LETTERS TO WW
ILWU solidarity with LGBT
Bill Hackwell's excellent article on the current struggle of
the International Longshore & Ware house Union (ILWU) in
the July 11 Workers World sparked a memory of what was an
early, and perhaps the first, act of solidarity by a U.S. labor
organization with the lesbian, gay, bi and trans movement.
In 1971 police harassment of gay bar patrons in San
Francisco was common. One night in January of that year, the
cops raided the Stud, at that time a movement-oriented bar on
Folsom Street. Many in the bar stood their ground, refusing to
be intimidated. Others fled, fearing arrest and exposure.
One young man rushed to his car, parked in the next-door
alley opening onto Folsom. As he pulled out, a cop jumped in
front of his car and fired two shots at the approaching car.
The bullets broke the fleeing patron's leg in two places. He
was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon (his
car!).
The San Francisco Gay Liberation Front called a mass meeting
to organize assistance for the young man. It was decided to
hold a fundraiser to help with his legal and medical expenses.
But where to hold it? The ILWU union hall was made available to
us with no hesitation after we explained our purpose. The union
officials who unlocked the hall for us and helped us set up
were warm and friendly; not a hint of homophobia among these
progressive workers. They stayed to watch the same-sex dancing
and listened to our speeches of indig nation and rage against
the police with obvious sympathy.
Long live the unity of workers and oppressed people! Victory
to the Pacific Coast longshore workers!
Bob McCubbin
U.S. war against the Cherokee Nation
During the July 4 hoopla and chauvinist onslaught, no
official holiday programs will tell the truth that most of the
fighting in 1776 targeted the Tsalagi (Cherokee) Nation for
control of Virginia, North and South Carolina.
The Carolina governor declared war against the Cherokees in
1759; in 1760 a campaign by the British destroyed their Lower
Towns. And although they had lost most of Kentucky in 1775 to
England, the Cherokees sided with the British. As Wilma
Mankiller, former principal chief of the Western Cherokee
Nation, explained: "Our leaders could see that the colonies
wanted to expand, and England wanted to contain the
colonists."
Cherokees joined the British assault on Charleston in June
1776. "The Charlestonians managed to repulse the attack, and
from then, the Amer ican Revolution--at least from the Cherokee
perspective--was a furious struggle between the Americans and
our tribe." The colonialists agreed that South Carolina would
destroy the Lower Towns, both Carolinas the Middle and Valley
Towns, and Virginia the Overhill Towns.
Gen. Griffith Rutherford led North Carolina's attack and
destroyed 36 Cherokee towns and cornfields on the Oconaluftee
and Tuckasegee rivers, the upper Little Tennessee River, and
the Hiawassee River to the junction of the Valley River and
below. Colonel Andrew Williamson of the South Carolina militia
attacked the Lower Towns with over 1,000 troops, burned the
towns and destroyed the corn.
Rutherford and Williamson then combined armies to attack and
scorch the Middle Towns, leaving nothing. Following this,
Colonel Christian marched the Virginians on the Overhill Towns.
Mankiller says, "The only English assistance seemed to come
from the white traders living among our people (raising
mixed-blood families). ... In less than a year, more than 50
Cherokee towns had been attacked and devastated. Crops and
supplies were destroyed."
Virtually every Cherokee town was razed. Hundreds were
killed or died of starvation and exposure, others imprisoned,
some sold into slavery. Those who escaped were destitute in the
mountains. The Americans spread the word that the Cherokees
were driven into the woods to perish, as a threat to the
Creeks. In 1777, the Cherokee leaders signed treaties ceding
all remaining land in South Carolina and other Cherokee
lands.
Mankiller states, "not all of our people went along with
those early treaties." The colonists officially made peace with
the British with the 1782 Treaty of Paris, but militant
Cherokees known as Chickamaugans, joined by some Creeks and
Shawnees, continued to fight until 1794.
Before long the new U.S. government broke the treaties, as
North Carolina and Georgia settlers coveted the remaining
Cherokee lands for plantation holdings and gold in the Smoky
Mountains. The situation culminated in the genocidal 1838
removal called the Trail of Tears.
Someday the people's struggle will overthrow the U.S.
heritage of domestic and international genocide and
exploitation, and create new holidays based on justice and
peace.
Stephanie Hedgecoke
Reprinted from the July 18, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
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