This article is a companion piece to Part I of our Boston ’75 series, published in the July 16th issue of CHALLENGE, which chronicled our struggle against the racist, fascist group Restore Our Alienated Rights (ROAR) in Boston during the summer of 1975. Here, we examine the virulent expansion of ROAR into New York City, in reaction to Black and Latin families moving into what was then a predominantly white, working-class neighborhood and PLP’s fightback to defeat the racists in the Morris Park section of the Bronx.

In Part I, titled Remember Boston ’75: Reds Busted Racists, we explored the roots of the fascist ROAR movement and decisive role played by the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) and the PLP-led International Committee Against Racism (INCAR), which organized a militant, multiracial movement that ultimately crushed ROAR’s efforts.

When Black workers are under attack, it is the duty of all workers and antiracists to stand up and fight back. Fifty years later, the fight against racist state sponsored violence is not over. Like the Black workers in Cincinnati militantly organizing against Neo-Nazis and multiracial groups of workers standing against ICE in L.A., Chicago, and Newark, to smash racist attacks and any far-right movement, we need Progressive Labor Party (PLP)— a mass internationalist communist party, committed to militant fightback and revolution. 

Racist Plague in Boston emboldens Racists New York City

In 1975, racists in New York were inspired by the racist group “ROAR” (“Restore Our Alienated Rights”) in Boston that opposed busing to end segregation in Boston’s public schools. This was a serious fascist, openly racist movement, and it had somewhat of a mass base. ROAR leaders were on the Boston City Council. The letters “ROAR” were pasted on the windows of the Boston municipal building and one of its organizers was on the Boston School Commission, leading the fight against integrating the public schools. Boston ROAR tried to organize nationwide.

PLP has a long history of fighting racism in the Bronx and Queens, New York City. In 1975 a few Black families had just begun moving into Morris Park, the Bronx, a working-class neighborhood, largely Italian and Irish. They were attacked by racists organized by the “Morris Park Association,” which claimed to represent the white residents of Morris Park. In fact, it was allied with the Mafia, an organized crime group headed by Vincent Basciano, alias “Vinny Gorgeous” after the beauty salon he ran that doubled as his front. (Basciano is now serving a life sentence for murder without possibility of parole in a federal prison).

There was plenty of crime in Morris Park – murder, gambling, racketeering, extortion – but it was largely ignored, either because the crime was committed by “whites” or from fear. The claims by the Morris Park Association that “minorities” were responsible were lies. There was plenty of crime already! As one resident put it, Morris Park “tolerated crime as long as the criminals looked familiar. That’s not community pride. That’s hypocrisy.”

When Black, Yemeni, Indian, and Dominican families started moving into Morris Park, the racist organizing began. One resident remembers: “When I was a kid in the 70s the Morris Park Association used to give out money to teens who would beat up ‘undesirable’ visitors … money was given and Black kids were beaten.”

Racists’ organizing in the Bronx is crushed by multiracial workers’ power

In the summer of 1975 ROAR expanded into New York. The Morris Park Association paid for a racist ad in the Bronx Home News. It opposed busing and claimed that Blacks were getting favored treatment over whites. The Morris Park Association claimed a membership of 400, and between 200 and 300 people attended their meetings. The racists were trying to build a mass base.

PLP organized a march of several hundred in Morris Park starting from Jacobi Hospital, one of the city’s health facilities drastically harmed by cutbacks, and down Morris Park Avenue, a main shopping area. We chanted “No Boston Here,” “Stop the Bosses, Not the Buses,” and “Jobs – Not Racism.”

When we got within a block of the racists’ headquarters, we were met by a crowd of about 100 people, including many teenage boys, some curious, some hostile. Hundreds of residents lined the streets to watch our march. There hadn’t been any communist marches in the Bronx in decades.

Fascists fade away when faced with multiracial unity organized by the Party

At this point the Morris Park Association leaders did not want to reveal their fascist nature by physically attacking us. In addition, our discipline and obvious willingness to defend ourselves made them wonder how well they would do in a fight with us, particularly since they had probably heard from their fellow racists in Boston about how we drove them back in the Battle of Columbia Point.

A member of PLP who lived in Morris Park explained that local residents should resist being drawn into a racist trap, and warned the young people against being used the way Hitler used youth to attack Jews. A leader of the Morris Park Association was heard to say: “Let’s get these kids out of here – they’re eating this up.” We picketed for a while and marched through the neighborhood back to Jacobi. We handed out antiracist flyers, sold CHALLENGE, and talked to many residents.

When school opened in September, the racists tried to organize a boycott by white students of Christopher Columbus High School, where non-white students were being bussed. A multiracial PLP antiracist committee welcomed the bused students. The racist Morris Park Association could not even muster a picket line as hundreds of Black, white, and Latin students poured into the school. The racist boycott flopped.

Sources:

Morris Party march, July 31, 1975, page 5.

“Move Against Fascists” – May 31, 1975 March in Morris Park, Bronx. June 12, 1975, page 5.

“Try Intimidating Communists” and

“Anti-Racist March for Jobs” (Morris Park, Bx), June 31, 1975, page 5.

Editorial: “School Racists = Strike-Breakers,” (Morris Park, Bx), September 18, 1975, page 2.

For PLP’s May Day March and Anti-Racist summer project against “R.O.A.R.” in Boston, 1975, see the following:

“Remember Boston ’75: Reds Busted Racists.” CHALLENGE July 16, 2025, pages 8 and 7. At https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/13667-remember-boston-75-reds-busted-racists

“Fascism and Busing in Boston.” PL Magazine vol. 10, no. 1. August- September, 1975 (also a PLP pamphlet).

“40th Anniversary of Boston ‘75 — PLP Smashed Anti-Busing Racists”, CHALLENGE, April 22, 2015, page 5. At http://www.plp.org/challenge/2015/4/9/40th-anniversary-of-boston-75-plp-smashed-anti-busing-racist.html

”PLP History: Anti-Racism at Forefront of Communist Fightback,” CHALLENGE, July 29, 2015, page 8. At http://www.plp.org/challenge/2015/7/16/plp-history-anti-racism-at-forefront-of-communist-fightback.html

“PLP History: The Summer of Smashing Racists.” CHALLENGE August 5, 2020, page 8. At https://plp.org/home/challenge-newspaper/10958-plp-history-the-summer-of-smashing-racists

Washington D C. July 22—“The Philippines is Not for Sale, Not for Sale, Not for Sale” rang out for three days while President  Ferdinand Marcos, Jr, the fascist dictator and U.S. flunky from the Philippines, was meeting with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Over 100 people joined rallies around the White House, at the WWII Memorial, and Blair House where he was staying. A coalition of Filipino organizations and the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) will continue this activity during his State of the Union address next week in Manila. A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member who is active with the University of Maryland TerpCHRP(Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines) students joined the White House rally, sharing CHALLENGE with the Bayan and Malayan organizers and reconnected with students from Baltimore and Towson University.

The blood soaked Marcos return to the Philippines was met with thousands of workers protesting his visit. PLP is committed to communist internationalism and urges all workers and students to join our efforts to fight directly for communism to replace all the varieties of capitalism and imperialism that exist around the world. 

Fascism and anti-communism in the Philippines 

Marcos, Jr is continuing the fascist legacy of his father, former president Marcos, Sr, who declared Martial Law in 1972 to combat the new Communist Party of the Philippines. He met with Trump to seek tariff relief and was “rewarded” for his “ironclad” commitment to the U.S. defense strategy in the South China Sea. Trump decreased the tariff on the Philippines from 20 percent to 19 percent! Funding for an ammunition hub in Subic Bay was another “gift” as the U.S. rebuilt its military and especially naval activity in the area to intimidate its Chinese rivals. Protestors demanded that the U.S. military and its private contractors get out of the Philippines along with the recent Fighter jets bought by the government.

Students and alumni of the University of Maryland travelled to the Philippines to observe elections and view the conditions of the workers and small farmers. One student reported back to the group noting several attacks on militant workers fighting for their livelihood. Fishermen, farmers, and workers who organize resistance are “red baited” and many have been forcibly displaced or killed. Meanwhile, clean drinking water on coastal fishing sites is scarce due to privatization as Prime Water Infrastructure Corp., owned by the politically connected Manuel Paolo Villar family, siphons water off to other projects. 

Fighting racist deportations 

Worker groups from the Philippines and and their allies have also fought the deportations of workers from the Philippines residents in the United States, calling on the Embassy and Ambassador Romualdez to protect its citizens. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to deport Phillipine workers including SEIU union members, green card holders and, more  recently, cruise ship workers. These reform campaigns have mobilize immigrants from the Philippines in the U.S. to fight back. They also demand a national government that boots out U.S. imperialism.

The Bayan speaker at the most recent rally called for national liberation and socialism, a misleading strategy for the liberation of the working class. PLP will continue to fight side by side against racist repression and deportation of our  brothers and sisters from the Philippines even as we advance the fight to smash all imperialist states, from the U.S. to China, and build an international revolutionary communist party to build a new world.

Dear CHALLENGE, I was a participant in the 50th anniversary of the Boston Summer Project. My visit to Boston was the second time there. The first time I was privileged to fight against the racist movement to prevent the desegregation of the public schools; this time I was amazed at how the Party has continued to evolve and the many young faces who joined the communist ranks of our Party. Multiracial and multigenerational, we are the fighting force against racist deportations, police murders, and the fascist government movement. I can visualize what Marx said, “We have nothing to lose but our chains.” The future is bright for the working class as we struggle to defeat our enemies and build a communist society. Let the bosses tremble at the forces being built to smash their cruel, degenerate, dying system of oppression. Long live the communist working class! 
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Going to the summer project this year was beneficial for many reasons. 1. It is always good to connect with comrades, new and old. Knowing you have people you can rely on in this struggle is primary, because we can’t do anything without each other. 2. As I have started to develop my own politics I have been able to identify disagreements I have with the party line. These disagreements have created new ways in which I engage with the Party. The biggest difference is that I can now play a more active role vs before when my role in the Party was more passive. I have found that other comrades share similar disagreements and through those conversations we are able to synthesize a sharper line. 3. Being at the summer project this year, I have been able to further refine and synthesize my thoughts about the Party line and the disagreements I have with it. I’m looking forward to the continued struggle, within the Party and outside of it, for the correct internationalist line for revolution and communism.
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I want to tell you my experience at the Boston Summer project. The experience that stood out  the most to me was the march to the Federal Building.

We started marching after doing a picket line at Park St. From there, we shouted chants such as “Arab, Jewish, Black, and white, workers of the world unite!” and “Boston PD you better start shaking, today’s pigs are tomorrow’s bacon!” I participated in the picket line while holding a red flag.

I thought this experience was the most valuable (despite the heat) because of the messages it sent and what we are fighting for. If I had the chance to do it again, I would have no problem doing so. 
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One major takeaway for me from the Boston summer project (other than the amazing antiracist history of Boston 75) is the importance of thinking and and acting collectively. During the project, we are often in houses with five to ten other people, and no one comrade has the exact same needs or approach. Because of that, we need to be really upfront and disciplined in how we communicate so we can not only arrive at where we need to be each day, but also so we can keep the places where we are staying functional. 

There is beauty in working together to figure out something like public transit in a new city because even though something like that isn’t world changing, it shows the confidence and communication we must have with each other that is a microcosm of our class running society one day. 
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Attending the summer project in Boston has been a fulfilling experience for my growth as a Party member. It is very exciting to hear the stories of our comrades who attended the summer project in Boston ‘75. They told how the struggle has been strengthened over time and how the working class must continue this legacy, and it is an honor and a pride to share with these people who set a precedent in history in the struggle of the working class.

One of the things that captured my attention the most was interacting with different comrades from many places and how we all share the same interest to fight against the fascist capitalist system and strengthen our communist struggle.

In the study groups we touched on topics of great importance such as violent deportations of migrants, overexploitation of labor, as well as how there is conflict between small and big fascists for world control.To overcome this imperialist deception the working class needs to know in a proper way and understand the Party’s policy in order to transmit it, so it is important to continue with these study groups to strengthen what we have learned. The class struggle has no racist borders.
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This week marked my first time on a bullhorn, getting donations, and getting contacts. I was not confident in my ability to get loud or project my voice, fearful that I would mess up or get confused, but eventually a comrade asked me to read off a piece from our flyers that were passed out at rallies. I was extremely hesitant to try something new, as I never would’ve imagined doing something that seemed so bold before this project. I remembered making a joke that I blacked out when I was talking but it felt natural. The words were on the paper for me already but the way I spoke was completely new and unexpected. The next day was even better; we started a march on the federal building moving towards those both receptive and unwilling to listen. As we started to circle around the front of the building, I was asked to get on the bullhorn again and chant. That was initially a hard no, but I remember being motivated to get on after getting told that everyone that was chanting was tired and losing their voices. I think that this culmination of experiences is what made me join the Party on the last day. Even though I was already in agreement with the Party, this year’s summer project brought me more positive and extroverted experiences than I’ve had in my whole life. I don’t think that next year’s project could come soon enough.
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I am a comrade who flew from Raleigh, North Carolina  to participate  in the 50th anniversary  of the Boston Summer Project of 1975. This anniversary  is politically important  to learn from and be inspired by PLP’s revolutionary  commitment  to  defeat ruling class tactics that were a trial balloon in how to use fascism to attack the working  class,  particularly Black workers during the boss instigated 1975 busing crisis. The lesson for 2025 is to use the sharp Party politics of 1975 to fight racist ICE raids on immigrant workers. We had CHALLENGE and leafleting in multiracial Cambridge. 

I absolutely  loved visiting Boston and being an active participant in the Summer Project. It was great meeting my Comrades of many years and new ones. The fight against racist ICE  is one of the important antiracist struggles of our day. On one of the days we visited a Haitian working class neighborhood. Two comrades came across the street wanting to know ‘Anyone speak French?’ I said I can speak some. They needed to explain CHALLENGE to a Haitian  worker! One of the reasons PLP will win the workers to communist revolution is that in our Party, workers have many talents that can be called on in a moment’s time. 

We visited Worcester to protest ICE, and Thursday was a free day, so I went to see Harvard Square, Harvard Bookstore,  and Harvard University. On the way downtown, I met a young Black university student. We chatted,  and I told him I was a former teacher in  town for the Boston Summer Project. I didn’t  have a CHALLENGE newspaper on me, but I directed him to a Party website. Bottom line, it’s those human connections with working class people is why we are going to have a successful communist revolution against our oppressors.
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Worldwide, the summer months are a time of political training and struggle for the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) (see article on page 1). This summer, we returned to the city of Boston—50 years later—to commemorate the 1975 Boston Summer Project, a watershed moment in PLP history, and to honor the antiracist and communist workers who volunteered in that fight.

Just a few years later, PLP led another major summer project in 1979, this time confronting racist Klansmen in Tupelo, Mississippi. The following article is a reprint from CHALLENGE, originally published in 1979, documenting that crucial battle.

With fascism resurging around the globe, sharpening inter-imperialist rivalry between the U.S., China, and Russia, and a rise in racist kidnappings and attacks targeting migrant workers, there’s no better time for antiracist education—and for learning from our history to fight back.

For this issue, we look at the Tupelo Project of ’79. Lessons include:

In the face of the Ku Klux Klan and the racist capitalist government, we must be bold and have confidence in the working class to take the lead of communists.

Multiracial unity is our class’s weapon and the bosses’ greatest fear.

To sustain our gains, we must grow the Party and train more Black, Latin, Asian, and white young people in leadership.

Significance of Mississippi

To many who remember the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s, Mississippi symbolizes the most extreme racism, the most brutal murders of Black workers and antiracists, and the stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan.

For Progressive Labor Party, Mississippi signified a base for revolution among Black and white workers, spreading the ideas of multiracial unity and the fight for communist ideas in the South. Today, we celebrate the heroic struggle of the Tupelo Summer Project of ’79. About 100 communists and friends—Black, Latin, Asian, and white—took part in this struggle.

Though relatively small (population of 20,000), Tupelo, Mississippi was an industrial center with over 14,000 workers. The South was important to the ruling class as an industrial area because its carefully-nurtured tradition of racism made it the citadel of low-wage, non-union labor, where the bosses have been able to keep the working class divided and weak in order to extract extra profits.

The project showed that masses of white workers and students in Tupelo and throughout the South are winnable to antiracism.
Below is an edited excerpt from PL Magazine (Fall 1979) analyzing an aspect of the Tupelo Summer Project:

The great July demonstration

Sixty-five antiracist marchers, organized by Progressive Labor Party and its [then-mass organization] International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), were marching through the streets in Tupelo, Mississippi chanting, “Death to the Klan.”  
Shots rang through the air.

As the bullets grazed two marchers, a disciplined group of people, Black and white, rushed out of line, isolated the racist who wielded the gun, and beat him to the ground. In the fight that ensued with this Klansman, or Klan supporter, the antiracists broke his neck. While this was happening, the marchers, maintaining a tight discipline that won them the respect of Tupelo’s working class, continued the march. The marchers, encouraged by the friendly faces that lined the streets and by the workers who joined the march, were able to withstand the menacing threat of the Tupelo police, who aimed their cocked guns at them.

From the start, it was clear that the racist local rulers wanted to stop this march. A new ordinance was created by the city government banning sound devices (in response to successful PLP-led rallies in the past). The police and their flunkies systematically tore down posters in the housing projects; and a permit for the march was not granted until the very last minute.

As the march gathered in front of the courthouse, the bosses’ seat of power, a militant rally began, attracting a lot of people in the area who joined in chanting, “The cops, the courts, the Ku Klux Klan, all a part of the bosses’ plan.”

‘Before I was scared, now I’m mad’

Many militant workers in Tupelo have come to see InCAR as the main mass organization that can lead workers in the fight against racism and the resurgence of fascist groups like the Klan. One Black woman worker said, “Before I was scared, but now I’m mad.” This represents the feeling of many people here, that there is no longer the luxury to sit back and watch the ruling class and its flunkies hold power, that they have to get active and build a movement that has as its goal the destruction of the ruling class ideas of racism and fascism, and in the final analysis, the ruling class itself.

The political climate is changing rapidly in the South, and only groups like PLP are prepared to respond to the changes, to give leadership and organize the multiracial, antiracist fightback that is necessary to move workers to the left.

The United League(UL), a Black reformist group, recently cancelled a march scheduled for Okolona (a town not far from Tupelo) today, because its leader, Skip Robinson, essentially chickened out of the struggle. More and more people are realizing that the leadership of UL cannot stand up to the rigors of the class struggle.

Workers put themselves on the line

Respect for PLP was growing in Tupelo. Two residents of Tupelo put up their houses as collateral so that our comrade could be bailed out of jail. When the two marchers who had been wounded were treated in the hospital, they were warmly received and treated by white doctors and other hospital workers. After the march stopped to rally, hundreds of Black workers surrounded the marchers to protect them from the cops (who would have been only too glad to be trigger happy).

This was the first time a racist had been beaten by an antiracist march in Tupelo. The leadership of the UL had always guaranteed the safety of the KKK and the cops by holding back the anger and hatred of Black workers in the fight to liberate themselves from the racism they faced every day. The bosses always think that they can destroy a worker’s movement by getting its leaders, but little do they know that leaders always spring up in the midst of struggle. There were  many, many people right in Tupelo, and other cities North and South, and there still are today, who can develop as working-class leaders in the fight against racism and fascism, and they were and are being trained by Progressive Labor Party.

This was readily proven by the response not only of the marchers, in their determination to continue the march, not to be intimidated  by the cops’ harassment, but also by the tremendous support of the local people. Over 200 copies of InCAR Arrow and CHALLENGE were sold, 4 people joined InCAR on the spot. Another demonstration was planned on the spot.

The main lesson PLP learned in Tupelo, as everywhere, is to be bold. The bolder we were, the more seriously people took us and the more willing they were to respond to us. Workers understand that the system will come down hard when you try to fight it. They are also ready to understand that you only win on the offensive.