Vol. 71/No. 38      October 15, 2007

Racist and anti-gay graffiti were scrawled on the window of the Militant Labor Forum hall above a display of copies of the Militant September 23. The headline of the paper read: “Justice for the Jena 6! Drop the charges now!” The windows also displayed a T-shirt demanding justice for the Jena Six, and books by Malcolm X, Che Guevara, and others published by Pathfinder Press.

The forum, called before the racist attack, was a panel discussion by participants who went as part of a Chicago contingent of 1,000 to a September 20 march and rally in Jena, Louisiana.

Shakria Hall, a student at Chicago State University, told the audience of nearly 30 that her grandmother and mother were worried for her safety in Jena. “Mom said, ‘Someone else can go,’” she said. “But what if everyone had said that during the civil rights movement? Where would we be today? It’s up to us now. It’s up to the young people of the world.”

Ashunda Harris, the aunt of 18-year-old Aaron Harrison who was killed by Chicago cops in August, explained how solidarity can unite different struggles for justice. She reported that her sister, Aaron’s mother, was headed to the forum earlier that evening, but heard the news of another killing on Chicago’s south side and went there instead to give solidarity to the family.

“We need to give people a way to respond to what is happening,” said Harris. “If there’s no action posed, there will be no results. Everybody has to join forces. All of our causes are basically the same.” She voiced support for an upcoming rally in support of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Illinois, which anti-abortion forces want to prevent from opening. “We need that clinic so that we can make choices,” she said. “Having a child or not should be a woman’s choice.”

“The only difference between Jena and Chicago is a bus ride,” said Laura Anderson of the Socialist Workers Party. She pointed out that the fight against racism is not new, but follows decades of struggle from Radical Reconstruction following the Civil War to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. “We need to win more fights, build solidarity where anyone is fighting for dignity.”

Anderson also spoke about a recent rash of arrests and killing of Black youth by cops in Chicago.

A CBS-TV news report of the vandalism against the Militant Labor Forum hall was shown at the beginning of the program, and after a lively discussion, $125 was collected to help defray the costs of the forum’s defense.
 
 
Related articles:
‘We all live in Jena’
Mychal Bell released on bail, faces new trial
Actions demanding justice for Jena 6 continue
Racists beat Black student in Florida
Mobilize to fight racist attacks  
 
 
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