LOS ANGELES, September 20—”I found the summer project so inspiring! I just wanted to find a way to do that stuff back home in LA too.” This is the sentiment that brought five new young people to our monthly Flores family action against police murder. After nearly three years of activity in the South Central neighborhood, the added burst of new, young energy reinvigorated the struggle.

On November 19, 2019, the LAPD shot and murdered Alex, 34 years old, near South Central Avenue and East 28th Street. Through this antiracist work led by mainly women workers, more people understand the true role of the police in a capitalist society and see PLP as leading the fight against their murders.

Canvass for Alex
The Flores family remains courageous and hasn’t allowed their fight to diminish the two and a half years since Alex Flores was murdered. PLP has worked alongside the family and made it clear that our support is not going anywhere. This strong working class unity has empowered the community to be relentless against police terror.

This month’s action was neighborhood canvassing. In three large groups we went door to door on the blocks where Alex Flores grew up and where his parents still reside. Many knew Alex or heard of his story. Of course, many residents had their own experiences with police harassment, brutality, or murder. This is why we built a concentration in this neighborhood among the most oppressed sections of our class. They have the most to gain from overthrowing this rotten system.

A member of the Flores family has been meeting regularly with a Party club for about a year and has taken more of a leading role in organizing other impacted families in anticapitalist struggles. As we canvassed, she actively gave out CHALLENGE to her neighbors, demonstrating to participants in the mass organization her commitment to getting out Progressive Labor Party's ideas.

What you do counts
Our consistent efforts are starting to bear fruit. At one of the doors we knocked on, a Latin worker recognized CHALLENGE from our monthly events and signed up for a subscription. The young students who attended our summer project organized others in their base to join us in this month’s effort. One of their base members who joined is, in fact, a college student at an east coast campus who happens to be good friends with a base member of a PLP campus leader there as well. Our small effort and modest impact is stretching coast-to-coast! We still have a lot of work to do in the consolidation process with the new people around us, but our future is certainly bright. Power to the working class!