YS member Lou Newton has helped to organize a Young Socialist Club at his high school, Kent Roosevelt High. The YS club is a place where students come to discuss articles in the Militant and Pathfinder books, such as Capitalism's World Disorder. Discussion often centers around working-class struggles in the region, such as the recent rally of 4,000 to support the locked-out steelworkers in Mansfield, Ohio.

Newton receives a bundle of 10 copies of the Militant in the mail every week to sell in the area. Most of them are sold on the Kent State University campus to youth who are interested in linking up with fighting workers and working farmers. Many of the students who read the Militant have expressed interest in going to Mansfield to support the steelworkers. These sales also build the Militant Labor Forums in Cleveland, weekly gatherings where fighters meet to discuss what is happening in the class struggle all over the world.

The Young Socialists here has also been active in visiting bookstores in the area to place Pathfinder titles, so that they will be available to a larger number of workers and youth.

YS members across the Midwest made a special effort to get students, young workers, and others to Mansfield, for the March 25 action in support of United Steelworkers of America Local 169 in its months-long campaign against the lockout by AK Steel. One of the central points in dispute is the forced overtime that the company is demanding of the workforce.

Students from the Oberlin, Ohio, Student Labor Action Coalition joined the rally to show support for the locked-out workers. One student who stopped to look at the Pathfinder book table said that the group had come to link up with workers in struggle in the area. They were among a number of young people who attended the rally in support of and in solidarity with the fight that Local 169 has been waging. They mentioned that they are organizing an upcoming Student Labor Action Coalition Conference to take place on the Oberlin College campus.

Young Socialists sold the Militant and Pathfinder books, and participated in discussions at the literature tables, taking up a wide range of subjects, including the Cuban revolution, Malcolm X, and the rallies of working farmers in Washington, D.C., and steelworkers fighting Titan Tire.  
 

Youth protest School of Americas

Participants in the protest were mostly youth and members of religious organizations from many parts of the country. A number of international songs were part of the program, which featured a variety of speakers throughout the day. Opposition toward the School of the Americas and what it represents initiated numerous political discussions, especially among young people.

Manuel, a student from El Salvador, who came from Richmond, Virginia, said the reason why he attended was "to stop the atrocities in Latin America committed by military personnel trained in the SOA. Protests such as this one bring attention to the injustices. They bring people together and give them power."

An international relations student, Isabel, who came from New York for the event, was just as clear and vigorous in her characterization of the SOA: "Instead of helping the working class, the SOA graduates learn how to oppress and torture people. It is up to the workers and youth to fight against the SOA because its graduates have always and will continue to protect the interests of the elites."

The U.S. Army School of the Americas trains Latin American soldiers in combat, military intelligence, commando operations, counterinsurgency, and anti-narcotics operations. Since its inception in 1946, SOA graduates and their U.S. trainers have been responsible for some of the worst human rights atrocities in Latin America, including the Uraba massacre in Colombia, the El Mozote massacre of 900 civilians in El Salvador and the murder of Archbishop Oscar Romero there, the La Cantuta massacre in Peru, among hundreds of others.

A team of Militant supporters sold 11 copies of the paper, two subscriptions, two Young Socialists pamphlets, and about a half dozen books and pamphlets.

There was particular interest in the Pathfinder books and pamphlets featuring writings of Ernesto Che Guevara, the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary leader who fought for everything the School of the Americas has tried to crush.  
 
 
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