El Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. fue un icono del movimiento por los derechos civiles. Forjado en el fuego del terror racial, surgió de la brutal era Jim Crow como un guardián de luchadores por la libertad, cuyas contribuciones fueron hechas evidentes por sus actividades a través de su vida.

Jesse Jackson siguió los pasos de Fannie Lou Hamer y el Partido Demócrata por la Libertad de Mississippi, que luchó para tomar al Partido Demócrata fuera de las garras del control Dixiecrat basado en el desapoderamiento del pueblo negro en el Cinturón Negro del sur. El Rev. Jackson construyó sobre esa fundación y presionó por más reformas, que trataban sobre cuestiones de igualdad, incluyendo trabajos y vivienda para el pueblo negro.

Sus campañas por la nominación presidencial Demócrata en 1984 y 1988 electrificaron una generación de progresistas. Arrasó en el sur en 1988, ganando en Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Carolina del Sur, Carolina del Norte, y el Distrito de Columbia, amplificando el poder de las aspiraciones de un pueblo oprimido por el poder político y la democracia. Trajo al pueblo negro a la corriente principal de la política burguesa, contribuyendo a una ola de candidatos negros en campañas electorales. Los marxistas-leninistas apoyaron las campañas de Jackson, reconociéndolas como una expresión de los sentimientos democráticos de un movimiento nacional afroamericano.

El Rev. Jackson tomó una posición justa en asuntos domésticos e internacionales. Promovió la campaña por la desinversión en Sudáfrica y se opuso a la intervención de EE.UU en Nicaragua, Irán, y la Guerra del Golfo. Fue el primer líder nacional negro en abordar la cuestión del Estado Palestino y desinversión anti-apartheid de una manera valiente durante su campaña.

Una figura monumental del movimiento por los derechos civiles, él es el último de los líderes surgidos de la Conferencia de Liderazgo Cristiano del Sur de los 1960s, emergiendo directamente del movimiento de Martin Luther King Jr. El impulso de sus campañas llevó adelante la lucha por el poder político negro, un componente de la liberación negra. Extendemos nuestras condolencias a su esposa Jackie y a toda su familia. Su legado nos recuerda que la lucha por la libertad es constante.

#Opinion #Remembrances #AfricanAmerican #OppressedNationalities #JessieJackson

Milwaukee, WI – On Tuesday, February 3, the people’s struggle in Milwaukee lost one of their strongest comrades, Nada Moubarak, aged 24.

Moubarak was a leader in the Students for Democratic Society (SDS) chapter at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (UWM,) the Popular University for Palestine Coalition, Coalition to March in the RNC 2024, and chair of the Medic Subcommittee in the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (MAARPR).

Moubarak first began organizing in the movement to free Palestine shortly after the events of October 7, 2023 with SDS – UWM. It took little to no time for her to become a fierce leader in the movement. She became the security chair of SDS-UWM and eventually served as its secretary. Moubarak, along with her comrades in SDS, served as a pivotal leader in the successful 14-day encampment at the Falesteen Lawn at UWM. Moubarak was pursuing a nursing degree, utilizing her expertise in healthcare to support the movements in Milwaukee.

Shortly after, Moubarak was approached by the leadership of the Coalition to March on the RNC 2024 to help the security detail of the Coalition. With her expertise in healthcare, she led the medical team with great care and attention to detail – all medical-related incidents on the 95-degree day were handled effectively. The medic team for the Coalition was nothing short of a great success.

Before graduation, Moubarak officially joined MAARPR and was appointed to the medic subcommittee. As a result of her appointment, she held multiple trainings for Stop the Bleed and two-day street medic trainings. Moubarak’s vision for the subcommittee was to establish a group of street medics for organizations in Milwaukee to call upon for their respective actions. This dream will be fulfilled in due time.

Moubarak is survived by her parents, siblings, nieces, nephews and her comrades. Let us best remember Nada Moubarak by carrying on her passion and heart that she put into everything she did. Until Palestine is free, until we win community control of the police, until we meet again!

#MilwaukeeWI #WI #Remembrances #Opinion

Carlos Montes, a member of the Central Committee of Freedom Road Socialist Organization stated, Assata Shakur was a softspoken, warm friendly mujer! We met in Cuba, in 1996, while on a trip with Global Exchanges led by Medea Benjamin. We talked about the importance of unity of Chicano and Black liberation struggles, and how Cuba was really building a revolution and protecting her from U.S. state repression. She knew about the Chicano movement.”

#InJusticeSystem #AssataShakur #Opinion #Remembrances

Assata Shakur was a fighter for freedom and an icon of the Black liberation movement. She came of age during the struggles of the 1960s and 70s, and everything that was good and powerful about that time, Assata embodied. The deep understanding that a better world is possible, and most importantly, the conviction to never give up. Never surrender.

Assata began as someone searching and questioning why life was so hard for Black people in the U.S. Over time, through her experiences in the streets and her study of revolutionary movements in Africa and the Caribbean, she became a Marxist. She came to understand capitalism was at the bottom of the problem and committed herself to the fight to pull it up from the root.

This clarity made her dangerous in the eyes of the U.S. government. Assata was a member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. For that, she was targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program, which spied on, framed and tried to destroy Black activists. She was harassed, hunted and finally captured after a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973. Evidence against her was thin but she was convicted anyway and locked away. The government wanted to make an example out of her to show what happens when Black women dare to fight back.

But Assata refused to be broken. In 1979, she made a daring escape from prison. Socialist Cuba wrapped its arms around her and protected her. She lived out her years with dignity, surrounded by friendship and love.

Assata’s life was not easy. She paid a heavy price for her steadfastness: years in prison, exile and separation from her family. But she made the choice to stand on the side of liberation.

Assata is alive in the struggle for liberation for all oppressed people today. At the end of many demonstrations around the world, people still gather to raise their voices in her words: “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” She is alive wherever people resist oppression and refuse to bow down to the existing order of things. She is alive in the fight for a better world.

She showed us what it means to be unbroken, and because of her, we know that the struggle for liberation cannot be stopped.

Assata Shakur teaches, inspires and lives always, in the fight for freedom.

#FRSO #Statement #Remembrances #RevolutionaryTheory #OppressedNationalities #AfricanAmerican #AssataShakur

To: Communist Party of the Philippines, National Democratic Front of the Philippines

From: Freedom Road Socialist Organization

The memory and contributions of Ka Louie Jalandoni will live forever!

Dear Comrades,

It is with great sadness that we learned of the passing of Ka Louie Jalandoni, an outstanding revolutionary who made great contributions to the struggle to end exploitation and oppression. We extend our condolences to his comrades, family and friends. Ka Louie was known throughout the world for his integrity, commitment and intelligence. He will be missed by many.

Ka Louie worked tirelessly to strengthen the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, and he achieved much during that effort. He was a living example of what it means in the real world to serve the people. All of us can learn from his cheerful tenacity as he carried out his work.

The leadership and members of Freedom Road Socialist Organization appreciate Ka Louie’s keen interest in the progress our organization has made inside the United States, and in him we found a genuine comrade and friend. He was a living example of what proletarian internationalism means in practice. The people of the Philippines and the people of the U.S. share a common enemy in U.S. imperialism.

The revolution in the Philippines has produced a host of leaders who have made great contributions to the struggle to liberate all of humanity, and the Communist Party of the Philippines has done much to advance the fight for national and social liberation. Revolutionary leaders, like Ka Louie, are respected wherever communists are found fighting for a new world.

At this difficult moment, we share the grief of all comrades in the national democratic movement of the Philippines. And we will always cherish the memory and contributions of Ka Louie.

With communist greetings,

Mick Kelly

For the Standing Committee of the Central Committee,

Freedom Road Socialist Organization

#International #Philippines #Opinion #Remembrances #FRSO #Statement #CPP #NDF

“I'm a person that comes from the left, comes from a humanist way of thinking. So, my photography couldn't be separate from that. It couldn't not serve those causes.” – Sebastião Salgado

Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, one of the most important and well-known photographers in the world, died May 23 at the age of 81.

His stark images, mostly shot on film in black and white with high contrast and often with dramatic light, are unmistakable in their grandiosity and their ability to tell the stories of workers, oppressed people and of our planet’s majestic but distressed environment.

Salgado’s striking work on central issues of our times largely focused outside the margins of the core industrialized countries. In his book Workers (1993), Salgado documented the intense exploitation of workers engaged in manual labor in the developing world. In his collection Migration: Humanity in Transition (2000), he documented the realities of mass migration which have reached historic levels worldwide due to the ravages of imperialism, war and climate catastrophe. In Other Americas (1985) and An Uncertain Grace (1990), Salgado documented farmers, indigenous people and landscapes of remote regions of several Latin American and African countries. In his work Amazônia (2021), Salgado photographed the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and the indigenous people who live there. In Genesis (2014), Salgado spent eight years documenting parts of the Earth’s environment that have not yet been destroyed but are at risk from climate change.

After leaving Brazil in the late 1960s during the right-wing military dictatorship, Salgado spent decades traveling the Americas, Africa, Europe and the rest of the world. He spent months at a time documenting the people and the geography of some of the most oppressed peoples of the world, as well as some of the most incredible and endangered parts of the Earth’s environment.

When Salgado returned to Brazil in the 1990s, he dug deep into the struggles of rural landless workers, the indigenous peoples of the Amazon rainforest, and the struggle to sustain the rainforest itself in the face of international capital ravaging what are referred to as “the lungs of the Earth.”

Salgado didn’t just take photos; he and his wife Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado started an organization called Instituto Terra dedicated to reversing environmental damage in Brazil. Instituto Terra educated people on the importance of the Amazon and has planted more than 3 million trees.

Salgado actively supported militant organizing among rural landless workers in Brazil. His passing was marked by Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (MST), which said, “It is with deep sadness that we received the news of the passing of Sebastião Salgado, one of the most important photographers in contemporary history. His passing is a huge loss to art, to human rights and to all who believe in the image as an instrument of social transformation. As a photographer he maintained a relationship of solidarity and support with the Landless Workers Movement, recognizing in the movement one of the most legitimate expressions of the struggle for social justice in Brazil...may his memory be alive in every image, in every portrait, in every fight that seeks justice and humanity.”

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the Workers’ Party said, “His inconformity with the fact that the world is so unequal and his obstinate talent in portraying the reality of the oppressed always served as a wake-up call for the conscience of all humanity. Salgado not only used his eyes and his camera to portray people: he also used the fullness of his soul and his heart. For this very reason, his work will continue to be a cry for solidarity.”

In a 2024 interview with Geographical, Salgado said, “Each photographer works with his own ideology, his history, his heritage. I can’t say my work is because I’m an ‘activist’ or that I want to show the plight of people being exploited. Of course, I’m a guy from the left – I’m a leftist. I was working in these places because I am part of a society that needs to see what is happening on our planet. But I grew up in a Third World country. I see the injustice that we have on this planet. I have a big hope that we can have a better way to live, a better situation for the health of our planet, and better social protection for everyone on this planet.”

Around a decade ago I had the privilege to see the exhibition of his work Genesis at the International Center of Photography in New York City. Seeing his stunning landscapes and portraits printed in huge displays was an unforgettable experience. His photos were breathtaking. He helped us truly see the reality that is barely considered by those in power – the backbreaking manual labor done by millions, the peoples displaced or eliminated, and the environment ravaged – all so a small class of rich people can accumulate more profit.

While Sebastião Salgado has passed on, his vast trove of powerful images will continue to inspire people to fight for social and ecological justice.

#Remembrances #SebastiãoSalgado #photography #Brazil #LandlessWorkersMovement #MST

El 10 de abril se cumple un año del fallecimiento de Florentina Pérez Calderón, defensora del internacionalismo, férrea defensora de la Revolución Popular Sandinista y una querida líder de la comunidad campesina de El Lagartillo, Nicaragua. Con su tenacidad y sacrificio, Tina (como la conocían quienes la amaban) dejó un ejemplo de vida para quienes luchamos por la revolución y la liberación.

Tina nació el 20 de junio de 1948 y creció en las montañas del norte de Nicaragua, la región donde Augusto César Sandino y su ejército campesino habían librado una guerra de guerrillas contra Estados Unidos unas dos décadas antes. Su infancia y las experiencias de su familia reflejaron la extrema pobreza, la falta de atención médica y el sistema educativo deficiente que padecieron los campesinos nicaragüenses bajo la dictadura de Somoza, apoyada por Estados Unidos. Cuando tenía un año, Tina cayó en un horno de procesamiento de caña de azúcar, quemándose los pies y apenas sobreviviendo. Debido a este accidente, sería la única niña de la familia que tendría zapatos. Al igual que sus padres, no pudo asistir a la escuela y fue analfabeta durante su juventud.

A los 15 años, Tina conoció a José Ángel Pérez, su “compañero de vida”. En 1963, la pareja se casó y al año siguiente tuvieron su primera hija, María Zunilda, quien contrajo polio a los dos años y medio. María Zunilda sobrevivió, pero quedó con una discapacidad en una pierna de por vida. Su segundo hijo, Osmar, falleció por una sobredosis de anestesia a los 6 años. Tras el nacimiento de María Zunilda y Osmar, Tina y José Ángel tuvieron cuatro hijos más: José María (o Chema), Osmar (nombrado en honor a su hermano mayor fallecido), Julia Marina y Aracely de la Concepción. En total, Tina también sufrió cinco abortos espontáneos.

Las vidas de la familia Pérez, de otros campesinos, trabajadores y estudiantes de toda Nicaragua comenzaron a cambiar a finales de la década de 1970. Por supuesto, esta revolución fue obra suya. José Ángel comenzó a asistir a talleres de concientización impartidos por un joven sacerdote llamado Gustavo Martínez en Achuapa, el pueblo más cercano a su aldea. Le contaba a Tina lo que había aprendido sobre Carlos Fonseca y el Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). Antes de estas conversaciones con Martínez, Tina y su familia habían sido persuadidos por las emisiones de radio propiedad de Somoza, que les habían enseñado que el FSLN “eran muy malos, enviados desde Cuba, donde comían niños y mataban a los ancianos”. Pronto, los Muchachos, como los campesinos llamaban a los jóvenes guerrilleros del FSLN, se adentraron más en las montañas e identificaron a la familia Pérez como posibles colaboradores. Ante la creciente represión de la Guardia Somocista, Tina y José Ángel tomaron la arriesgada decisión de apoyar al FSLN y luchar por la liberación de Nicaragua.

Al principio, Tina enviaba comida o preparaba café para los Muchachos, con cuidado de limpiar inmediatamente las colillas para que la Guardia no sospechara de las alianzas de la familia Pérez. Con la dictadura de Somoza luchando por su supervivencia, la Guardia realizó limpiezas para torturar y, a menudo, asesinar a simpatizantes del FSLN. Después, Tina y José Ángel confeccionaron brazaletes para los guerrilleros con tela negra y roja, un claro símbolo de compromiso revolucionario si la Guardia los hubiera descubierto. La casa de los Pérez se convirtió en un refugio para los Muchachos mientras lanzaban ataques contra la Guardia por las montañas y pueblos de la región.

Los sacrificios y riesgos asumidos por campesinos, trabajadores y guerrilleros en toda Nicaragua dieron sus frutos el 17 de julio de 1979, cuando Anastasio “Tachito” Somoza Debayle, el tercer miembro de su despótica familia en gobernar Nicaragua, huyó del país. Dos días después, los sandinistas tomaron Managua y comenzaron a construir un gobierno soberano, un estado que realmente beneficiaría al pueblo nicaragüense. Tina y su familia se dedicaron a la creación de una nueva Nicaragua.

En su biografía, Tina señaló que la Campaña Nacional de Alfabetización de 1980 fue particularmente importante para los campesinos. Casi 60.000 estudiantes de secundaria y universitarios, 30.000 adultos y equipos de maestros cubanos se desplegaron por el campo y barrios urbanos previamente desatendidos para fomentar la alfabetización y la conciencia política de los nicaragüenses comunes. Ismael Fernández, un educador cubano, se quedó con la familia Pérez y les enseñó mientras