BY EDMUNDO SABALLOS
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - "I think this government needs to be overthrown," said Bobbi Simpson, a 21-year-old Black youth and education assistant at a high school in Minneapolis. "I've always been a rebel at heart."

Simpson joined the Young Socialists some three weeks prior to the December 20-21 Birmingham regional socialist conference. She attended a forum on the Million Women March where she met members of the Young Socialists. Simpson was among the youth at the conference who participated in wide-ranging discussions on the Cuban revolution, the U.S. war drive against Iraq, the fight for Black rights, and other subjects.

"We need a change in the governmental system and I think socialism is the way to go," replied Chloe Schwaber a 20-year- old student at Mills College in San Francisco, when she was asked what she thought was needed to change the present conditions in this country. Schwaber has been active in fights against the death penalty, for affirmative action, against the anti-immigrant rights measure Proposition 209, and against U.S. war moves in the Persian Gulf. After the main presentations she bought a copy of the Pathfinder pamphlet Socialism and Man In Cuba, which features speeches by Cuban revolutionary leaders Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

For Madeline Zygarewicz, also a student at Mills College, socialism had been something that has long interested her. In coming to the conference she wanted "to see if this is a movement I would want to join. And so far I agree with everything raised."

Classes attract young fighters
As part of the conference, classes on the role of the working class in the fight for Black liberation, the transformation of the working class in the United States, and the Cuban socialist revolution were given. Michael Harping, a 16-year-old high school student from Kentucky, attended the class on the 1963 Battle of Birmingham and the fight to end Jim Crow segregation. He said he learned "a lot about the struggle of Blacks and about the civil rights movement that I wouldn't have learned from my history class." Harping is active in the group Anti-Racist Action and expressed interest in finding out more about the Young Socialists.

Ronald Coleman, 27, from Philadelphia learned about the conference when he went to a Militant Labor Forum protesting the U.S. war moves against Iraq. Coleman said he was impressed "with the way the socialist movement and leaders like Leon Trotsky viewed the Black struggle in the United States, slavery, and the class struggle in America. I'm interested in learning more about the Cuban revolution and more discussions with Pathfinder. This has been a good experience and I want to keep involved, possibly joining the Socialist Workers Party. I'm open to any suggestions on what I can do to help, whether it's going to demonstrations or joining the organization."  
 
 
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