Virginia teachers march over low wages, school conditions

Vol. 83/No. 6 - February 11, 2019
Jan. 28 protest by thousands of Virginia teachers, other school workers and their supporters. Since 2008 state has cut thousands of teaching and school positions while enrollment soared.

RICHMOND, Va. — Thousands of red-jacketed teachers, other school workers and their supporters rallied at the state Capitol here Jan. 28 protesting both the long-standing decline of the schools and state government budget cuts that slashed school funding, building maintenance…


‘I want to join your campaign!’ SWP gets hearing in Texas working class

Vol. 83/No. 6 - February 11, 2019
Alyson Kennedy, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Dallas mayor, shows auto worker Jason Denton new book In Defense of US Working Class, Jan. 25, while campaigning door to door.

DALLAS — Socialist Workers Party mayoral candidate Alyson Kennedy and fellow campaigners have knocked on doors in working-class neighborhoods all across Dallas and the surrounding Texas region for the last two weeks — introducing the party and discussing how working…


Chicago, DC meetings celebrate 60 years of Cuba’s revolution

Vol. 83/No. 6 - February 11, 2019
Miguel Fraga, first secretary of the Embassy of Cuba, speaks at Jan. 18 Washington, D.C., event to celebrate 60th anniversary of Cuban Revolution. Panel included Omari Musa, left, from sponsoring DC Metro Coalition and leader of Socialist Workers Party; Luis Rumbaut, right, Antonio Maceo Brigade; and Cheryl LaBash, co-chair of National Network on Cuba.

Over 60 people attended a meeting to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution in Chicago Jan. 26 and to discuss building the April 21-May 5 May Day International Volunteer Work Brigade in Solidarity with Cuba. Six people signed…


Coal miners face rise in scourge of deadly black lung disease

Vol. 83/No. 6 - February 11, 2019

Black lung disease is on the rise among coal miners throughout Appalachia, with the most deadly forms now affecting a younger generation of miners. Facts about this debilitating and deadly disease were highlighted in an NPR/Frontline program “Coal’s Deadly Dust”…


Kurdish protesters push back against Sulaymaniyah censors

Vol. 83/No. 6 - February 11, 2019
Students at Institute of Fine Arts in Sulaymaniyah, in Kurdistan region in Iraq, joined Cinema Salim to protest censorship barring showing of film about government attacks against Kurdish struggle for self-determination in Turkey. Placard says, “Freedom for Cinema Salim.”

SULAYMANIYAH, Kurdistan Region, Iraq — In a blow to artistic freedom, Cinema Salim was closed down by security forces here Jan. 8. The censorship was aimed at preventing the theater from screening the short film “Three Days in 10 Years,”…


Chicago cop who killed Laquan McDonald gets prison

Vol. 83/No. 5 - February 4, 2019
Right, Rev. Marvin Hunter, uncle of Laquan McDonald killed by Chicago cops in 2014.

CHICAGO — Former Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke was sentenced to 81 months in state prison by Judge Vincent Gaughan Jan. 18 for the October 2014 killing of African-American teenager Laquan McDonald. He had been convicted of second-degree murder…


SWP takes books, ‘Militant’ broadly to working people

Vol. 83/No. 5 - February 4, 2019

“You ask what’s it like here,” said 28-year-old Rachel Meeler when Anthony Dutrow, Socialist Workers Party candidate for Miami City Commission, and campaign supporters met her in Clewiston, Florida, 100 miles north of Miami, Jan. 19. They were knocking on…


Readers contribute to winter appeal for ‘Militant’

Vol. 83/No. 5 - February 4, 2019

Oil refinery worker Ben Fields in the Bay Area contributed $100 to the Militant  to help the socialist newsweekly meet expenses in the winter months. Fields explained he got a Militant  subscription for his sister as a gift recently. After…


An Unconditional Soldier of the Revolution

Vol. 83/No. 5 - February 4, 2019

The following excerpt is from “‘El Gallego’ Fernández — An Unconditional Soldier of the Revolution,” the speech given by José Ramón Machado Ventura, second secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, at the memorial tribute to José Ramón Fernández in…


Jew-hatred incited by capitalist rulers in times of crisis

Vol. 83/No. 5 - February 4, 2019
Fleeing Nazi terror, over 900 Jewish refugees on ship St. Louis in 1939. Imperialist “democratic” governments in Washington and Ottawa refused asylum, forcing refugees back to Europe.

The excerpt below is from chapter one of   The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation by Abram Leon, one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for January. Leon was won to Marxism from Zionism by supporters of Leon Trotsky. He led…