Gil Banks

Gil Banks

GIL BANKS—African-American organizer/activist, Harlem labor leader, historian, researcher, linguist, surveyor, trumpet player and Pan-African revolutionary—accomplished so much in his 80 years.

Chief among his varied accomplishments was that he inspired and motivated others of all nationalities to join the struggle against racism, inequality, poverty, imperialist war and all forms of injustice.

“For many, many years Gil Banks was the main organizer at Harlem FightBack, and a leader in the struggle to break down the racism in the construction industry and get jobs for Black and Latin@ workers at construction sites throughout New York and beyond,” Larry Holmes, leader of the anti-imperialist Troops Out Now Coalition in New York City, told Workers World.

“Gil’s legacy is that he was defiantly in the front ranks of militant and fearless fighters who brought the fight for jobs and economic justice into the civil rights and Black liberation movement,” Holmes concluded.

Banks, an ex-GI, founded BAND—Blacks Against Negative Dying—to oppose the racist, imperialist U.S. war against Vietnam. In the early 1960s, Eddie Oquendo joined the Brooklyn chapter of the Congress on Racial Equality, where he met Banks and soon became a member of BAND. Oquendo was motivated to defy the draft and spent 26 months in federal prison, between 1968 and 1970, rather than fight a war of aggression against other people of color.

Oquendo told Workers World, “Gil continues to inspire me every day of my life.”

A heartfelt, overflow memorial service for Banks on July 15 was ably led by anti-imperialist labor leader Brenda Stokely.

Wing Lam of the Chinese Workers Associ ation told a moving story about how Banks had wholeheartedly responded when the CWA needed help organi zing restaurant workers in Chinatown. Lam paid tribute to Banks’ willingness to share and to teach all he knew to help CWA and said Banks’ guidance helped win the struggle.

Others who paid tribute to Banks included Jim Horton, president of Harlem FightBack, who detailed his dedication and commitment to the struggle for economic justice for Black and Latin@ workers.

Doris Turner, former president of Service Employees Local 1199, acknowledged Banks’ many contributions to organized labor in New York City for more than three decades.

Playthell Benjamin, head of Radio Free Africa on commercial-free WBAI, lauded Banks’ research into African history and culture, his political analysis of Africa as the cradle of civilization, and his critical analysis of the writings of Black nationalists.

Many speakers referred to Banks as a Renaissance figure.

As the program noted: “Gilbert Banks was a free thinker, a true revolutionary. He was an educator, studied African history and was passionate about sharing knowledge. He was an indomitable spirit and was ahead of his time. He was known in Harlem as the new Frederick Douglass.”