BY SARA LOBMAN

NEW YORK-Supporters of the socialist election campaign of James Harris for president and Laura Garza for vice president are finding that petitioning to get the candidates on the ballot in New York is also a great opportunity to reach workers and youth with Pathfinder books and pamphlets. Volunteers at the Manhattan and Brooklyn Pathfinder bookstores reported that more than 180 books have been sold in July, almost all of them since the middle of the month when the petitioning effort began.

"We've sold 39 books in just the last week," Eleanor García reported. García, who is running for Congress on the socialist ticket, is part of a team of supporters who are campaigning full time. They are joined before and after work, and on weekends, by scores of other volunteers who, armed with nominating petitions, stacks of books and pamphlets, campaign literature, the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, and folding tables, fan out to street corners in working-class communities, plant gates, college campuses, and political events across the city and state.

A team to Jamaica, Queens, sold four books, in addition to collecting 135 signatures on petitions. Dee, a student at LaGuardia Community College, bought a subscription to the Militant. After more discussion with team members about the campaign and the Young Socialists, she decided to get the Communist Manifesto. "I want to be part of this organization. How can I do that?" she asked. Dee is planning to set up a report-back meeting at her school for young people who are currently in Cuba as part of the U.S.-Cuba Youth Exchange.

The team also sold a copy of New International no. 6 with the article "The Second Assassination of Maurice Bishop," the Action Program to Confront the Coming Economic Crisis, and Cointelpro: The FBI's Secret War on Political Freedom.

Workers in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn bought eight titles-in English, Spanish, and French-in just two days. A worker who had been a member of the Sandinista youth organization in Nicaragua during the revolution joined the sales and petitioning effort for a while. He commented that the Communist Manifesto was one of his favorite books. A young woman, originally from Honduras, said she was part of a socialist youth group at a local community college. She asked for a member of the Young Socialists to give her a call.

On July 28, campaign supporters from New Jersey and New York participated in a protest against the burning of Black churches in the southern United States. One march participant bought a copy of Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle by Thomas Sankara.

Socialist workers from New Jersey have been busy fixing up their new storefront bookstore. But that hasn't stopped them from selling books and getting out to political activities in the region. One day, two young people came by the bookstore-to- be. When they heard the books were packed in boxes in the basement while construction was under way, they asked to see them. They each bought a copy of Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War by Ernesto Che Guevara and promised to come back.

On July 28 socialist workers and youth set up a table at a Caribbean parade and carnival in Jersey City. They sold two pamphlets-one on Ireland and one on Cuba-and talked to four people who were interested in getting a copy of Maurice Bishop Speaks, by the leader of the 1979-83 Grenadian revolution. To take advantage of this kind of interest, the New Jersey socialists have decided to do "call-backs" to people who want one or another book but don't have the money on them.

The next issue of the Militant, which will be printed on August 15, will include totals for Pathfinder sales in July. Supporters in local areas should be sure to send their sales statistics in to the Militant no later than Friday, August 9.  
 
 
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