On MLK holiday activists plan fightback

Photo: Sam Smith

The annual Rhode Island Martin Luther King All Peoples’ Assembly was held on Jan. 22.

Grassroots organizers and activists, including African Americans, Latinos/as, Asians and Native Americans from Rhode Island and other areas of New England, joined this energetic gathering. Plans, ideas and strategies were adopted for building a united fightback movement, which can challenge the rising tide of attacks on the living standards and struggles of working and poor people in this state and across the country.

Mary Kay Harris, lead organizer of Direct Action for Rights and Equality, chaired the event. Keynote speaker Larry Holmes, national organizer of the Bail Out the People Movement, analyzed the regional and national socioeconomic crisis.

The crisis is one of unemployment, wage and benefit cuts for workers, while unions are under attack, said Holmes. There are increasing cuts in state and city budgets for social services and human needs, such as medical care and public education, while federal programs are threatened. Hunger, homelessness and all-out poverty are hitting millions of people. Attacks against immigrants and other acts of racism are going on around the country, continued Holmes. The lesbian/gay/bi/transgender communities face harassment. Meanwhile, civil liberties and civil rights are endangered.

Holmes asked everyone to consider whether the time is right for a general strike, a one-day work stoppage and declaration calling for the abolition of capitalism. Harris closed the program with a call to everyone to stay united, to build upon the meeting’s positive energy and to move our movement forward