BY JAMES HARRIS
ATLANTA - Hundreds of people, most of them young Black college students, demonstrated here January 22 in defense of affirmative action. The march went to the capital building where the Georgia state legislature is in session discussing two bills aimed at ending affirmative action in the state.

About 600 people joined in the action, which was called by the Stand for Affirmative Action coalition. This student-led coalition has been endorsed by a wide range of groups, including the National Youth Connection, the AFL-CIO, the American Jewish Federation, Asian-Pacific American Coalition, Center for Democratic Renewal, the Southern Christian Leadership Coalition (SCLC), the Socialist Workers Party, the Young Socialists, and a number of college and university student governments. Along with students, the demonstration included trade unionists and other workers.

The demonstrators met at Centennial Olympic Park and after a brief discussion about whether they should call off the march because of the rain, they enthusiastically decided to march through downtown Atlanta.

Chris Parrish, a 19-year-old psychology major from Morehouse college, typified many when he said, "We just have to march. We are here to make history. It's important for us to be here and say that their is still a lot of racism around and that big businesses can't hide from it or sweep it under the rug. This is my first march but it won't be my last. Not until their is totally no racism."

At the capitol participants stood in the pouring rain for over an hour listening to speakers. The high point was the speech given by the march's main organizer, 20-year-old Markel Hutchins, of the National Youth Connection and a Morehouse college student. Hutchins stated that young people had to be the center of the organizing effort for affirmative action and that the fight could not end with this rally. To emphasize this point at the end of the rally he demonstratively asked all the dignitaries and speakers who were at that point assembled on the stage to leave the stage. He then asked all the students that could crowd onto the stage to do so.

Looking over the stage with the young people crammed together on it. Hutchins said, "This is beautiful. These are the people that are going to make the change. This is where the power is."

On January 15 there was a smaller demonstration of 150 called by the SCLC at the state capital building in support of affirmative action.

Anti-affirmative action forces in Georgia have been emboldened by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding California's Proposition 209, a law passed by referendum in 1996 that bans affirmative action in state hiring and contracts, as well as public education. Two bills are now being discussed in the Georgia state legislature that use the language of Proposition 209 - House Bill 99 and Senate Bill 243.

"The reason the bills track the language of 209 is that the language has been tested in the courts, and the courts have said this language is constitutional," said Matt Glavin, the head of the Southern Legal Foundation, an anti-affirmative action organization. Opponents of affirmative action have also received legal support and counseling from the American Civil Rights Coalition, a group organized by the forces that pushed the referendum in California.

The U.S. district court in Atlanta has also recently ruled against the affirmative action programs at Grady Memorial Hospital and the Atlanta Public Schools, forcing them to be dismantled. These attacks have sparked resistance and debate on the part of supporters of affirmative.

Some of this discussion took place at a recent Militant Labor Forum, which included a panel made up of Paul Cornish from the Young Socialists, Roxanne Gregory of the SCLC, Vicki McClennan from the National Organization for Women, and Markel Hutchins from the Stand for Affirmative Action Coalition.

The forum turned into a lively discussion of strategy among supporters of affirmative action. Gregory and McClennan said activists should focus on lobbying efforts directed at the legislators gathered at the state capital. This is where they would be spending most of their time. Hutchins and Cornish both stressed the need for mass action. "We have to increase the street heat," said Hutchins. "We have to give this form of action a chance."

Another issue that was discussed at the forum was whether supporters of affirmative action should present their own "alternate language" to seek compromise in the fight for affirmative action, rather than lose the vote on the House and Senate bills. This so-called compromise would have wording against affirmative action quotas, but guarantee "equal opportunity in public contracts jobs and college admissions."

Some Democratic Party supporters of the compromise effort frame it as establishing a civil rights bill in Georgia, including prominent liberals like state representative Tyrone Brooks, president of the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials.

Many of the forum participants spoke against this approach and emphasized the need to fight the current bills and any deals that would gut affirmative action in the name of saving it.

James Harris is a member of United Transportation Workers Union Local 511 in Atlanta.  
 
 
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