Vol. 71/No. 14      April 9, 2007

Militant photos by Dave Wulp
Grand opening of new Militant Labor Forum hall in Atlanta March 24. Upper left: Reynaldo Ruiz (left), who gave fund pitch at event, alongside Róger Calero and Ellie García. Upper right: Linda Joyce (standing) translating program into Spanish. Bottom right: Part of audience of more than 60 people.

Many of those in attendance had contributed their volunteer labor, skills, and money over the last three weeks to construct the center.

Working people and youth from Atlanta and the surrounding region can meet, read, study, hold classes, and plan their political work at the hall. Militant Labor Forums, organized by supporters of the Militant newspaper, will be held here every Friday evening. Pathfinder Books, as well as the local headquarters of the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists, also share space in the hall.

The event attracted people from Birmingham, Alabama; Houston; Miami; and the Carolinas in the South. Some people came from as far as New York, New Jersey, and West Virginia. Participants included members of a team of Militant supporters from Birmingham who had gone to Pascagoula, Mississippi, last week to report on the strike by 8,000 shipyard workers there and get the Militant around.

About 15 of those present participated in the meeting through simultaneous translation from the floor. They included Spanish-speaking workers from the Atlanta area, and from a garment shop 45 minutes west of the city, near the Georgia-Alabama border. Many are subscribers and promoters of El Militante.

To facilitate such events in the future, and ensure participation on an equal basis of working people speaking various languages, organizers of the Militant Labor Forum are now fundraising to rapidly acquire a wireless translation system.

The move to a new location places the Militant Labor Forum hall right in the center of this major southern city, on a busy commercial street in its West End, one of the main centers of Atlanta's Black community.

Ellie García, the organizer of the SWP in Atlanta, chaired the meeting and welcomed people to the grand opening. The turnout, she said, "means we can all look forward to further expansion."

Róger Calero, a member of the SWP National Committee and national organizer of the Militant's spring subscription campaign, kicked off the program.

Pointing to capitalism's growing instability, Calero said Washington's multi-theater "war on terrorism" is an extension of its domestic policies. These include factory raids and deportations, which are part of the rulers' response to working-class resistance. The Militant is not just a "good source of information," he noted, but a tool more and more workers use to fight the bosses and their government. He pointed to the Cuban Revolution and the need to build a revolutionary workers’ party to emulate its example in the United States.

Reynaldo Ruiz, a Militant subscriber who works in an area warehouse and convinced three of his coworkers to subscribe to the paper, gave the fund pitch.

"I first read the Militant when my sister brought it home and put it on the breakfast table," he said. "She got it from a coworker. Since then I've encouraged people to read the paper and Pathfinder books." The Militant is important to the working class because it brings workers here news about struggles around the world, he said.

Also speaking was Ross Hogan, a member of the Young Socialists National Steering Committee, who had just returned from the meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, of the General Assembly of the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

A leader of Cajolas United in Solidarity with Guatemala, a group of Guatemalan workers in the city, brought greetings to the celebration from his organization. He and other members of his group helped build the new center. He described the group's activities. These range from confronting challenges facing Guatemalan workers, to participating in actions demanding legalization of all immigrants—from last year's May Day strike to other mobilizations.

Noting the breadth of participation in the meeting, García pointed to the “welcome” sign at the forum in a number of languages, including Mam—the Mayan dialect spoken by these workers from Guatemala, for whom Spanish is a second language.

The next morning about 25 people came back to the new hall for breakfast and a class on The First and Second Declarations of Havana, recently published by Pathfinder Press.  
 
 
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