Category Archives: United Front

It’s About Protecting, Defending & It’s Time to Build Black Working Class Organizations

NOT VOTING IS A VOTE FOR TRUMP

NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR A PROTEST VOTE

BWFJ Editorial

Now is not the time for a protest vote that does not protect and defend Black, Brown, women’s, and working-class Immediate and long-term interests. Now is not the time for theoretical arguments disconnected from practices that don’t serve to immediately protect and better position Black and Brown women and workers to build independent fighting organizations.

Our people are in immediate danger from a right-wing movement that has existed long before but is now represented by Donald Trump. Freedom fighters and labor activists must build and evaluate a strategy to protect, defend, build, and position our people to better survive and fight in our own interests.

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump represent two arguing wings of the ruling class: Harris, the Warmongers, but American Patriots, who see capitalism best served by the US political system, the US Constitution, etc.

Trump represents the rabid right wing of that same ruling class that, as of now, controls or strongly influences the US Supreme Court down to county commissions (the seat of power in many parts of the South). It, as we saw Jan.6, also has those outside the so-called legal system: the 21st century KKK: Proud Boys, militias, 3%’ers, Oathkeepers, etc. who are well-armed, well-financed, well-connected, and well-trained, who’ve been practicing since well before now. With its international connections and technocrats like Elon Musk, this wing wants to do away with anything standing in its way to maximum profits, i.e., workers’ rights, right to assembly, free speech, health, environmental regulations, the so-called “social safety net,” It will not hesitate to unleash these 21st-century yahoos who have been psyched against immigrants, Black folks, Brown, Muslim, LGBTQ, and importantly, anyone who has spoken out against US policy. ,

THE BLACK WORKING CLASS RECOGNIZES FASCISM:

FROM THE KKK TO ZIONISM:

The Ku Klux Klan and other slave patrols were used to enforce the BLACK CODES to ensure the political subjugation and economic super-exploitation of the formerly enslaved Africans and the genocide and stealing of Indigenous people’s lands. At every level of government, state, local, and federal governments, the political persecution from Garvey to the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) is the governmental fascism Black folks have been living under since the 17th century Day. The latest has been the Uhuru 3, members of the African People’s Socialist Party, prosecuted for speaking in favor of Russian policy over US policy on Ukraine.

As reps of the ruling class, the Democrats and Republicans, Harris and Trump, are Both pledged to support Israel. Because of Israel’s strategic position representing US & European capitalism in that oil-rich region, US imperialism will never abandon Israel—no Matter Who Is In the White House. The only reason Trump is not an active warmonger today is that he is not in office. Donald Trump set up the Abrahamic Accords, rubber-stamped East Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and the denial of a Palestinian state.

WE ARE ALL TARGETS IN CLEAR, IMMEDIATE & PRESENT DANGER

In fact, we know exactly who Trump is and what Donald will do.

—expand bans on abortion, contraception, IVF & reproductive rights;

—attack collective bargaining and union rights

— cut overtime and minimum wage protections

— cut Medicaid, Medicare & Social Security;

— cut food stamps and free school lunches

— reinstate the Muslim ban;

— deport millions of people from other countries, regardless of their status on paper.

— expansion of the 69 “cop cities” (highly funded, militarized, so-called police training facilities across the country.

— fire tens of thousands of federal employees who do not pledge loyalty to him.

— attack on all who challenge US policy as they ramp up attacks against Pro-Palestinian demonstrations.

Photo by Unseen Histories on Unsplash

WE MUST DO EVERYTHING TO STOP FASCISM’S FULL TAKEOVER OF THE STATE APPARATUS — THIS MEANS STOPPING TRUMP AT ALL COSTS.

Without Medicare, Medicaid, school lunches, and food stamps, our community will be destitute, and without organizing community infrastructure – NOW for our own protection, our people will be defenseless.

Without overtime, collective bargaining & union rights, minimum wages, workers, and so our community remains defenseless and destitute.

CONCENTRATE NOW ON LOCAL COMMUNITY INFRASTRUCTURE TO PROTECT & DEFEND:

Food, Security, Emergency Disaster Support. We Must Be Able to Defend Ourselves. What are fighting organizations? Community and workplace organizations are accountable to us as workers as a community, not either party or outside group.

WE NEED A UNITED FRONT AGAINST FASCISM NOW

We must speak and move for ourselves with a sober analysis, an immediate strategy, and a plan. Block, community, regional, and national organizations share information and techniques that unify, defend, and strengthen rather than divide.

LASTLY, LET’S LEARN & BUILD FROM OUR OWN HISTORY.

The Black Liberation Movement and the Labor Movement in the US have histories of independent politics. Since the 1980s, local North Carolina Black Workers For Justice raised a Black Workers’ Political Platform campaign by petitioning and supporting independent Black majority slates to govern local governments, including Whitakers, NC, Fremont, NC, and Jackson, Miss. Before that, Black Liberation/New Afrikan forces developed the Kush District plan in the Delta, Miss. Before that was the National Black Independent Political Party, which evolved from the historic 1972 National Black Political Assembly. Before that, the Lowndes County (Ala.) Freedom Party and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party of the 1960s and our history of Black assemblies formed developing anti-slavery strategies and tactics in the 1800s. Currently, there is the New Afrikan Independent Party.

What have been our strengths, mistakes, successes, and weaknesses?

What was successful in building independent political organizations and actions that are accountable to our people and move our struggles for self-determination and power forward? In 1996, More than 1500 labor activists came together to form a labor party in this country, which failed.

Trump’s NY Times full-page ad called for the execution of 5 Black and Latino teenagers, “even after” they were Exonerated. The Trump Campaign is trying to use a cynical strategy of divide and conquer against Black men and Black women. Black men against Black men. We must not allow this. While sexism exists within our community, we must struggle against that – but our well-being will only rise as a family and as a people.

NOT VOTING IS A VOTE FOR TRUMP

NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR A PROTEST VOTE

Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice Founder and Leader Joins the Ancestors

It is with great sadness and profound loss that we announce the passing of our exemplary revolutionary warrior and leader, Comrade Brother Saladin Muhammad. Saladin passed this morning after a long battle with illness. His wife, Naeema and son Muhammad were with him as he transitioned. He fought until the end. They described him as being at peace.Saladin on courthourse steps

Brother Saladin leaves an outstanding legacy of revolutionary commitment, leadership, consciousness, and direct organizing of our people’s struggle for liberation. He was a commander-in-chief of revolutionary forces throughout the Black Liberation Movement and a staunch fighter for the Black Working Class. He worked tirelessly and with phenomenal energy to organize, guide, and lead our people’s fights and battles against oppression. He was an internationalist, upholding the world-wide struggle against capitalism and imperialism. His intellect, insight and analysis was outstanding in the theory and practice of organizing class and revolutionary struggle and the tactics and strategy of social transformation, national liberation, and socialism for the African American people.

Saladin’s unmatched organizing skills led to the formation of the Black Workers for Justice, UE Local 150, and the Southern Workers Assembly, just to recognize only a few of his impactful accomplishments. And these organizational formations of the Black working class were built in the context of North Carolina, a state widely recognized for it’s anti-unionism and racist history and in the US South where the lack of a strong, progressive labor movement in the southeast region has been the Achilles heel of the US national labor movement. The struggle to build a “new trade unionism” in the US South must continue.

His leadership and guidance, upon which thousands around the country and the world relied, is irreplaceable and will be sorely missed by all of us. Saladin was active in the struggles for justice and liberation for more than 50 years.

Saladin Muhammad, PRESENTE!!!

The Executive Committee,Black Workers for Justice

National Reparations Day!Reparations Now!

National Reparations Day! Reparations Now!

In August we commemorate Black August to honor Black Freedom Fighters and Black Resistance. This year, in addition to lifting up those fighters killed by the state and our political prisoners, we focus on a key demand of our movement, Reparations.

On August 15, thousands across the US, with support from allies in the Caribbean, Africa and Europe will participate in National Reparations Day. The Day was called by the December 12^th Movement to recognize two critical events in our just struggle to be made whole from the damage and destruction of slavery. In 2001 at the World Conference Against Racism the delegates declared that the Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade and slavery were crimes against humanity. The second marker was the August 17, 2002 Millions for Reparations National Rally held in Washington, D.C. the 117^th anniversary of the birth of Marcus Garvey.

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“And Still We Rise”

On Saturday, August 31, 2019 more than 100 activists from across North Carolina — especially from the eastern area — marched in Greenville to condemn the policies and direction of the Trump administration and in solidarity with the four newly elected congress- women (2018) under attack by the Trump regime.

In a statement published by the organizers in the weeks preceding the march and rally, the reasons for the call to action were outlined, “The Sexual Predator on Pennsylvania Avenue in his recent vicious attacks on “The Squad”: Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib, told these women of color to ‘go back to their crime-infested countries’ . All of these women are American citizens. All of these women are proud of their heritage and work for their respective communities. All of these women are being attacked because they fight for the working class, challenge white supremacy and patriarchy and because they are women. They dare to be women who have political convictions around their support of Palestine, their support of Venezuela, and their denunciation of border camps.”

Greenville, North Carolina was also the site for a Trump Campaign Rally in July this year where screaming Trump supporters yelled “send her back”, specifically targeting Ilhan Omar, a Somali native and American citizen newly elected to Congress along with hundreds of others in the 2018 Congressional election.

The Call for the March and Rally also commemorated the historic lynching of 14 year old Emmett Till who was murdered by white supremacists in Money, Mississippi on August 28, 1955. Emmett Till’s heinous and vicious murder was a catalyst for the emerging civil rights movement of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

The solidarity march and rally was organized by a coalition of activists and organizations in North Carolina including the Black Workers for Justice Women’s Commission; the Greenville NC Coalition Against Racism; the Racial Justice Group, Rocky Mount, NC; the Spirit House of Durham, NC; Muslims for Social Justice; Compeneras Compesinas of Raleigh, NC; Action NC Rage; the North Carolina Black Women’s Roundtable; Movement to End Racism and Islamophobia; and many others.

More than 70 women of color, leaders, and activists nation-wide signed on and endorsed the Call to Action, March, and Rally.

For more information, questions, or comments email: bwfjwc@gmail.com or call (919) 749–1692

White Nationalist Terror Attacks and the Black Community

The shootings and killings at the Mother Bethel AME Church in Charleston, SC, at the Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA and the recent shootings in Texas and Ohio among others, are terrorist acts by racist white nationalists. We must be concerned and prepared for this repressive political climate.

Black, Latinx and Indigenous peoples should be very concerned about white nationalist terrorism because we are targeted as non-white communities and populations, blaming us for the economic and social crisis facing the millions of people across the US.

Racist white nationalism has continued following the Civil War and has been looking for opportunities to emerge as a national movement to unite the various racist tendencies and groups. They are hoping to influence the direction of the white working-class. This included intimidating them to silence any support for demands of Black and other oppressed sections of US society.

The police killings of Black and Brown people and the mass incarceration has been a major factor in criminalizing Black people, turning us into the crime source and describing immigration of Latinx and African descendants as an invasion into the US.

The Obama administration inherited and continued the economic and international policies of previous administrations without major changes. However, as a Black man in the highest office of the land his presence provided an opportunity for the emerging racist white nationalism.

The Tea Party and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) began implementing a corporate financed and driven strategy to take over state governments. and formed a Tea Party Caucus in the Republican Party to further consolidate the most reactionary sections of the US ruling-class influence and control of US imperialist state power. These state governments used gerrymandering, forms of voter suppression, cut vital social programs and passed laws that reduced legal options for challenging corporations that violate workplace health and safety and community environmental justice conditions. The Trump Labor Board is establishing policies that not only place restrictions on unions, it is attacking the very right of workers to use concerted actions to engage in repeated strikes against employer injustices.

Trump took the political changes made by the Tea Party and previous administrations and added the racist rhetoric targeting any semblance of Black political power and Black resistance to the capitalist crises. His birther campaign claiming that Obama was not American born was an opening shot of his racist white nationalist campaign.

When Trump became president, he provided a platform for the emergence of racist white nationalism as his social and political base and a fascist social movement. Some of Trumps initial cabinet appointments and aides, were fascist who helped to shape his presidential campaign and first term in office.

Over the years since the Civil War various white supremacists groups have formed. Most were armed and they had some divisions among themselves on how to establish white political, economic and cultural power. White nationalism became a framework for uniting the various white supremacist tendencies under the Trump slogan of Make America Great Again (MAGA) and his continuing racist attacks on Black and Brown people.

Trump’s presence in the white house helps to further promote this racist and fascist white nationalism. Demanding the impeachment of Trump before the 2020 presidential elections is critical for the Black and other oppressed peoples. Impeach Trump Now! should be our political mantra to put pressure on the Democratic Party. Defeating the fascist demagogues in the white house that give legitimacy to the rising and consolidation of white nationalism should be viewed as part of the struggle against rising US fascism.

This will not only have national significance it will have international significance. It will help to build national confidence among the Black masses, organize pressure on Black Congressional representatives and expose those not speaking out in favor of impeachment.

All major periods of struggle against the forces of oppression, must consider the state of the Black liberation movement and what they mean for unifying the various organizations toward resolving the fragmentation that stops us from becoming an organized and powerful force with strong bases in working-class areas to challenge critical aspects of capitalism and state power.

Racist white nationalist terrorism appears to be targeting social, religious and movement institutions. In the case of Walmart this is a location where the majority of working-class and poor people of color shop.

Community security is a must, including knowing who is entering our communities, religious and social institutions and political programs.

Every Black family should have a legal firearm they can use in their homes. There should be security at community meetings and at our social and religious institutions. Above all we need a united and strong Black liberation movement that aligns with other movements of the oppressed, including white working-class and poor people ready to oppose white nationalism.

We Need a Black United Front and Broad Peoples Front Against White Nationalism!