“SWP campaigners come out of the July 22-24 Socialist Workers Party International Conference better prepared to join in the struggles of working people and point the road forward to building a party that will lead millions to overturn capitalist rule and make a socialist revolution,” John Studer, SWP national campaign director, told the Militant.
“They are discussing this road forward with working people on their doorsteps and at picket lines as workers fight to change the conditions we face today. The party’s campaigns are spearheaded by the 20 candidates it has endorsed in elections this year, as well as by Communist League candidates in other countries.”
Days after the conference, SWP campaigners Leroy Watson and Dan Fein spoke with Ben Allen Aug. 1, a retired African American accountant in Bellwood, a working-class suburb west of Chicago.
Fein said there is less racism today among the working class. Allen disagreed. “Working-class whites are easily tricked into blaming Blacks for their problems,” he told the socialist campaigners.
“Capitalism needs racism to divide and weaken the working class while they exploit us,” Fein said. “The fight against racism today is part of the challenge to unite the working class for coming battles against the capitalist system.”
“The civil rights movement of the ’50s and ’60s changed things forever by smashing the system of Jim Crow segregation,” Watson said. He pointed to the widespread protests on the heels of the killing of George Floyd last year that united Blacks, Caucasians and others. Many of the strikes in the Chicago area over the past two years have included Blacks, Caucasians, Mexicans and others walking the picket lines together.
Allen looked at the back cover of Tribunes of the People and the Trade Unions by Jack Barnes, SWP national secretary, and other Marxist leaders. “A tribune of the people uses every manifestation of capitalist oppression to explain why it’s workers and our allies who can and will,” it says, “lay the foundations for a world based not on violence and competition, but on solidarity among working people worldwide.”
“I’ll get that,” Allen said, as well as a subscription to the Militant.
In the town of Lake Worth, Florida, Steve Warshell and Nelson Gonzalez campaigned door to door Aug. 1. Most workers there labor in the fields or in vegetable processing industries.
Margarita Gomez, a domestic worker, invited Warshell to join her husband, Joaquín, and their 13-year-old son in a cool spot to talk more. “My husband is from Cuba and he would be interested in many of your books,” she said.
Joaquín, who works night shift at Walmart, had received a head injury while unloading a trailer. “They treated him worse than if he was one of their livestock. He had to fight for every bit of medical care he got,” she said.
“All I know for sure is that in the United States there is incredible wealth for the rich, but for most of us it’s pure exploitation for life,” Joaquín said. He bought In Defense of the US Working Class by Mary-Alice Waters, a leader of the SWP.
To find out more or to join the SWP campaigns, contact the party branch or Communist League nearest you. See directory.