CHICAGO, October 14—“FREE MOHAWK! FREE THEM ALL!” This militant chant and others were taken up by at least two dozen antiracist fighters outside the Leighton Criminal Courthouse/Cook County Jail this morning. We stand in unshakeable support for local Black artist and activist Jeremey “Mohawk” Johnson who was scheduled for a hearing in the capitalist bosses’ racist kkkourts today. The campaign to free Mohawk demonstrates the power of working class unity and the necessity of smashing the bosses’ racist state. Mohawk was arrested during an antiracist, anti-kkkop protest in downtown Chicago on August 15. After the klan-in-blue corralled and viciously attacked demonstrators, he was caught up in the fray. Even after posting bail, he was still held for days in jail before being released on house arrest with an ankle monitor.
The notoriously racist Chicago Police Department (CPD) released his mug shot and personal information—including his home address—to the public, which has led to death threats and racist assaults on his character. But despite facing down this capitalist state violence, Mohawk is holding strong, grounded in his own convictions and growing mass support. The international communist Progressive Labor Party (PLP) is fighting to help build the campaign in support of Mohawk. There’s no shortage of examples of how racist capitalism and its courts and cops attack and murder our class, particularly Black workers worldwide. It will take a mass worker-led movement fighting for communist revolution in order to crush racism and capitalism, and truly achieve justice and liberation for the international working class.
Getting to know Mohawk
Although the kkkops and the capitalist media have painted him as a “monster,” anyone who spends a moment in his presence knows that Mohawk is anything but. Among his many friends, family, fans and supporters he is known for his exceptional talents as an artist/rapper as well as being a funny and caring individual.
Mohawk was raised in an environment committed to fighting against racist structures, having had a number of relatives involved in working-class struggles. These interactions have influenced his antiracist worldview, and largely are what led him to be present at the protest on that fateful day in August.
During a recent virtual conversation with several PLP members Mohawk shared many statements of antiracist wisdom over a range of subjects concerning racist inequalities and over-policing in Chicago neighborhoods: “I think there’s a lot of money we need for schools. I think there’s a lot of money we need for roads, a lot of money we need for mental health institutions and hospitals and access to food and access to housing. If we were to address those core needs within our neighborhoods and environments, crime would probably drop significantly… They have better schools, they don’t have food deserts or stuff like that, so if we can get every neighborhood in Chicago to be like that, crime would go down and then the necessity for police.”
On the racist priority of property over workers’ lives under capitalism: “It’s a scary day when you turn on the TV and Target is getting more sympathy for a broken window than hundreds of Black people being murdered on camera… It’s just a harrowing thought to come face-to-face with the realization that I don’t matter as much as the Nordstrom window.”
Regarding what drives him to fight back, “You just have to see something wrong and go,...I’m not gonna let that happen... and then do the best you can with the best you have. That’s it.”
Building the mass antiracist campaign
The mass student and worker-led support in defense of Mohawk has been amazing. Immediately after learning of his arrest, friends and supporters jumped to social media and other outlets to organize court support and fundraising events.
For every day that he has been scheduled for a court hearing, there have been dozens of supporters protesting outside. At the beginning of this month, friends organized a “Freedom Ride” downtown where people rode bicycles and skateboards to Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx’s,  a Black woman politician elected in 2016, office to demand that she drop the racist charges. A 24-hour virtual fundraiser on his behalf drew local artists and even more support.
Members of PLP have helped contribute to a number of these actions, helping to lead chants, give speeches against this racist system, and distribute CHALLENGE newspaper. Some friends and supporters have since committed to CHALLENGE reading groups where we work to connect Mohawk’s fight for justice to the need to tear down this entire racist, sexist profit system and replace it with an egalitarian communist society based on workers’ development and needs.
The masses make history
Although Mohawk has received significant support so far, we can’t sugarcoat the danger of the bosses and their system, or the hard battle that lies ahead. Just by standing outside Cook County Jail, we’re forced to think of all the incarcerated workers, mostly Black and Latin, detained inside risking exposure to coronavirus and other racist attacks.
In the 1930s, when nine Black youth from Scottsboro, Alabama faced execution for fake charges of raping two white women, it was a communist-led mass movement of millions that forced the bosses to retreat. More recently, it was the mass movement of thousands here in Chicago and across the country that forced the arrest and conviction of racist killer cop Jason Van Dyke after he murdered Black teen Laquan McDonald on video in 2014.
This is to say: it’s the militant mass movement of millions of workers and students that truly holds the potential to force change, not confidence in the bosses’ legal system or politicians. PLP will continue to build the mass movement wherever we are, fighting for working-class justice and communist revolution. Free Mohawk! Join PLP!
To support this antiracist campaign, go to https://linktr.ee/FreeMohawk