‘We'll mobilize Black community against the war’

Black Mobilization Committee organizers against the war in Iraq held a teach-in on March 3 at the Center for Inner-City Studies in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.

“As Black people we cannot be lackadaisical about this war. We have to relate this war to our pocketbook,” said public schools counselor Doris Lewis.

Attorney Lewis Myers Jr. (shown right) declared: “The Republicans and the Democrats will not stop this war. If the people don’t make a decision to end it, it won’t end.”

The figures on the board reflect the cost to the people of Illinois of Bush’s latest $100 billion demand for war funds alone. When interest is taken into account, it comes to $25 billion from the people of Illinois. This is enough money, for example, to build 179,028 units of affordable housing. (www.nationalpriorities.org)

Other speakers included professors Robert Starks and Anderson Thompson, journalist Nate Clay, and State Sen. Jackie Collins. Organizers are building for the March 17 demonstration in Washington, D.C., and a broad anti-war march on the evening of March 20 in downtown Chicago, and hope to have larger activities in the Black community itself.

   —Report and photo by Lou Paulsen