Linking the struggles stressed at citywide meeting

The Boston Rosa Parks Human Rights Day Committee’s (BRPHRDC) objective of principled unity in the progressive movement under the leadership of those communities most impacted by the government’s criminal neglect and abandonment took a bold step forward at a City-Wide Activists’ Summit July 30.

Ahmad Kawash, Palestinian American Congress; Noelia Cabrera, Rosa Parks 7053; Eric Jones, Rosa Parks 7053. WW photos: Liz Green

Held at the Cultural Café, an alternative cultural venue of art and politics that highlights the struggle of the Afro-Latin@ diaspora, the summit’s main goal were broadening the coalition and embracing other struggles, particularly those of the most oppres sed. Another top focus was building support for an Aug. 29 rally in Roxbury, Mass., on the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina as well as the date that 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by racists in 1955.

The summit is the most recent development in building what has become known as a new political force in Boston fighting against poverty, racism, sexism and war. Many African American and Latin@ youth organized, planned and carried out the summit’s activities, playing a decisive role along with veterans of the Black and other national liberation and civil rights movements.

Summit co-chairs Eric Jones, Pepe Abola and Eva Skillicorn of the youth organization Rosa 7053 worked with Dorotea Manuela, co-chair of BRPHRDC and long-time Puerto Rican activist, and Clemencia Lee, a founding member of BRPHRDC, in facilitating the summit.

Participants included a multinational composition of labor and community organizations from the Greater Boston area. Representatives from diverse anti-war organizations including United for Justice with Peace and various high school and college groups attended.

Decades-long activist and former Massa chusetts State Representative Mel King recognized the Rosa Parks committee as a vital new political force in Boston, congratulated the efforts of the organization and pledged his support for future actions. The summit is “a great step forward” and “I have great hope” for it, said King.

Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner also participated and pledged his support.

‘Make the connections’

Tony Van Der Meer, professor of Africana Studies at UMass Boston, co-chair of the BRPHRDC and co-founder and program director of Cultural Café, opened the summit with these words: “The idea of Katrina for us is how we’ve been Katrina ized. When we’re talking about Katrina we’re talking about government neglect of the poor and people of color. We have to address the issue of Katrina. We have to address this in the context of other issues. There’s a need for us to deal with immigration in relationship to Katrina. There’s a relationship to what’s happening in Lebanon right now in terms of Katrina because it’s all based on U.S. policy.”

Van Der Meer added, “When we talk about the question of the right of return for Palestinians, that’s something that rings true for African Americans, particularly in New Orleans right now. Where they’re going to build a wall of death along the border and not build a wall of life in terms of fixing the levees after Katrina, there’s a relationship. When we organize we have to make these relationships clear to poor and oppressed people. It’s our responsibility to make these connections and tie them into our organizing.”

Ahmad Kawash, from the Palestinian American Congress and a long-time Palestinian activist, denounced the U.S.-Israeli war on Lebanon and Palestine and specifically the massacre at Qana, which took place hours earlier and killed 57 civilians, 37 of them children.

“There’s only one victim here, there’s no two victims. There’s the Lebanese and Palestinians. The Israelis are citizens of war, they are soldiers of war. We did not come to their houses and homes and bomb them. They came to us and they occupied our land and they have been doing this campaign of terror against us and against our people. People, we have to be really united and we have to keep going. We have to demand of ourselves always. We have to keep going and going and going,” said Kawash.

Eric Jones, a leading African American member of Rosa Parks 7053, who spoke after Kawash, stated, “I just wanted to thank the Palestine American Congress for donating $100 to Rosa 7053.”

Cassandra Clark Mazariegos just returned to Boston from Paris where her Urban Essence Dance Collaborative troupe performed extensively. Mazariegos, during a group session report back, summed up the collective conscience of the day: the importance of fighting U.S. imperialism, the common enemy abroad and at home.

Activist, people’s artist and author Askia Toure prefaced his poems “To a Dark Horse” and “American Nightmare” by stating, “We were activists and freedom fighters who utilized our poetry for that spirituality; that common testimony to our humanity, our beauty and our strength, our people-ness so that we just weren’t some poet or some musician. [John] Coltrane wasn’t just some saxophonist; he was a grandmaster and spiritual, almost like a priest with a saxophone. So again today we have to rouse up the spirit of liberation and our greatest humanity within ourselves.”

Dorothea Peacock of the Women’s Fightback Network began her talk by declaring that “Stop the war on women at home and abroad” is her organization’s main slogan.

Peacock, who grew up under Jim Crow in Florida, stated, “The women’s movement has a huge stake in fighting for justice, against wars and all kinds of oppression. The fragments of bombs fallen in the U.S. is as follows: tax breaks for the rich, budget cuts for nearly 200 social programs mostly affecting people of color, women and children. Women are more likely to use these programs because we are poorer than men. At the end of the week there’s no food in the fridge for our children, no money for medication. This is war. What we need is social programs reinstated—no more money siphoned off for Pentagon war budgets, for Bush’s war in the Middle East, and the war on Lebanon. We need to build strong, independent movements that are multinational and multigenerational and that represent the most oppressed.”

Peacock concluded by calling on those present to join the Aug. 5 and Aug. 29 demonstrations. “Women and children are dying from bombs. Our sisters and brothers—the Palestinians and Lebanese freedom fighters—need our support in their struggle for freedom and liberation.”

Andrea Hombeim of the Statewide Harm Reduction Coalition (SHARC), which is waging many campaigns including fighting jail/prison construction, said, “Prisons exist as part of the social control structure. They are mostly about controlling people and not about creating justice.

Stand up and raise our voices!”

“Rosa 7053 is the voice of Boston’s hard working, intelligent and socially conscious youth. We stand against injustice at home and abroad. 7053 is the booking number when [Rosa Parks] was arrested for a remarkable act of civil disobedience. Today we are also ready to stand up and raise our voices as our ancestor Rosa Parks did on Dec. 1, 1955,” said Noelia Cabrera during a special presentation by the youth group where they all wore their new Rosa Parks T-shirts.

“The goal of Rosa 7053 is to raise consciousness and awareness amongst the masses of youth in today’s America. By speaking out against injustice both big and small we resolve to effect change through unified, organized action. We came together because we must unite. There is work to be done across boundaries of class, color and turf. Rosa 7053 is dedicated to spreading the word and helping other youth free their minds from the mental jail cell called internalized oppression,” concluded Cabrera.

Teri Hinton of the Boston Workers Alliance and Survivors Inc. learned of the summit because a member of the BRPHRDC attended a Workers’ Alliance meeting.

“We have to have a vision and we have to be unified in that vision. How can we build a movement if we’re not unified? We all have to work together. And even though we fight for different causes, we have to become united to fight this demon. I’m really tired of being dehumanized and demonized by the system. We have to put some action to it. Like go for the protest on Aug. 29. Go for Aug. 5. We have to do something. Without action there’s nothing. So get on your sneakers. Get the head band going. Be ready to work, march the streets and do what we gotta do. Our organizations are gonna do what we have to do to help build this movement,” said Hinton to sustained applause.

At the summit’s closing a general statement from the activists present defending human rights and the dignity of working people, specifically people of color, was agreed upon. A forthcoming resolution with concrete actions proposed along with a unity statement weaving the struggles together will be issued to the Greater Boston progressive movement after further consultation at upcoming RPHRDC meetings.

A rousing version of ‘Solidarity Forever,’ led by USWA Local 8751 member Stevan Kirschbaum was sung by all those present.

For more information call 617-524-3507, email: [email protected], or visit www.brphrd.com or www.iacboston.org.