Meeting takes up struggle to stop foreclosures, evictions

Metro Milwaukee residents and others from Fondulac and Racine, Wis., Chicago and Detroit participated in a “Stop Foreclosures and Evictions” meeting Feb. 25 in the heart of Milwaukee’s African-American community at the Center Street Library. Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement, including the Milwaukee Occupy Coalition, participated, as did members of the Amalgamated Transit Union and the American Federation of Teachers.

Jerry Goldberg addresses meeting. WW photo: Bryan G. Pfeifer

The meeting began with an announcement honoring Black History Month and the reading of poems by people’s poet Eric Disambwa. Special mention was made of Whitney Houston, Etta James and Don Cornelius, three towering figures in the Black Nation who recently passed on.

Featured speaker Jerry Goldberg, people’s attorney and a leader of the Detroit-based Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs, thanked the poor and working people of Wisconsin for their inspiring fightback. He gave a presentation on the banks’ and other capitalist financial institutions’ responsibility for the foreclosure and eviction epidemic that continues to sweep the U.S. Since 2007, there have been more than 20,000 foreclosures in Milwaukee alone, most in African-American and Latino/a neighborhoods.

Goldberg urged those present to join the growing movement fighting for a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. He invited everyone to Detroit for a March 31 national conference on that topic. For more information on the conference, see nationalmoratorium.org.

Participants in the meeting held a lively discussion on how to defend poor and working people’s homes and apartments from the racist, predatory banks. They shared tactics of previous victories that saved people’s homes and many other related struggles such as the fight for jobs. The meeting was sponsored by the Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement which is mobilizing for the March 31 Detroit conference. For more information on upcoming meetings see wibailoutpeople.org.