BY RYAN KELLY
OAKLAND, California - Rashaad Ali announced his campaign as
the Socialist Workers candidate for the California State
Assembly, 16th District, in front of Castlemont High School in
east Oakland as students arrived for school January 14. Ali, an
airline worker and member of the International Association of
Machinists, is running in the March 30 special election.
Students and teachers in the Oakland unified school district had scheduled a one-day teach-in at three Oakland high schools on the death penalty and the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal, a recognized Black journalist and activist in the defense of Black rights, was sentenced to death on frame-up charges in the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia cop. An international campaign demanding a new trial for Abu-Jamal has become a focus of opponents of the death penalty.
Superintendent of Schools Carole Quan, School Board president Noel Gallo, and other officials had been pressing for weeks to shut down the planned assemblies. A few days before the scheduled teach-ins, a cop was shot and killed in Oakland. Despite pressure from the police department and the school board to cancel the assemblies, the teachers' union, the Oakland Education Association, voted to continue with the programs.
Quan overruled the union's decision under the pretext that it would be "insensitive" following the Oakland cop's death.
As students arrived for school at Castlemont January 14, the day of the scheduled assemblies, they were met by Ali and supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign.
Candis White, a 10th grader at Castlemont who was scheduled to speak at the assembly opposing the use of the death penalty, told campaigners, "It's wrong to say the judicial system can kill someone."
As more city buses rolled up to drop off the students, the crowd around the campaign table grew as Ali began "soap boxing."
"Working people should oppose the cancellation of the teach- ins organized for today by students and teachers on the death penalty and frame-up victim Abu-Jamal," the candidate said. "The shrill campaign to gain sympathy for this cop is an affront to all of us who have been victims of police brutality and murder. Students should learn about the real role of the police as protectors of the racist and class-divided capitalist system we live in."
Young Socialists member and City College of San Francisco student J.P. Crysdale explained, "The Young Socialists uses the Socialist Workers campaign to advance the fight against police brutality, win a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and to stand with the Oakland teachers and students who are demanding the right to free speech in their schools."
Sophath Mey, the Castlemont junior class president and vice president of the Asian Student Union, spoke with Ali and his supporters. She protested the cancellation, saying, "I believe that we, as intelligent adults, have the right to speak our mind. If we are taught about the Ku Klux Klan, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, we have the right to learn about Mumia Abu- Jamal."
Ali pointed to the recent cop killing of an unconscious woman, Tyisha Miller in Riverside, near Los Angeles, December 28. "The murderous assault on Iraq is an extension of the U.S. rulers barbarity and attacks on the rights of workers and farmers at home - from the greater use of the police and hired thugs against workers on strike, to the stepped up executions, police violence, deportations, and government attacks on affirmative action," he said.
Chris Valin, 24, a teacher at Castlemont, stopped by the table and later returned. "It doesn't make sense: as an observance of a cop getting shot we don't talk about our problems of justice?" he asked.
Fifteen students signed up on a list stating that they would like to help the campaign, before a school administrator announced "Lock down" and padlocked the front gate. Ali will be holding a campaign rally in Oakland on February 5.
To find out how to help the campaign please write to: Socialist Workers Campaign Committee, 3542 Fruitvale Ave. #244, Oakland, California, 94602, or call (510) 531-2533.