BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Supporters of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial have
kicked off a drive to introduce new readers and renew
subscriptions to the socialist press. Workers in New York sold
36 copies of the Militant and 4 copies of Perspectiva Mundial at
a February 7 rally of more than 1,000 people protesting the cop
killing of Amadou Diallo.
Socialists sold 17 more copies of the paper at another demonstration of some 2,000 people two days later. A number of protesters snapped up copies when Militant supporters explained that the U.S. foreign policy of bombing Iraqi people and the killing of Diallo in the Bronx was the same. Other sales included five copies of the French-language title Thomas Sankara Speaks.
Participants in the sales campaign will get out to meet working farmers and build support for the March 2 rally in Washington, D.C., called by leaders of the Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFAA). A "fairness hearing" is scheduled that day to approve the settlement of a lawsuit charging the U.S. Department of Agriculture with racist discrimination against farmers who are Black.
At a January 30 meeting of the BFAA in Durham, North Carolina, farmers and others purchased eight new Militant subscriptions and two renewals. These sales results reflect the opportunities to engage in political discussions with working farmers fighting to defend their land.
Socialists will begin to keep on the lookout for gatherings of farmers throughout the United States and around the world, like the January 29 meeting in Cave City, Kentucky, where 350 tobacco farmers participated. Working farmers who grow tobacco are being squeezed by cuts in the amount of tobacco they are permitted to grow. A similar meeting in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, attracted about 200 people.
Below is a report of a recent sales team of socialist workers and Young Socialists who traveled throughout central Illinois to reach out to workers, farmers, and students.
SPRINGFIELD, Illinois - From January 25-30 we talked to workers, farmers, and students in central Illinois about the different struggles by working people today and to get the Militant newspaper in their hands. At coal mine portals, factory plant gates, and college campuses, we sold 142 Militants, 1 copy of Perspective Mundial, 6 Militant subscriptions and 5 Pathfinder pamphlets.
A miner who works at the Crown #3 mine in Farmersville - who recently struck alongside unionists at Crown #2 and the Industry mine against Freeman United company - and a couple workers striking against Lenc-Smith in Chicago came to a January 24 fund- raising forum in Chicago that launched the regional sales team.
The following morning, the team used the Militant to continue the discussion at the Crown #3 mine portal. Most of the miners who stopped to check out the paper said the company is trying to victimize workers inside and is arbitrarily cracking down on company rules since the strike. Several said the situation is tense between the company and union inside. Most of the nine miners who bought the Militant said they had read it before and some had their money out of their pockets when they saw us.
On January 26 the team sold Militants at the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW)-organized slaughterhouse in Beardstown, Illinois, at a nearby university and at the Industry coal mine.
Industry is a strip mine and one of the three mines owned by Freeman United that was recently on strike. A majority of the roughly 45 miners who work there voted against the proposed contract. The contract was approved by a small majority.
One miner said he warned other unionists in the area that other companies will try to wrest similar concessions as Freeman did from the miners. He bought a Militant subscription. He said he had read the paper before and liked the coverage on their strike. A fellow unionist had encouraged him to subscribe during the strike, he said. Another 15 day-shift miners picked up copies of the Militant. A couple of workers were interested in going to a solidarity dinner organized by UAW Local 974 at Caterpillar for their union brothers on strike against Tazewell Machine Works in Pekin, Illinois.
The team attended a January 26 meeting on "Strategies to Weather Downturn in the Hog Market" sponsored by University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service. Some 15 hog farmers turned out to discuss how to confront the deepening economic crisis hitting hog farmers who are forced to sell hogs for well below the cost of raising them. While the speakers at the meeting focused on how to cut expenses, some of the farmers present were looking for answers to combat the squeeze on working farmers.
After the meeting, team members talked to a few farmers. Dan Fein, a team member who is a meatpacker in Atlanta, explained to two farmers why a worker-farmer alliance needed to be formed. He said, "I work for Hormel who pays farmers too little for their hogs and also pays its employees too little. Small farmers and the workers have the same enemy. We are natural allies."
The next day the team drove to Decatur. At Milliken University two students bought subscriptions to the Militant and another bought a single copy. When the dean told us we had to leave, one young woman at the table said her student group would sponsor a table for us on our next visit.
We sold 21 papers to workers at the Caterpillar plant in East Peoria, and with our few remaining papers we headed to the Firestone plant in Bloomington. Twenty-two USWA members here were part of a solidarity rally in Quincy for Steelworkers on strike against Titan Tire. We sold all 12 copies 15 minutes before the day shift got off.