Corbin, KY, Sep 26, 2026 - Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends, including Chicago PL’ers, attended Corbin PRIDE. Local comrades had deep relationships with the organizers, and, weeks prior, circulated CHALLENGE on the Party’s Klan-smashing history. PL’ers distributed 60 flyers, dozens of CHALLENGE, and made more than 20 new contacts interested in building an antiracist committee.

Why Corbin?

Corbin has a deep history of racist terror. Fighting it is central for PLP. In the ‘Red Summer’ of 1919, a white mob drove nearly all of Corbin’s Black population out at gunpoint onto southbound trains. The town became a sundown town whose legacy carries on today. The KKK remained active here, including in local government.

But there’s a growing “progressive” presence, including our comrade who organized Pride. Queer-worker-led groups are popping up across Southeastern Kentucky to fight the reactionary politics gripping the region. But they remain limited, focused only on identity issues and tied to local Democrats.

Our comrade hopes PRIDE can introduce communist ideas to workers. Many queer, women, and trans workers we met work industrial jobs—they can break the alliance between white workers and chauvinist racist culture. They deserve communist ideas!

Why communists showed up

Corbin PRIDE was nearly cancelled after volunteers dropped out over Klan threats. That threat was real: in 2023, two Klan members harassed a Corbin trans rights rally. They flashed cards and shouted slurs. When a demonstrator slapped a card away, the Klansman pulled a gun. KKKops returned the gun, let them walk, and told queer workers they needed a permit. Workers didn’t back down. They showed up armed next time! This year, PLP and community workers made sure PRIDE continued. Chicago comrades came down specifically to fight the threats. In the end, KKKowards never showed up.

We showed up because ALL workers deserve to rally in peace. Racist terror isn’t defeated by waiting on the bosses’ “justice;” It’s smashed by multiracial working-class power. The KKKourts & KKKlan go hand in hand! Communism, abolishing the system that produces the terror, can make that peace permanent!

Chicago comrades make cross-border fightback a success!

One Chicago comrade worked in Beijing and connected our fight against racist lawyer-landlords to the Chinese peasantry’s struggle. “These ruthless slumlords ran their racket with a smirk. They raised rents while tenants lacked savings, lawyers, and a way out. But like peasants in the Chinese countryside, they found their power…the smirk disappeared!” Chicago comrades toured the rail depot where Black workers were sent off, linking Corbin’s history to Chicago’s 1919 Red Summer expulsions.

Racist past and communist future

Our flyer traced Corbin’s 1919 expulsion to today. The same inter-imperialist war, competition, and class struggle that define our moment also shaped 1919. Black workers fled Jim Crow to fill Northern industry’s labor demand, and bosses used racism to divide workers whose victory required fighting side by side. Now those contradictions produce ICE ethnic cleansing, world war, and fascist attacks on LGBT events.

The flyer linked “spontaneous” racial violence to eventual organized Klan fascism, which attacks all workers’ organizations, scapegoating Black workers to achieve this. We contrasted this with Appalachia’s fighting history in Matewan, Blair Mountain, and Harlan County. We explained communism as the only solution: workers of all races, nations, and identities uniting against their exploitation.

One system, many targets

A KY PLer’s speech linked housing, unemployment, food, opiates, and police/Klan/ICE terror as one system attacking different local and international targets. It traced slave catchers who became police to unaccountable raids on Doug Harless and Breonna Taylor. It showed how each crisis lands hardest on Black, queer, trans, and immigrant workers. We named those communists who’ve always led the fightback, and proposed the Corbin Committee Against Racism as the working-class solution for the abolition of the system that produces these crises!

“We need it!”

One moment in the speech: “From Palestine to Mexico, f– their borders, f– their walls!” -met the widest applause of all.
Locals came up wanting to know more about 1919 and how to fight racism in Corbin. A young medic working security thanked us, saying our work globally was making a difference.

We faced no hostility, and met many workers we’ve had in our base. The most common response to our goal of forming the committee: “We need it!”

All in all, over a whole page of contacts not only embraced but shaped it, naming what issues it should fight against: surveillance, wage inequality, bigotry, transportation, and more!

The Party after the party: building ties, deepening the struggle

After Pride, we joined friends and contacts at a local Mexican restaurant and had a deep discussion about communist politics with a factory worker.

The next morning, we met with comrades who couldn’t make Pride and some who did. Some met Chicago PLers for the first time, strengthening Party ties. A comrade from an addiction recovery group, who we’d encouraged to come to Pride, joined us and connected Kentucky conditions to those in Chicago. We spoke with one comrade’s contacts in China over the phone, singing red songs, inspiring Chinese students unsure about American workers’ revolutionary potential. We plan to extend this to workers and revolutionary organizers in India.

As a comrade said, “These Pride rallies give us an opportunity to go all over the state- building the Party and schools for communism across Kentucky, essential for multi-racial working-class unity and revolution!”