BY NAOMI CRAINE

In more than 20 cities across the country, socialist workers and youth hit the streets in a "campaigning for socialism" weekend August 10-11. Supporters of the Socialist Workers campaign in Alabama, Iowa, New York, and Washington, D.C., took advantage of the special weekend to complete petitioning to put the socialist ticket of James Harris for president and Laura Garza for vice president on the ballot. Special celebrations in Illinois and Iowa that weekend welcomed Mark Curtis back to the class struggle (see articles on page 4). Curtis was recently paroled after seven and a half years in prison on frame-up charges.

Every branch of the Socialist Workers Party discussed and adopted goals for the weekend, including selling Pathfinder books, the Militant, and the Spanish-language magazine Perspectiva Mundial; petitioning where there are drives to get on the ballot; and joining the effort of the Young Socialists to recruit rebel-minded youth to the YS.

One young volunteer who helped socialist campaigners in Washington, D.C., go over the top in their petition drive decided to join the YS over the weekend.

In San Diego, where protests were heating up in preparation for the Republican convention, socialist campaigners began keeping count as of Thursday, August 8. By Saturday, they had sold 22 Pathfinder books and pamphlets, 44 single copies of the Militant, 2 Militant subscriptions, and 2 Perspectiva Mundial subs. The next day, campaigners sold another 30 single copies of the Militant at a picket line by the NASSCO strikers and at an AFL-CIO picnic.

Campaigners in New York had a banner weekend, selling 53 books through the Manhattan Pathfinder bookstore and the teams organized out of it, and another 23 in Brooklyn. Amy Husk from Manhattan reports, "Over the several week petitioning campaign, dozens of young people have signed up for more information on the socialist campaign and the Young Socialists. Some of them have attended classes being held every week on what socialists stand for."

The campaigning weekend in Iowa "began with a petition team to the Des Moines farmers market at 7:00 a.m.," writes Bill Kalman. "A team from St. Paul, Minnesota, campaigned in Waterloo, Iowa, where the Immigration and Naturalization Service has been making raids at the IBP packinghouse and arresting immigrants."

Several campaign supporters who attended the meeting in Des Moines celebrating Mark Curtis's release joined in completing the petition effort the next day. "Sales for the two days included 17 copies of the Militant, one subscription, and five Pathfinder titles. Five was our Pathfinder goal for the weekend," said Kalman.

Campaign supporters in Chicago sold 21 Pathfinder books and three subscriptions each to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial over the weekend.

Socialist workers included visits to independent bookstores in a sales team to Ashville, North Carolina. These netted orders for 23 Pathfinder books. The team "also set up a book table downtown. No books were sold off the table, but four people bought catalogs," writes Jim Rogers. One copy of New International was sold off a table at a flea market in Eden, North Carolina, a town with several unionized textile mills.  
 
 
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