People Before Profit blog

Today in black history: Civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson dies, becomes catalyst for Selma march

Wed, 26 Feb 2014 13:19:00 +0000

Twenty-six year old civil rights protester Jimmie Lee Jackson died this day, Feb. 26, 1965, from gunshot wounds inflicted by Alabama State Trooper James Fowler. Jackson's murder provided the catalyst for the famous Selma to Montgomery march, also called "Bloody Sunday" as protesters were attacked while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. In response to the state violence, President Lyndon Johnson asked Congress to pass a comprehensive voting rights bill. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and President Johnson signed the act into law on Aug. 6, 1965.

Today, the 1965 Voting Rights Act continues to face attacks from restrictive voter ID laws and other voter suppression schemes to legal challenges. Shelby County, Alabama, sued the Department of Justice over the law's Section 5, which requires counties and states with a history of racism and discrimination to seek Department of Justice clearance before changing any voting rules or districts. The case is now before the Supreme Court. In 2009, the high court upheld Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, but left the door open to jurisdictions being able to "bailout" of the preclearance mandate.

Voting rights opponents claim the section is "outdated," however recent elections have been gerrymandered to weaken African American and minority representation. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund states in its amicus brief to the Supreme Court that Section 5 is still necessary because "notwithstanding undeniable progress, striking voting discrimination continues and is concentrated in the covered jurisdictions."

Most recently in the town of Calera, Shelby County, the DOJ had to block its redistricting plan because it erased the only majority black district and with it the city's only black representation on city council.

It was less than 50 years ago when Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed during a peaceful protest in nearby Perry County, Ala. Jackson, a deacon of the St. James Baptist Church in Marion, Ala., had been inspired by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and the civil rights movement to get active. Jackson tried for four years to register to vote, a right he was systematically denied during that time.

According to the account in Wikipedia, the night of Feb. 18, 1965, 500 protesters left Zion United Methodist Church in Marion and attempted a peaceful walk to the Perry County Jail about a half a block away where young civil rights worker James Orange was being held. Jackson was marching with his mother Viola Jackson, and his 82-year-old grandfather, Cager Lee, when Marion City police officers, sheriff's deputies, and Alabama State Troopers brutally attacked the protesters. Among those beaten were two United Press International photographers, whose cameras were smashed, and NBC News correspondent Richard Valeriani, who was beaten so badly that he was hospitalized.^[3] The marchers turned and scattered back towards the church.

Jackson and his family ran into a restaurant behind the church, pursued by troopers. Police clubbed the octogenarian grandfather to the floor in the kitchen. As the police continued to beat him, his daughter Viola attempted to pull the police off. She was also beaten. Jackson attempted to protect his mother; one trooper threw him against a cigarette machine. A second trooper shot Jimmie Lee twice in the abdomen.Fowler later admitted to being that trooper. Although shot twice, Jackson fled the café amid additional blows from police clubs and collapsed in front of the bus station. Jackson died at Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma. After his death, Sister Michael Anne, an administrator at Good Samaritan, said there were powder burns on Jackson's abdomen, indicating that he was shot at very close range.

A grand jury declined to indict Fowler in September 1965. Some 42 years after the cold-blooded killing, in May 2007, Fowler was finally charged with first and second-degree murder and surrendered to authorities.

Fowler pled guilty to manslaughter, and was sentenced to six months in jail in 2010. Perry County commissioner, Albert Turner Jr., called the agreement "a slap in the face of the people of this county."

Many say the conservative Supreme Court could issue another "slap in the face" if it overturns a section of the Voting Rights Act still necessary to help ensure equal access to the ballot and democratic representation.

Editor's note: This article was originally published Feb. 26, 2013. Since then the Supreme Court did gut the Voting Rights Act. The labor movement, along with numerous other social justice movements and organizations, elected officials, and prominent individuals are mounting national and statewide campaigns to restore and improve the Voting Rights Act and repeal legislation that denies anybody their right to vote.

Photo: The Congressional Faith & Politics Institute group gathers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge prior the 47^th recreation of the "Bloody Sunday" civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in Selma, Ala., March 4. Kevin Glackmeyer/AP

Feds again targeting outspoken Latinos

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:27:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Josemaria Islas made a mistake last July. He went outside to eat his lunch.

Islas, a family man who had never been in trouble with the law and a devoted churchgoer, was "fingered" by an informant as a bicycle thief. New Haven police picked him up - and because the 8-year resident is Hispanic, they turned him over to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE).

Islas is innocent, police later found. The charges against him were dumped four months after his arrest. But he hasn't been seen since the police took him away. ICE is still holding him in detention, and nobody knows where. The agency isn't telling, either.

Islas' family is frantic. His pastor is upset. And John Olsen, the Connecticut AFL-CIO president, is steamed. He's the latest in a line of local officials - including New Haven's mayor - to demand that ICE let Islas go.

But the agency won't. It's an "injustice and an outrage," says Olsen, who protested to ICE's Office of Public Advocate in D.C.

The catch, however, according to a new report from the National Employment Law Project (NELP), is that what ICE did to Islas is common - just as common as it was under the GOP Bush government, when ICE developed a reputation for workplace raids, hunting for Hispanics, especially during union organizing drives.

"Employers and their agents have far too frequently shown they will use immigration status as a tool against labor organizing campaigns and worker claims," NELP's report, Workers Rights On ICE, released Feb. 26, says.

Not only that, but ICE has unlimited powers to detain workers, like Islas, without trial and strictly on suspicion that they're undocumented, criminals, or both. The result: At least 111,000 workers disappeared that way last year alone.

A survey of 4,000 undocumented workers in the nation's three largest cities, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, found that 43 percent of those who complained about working conditions or tried to organize their colleagues were targets of ICE, the report says. And the federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission fielded 43,000 workplace discrimination and harassment complaints last year. Many involved retaliation against complaining workers.

That's one difference between Islas' case and many of the other people ICE targets, the report adds: Agents often pursue workers who stand up for themselves. All Islas was doing was eating his lunch. But the report teems with detailed examples of what happened in other ICE cases:

ICE interference right as workers were trying to organize and join unions. The report cited four notorious examples: Palermo Pizza in Milwaukee, the Mi Pueblo supermarket chain in the San Francisco Bay area, the Case Farms chicken plant in Winesburg, Ohio - where company retaliation via ICE began after the United Food and Commercial Workers local there won recognition - and Pomona (Calif.) College.
A Seattle contractor, identified as a "repeat offender" in wage theft, refused to pay three Latino construction workers some $33,000 it owed. Advised by attorneys for a workers center, the three complained to state officials in Feb. 2012. The company threatened them with deportation and ICE showed up at one worker's house. He's gone into hiding, NELP says. The other two, terrified, dropped their wage complaint.
Winnetka, Calif., day laborer Hector Nolasco faces deportation because he worked for six hours and got paid for only five. Last month, Nolasco and a friend were hired to cut, pack and move boxes at a restaurant. The boss shorted them an hour's pay, saying he hired them only for five hours' work. Then the boss called the police, who arrested Nolasco for "threats with a dangerous weapon"-the box cutter. The charge is false, says Nolasco's friend, who was present the whole time. Meanwhile, Nolasco stays in police custody and ICE plans to hold him after that.
Former Lonett, Ala., restaurant worker Pablo Gutierrez - a pseudonym-toiled from 8 a.m.-10 p.m., seven days a week, never got paid overtime and earned, gross, $1,300 a month, about $3.50 hourly. Then his employer didn't pay him for two months.

When Gutierrez walked in to demand his wages last September, the owner fired him on the spot, but told him to come back for his pay on Saturday, Oct. 6. Gutierrez did, but the boss called police instead - and charged Gutierrez with attempted robbery. "After spending almost two months in jail and immigration detention, Gutierrez was deported to Mexico on Nov. 26," NELP reports. He still hasn't been paid, either.

Jose Martinez - another pseudonym - a landscaper in Spring Valley, N.Y., injured his hand on the job. He filed a workers' comp claim and his employer fired him. On the way to his workers' comp hearing, police, at ICE behest, pulled Martinez over and arrested him on criminal charges, based on a trumped-up employer complaint.
"In the Deep South, a group of immigrant workers are facing deportation solely because they are defending labor and civil rights. The Southern 32 exposed ICE's refusal to offer workers protections when enforcement actions block worker organizing on construction sites and day labor corners," the report says.
"A company in Ohio, on the eve of a National Labor Relations Board decision finding it guilty of several unfair labor practices, carries out its threats to 'take out' union leadership by re-verifying union leaders' eligibility to work in the United States."

All this ICE action against workers comes as Congress ponders immigration reform, with "increased enforcement" supposed to be part of any comprehensive solution. But such increased enforcement, if it's selective and based on skin color or name, hurts workers as individuals, as potential unionists and as a class, NELP states.

"Silencing or intimidating a large percentage of workers in any industry means that workers are hobbled in their efforts to protect and improve their jobs. As long as unscrupulous employers can exploit some low-wage workers with impunity, all low-wage workers suffer compromised employment protections and economic security," NELP concludes. Law-abiding employers must compete on the low-wage road, it adds.

And law-abiding workers like Josemaria Islas just disappear.

"Actions of this kind contribute to the atmosphere of fear which drives many good working people into the underground economy that undermines wages and standards for all," Olsen concludes in his letter to ICE. Such abuses have to stop, he said.

Photo: Relatives of immigrant meat plant workers face off against police after a raid. The raids like this one that took place in 2006 under the Bush administration were seen as attempts to thwart unionizing. The ICE actions in Connecticut, activists say, also have the aim of punishing workers who speak out against injustice. Ahmad Terry/AP, Rocky Mountain News

Keeping Families Together bus tour rallies support for immigration reform

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:26:00 +0000

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Josemaria Islas and his family are living in fear, yet speaking out with courage, as his deportation order draws closer day by day. City and state elected officials, union leaders, and the immigrant rights community have all called upon immigration authorities to halt deportation proceedings against Islas, who has lived in New Haven for eight years.

A factory worker who was mistakenly arrested due to racial profiling while out on lunch break last July, Islas spent four months in jail for a crime he did not commit. When the charges were dropped, he was detained by immigration authorities and now faces deportation, although he has no felony.

Speaking during the Keeping Families Together bus tour which traveled from New Hampshire to New Haven, Islas ended his story with a tearful appeal to "stop deportations and separation of families!" He thanked Unidad Latina en Accion for all their efforts which won his release.

New Haven is one of 90 cities in 19 states where the bus tour will travel to make the stories of immigrant families and the impact of deportations on them known. "We are telling stories of heartbreak and hope, working to see immigration reform and citizenship for 11 million in our country," said Kica Matos, Director of Immigrant Rights & Racial Justice at the Center for Community Change.

Immigrants from Honduras, Brazil and Ecuador traveling with the New England bus tour told stories similar to that of Islas at a press conference in City Hall, standing next to large butterfly cutouts, Unite Here union signs and a banner which proclaimed, "1. stop the deportations 2. include all 11 million 3. protect workers rights."

The national tour is leading up to a rally and lobby day in Washington D.C. on April 10. Local marches will also be held that weekend. In Connecticut marches are being organized in New Haven, Bridgeport and Danbury on April 9 and in Hartford, Stamford and Washington DC on April 10.

In addition to demanding an end to deportations, speakers at City Hall called upon the Connecticut Congressional delegation to take leadership for passage of immigration reform this year.

Also on the agenda was building support for two bills before the state legislature. One would allow everyone regardless of status to apply for drivers' licenses. The other would prevent the courts from turning those who are not convicted of felonies over to immigration for detention and deportation.

Speaking at the state capitol a week earlier when the formation of a state-wide coalition Connecticut Immigration Reform Alliance (CIRA) was announced, Juan Hernandez of SEIU 32 BJ said, "voters sent a clear message for a path to citizenship for all immigrants."

Hernandez, whose union represents 4,000 immigrant workers, exclaimed, "We pay taxes and work hard for this country. This is an issue of human rights." He quoted President Obama that the time for immigration reform is now.

Legislators, labor leaders and immigrant workers called for a change of state and national policy that would protect family unity.

Addressing the Islas case, Michael Lawlor, undersecretary to Governor Malloy for criminal justice policy, agreed the deportation is not warranted. He said the state changed its policy last year and except for serious offenders, does not honor ICE detainers issued under Secure Communities.

"Secure Communities has made communities less secure," said Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield who is preparing legislation that would close loopholes like the one that allowed Islas to be detained.

The Connecticut AFL-CIO, which represents 200,000 workers adopted a resolution last month similar to the resolution by the national AFL-CIO calling on Congress to pass common-sense immigration reform that includes a practical and inclusive road map to citizenship and reflects core American values such as fairness, equality and family unity.

"The creation of a road map to citizenship would not only stop employers from continuing to take advantage of our failed immigration policies; it would improve wages and labor standards for all workers by giving immigrant workers a voice on the job." said president John Olsen.

Like other families on the Keeping Families Together tour, the Islas family is not sitting still and waiting to see what will happen. They, and hundreds of thousands of immigrants without documents across this country, are stepping forward.

Samantha, who was born in Brazil 29 years ago and who came to the United States at age 16 and a half with her mother, fell six months short of qualifying for President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA). "We are here to help America grow," she said. "The only difference is that we don't have Social Security numbers. We are also Americans."

Jane Kennity who works at Yale New Haven Hospital, came to this country as a refugee from Kenya. She is now a leader in the grass roots group New Haven Rising. "We must join hand in hand. There is no need for migrants to have to hide. They should have papers," she said to applause at the farewell luncheon.

The Keeping Families Together tour is accepting stories on its website. telling the experiences of families separated by "broken immigration policy."

Photo: Keeping Families Together press conference at New Haven City Hall attended by nearly 200 immigrants, union members, and allies on Sunday, March 3. Art Perlo/PW

The vision of Rosa Parks

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:43:00 +0000

"I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die - the dream of freedom and peace."

- Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks' vision for freedom and peace continues to inspire our nation and the ongoing movement for social justice in the 100th year of her birth. The struggles to protect and expand the Voting Rights Act and for immigrant rights draw upon her legacy.

The Rosa Parks postage stamp and national statue remind us of the power of Rosa Parks and the movement she courageously dedicated her life to.

Rosa Parks grew up in Alabama and witnessed the racist terror of the Ku Klux Klan first hand. She said that the first time she met a white person who treated her with respect was at the Highlander School in Tennessee where she attended a workshop on labor rights and met the Rev. Martin Luther King and Pete Seeger.

Rosa Parks was trained as a teacher but due to racism worked as a seamstress. She understood, from her own life experience, the need for workers to organize to achieve a better life. She also understood the need for unity.

Her act of civil disobedience on December 1, 1955, refusing to give her bus seat to a white passenger, sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and expanded the scope and size of the entire civil rights movement.

The struggles that Rosa Parks embodies are far from over. Days after the national statue was unveiled, Supreme Court Justice Scalia stunned the world by labeling measures in the Voting Rights Act as "racial entitlements." In so doing, he dismissed the contributions of Rosa Parks and millions of others who tirelessly marched and sat in and picketed and sacrificed to secure the basic right to vote.

The struggles of Rosa Parks go on as well in the growing movement, embraced by labor, to win an end to deportations and a path to citizenship and voting rights for the millions of immigrant workers without documents in our country today.

Rosa Parks was a warm person who cared about her community. After her death in 2005, New Havener Dorthula Green was moved to found a group called Thank You Rosa Parks because she "sparked a revolution that has resounded around the world to this day." Their mission is to keep the story of her life alive and further the current struggle for social justice.

This year the group, now called Rosa Parks Legacy, hosted a 100th birthday pancake breakfast and concert featuring Rosa Parks' peanut butter pancakes and awards for neighborhood activism. The celebration was one of many local events across the country, large and small.

When President Barack Obama declared February 4, 2013 as the 100th Anniversary of the Birth of Rosa Parks, he said "I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate service, community, and education programs to honor Rosa Parks's enduring legacy.

To honor Rosa Parks' courage and vision of freedom and peace requires turning outrage into organizing and action to protect and expand the Voting Rights Act, and achieve immigration reform with a path to citizenship and voting rights for all.

Photo: USPS.com

Stop election piracy

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:33:00 +0000

The widespread use of voter suppression laws in the 2012 national elections has created a national awareness among the electorate that it is time to review and revise the conduct of national elections in order to guarantee the equal right of every voter to cast a ballot.

The efforts to further suppress voting rights continues now and are even more vicious and dangerous. These efforts have a single purpose: that is the control of all three branches of government by a right wing minority. It is imperative that a new universal federal election law and process be put into place to guarantee free and fair elections, one person, one vote.

The history of the right to vote in our country is a history of struggle. Each struggle to expand the right to vote has laid the basis for new democratic electoral advances. These struggles and gains have been hard fought, cost many lives and much bloodshed - from the right of African American men to vote, for women's suffrage, for the end of the poll tax, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the continuing struggles for real universal suffrage. This includes battles today.

All elections today, local, state and federal are governed and regulated by each individual state with a few exceptions where the Department of Justice through the Voter Rights Act oversees the elections. Even this modest federal control is being challenged currently. The oral arguments were heard by the Supreme Court on Feb. 27, 2013. What is at stake is the review of proposed new voter laws in certain states to ensure discrimination is not taking place.

The hostility of the right wing members of the Court was most viciously expressed by Justice Antonin Scalia who said that we are heading for the "perpetuation of racial entitlement." Voting is a fundamental constitutional right, not an entitlement. It applies equally to all Americans and that is what Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act guarantees.

Slowly, but surely there is a change in people's understanding of the undemocratic character of our electoral laws. The 2000 presidential elections brought about a new consciousness of the undemocratic nature of electing the president through the electoral college system, that it is a fundamental denial of one person one vote. Although Al Gore clearly won the popular vote, with the help of the Supreme Court, George W. Bush was given the electoral college votes from Florida and thereby the majority of electoral votes nationally and was declared president.

In 2008, the first African American, Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. The ultra right could not countenance the idea that an African American should be president. This defied and flew in the face of their racist and elitist view of life and they determined to make him a one-term president.

They set into motion a national voter suppression campaign. It had two main aspects. First was the Citizens United decision by the Supreme Court which ruled that corporations could anonymously spend unlimited amounts of money to wage propaganda campaigns in elections. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars in a lying campaign against President Obama.

The second aspect of the campaign was the unfolding of dozens of new laws and regulations designed to prevent millions of people from voting and thus tip the election toward the Republicans. Each and everyone of these voter suppression measures was aimed at limiting the ability of African American, Latinos, youth and seniors to vote. And they made no bones about it. The most notorious statement was by the Pennsylvania Senate President who declared "Done" in relation to defeating Obama.

Among the dirty trick suppression measures were

- Voter ID - almost impossible for millions to get

- Not enough voter machines and polling places causing hours long lines

- Limitations on early voting

- Purging of voter lists

- Billboards, mailings, websites giving wrong information on voting dates and times

This anti-democratic, un-American voter suppression campaign has brought a wave of disgust and anger among a majority of the American people. It is seen as a method of stealing elections and defying the will of the people. It is an attempt to install government by the few over the many.

Millions of people were prepared to overcome every suppressing obstacle placed in their way and thus we saw an outpouring of voters and lines that lasted for hours.

Despite the resounding defeat of the ultra right, the voter suppression attempts continue. The biggest threat right now is the attempted manipulation of the electoral college. The ultra right is trying to piecemeal change to the electoral college whereby only Republicans will get elected president.

While there needs to be a national discussion on the necessity of election of the president by popular vote, as long as there is an electoral college, it must remain in tact until it is eliminated. To change it in some states, but not others, to base it on gerrymandered congressional districts will lead to permanent minority rule. That is the new tactic. As New York University Professor Robert Shrum said: They want to "institutionalize a system where the losers win."

Another new challenge to fair elections is a case which will come before the Supreme Court this session - McCutcheon v. FEC (Federal Elections Commission). In many ways this is the companion to Citizens United. It is a challenge to campaign contribution limits and would lead to a few wealthy individuals having even more influence in our political process.

(As incredible as it may seem, a bill was introduced into the Montana state legislature that would give the right to corporations to vote in municipal elections. The ultra right will stop at nothing to steal elections.)

The anger at the concerted effort to steal elections has led to organizations, individuals. newspapers calling for election law reform. There are a number of bills and proposed bills which aim to stop voter suppression. For example, there are bills that deal with the question of long lines, of early voting periods, same day registration, no-excuse absentee voting.

Of particular importance is the Voter Empowerment Act of 2013 - HR12 introduced by John Lewis and others with a Senate companion bill introduced by Kirsten Gillibrand.

It is important that Attorney General Eric Holder on Dec.12, 2012 spoke about the need for portable voter registration.

There are many bills that deal with specific aspects of the fundamental right to vote. What is needed is a comprehensive, national, uniform election law for federal elections which would include:

- National, portable voter registration with a national voter ID

- Same day registration

- Early voting hours and days

- Voting by mail

- Paper trail voting machines

- Sufficient polling places so as to guarantee no long lines waiting to vote

- Restoring voting rights for people who have paid their debt to society

The widespread anger against electoral piracy must be channeled and organized into a fighting movement to win all of these measures. Some will be won in separate bills but ultimately all need to be passed.

As AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka said: "A strong and growing grassroots democratic movement needs to come together to push back against the next wave of state level attack on the right to vote."

Photo: Ho John Lee // CC 2.0

Black History Month celebration honors community leaders

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:20:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - It was a night to celebrate, to recount history, to look to struggles yet to come. A night to dream, to dance, to sing songs, and hear poetry. To honor the 150^th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.

Above all, it was a night to appreciate the contributions and achievements of members of the African American community - from 97-year-old Mother Lahella Charles to the youthful singing groups, the Martinez sisters and the Ware-Carter trio.

And to hear the Paul Robeson favorite, "Ol' Man River," a rousing "We Shall Overcome," and other songs performed by the outstanding bass, Lawrence Beamen.

"This is Black History Month and I just want to tell you kids, make sure you guys dream!" Samantha Allen Wise told the many young people in the crowd that packed the Niebyl-Proctor Library. "Parents: allow your children to dream," she said, "because if they have a dream they're going to move forward toward that dream!"

Wise, one of the event's awardees, heads the Community Empowerment Organization, or CEO, the group that each year brings thousands of kids to the city's Mosswood Park for a giant, fun-filled and free Easter egg hunt. In between, she mentors 50 young girl cheerleaders.

Another awardee, journey-level electrician Rachel Bryan, underscored the importance of Wise's remarks as she told how her mother, born and raised in Texas, "never became a nurse because she had never seen a black nurse." Bryan, a leader in her local union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers 595, works to help build relations between the union and the communities its workers serve.

Carole Ward Allen, professor of African American history and former Bay Area Rapid Transit board member, turned the tables on the event's lead organizer, retired teacher Cassandra Lopez - affectionately known as Mama Cassie - as she observed, "It's always interesting how people honor other people, but they need to be honored. It's her night if it's anyone's," Allen said, "because we started out during Black Power and all that period, and I see [her former students] - they look like some of the brothers I had in my classroom that many years ago!"

And indeed, Lopez was honored with a plaque presented by her daughter, Paulina Lopez, and other family members, that cited "her continuing and tireless energy and the work she has done to better the community and the people who live within."

Lopez, in turn, urged the crowd to celebrate "the achievements, the good things that happen," but at the same time to take on "the things that challenge our souls and our hearts," including the homicides wracking the city of Oakland: "Too many of us have lost loved ones and family members. Each and every one of us matters."

Union and community activist Jean Damu opened the program with an appreciation of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, which "changed the character of the Civil War and the North's ability to win it." With the position of black troops in the union armies legalized, Damu said, the way was open to form the many all-black units that were decisive in winning the war. The proclamation also helped strengthen the British abolition movement to such an extent that British intervention on the side of the South became moot.

The program was co-hosted by peoplesworld.org, Mamas 4 Obama Continued, and Nitty Gritty Community Club.

Photo: Kamea Ware, Naomi Carter, and Kawaai Ware perform at the Black History Month celebration. Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Today in black history: Michael Jackson wins 8 Grammys

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 11:50:00 +0000

On February 28, 1984, musician and entertainer Michael Jackson won an amazing eight awards at the 26^th Grammy Awards show: Best R&B Vocal, Male for 'Billie Jean', Best R&B Song (Songwriter) for 'Billie Jean', Best Rock Vocal, Male for 'Beat It', Producer of the Year (Non-Classical), Best Pop Vocal, Male for 'Thriller, Best Video Album for 'Thriller, Best Recording for Children (Quincy Jones (Producer) & Michael Jackson for 'E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial', Record of the Year 'Beat It', Album of the Year for 'Thriller' on this day.

Jackson (August 29, 1958 - June 25, 2009) is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contributions to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades.

The music videos for his songs, including "Beat It," "Billie Jean," and "Thriller," were credited with breaking down racial barriers and transforming the medium into an art form and promotional tool.

Through stage and video performances, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot, and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive sound and style has influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop, and rock artists.

Jackson won hundreds of awards, which made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music. In what would have been Jackson's 52^nd birthday on 29 August 2010, he became the most downloaded artist of all time.

When Michael Jackson died in 2009, People's World editor Joe Sims wrote Remembering Michael Jackson, linked here. And graphic artist Marguerite Wright wrote a review of Michael Jackson's final performance "This is It" for People's World, linked here.

Photo: Michael Jackson with Quincy Jones shown at the Grammy Awards, Feb. 28, 1984 in Los Angeles. Doug Pizac/Saxon/AP

Federal IDs for all workers: A trial balloon?

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 11:10:00 +0000

According to an article on February 21 in the Wall Street Journal, the Senate is considering a bipartisan plan to require all working people in the U.S., citizen as well as non-citizen workers, to carry a biometric ID card with their finger prints or other markers in order for them to "prove" they have a right to work in this country.

This plan has come about as a result of bipartisan negotiations on an immigration bill. It was originally proposed for non-citizens but the senators involved, including Democrats as well as Republicans, decided the entire working class should be biometrically IDed. Some civil libertarians suspect the real function of the card is to create a national identity card that could be used to track and locate people wherever they happen to be - at work, at home, in hospitals or airports, on the road, etc (the card could have a chip for this purpose - Big Brother indeed!).

There are eight Senators on the committee working on a draft for an immigration bill and five of them favor the new ID including John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Charles Schumer. But they are not insisting on the ID at this point, merely tossing around the idea. The Wall Street Journal report is clearly a trial balloon to see what the reaction will be to this universal (for working class people) ID card.

The purpose of the new ID is to let bosses know what the legal status of a worker is and also to discourage illegal immigration since immigrants without the card won't get jobs (or so the plan is). The new system will replace the current E-Verify which lets the boss match a worker with a list of social security numbers; but this is a flawed system because of stolen, forged, and borrowed social security cards, according to the WSJ.

While ostensibly there are others ways to have immigrants IDed which the senators are looking it, Senator Graham (R., S.C.) thinks that only a biometric ID card (for all workers) will work. He is quoted as saying, "This is the public's way of contributing to solving the problem" of people being in the U.S. illegally. In other words, the contribution of the U.S. working class is to allow itself to be potentially tracked by the government 24/7 so that the bosses will know who is and who is not "legal." The "public" would be wise to vote Sen. Graham out of office.

Senator Jeff Flake (R., Ariz), Sen. McCain's comrade in reaction, also on the committee, is also favorable (but says he is still open) to a biometric ID: "You have to give employers the tools" they need to check out potential workers, he maintains. Would the Senate also consider an ID for employers so that workers could them out as well with respect, for example, to their attitudes towards the legal rights of unions, decent wages, workers rights, sick leave, and racist attitudes (if any), as well as women's rights, and views on voter suppression. Workers are more in need of tools to check out bosses than bosses are to check out workers.

In 2010 Senators McCain and "Chuck" Schumer (D., N.Y.) devised a plan for a biometric ID card for immigrants (it would have had their fingerprints or a scan of the veins on the top of a hand) but today Schumer, along with Sen. Dick Durban (D., Ill.) - who also backed biometric cards previously - says the new bill they are working on may not include such a card.

President Obama does not back a universal biometric ID card but is in favor of getting biometric information from undocumented people who are in the US as a precondition for getting "legal status." As far as a universal card is concerned he advocates a "fraud-resistant, tamper-resistant Social Security card."

The remaining three senators on the committee are Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) [both "no comment"] and Robert Melendez (D., N.J.) who wants "antifraud measures" (the Senator is having his own "fraud" problems right now, perhaps the Senate needs some measure of anti-fraud protection that voters can have access to?)

At any rate, this trial balloon has lifted off into the atmosphere and the weather reports are beginning to come in. C. Calabrese of the ACLU says, the ID "becomes in essence a permission slip to do all of the ordinary things that are your rights as an American." Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute [originally the Charles Koch Foundation co-founded in 1974 by one of the Koch brothers] says "It's not only a gross violation of individual privacy, it's an enormously high-cost policy that will have an incredibly low to negligible benefit." Would it not be so bad if it were cheap and effective? Personally I don't trust the Cato people to care all that much about the violations of worker's privacy.

There are also other opinions coming in for and against the biometric card-- it is pretty much a mixed bag, but it seems there is opposition and support from both the liberal and conservative camps. While it really is a big civil liberties issue and the adoption of the biometric ID for all workers smacks of Big Brother perhaps, in our current deficit crazed political landscape, the economic cost will prohibit its adoption as a study out of the University of California (Berkeley) says it will cost over $22 billion to put it in place and over $2 billion annually to run it. Progressives will have a major fight on their hands if that doesn't stop it.

Photo: A stock photo example of what a future national biometric ID card might look like. featuredstock.com

Political and community leaders highlight strategies for African American community

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 10:38:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. - A who's who of leaders in the African American community came together with hundreds of community members at Laney Community College Feb. 23 for a symposium, "Making Connections: Strategies and Outcomes for our Black Community," including public safety, Black health and wellness, job creation and workforce development, intergenerational relations and more.

The opening plenary, "A Look into the Black Community: Where we have been, where we are, where we are going," featured a keynote by U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, D-Calif.

"We must never forget the revolutionary movement of the Black Panther Party which really set the stage for institutional and structural change," Lee told the audience. Lee, who worked with the BPP in the early to mid-1970s - pointed out that among now-broadly accepted Panther initiatives, many now with government funding, are free breakfast programs for children, community health clinics, voter registration and voter empowerment programs.

"What I'm dealing with now in Congress today has to do with all those issues our communities have been dealing with for decades," she said. "And the Congressional Black Caucus, 42 members strong, continues to be the voice of conscience for the African American community, communities of color, and low-income communities around the country."

As a Budget Committee member and the only African American woman on the House Appropriations Committee, Lee said, she deals constantly with issues of funding priorities. "Are we going to continue to fund building prisons, or building schools? Will we fight to build houses and create jobs, or continue to build bombs and missiles? We have to re-engage in our movement for peace and for justice."

Panelists including former Black Panther Party leaders Elaine Brown and Bobby Seale, education consultant and former Oakland School Board member Greg Hodge, and Jakada Imani, executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights emphasized the urgency of stepped-up fight-back against racism today, including the "new Jim Crow" of the prison-industrial complex.

A panel on public safety bringing together civil rights attorney John Burris and Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan with pastors Michael McBride and Zach Carey and community representative Robin Bonner emphasized the importance of early childhood and primary school education and development of a social safety net in crime prevention. Seeing crime as a public health and mental health issue opens paths for prevention, panelists and audience members said, while restorative justice makes it possible to cope with nonviolent negative behavior without involving the judicial system.

The symposium, sponsored by Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, marked the second African American Organizations Making Connections program. The first took place in 2010.

Among nearly 50 partner organizations were several churches including Allen Temple Baptist Church, True Vine Ministries and Center of Hope Church. Also, the Oakland and Berkeley NAACPs, the Black American Political Action Committee, and the Alameda County Medical Center, Public Health Department, and Social Services Agency.

Photo: U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee addresses the plenary. Marilyn Bechtel/PW

Communist Party head in historic debate at Univ of Georgia

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 09:28:00 +0000

ATHENS, GA - They call it "the debate that never was."

In 1963 as the country was coming out of the McCarthy Red Scare but still in the midst of the Cold War, and as the South was roiled by the civil rights movement, the Phi Kappa Literary Society here at the University of Georgia invited a speaker from the Communist Party to the campus in the heart of the Jim Crow South for a public debate. The topic was to be "Is Full Employment Possible Under Capitalism?" but the debate never happened.

According to the society's history, "the Student Affairs Committee of the University refused to permit the debate and the University President O.C. Aderhold rebuked the Society for attempting to create what he called a 'sideshow' and 'riot' on campus."

Fifty years after the incident, Phi Kappa organized a re-creation of "the Debate that Never Was" Monday evening, February 25 in "the spirit of free speech and debate."

Sam Webb, the national chairperson of the Communist Party USA debated Dr. Greg Morin of the Georgia Libertarian Party on the original topic from 1963 with a new spin: "Is Full Employment Possible Under Capitalism? Solving America's Jobs Crisis." (See video below)

Over 300 students, alumni, faculty, and community members attended the event in historic University Chapel.

Webb argued that no, capitalism was not able to achieve full employment, and that an active struggle for jobs would be necessary to win important progress in putting people back to work. He called for "a bold, transformative 'new jobs' agenda."

"For the sake of our fragile planet and ourselves," said Webb. "Such an agenda would transform our economy from one dominated by Wall Street, Lockheed Martin, Peabody Coal, Exxon and Walmart to a Main Street economy rooted in a green, demilitarized production, clean and renewable energy, livable wages and union protections, publicly owned banks, public controls over the investment policies of the Fortune 500, affirmative action and equality, the modernization of mass transit, aid for small and medium sized businesses, renewal of both urban and rural communities, democratic forms of worker ownership, and a progressive tax structure."

Dr. Morin, a local businessman, didn't argue that capitalism as currently constructed could put people back to work. He argued that only a pure "free market" capitalism free from government regulation or taxation would achieve full employment.

"Maximum employment requires maximum freedom," said Morin. By freedom, apparently Morin meant free markets. "The market comes into equilibrium on its own through competition." Morin further argued that even the boom-and-bust cycle endemic to capitalist mode of production was only a result of government meddling beginning with the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank and exacerbated by New Deal social programs like unemployment insurance.

"Unemployment insurance is basically paying people to remain unemployed," said Morin.

Webb countered that the root of the current economic and jobs crisis was in fact the deregulation of financial markets in recent decades and the insufficient consumer demand caused by increasing economic inequality and wage stagnation.

While Webb argued that there is no solution to the jobs crisis under capitalism, it can be curbed, "but only if the American people bring the power of their numbers and unity to bear on government at all levels, much like Americans did in the 1930s."

Event organizer and Phi Kappa Society member Ben Woodard felt the event was a success. "300 people peacefully gathered to witness an exchange of ideas on our campus," he said. "Whereas fifty years ago it was not possible. It shows just how far we have come since the dark days of the Red Scare. We must always be vigilant of infringements on our freedom of speech, the most basic of human rights."

The Phi Kappa Society is a student-led debate organization founded in 1820. It holds weekly student debates on a wide variety of topics. The group counts sixteen governors of Georgia among its alumni.

The main debate in the chapel Monday night was followed by a student debate open to guest participation at nearby Phi Kappa Hall. The topic of the student debate was "Was Jesus a Communist or a Capitalist?" The audience voted overwhelmingly at the conclusion of the debate that Jesus was a red.

The event was made possible in part due to assistance from Speak Progress, a progressive speakers bureau. For more information, or to bring a speaker to your campus or community, contact tonypec@peoplebeforeprofits.org.

Read the full text of Sam Webb's opening remarks here.

The Debate That Never Happened from Phi Kappa Literary Society on Vimeo.

Photo: Phi Kappa Society

Black history exhibit features Maryland protests of 1940s-50s

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:44:00 +0000

BALTIMORE - Struggles against segregation and for militant trade unionism in Maryland were the subject of a Feb. 23 Black History Month program sponsored by the Baltimore Marxist Labor Forum at the Govans Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Nine exhibits representing the decades of the last half of the twentieth century included photos, news articles, radical pamphlets and original artifacts.

Organizers utilized the George A. Meyers collection at the Lewis J. Ort Library of Frostburg State University in Western Maryland as well as the personal archives of activists and relatives of civil rights and union leaders who led the struggles of the 40s and 50s. Meyers, twice elected president of the Maryland-DC CIO, used his position to help end Jim Crow hiring policies of many of the state's biggest corporations. He was the first victim of the Smith Act in Maryland and later went on to become the labor secretary of the Communist Party USA.

Some of the exhibits:

Druid Hill Park in Baltimore is a beautiful, urban park with a zoo and other family attractions. In 1948, its tennis courts and other facilities were segregated. Twenty-four people, including Jean Silverberg, were arrested in a protest demanding an end to policy of segregation, organized by supporters of the Henry Wallace presidential campaign.

Across town in Fells Point, Baltimore's waterfront area, restaurants and other public facilities were also segregated. Militant seaman like Jake Green and Howard Silverberg in the National Maritime Union desegregated coffee shops by the practice of passing cups of coffee in porcelain cups intended for white sailors to their African American comrades. (It was the practice to serve Black patrons in paper cups.)

Down the harbor at Sparrow's Point, a company town run by Bethlehem Steel, African American workers had menial jobs and lived in segregated housing, their facilities smaller than the homes provided for white workers. A campaign to organize Black workers was led by CIO Steelworker organizers like Joe Henderson, who signed up 1,000 African American workers to help secure union representation and better conditions.

In 1953, students at Morgan State College, now Morgan State University, a historic Black College, couldn't walk across the street and have lunch at the Northwood Shopping Center. Scores of students, like Joyce I. Dennison who related her experiences at the exhibit, organized a series of sit-ins, resulting in dozens of arrests that broke down segregation in facilities at the shopping center.

Many leaders of these movements were fired during the McCarthy period and unable to get union jobs. A photograph showed victims of the Smith Act who worked as "Tin Men," putting aluminum siding on homes as featured in the Danny DeVito movie of the same name.

An exhibit created by housing activist Rose Taylor documented her family's nearly century-long fight against housing discrimination. Another exhibit put together by anti-apartheid activists Mary Benns and Max Obuszewski documented the stirring history of that movement in Baltimore.

Event organizers said the exhibit was available for distribution and would be expanded and used in future events.

Photo: Cindy Farquhar examines one of the Black History Month exhibit boards, Feb. 23, in Baltimore. (PW/Margaret Baldridge)

The war in Newark, 1967

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:20:00 +0000

The following article is Chapter 12 of senior political reporter Tim Wheeler's memoirs, covering his 47 years as a writer for the Worker, Daily World, and People's World.

We gathered in the library where the Worker staff held its story conferences one sweltering morning in July 1967. Prominently featured in the New York Times was a story about the angry explosion in Newark, N.J., over the arrest of John Smith, an African American cab driver.

Smith had been accused of "tailgating" a police vehicle and driving the wrong way on a one-way street. He was also accused of using "offensive language" and "assault" against the police officers as they arrested him.

The confrontation escalated and soon the headlines blazed about the "riot" in Newark.

What should we do? Carl Winter and the elders of the staff were discussing the options back and forth. I spoke up. "I'd like to take the train over to Newark and do some reporting."

It was agreed. Our staff photographer, Bill Andrews, and I took the subway up to the train station and boarded a train for Newark.

When we got off the train, Newark was like a war zone. National Guard jeeps and trucks were everywhere. We walked over to the offices of the Newark Community Development Corporation, (NCDC) the "war on poverty" agency in Newark.

I interviewed Timothy Still, Newark's director of the NCDC. He told me of NCDC's efforts to prevent violence. Yet the anger against police brutality, chronic unemployment and poverty could not be contained. That interview was published in the next edition of the Worker.

Andrews and I made daily trips to Newark covering the deadly "rebellion of the poor" in New Jersey's largest city.

More reckless than smart, Bill and I went to the police headquarters one day. We walked into their city room where plainclothes detectives were sitting at their desks. They were all white men.

"Can I help you?" demanded one of the detectives.

"I'm a reporter for the Worker," I blurted. "I want to examine the death certificates of the people who have died. Can you tell me where I can find those records?"

A dead silence fell over the city room, twenty or more detectives staring at me in disbelief.

The beefy officer pulled back his jacket and rested his hand on the butt of his Smith and Wesson.

"I'm sorry. I can't help. You and your buddy would be well advised to get on the next train back to New York City. This is a very, very dangerous place," he said menacingly.

As Bill and I were beating a hasty retreat, a telephone receptionist just inside the entrance leaned over and whispered to me, "Go to the hospital in the Central Ward. They have everything you need."

We headed there immediately. Sure enough, the Coroners Office was located there. They had a report on every death inflicted by the police and National Guard during that uprising.

I sat for two hours copying word for word the reports of the gunshot wounds that ultimately killed 26 people in Newark. Most of them died from gunshot wounds in the back.

The Worker featured the article on the front page, quoting verbatim from the coroners report.

A few days later, I returned to the hospital, this time by myself. When I walked in to the Emergency Room, I came upon an African American woman in tears being comforted by a surgeon in his white surgical gown. They were standing in the waiting room and the surgeon was speaking to her in a low voice.

I waited. The surgeon turned away. Girding myself, I stepped up and told her who I was. I asked her if I could interview her. She nodded.

I asked her why she was at the hospital.

In a low, trembling voice she replied, "My son was shot. He was waiting at the bus stop. He was on his way to work at the Mahway Ford plant. The surgeon just told me they will have to amputate his leg. Why did the police shoot my boy?" Then she broke down in tears. I, myself, was fighting back tears as she spoke.

The Worker carried that story too on the front page.

National Guardsmen shot ten-year-old Eddie Moss to death a few days later as he rode in the family car with his parents in Newark.

I tracked down the family in their Central Ward home. When I knocked at the door, a woman invited me in. Her eyes were red from weeping. She told me she was Eddie Moss' mother. I was just beginning to ask my first question when Eddie Moss' father intervened. "We don't want any interviews," he said, his voice shaking with grief and anger.

I apologized and got up to leave.

I wrote up the story of the child's death, the funeral, and the heartbroken parents. But that was an interview I was never able to complete.

Four months earlier, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had delivered his sermon at Riverside Church in New York City condemning the Vietnam War. The bombs dropped on Hanoi were exploding in Detroit, Watts, and Newark, Dr. King charged. He could not remain silent when his own government had become "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world." Dr. King was thinking about children like Eddie Moss when he delivered that appeal against the unbearable costs of war.

Photo: Blacks are searched at a bayonet point by National Guardsmen in Newark, New Jersey, July 17, 1967. The National Guardsmen entered the black area of the city at daybreak and searched all cars leaving that zone. Eddie Adams/AP

The Congressional crisis calendar countdown

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000

For two years, we have had continual crises with debt ceilings, budget resolutions, and really big scary numbers. Already, there have been serious cuts in federal domestic spending -- $1.5 trillion over 10 years. At the state and local level, federal cuts have reduced funds by 13% to 35% in programs like job training, WIC, adult ed, special ed, job training, and public housing maintenance.

Now, we are faced with a Spring Calendar of Crises. Here's what's ahead.

March 1 -- Sequester -- Across the board cuts in almost all programs: WIC, housing and heating assistance, medical research, national parks, education, weather service, funds for local government, Head Start, food safety inspections -- and much more. These cuts will cost one to two million jobs.

March 27 -- Continuing Resolution to allow government to operate through September.

April 15 -- Congressional budget deadline for year beginning October 1.

May 18 -- Debt Ceiling. If Congress is blocked from acting, the government can't pay its bills.

Meanwhile, the American people face a different sort of crisis.

American working people face an immediate jobs crisis: One in seven is unemployed or under-employed.

American working families face declining living standards, with wage freezes and benefit cuts.

American working people are facing an ongoing foreclosure crisis, with millions already made homeless while Wall Street criminals continue to pocket billions of dollars from their misery.

American working people face impossible choices in their communities, between raising their own taxes and closing schools, libraries and other services.

Our entire nation faces a long-term crisis as our infrastructure, transportation, and renewable energy continue to fall behind the requirements of a 21st century economy, our youth are denied the education and job experience that will enable them to sustain a productive economy, and far too much of our nation's wealth is squandered in military waste, destructive financial speculation and obscene luxury spending by the top 1%.

Billionaires like hedge fund speculator Peter Peterson, and the CEOs of GE, Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and AT&T, have spent tens of millions to convince the public (and Congress) to ignore these crises. Instead, they tell us horror stories about future deficits, ignoring the real future threats to our economy.

These Wall Street financiers and corporate CEOS, acting through the Republican leadership in Congress, are holding the nation hostage. They demand that we cut everything from food stamps to food safety, from medical research to Medicaid, along with Social Security and Medicare. If we don't give in to their demands, even more drastic cuts and a complete shutdown of government will take place with the sequester, the expiration of the continuing resolution, and the debt ceiling. Each of these gives them a new opportunity to extort further cuts from the people, while preserving the tax breaks and subsidies enjoyed by Big Oil, Big Finance, Big Business and Big Wealth.

The media treat these crises like a sports event. But this is not the time to watch from our living rooms, still less to change the channel. The only way to meet the Spring Calendar of Crisis is to organize and mobilize to pressure Congress. Join with the AFL-CIO (http://www.aflcio.org/Get-Involved/Protect-Our-Future) and scores of other labor, community, and faith-based organizations to demand:

Cancel the sequester (March 1 automatic cuts) unconditionally. No cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid or any civilian program that performs a useful function or meets people's needs.

Extend the continuing resolution (March 27) to allow the government to continue to operate at current levels for the remainder of the year.

Permanently repeal the debt ceiling (May 18) to allow the government to pay the bills that Congress has already approved, and avoid future debt ceiling crises.

Pass a new budget for the year beginning October 1 to allow government to function at least at current service levels, with additional funds to create jobs and help state and local governments weather the continuing economic depression.

Close tax loopholes for the 1% and big corporations, shut down tax havens, and begin phased reductions of the military budget, beginning with ending wars, closing foreign bases and bringing the troops and contractors home.

These are only the first, immediate steps. Exactly eighty years ago, the Roosevelt administration began enacting the New Deal, a program that put millions to work, literally saved millions of lives and families, and built roads, power lines, national parks, and public buildings that laid the foundation for decades of economic progress. We need a 21st century New Deal to meet today's challenges for advanced transportation, internet, energy and education. A 21st century New Deal will provide jobs for millions and improve the economic security of all American workers; it will again provide the material foundation for future prosperity.

Labor mobilizes to save Voting Rights Act

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:39:00 +0000

ORLANDO, Fla. - Voting rights were high on the agenda of the AFL-CIO's executive council meeting here today as the Supreme Court heard a challenge to Section 5 of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act.

While labor and its allies marched and demonstrated on the steps of the Supreme Court in the nation's capital, the leaders of almost every union in America voted here today to make preservation and extension of voting rights one of their top priorities.

"We vow to fight in every way possible for the preservation of the Voting Rights Act, one of the most important laws ever passed in the history of these United States," said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker today during a break.

"When it comes to voting rights we have decided we will support only candidates who act to protect and expand voting rights."

Right-wing groups and their lawyers from Shelby County, Ala., presented oral arguments before the court claiming discrimination by race no longer exists in their county, therefore it is unfair to have to clear electoral changes with the Justice Department.

The Obama administration's Justice Department lawyers argued that any lack of discrimination in that county and elsewhere today is due to the continued enforcement of the Voting Rights Act Section 5, which requires DOJ pre-clearance before any jurisdiction with a history of discrimination can change districts and voting rules.

Advocates of the law point to voting rights restrictions affecting minorities, including requirements that voters show state photo IDs, which have been enacted, particularly where Republicans are in control of state governments.

The Voting Rights Act, which came about as a result of the civil rights movement, is widely credited with severely curtailing racial discrimination in voting. Despite this, and the fact that Congress almost unanimously re-authorized it in 2006, most observers of the Supreme Court would not be surprised if Chief Justice Roberts voted to kill the law. They would not be surprised, also, if he were joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas.

In addition to the immediate mobilizations and protests in concert with voting rights activists the labor movement has some longer range plans.

"We are fighting over the longer haul for universal voter registration and same day registration," said Holt Baker.

"But on Shelby Alabama's case today we have filed an amicus brief. Had Section 5 not been in place, a number of states would have gotten away with their voter ID schemes and the 2012 election could very well have had entirely different results."

"This attack on democracy is terrible," said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers. "I travel around the world, I'm privileged to do this, I meet with unionists all over and they just shake their heads when they hear the many ways Republicans attack democracy, even the basic right to vote.

"The shudder when I tell them how our steel workers had to shuttle water and umbrellas to help seniors stand in seven hour lines on Election Day, not just in the deep South but in Pennsylvania."

Gerard said that no one, not even in Mexico or Colombia, ever told him that they had to stand in line to vote for three or more hours. "None could name a party or country anywhere where there is a major effort underway to make it harder to vote," he said.

Lynn Rhinehart, AFL-CIO general counsel, said the case before the Supreme Court today is funded by American Legislative Exchange Council and right-wing billionaires.

"They are trying to get the Voting Rights Act thrown out as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. They argue because it covers only some states, and not all states, it is unconstitutional."

Rhinehart said in addition to racial discrimination, there was also an anti-union motive behind what Shelby County is doing. "They tried to redraw lines so they could unseat a union machinist from the city council and were stopped under this law."

The Voting Rights Act does much more than just prevent discriminatory policies from being enacted by jurisdictions. It actually puts an end to a host of discriminatory policies used to make it more difficult to vote.

"I grew up in Texas where my mother had to pay a poll tax," said Holt Baker. "As a $5 a week domestic worker she had to set aside money each week for the poll tax, and she did it because the right to vote was so sacred to her. I badly needed a pair of shoes and she had to explain to me that I could not have those shoes because she had to pay the poll tax."

Photo: Labor union leaders and members march down Highway-80 East during the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March re-enactment, on March 7, 2012, near White Hall, Ala. Demonstrators marched to protest Alabama's voter ID and immigration laws. Julie Bennett/AP

Today in black history: 15th amendment adopted

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:24:00 +0000

On this day in 1869 the 15th amendment to the Constitution ,which concerns voting rights, was passed. The amendment made it against the law to deny a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Loopholes however were written into the law causing Charles Sumner to abstain, as the legislation did not prevent the imposition of poll taxes and literacy tests. A century later such restrictions were removed by the Voting Rights Act. Under the guise of voter identification requirements, the Republican party is attempting to reintroduce new bars to voting. Tennessee failed to adopt the 15th amendment until 1997.

Photo: Creative Commons 3.0

Three coal plant shutdowns a victory for health and climate

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:48:00 +0000

On February 25, energy giant American Electric Power (AEP) announced it would be shutting down three coal-fired power plants in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky after growing pressure and opposition by environmentalists. It will also be reducing pollution levels in 13 others in the Midwest and southern U.S., making this one of the first anti-fossil fuel victories this year.

AEP's decision was partly a result of increasing activism against the pollution caused by coal-fired plants, but it was also the result of an agreement with a coalition of 13 citizens groups, eight states, and the Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to improve public health.

"Today's agreement will protect health, reduce the threat of climate disruption, and create a cleaner environment for families in Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky," remarked Jodi Perras, Indiana campaign representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign. "Across the country, the coal industry faces unprecedented setbacks as its share of electricity generation plummets and the cost of coal continues to skyrocket. This agreement is only the latest sign of progress as our country continues to transition away from dirty, dangerous, and expensive coal-fired power plants."

Earthjustice underscored the importance of preserving health, noting in a report, "According to estimates from the Clean Air Task Force, 203 deaths, 310 heart attacks, 3,160 asthma attacks, and 188 emergency room visits per year will be averted once the power plants stop burning coal.

"We're glad AEP is going to retire these aging dinosaurs, and [we] urge the company to ensure an equitable transition for the workers and communities most directly impacted by these retirements."

The closing of these plants will also greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cutting, according to the Environment News Service, 12 million tons of carbon dioxide and 84,000 tons of sulfur dioxide pollution each year going forward.

Many experts are taking these shutdowns as proof that coal plants are quickly becoming a dead end. According to a report by Science Magazine, coal plants are "struggling because many [of them] are aging to the point where parts break and they're becoming expensive to maintain. Sixty percent of the nation's coal plants are more than 40 years old, and the median age of coal plants retired in 2012 was 53 years. If the plants aren't going to produce electricity for long, the cost of" merely modifying them to accommodate "newly implemented environmental regulations can be difficult to justify. It's like hip transplants for coal plants."

While some activists may lament the loss of jobs that may come from the plants' closings, the development may also open a window for clean energy jobs instead. AEP, in fact, will be investing in new wind and solar investments in Indiana and Michigan.

"Across the Midwest and the Great Plains, in states like Iowa and South Dakota that already get 20 percent of their energy from wind sources, clean energy is powering homes, putting people back to work, and protecting families from dangerous and expensive coal-fired power plants," said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana. "Indiana has one of the fastest growing wind industries in the nation and is creating thousands of local jobs." AEP's investments will "build on that success and will only accelerate Indiana's and our nation's responsible transition to an economy powered by clean, renewable, affordable sources of energy."

Photo: squeaks2569/Flickr

Remember Trayvon Martin, with video

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:59:00 +0000

One year ago, George Zimmerman shot and killed 17 year-old Trayvon Martin because he thought the young man looked suspicious. And one year later, what happened that night in Sanford, Florida still outrages us.

In a culture that inundates us with images of Black men as violent - not to be trusted, inherently criminal - we are continually reminded that something as simple as walking home from the corner store can draw unwanted attention that puts our very lives in danger. Black Americans face racial animosity every day, and far too often that animosity turns violent.

Today as we mourn, we must also acknowledge that if it weren't for the hundreds of thousands of you who spoke up to demand basic dignity and justice, Trayvon Martin's case would have been ignored - and George Zimmerman would have gone free. As our membership grows in number, so does our power to fight injustice. Please inspire others to join the fight by sharing this video with your friends and family.

The movement that came together to demand justice for Trayvon demonstrates the power of our collective voice. It's thanks to the pressure from more than 200,000 ColorOfChange members, the work of our allies and tireless advocacy of Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin that George Zimmerman will answer in a court of law for killing Trayvon Martin.

ColorOfChange fights racial injustice and the danger it presents to our basic safety. We organize campaigns against racially-motivated police practices like the NYPD's Stop and Frisk.And we're working to stop the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which pushed the "Shoot First" laws Zimmerman is using to claim his actions were justified.

Our power comes from you, our members - courageous individuals from all walks of life who make bold demands and achieve important social change. Watch our powerful video about the campaign to demand justice for Trayvon Martin. Pledge to grow the movement to change our culture's treatment of Black youth by sharing this video with your friends and family. Encourage them to join the fight.

Rashad Robinson is Executive Director of ColorOfChange.org

Video, Honor Trayvon Martin

Photo: Trayvon Martin's parent's, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, at the march in his memory, in Union Square, New York City, March 21, 2012. Mary Altaffer/AP

Latinos helping transform California and nation

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 09:03:00 +0000

Some political commentators and social scientists tend to credit the increasing political influence of Latinos to their rapid growth in the general population, particularly the voting population.

But important as demographic growth of the Latino vote is, it's more significant that by a large majority, Latinos have emerged as a progressive nationwide political bloc, not limited to the Southwest and certain Eastern and Midwestern population pockets.

It's a political bloc that no amount of right-wing posturing will let the Republicans capture in any significant numbers. And it's sending a strong signal to conservative Democrats to shape up or ship out.

Some say a precursor of what's to come on nationally can be seen in the nation's most populous state, California. And they may well be right.

Latinos made up 30 percent of California's population in 1990 but will reach 40 percent by the end of this year, and are expected to reach 48 percent by 2050.

In the fateful year, 1994, former Republican Governor Pete Wilson shepherded a law through the California legislature to ban undocumented immigrants from prenatal care and from public schools.

Then, public opinion in the state favored more stringent measures against undocumented immigrants.

But little did Wilson and his Republican right-wing cohorts suspect that their viciously anti-immigrant law would bring on "the perfect storm to anger and motivate a big number of Latinos," María Elena Durazo, head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, recently told the New York Times.

Immigrant and native-born Latinos alike, and their progressive militant leaders, responded with massive marches to what was rightly perceived as a racist, jingoistic assault on the whole Latino community, particularly on working-class families.

"Once we had them coming out," Durazo added, "we made sure they kept voting."

Massive drives began to naturalize documented immigrants and register to them to vote, and to help undocumented people with grounds to claim legal permanent residency.

In the most recent election, exit polls showed that Latinos made up 25 percent of the vote in California, compared with 9 percent in 1994, according to Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

In just the last decade, cities that were largely white have become majority Latino, including those in districts formerly thought safe for Republicans.

Dozens of city councils have a Latino majority. A Mexican American is mayor of Los Angeles and another leads the State Assembly.

In the 120-seat state legislature, the Latino caucus now has 24 members, more than double two decades ago though still not reflecting the percentage of Latinos in the general population.

Meanwhile, since the 1994 law was approved, and later ruled unconstitutional by the federal courts, the ideological reality has changed dramatically.

Now, more California residents than ever before say that immigrants benefit the state, according to PPIC polls.

In California, Latinos - together with large majorities among African Americans, Asian American Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, women and youth - played a huge part in delivering a devastating blow to the Republican Party and its rightwing agenda in November.

Besides delivering an overwhelming vote for President Barack Obama, Latinos helped elect an all-Democratic ticket to statewide offices, win a veto-proof Democratic supermajority in both legislative chambers, and add four more members to the Democratic congressional delegation.

"Nobody had ever gone out to new citizens in the immigrant community, to poor working-class immigrants, but they turned out to be very reliable voters for us," Durazo said. "Now the rest of the country is starting to catch up."

"For a long time, we were living in no more than four or five states," Durazo added, "but now, we are in the smallest towns of Georgia and Alabama. And once we're there, it gets harder to ignore or hope that immigrants will just go away."

As Congress begins debating an overhaul of the immigration system, many in California sense that the country is just starting to go through the same evolution the state experienced over the last two decades.

Progressive trends among Latino immigrants in other parts of society are bound to reveal that Republicans' cosmetic changes on immigration and other issues will fall flat among most Latinos.

While Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures show the relentless right-wing attacks on labor nationwide caused overall union density to drop to 11.3 percent last year, in California union membership grew by more than 110,000 members, increasing overall density to 17.2 percent.

Latinos in the state were part of both these trends.

"The Latino population is growing in California," said California Labor Federation head Art Pulaski. "Latinos and other immigrants are more prone to join unions. A lot of Latinos developed a historic sense of economic and social justice in their home countries."

Other southwestern states, such as Nevada and Texas, are also seeing growth in union membership. Latino workers are playing a big role in this growth.

"This has a lot to do with the changing demographics of the workforce in these states," Ruben Garcia, a labor law professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, told the Los Angeles Times.

"The big campaigns in the car-wash industry in LA, the janitors in Houston and the people who work on the Strip here tend to be an immigrant Latino workforce that's willing to stand up at the workplace, sometimes with great risks."

Photo: Los Angeles Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Maria Elena Durazo speaks to Dreams, carwasheros, and community allies gathered to celebrate the start of the Deferred Action process for Dreamers. (AFL-CIO Latino)

New moves to tax corporate offshore havens

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:56:00 +0000

WASHINGTON - A new report on corporate tax havens overseas and how much they cost the U.S. Treasury in revenues when firms stash profits abroad has prompted two lawmakers, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, to move against the tax dodgers with legislation outlawing the companies' practices.

If the measure became law, the bill by the Independent Vermont senator and the Democratic representative from Chicago's North Side and near-north suburbs could reap billions of dollars and help close federal red ink, the two say.

"Recently, the Business Roundtable" - the lobby for the firms the report covers - "came out with a plan to raise the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security to 70, cut Social Security and veterans' benefits, and increase taxes on working families," Sanders and Schakowsky explained.

But those Business Roundtable firms avoided $128 billion in U.S. taxes in 2010 alone by sheltering their profits abroad, the report says. The IRS sent them $6.5 billion in refunds, combined, that year. So instead of hammering workers, "It's time for these corporate and Wall Street tax dodgers to pay their fair share in taxes and bring jobs back home to America," the lawmakers add. Their bill would tax funds firms sent to havens.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Service Employees President Mary Kay Henry endorsed the Sanders-Schakowsky legislation. It "would increase investment, employment and wages in the United States," Trumka said. It would "raise revenue, restore fairness to our tax code and create good jobs in the U.S.," Henry added.

General Electric was the big winner in using tax havens, the report shows. It avoided $35.7 billion in U.S. taxes by putting $102 billion in 2010 profits in "at least 14" tax havens in Bermuda, Singapore and Luxembourg. GE actually got a $3.3 billion IRS refund that year, the most recent year that data were available. It also obtained $16 billion in credit from the Federal Reserve during the financier-caused 2008 crash.

Meanwhile, GE closed 30 U.S. factories, chopped 34,000 American jobs, and added 25,000 jobs overseas since 2001, it says. It quotes GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt telling investors in 2002: "When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China. You need to be there. The cost basis is extremely attractive."

Other big winners among the Business Roundtable's corporate members in terms of avoiding U.S. taxes by using foreign tax havens were, in order: Microsoft ($19.4 billion avoided), Merck ($15.5 billion), Cisco Systems ($14.5 billion), QualComm ($5.8 billion), JP Morgan Chase ($4.9 billion), Caterpillar ($4.56 billion), Corning ($3.78 billion), Dow Chemical ($3.5 billion), Goldman Sachs ($3.32 billion), Honeywell ($2.84 billion), Alcoa ($2.9 billion), Bank of America ($2.5 billion), Eaton ($2.24 billion), ThermoFisher Scientific ($1.65 billion) and UPS ($1.12 billion).

Photo: Tony Pecinovsky/PW

The people have spoken: Save our schools!

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 15:18:00 +0000

Hundreds of students, teachers, parents, staff members, and allies packed Chicago's Fuller Park Fieldhouse Thursday night to inform representatives from Chicago Public Schools that they will not accept the closure of nine public schools in the diverse, working-class neighborhoods around Bridgeport, Kenwood, and Back of the Yards.

The meeting was filled with inspiring displays of solidarity: parents fighting back tears as they spoke of schools that had become linchpins of their communities; students pleading with CPS to let them keep these places where they feel safe, respected, and challenged; teachers telling of students with special needs who, in their classroom, had said their first word, read their first book, or written their name for the first time.

Take, for example, George B. McClellan Elementary, a school in the Bridgeport neigborhood. CPS is considering McClellan for closure, calling it "underutilized."

Student Kamyra Parks, 8, took a moment away from her friends to grant People's World an interview. Her verdict? "My school is perfect."

Kamyra's mother, Robyn Parks, says she was shocked when she got the news that CPS wanted to close McClellan.

Ms. Parks, like other public school advocates, speaks of McClellan as a vibrant institution that has mobilized massive parent and community support on behalf of its students, over 25 percent of whom have special needs.

Ivette Gaston, a community representative on the Local School Council and parent of three McClellan honors students, dismissed CPS's allegations: "When they say underutilized, we don't understand, because we are literally turning closets into space for special needs students."

Bozena Brogan, the parent of a McClellan student with autism, went to her Local School Council to ask for a "sensory room," a space with the resources to help autistic students manage the difficulties that arise in a classroom setting.

Together, Gaston and Brogan made it happen, scrubbing floors and painting murals to transform a closet into a soothing environment with soft lights, crash mats, a trampoline, and toys. Another closet holds a speech therapy room; the basement has been converted into an art room and a dance studio where members of the Joffrey Ballet introduce students to the art of movement.

For Bozena Brogan's daughter, these initiatives have been profoundly important. For the first time, Brogan says, her daughter talks about having friends.

Stories like this show the human cost of school closures and suggest that McClellan is anything but underutilized. As parent Josephine Norwood puts it, "this is not about underutilization, it's about miscalculation."

The McClellan community argues that CPS inaccurately evaluated the capacity of the building, where a number of classrooms devoted to special education are capped by law at 10-13 students, depending on age.

Instead, Norwood says, CPS has calculated capacity on the assumption that all classrooms should hold 31 students. Defenders of McClellan say that rectifying this error would show that the school is operating much closer to full capacity.

Norwood's son has already had to change schools twice because of closures, and she has no intention of letting it happen again.

So will the tenacious Bulldogs of McClellan Elementary manage to save their school?

Principal Joe Shoffner cited the mobilization of the community as cause for optimism. "There are signs that they're listening," he says, "and if they hear us, we'll be OK."

Ultimately, however, it's not just a question of saving McClellan, or Sherman, or Parkman, or any one school among the 129 that CPS is considering for closure.

The stakes are much higher, and the people gathered here and in similar venues across the city say they're fighting to save every public school in every community in Chicago from a corporate-funded attack on public education.

Their unanimous message was clear in the chant that broke out from time to time: "Save our schools! Save our schools! Save our schools!"

Alison Moulton, a 5th grade teacher at Hamline Elementary, says her school isn't on the list of "underutilized" campuses. She came out in support, she says, in hopes that "they'll see that a school is more than just a building."

Thomas Tobbe, a member of the Young Communist League, says his group has gotten involved because school closings are an attack on working people:

"We're here because this is, first and foremost, a class issue. Working people pay for public schools with their taxes, they support public schools with their involvement, and now their children's education is being compromised. The YCL will fight these closures in solidarity with teachers, parents, students, and allies in the community."

This fight is just beginning, and a uniformed Chicago police officer working security at the event summed up the fighting spirit that the people of Chicago bring to the defense of public education:

"Give 'em hell in there."

Photo: Earchiel Johnson/PW