INDIANAPOLIS, May 9—When Dreasjon Reed on May 21 was murdered by the police, the working class responded. A multiracial Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought communist leadership to a protest action today. This action was organized by friends of Dreasjon and a local protest organization in the city.
Twenty-one year old Black worker Dreasjon Reed was gunned down by racist Indianapolis Metro Police Department officers. Reed was involved in a car chase with cops and at one point, left the car and ran from custody. Reports say that he exchanged gunfire with cops, who shot and murdered him.
The same day, kkkops murdered another Black worker in the city, 19 year old McHale Ross, as well as white worker Ashlynn Lisby, who was pregnant! This same weekend, workers across the country ran in the name of Ahmaud Arbery (25), killed by wannabe Klansmen for jogging while Black.
On an international level, workers continue to be overwhelmingly victimized by growing fascism. The instances of abuse and murder by cops are ongoing and increasing, while racist and class-based attacks continue in the form of the over-representation of the working class being infected and dying from Covid-19.
These abuses are related, as they are ongoing under a murderous capitalist system that makes examples of and continues to use our class as cannon fodder in order to maintain fear, control and profits. The difference between our Party and popular reform movements is our call for communist revolution and dismantling the capitalist system.
Bring the fight to killer cops, capitalism
A multiracial collection of fighters called for an end to cops lynching Black workers. Due to an internal struggle among protest groups in the city, there was no designated leadership present at the action. However, there were many people who were passionate about holding cops accountable for the continued racist victimization of the Black working class of Indianapolis.
Based on that desire, PLP helped lead the action, distributed CHALLENGE, held deep conversations with workers about the roots of this capitalist terror, and continued to grow relationships. We carried signs that said “the only solution is communist revolution” and “racism means we got to fight back,” and ones that called for multiracial unity against cop killings.
When a member of PLP spoke on the bullhorn, they tied the state terrorisim we all experience due to capitalism to the three recent deaths in the city. They led anti-capitalist chants and said our class has everything to gain from protesting this violence, and destroying this blood-soaked profit system.
A white protestor was targeted for arrest after they committed the “crime” of momentarily stepping off the curb into the street, being grabbed by cops.
When workers tried to pull them back into the crowd, the kkkops gleefully unloaded several toxic pellet shots at protestors.
In defense, workers put their hands up and chanted, "hands up, don't shoot!" to no avail. Afterwards, PLP talked with people about how that plea won’t gain sympathy from cops or the capitalist state that breeds them. It's their job to terrorize us. It's our job as communists to show this truth to our class sisters and brothers and grow our Party.
Unity with workers, not kkkops
When confronting the cops, politicians, or other capitalist institutions about their brutalization of the working class, we have to know that there is no rational dealing with them. Their goal is to stamp out all opposition to their vicious rule. Our goal is to build relationships with as many people as we can, toward building a mass communist party to smash the capitalist system.
Many times during the action, those within the mass organizations present tried to make deals with the cops for less harsh treatment of protestors. Members of our Party were approached to lead others to follow rules that cops laid out in exchange for a promise by them to leave one side of the street or lessen their violence towards the crowd. We rejected that bargaining tactic and supported the workers in heightening their opposition to this murderous system and the ongoing terror tactics cops used. We stood with our class as we stared down the cops and prevented more attacks by our united presence.
This tactic of attempting to bargain with cops and holding them to their word is a fatal flaw for reform movements. The only people we can trust at these actions are other workers, and the clear agreed-upon leadership that is established. The lack of this clear leadership was an additional liability to the action.
Learn to fight, fight to learn
The working class has proven time and again that we will not sit helplessly by as family and friends are killed and abused by capitalists’ henchmen. Members of our Party must continue to be a part of these fightback actions. Our relationships with people in mass movements is what will be the difference in workers embracing our line in this fight, and will prevent workers from continuing to be misled by reformists and politicians who will only uphold the bosses’ grasp on our throats. Fight the bosses and fight for communism!
BROOKLYN, May 1—May Day greetings to the international working class! One hundred and sixty five members and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) joined a lively May Day Zoom celebration hosted by our high school club. The celebration began with a slide show and video celebrating past May Days in honor of our fallen comrade Joan Heymont. While our usual May Day celebration, which consists of familiar chants anwd beats down Flatbush Avenue accompanied by enthusiastic responses from the community, was disrupted by the global coronavirus pandemic, it did not stop PLP from celebrating the international workers holiday.
May Day is the celebration of the working class. It is a reminder of the need to bridge our demands together to collectively fight for communism. A society run by workers and for workers. The working class produces everything of value and should rightfully receive the benefits of our labor. Collectively, we can determine how to share what we produce, according to need. We have no need for the blood-sucking bosses who steal the value of our labor through wage slavery. The coronavirus is an opportunity for bosses to increase their power but also for workers to fight back and build a world worthy of us. Only hard work on our part will guarantee that we will win.
The main speaker, a young Black woman from Newark, New Jersey, talked about the Party’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, showing how a communist world, where we rely on each other instead of bosses, could be possible. PLP and friends have been creating mutual aid groups around food, shelter and resources. Teachers have gone into overtime as additional full time therapists for their students and parents. Members of PLP in Haiti, LA and Chicago are still finding innovative ways to physically distance themselves while protesting for more workers to fight for a world without police violence, prisons and exploitation.
A nurse from a Brooklyn hospital spoke about the need for solidarity to counter the bosses’ greed. She spoke about the anger she feels knowing that the government has chosen wealth over health, “Right now, only the bosses are winning. The president wants us all to return to work because at the end of the day, he’s a businessman in this capitalist world we live in. What we really need to do is make these bosses take the losses.”
She emphasized that solidarity is the key component needed to turn this crisis around.
The bosses have not only failed the working class by offering limited aid from their inadequate health care system, but have also displayed their lack of regard for students' education. A new member highlighted the role teachers must play during this pandemic,
“Communists today in PLP fight to learn and learn to fight, and in this crisis that means providing our students opportunities to confront the failures of capitalism.
The working class needs not only the vaccine against Covid-19, but also the vaccine against capitalism. That vaccine is communist revolution.” The ruling class is committed to perpetuating anti-communist propaganda into the education system to ensure students do not discover that the cure for their suffering is the eradication of capitalism and replacing it with communism. Young people are the future and it is the job of adults to ensure they understand how deadly capitalism is. It is important to take time during this pandemic to weave politics into lessons, regardless of the subject.
The poem “Good Morning Revolution” by Langston Hughes was performed by the high school club and “Home” by Warsan Shire was read by two teachers and dedicated to immigrant and refugee students around the world:
You have to understand,
that no one would put their
children in a boat
unless the sea is safer than the land
no one burns their palms under trains
beneath carriage no one spends days
and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper
unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
Life for workers under capitalism will never be sustainable. However, under communism, profit will never be put before workers’ lives; in fact, there will never be a profit incentive to begin with. All of our working class brothers and sisters will be treated equally and all racist borders will be smashed. We will unite as the working class and fight against this capitalist system for a better world. Nationalism is an anti-worker ideology that enables the imperialist rulers to exploit natural resources and cheap labor—and nationalism promotes war with other imperialists in competition for more profit.
Communists are internationalists because the working class is one international class, with a common class interest, under one red flag. This is the world PLP has fought for from our start. We will continue to fight until our class prevails.
We invite all workers to join this struggle—for ourselves, and for our children and grandchildren. Our vision for communism can be realized only with millions of workers and youth, with people just like you.
Our fight is sparked by class anger against the bosses and their viruses, killer kkkops, and all those who serve capitalism. But what sustains our communist movement is our working-class love—for industrial and domestic workers, for soldiers and students. United as one class, freed from exploitation and artificial borders, the working class can build a new world from the ashes of the old.
May Day is your chance to join Progressive Labor Party. Take the leap. And when you do, you will be joining hands with billions of fighters past, present, and future—with a historic movement of working-class struggle. The future belongs to us, but only if we dare to fight for it. Long live communism! Power to the workers!
CHICAGO, May 2—Close to 50 multiracial Progressive Labor Party (PLP) comrades and friends gathered at a park on the city’s west side today, to celebrate International Workers Day. Proudly waving red flags, revolutionary banners and signs, we proclaimed to the masses our communist messages of antiracism, antisexism, internationalism and workers’ power.
Hardly a month and a half ago, our collective was unsure if we would be able to host our annual May Day celebration this year, because of the health risks posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. But collectivity, organization, and communist boldness go a long way. Today’s success shows how we continue to adapt and put our revolutionary line into practice in creative and inspiring ways.
As the racist pandemic continues to devastate workers the world over, the revolutionary spirit of May Day and need for organizing a mass PLP are as essential as ever. We are proud to carry on the generations of communist struggle represented by International Workers Day, and build the lifelong fight for a borderless world!
This is our time!
A handful of comrades arrived early at the rally site to begin preparing for our physically distanced demonstration. Along the points of the sidewalk and grass we measured out distances of six feet, and placed red flags in the ground to mark the space. N95 masks were available to everyone who participated. We decorated nearby bus stops, trees, and light posts with banners and red balloons. Using chalk, we wrote revolutionary communist slogans in large letters on the sidewalk.
As soon as the stage was safely set, we jumped right into our program. A veteran comrade kicked off the celebration by giving a brief history of May Day, including its origins and its true meaning as a communist holiday celebrated all over the world.
A total of five speeches were given, in both Spanish and English, delivered mostly by younger comrades. A spoken word piece written by a comrade working in health care blasted racist capitalism’s priorities of money and profit at all costs, over workers’ lives.
A college student comrade called out the bosses in Chicago for blowing up a toxic coal plant in a Latin working-class neighborhood recently, which covered much of the area in dust in the middle of the pandemic. She stressed the racist double standard and criminalization by the state of Black, Latin, and immigrant workers who are fighting to survive despite the system’s deadly neglect.
Two speeches completely in Spanish came next. The first was from a comrade who has long led struggles in public schools in a majority immigrant worker neighborhood. She detailed the racist response and treatment from Chicago Public Schools in how they are continuing their legacy of racist failure in “educating” working-class youth during the stay-at-home order. Another comrade condemned the racist death sentence handed down from the bosses to immigrant workers in concentration camps, and contrasted how a communist world based on workers’ needs would handle a pandemic far differently.
For the keynote speech, a teacher comrade reflected on his experiences years ago in Ferguson, Missouri after the murder of Mike Brown by racist cop Darren Wilson. As the capitalist bosses ramp up their fascist attacks during the pandemic, he reminded everyone present that “this is our time” and for all comrades to “pick up your gun” and step up for the fights to come.
Up to and including the point where PLP and workers violently take state power from the capitalists, our political ideas are our strongest weapons. The comrade correctly stated that each CHALLENGE that we put in another worker’s hands, each study group that we hold, every walk-out or strike we help organize is a shot fired at the capitalist class.
We wrapped up our rally by singing the communist anthem “The Internationale” in Spanish and English. To finish, our caravan of over 20 cars enthusiastically navigated through working-class neighborhoods around the west side. Many workers who saw the procession pumped their fists in salute and came up to the cars to receive copies of CHALLENGE, of which we handed out over 100 copies!
May Day means… workers’ power!
As the crises of capitalism intensify, the international working class and our Party are presented with many dangers, but also with many opportunities. The celebration of May Day must serve as a vibrant reminder of our own multiracial unity as workers, collective power, and potential to transform the world through communist revolution. The words first spoken over a century ago still ring true today: Workers of the world, unite! We have nothing to lose but our chains!
BROOKLYN, NY May 1—For 50 years, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) has been carrying on the May Day tradition with marches in working class communities. We bring our revolutionary ideas to thousands of people who participate in or witness these marches.
Although we couldn’t march this year in Brooklyn as we have in the past few years, a group of us organized in a different way. We contacted friends from work, community as well as family members to share our celebration. Our determination was to be able to share May Day with as many workers as possible. Our efforts resulted in our biggest May Day participation in years!
We collectively planned an event weaving together images of past PLP marches, the history of May Day's origins, and its revolutionary international character. PLP’s commitment to the fight against racism was proudly showcased in our history, from our May Day march in Boston in 1975 against the fascist anti-busing movement, to our May Day march in Chicago against the Nazis and violent racists. More recently we marched here in Brooklyn along with family members of victims of racist police murders. We highlighted an inspiring example of the working class’ fighting spirit during WWII. Jewish fighters with communist leadership found a way to celebrate May Day in the midst of their heroic armed struggle in Poland's Warsaw ghetto.
We heard a nurse give a detailed indictment of the failures of capitalist health care and their lack of preparation, and mistreatment of workers in the current Covid-19 pandemic. We noted the racist nature of capitalist medical care before and during this crisis. While many of our friends clearly see Donald Trump’s failures, we pointed out the systemic racism and cuts that have occurred under both Democrats and Republicans. A former hospital worker pointed out the huge number of hospital closings and the decrease in total beds (20,000) and staff over the last 20 years in New York. No wonder the number of deaths are so high.
A report was made about the organizing work outside of the U.S. Our comrade detailed the efforts being made to collectively solve the life and death immediate needs of hunger, sanitary conditions and medication made worse during this pandemic. In the midst of these efforts the comrade explained how revolutionary communist ideas were connected to past and current problems and how a communist revolution is the only solution!
As a result of our May Day efforts, a number of the participants voiced interest in learning more about PLP’s communist ideas in study/action groups.
HYATTSVILLE, MD, May 4—Today a bold car caravan rally, organized by Community Justice (CJ), protested the reinstatement of six killer cops to the Hyattsville police force. Twenty cars carrying 30 people, adorned with militant signs against racist police brutality rolled several times around the police station. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members participated in planning this event, calling attention to the way the racist capitalist system systematically terrorizes and intimidates the working class, leaving us no choice but to organize for communist revolution!
Drivers honked their horns continuously as we circled police headquarters. Rebellious music (“Momma momma, Can’t You See”, “Fight the Power”, “They Don’t Care about Us”), blared from a loudspeaker, and a CJ spokesperson vehemently condemned the police and the political leaders of Hyattsville as the caravan stopped briefly in front of the police station.
What sparked this protest was the decision by the Hyattsville police chief, endorsed by the city administrator and unopposed by the mayor and city council, to reinstate cops who murdered Leonard Shand last October. Ten cops from three jurisdictions surrounded Shand and killed him in a hail of bullets like a firing squad (see CHALLENGE, 11/6/2019).
Since then, Shand’s family, CJ, PLP members, and other community organizations have demanded accountability for this heinous racist crime. Instead, we have been met with a pro-cop narrative from Mayor Candice Hollingsworth, Police Chief Amal Awad, and now City Administrator Tracey Douglas. They are justifying the killing, saying that “no violations of internal policy” have been found (Route 1 Reporter, 5/5). These three misleaders are Black women, showing that nationalism or feminism won’t lead us to liberation.
We need working-class unity for communist revolution. All politicians serve only the needs of capitalism, whatever their personal identity and rhetoric. We can only rely on the rank-and-file of the working class to advance our struggle for
liberation! Strikingly, Awad and Douglas made this decision while the formal investigation of these cops by the Prince George’s Police Department (PGPD) and the States Attorney for the Shand murder has not yet been completed.
These Hyattsville political leaders are providing a pre-emptive, de facto exoneration of these killers! Not that workers expect justice from the PGPD investigation. After all, that department harbors cops like those who murdered William Green (see CHALLENGE, 2/17/2019 and Washington Post, 10/23/2019). PGPD has been subject to two federal consent decrees from the U.S. Department of Justice for unconstitutional policing, and still conducts racist intimidation, assaults, and murders.
As CJ rightly continues to escalate its demands for accountability, PLP members will continue to participate, while calling on all workers to join the long term fight for real justice that can only come from toppling the capitalist system. That system needs racist terror and intimidation to keep the working class divided, exploited, and disarmed. Building multi-racial, revolutionary unity in the long term battle for a communist, egalitarian, anti-racist society is the key to our final victory over this inhumane, racist capitalist system.
