BY SAM MANUEL

WASHINGTON, DC - Some 12,000 voting and non-voting observer delegates are expected to participate in a national political convention in St. Louis. The meeting has been called by the National African American Leadership Summit (NAALS) and the Million Man March Inc.

The two groups were sponsors of the march that resulted in a massive outpouring of Blacks in Washington last year on October 16. Another event is being planned to take place at the United Nations plaza in New York City this October 16.

The convention will be held at the America's Center TWA Dome. It will open with a concert at the Clyde Jordan Stadium in the nearby predominantly Black city of East St. Louis. The East St. Louis city government gave official backing to the Million Man March and organized busses for the event out of City Hall. Among the featured speakers schedule to address the convention are Alabama Democratic congressman Earl Hilliard, Columbia University professor Manning Marable, National of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and NAALS convenor Benjamin Chavis. The event is open to poor and oppressed members of other ethnic groups, according to Chavis.

A pre-convention planning conference on "National Issues and Public Policy" was held in July where a programmatic document entitled "The National Agenda 1996: Executive Summary" was approved. Chavis said the document initially addresses the interests of the black community, "but also would be broad enough to allow Hispanics, Asian, Pacific Islanders, Native and Arab Americans and even whites to stand on a solid agenda."

Chavis compared the St. Louis convention with the National Black Political Convention held in Gary, Indiana in 1972. That meeting was the most significant and representative of its kind in decades, drawing 8,000 activists from across the United States. The Gary convention came on the heels of the massive social movement of Blacks in the 1960s.

None of the material on the St. Louis gathering proposes independent political action outside the capitalist two-party system. Conference organizers have circulated copies of the policy statement to delegates of the Republican, Democratic, and Reform party conventions.

Chavis stated that the convention would seek to create "a third force" to register Black voters and pressure the big business parties as well as the Reform Party of Ross Perot. "Then comes November - D-Day," he said at a July 27 news conference in Chicago. " Our focus would not be who to vote for, but what to vote for," Chavis told The Final Call.

Among the agenda items to be discussed at the national political convention are: Independent political parties; political prisoners and opposition to the death penalty; U.S. foreign policy toward African and Caribbean nations; and the fight against the burning of Black churches.

Chavis said the convention will probably issue a condemnation of United States and United Nations sanctions against Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Nigeria and Cuba.

Convention will attract layer of fighters
The September 27-29 convention will attract a layer of workers and youth looking for a way to fight the effects of a stepped up bipartisan assault on a half century of gains by working people in this country. This assault has resulted in a weakening of affirmative action in employment and education. Agencies like Head Start which provided educational, daycare and health care programs for preschool children have been gutted. Last month, with the backing of both capitalist parties, president William Clinton signed legislation which he said was the best chance at achieving his goal of "ending welfare as we know it."

The assault on social programs has been coupled with a deepening attack on civil and democratic rights. The Clinton administration's "anticrime" and "antiterrorism" bills have expanded the use of the death penalty; narrowed the right of appeal especially for those on death row; and pushed back freedom from illegal search and seizure.

These attacks fall hardest on Black, Latino, and immigrant workers and other oppressed groups. The so-called welfare reform bill contained a special provision aimed at immigrant workers. An estimated 1 million immigrants with residence papers will be cut off from food stamps.

These assaults have deepened the alienation among working people with the two major capitalist parties. "TO HELL WITH THE LESSOR OF TWO EVILS - It's Time For A Third Political Party!" read the September 4 headline editorial in the New York City Sun a prominent Black weekly. "The Republicans will deliver nothing no matter what Colin Powell and Jack Kemp say. The Democrats have taken advantage of us for years," the editorial stated. The article ends with information on the Democratic Party primary and which local Democrat to vote for, "regardless of their shortcomings."

Republicans court Black vote
"My goal for America is that by the end of the century, 50 percent of all African-Americans in the country is voting Democratic and 50 percent is voting Republican," said Republican vice-presidential candidate Jack Kemp. At the end of August he made campaign stops designed to give the Republican ticket higher visibility in the Black community. Kemp spoke to a Black journalist conference in Nashville, community leaders in South Central Los Angeles and Southside Chicago, and Harlem, New York.

On September 6 Kemp spoke at Sylvia's, a popular restaurant in Harlem, to an audience that included Conrad Muhammad, New York spokesman for Farrakhan. "I think he [Kemp] is a man that Black America must look at very seriously," said Muhammad. "He adds a lot to the Dole ticket."  
 
 
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