Brooklyn, ny—Saheed Vassell was a 34 year old Black man widely known on the block where he was gunned down on April 4th by a New York Police Department (NYPD) hitsquad with no questions asked. This racist killing shows “community policing” as a liberal farce meant to cover up the true nature of the cops. Community policing is portrayed as helpful, friendly and in tune with the needs of the residents. In reality the cops shot and killed Saheed within seconds of arriving on the scene.
The bosses’ racist media presented Saheed to the world as “crazy” and “homeless” in the days since this racist murder.  But neighborhood residents described him as “a friendly man who was mentally ill.” He was helpful and did odd jobs for neighborhood businesses.
A man who knew him for years said, “He’s harmless. A very willing guy, a very nice guy, a good guy.” (New York Times, 4/4).
The local cops knew him. That’s how community policing is supposed to work. But witnesses at the scene said that the kkkops fired immediately with no warning. Just that quickly community policing is exposed as a liberal cover to hide the true role of the police. Their job is to terrorize the working class to protect the profits and property of the capitalists. “These officers are trained to kill Black and brown people” explained a speaker at the rally the next day.
Close to 50 people gathered at the scene of the killing just hours after it happened. The next day a multiracial crowd of several thousand rallied and marched to the 71st precinct. Speakers at the rally suggested “Stop calling 911.” The Progressive Labor Party maintained a vigorous zone of chanting in this integrated march.  We interspersed familiar chants to “Shut it Down!” and tagging the NYPD as the KKK. We also called for  “the only solution is communist revolution” and “liberal misleaders you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide!”  
Meanwhile Mayor Bill de Blasio apologized for and defended his kkkops by repeating the excuse that they were responding to 911 calls of a man with a gun.  This was a setback for the model of community policing that he promotes. The bosses want to direct the multi-racial anger this case has sparked into a renewed push for community policing.
Our connections with other families in the fight for justice against police murder position us to take the politics of this latest outrage beyond the fake ’solutions’ of elections and ‘better’ community policing.  “Stop calling 911” is a slogan pregnant with revolutionary implications. It means workers have to rely on ourselves to solve our problems. We can’t be calling on the cops to help.
Relying on ourselves means building a mass, multiracial movement against racism and sexism, and also for communism. We don’t need the bosses murderous system or the cops who prop it up.  May Day is the opportunity for us to redouble our efforts to win anti-racist fighters to this understanding that only communist revolution can bring and end to racist police murder.

BROOKLYN, March 29—“What do we want? JOB RETENTION! When do we want it? NOW!” Chants echoed through Kingsborough Community College’s (KCC) cafeteria as a multiracial group of almost two dozen women and men students, faculty, and campus workers, paraded to the cash registers.
The rally was held in defense of about 50 mostly Black, Latin and women cafeteria workers facing mass terminations at the end of the day. Their privately contracted employer, Metropolitan Food Services (MFS), had announced earlier in the week that their contract was terminated by KCC.
Hundreds of international and multiracial students listened as a speaker greeted them in Russian, Haitian Creole, Spanish, Arabic, and English. We are here “standing alongside students and custodial workers, united against Metropolitan’s racist and sexist treatment of our working class sisters and brothers in the Kingsborough cafeteria.” Three demands were announced: guaranteed employment for all cafeteria workers with the next food vendor; recognition of the cafeteria workers’ union; and hiring double the custodial staff.
KCC’s pattern of racist behavior also extends to the mostly Black custodial workers. They are overworked with half the necessary staffing, and endure racist treatment by their white supervisors. One Black worker, who had a heart attack on campus last month, attributes it to the toxic racism at KCC.
But it’s the same capitalist system that attacks workers all over the world. All over the City University of New York (CUNY) students pay high tuition while course sections are cut and the KCC campus falls apart. There are a half-dozen military recruiters standing just outside of the cafeteria. The U.S. bosses want every one of these students fighting their next imperialist war with Russia or China. And if you aren’t shipped off to fight a bosses’ war, this system offers you unemployment, deportation, or murder by racist cops, just like Stephon Clark!
Dare to struggle
Quickly, a large number of CUNY Public Safety and NYPD cops arrived. Defying this attempt to intimidate then, the protesters marched to the president’s office, militantly chanting “Shut this racist system down! Shut this sexist system down!” A Black student delivered our demands to the president’s chief of staff. Guarded by police, she stated the president was out and “would issue a formal response.”
Under heavy police watch, a small group returned to the cafeteria. The workers began clapping and cheering. As some tearful hugs were exchanged, workers excitedly related how mad their supervisors were, how hard they tried to get their coworkers to walk off the job, and how to organize better next time! One Black worker, a young mother, said: “When we came in today we were all depressed and sad. But after that demonstration, our heads are held high.”
Progressive Labor Party fights for her to become a mass leader for our class because it’s capitalism that destroys workers’ lives, far beyond just KCC. Racist and sexist exploitation will only be ended when capitalism is burned to the ground by millions of workers, led by workers just like her in PLP. We invite this young woman, her coworkers, and the students and faculty of KCC to join this year’s May Day march in Brooklyn and help lead our movement. Join us, and dare to struggle with heads held high.
Workers need a revolutionary communist party
This demonstration was a step in breaking down the barriers of segregation by skin color and job title. And this multiracial unity of campus workers, students and faculty shows the potential for the growth of a revolutionary communist movement. Communists in the Progressive Labor Party have been supporting the struggles of the cafeteria workers (see CHALLENGE, 10/10/17). Our study groups show potential for new membership, while our regular CHALLENGE distributions at the college entrance have helped communist ideas spread into the KCC community. Hundreds of leaflets entitled “Fight for KCC Cafeteria Workers’ Rights; Unite to Smash Wage Slavery!” were distributed by members, friends and CHALLENGE readers. In this struggle, the need for our class to have a revolutionary Party has become clear.
The struggle continues
Many cafeteria workers received termination letters as they clocked out at the end of the day. But very quickly some have been transferred to other locations and others rehired by the new vendor. We will continue the struggle until all the workers have their jobs back. And a few days later a group of staff and students joined a multiracial march, 2,000 strong, to protest the racist killing of a Black man in Brooklyn. We took the struggle from the job to the streets in anti racist solidarity.
Many workers are developing confidence in our class and in the Party’s ideas. The fight goes on – for jobs and for communist revolution! Join us!

MEMPHIS, TN, April 4—Fifty years ago, 1,300 mostly Black sanitation workers fought an important and bold battle here. Today, Memphis is still ravaged by capitalism. All voting has done is promote some Black politicians. More than ever, we need a militat anti-racist, anti-sexist movement with workers’ power, communism, as our goal.
The sanitation workers’ fight was both an economic and antiracist struggle. They began a strike in February 1968 against the city of Memphis after two workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed in the faulty mechanism of the truck they were using to pick up trash, while on the same day, 22 Black workers had been sent home with no pay, while their white supervisors were kept on. Their courageous strike was for economic demands (they earned poverty wages) and also against plantation-like working conditions. The Mayor of Memphis refused to even talk to local 1733, the workers’ union. The workers’ iconic slogan became: I AM A MAN. The Memphis strike occurred as militancy against racism in the U.S. and around the world was increasing and the Vietnam War was raging. Mass movements addressing these issues were shaking the foundations of the U.S. capitalist system.
Today, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the Church of God in Christ (COGIC) have called for a commemoration of the strike and of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King Jr., which occured the morning after his speech to the strikers and community supporters at the Mason Temple.
Fifty years after the 1968 strike, AFSCME’s local 1733 had finally won a modest pension plan so that sanitation workers might be able to afford to retire. The city of Memphis is the poorest city of its size in the U.S. Racism and poverty still grip the Black population there, who make up 63 percent of the city.
Don’t vote; organize!
In the workshops and remarks by union and church leaders, we were urged to register to vote. Speaker after speaker trotted out that worn-out, failed strategy. Reverend Blake of COGIC made the misleading argument that divisive militants had weakened the civil rights movement. One speaker, however, let the truth get out. He recalled that Dr. King had been rebuffed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 about passing a voting rights bill. It was reported that Johnson said he didn’t have the power to pass such a bill. King said then we’ll give him the power. How was that done? Millions of people marching in the streets. Millions of people questioning the nature of capitalist society and inequality. Millions of people questioning the imperialist war machine.
The real truth, however, is that voting never has and never will give workers real “choice” and never will free us from the war and misery of capitalism. Time and again, these misleaders work to convince masses of workers to rely on the very system that is built on racist lies and designed to exploit. The real truth is that only overthrowing capitalism and building a worker-run communist system can create the conditions that we need and deserve.
Today, what AFSCME and other unions are really concerned with is the Supreme Court ruling on the Janus v. AFSCME case, which would put right-to-work laws into effect for public employee unions in 23 states, in effect making them nationwide. Right-to-work means that workers do not have to pay union dues. This would dramatically weaken the remaining union sectors and disproportionately penalize Black and women workers who hold many public sector jobs.
The lessons of 50 years ago are that masses of workers can make history but without a revolutionary communist outlook, they will remain on a capitalist treadmill fighting for crumbs off the bosses’ table. Join PLP and keep the fight moving forward!

NEW YORK CITY, April 19—Recently, our church justice and peace community met to review our past several months’ work and to plan for our “spring offensive.” Those of us involved in the Sanctuary  movement attended a city-wide meeting to continue planning and organizing movements against racist ICE raids in our neighborhoods.
This month, Fascist-in-Chief Donald Trump Tweeted his opposition to a deal for DACA—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. The program shields certain undocumented workers from deportation for two years, allowing them to get work permits.
While DACA itself was essentially a ploy by U.S. bosses for undocumented workers to serve their imperialist needs, even with the “protections” it offered, ICE officials have arrested DACA recipients before. The bosses will always break their own laws to keep workers in line and intimidated.
We are reaching out to houses of faith, community groups, workers, and small businesses (bodegas, barber shops, salons, and others that are part of the community). In order to fight back against ICE and growing fascism we must win workers to understand that all of us have the same needs and interests.
We must organize more and more workers to band together so that when ICE shows up in our neighborhoods, it will be clear that racism and fascism are not welcome! We are also celebrating the victory of one of our church members for whom we mobilized widely in and beyond church membership.
But more importantly, we must bring working-class people to understand that the only way to permanently end this terror is through communist revolution. Nothing less!
The other focus of our study-action group is the scourge of racist police terror-particularly against those who are suffering mental crises. Our main campaign in this regard is for Deborah Danner, a 66-year-old Black worker from the Bronx who coped with chronic schizophrenia most of her life. On October 18, 2016 a neighbor called the local precinct, asking that Danner be brought to a hospital after an acute psychotic episode. The Fire Department EMT’s who responded first were beginning to calm her sufficiently. Then Sergeant Hugh Barry came on the scene, confronted her, and within five minutes, claiming that she was threatening him with a bat, killed her with his service revolver, never even attempting to use the taser he had at hand.
This killing was so incredibly egregious even the mayor and police commissioner had to denounce it and suspended Sgt. Barry immediately.
The Bronx DA dragged his feet for months, but finally got the pig indicted and he stood trial before a judge last month. No surprise that Barry was acquitted! They brought in a judge from Westchester County who would face no political pressure from any Bronx constituents outraged by racist police. The judge also had worked for the same District Attorney’s office that had declined to prosecute the White Plains cop who had killed Kenneth Chamberlain a few years before under similar circumstances as Ms. Danner’s. The fix was obviously in from the start.
Several congregations mobilized to have a presence each day in court - we managed to bring fifteen over the course of the trial. Three of us joined in a militant action with several Black Lives Matter members outside the court house and the chief court cop ripped literature out of our hands. But the most important result is that we are now part of building a city-wide, anti racist movement to fight back against police killings, particularly of the mentally ill.
This ordeal shows that in “liberal” NYC, racist police terror is just as potent as any so-called “conservative” cities out there.
At our Thursday meeting we listed 18 congregations, community groups, professional associations and labor unions where we have ties. Our goal is to help lead hundreds, then thousands against this racist system, and to shut it down!!