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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Aug. 7, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Celebrating Che's life and legacy

By Workers World Milwaukee bureau

At a July 18 gathering here in Milwaukee, a "Celebration of the Life and Legacy of Che" was held. Ernesto "Che" Guevara was assassinated nearly 30 years ago, on Oct. 9, 1967.

Guevara was an Argentine-born medical doctor who became a hero of the Cuban Revolution and an enduring inspiration to millions of people struggling for justice the world over. Throughout Latin America and many other parts of the world preparations are under way to mark the anniversary of his death with meetings, forums, rallies and other events.

Thirty years ago the CIA orchestrated the Bolivian military's murderous hunt for Guevara, who was aiding revolutionaries in that country.

The July 18 event here was sponsored by the A Job is a Right Campaign. The featured speaker was David Perez, a managing editor of Workers World newspaper and a former editor of Liberation & Marxism magazine.

Perez, a Puerto Rican activist who grew up in the South Bronx, gave an overview of Guevara's life as a guerrilla leader, theorist and writer. Guevara became minister of industry and banking after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

But Che Guevara's most enduring legacy, Perez explained, was promoting the study and application of Marxism in the Cuban revolutionary struggle. That legacy lives on today in the Cuban people's continuing ability to defend the gains of their revolution against the U.S. government's unrelenting assaults.

In his own life, his writings, his military battles and his vision of a new society, Che helped shape the ideal of what it means to be a revolutionary communist, Perez said.

CHE'S SPIRIT IN TODAY'S STRUGGLES

In keeping with the fighting spirit of Guevara's life, the meeting opened with reports of local struggles.

Janice Thurman, an African American postal worker, reported on the ongoing fight against police brutality. Her son Michael was killed by an off-duty Milwaukee cop last August.

South Side activist Eric Torres spoke on efforts by the city's Latino community to support Luis Pizarro. Supporters believe that Pizarro's recent firing from his job as a youth organizer for a local social-service agency was unjust.

Ted Uribe, director of the largely Latino Wisconsin Injured Workers Network, appealed for support for his organization's fight against its eviction by a local Catholic church.

Phil Wilayto, coordinator of the A Job is a Right Campaign, spoke on his group's recently released report "The Feeding Trough." The pamphlet exposes the corporations and right-wing foundations behind Wisconsin's Draconian welfare "reform" program known as W-2.

AJRC members Anne Walsh and Eric Jefferson co-chaired the meeting, with food catered by the Wisconsin Injured Workers Network.

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