Broad support for Boston Day of Absence

Representatives from a broad cross-section of labor and community organizations have agreed to hold a series of militant actions in Boston on Dec. 1, the 50th anniversary of the day Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery, Ala. These Boston actions will be part of the Dec. 1 Nationwide Day of Absence against Poverty, Racism and War.

The participants in a Nov. 5 planning meeting unanimously agreed to Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner’s proposals to name Dec. 1 “Rosa Parks Human Rights Day” and to submit a home-rule petition to have this day declared an annual Rosa Parks holiday in the city.

Possible Dec. 1 actions discussed include a rally at Boston City Hall followed by a march through the financial district and various working class and oppressed neighborhoods, ending with a teach-in at Roxbury Community Col lege. Plans will be formalized and final leaflets produced at the next meeting on Nov. 12.

Councilor Turner, Rachael Nasca of the Women’s Fightback Network, and Frantz Mendes, vice-president of Steel workers Local 8751, Boston’s school bus drivers union, co-chaired the meeting. It was held at the Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT) District 35 union hall, also the site of Local 8751’s office.

Tony Hernandez, IUPAT staff organizer and coordinator of Labor for Felix Arroyo, Boston’s only Puerto Rican City Councilor, opened the meeting by “welcoming this organizing in our home.”

Ron Bell of Dunk the Vote pledged his organization’s support for Dec. 1 actions. Bell was a principal organizer of “Retraci ng the Struggle,” a march on Oct. 30 that retraced the route walked by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1965 to protest segregation in Boston public schools. The reenactment march was also to gather support for the Voting Rights Act, part of which is set to expire in 2007.

Gibran Rivera, a progressive District 6 candidate for Boston’s City Council, endorsed Dec. 1 and thanked the participants for supporting him. Rivera’s campaign is the first time in recent memory that a Latin@ candidate has seriously vied for this council seat, historically held by conservatives.

Larry Holmes, national coordinator of the Troops Out Now Coalition, traveled from New York City to the meeting and provided information on the resounding support Dec. 1 has received across the country. To date, over 1,000 individuals and organizations have endorsed and/or created Dec. 1 organi zing committees, press conferences have been held in New York City and elsewhere, and an upcoming Dec. 1 support resolution, similar to one passed by the Boston City Council on Oct. 26, will soon be brought before the New York City Council for a vote. Holmes also emphasized the vital contributions of African-American women in the 381-day Mont gomery bus boycott.

Tony Van Der Meer, Africana studies professor at the University of Massa chu setts-Boston, gave a brief historical over view of the resistance of persons of African descent from the onset of slavery to the present day. He also told participants how Rosa Parks as well as others in the developing civil rights movement were sparked to action by the racist murder of Emmett Till.

Hurricane survivor tells of racism

When Carl Sisson, a Local 8751 steward, introduced his brother, Daryl Sis son, a New Orleans Hurricane Katrina survivor, the meeting went silent. People listened intently to descriptions of the federal government’s racist abandonment of mostly African Americans in the Delta region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The brothers painfully conveyed how their loved ones are now dispersed across the country and how they are unable to reconnect with them due to FEMA’s criminal negligence and wholesale abandonment of hundreds of thousands of working class and oppressed survivors. “Our heritage has been stolen,” said Carl Sisson. Those in attendance pledged their support for the Sissons, including supporting the right of return for survivors.

Rev. Franklin Hobbs of Healing
Our Land reminded participants that Dec. 1 is World AIDS Day. The meeting ple d ged to make this a top priority at the Dec. 1 actions.

Four of the Somerville 5 spoke about their police brutality case, as did Carol Anderson, mother of two of these youths.

Members of the International Action Center from India informed participants of a day-long general strike there in October, joined by at least 40 million workers, that shut down vital sectors of the economy.

Other participants in the Nov. 5 meet ing included members of the Archdale-Roslindale Coalition, Boston Troops Out Now coalition, Bromley Heath Mainten ance Workers, Com mu nity Church of Bos ton, Disabled People’s Liberation Front, Interna tional Action Center, New England Human Rights Organization for Haiti, Rev. Filipe Teixeira of the Young Cape Verdean Club and well-known anti-police brutality activist, Stonewall War riors, United American Indians of New England, Veterans for Peace, Women’s Fightback Network, graduate students from University of Maryland-College Park, progressive Indian activists as well as union members from AFSCME, the Com mu nication Workers and Service Employees.