This year’s American Public Health Association’s annual meeting was in Minneapolis, the city that burned a police station over the murder of George Floyd. Progressive Labor Party members led rallies outside and inside the convention center to protest the APHA leadership’s unwillingness to entertain a sharper statement against genocide (See page ). This was a continuation of our fights against state violence that included a sharp position paper on police violence as a public health issue that passed in 2018 after three years of persistent struggle with APHA leaders. Of course they were glad to have such a position when George Floyd was killed in 2020 and this year we visited George Floyd Square.

This is a true memorial to his murder and the murders of so many others at the hands of the police which impacts families and communities. Party members and friends saw revolutionary art in real life here. Murals, flower beds, poetry, a “Say Their Names” cemetery and over two blocks of names in the street leading up to the central display. A community “tourist interrupter” shared the history of the neighborhood which had been ignored by city services including trash collection and medical emergency vehicles. Later at the conference we learned of an inspiring 10 year struggle by tenants nearby in  East Phillips to displace landlords and gain their own building. The reminder of the ceaseless murders by police in the U.S., the role of Israeli police training U.S. police and the ongoing genocide in Gaza sharpened our struggle against racism. At the conference we kept up the pace and distributed 900 APHA CHALLENGE fliers calling out the APHA for supporting genocide and met many public health workers also willing to join the fight. More work to do!