After Sept. 11 — what next?

The thousands who united on Sept. 11 to say no to the Tea Party and its racist allies have given a new impetus to the anti-racist and workers’ struggle. They faced a right-wing opponent with a month’s head start, big funding and enormous media publicity. But they stood strong to defend their Muslim sisters and brothers and confront the hate-mongers, resisting pressure from the government and corporate media. In the end, they outnumbered and out-shouted the elements who follow Glenn Beck, Newt Gingrich and their ilk. Even the rightist New York Post had to admit that the anti-racists out-organized the right-wing gang.

What next?

We raise this because this is no time to sit back and relax. It was one battle in a long class struggle. The Tea Party has been organizing for more than a year. These racist reactionaries hope to capture the anger and anxiety over the capitalist economic meltdown to mobilize first against the Obama administration and then against any progressive social programs still in place, from Social Security to the right to an abortion.

Those who came out in solidarity on Sept. 11 — in New York, in Gainesville, Fla., and elsewhere — have two big opportunities in the coming weeks to keep up the momentum. These are opportunities to inject the same enthusiasm, the same determination to combat racism, the same desire to maintain political independence from the capitalist political parties that we all showed in force on Sept. 11.

The first action is the “One Nation Working Together” gathering in Washington, D.C., set for Oct. 2, called by the NAACP and Service Employees Local 1199 in early July. It has received support from many community and union organizations. Like similar actions that took place at the end of August in Washington and in Detroit, it will raise broad demands for a massive jobs program with equal justice and quality public education for all. It will be important both to support the general anti-racist and pro-jobs thrust of the action and to also bring to the tens of thousands of participants a program that is independent of the Democratic Party.

The next action takes place just five days after that Saturday in Washington. It’s an initiative of youth, students and educational workers of all types, building on the successful action of last March 4. The action is set for Oct. 7, again to mobilize across the United States for local actions, and it has drawn even more support from student, community and union organizations to defend and improve both the quality of public education and the access to education for working-class students and students of color.

The forces that came out on Sept. 11 have a role to play at these two actions: first, to build them in the general struggle for anti-racist solidarity; next, to inject into them the militant, combative spirit and opposition to U.S. imperialist wars that has already dealt a blow to the reactionaries. Doing this will surely elevate the struggle for all workers’ rights.