plant in Wisconsin, appeared together on the stage of the 24th Annual People’s Thanksgiving.

(For the text of Frank Chapman’s speech, and more information about the Kohler strike, see http://www.fightbacknews.org/2015/12/5/people-s-thanksgiving-2015-frso-speech-frank-chapman and http://www.fightbacknews.org/2015/12/6/chicago-event-raises-money-striking-kohler-workers )

People’s Thanksgiving started in 1992 as part of a protest movement against the 500-year commemoration of Columbus ‘discovering’ America. In truth, the European powers came to the New World to colonize, leading to the genocide of the native peoples. Thanksgiving is based on the myth that God gave this land to European settlers. At the People’s Thanksgiving Dinner, thanks and recognition are given to fighters for justice.

This year, Rasmea makes it to People’s Thanksgiving

Nesreen Hasan, one of the emcees this year, and an activist with the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, noted in her introduction of Rasmea Odeh, “One year ago, the People’s Thanksgiving honored Rasmea who couldn’t be present because she was sitting in jail in Michigan. We forced the judge to grant her bail, and so she is here with her supporters today.”

Odeh then spoke about her struggle and solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, explaining, “The methods of brutality against Blacks in the U.S. are the same as the methods used by the Israeli occupation against Palestinians.” In October, her lawyers filed an appeal of the conviction she received. Speaking about this, she said, “I am confident we will win my appeal, but if we don’t win this one, with your support we will continue until we find justice.”

Black youth highlighted

Veronica Morris-Moore and two others from Fearless Leading by the Youth accepted an award recognizing their victory, winning a Trauma Center for Chicago’s South Side. The award was entitled the “In Struggle Award.” The subtitle was, “For those who dare to stand in a strong sun and cast a sharp shadow.” This line was a quote from Robert Moses, one of the early Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) activists who traveled to the Mississippi delta to work in the most dangerous communities to carry out voter registration in the early 1960s. “In Struggle” was the way many of SNCC’s field secretaries signed their regular organizing reports.

FLY has been previously honored at the People’s Thanksgiving, in 2007, when they first formed. FLY co-founder Damian Turner was among those who accepted that award. When Damian was killed in a tragic shooting in 2010, FLY launched the fight to demand the university build a Level 1 Trauma Center. After five years of struggle, they have scored a victory.

Another young woman who came forward this past year is LaCreshia Birts. She spoke about the movement of Black youth to challenge police brutality and police crimes. Since the uprising in Ferguson, Missouri, the youth movement has generated many new faces in leadership roles in Chicago. Birts, the youth organizer for the Chicago Alliance, is one of the best known. As part of the Alliance campaign for CPAC, she called for protests against IPRA, the so-called Independent Police Review Authority, when a whistle-blower exposed them for their refusal to find police shootings unjustified.

As part of Black Youth Project 100, Birts has been one of the main organizers of the fight for justice for Rekia Boyd, murdered by Chicago cop Dante Servin. In November, she stood before thousands at a Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) rally. She called on them to support the struggle for community control of the police, just as the Alliance has supported the CTU’s demand for an elected school board. After her speech, the CTU rose to that challenge, endorsing the Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC) legislation as the solution to the crisis that has erupted over the murder of Laquan McDonald.

In her remarks, Birts spoke about the facts of life for African Americans, compared to U.S. propaganda, which says that they have progressed past racism since the 1960s. Birts talked about the reality that conditions have worsened for Black people facing national oppression and racist discrimination.

“Part of the reason nothing changed is because we forgot to change people, as we changed the system. We forgot to educate the masses about what was wrong with the system,” Birts noted.

Explaining her involvement in the Alliance and its campaign for an elected, civilian police accountability council (CPAC), she went on, “Part of the reason I like CPAC is that it does that it changes our relationship to the system. It empowers community members to change the system and hold it accountable.

“Because if we're fighting for change, part of us should be changing, too.”

#ChicagoIL #AntiwarMovement #ImmigrantRights #Labor #WomensMovement #PeoplesThanksgiving #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #RasmeaOdeh

Chicago, IL – A crowd of 100 people from all walks of life gathered in Chicago for an annual event, the People’s Thanksgiving. A fundraiser for Fight Back!, the event raised almost $1600, half of which was donated to the striking Kohler workers of UAW Local 833.

Eric Koene, a striking worker from the Kohler plant in Wisconsin and education director of UAW Local 833, said of their strike which started Nov. 16, “Kohler Company doubled its value from $3 billion to $7 billion in a year. So, we’re demanding an end to the two-tier wage scale.” Thinking about his future, he continued, “I have 22 years in the plant. My son, or grandson could come to work there someday, and I’d be working alongside them making a good wage, and they’d be making less than half of it.”

Dan Ginsberg, a trade unionist with the Milwaukee United Workers Organization introduced Koene. “Over 2000 workers are striking Kohler. All people concerned with economic justice, who are fed up with greedy billionaires taking more and more, need to be supporting this strike. Kohler workers and their union are igniting the next wave of struggle needed to revive a fighting workers’ movement in the U.S.”

Kait McIntyre, emcee of the event, presented Koene with an award called, “The ‘Big’ Bill Haywood Class Struggle Award.” The subtitle of the award: “The working class and the employer class have nothing in common.” This is the opening line of the preamble of the constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the fighting labor union from the early 1900s. “Big” Bill Haywood was the head of the IWW.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PeoplesThanksgiving #KohlerStrike

Chicago, IL – We are circulating the text of Frank Chapman’s Dec. 5 speech at Chicago’s 24th annual People’s Thanksgiving event, hosted by Fight Back! newspaper. Frank Chapman is a veteran of the Black Liberation Movement. He was a victim of wrongful imprisonment as a young man, and then, like Malcolm X, George Jackson and others, became politicized in prison. His release was won through a political struggle led by none other than Angela Davis. From 1981 through 1989, Frank was the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression. In the past five years, he’s returned to that work, leading the campaign of the Chicago Alliance to win an elected, civilian police accountability council. This would amount to community control of the police, an idea first raised by the Black Panther Party over 40 years ago.

Let me just say up front that as a Black Marxist-Leninist, I have decided to join the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. For the last five years, I have been a Marxist-Leninist without a Marxist-Leninist organization or party. For me, this is an unbearable contradiction and I choose to dissolve it this evening.

When I say we live in momentous times, I am not being melodramatic. Think about it! In just a little over a year, we have seen the uprising against brutal police murders and repression in our communities rise to unprecedented levels of fight back and organized resistance; we have seen the movement against police crimes free Howard Morgan (former police officer shot 28 times by fellow officers); we have exposed the racist/political frame-up of Rasmea Odeh to millions while successfully winning her fight for bail; we have joined, in united actions, the struggles of the Palestinian people to the struggles of Black people; we have written some new pages in the fight to unite the trade union movement with the struggle for Black Liberation; and we have most recently witnessed the Chicago Teachers Union brave vicious, racist attacks and pass a resolution endorsing the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression’s campaign for an all-elected Civilian Police Accountability Council (CPAC). And this is truly a reflection of the momentous times in which we live.

A number of comrades in Freedom Road Socialist Organization helped lay the groundwork for the Chicago Teachers Union resolution endorsing CPAC. I mention this because I know that they never seek recognition for the great work they do in our movement.

Another momentous event that has agitated into more massive protests of Black people is the murder of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Nothing has precipitated the present political crisis in our city like the release of the incriminating video of the execution/murder of Laquan. The release of this video has exposed to Chicago and the world the rotten core of the utter lack of police accountability under the present system. This provides the movement here with the unique opportunity to advance the fight for, and win, community control of the police. Unlike any other city in this nation, and because of the movement we have here, Chicago can bring about a systemic change that will help empower the people to hold the police accountable.

In the electoral arena, we have seen the anti-capitalist sentiments of the working class find expression in the campaign of Bernie Sanders for president. But what Bernie is tapping into is more than just a hatred of bankers, the thieves of Wall Street, and the billionaire barons; he is also tapping into the emergence of a class conscious workers’ movement wanting and seeking a socialist solution to capitalist exploitation, and racist and national oppression. The present so-called financial crisis of capitalism has created unspeakable economic inequality and social misery for countless millions of workers of every creed, color and sexual orientation. The political crisis reflecting this economic collapse of capitalism is expressed in the government policies of budget cuts that increase the impoverishment of workers, and tax breaks that further enrich the wealthy. We maintain that there is really no way out of this political crisis except the path of socialism.

Capitalism had outlived its usefulness by the time Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. By this I simply mean that the contradiction between socialized production and private appropriation was full blown and the material conditions (in the more developed countries) for the existence for socialism were present.

I believe that the last 150 years of capitalism has largely been a history of the ruling class of capitalist society using all the institutions of government to impose upon humanity an economic system that perpetually creates poverty in the midst of plenty and plunders our whole planet to satisfy the greed of less than 1% of the human race. Capitalism today – like never before – is a dying order incapable of relieving humanity of the problems of poverty, war and genocide, and so its continued enforced existence is the greatest crime of all time perpetrated against the human race.

I have decided to join the Freedom Road Socialist Organization because as a Marxist-Leninist, I do not want only to be part of the struggles for Black Liberation, democracy, peace and social justice. I do not want only to be reacting to the crimes of capitalism. I want to be fighting for the end of capitalism.

We are a young organization and we are subject to all the vagaries and errors of youth. However, being young and being willing to stand on the shoulders of the giants of the socialist movement who have preceded us, we also have the potential of seeing further and progressing further up the road to socialism.

There is continuity and discontinuity in the historical development of movements. We must build on and defend our revolutionary heritage, and in going forward, we must always find the courage to break with fool-hardy and cowardly mistakes that mock our revolutionary past and mar our vision of the future. We must seize the momentous times in which we live and boldly fight for socialism!

Fortune favors the bold, and the future belongs to those who fight for it!

December 5, 2015

#ChicagoIL #Socialism #PeoplesThanksgiving

Chicago, IL – The 23rd annual People’s Thanksgiving, a celebration of the past year of struggle in Chicago, was held here Nov. 22. While honoring important organizations in the movement, the gathering of over 100 people also was a major fundraiser for the beloved Palestinian activist, Rasmea Odeh. Over $7500 was raised for her defense fund.

Muhammad Sankari of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, which has been one of the main organizations in the defense campaign for Odeh, accepted their award. He said, “We will fight every hour of every day until Rasmea is where she belongs, back in our community, back amongst those she has inspired and dedicated her entire life to.”

Other organizations recognized included the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2335 for their walk out against the Lear company to oppose the two tier wage structure; the Caucus of Rank & File Educators (CORE) which is the elected leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union; and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (CAARPR).

Frank Chapman of the Alliance, in a major address, spoke about the “historic struggle, to empower the people to hold the police accountable for the crimes they commit in our communities.” He also linked the struggle against the police to the struggle against political repression. “On behalf of our Alliance I salute you for allowing us the opportunity to express our unconditional solidarity with all those who are fighting for justice for Rasmea Odeh. This is the good fight if there ever was one and let me state it clearly: This is the kind of fight for which our organization was created, the struggle for Rasmea’s freedom is without a doubt a struggle against racist and political repression.”

“Since I was in a courtroom myself facing a death penalty in 1961 I have seen many a courtroom battle, numerous racist frame-up trials and convictions spanning five decades, but I have never seen the government engage in such cowardly and shameless prosecution and persecution, as in this case of Rasmea Odeh.”

“The government said Rasmea lied on her citizenship application, by not acknowledging that she was convicted by a military tribunal in Israel, some 40 years ago. This was clearly the accusation made. Then, when the matter was brought before the bar in one ruling after another, the judge denied the defense the right to challenge the evidence. In other words, Rasmea was not allowed to prove her innocence by challenging the accusation. She was denied a fundamental democratic right.”

“This racist frame-up is clear to us and it is our job to build a mass movement that will make it clear to the American people and everyone who wants justice.”

“At this very hour the people of Ferguson and Missouri are under the threat of martial law because Governor Nixon has declared a state of emergency. He knows there will be protests because the killer of Michael Brown, Darren Wilson, will most likely not be indicted. So the state of Missouri is telling the protesters that you will be violently repressed.”

Within two days, Chapman’s words were proven true when the grand jury in Missouri refused to return an indictment.

The dinner also raised over $1000 to support Fight Back!, which sponsored the event. Fight Back! is published by Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving #RasmeaOdeh

Chicago, IL – Despite being the target of a major political attack by the U.S. government, Rasmea Odeh continues to work for the Palestinian people. This is why the 22nd Annual People’s Thanksgiving Dinner, held in Chicago Dec. 8, honored her with the “Nelson Mandela Award: Opposing Israeli Apartheid is not a Crime.”

70 people gathered to recognize her and a number of other important activists. They met at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, despite an early blizzard that made getting to the church hazardous.

In presenting the award, Muhammad Sunkari of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network referred to the late leader of the national liberation movement in South Africa. “When Ted Koppel interviewed him after his release from prison, Mandela defended the ANC’s [African National Congress] ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization. He called the Palestinians, ‘comrades in arms.’ I would say that a great example of a comrade of Mandela is Rasmea Odeh.” In accepting the award, Odeh was in good spirits. She thanked everyone, saying, “I need your support, and we all need each other’s support to stand strong and continue.”

The event is held annually by Fight Back! news and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO). The dinner raised over $3000 for Odeh’s defense campaign, as well as $1000 to help continue the work of Fight Back! news.

Another emotional moment in the dinner was an award presented to Pete Camarata. Camarata was a co-founder of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU). His award, entitled the “Big Bill Haywood: Class Struggle Award” was presented to him by Richard Berg. Berg, a long time reformer in the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), has known Camarata for 25 years.

The framed award, reading, “For his lifelong dedication to the liberation of the working class,” was accepted by Camarata’s stepson, Jackson Potter. Potter is the staff coordinator of the Chicago Teachers Union. He explained that Camarata couldn’t attend the dinner because he is fighting cancer. A statement from Camarata read in part, “I thank FRSO for the award, and I accept it with the knowledge that my activism belongs to the movement and the brave people who built TDU, the movement in this country and around the world.” Awards were also presented to Sarah Simmons and Newland Smith, both activists in the Anti-War Committee-Chicago and to Michael Sampson, a Dream Defender from Tallahassee, Florida.

Joe Iosbaker of FRSO spoke to the crowd. He noted that last year’s event celebrated the successful defense of Carlos Montes. “Next year, we plan to be back here to celebrate with Rasmea for a victory over this new attack!” Iosbaker put the defense of Odeh in a broader context, including the ongoing investigation of 23 anti-war and international solidarity activists by the U.S. attorney. “Our advances can be quickly taken from us by the likes of Mayor Emmanuel or President Obama or Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas.”

Citing the many crimes of the U.S. empire at home and abroad Iosbaker continued, “We in FRSO have come to the conclusion that the existing order of things is unacceptable. For that reason we have decided to build a revolutionary organization.” Summing up, Iosbaker said, “Whenever we celebrate the advances made in the struggles we are part of, FRSO always names the way of life that is better than capitalism – that way of life is called socialism. We know a big change will take a lot of work, but we do think it will happen.”

#ChicagoIL #InJusticeSystem #Palestine #PeoplesThanksgiving #thanksgiving #PoliticalRepression #JoeIsobaker #Tallahassee #RasmeaOdeh #MichaelSampson

Chicago, IL – Since 1992, activists with Fight Back! news, some of whom are members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, have held a People’s Thanksgiving dinner. According to Joe Iosbaker, “It was started as part of a movement to protest 500 years of colonialism and to celebrate the resistance of the indigenous people.”

Each year the dinner has recognized activists and organizations that have contributed to struggles in Chicago and around the country.

This year, there is urgency to the gathering. Rasmea Odeh, a beloved activist in the Palestinian community in Chicago, is under attack by the U.S. government. The Sunday, Dec. 8 dinner will raise funds for her defense, in addition to helping to keep publishing Fight Back!.

Hatem Abudayyeh, a friend of Fight Back!, and himself a victim of repression, said, “The FBI and the U.S. attorney in Chicago have used political repression against 23 anti-war and international solidarity activists for the past three years. Now the Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. attorney in Detroit are victimizing Rasmea.”

Odeh faces 10 years in prison and deportation if she is convicted of falsifying her application for citizenship.

Along with Rasmea Odeh, the dinner will honor two activists with the Anti-War Committee-Chicago: Newland Smith, a longtime fixture in the Palestine solidarity movement, and Sarah Simmons for her role resisting Mayor Emanuel’s attack on the Chicago Teachers Union and public education. Pete Camarata, a founder of Teamsters for a Democratic Union, will be recognized for his lifelong efforts for the cause of working people. And the continued struggle for justice for Trayvon Martin will be highlighted by a Skype message from Michael Sampson, a Dream Defender who occupied the State Capitol in Florida after the acquittal of George Zimmerman.

For more information on the dinner, go to www.StopFBI.net

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesStruggles #PeoplesThanksgiving #FreedomRoadSocialistOrganization #RasmeaOdeh #PoliticalRepression

The letter, which was sent to Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban 5, reads as follows:

Nov. 15, 2012

Thank you very much for your letter and for the solidarity with the Cuban 5. Because of the way my mail is handled here, your letter took a while to reach me, and most probably this one will reach you after “The Peoples Thanksgiving.” I express our solidarity with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Fight Back!, and the appreciation of the Cuban Five for their support to our struggle for justice.

After having learned that the U.S. government paid off journalists in Miami to influence the community before, during and after our trial, we filed a new appeal. The government opposed it and asked the judge to strike it from the record, so these days we are working on a response.

But besides the legal battle we are at a stage where the support of comrades like you is more important than ever, and we really appreciate every effort to break the wall of silence imposed on the case. We have no doubt that one day justice will prevail and we will return to Cuba.

Thank you very much for sending me the list of the activities carried out by our comrades in Chicago, and for keeping high the flag of freedom for the Cuban Five in that city.

I send our greetings and gratitude to Sarah and to all our friends there.

Hasta la Victoria Siempre!

Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo

The most famous U.S. political prisoner, Mumia Abu Jamal wrote of the Cuban 5 in 1998, “Five Cubans were imprisoned in Miami and charged with spying for Havana. In fact, the five were exposing terrorist acts by Cuban exiles in Miami against their homeland. When they saw plots against their nation, they reported back to their people what was happening. Cuba passed on reports to the U.S. government in a bid to stop the terrorism that has cost over 3400 Cuban lives since 1959. The U.S. responded to the reports by rounding up the five, charging them and treating them as spies. They have been convicted of charges related to their monitoring, and sentenced to terms of 15 years to life for defending their nation from terrorist attacks. Gerardo Hernandez, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez committed no acts against the United States, nor monitored any American secrets. They entered the Miami exile community and observed the planning of acts of terrorism against their nation of birth, and reported it. That is their ‘crime.’”

Amnesty International, the United Nations Human Rights Commission, 11 Nobel Prize winners, including Jimmy Carter, have protested the Cuban 5’s unjust incarceration in U.S. prisons. The Cuban 5 case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Obama administration asked the Court not to review the case, and it did not.

It is noteworthy that three of the Cuban 5, Rene Gonzalez, Fernando Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez, volunteered and fought in Angola in its struggle to liberate that country from the former South African apartheid army.

The struggle for the freedom of these 5 Cuban political prisoners has become a worldwide struggle. At a previous Peoples Thanksgiving we sent the Cuban 5, along with other political prisoners, letters in solidarity.

#ChicagoIL #Cuba #Cuban5 #PoliticalPrisoners #PeoplesThanksgiving #GerardoHernandez

Chicago, IL – The 20th Anniversary of People’s Thanksgiving was held here Dec. 1. Sponsored by Fight Back! newspaper, it included awards to a number of groups and individuals who had played prominent roles or waged big fights in Chicago this past year. 100 activists, including friends of Fight Back! and their families, gathered to celebrate what they are thankful for: another year of struggle and progress for the people. Together they raised almost $2000 to help publish Fight Back!.

Kait McIntyre, an activist with the Anti War Committee of Chicago and a member of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which publishes Fight Back!, reminded people of all the wars that the U.S. is waging – in Afghanistan and Iraq; interventions such as the funding of armed opponents of the government of Syria and the drone war in Pakistan; and the U.S. military, economic and political support for Israel’s occupation of Palestine and recent assault on Gaza. “Join us as we take on Chicago’s Boeing Corporation, the second largest arms merchant in the country, the second largest maker of drones, and the main weapons manufacturer that produces Israel’s air power,” she said.

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving

Sarah Chambers, Chicago Teachers Union. Sarah is a member of the CTU bargaining committee and was strike captain at Saucedo Academy where she teaches.

Pat Hunt, Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda. Pat was one of the initiators of the protests against NATO, a spokesperson for the coalition and one of the main leaders of the massive march to McCormick Place.

Magda Castaneda, Committee Against Political Repression. Magda played a leading role in rallying the Chicano community in Chicago in the victorious fight to defend Carlos Montes.

Warehouse Workers for Justice. An organizing committee of workers in Walmart and other multinational corporate warehouses who organized, fought the boss and won.

The event is a fundraiser for Fight Back!/¡Lucha y Resiste! newspaper. It will run from 4:00 – 8:00 p.m., with dinner at 5:00 pm, at Trinity Episcopal Church, 125 E. 26th Street. Tickets are $30, but only $5 for children and the unemployed.

Emcees for the night will be Hatem Abudayyeh of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and Kait McIntyre of the Anti War Committee in Chicago. Abudayyeh will speak about the recent victory by Palestinians in Gaza in their resistance to the murderous assault by the Israeli military. McIntyre will talk about the continued work of the Anti War Committee in opposing U.S. wars – wars in Afghanistan and Syria, the Drone War in Pakistan and the U.S.-backed assault on Gaza.

Joe Iosbaker, a Chicago leader of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, which helps to produce Fight Back!, said, “From the march on NATO to the teacher’s strike, this was another incredible year in Chicago.” In explaining the history of this event, he stated, “We started an alternative to the traditional Thanksgiving celebration 20 years ago on the 500th anniversary of the European conquest of the Americas. The leaders we are honoring – coming from the protest movements, union struggles and victories like Carlos Montes defeating the FBI and Los Angeles District Attorney attack on him – these are what we’re giving thanks for.”

Go to the People’s Thanksgiving Facebook page for tickets and more information: http://www.facebook.com/events/476580712373165/

#ChicagoIL #HatemAbudayyeh #PeoplesThanksgiving #CarlosMontes #FightBackNews

Chicago, IL – 125 people gathered on Dec. 3 here for the People’s Thanksgiving. Sarah Smith was one of them. “There are two anniversaries to make note of today,” Smith told the crowd. “One year ago, the FBI contacted me to tell me I was being subpoenaed to a grand jury.” Smith is one of the 24 anti-war and international solidarity activists targeted by the FBI.

“And tomorrow, Dec. 4, is the 42nd anniversary of the murder of Fred Hampton.” Hampton, the chair of the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, was murdered by the FBI and Chicago Police, along with another Panther, Mark Clark, in 1969.

Smith spoke on behalf of the Committee Against Political Repression (CAPR) , one of the groups honored at this annual event, which was sponsored by Fight Back! newspaper. CAPR’s award was named the “Big Bill Haywood Award: Opposing War is Not a Crime.” Haywood, a leader in the Industrial Workers of the World, was convicted of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I.

Over $1000 was raised for Fight Back! newspaper and another $1000 was raised for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, the national group that CAPR is a part of.

Also honored were Students for Justice in Palestine (the Steve Biko Award, named after the martyred student leader of the anti-apartheid struggle) and Mark Clements of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, honored for his role in the fight to save Troy Davis’ life. Clements spent 28 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, tortured into confessing by a racist Chicago cop.

Finally, Occupy Chicago received an award named for Chicago’s Lucy Parsons, whose husband was one of the Haymarket Martyrs and who helped lead the workers’ movement in Chicago for almost 70 years. The award quoted Parsons’ speech to the founding convention of the IWW in Chicago in 1905, when she said, “If anyone is to starve – let it be the capitalist class.” The award ended, “To Occupy Chicago – Who delivered to the 1% the message of the 99%.”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving #OccupyWallStreet

The fundraiser will feature a video appearance by Carlos Montes, a victim of FBI repression who has been targeted because of his years of political work.

The event will take place at Trinity Church, 125 E 26th St., between 4:00 to 8:00 pm. To RSVP, email joeiosbaker@gmail.com Click here to view leaflet for People’s Thanksgiving.

#ChicagoIL #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #CarlosMontes #PeoplesThanksgiving #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression #FightBackNews

Chicago, IL – The 19th annual People’s Thanksgiving, a fundraiser for Fight Back! newspaper, was held here Dec. 4. It was the largest ever, with over 200 in attendance, and raised an incredible $7000 for the defense of the 17 Midwest anti-war and solidarity activists under attack by the FBI.

The crowd was filled with workers and the oppressed from the front lines in Chicago, including Fearless Leading by the Youth, active in housing and other community struggles, and one of whose leaders, Damian Turner, died tragically this past summer. The group and Turner’s family pledged to continue his work for the people. Other groups honored were Warehouse Workers for Justice, who are following the spirit of the Republic Windows and Doors Workers with their effort to organize their industry; the Immigrant Youth Justice League, who helped re-ignite the immigrants rights movement this spring with their slogan, “Undocumented and unafraid;” the Caucus of Rank and File Educators, who have renewed the Chicago Teachers Union with their election and the Whittier Parent Committee, whose sit-in to demand a library for their children drew the attention of the entire country this fall.

The focus of the evening was the speeches by three of the 17 activists subpoenaed to appear before the Grand Jury. Sarah Smith, one of the three targeted by the FBI just the day before, told the story of how the FBI agent misled her, asking her to answer questions without a lawyer present. He told her she “…was not in any trouble and that they just had a few questions.” She only learned of the subpoena when a lawyer spoke to the FBI on her behalf.

As Hatem Abudayyeh – another subpoenaed person – spoke, his child and the child of another couple, Tom Burke and Caryl Sortwell, also targeted in the September raids, played on the stage behind him. Abudayyeh introduced Tracy Molm, one of the three women who was told she will have to appear in front of the Grand Jury. If they do not testify, Tracy Molm, Sarah Martin and Anh Pham could be jailed in Chicago soon.

Despite this, Tracy told the crowd, “I will not back down to the U.S., Zionist-supporting government. I will not apologize for my trip to Palestine.” Describing the young students who have rallied in her defense, she said, “My fears – that the raids and subpoenas would scare people newly joining the movement – have been totally baseless.”

When Tracy appealed to the room, “I ask you to stand up with me against this repression because I am doing it for the movements that we all stand for,” the entire room stood and pledged that they will be there, even at the door of the Metropolitan Correction Center in Chicago if necessary.

#MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #PeoplesThanksgiving #CommitteeToStopFBIRepression

Chicago, IL – A full house of supporters of Fight Back! newspaper chanted, talked and raised over $1500 Dec. 5 at the 18th Annual People’s Thanksgiving in Chicago.

Honored guests included Stan ‘Kwame’ Willis of Black People Against Police Torture. He spoke about the struggle against Mayor Daley’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. Students for Justice in Palestine, many of whom shut down the speech by war criminal and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the University of Chicago this fall, came from several colleges and universities.

Victorious strikers from University of Illinois-Urbana Graduate Employees Organization and members of Teamsters Local 743 from SK Hand Tools in Chicago rounded out the night. The SK Strikers were introduced by Armando Robles of the Republic Windows and Doors workers. Robles said, “One year ago tonight I stood in this room on the day we occupied our factory. Tonight we are honoring these fighters who continue making history.”

#ChicagoIL #PeoplesThanksgiving #FightBack