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September 11, 2023Strategy & Soul Movement Center Hosted by Channing Martinez presents:   Freedom First 2023 World Tour A Jazz Benefit Concert for Keith Lamar   October 5th, 2023 7pm Strategy and Soul Theater 3546 Martin Luther King Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90008 Featuring Spoken Word by Keith Lamar FROM DEATH ROW Albert Marques – Piano Kazende George – Tenor Sax Yosemite Montego – Bass Zack O’Farril – Drums Keith Lamar in Conversation with Eric Mann Get Tickets Now Keith Lamar is a WRONGFULLY-CONVICTED Black man who faces state-sanctioned murder in just under a year for crimes he can now prove he did not commit—his execution date was previously set for November 16, 2023. Keith was just granted a reprieve and his execution date has been moved to January 13, 2027. Freedom First began as a concert series in the summer of 2020 on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan shortly after the murder of George Floyd, and at a time the country was shut down due to Covid. The aim of these beautiful shows has been to raise public awareness of yet another grave injustice being done in our names, and to seek support for the Campaign for Justice for Keith Lamar while we still can… Keith is still breathing. Let’s fight for him to keep breathing and get free! Get Tickets Now On October 5, 2023, The Strategy Center is bringing this incredible jazz concert to the heart of South Central to STRATEGY AND SOUL MOVEMENT CENTER! Some of the most provocative and gifted contemporary artists will join us, this time to play music from the first ever album in history created and recorded by someone on death row, aptly titled FREEDOM FIRST. Keith, an avid jazz lover, lends his soulful and heart-wrenching spoken-word poetry to some of his favorite tunes and several original pieces written for/with him. After a year of sold-out and standing-room only shows, both in Europe and in the United States, embraced by his friends and family, Keith will be joining us by phone from Ohio’s Supermax Prison where he has spent the past three decades in solitary confinement on death row. In spite of these unimaginably difficult years of torture, he continues to shine a bright light into the world, teaching, motivating, and loving people with great intention. We hope that you will join us in our support as we strive to get Justice for Keith Lamar. Eric and Channing have been actively involved in his case and visited him. Please see the links below to the three Voices from the Frontlines conversations with Keith Lamar:
Voices Radio: In Conversation with Keith Lamar
Keith Lamar in Conversation with Eric Mann
Voice From The Frontlines Features: Keith Lamar, Episode 3, Life Watch
Every ticket sold will help Keith’s struggle to get back into court. Due to recent developments, he has a good shot, a clear pathway, and he needs our help for this legal push now more than ever. Thank you for your help to spread the word and for being a part of the fight to FREE KEITH LAMAR! We only have 100 seats available so buy here to reserve your ticket early! Learn more about Keith’s story at: www.keithlamar.org Get Tickets Now [...] Read more...
March 14, 2023The Strategy and Soul Movement Film Theater Presents the acclaimed feature- length documentary Bus Riders Union By Haskell Wexler Academy Award Winning Cinematographer March 30, 2023 7 PM reception, 7:30 film showing (90 minutes) Followed by community discussion $10 community, $25 general admission, $100 donor Please consider the donor tickets to support the theater Strategy and Soul Theater seats 100 all tickets must be reserved This film is part of the Bus Riders Union’s 2023 Urban Reconstruction Campaign   Fight the Racist, Anti-Black Gentrifying, Corrupt LA Metro A First-Class Bus System for Third World People Free Public Transportation Now LA Metro—Stop Racially Profiling Black Passengers No Police on the Buses and Trains Hire 500 community conductors instead 2 Million Additional Service Hours So the Damn Buses Come on Time 1,000 New Zero Emission Buses No Cars in LA—Stop Droughts and Famine in Africa Get on the Bus and Roll with the BRU [...] Read more...
October 4, 2021Apply Now [...] Read more...
May 24, 2021Movement Briefing & Media Conference The Bus Riders Union Calls on MTA  to end its Apartheid Pass  Fareless Transportation for All Wednesday May 26th 2021 6pm PST Via Zoom Join the BRU this Wednesday at 6pm PST. for a movement briefing and media conference Speakers: Barbara Lott Holland—Co-Chair, Bus Riders Union Eric Mann— Director of the Strategy Center Channing Martinez—Director of Organizing Representative InnerCity Struggle Representative Community Coalition We call on Mayor Garcetti, Supervisors Holly Mitchell, Janice Hahn, Sheila Kuehl, Hilda Solis, Kathryn Barger, Board Members Jackie Dupont-Walker, and all MTA board members to pass free transit for high school students, community college students, and the domestic workers, janitors, street vendors, unemployed, houseless LA residents—that is Free Public Transportation for All Do not play the students against their parents. This is a disgrace. It is also an ecological catastrophe to drive low-income people into cars instead of public transportation. Take Action Before Thursday’s Board Meeting To Help This Campaign Call Mayor Garcetti, Holly Mitchell, & Hilda Solis, and all MTA board members to urge them to vote for Free Public Transportation for All, No Income Test, No Declaration of Poverty, No Immigration Status Reveal! Send a letter to the Mayor using this template: Prepare a 1 minute Public Comment to call in to the board on Thursday Morning This Thursday May 27 at 10 AM the MTA board will entertain a motion for free public transportation for high school and community college students and an apartheid bus pass, tickets, harassment, racial profiling, and requirements that bus riders must prove their income status to qualify for “fareless transit.”Otherwise they will have to pay and outrageous $1.75 for a one-way ride, $7 for an all-day pass, and $100 for a monthly bus pass. Since most low-income Black and Latinx bus riders—representing 70% of all MTA riders—cannot afford these fares—and the MTA knows this—and are transit dependent, many will be forced to use the service with their own or someone else’s pass or get on the train and bus and hope they are not detected. LA bus riders already pay $2 for every $10 of sales tax directly to the MTA—even when it is “free” bus riders have already paid for it These are the Black Codes where first the MTA criminalizes it passengers, sets up fares that no one can afford, and the justifies is $650 million contract with LAPD, Los Angeles Sheriffs, Long Beach, and its own police department to set up a police state on the trains. This “fareless plan for those who must prove their low-income” will lead to humiliation, non-compliance, deportations of undocumented bus riders, tickets, and arrests and yes, exacerbate L.A. houseless catastrophe. In fact, MTA officials admit off the record that one reason for the Apartheid bus pass is to drive houseless people off public transportation. Registration is required for this event, please use the link below to register. Register Now [...] Read more...
May 14, 2020BRU Calls on the MTA Board to Pass Free Public Transportation for all MTA Passengers for at least one year— with the hope it becomes permanent The Bus Riders Union is trying to figure out the most we can do during this COVID 19 medical, political, economic, social, and ethical crisis of our society. As with all of us, playing to our strong suit and the work we have the right to claim is the best way to proceed—along with supporting the initiatives and work of our allies. Today we ask all of you for your support on two interrelated calls to the Los Angeles MTA—to stop the collection of all fares immediately and agree to Free Public Transportation for all until December 31, 2020 at which time we hope they will agree to make it a permanent policy. The Strategy Center is deeply grateful for the initiative of LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, LAUSD Board Members Monica Garcia and Jackie Goldberg, and MTA Board Members Mayor Eric Garcetti, Supervisor Hilda Solis, and City Councilman Mike Bonin for the possibility of Free Public Transportation for all LAUSD Students as early as this September. This has not passed at the MTA yes. This is a terrific initiative and the Bus Riders Union, along with our Taking Action student leaders at Roosevelt, Augustus Hawkins, and Ouchi High Schools,  is very happy to be a critical and visible part of that broad coalition along with Community Coalition and Move L.A Manual Arts. That was before the COVID 19 Pandemic. Now there is an even more urgent call to the MTA—Please suspend all fare collections now and institute free public transportation for all MTA passengers at least until December 31,2020. The 450,000 MTA bus and train riders are 55% Latino, 20% Black, 60% women, with family incomes under $20,000. Before the COVID 19 Pandemic they were barely making it and many were not at all. When public transportation re-opens for the general public they will be facing a catastrophic future—for many, no jobs, no income, no money. For those with jobs, how can they afford to get to work when they have not worked for months?  For the students, the unemployed, the homeless, for the urban poor and working class free public transportation is the only price they can afford. Fortunately, the MTA, with a $7 billion budget and 4 ½ cent sales taxes is one of the most well financed government agencies in the U.S. Free Public Transportation would dramatically increase public transportation use, significantly reduce auto use, and dramatically reduce air toxins, criteria pollutants, and greenhouse gas emissions from autos. We know for sure that free public transportation would at least DOUBLE the MTA’s present 450 million annual one ways trip to 900 million. We also know that under the present punitive and egregious fares—$1.75 one way, $100 a month pass—auto purchases among low-income workers have increased by 400% and MTA ridership is down at least 10 percent.  Free Public Transportation is a civil rights, human rights, women’s rights, income equality, and climate justice victory for all.  Please help us now! We need to hear from you now as every day for bus riders is getting worse.   Yes—I support the Bus Riders Union’s Campaign for Free Public Transportation Yes, here is the endorsement of my organization.  Yes, I want to be part of this campaign. Please contact me for further information—email, phone. Yes, here is a contribution to help you continue this important campaign. [...] Read more...
January 22, 2020All friends of the Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union Great News for the Free Public Transportation Campaign Join us at the MTA Board Meeting this Thursday, January 23 for the introduction of a motion by the MTA board to explore free public transportation for all LAUSD Students! RSVP Today   We are very appreciative that LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner, along with 40 community allies, including the Strategy Center, the Bus Riders Union, and our Taking Action Social Justice Clubs in L.A. high schools has convinced key MTA board members to introduce a motion this Thursday for Free Public Transportation for all students. As Martha Alvarez coordinating these efforts for the LAUSD explained, Supervisor Solis, Council Member Bonin and Mayor Garcetti, will introduce a motion to direct the Metro staff to return in April 2020 with a report that reviews existing free transit programs and includes cost estimates for the provision of free Metro transit services for LAUSD students To be clear, this is not yet an actual motion for free public transportation for students but a very important step in that direction that should be supported and celebrated. As you know, from 1994 to 2006 the Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union won major reductions in bus fares (to $42 a month) 2500 CNG buses, and 1 million hours of additional service. We also led a campaign to make the student bus pass far more accessible— with the cooperation of the LAUSD and MTA—by having them sold at the public schools. As you also know, we have been fighting for Free Public Transportation for all MTA passengers for the last 10 years. But no, despite speaking to 2,000 LA residents in South LA this summer, ending 350 post-cards to Mayor Garcetti encouraging this policy, we have not had the influence to get this translated into policy. As such we are deeply grateful to Superintended Austin Beutner, who clearly has a lot more influence than we do with the MTA board, to initiate such a terrific motion and also grateful to Mayor Eric Garcetti, Supervisor Hilda Solis and Mike Bonin for their leadership on this subject. We do hope in the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, our mobilization of 500 community residents in 2014 to reduce the monthly bus pass and our monthly testimony at the MTA board calling for free public transportation has played some constructive role in this process. As you know LAUSD students are as a group overwhelmingly Latinx and Black and very low-income. This will be a great step to encourage public transit use, to reduce the use of autos, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions air toxins, and criteria pollutants and get the MTA back on the path to dramatically increased ridership. The passage of this motion will be an important step forward for the cause of civil rights, environmental and climate justice, and a first step towards addressing income inequality for all Los Angeles families. We are happy to be part of a coalition of 40 other organizations supporting this motion. We will be there this Thursday offering congratulations to all and also will continue to mobilize students, parents, and teachers for the longer process of translating this initiative into public policy. And yes, to continue the conversation about free public transportation for all MTA passengers. Eric Mann, director, Labor/Community Strategy Center Barbara Lott-Holland, co-chair, Bus Riders Union Channing Martinez and Brigette Amaya–lead organizers Taking Action Social Justice Clubs RSVP Today   [...] Read more...
October 17, 2019Support Black Lives Matter LA: Bye Jackie 2020 2 years of Action Wednesday October 23rd, 2019 4-6PM The Strategy Center urges our members and friends to join Black Lives Matter L.A. for their critical campaign to challenge L.A. District Attorney Jackie Lacey for her refusal to aggressively apprehend and try police involved in brutality and homicide against civilians especially Black people. In her six-year tenure as county prosecutor, Lacey has never filed charges against a police officer involved in a shooting. The Black population of Los Angeles has been forcibly reduced from 750,000 to 350,000 through systematic push out—driving Black people out of the economy and occupying their every breathing moment through police brutality  and harassment. We have to stand up to the racist privatizing, polluting, and policing plan for gentrification and genocide against the Black community led by liberal Democrats! We commend BLMLA for their leadership in calling the question and demanding a positive answer. We will be marching with them and ask you to join them as well. Contact us at info@thstrategycenter.org [...] Read more...
March 20, 2019The Strategy Center is a member organization in the Brothers Sons Selves Coalition and we all need your help.  The purpose of this survey is to capture your experiences in school, community, and all across Los Angeles County. By taking this survey, you are helping us know what young people need so we can make a real change in LA county! Please try to answer as many questions as possible, and let your voice be heard! This survey should take about 8-15 minutes to complete. If you complete the survey, you will be entered to the drawing for a gift card! Take the Survey [...] Read more...
February 1, 2019 Read more...
January 25, 2019Join The Strategy Center at the Pan African Film Festival for the Great Film BUS RIDERS UNION by Haskell Wexler February 12, 2019 @6pm In 1997, encouraged by Michelle Prichard of the Liberty Hill Foundation, academy award Cinematographer Haskell Wexler approached Eric Mann and the Strategy Center about doing a feature length documentary about our work. We were honored and thrilled. For 3 years, Haskell, as revolutionary artist, became part of our movement as he documented every move we made. Released in 2000, the film ends with a major victory in civil rights law and organizing—the decision by the federal courts to force the Los Angeles MTA to buy 532 new buses that later became 2500 through our continued organizing work. Today, the Strategy Center is still fighting, now for Free Public Transportation and an end to MTA Attacks on Black Passengers. Bus Riders Union is a brilliant documentary of a real movement of Black and Latino bus riders in real time, Making History. Today, as the world at times seems bleak and depressing, find real hope in real organizing and help us continue this mission. We are so proud to be an Official Selection of the Pan African Film Festival. Join us for a great film and conversation Tuesday, February 12, 2019 @6pm Baldwin Hills Cinemark Theater Tickets on Sale Now General Admission Tickets $15       Donor Tickets  $25  $50  $100 (Please support our work) [...] Read more...
January 21, 2019 Read more...
December 5, 2018Building a Machine to Take on the System­ Please Help us Raise $50,000 Now Dear Friends, The Strategy Center is building a Center of Resistance in South Los Angeles as part of a regional, national, and international movement against the U.S. Empire. Contribute Now The System is in a permanent and escalating racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, ecological, political, economic, and spiritual crisis. Donald Trump is a dangerous, demagogic neo-fascist. The Democrats are a hypocritical, vicious, neo-liberal party whose only real objection to Trump is that he is in power and they are not. The Strategy Center is working in South Los Angeles and from there with groups all over the U.S. fighting to get police out of the schools, supporting striking UTLA teachers, hosting book signings and film showings, running the Voices from the Frontlines Radio—on KPFK—Your National Movement Building Show, Running the Strategy and Soul Movement Center, Frontlines Press that publishes books and films for the movement, and training a new multi-generational cadre of gifted grassroots organizers. Our politics We are building a Black/Latino alliance that is unapologetically anti-imperialist. We call for “The social welfare state not the police state/the Climate Justice State not the Warfare State.” We challenge both parties sick investment in a $1 trillion a year military budget that is bringing the world into ecological and nuclear capacity while operating 800 military bases for U.S. world domination. Our Structual demands Stop U.S. Genocide Against the Black Nation/Gentrification is Genocide Open Borders—Tear Down the Walls, Amnesty and Free Passage for All Immigrants Cut U.S. Military and Police Budget by 50 Percent Now U.S. Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 50% of 1990 levels by 2025 Stop State Violence Against Womenin the Family, Workplace community/by police and  U.S. military Stop U.S. Trafficking of Women and Girls Full Human Rights for the People of Palestine End the Israeli/U.S. Blockade of Gaza Our Immediate Demands Free Public Transportation/No Cars in L.A. No Police on MTA Buses and Trains No Police in LAUSD Schools Stop MTA Attacks on Black Passengers The Strategy Center runs a beautiful state-of-the-art Film Theater/Art Gallery/Bookstore at 3546 Martin Luther King Blvd. where we host the Pan African Film Festival, show films like DOLORES  about the life of Dolores Huerta to 100 Black and Latino organizers from Strategy Center and Community Coalition, host book signings like Thandi Chimurenga’s No Doubt: The Murder(s) of Oscar Grant and Victor Wallis’ Red-Green Revolution: The Politics and Technology of Ecosocialism. The Strategy Center has initiated Strategy and Soul Food where we want to operate a pop-up-shop and healthy coffee house. The Training of a Multi-generational team of some of the best organizers in the U.S. The Strategy Center and Eric Mann have trained more than 100 organizers through our National School for Strategic Organizing. Many of whom are still with the Strategy Center and others have expanded the influence in the movement through Puente in Phoenix, United Teachers of Los Angeles, Black Lives Matter, Community Voices Heard in New York, and dozens of labor unions and community groups throughout the U.S. Building a new generation of high school and community college leaders to be part of a multi-generational organizing team. Today, Associate director Barbara Lott-Holland, Lead organizers Carlos “Elmo Gomez” and Channing Martinez, organizers Stephanie Prieto, Bridgette Amaya, and Kevin Herrera are working with more than 100 students at Roosevelt High School in East L.A. and Augustus Hawkins and Ouchi High School in South LA.  These student leaders are building Strategy Center Taking Action Clubs to fight for free public transportation and building a new cadre of the most mature and disciplined young people working in a multi-generational movement with Black veterans of South L.A. and the Strategy Center. THE SCOPE AND AMBITION OF OUR WORK IS INFINITE BUT OUR FUNDS ARE FINITE $50,000 CAN MOVE THIS Exciting and Comprehensive Program FORWARD On May 4, 2019 we will celebrate our 30th anniversary. Please contribute now and join us this and next year as we work to make history together. Young people working in a multi-generational movement with Black veterans of South L.A. and the Strategy Center. WE NEED YOUR MOST GENEROUS SUPPORT. Contribute Now [...] Read more...
November 30, 2018Statement of the Labor/Community Strategy Center Standing Up against Racist, Fascist, Nazi, Swastikas in South L.A. Standing Up Against the Attacks on the Black Community, Black artists, the Black Panther Party, Black Women Revolutionaries, Black Revolutionary History and all of us! The defacing of an historical mural on Crenshaw Boulevard, Our Mighty Contribution,” by placing swastikas over the faces of Black women members of the Black Panther Party is profoundly symbolic and real–a material reflection of the U.S. white settler state out of control. For us at the Strategy Center, the fight against racism, national oppression, and our deep ties to and love for the Black and Latino communities in particular, and all oppressed people, are rooted in an internationalist, anti-imperialist perspective and the long history of Black and Third World liberation movements inside and outside the United States. During The Sixties, we all knew we’re fighting against “the white power structure” and agreed with Dr. King that “the United States, our own government, is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” Not surprisingly, if classically brazen and pathetic, the LAPD described it as “an isolated incident” —perhaps, with a sense of unintentional irony, they meant compared to their daily and conscious practice of brutality, racism, and occupation.  But let’s be clear, there is nothing “isolated” about it. Today, the Black Community in Los Angeles is under systematic attack by a two-party capitalist system that sees South L.A., as Professor Cynthia Hamilton observed, as land that is valuable but a people who are not. As late as 1970, a once vibrant, if embattled Black community in Los Angeles had a population of 750,000 members, 25% of the population of L.A.’s 3 million people.  Today, as L.A.’s population has grown to 4 million, the Black community has declined to 350,000 people—less than 10% of the city and county.  The defacing of the mural is the act of some racist thugs, and do not rule out conscious and organized right-wing organizations, but is also representative of U.S. and L.A. policies of gentrification and 24/7 police occupation. It is also reflected in the L.A. MTA raising the monthly bus/rail pass to $100 and then arresting and ticketing passengers—and singling out Black passengers, for “fare evasion” making it a crime to ride public transportation if you can’t afford to pay. Look at how many restaurants, stores, public places have virtually no Black employees as there is a “white list” against hiring Black people who the system believes are too independent, thoughtful, happy, and self-respecting to be the docile and obedient employees they seek–and can never find anyway.   This is also  The System’s Big Payback and White Backlash against the great sacrifices the Civil Rights and Black Liberation Movements for all they gave for the liberation of all people including the people of Vietnam. It is hard to know where to start or finish as The System aka U.S. imperialism is now in such free fall that a raving, racist, proto-fascist is president and half the country–certainly the majority of the white oppressor nation–still enthusiastically supports his attacks on Mexicans, Hondurans, Blacks, Indigenous peoples, women, gays, and all the “others” who are in fact the heart and soul of whatever positive future can be built in revolutionary opposition to this dying empire. So what in the world can we do? First, just feel bad, then terrible, then enraged at the defacement of Black art and Black people. Thanks to all who have worked to rebuild the mural—and then turn rage into far greater dedication and commitment to fight this system with all of our hearts. * Give generously on Black Friday, and Black everyday to organizations working to help the Black community in South L.A. and throughout the U.S. and among many, big props to Black Lives Matter for calling the question front and center. * Fight for Open Borders, Full Amnesty, and making human rights for all legally and morally binding for all residents regardless of citizenship * Stand up to, misogyny, homophobia, attacks on Arabs and Muslims, attacks on and hatred against Jews, support the people of Palestine, fight racism and hatred in every form both aggressive and subtle—and remember, there is no such thing as a “joke” degrading any other people. When you are attacked with the response, “Can’t you take a joke?” the answer is, “Hell no you damn racist!” * For those of us in the Movement, we have to truly cherish each other, forgive each of us our trespasses, and bring generosity of spirit into our discussions and negotiations especially when tensions are at their highest. If we don’t truly believe we need each other, which we do, believe in the strategic imperative of a united front against fascism and imperialism, which we do need urgently, we are doomed and we can’t blame Trump, or the Democrats, or the System if we are the problem. The Strategy Center, as our small part of the solution, has built the Strategy and Soul Movement Center in South L.A. at the corner of King and Crenshaw,  to bring films, books, food, and  transformative organizing to a community we love. We are building a multi-racial, Black/Latino led, movement for social, racial, and climate justice. We are fighting for Free Public Transportation, No MTA Police on Buses and Trains, No Police in LAUSD Schools, No Cars in L.A. and Stop MTA Attacks on Black Passengers. We send our deep solidarity and regards to our friends and allies at Community Coalition, CADRE, SCOPE, St. Johns Wellness, Black Workers Center, Black Lives Matter LA, Crenshaw Coalition Against Gentrification, CHIRLA, LACAN, Black Workers Center–to just name a few–and ask those working to protect and rebuild the murals and other forms of public and protest art in South L.A., South Central, and throughout the city to reach out to us to ask for help. We can assure you, we will respond enthusiastically/ These acts of public racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia are neither crazy nor random. They are systematic reflections of the ideology and strategy of a dying system. The system is at war with us. The challenge to all of us is— are we willing to up the ante to build up our army and fight even harder on our side of the war.  Victory is not certain, but it is possible and urgently necessary. With warm if broken hearts. We send our deep love to all. Eric Mann, Barbara Lott-Holland, Channing Martinez, Elmo Gomez, Brigette Amaya, Stephanie Prieto, and your friends at the Labor/Community Strategy Center   [...] Read more...
July 18, 2018No Fare-—Free Public Transportation Now No MTA Attacks on Black Passengers Free Public Transportation-Public Transportation is a Human Right Free Public Transportation is so obvious it’s revolutionary.  The MTA is one of the richest public agencies in the world with a $5 billion a year budget about to become $7 billion through its latest sales tax—now 4 that all of us pay. So first, “Free” public transportation is not actually free but already paid for over and over and over by the tax payers. Second, L.A. is a city of great poverty in a nation of great spiritual and economic poverty.  The MTA’s 500,000 daily passengers—20% Black, 55% Latino, 60% women and more than 60% extreme low-income cannot afford the $100 a month bus pass nor the $24 a month student pass. For many families making no more than $20,000 their monthly bus costs are more than $200 a month. MTA ridership is Down! Because of poor service, high fares, police brutality and long waits. If we had free public transportation MTA daily ridership might reach 1 million people riding a day and with dramatic reduction in auto use.  Also it would obviously end police brutality and harassment in the fare collection process because “no fare” leads to “no fare collection.” No Police On MTA Trains and Buses No Police in Schools This campaign focuses on police occupation and brutality on MTA trains and buses but it is part of an even broader problem of systematic police domination of our society. In Los Angeles more than 50% of the city budget, more than $2 billion, is for police. The MTA just passed a massive police expansion plan for $797 million over 5 years to create a police state on its buses and trains—a literal army of fare collectors, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and Long Beach Police Department. They created a phony “crime problem” on the trains when the main crimes are MTA police attacks on Black and all rail and bus riders. We can’t have a viable public transportation system that is little more than a police state on wheels and tracks. We must cut the MTA police budget by 50% now. Stop MTA Attacks on Black Passengers The Strategy Center is working with Public Counsel, Equal Justice Society, attorney Lisa Holder and others to bring a civil rights suit against the MTA for systematic and egregious racial profiling of Black Passengers. This is reflected in Black passengers who are 20% of all MTA passengers receiving more than 55% of all tickets and 60% of all arrests on MTA trains and buses. The vast majority of these tickets and arrests are for quality of life, broken windows, racial profiling, punitive social mores that the MTA imposes on its passengers because so many of them are Black, Latino, and very low-income. We are asking the MTA to cease and desist in the enforcement of all fare checks on the train and cease and desist all tickets and arrests for violating their arbitrary “codes of conduct” that allow them to both ticket passengers, bring them to transit court, and of course arrest them on any pretense We are calling on the federal courts to order the MTA to stop its massive police presence on the trains, to use conductors not enforcement police armed or unarmed, and at most, to ask passengers who do not pay their fare or who do not carry out MTA rules to exit at the next stop. It is a tragedy that today Black and Latino public transit riders, like every other aspect of society, are treated like suspects and criminals not valued members of society or passengers and have to suffer arbitrary and cruel police treatment on the way to work or even looking for work. There is no question that many MTA riders are not paying their full fare or any fare—as explained above, because there is no way they can afford it. But to make “fare evasion” a crime is little more than the debtors prisons of the past, it cannot be a crime to not be able to pay for a public good that is already supported by massive amounts of taxpayer dollars and especially rules that are enforced in such a grotesque and discriminatory manner. No Cars in LA The Climate crisis makes the end of the auto system in L.A. and the U.S. imperative. The world is moving towards a 2 degree Celsius Future and worse, in Sub-Saharan Africa the temperature may move towards 3 degrees—with massive heat waves, droughts, floods, and mass famine facing 775 million people.  There are 6.2 million cars and 1 million trucks in L.A. The auto cannot be our future—free public transportation with zero-emission electric buses running 24/7 is our future—let’s fight for it.   Become a Dues Paying Member Today Become a Fight for the Soul of the Cities Member today. Dues are $10-$50 dollars per year. Members of the Fight for the Soul of the Cities are placed on our mailing list, and given a curtesy call at least once a month to hear updates on the campaign, and upcoming events and actions. You’ll also receive the Voices from the Frontlines weekly newsletter. Please Choose the membership amount that best suites you. and fill in all of your contact information. Those who fill in an address will receive a full welcome packet in the mail. [...] Read more...
June 6, 2018Symbols Of Resistance A conversation with Claude Marks, Brenda Montano, and Eric Mann Strategy & Soul Theater  June 29th 2018 @6pm Suggested Donation $10.00 Symbols of Resistance illuminates the untold stories of the Chican@ Movement with a focus on Colorado and Northern New Mexico. This film engages the importance of student activism; the effect of police repression and how issues of identity, land and community still resonate in the Chican@ struggles of today. Our in-depth examination of this historical moment arose from a major 40th anniversary program in Denver in 2014 to honor the martyrs of the 1970s, including six student activists who were killed in two car bombings in Boulder (los seis de Boulder). Our commitment to recognizing the lesser known stories of the martyrs of the Chicano Movement unveils an important component of the Chican@ struggle that is often not well understood–that the movement was not limited to organizing agricultural workers. Through interviews with those who shaped the movement and rare historical footage, Symbols of Resistances offers a window into a dynamic moment in history and movement building. RSVP HERE Eric Mann is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, August 29th Movement, United Auto Workers and League of Revolutionary Struggle. He worked at the GM Van Nuys Plant with 5,000 workers 2500 of whom were Chicano and taught in the Chicano Studies Department of Cal State Northridge. [...] Read more...
February 26, 2018Demands Free Public Transportation No Police on MTA Trains Shut Down MTA Transit Court No Racist MTA Codes of Conduct Stop MTA Attacks on Black Passengers Join the Fight for the Soul of the Cities Come to the March 1st MTA Board Meeting Call Channing Martinez and Barbara Lott-Holland (323) 903-6238 to get involved [...] Read more...
February 2, 2018You saw the video. I was one of “those young Latinas who stood up to police brutality on the trains” and in return was arrested by the police. They handcuffed me, took me to jail, denied me food, water, contact with my family for 24 hours. It was a truly terrifying experience. The MTA is making riding on the train a crime because their riders are 55% Latino and 20% Black. MTA has a “code of conduct” that makes anything—putting your feet on a seat, eating a sandwich, even “body odor” a crime. The MTA and the police in my view are the ones carrying out the crimes. My brother Giovanni and I have joined the Strategy Center’s campaign for Free Public Transportation No Police on MTA Trains Shut Down MTA Transit Court No Racist MTA Codes of Conduct Stop MTA Attacks on Black Passengers When I got out of jail I was contacted by Strategy Center organizer Elmo Gomez who immediately supported me.  Strategy Center director Eric Mann has been working with me and my brother every day and helped to organize a great press/media conference at the Fight for the Soul of the Cities community office at 3546 Martin Luther King at Crenshaw—part of the Strategy and Soul Movement Center. The Strategy Center also helped me get a great attorney, Nana Gyamfi, who is representing me and we want the City Attorney to not file charges in my case. Now we are dues paying members of the Fight for the Soul of the Cities and plan to testify in front of the MTA on Thursday, February 22 We call on them to drop the charges against all MTA passengers and stop the racist fare collections and codes of conduct. So here’s how you can help. Join the Fight for the Soul of the Cities Come to the March 1st MTA Board Meeting Call Channing Martinez and Barbara Lott-Holland (323) 903-6238 to get involved [...] Read more...
January 25, 2018For Immediate Release Contact: Eric Mann info@thestrategycenter.org Press Conference Date/Time: Friday, January 26th at 12 PM Location: In Front of Strategy and Soul 3546 W Martin Luther King Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90008 (Crenshaw and MLK) Selena Lechuga, Latina, attacked by MTA police for standing up for the rights of others, meets the press Selena Lechuga was on an MTA train on Monday January 22 at the Macarthur Park station. She witnessed MTA police misconduct towards another passenger, a young woman, and spoke up against what she believed was racist and sexist behavior—simply asking the officer to cease and desist in his behavior. For that act of kindness and compassion she was arrested by MTA police and held for 24 hours during which time she had no contact with her family. She was denied water, food, and contact with others. Finally, she was allowed to call for help and was released. She is facing charges that are unjustified and retaliatory. The Labor/Community Strategy Center has been challenging what we believe is MTA Transit Racism since 1994. We have brought the MTA to court for violating the 1964 Civil Rights Act in 1996 and won a ten year Consent Decree with the MTA on behalf of 500,000 bus and train riders (50 percent Latino, 20 percent Black, 60 percent women, overwhelmingly low-income) including getting the MTA to purchase 2500 new Compressed Natural Gas buses, add 1 million hours of service, and reduce fares. The result—MTA ridership went up 20 percent. Since the MTA Consent Decree expired in 2006 MTA has reverted to its racist policies—cutting 1 million hours of bus service, raising the monthly bus pass from $42 to $100, and creating a police state on the buses and trains leading to the citations and arrests of more than 700,000 of their passengers. The MTA has criminalized passengers unable to pay their fare, unable to find their TAP card, and for “quality of life” infractions like putting their feet on the seats, eating, and other normal behaviors to justify a $759 million police force. It is no wonder that despite an annual budget of more than $6 billion and 4 LA County sales taxes, MTA ridership is down! The Strategy Center is bringing new civil rights charges against the MTA for police abuse against Black passengers who are 19 percent of all MTA passengers who receive more than 50 percent of the citations and arrests. Obviously this abuse extends to Latino passengers as well such as the late Cesar Rodriguez who was pushed or driven in front of an MTA train by Long Beach police at the Wardlow MTA Station. Now we have seen on video, in the case of Selena Lechuga, another example of MTA racial discrimination and police brutality. Tomorrow at noon, Selena Lechuga will speak for herself about her own experience in her own words. In her view, she sees her situation as part of the broader crisis of structural racism against women, Blacks, Latinos and low-income people. And out of her view that she had a responsibility to stand up for the rights of others, she suffered police brutality and unjustified arrest. We are calling on the MTA to drop all charges against her and to dismantle the entire system of racist and abusive policing on MTA buses and trains, and to move to free public transportation for all. See Attached Press Release [...] Read more...
January 24, 2018Read this article on Curbed LA  An 18-year-old woman was detained Monday afternoon after a Los Angeles police sergeant dragged her off a Metro train car for putting her foot or feet on a seat. The arrest was captured on video that went viral on Facebook and Twitter and ignited a conversation about policing on Metro trains and buses. Bethany Nava was cited for “engaging in boisterous or unruly behavior,” then released, according to LAPD spokesperson Mike Lopez. He said a bystander who spit on the sergeant was arrested and booked into jail on suspicion of battery. The LAPD has launched a use of force investigation, according to spokesperson Tony Im. The roughly 10-minute-long video starts aboard a Metro train as it pulls into the Westlake subway station. It shows the sergeant speaking to a young woman, who later identifies herself as Bethany Nava. “You’re getting off the train right now,” the sergeant says. “I already told you what to do, and you disobeyed me. Come on. Get ready to walk.” The sergeant then starts pulling the young woman’s arm as he repeats, “Come on, stand up.” As he pulls her off the train, Nava loops her elbow around a handhold bar, and says, “I paid to be on this train, asshole. Stop!” Off the train and on the subway platform, a bystander, identified by police as 22-year-old Selina Lechuga, approaches Nava and the sergeant as they argue. After several minutes, more LAPD officers arrive and take Nava and Lechuga into custody. Lopez says Nava was released, but that, as of Tuesday, Lechuga remains in custody on $20,000 bail. Lopez says that before the sergeant dragged Nava off the train, he had repeatedly asked her to remove her feet from a train seat. Metro’s code of conduct stipulates that riders are not to put their feet on seats. The incident poses a broader question about policing policy aboard Metro’s buses and trains: Does dragging a rider off a Metro train for putting her feet on a seat contribute to public safety aboard transit? Eric Mann, the executive director of the activist civil rights group Labor Community Strategy Center, says the police presence does a disservice to regular riders. “If you’re black or Latino on the train, it’s virtually promised that you’ll have miserable experience,” says Mann. “The onboard police say, ‘We’re going to treat you like you are a criminal. Eventually we’re going to find something that you did, because we have so many statutes on the books that we can get you on anything.’” Mann’s Strategy Center is suing Metro and the LAPD for failing to disclose information about police presence aboard Metro vehicles. Here’s how people responded to the video:   [...] Read more...
January 23, 2018Please fill out this contact form if you have seen or have experienced police harassment on Public Transportation.  The Strategy Center has brought a civil rights complaint to the Department of Transportation to investigate racial discrimination against Black rail and bus riders, and now we’re bringing a civil law suit. Have you witnessed any racial profiling or received a ticket on or around a Metro Train or Bus? If you have been subjected to or witnessed unfair or racist treatment by the MTA or if you have suffered a citation or arrest for any reason on public transit, we would like to speak to you, please fill out this form so that we can take a full accounting of the incident you experienced, or witnessed. We plan to use your survey in the law suit. For more information contact Barbara Lott Holland or Channing Martinez (323) 903-6238 info@thestrategycenter.org First Name Last Name On what bus/train Line or stop did this incident occur. What time of day did it happen Location and Time of Incident Gender Female Male Transgender Ethnicity – none –Latino/aKoreanAfrican AmericanWhiteFilipinoNative AmericanAsian PISouth AsianArab/Middle EasternXincah Phone-Phone (Primary) Email (Primary) Cancel [...] Read more...
January 19, 2018Stop all U.S. violence against women in the family, community, workplace, prisons, ICE detention centers,  by traffickers and the police, in the army, by the army Stop MTA Genocide Against The Black Nation Free public transportation No police, No fare enforcement, Reparations Now Stop MTA Attacks on Black Passengers 5,000 zero emission electric buses Help us Build this Campaign Call Barbara Lott Holland or Channing Martinez (323) 903-6238 [...] Read more...
January 19, 2018Read this article on Curbed LA It’s the goal of a lawsuit filed by the strategy center against Metro and three law enforcement agencies. The center claims those agencies have failed to respond to multiple public records requests for data and information about how Metro polices and enforces fares on buses and trains. “The records that we have been able to get so far indicate that there is disparate treatment, and that African Americans are stopped more regularly, ticketed, arrested,” Lisa Holder, an attorney representing the strategy center, tells Curbed. Metro said it does not comment on pending litigation. The strategy center has filed lawsuits against Metro for years for favoring white riders over people of color. It has gotten some data from Metro in the past. It recently obtained figures that show from each year from 2012 to 2015, black riders—who make up about 19 percent of all bus and rail riders—were hit with more than 50 percent of all fare evasion tickets. Last year, the strategy center filed a lawsuit that accused Metro of employing a de facto “stop-and-frisk” policy by disproportionately citing black riders for fare evasion. That complaint prompted an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which resulted in a one-year “period of technical assistance,” where the federal government monitors Metro’s fare enforcement strategies to make sure they comply with Title VI. That law says any agency that receives federal money cannot discriminate based on race, color, and national origin. In an October letter, Yvette Rivera, associate director of the Department of Transportation’s civil rights office, said her department would work with Metro “… to proactively avoid practices that could have a discriminatory impact on users of the Metro system.” The one-year period will end November 1. This new lawsuit seeks more comprehensive information. It sued Metro and its partner law enforcement agencies in December, after they “failed to respond adequately to at least 17” requests for public data, the suit says. According to the suit, the information it sought included copies of complaints from transit riders about police performance and “data, policies, and procedures relating to mechanisms for enforcing payment of fares.” Metro used to contract with only the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for security aboard its buses and trains. Now, the agency contracts with the sheriff’s department and the Los Angeles and Long Beach police Departments. Metro has said the change was intended to save money and improve security. “Now that Los Angeles and Long Beach police departments also have this contract, they need to take stock and figure out what their responsibilities to the transit-riding public as law enforcement agencies,” says Holder. Eric Mann, co-founder of the Bus Riders Union and director of the strategy center, says Metro buses and trains are saturated with police, and it’s a disservice to most transit riders, because it dissuades potential new riders from ever boarding. “The more you create the idea that the train is a high crime area, the less people want to ride,” says Mann. “All of the police have distorted the image of transit as a dangerous place, when in fact transit is very safe.” Holder says Metro has made fare enforcement a priority at the the expense of riders. Metro wants “the train to feel safe for gentrifiers who tend to be white and wealthier than your average subway rider, but that is a misunderstanding of public safety,” she says. “Public safety is not about making the train safe for white gentrifiers at the expense of the people who ride. Police discrimination makes it much less safe for for the people of color, the workers who ride.” Mann agrees that staffing stations with police or security personnel can be beneficial for all riders—but not if black riders are cited more than people of other ethnicities. “I think it’s partly why people are riding less,” said Mann. “Criminalizing every element of public life for black people, something as simple as riding the train, contributes to driving black people out of communities they live in.” Civil rights complaint alleges LA Metro, police target black riders [...] Read more...
December 1, 2017The Strategy Center is Reinventing Itself—Again Dear Friends, The Labor/Community Strategy Center is reinventing itself—again! In the midst of a political, spiritual, and climate catastrophe represented by the terrifying choices of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton we still fight for a revolutionary future. We are focusing our city-wide, national, and international work in South Los Angeles. We are deepening our commitment to the Black community and building a Black/Latino alliance as part of a worldwide movement to challenge U.S. imperialism.  We hope to raise $100,000 from our friends to kick off 2018. We ask you to give as generously as possible—all information below. We are building new physical structures of resistance. Our Strategy and Soul Movement Center at the corner of King and Crenshaw in South L.A. is a four-storefront complex for “civil rights/people’s art/revolutionary books/community health, climate justice/transformative organizing.”  Strategy and Soul is the home of our Fight for the Soul of the Cities city-wide office, our state of the art Strategy and Soul Film Theater, Strategy and Soul Books and Strategy and Soul Food.  We hosted a 3 day marathon volunteer appreciation weekend for the Pan African Film Festival. The Crenshaw House at 1506 S. Crenshaw at the corner of Venice is our new home for the Strategy Center and our future Strategy Center University— building on our National School for Strategic Organizing and the great success of our new Historically Black Colleges and Universities Summer Intern Program. We are continuing the long revolutionary traditions of the Communists during the Great Depression and of W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson;  the Congress of Racial Equality, Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and the work of Fannie Lou Hamer;  the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, the League of Revolutionary Struggle, and the 27 years of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, Bus Riders Union, and Community Rights Campaign. We are building Taking Action Clubs at Roosevelt and Augustus Hawkins High Schools where we are training 50 young Black and Latina organizers in our vision of transformative organizing.   Our Fight for the Soul of the Cities Civil Rights/Climate Justice Campaign calls on the LA MTA Free Public Transportation in Los Angeles and an End to the MTA Police State on the buses and trains.  No fares and No fare enforcement and a 24/7 zero emission 5,000 bus fleet Stop MTA Genocide against the Black Nation. The MTA is threatening, ticketing, and arresting Black and Latino passengers—but yes, singling out Black passengers who are 20 percent of the 500,000 passengers but 60 percent of those who receive abuse, tickets, and arrests. We are charging the MTA with Genocide against Black Passengers and will be bringing further civil rights charges against them. We have been working with the family of Cesar Rodriguez, a 23 year old Latino man who was pushed or chased to his death in front of an MTA train by Long Beach/MTA police for the non-existent crime of “fare evasion” as only the worst example of the daily humiliations and abuses of the MTA police state. Our organizers and members are out  on the buses, out on the trains, at the high schools, in South LA, East L.A. and wherever we are needed——going door to door, block by block, showing films, hosting book signings, building agit/props, and building revolutionary consciousness, leadership, and organization. You hear Eric Mann and Channing Martinez on Voices from the Frontlines every Tuesday at 3 on KPFK/Pacifica as Nina Simone greets you with “Here Comes the Sun.”  Manuel Criollo, Barbara Lott-Holland, Martin Hernandez, Elmo Gomez, Ashley Franklin, Shephard Petit, Norma Henry, Monique Jones, Brigette Amaya, continue our work as we join dozens of our alumni who are leading social justice organizations throughout the U.S. We need your help so we can continue to make history. Please contribute generously. We urgently need your financial support. Your friends at the Labor/Community Strategy Center [...] Read more...
April 11, 2017Labor Community Strategy Center Civil Rights and Climate Justice Campaign Dear Friends, We are asking you to endorse the Labor Community Strategy Center’s Civil Rights/Climate Justice Campaign–No Cars in L.A. No Police State in L.A. This campaign, that we began in 2014, focuses on 6 structural and interrelated demands—all of which can be carried out by the board of directors of the  Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority—MTA. Free public transportation. MTA cannot charge $100 for monthly bus passes and $24 student passes with a $5 billion budget, 4 ½ cent sales taxes, and a ridership that is 20% Black, 55% Latino, 60% women and profoundly poor. Free public transportation will dramatically expand public transit ridership and dramatically reduce auto use. Stop MTA’s Systematic Attacks on Black Passengers–No arrests, citations, fines or MTA Transit Court for passengers who do not or cannot pay their fares. MTA policies that give more than 50% of all citations and arrests to Black passengers represent egregious racial profiling and transit racism MTA must cut its police budget by at least 50%. The recent decision by the MTA board to dramatically expand its police budget to $790 million and create a massive force of MTA fare checkers, LAPD, LA Sheriffs, and Long Beach Police is an aggressive police state on public transportation. We must demilitarize public transportation now. MTA must buy 5,000 zero emission electric buses beginning with 1,000 new electric buses now! MTA must stop any future Compressed Natural Gas bus purchases. MTA must restore 1 million hours of bus service hours won by the Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union and cut by the MTA since 2006 MTA must stop discrimination and retaliation against the Strategy Center for fighting for passengers civil and human Rights While we will of course elaborate each demand below we hope, on its face, that you will agree to endorse this campaign. We will be contacting you to discuss our organizing plan to win these demands. Obviously the first objective is to gain your support and build a broad climate justice/civil rights coalition to fight for these demands and convince the MTA board members to vote in each of these proposals. In solidarity, Eric Mann, Director Barbara Lott-Holland—Associate Director Manuel Criollo, Director of Organizing Ashley Franklin, Lead Organizer Channing Martinez, Organizer Sign on to this Campaign Today Free Public Transportation Free Public Transportation is so obvious it’s revolutionary.  The MTA is one of the richest public agencies in the world with a $5 billion a year budget about to become $7 billion through its latest sales tax—now 4 that all of us pay. So first, “Free” public transportation is not actually free but already paid for over and over and over by the tax payers. Second, L.A. is a city of great poverty in a nation of great spiritual and economic poverty.  The MTA’s 500,000 daily passengers—20% Black, 55% Latino, 60% women and more than 60% extreme low-income cannot afford the $100 a month bus pass nor the $24 a month student pass. For many families making no more than $20,000 their monthly bus costs are more than $200 a month. MTA ridership is Down! Because of poor service, high fares, police brutality and long waits. If we had free public transportation MTA daily ridership might reach 1 million people riding a day and with dramatic reduction in auto use.  Also it would obviously end police brutality and harassment in the fare collection process because “no fare” leads to “no fare collection.” No Police State in L.A.   This campaign focuses on police occupation and brutality on MTA trains and buses but it is part of an even broader problem of systematic police domination of our society. In Los Angeles more than 50% of the city budget, more than $2 billion, is for police. The MTA just passed a massive police expansion plan for $797 million over 5 years to create a police state on its buses and trains—a literal army of fare collectors, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and Long Beach Police Department. They created a phony “crime problem” on the trains when the main crimes are MTA police attacks on Black and all rail and bus riders. We can’t have a viable public transportation system that is little more than a police state on wheels and tracks. We must cut the MTA police budget by 50% now. Stop MTA Attacks on Black Riders—Support the Strategy Center’s Civil Rights Complaint in Front of the U.S. Department of Transportation The Strategy Center has submitted a Civil Rights Complaint to the United States Department of Transportation Civil Rights Department charging the MTA with “egregious racial discrimination and animus inflicted on Black train and bus riders. The MTA both issues tickets and citations for “fare evasion” and used both “ticket collectors” and in the past Sheriffs to collect fares and punish riders for non-payment.  Of the 30,000 tickets issued in 2016 and 8,000 arrests more than 50% went to Black train and bus riders even though Black people are only 19% of all MTA riders. This extraordinary level of discrimination has led the DOT to accept the Strategy Center complaint and begin its own independent investigation of MTA policies. We need you to support our work and express your outrage to the MTA for this systematic anti-Black racism. No Cars in L.A.  The Climate crisis makes the end of the auto system in L.A. and the U.S. imperative. The world is moving towards a 2 degree Celsius Future and worse, in Sub-Saharan Africa the temperature may move towards 3 degrees—with massive heat waves, droughts, floods, and mass famine facing 775 million people.  There are 6.2 million cars and 1 million trucks in L.A. The auto cannot be our future—free public transportation with zero-emission electric buses running 24/7 is our future—let’s fight for it. Purchase 5,000 zero emission electric buses—stop the purchase of Compressed Natural Gas buses. From 1996 to 2006 the Strategy Center was engaged in a court-ordered Consent Decree with the MTA based on our successful civil rights suit against them—represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.  In that campaign we called on the MTA to get rid of diesel buses and move to the cleanest technology available at the time for buses—Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). Thanks to the work of the Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union, and a very progressive MTA CEO Julian Burke, we were able to convince the MTA to get rid of 2,000 dirty, dilapidated, diesel buses and replace them with 2,000 CNG buses. We also convinced the MTA to expand the bus fleet to 2500 buses, thus purchasing another 500 CNG buses. But what was good environmental policy 15 years ago is bad policy today. CNG is a fossil fuel. It is brought out of the ground through fracking that in turn generates many air and water toxins. Also its emissions are far greater than electric buses. Let’s use our movement to make climate change and social justice the priority for MTA bus purchases. Restore 1 million hours of cut service that the Strategy Center Won and the MTA cut in a racist and punitive manner. The Strategy Center won 1 million additional hours of service through our Consent Decree to dramatically reduce overcrowding and increase how frequently the buses arrived. As soon as the Consent Decree expired Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa moved to cut that service—the result was that passengers wait longer and longer times and trips to work and school are unbearably long. We have had no success in getting the MTA board or Mayor Eric Garcetti to restore that urgently needed service. We need your help to win this demand. Stop MTA Retaliation against the Strategy Center for our Effective Civil Rights and Climate Justice Organizing. It is very disappointing to us that MTA board members Eric Garcetti, Hilda Solis, Sheila Kuhl, Mark Ridley Thomas and other MTA board members have not supported, so far, what we believe are very progressive demands and programs in this civil rights/climate justice campaign. The Strategy Center was able to reduce the cost of an MTA bus/rail pass to $42 in 1992 and keep it there until almost 2000. But since then the MTA has raised the fare to $100. Even when it was $75 we were unable to convince the MTA board to lower it to $50 a month and instead they raised it to $100. We have asked them to restore the 1,000 hours of bus service that we won and we are unable to get their support. We believe one reason is that some board members feel that they do not want to be pressured by civil rights groups like the Strategy Center that keep taking them to federal court and filing complaints with the Department of Transportation for civil rights violations. And yet, this in our view is a form of retaliation precisely because w are doing our job for 500,000 low-income Black, Latino, female,and very low-income bus and train riders. We need your help to convince the MTA board to support this campaign and stop a systematic policy of rejecting our demands because of our civil rights advocacy and organizing. We need your help! Thank you for joining the Strategy Center’s Civil Rights/Climate Justice Coalition and fighting for No Cars in L.A. and no Police State in L.A. now. We need you to stand up to MTA transit racism and genocide against the Black Nation now Take Action Now Check out all of the Articles on this campaign Read the Full Federal Complaint & Look at the Data Read all of the Correspondences Between The Strategy Center, Department of Transportation, and Metro [...] Read more...
November 4, 2017Centrality of Race and the Challenge to the Movement 10:30am-11:45 Los Angeles Trade Technical College 400 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90015  Get Tickets Now  Margaret Prescod—Women, Work, and Welfare Margaret Prescod is the host and producer of “Sojourner Truth” on KPFK Pacifica.She is the author of Black Women Bringing It All Back Home, which was published in the UK. Channing Martinez Stop MTA Genocide Against the Black Nation Channing Martinez is a Black-Garifuna Queer Organizer with the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles. His also the producer of Voices from the Frontlines, on KPFK/Pacifica Radio www.voicesfromthefrontlines.com Eric Mann—The Centrality of Black Revolutionary Thought to Lead a Multi-racial movement ERIC MANN is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Newark Community Union Project, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers. He is the author of The Seven Components of Transformative Organizing Theory and Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer. He is the host of KPFK’s Voices from the Frontlines and can be reached at Eric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com Meet us TODAY at the Left Coast Forum 2017 Centrality of Race and the Challenge to the Movement 10:30am-11:45 Los Angeles Trade Technical College 400 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90015  Get Tickets Now  [...] Read more...
September 13, 2017For Immediate Release Contact: Manuel Criollo 323.243.9304 manuel@thestrategycenter.org Eric Mann 213.387.2800 ericmann@mindspring.com Press Conference Date/Time: Thursday, September 14th at 12 PM Location: In Front of Los Angeles MTA Headquarters One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012 (Vignes and Chavez)   Justice for César Rodriguez and His Family The Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities Demands: All Police Forces Off All MTA Trains and Buses, End the Police State on LA Metro. No Fare Enforcement, Free Fares Immediately, We Won’t Pay for Racism! Los Angeles, September 14, 2017 – The Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities will hold a press conference with the family of Cesar Rodriguez at the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters at 12 pm. Two weeks ago on the night of August 29th, Cesar Rodriguez, a 23 year old Latino male, was hit by an MTA Blue Line train and killed. The Strategy Center is charging this was a product of police brutality and negligence by Los Angeles MTA and the Long Beach Police Department. We ask Los Angeles MTA to immediately end all fare enforcement on the trains, institute immediate free public transportation, and support a full investigation of the murder of Cesar Rodriguez and to arrest of all police and security personnel responsible for his death. No Real Answers, Changing Stories. Two weeks ago, Cesar Rodriguez was killed by the Los Angeles MTA and the Long Beach Police Department reportedly fleeing police in the process of a “fare check” by Long Beach Police Department. The police story keeps changing. They say they began as a “fare check” but they have no right to do that. Then they spread a story he had “narcotics” but that has nothing to do with anything. Then the police either chased or pushed Cesar in front of a moving train where he was killed. This type of police misconduct and brutality led to his death. We at the Strategy Center are heartbroken about the police killing of Cesar Rodriguez and our hearts go out to his family and friends. We want justice for him and all MTA passengers experiencing police racism and brutality. Cesar Rodriguez Murder in the Context of an On-going Egregious Anti-Black Discriminatory Patterns of Criminalization of LA Black Transit Riders. This deadly outcome is part of a long history of attacks and a virtual police state on public transportation, especially for Black passengers in Los Angeles. For over four years, the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union have been calling on the Los Angeles MTA to end its ‘stop and frisk’, harassment, fining, and imprisonment of its passengers—especially its Black passengers. The U.S. Department of Transportation has launched an investigation of Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority for egregious racial profiling and criminalization of Black LA Metro riders based on charges filed by Labor/Community Strategy Center on November 2016 MTA puts more police and fare checks to further violate civil rights. We’ve been negotiating, unsuccessfully, with MTA CEO Phillip Washington for over a year asking the MTA to end all armed and intrusive fare collection and stop MTA’s ‘Stop and Frisk’. Hundreds of thousands of MTA passengers–especially Black passengers–are treated like criminals on MTA buses and rail getting humiliated, fined, and arrested–and now in the case of Cesar Rodriguez, death. In February 2017, the Los Angeles MTA approved close to $800 million for a new police and security contract. Los Angele Metro rather than rolling back its police presences has increased its police and security forces, in addition of Los Angeles MTA Police and LA County Sheriffs, we now have Los Angeles Police Department, Long Beach Police Department, MTA fare inspectors and armed private security guards adding another militarized police layer on Los Angeles buses and trains. These racist and repressive practices by the MTA must end immediately.   [...] Read more...
August 31, 2017Demonstrate Tomorrow  Friday, Sept 1 at 10 AM In Front of MTA Headquarters Demand of MTA CEO Philip Washington and MTA Board Members Eric Garcetti Stop MTA Genocide Against the Black Nation Free Fares immediately No MTA Fare Enforcement Get MTA, LAPD, LA County Sheriffs, Long Beach Police off MTA Trains and Buses MTA Passengers—Refuse to Pay your Fares to a Racist Public Agency Today, The MTA killed one of its passengers For four years, the Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union have been calling on the MTA to end its Stop and Frisk, harassment, fining, and imprisonment of its passengers—especially its Black passengers. Today the MTA killed one of its passengers. As of now we know that a passenger at the Long Beach station was killed as he fled police in the process of “fare collection.” We have been negotiating with MTA CEO Phillip Washington for more than a year asking the MTA to end all armed and intrusive fare collections and to stop the Stop and Frisk. MTA police and Sheriff’s claim to be checking for fare payment only to “find” other violations—thus stop and frisk. Hundreds of thousands of MTA passengers—especially Black passengers—are treated like criminals on the train, getting fines, arrests, humiliations and now death. There is no such crime as fare evasion, or possession of “narcotics” or open bottle or eating on the train or body odor or the biggest Black code of all “resisting arrest” and “challenging the police. Tell the MTA you are tired of their Transit Racism Call on MTA CEO Philip Washington and MTA Board Member Eric Garcetti Stop the fare collection process Now!  Prosecute the MTA board for supporting these racist policies  Support the Strategy Center’s Demands End MTA Genocide Against the Black Nation Join us Tomorrow at 10 AM Metro Headquarters 1 Gateway Plaza (Union Station)  Call Channing Now to Join the Campaign  (213) 387-2800 [...] Read more...
July 19, 2017Komozi Woodard—Revolutionary in Residence  at the Labor/Community Strategy Center Komozi Woodard is a long-time movement organizer, the Revolutionary in Residence at the Labor/Community Strategy Center, and professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College He is the author of the influential Nation Within a Nation—Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Black Power Politics. His book, that he will discuss with Eric, is a trenchant analysis of the long history of Revolutionary Black Cultural Nationalism and Its Reflection in the Congress of African People, The Black Power Movement in Newark, New Jersey, and the U.S., and its organizational reflection in the National Black Political Convention The Strategy Center is grappling with the present-day strategic questions of how to build an anti-raciist, anti-imperialist united front focusing on the centrality of the Black Nation and the Black Latino alliance. Along with Manuel Criollo, the Center’s director of organizing, we are trying to re-build a the tradition of Black and Third World Revolutionary Thought to shape our own work and to impact today’s movement. Eric Mann is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, the Newark Community Union, Students for Democratic Society, The United Auto Workers, and The League of Revolutionary Struggle. He  organized Komozi in 1966 during Vietnam Summer in Newark when Komozi was a student at Weequahic High School. Komozi went on to work with SNCC, Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement, the Congress of African People and the October League. Komozi and Eric have been trying to apply lessons and theories of Black Revolutionary Nationalism, Third World Marxism, and Maoism to today’s struggle. Join us for this conversation between two long-time comrades followed by a Q and A and Book Signing of A Nation Within a Nation—Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Black Power Politics The Strategy Center will be hosting a book signing  of A Nation within a Nation—Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) and Black Power Politics Strategy and Soul Bookstore Thursday July 27th, 2017 @6pm  3542 w Martin Luther King Blvd. Corner of Crenshaw and King Blvd. RSVP to Channing Martinez 323-903-6238 channing@thestrategycenter.org Komozi will also be a guest on Eric’s radio show, Voices from the Frontlines, Tuesday, July 25 at 3 PM on KPFK 90.7 FM produced by the Strategy Center’s Channing Martinez [...] Read more...
May 2, 2017   CITY OF INMATES Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771–1965 A Book Signing with KELLY LYTLE HERNÁNDEZ Opening Remarks by Manuel Criollo Director of Organizing Labor/Community Strategy Center Wednesday, May 3rd @ 6pm STRATEGY & SOUL BOOKS 3542 w Martin Luther King Blvd. Los Angeles CA, 90008  Call Manuel Criollo to RSVP (213) 387-2800  Kelly Lytle Hernández is associate professor of history at the University of California Los Angeles  Los Angeles incarcerates more people than any other city in the United States, which imprisons more people than any other nation on Earth. This book explains how the City of Angels became the capital city of the world’s leading incarcerator. Marshaling more than two centuries of evidence, historian Kelly Lytle Hernández unmasks how histories of native elimination, immigrant exclusion, and black disappearance drove the rise of incarceration in Los Angeles. [...] Read more...
April 24, 2017Vote for the Future of the Bus System STRATEGY CENTER CIVIL RIGHTS & CLIMATE JUSTICE CAMPAIGN MTA Must Stop Purchasing CNG Buses NOW BUY 5,000 ZERO EMISSION BUSES NOW! Free Public Transportation No police, No fare enforcement Stop MTA Harassment Attacks and Targeting of Black Passengers Restore 1 million hours of bus service hours won by the Bus Riders Union and cut by MTA since 2006 APRIL 27TH MTA BOARD MEETING 8:30 AM   1 Gateway Plaza 90012 CONTACT: Barbara Lott-Holland 213-387-2800  info@thestrategycenter.org @ FIGHTSOULCITIES POWERED BY: THE LABOR COMMUNITY STRATEGY CENTER Learn More about The Civil Rights & Climate Justice Campaign [...] Read more...
March 29, 2017Metro  Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority January 26, 2017 One Gateway Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90012-2952 Phillip A. Washington Chief Executi11e Officer 213.922.7555 Tel 213.922.7447 Fax washingtonp@metro.net  Ms. Yvette Rivera Associate Director Departmental Office of Civil Rights Department of Transportation 1200 New Jersey Ave, SE Suite W78-340 Washington, DC 20590 In Reply to Reference S-32 DOT #2017-0093   Subject: US DOT Letter of Title VI Complaint – Labor/Community Strategy Center Dear Ms. Rivera: In your letter of December 1, 2016 regarding the Title VI complaint filed with your office from the Labor/Community Strategy Center (LCSC) it was advised that Metro engage with the LCSC in pursuit.of a voluntary resolution. A first meeting between representatives of LCSC and me, Stephanie Wiggins, Deputy CEO, Daniel Levy, Chief Officer, Civil Rights Programs, and Alex Wiggins, Chief Officer, System Security and Law Enforcement was held in our office on January, 24, 2017. The meeting provided an opportunity for a full and frank exchange of views on the issues raised in the letter of complaint by the LCSC. We did find some common ground on the way forward, and Metro and LCSC agreed to keep the lines of communication open. We explained to the LCSC representatives that our expectation in the past was that the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department (LASO) fare checkers enforced the law equally and did not engage in stop and frisk. If Metro were to have learned of such actions we would have put an immediate end to its implementation. The fare compliance staff now and in the past was directed to check all passengers at a given station, train or bus and no single race, gender or national origin would be targeted. Metro discussed the transition to a civilian (not sworn) fare compliance program now in progress. Metro explained the advantages of the administrative Transit Court over the previous processing of citations for adults at the Superior Court and explained our plan to also include young offenders in the program. Metro provided a counter proposal in response to the four requests listed by the LSCS in their letter to Metro dated January 18, 2017 (attached). The first four elements of Metro’s proposal will ensure that fare compliance at Metro continues and honors the civil rights protections afforded to all Metro customers. Metro’s counter proposal contains these elements, several of which are underway:   Transition fare compliance function away from sworn law enforcement officers (Sheriff Deputies) to civilian fare compliance staff (now underway, transition scheduled to be complete by April, 2017). Transfer the jurisdiction for young offender citations from the Superior Court to Metro’s non-criminal, administrative Transit Court with reduced penalties (Metro Board action to implement is scheduled for March 2017) Implement Implicit Bias Training for all fare compliance staff Implement a mystery shopper service for the fare compliance program to gather independent observations on the behavior of the fare compliance staff As proposed by the LCSC, Metro will change the name of the program to”fare compliance” from “fare enforcement” Conduct a review of the fare structure looking at the benefits or disbenefits of a variety of options including those advanced by the LCSC (i.e. reduced pass prices, free fares ) In addition, we were able to secure an opportunity for Mr. Eric Mann to address the Metro Board of Directors for three minutes as part of the response to my CEO report on January 26, 2017. We look forward to continuing our shared dialogue with the LCSC and are hopeful that a voluntary and informal resolution of the complaint can be achieved. We will propose to the LCSC regular meetings to review fare compliance data beginning when the new system is fully in place (April, 2017)   Phillip A. Washington Chief Executive Officer cc: Eric Mann, Director Labor/Community Strategy Center Jim McDonnell, Los Angeles County Sheriff Courtney Wilkerson, Acting Associate Administrator FTA Bonnie Graves, Attorney-Advisor FTA Dawn Sweet, Senior Equal Opportunity Specialist FTA Dan Levy, Chief Officer, Office of Civil Rights, Metro Alex Wiggins, Chief Officer, System Security and Law Enforcement   We need you to stand up to MTA transit racism and genocide against the Black Nation now Take Action Now Go to the Campaign Home Page If you Have been arrested of ticketed on Metro Fill Out a Deposition Check out all of the Articles on this campaign Read the Full Federal Complaint & Look at the Data Click Below to Tweet this Page Now [...] Read more...
March 1, 2017This Is What Genocide Looks Like in Los Angeles https://infograph.venngage.com/p/228896/stop-metro-genocide-against-the-black-nation We need you to stand up to MTA transit racism and genocide against the Black Nation now Take Action Now If you Have been arrested of ticketed on Metro Fill Out a Deposition Check out all of the Articles on this campaign Read the Full Federal Complaint & Look at the Data Read all of the Correspondences Between The Strategy Center, Department of Transportation, and Metro Click Below to Tweet this Page Now [...] Read more...
March 1, 2017BY JENNA CHANDLER  JAN 18, 2017, 6:12PM PST The U.S. Department of Transportation confirmed Wednesday that it is investigating a civil rights complaint alleging Los Angeles Metro and the sheriff’s department have discriminated against black riders by disproportionately citing them for fare evasions. The Department of Transportation chose to investigate the complaint and alerted Metro late last week. The complaint was filed in November by the Labor/Community Strategy Center, the parent organization of the Bus Riders Union, and it alleges that in each year from 2012 to 2015, black riders—who make up about 19 percent of bus and rail riders—were handed more than 50 percent of all fare evasion citations. “This is beyond a level of racial profiling,” said Eric Mann, co-founder of the Bus Riders Union. “This is a level of egregious discrimination against black people.” In a statement, the strategy center accused Metro of employing “broken windows” and “stop and frisk” tactics, two dehumanizing strategies that involve the aggressive policing of minor violations in an effort to prevent serious crimes. (Studies have shown they are ineffective at reducing crime, and in 2013, when a federal judge ruled that the stop and frisk tactics of New York police officers violated the constitutional rights of minorities, she said, “blacks are likely targeted for stops based on a lesser degree of objectively founded suspicion than whites.”) Metro spokeswoman Joni Goheen refuted that Metro uses stop and frisk—but she said the local transit agency plans to pursue a “voluntary resolution with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.” “We’re in the process of trying to schedule initial meetings. We are reaching out through our civil rights office this week and will begin the process of addressing all concerns,” she said. The strategy center has demanded that Metro grant amnesty to all black riders for outstanding citations and that it stop using law enforcement officers to check fares. The starting fine for fare evasion is $75, a price that can soar to $250 with late fees, according to KPCC. “We have people paying $75 to $100 fines who make $8 an hour,” Mann said. “We have people getting arrested.” “If you aggressively enforce fare collection and you have law enforcement involved with it and they have the power to carry out arrests, that in and of itself is what ‘stop and frisk’ means,” he said. The complaint was filed at a pivotal time, notes Jessica Meaney, executive director of Investing in Place, a small nonprofit working in transportation advocacy, because Metro is in the midst of negotiating its policing contracts. “We tend to conflate fare enforcement as a way to do safety,” she said, but just because Metro is rigorously policing fares, doesn’t mean the trains and buses are safer. “It’s no secret many of our communities have faced racial profiling, discrimination, and unfair treatment,” she said. “I’m looking forward to the results of the investigation. Our communities have been plagued by spotty bus and train service, especially in many low-income communities and communities of color. What will it take to create real change?” Metro is already working to “transition” sheriff’s deputies away from fare enforcement, Goheen said. On January 1, the agency started filling 77 new civilian transit security officer positions to “take on the primary duty of fare enforcement,” and 27 of them, she said, are in the field now. The strategy center also alleges that: Black riders accounted for 53 percent of all arrests in 2015, 58 percent of all arrests in 2014, and 60 percent of all arrests in 2013. Each year from 2012 to 2015, nine to 10 percent of all fare evasion citations went to white riders, who comprise 13 percent of all riders. From 2012 through May of 2016, Metro and the sheriff’s department combined have issued 455,388 citations. Of those, at least 48 percent went to black riders. Goheen wouldn’t say whether the local transit agency disputes the figures, which Mann said were culled from Metro under a public records act request. This is the third civil rights complaint the Bus Riders Union has filed against Metro since the union’s founding in 1992. The first accused Metro of grossly favoring rail over buses, leading to a federal consent decree that placed the agency under the supervision of a court-appointed “special master” and forced it to build up its bus fleet. We need you to stand up to MTA transit racism and genocide against the Black Nation now Take Action Now If you Have been arrested of ticketed on Metro Fill Out a Deposition Check out all of the Articles on this campaign Read the Full Federal Complaint & Look at the Data Read all of the Correspondences Between The Strategy Center, Department of Transportation, and Metro Click Below to Tweet this Page Now [...] Read more...
March 1, 2017  LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Los Angeles police officers will patrol buses and trains in the city as part of a new multi-agency approach to security approved Thursday by the Metro Board of Directors. The new contract, which begins July 1, will have the Los Angeles Police Department share Metro security with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the Long Beach Police Department. The LASD has had primary jurisdiction over the Metro system for the last five years, but Metro staff recommended the change, saying it would put more law enforcement personnel on buses and trains and result in faster response times. “The safety of our Metro passengers and employees must always be our first priority,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti, who serves as first vice chair on the board. “I don’t know when safety became synonymous with systemic racism,” Ashley Franklin with the Labor/Community Strategy Center told the board.” Under the terms of the contract, LAPD will patrol Metro areas in the city of Los Angeles, Long Beach officers will patrol Long Beach areas, and LASD deputies will patrol the rest With more than 60 percent of Metro buses and 50 percent of Metro rail lines operating in L.A.’s boundaries, the contract means the LAPD will receive $369.3 million, LASD will receive $246.3 million and LBPD will receive $30.1 million. According to Metro, the new contract will increase law enforcement personnel from a range of 140 to 200 individuals working Metro duty over a 24-hour period to “a consistent 314.” Metro staff also estimated it would improve response times by more than 50 percent and assure “greater contract compliance through clear performance metrics and accountability measures.” The board had debated the new contract at its meeting in December but moved 7-4 to postpone the vote until February after several members expressed reservations about how the new multi-agency approach would be coordinated, but those fears appear to have been eased as the new contract was approved Thursday on a 12-0 vote. LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told the board that adding Metro to his responsibilities would not require the addition of new officers to the force but would require more overtime hours. Commanders and supervisors would work on Metro full-time, but officers on patrol will be deployed primarily though the use of overtime hours, Beck said. He also said that no officers currently working on regular operations duties would be moved to patrol Metro. “It is my contention that this will increase safety in Los Angeles because it puts more cops in more cars, on more buses, on more trains, that work in concert with their brothers and sisters in the stations,” Beck said. A recent survey conducted by Metro found that 29 percent of former riders left the system because they did not feel safe, Alex Wiggins, Metro’s chief of systems security and law enforcement, told the board. The new contract was approved over the objections of some civil rights activists who called for a lower law enforcement presence on Metro. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced in January that it was investigating a civil rights complaint alleging that Metro and LASD personnel discriminated against black riders. The complaint, filed by the Labor/Community Strategy Center, alleges that from 2012-15, black riders received more than 50 percent of all fare evasion citations and made up 60 percent of all arrests but only make up 19 percent of riders. “I don’t know when safety became synonymous with systemic racism,” Ashley Franklin with the Labor/Community Strategy Center told the board. Read this Article on CBS  Have you received a ticket from Sheriffs on or around a Metro Train or Bus The Strategy Center has brought a federal civil rights complaint  against the MTA to the Department of Transportation for intentional and egregious racial discrimination against Black rail and bus riders. If you have been subjected to unfair and racist treatment on the MTA in the process of “fare collection” for the non-existent violation of “fare evasion” Please fill out a Deposition Here: http://bit.ly/2lAL3Ed  We will use your deposition in our complaint Check out all of the Articles on this campaign Read the Full Federal Complaint & Look at the Data Read all of the Correspondences Between The Strategy Center, Department of Transportation, and Metro Click Below to Tweet this Page Now View the full-text of the Complaint here: [...] Read more...
February 22, 2017February 21, 2017 Ms. Yvette Rivera Associate Director U.S. Department of Transportation Departmental Office of Civil Rights   Ryan N. Fitzpatrick, Esq. Lead Civil Rights Analyst Departmental Office of Civil Rights Office of the Secretary U.S. Department of Transportation   In Reply to Reference S-32 DOT #2017-0093 Subject: US DOT Letter of Title VI Complaint – Labor/Community Strategy Center Dear Ms. Rivera and Mr. Fitzpatrick, We want to report to you our assessment of our meeting with the MTA on January 24, 2017. As you know, you received a letter from Mr. Philip Washington on January 26, 2017 giving his version of events. While we very much appreciated the meeting, we have a markedly different assessment of the problem, the meeting, and the MTA response. In summary, while the meeting was cordial we do not believe the MTA has any grasp of the severity of its past civil rights transgressions, any plans to apologize and make amends for past civil rights violations against almost 100,000 Black bus and rail passengers, nor any effective plans to remedy the problem in the present or future. As Mr. Washington writes in his letter, “We explained to the LCSC representatives that our expectation in the past was that the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASO) fare checkers enforced the law equally and did not engage in stop and frisk. If Metro were to have learned of such actions we would have put an immediate end to its implementation. The fare compliance staff now and in the past was directed to check all passengers at a given station, train or bus and no single race, gender or national origin would be targeted.” We believe this is not consistent with the facts or even what MTA represented to us at the meeting. First, it is statistically and morally impossible to “enforce the law equally” and yet end up giving 50% of all citations and 60% of arrests to Black passengers. In their efforts to what we believe as covering up the grotesque nature of this policy their explanation is not possibly true. Either if they want, they can argue certain racially discriminatory assertions about the character and behavior of 100,000 Black MTA passengers (19% of the estimated 500,000 passengers) or they must take responsibility for an astronomical degree of racial profiling and animus. We were very disturbed when Mr. Washington, in our view, reported the DOT complaint to the MTA in the most matter of fact manner, with no remorse or outrage, giving the impression that it was all under control. It is not. There must be some profound concern for past actions and a form of repair and apology to Black passengers even if not one more civil rights violation continued in the future—which it certainly is doing so now. Secondly, Mr. Washington claims there was no “Stop and Frisk” on the MTA trains and buses. And yet, in explaining why he was moving to a “civilian” staff that does not have the capacity to inquire about other possible violations or issues on a person’s record he told us he did not want any possibility of a “Stop and Frisk” situation. So it cannot be that there was not a “Stop and Frisk” in the past but he is now moving to a civilian force to stop a problem he argues never existed. I do believe the MTA’s failure to grasp the severity of the treatment of possibly over 700,000 riders just in the past seven years is in itself a civil rights violation and we leave it to you to figure out the appropriate remedy. Again, to have given citations that cost people $75 or more and to arrest so many people on the trains and buses and then assure us that first there was no problem and second, they have moved to correct it is insulting to all who care about civil rights. It is in our view, consistent with the behavior of the MTA since we first brought a civil rights suit against them in 1994 and filed an administrative complaint with the DOT in 2010. “Metro discussed the transition to a civilian (not sworn) fare compliance program now in progress. Metro explained the advantages of the administrative Transit Court over the previous processing of citations for adults at the Superior Court and explained our plan to also include young offenders in the program. Metro provided a counter proposal in response to the four requests listed by the LSCS in their letter to Metro dated January 18, 2017 (attached). The first four elements of Metro’s proposal will ensure that fare compliance at Metro continues and honors the civil rights protections afforded to all Metro customers. Metro’s counter proposal contains these elements, several of which are underway: Transition fare compliance function away from sworn law enforcement officers (Sheriff Deputies) to civilian fare compliance staff (now underway, transition scheduled to be complete by April, 2017). Transfer the jurisdiction for young offender citations from the Superior Court to Metro’s non-criminal, administrative Transit Court with reduced penalties (Metro Board action to implement is scheduled for March 2017) Implement Implicit Bias Training for all fare compliance staff Implement a mystery shopper service for the fare compliance program to gather independent observations on the behavior of the fare compliance staff” We expressed to MTA that we did think it was a step forward to take L.A. Sheriff’s staff out of the business of fare collection. But we still believed that the entire concept of a “Transit Court” continued the criminalization of MTA riders. We said that any form of ticketing that required people, Black people in particular, who had already paid 3 ½ cent sales taxes to the MTA, to lose time from work and family to go to a “court” for the very minor problem of allegedly not paying their transit fare continued the criminalization process. In fact this week, the MTA Board of Directors will be voting on a new security contract that would contract Los Angeles Sheriff Department (LASD), Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), and Long Beach Police (LBPD), a $546 million multi-year contract with these police agencies.  While MTA claims that this new contract will bring efficiency and a more robust perception of safety for riders – it means riders will now have four to five security or law enforcement interactions (MTA Police, MTA fare checkers, LASD, LAPD, and LBPD).  We believe this can only fuel additional interactions for riders especially under ominous MTA’s Transit Riders Code of Conduct that is attached to its Transit Court program whose premise is embedded in a pre-emptive and broken window policing framework and enforcement. We proposed as an alternative first, free public transportation that could end all fare collection on the trains. Secondly, we proposed “fare collection” with no court system as the core of our alternative proposal. If passengers did not have proof of payment we proposed that MTA fare staff could sell tickets on the train itself and if necessary, ask passengers to get off at the next stop. Given the severity and enormity of the pain and suffering the MTA has imposed on its passengers for decades this would be the most humane thing to do. The MTA letter, “As proposed by the LCSC, Metro will change the name of the program to “fare compliance” from “fare enforcement.” We strongly disagree with this characterization of what we said and proposed. When the MTA continued to talk about “fare enforcement” through their traffic court and lowered fines we responded that this still continued to criminalize its own passengers which is why they call it “fare enforcement.” We said that the civil rights response to this problem would be free public transportation, or very low fares to start, and a process of “fare collection” and not “fare enforcement.” We did NOT say that the MTA should continue to criminalize its own passengers but simply change the name of the civil rights violations. We have to say this is pretty funny on its face and indicates a complete lack of understanding of the seriousness of the past, present, and future harms in MTA policy. The MTA letter continues, “Conduct a review of the fare structure looking at the benefits or dis-benefits of a variety of options including those advanced by the LCSC (i.e. reduced pass prices, free fares etc.)” We appreciate the MTA’s recognition of the policy changes we have proposed including free fares on the record. We both know there was no commitment to carry the out but we do want to press that this is critical to the solution to this long history of Title VI violations. Continued MTA harassment and discrimination against the Labor/Community Strategy Center for our many decades of civil rights work in challenging agency policy As you know from your letter to MTA you stated, “Please note that no recipient or other person shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Section 601 of Title VI or 49 C.F.R. § 21, or because he or she has made a complaint, testified, assisted, or participated in any manning in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under 49 C.F.R. § 21. 49 C.F.R. § 21.1 l (e).” It is our view that the LACMTA consistently exhibits a hostile attitude towards the Labor/Community Strategy Center in our efforts to carry out our job as a civil rights organization. While some might observe that they treat us with no more contempt than they do the general public. Mr. Washington’s statement below is the tip of the iceberg. “In addition, we were able to secure an opportunity for Mr. Eric Mann to address the Metro Board of Directors for three minutes as part of the response to my CEO report on January 26, 2017.” Again, this is both a misrepresentation and a complete misunderstanding of what we requested. In our meeting I asked Mr. Washington for 15 minutes to address the MTA board so the Strategy Center could convince them of the seriousness of the problem. There had been a past tradition of previous boards allowing the Strategy Center to make such presentations. To my surprise Mr. Washington did not seem very supportive and simply said, “I’ll convey your request to the chair. I told him I felt that was disrespectful on its face and not consistent with the process we were trying to carry out. That evening Mr. Washington called me back to tell me that the chair had agreed to give me 5 minutes to speak if I would tell the other students, bus riders, and other members of the public that I spoke for them and they would give up their right to speak. I informed him that under no circumstances would I do so in that my role as director of LCSC and the complainant was to try to give a coherent presentation to the board but not at all to violate the public comment rights of my members or any members of the public and found that proposal unacceptable. He got back to me and I was told that under the circumstances “the chair” only agreed to give me 3 minutes (only 2 minutes more than I would have under public comment anyway.) I explained that was unacceptable but would not fight it any further. So, rather than reporting the MTA gave me/us all of 3 minutes to explain our position (in that everyone gets only 1 minute to speak) he should have reported, “We denied Mr. Mann’s request to address the board and present the LCSC side of the story. At the Board meeting, let me give two other examples of how the MTA does not want to engage civil rights advocacy. * A noted civil rights attorney and UCLA Professor addressed the board. She introduced herself and began to explain the possibility that as the legal advisor to the LCSC she and we were also considering concomitant legal action and before she could even finish her next sentence her minute was up and the chair said, “Next” and told her to sit down. It was very painful to see a prominent Black woman in the community treated that way but of course it is the normal way that bus and train riders are treated but still it was un-nerving to all to see. * Then a Latino member of the Strategy Center told the MTA board that in his view MTA policies are leading to the mass dispersal of Black residents of Los Angeles and such policies are under U.N. Statutes consistent with charges of genocide. Board member Ara Ajarian interrupted the speaker and began yelling at him—telling him that as an Armenian his people had suffered genocide at the hands of the Turks and told stories of atrocities inflicted on his family. He said that under no circumstances could the world genocide be used to describe MTA or L.A. treatment of Black people. It was again chilling and profoundly hostile. After the meeting we had a meeting of the high school students, workers, professionals who had attended the meeting and they recounted how difficult it is to come to these meetings, try to reach this board and be treated with such aggressive contempt—and yes, how intimidating it is to try to exercise their civil rights. They were not intimidated; to be clear, in fact they were very angry, but to also be clear they were deeply hurt by this treatment no matter how brave a face they put on the situation. It is our view that this consistent hostility to the Strategy Center is because of our long history of bringing civil rights charges and proposals in front of this board. We were the organization that has brought civil rights charges against the MTA in 1996, won a federal temporary restraining order against the MTA for raising fare and eliminating the monthly bus pass, and presided over a 10 year federal court supervised Consent Decree that did lead to significant improvements for 500,000 bus and train riders. Then LCSC filed another DOT civil rights complaint in 2014 charging the MTA with cutting all 1 million hours of bus service we won during the Consent Decree and raising bus/train fares significantly after we had lowered them during the CD. Now, as LCSC has filed a 3rd civil rights action against the MTA and continues to function as de-facto class representative of the MTA’s passengers we believe the MTA is retaliating against us by having surface bargaining meetings such as the one with Mr. Washington and refusing to engage any of our proposals during public comment. We urge your continued participation in this process and investigation and if anything urge an expedited process. Sincerely, Eric Mann Director Labor/Community Strategy Center   cc: Phillip A. Washington, Chief Executive Officer Jim McDonnell, Los Angeles County Sheriff Courtney Wilkerson, Acting Associate Administrator FTA Bonnie Graves, Attorney-Advisor FTA Dawn Sweet, Senior Equal Opportunity Specialist FTA Dan Levy, Chief Officer, Office of Civil Rights, Metro Alex Wiggins, Chief Officer, System Security and Law Enforcement Read the Full letter to Department of Transportation Here [...] Read more...
January 16, 2017January 12, 2017 Mr. Philip A. Washington Chief Executive Officer Los Angeles County MT A One Gateway Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90012 Subject: Acceptance of Title VI Complaint Dear Mr. Washington: This is to notify you that the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Office of the Secretary and the Federal Transit Administration have accepted the formal complaint against the Los Angeles County Metro Transportation Authority (LACMT A). The complainant, the Labor/Community Strategy Center, alleges that LACTMA is discriminating on the basis of race with regard to its policies and practices of fare enforcement, citations, and arrests on public transportation, in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. LACMTA is a recipient of Federal financial assistance from DOT and its Operating Administrations. DOT has the authority to investigate whenever the agency has reason to believe that there is a possible failure of a recipient to comply with Title VI. 49 C.F.R. § 21.11 ( c ). Title VI and DOT Title VI’ s implementing regulations at 49 C.F .R. § 21 prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin by recipients of Federal financial assistance. Please note that no recipient or other person shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Section 601 of Title VI or 49 C.F.R. § 21, or because he or she has made a complaint, testified, assisted, or participated in any manning in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under 49  C.F.R. § 21. 49 C.F.R. § 21.1 l(e). Please do not hesitate to contact Ryan Fitzpatrick, Lead Civil Rights Analyst, in our office with any questions about the complaint process. Mr. Fitzpatrick can be reached at (202) 366-1979, or ryan.fitzpatrick@dot.gov. A copy of the complaint has been attached for your review. We look forward to working cooperatively with your agency. Sincerely, Yvette Rivera, Associate Director Equity and Access Division Departmental Office of Civil Rights U.S. Department of Transportation cc via e-mail and without attachment: Eric Mann, Director, Labor/Community Strategy Center Courtney Wilkerson, Acting Associate Administrator, FT A Bonnie Graves, Attorney-Advisor, FTA Dawn Sweet, Senior Equal Opportunity Specialist, FT A   For questions, more information and Press inquiry call: Eric Mann Director, Labor Community Strategy Center Manuel Criollo Director of Organizing, Labor Community Strategy Center (213) 387-2800 info@thestrategycenter.org View the full-text of the Complaint here: [...] Read more...
January 5, 2017By Joe Linton In November of 2016, the Labor/Community Strategy Center (LCSC) filed a civil rights complaint against Metro with the federal departments of Transportation and Justice. LCSC is the parent organization of the Bus Riders Union, and now the Fight for the Soul of the Cities (FFSC) campaign. The LCSC/FFSC complaint alleges that Metro has created a discriminatory system of policing that disproportionately impacts black transit riders, and that this system of criminalization of black riders constitutes a violation of civil rights. LCSC/FFSC is urging greater accountability from both Metro and the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), which policies Metro buses and trains. The federal departments have acknowledged receipt of the LCSC/FFSC complaint and have requested that Metro respond to the allegations. Among the discriminatory results that the LCSC/FFSC complaint cites are: Blacks are 19 percent of rail riders but make up nearly 50 percent of Metro citations and nearly 60 percent of LASD arrests each year. From 2012 and through May 2016, Metro and LASD combined have issued close to a half a million citations at 455,388. Of this total, black riders made up at least 48 percent of those cited. From 2012 to 2015, black riders received over 50 percent of fare evasion citations while white riders received 9-10 percent of fare evasion citations. Black constitute 19 percent of rail ridership, while whites constitute 13 percent. To remedy the alleged discriminatory practices, LCSC/FFSC are demanding significant changes to Metro and LASD practices including: Free public transit Ending ‘stop-and-frisk’ fare enforcement by withdrawing police from trains and buses Reparations for past discrimination, including granting amnesty for outstanding Metro transit citations Freezing all federal funds to Metro pending successful implementation of remedial actions LCSC Director Eric Mann stressed the importance of building a civil rights movement to end numerous institutional practices that criminalize black people occupying public spaces. FFSC’s Community Rights Campaign successfully fought to reign in truancy criminalization practices employed by the L.A. Unified School District. Now FFSC is targeting similar practices at Metro. Metro is currently in negotiations for a new policing contract. Though the agency may assign LASD transit policing duties to others, overall decriminalization (something some transit agencies are moving towards, especially in moving away from fare enforcement) has not been a significant part of the current discussions. On the face of them, the citation figures are very damning. Public transit that should be welcoming to all is not welcoming to African Americans. The results of Metro’s policing system show that there is a need for significant reforms, and more measured consideration of how to balance monitoring the system with potential harms caused by that effort. It is unclear how seriously federal agencies (about to undergo a change of presidential leadership) and Metro will take the LCSC/FFSC complaint. The LCSC/FFSC folks, though, based on their past, appear unlikely to back down from a just fight. Read this Article on Streets Blog We need you to stand up to MTA transit racism and genocide against the Black Nation now Take Action Now If you Have been arrested of ticketed on Metro Fill Out a Deposition Check out all of the Articles on this campaign Read the Full Federal Complaint & Look at the Data Read all of the Correspondences Between The Strategy Center, Department of Transportation, and Metro Click Below to Tweet this Page Now [...] Read more...
December 12, 2016lcsc-data-summary-2009-may-2016_exhibit-1 [...] Read more...
December 12, 2016            Dear Mr. Mann: The U.S. Department of Transportation received your complaint dated November 14, 2016. We have forwarded it to the Federal Transit Administration, Office of Civil Rights, where it will be jointly reviewed for appropriate action with the Office of the Secretary, Departmental Office of Civil Rights. All further correspondence should reference DOT# 2017-0093 and be addressed to: Linda Ford, Associate Administrator Office of Civil Rights (TCR-1) Federal Transit Administration 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Room E54-312 Washington, DC 20590 Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Sincerely, Yvette Rivera, Associate Director Equity and Access Division Departmental Office of Civil Rights cc: Linda Ford, Associate Administrator   Ryan Fitzpatrick, Lead Civil Rights Analyst Departmental Office of Civil Rights (S-32) Office of the Secretary of Transportation 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE Room W78-312 Washington DC, 20590 For questions, more information and Press inquiry call: Eric Mann Director, Labor Community Strategy Center Manuel Criollo Director of Organizing, Labor Community Strategy Center (213) 387-2800 info@thestrategycenter.org View the full-text of the Complaint here: [...] Read more...
December 9, 2016        December 1, 2016 Mr. Philip A. Washington Chief Executive Officer Los Angeles MT A One Gateway Plaza Los Angeles, CA 90012 Mr. Jim McDonnell Sheriff Sheriffs Headquarters 4 700 Ramona Boulevard Monterey Park, CA 91754 Subject: Receipt of Title VI Complaint Dear Mr. Washington and Mr. McDonnell:   The purpose of this letter is to inform you about our receipt of a formal complaint against the Los Angeles County Metro Transportation Authority (LACMT A), and the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department (LASD). The complainants, the Labor/Community Strategy Center, allege that LACMT A, LASD, and “employed and contracted police and civilian fare checkers,” are discriminating on the basis of race by “demonstrating a pattern and practice of criminalization,  ‘stop and frisk’ fare enforcement and other ‘quality oflife’ citations and arrests on public transportation that systematically and egregiously target Black riders,” in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI). 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq. The civil rights offices at both the U.S. Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Office of the Secretary and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will jointly review this complaint, and will inform all parties about its decision going forward. DOT’s Title VI implementation regulations at 49 C.F.R. Part 21 encourage informal resolution of complaints whenever possible. Therefore, we encourage the parties, including LACMTA, LASD, and the Labor/Community Strategy Center, to engage each other in pursuit of a voluntary resolution while DOT and FT A assess the complaint. No recipient or other person shall intimidate, threaten, coerce, or discriminate against any individual for the purpose of interfering with any right or privilege secured by Section 601 of Title VI or this part, or because he or she has made a complaint, testified, assisted, or participated in any manning in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this part. 49 C.F.R. Part  21.1 l(e).   Please do not hesitate to contact Ryan Fitzpatrick, Lead Civil Rights Analyst in DOT’s Departmental Office of Civil Rights with any questions about the complaint process. Mr. Fitzpatrick can be reached at. Yvette Rivera Associate Director Departmental Office of Civil Rights U.S. Department of Transportation cc: Eric Mann, Director, Labor/Community Strategy Center Linda Ford, Associate Administrator, FTA   For questions, more information and Press inquiry call: Eric Mann Director, Labor Community Strategy Center Manuel Criollo Director of Organizing, Labor Community Strategy Center (213) 387-2800 info@thestrategycenter.org View the full-text of the Complaint here:   [...] Read more...
November 2, 2016For LA Metro Black Lives, Don’t Matter.  LA Metro criminalizes black riders who are only 19% of riders, but make up over 50% of all LA Metro fare citations, fines and arrest are Black riders on Metro rails – Black riders are stopped, check, profiled, harassed, frisked, cited, fined, jailed, and beaten all forms of dehumanization of Black life to ensure a sterile lily white rail experience for LA Metro imaginary and non-existing choice rider.  The current war on the Black Nation is so present in the US criminal legal system and the modern day ‘black codes’ under the name of ‘stop and frisk’ and so reflective in the spectate lynching of Black men, women and children by police.  In Los Angeles, Black Genocide is so present in the dispersal of the Black community out of south Los Angeles, large scale unemployment, asthma clusters throughout South Los Angeles sandwiched in between four major freeways. The MTA is a corporate development machine commandeering $5 billion in our L.A. county sales taxes, state taxes, and federal taxes to build corporate gentrification projects and payoffs to corporate contractors for rail projects that cost a fortune, wreck and raid the bus system, and leave 500,000 Black and Latino, women, working class, low-income, elderly, student, disabled transit riders over-crowded, late, waiting, and policed by armed sheriffs who are “checking” to see if they have paid their fare-“the stop and frisk” for passengers. With regular searches and exorbitant tickets now commonplace when they can’t come up with $1.50, public transit is becoming just another public space where their mere presence is criminalized. The biggest winners are the Los Angeles Sheriff Department with a contract that’s now ballooned to $85 million annually. The MTA tries to deflect its corporate crimes criminalizing its own passengers- making their ride a police state experience. These passengers are already paying 3 1/2 cent sales taxes that give the MTA $2 billion a year-they are paying many times over for lousy service and corporate exploitation. We are working toward ending the LA Metropolitan Transportation Authority transit “stop and frisk” and criminalization of fare evasion and 1) Win free fares, 2) Defund LA Sheriffs at LA Metro, 3) Reduce overall emphasis on checking passengers, to take County Sheriffs completely out of fare checks, and to end the entire MTA ‘court’ system and 4) Abolish the racist LA Metro “Code of Conducts”. The present policies violate the civil rights of all 500,000 MTA passengers subject to these practices. We believe the police and Sheriffs’ treatment of Black and Latino passengers would warrant a Justice Department investigation of discriminatory police practices. The MTA’s use of armed sheriffs to “stop and inspect” and “stop and frisk” MTA passengers is racist and unacceptable. The present policy makes the transit ride for young people, immigrants, almost all MTA passengers another stop in the police state, a literal transit apartheid state. The only real solution is free fares for all. The analogy of the structure of policing and fare checks on the MTA can only be compared to a South African Apartheid pass system, is a way to demonstrate the nature of who is stopped and checked by police (at their discretion) and the racist suppression tactics that seem deliberately anti-Black given the extremely high levels of arrests and tickets toward Black riders. We believe this is an important contribution to not only expand the discussion to another form of oppression experienced by the black community, but also to attempt to break from the more traditional arguments of racial disproportionality and disparate impacts that tend to limit the ability to achieve a meaningful remedy. This campaign is a human and civil rights struggle against a much more deeply ingrained form of black oppression than disproportionality, and to discuss police suppression in the form of ticketing and arrests on public transit as an element of the systemic and persistent genocide against black people in the U.S. We are building a case against the LA MTA and its employed and contracted police for violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and all relevant state and federal laws protecting against police brutality and racial discrimination. LA MTA is ticketing and arresting its passengers, despite $5 billion in sales tax revenues, much of that from low-income riders, and systematically targeting Black riders who each year represent at least 50% of the citations and 58% of the arrests, while they are only 17%-19% of bus and train ridership. While perhaps the most documented form of racial animus is happening through police fare checks, ‘stop and frisks’ and ‘quality of life’ citations and arrests, the systemic criminalization, policing and targeting of Black transit riders is tied to a much deeper pattern and practice of racial discrimination. We therefore call on the Department of Transportation and the Department of Justice to acknowledge and remedy this pattern and practice of racial discrimination and civil rights violations. And we urge them to acknowledge and remedy the evidence of a much larger and systemic attack on Black LA residents. At its core, we call on the DOT and DOJ to find that the criminalization of Black riders on LA MTA is evidence of a set of institutionalized policies and practices to further the pre-determined and gentrified re-shaping of LA through the creation of persistent, severe and irreparable economic and psychological harms that occur through the foreclosure of opportunities, through the denial of equal protection, and through the mass geographic and segregationist dispersal and displacement of the Black community – amounting in its totality to a U.S. genocide against Black people. Genocide is defined in Article 2 of the Convention of Prevention and Punishment for the Crime of Genocide (1948) as any of the following acts, committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (d) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. [...] Read more...
October 20, 2016 No Cars in L.A. and the U.S. No Tanks in L.A. and the U.S. The Climate Justice State Not the Warfare State The Social Welfare State Not the Police State Vote No on MTA Ballot Measure M Stop Genocide Against The Black Nation The Problem is not just the Police — The Entire System is falling apart The Strategy Center and The Dignity in Schools Campaign is meeting with the Department of Justice to Demand an end to the 1033 Program • Cut Police, Sheriffs, and Highway Patrol budgets by 50% Now • Cut U.S. GHG emissions by 50% of 1990’s levels Starting Now  • End the Department of Defense 1033 Program Nationwide • Bus-only lanes, auto-free zones, days, and rush hours  • No Stop and Frisk on Public Transportation — No Police or Fare Inspection on Public Transportation • Vote No on MTA’s Measure M and Repeal Measure R • No Fare — Free Public Transit • Restore 1 million hours of bus service  • Expand the bus fleet to 5,000 zero-emissions buses 24/7 bus service • Moratorium on all Rail and Highway projects  • Support the Crenshaw Subway Coalitions’ demand to Build the Park Mesa Heights Tunnel We need to hear from you now (213) 387-2800 fight@fightforthesoulofthecities.com Powered by The Labor/Community Strategy Center 3780 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1200 Los Angeles CA 90010 www.fightforthesoulofthecities.com Twitter: @FightSoulCities [...] Read more...
October 17, 2016We urge President Obama to immediately end the DOD 1033 program and demand that all weapons are returned to the DOD where they must be destroyed, not used against the U.S. or any other populations. Why is this important? The Department of Defense 1033 Program has transferred close to $5 billion in military war weapons to local police throughout the country. These are weapons used everyday by police SWAT teams across the country raiding homes and the militarized police occupations of Ferguson, Baltimore and Charlotte. The existence of the 1033 Program is in itself a civil and human rights violation—it operates as a counter-insurgency program that has contributed to the police and military siege of Black and Latino communities. It is unconscionable for the Department of Defense to give military grade weapons to city and state police forces—including police in schools. We also challenge the ethical rationale of those institutions requesting these weapons. At a time of growing racist rhetoric in the public sphere, the movement needs a major, high visibility test case and Presidential Order that directs an end to the mass occupation, brutality, and imprisonment of our people. How it will be delivered Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, Alliance for Educational Justice, Dignity in Schools Campaign and many of our allies plan to deliver in person this petition with a national sign-on letter calling on President Obama and his administration to end the DOD 1033 Program. Sign the Petition [...] Read more...
October 17, 2016Menu Download the Latest flier Download The Latest Memes and Propaganda  No Cars in L.A. and the U.S. No Tanks in L.A. and the U.S. The Climate Justice State Not the Warfare State The Social Welfare State Not the Police State Vote No on MTA Ballot Measure M Stop Genocide Against The Black Nation The Problem is not just the Police — The Entire System is falling apart The Strategy Center and The Dignity in Schools Campaign is meeting with the Department of Justice to Demand an end to the 1033 Program • Cut Police, Sheriffs, and Highway Patrol budgets by 50% Now • Cut U.S. GHG emissions by 50% of 1990’s levels Starting Now  • End the Department of Defense 1033 Program Nationwide • Bus-only lanes, auto-free zones, days, and rush hours  • No Stop and Frisk on Public Transportation — No Police or Fare Inspection on Public Transportation • Vote No on MTA’s Measure M and Repeal Measure R • No Fare — Free Public Transit • Restore 1 million hours of bus service  • Expand the bus fleet to 5,000 zero-emissions buses 24/7 bus service • Moratorium on all Rail and Highway projects  • Support the Crenshaw Subway Coalitions’ demand to Build the Park Mesa Heights Tunnel We need to hear from you now (213) 387-2800 fight@fightforthesoulofthecities.com Powered by The Labor/Community Strategy Center 3780 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1200 Los Angeles CA 90010 www.fightforthesoulofthecities.com Twitter: @FightSoulCities Download the Latest Flier Below Download the Latest Meme’s [...] Read more...
October 11, 2016MTA’s Destroys Black and Brown Communities MTA has increased fares by 38% since 2007 and cut over 1 million hours of service, that Fight for the Soul of the Cities and the Bus Riders Union won, which shows their contempt and animosity towards riders. They have waged a war on riders by building a transit apartheid system and taxing the poor through Prop A, C, and Measure R sales tax—everyday with every purchase—for the rich contractors to profit. If that is not enough, the MTA holds an $80 million contract with the Sheriffs for them to police the trains and buses. MTA has the audacity to accuse you of cheating the system by distributing fare evasion tickets when you already paid through the sales taxes. We paid our fare before we board the train and we are essentially paying for the contract of the sheriffs to ticket riders for fare evasion. The results of fare increases and police occupation of public transportation—the criminalization of black and brown riders, specifically Blacks receiving 51% of the citations distributed when they only make up 20% of the overall ridership. Public transportation is the lifeline of bus riders and MTA has intentionally created conditions that are hostile and uncomfortable. MTA is creating a segregated transit system that is potentially pushing riders to other means of transport, possibly cars. This would be one more car added to the 7 million cars that currently exist in LA, decreasing ridership and burning the planet. Fight for the Souls of the Cities and Bus Riders Union are building a case against MTA and need to hear about your experiences with fare evasion because we know that each bus rider has paid their fares to MTA through taxes before they board a train or bus. We Need To Hear From You, Give Us A Call Us  213-387-2800 The Labor/Community Strategy Center 3780 Wilshire Boulevard, #1200, Los Angeles, CA 90010 213-387-2800  |  info@thestrategycenter.org Facebook: FightForTheSoulOfTheCities    Twitter: @fightsoulcities   fightforthesoulofthecites.com Take Action Now Download Fliers and Propaganda Sign-Up for Our Newsletter Send Comments to info@thestrategycenter.org  #NoOnMeasureM #EndStopAndFrisk #EndMetroAparthied #NoForeverTax — MTA’s Destruye Comunidades Negras y Latinas MTA ha aumentado las tarifas por 38% desde el año 2007 y ha cortado más de 1 millón de horas de servicio de autobus, que la Lucha por el Alma de las Cuidades lucha por y el Sindicato de Pasajeros ganaron, lo que demuestra su desprecio y animosidad hacia los pasajeros. El MTA han comensado una guerra en contra de los pasajeros por construyendo un sistema de tránsito apartheid y ponerle impuestos a los pobres a través de la Proposición A, C, y la Medida R-impuestos de ventas todos los días con cada compra-para el lucro de contratistas ricos. Si eso no es suficiente, el MTA tiene un contrato de 80 millones de dólares con los sheriffs para “supervisar” los trenes y autobuses. MTA se atreve acusarte de jugar al sistema mediante la distribución de multas de “fare evasion“ cuando ya has pagado a través de los impuestos sobre las ventas. Nosotros pagamos nuestra tarifa antes de abordar el tren y estamos esencialmente pagando por el contrato de los sheriffs que nos estan dando multas de “fare evasion“. Los resultados de los aumentos de tarifas y ocupación policial del transporte público-penalización de pasajeros negros y latinos, específicamente los negros reciben el 51% de las citas distribuidas cuando sólo representan el 20% de los pasajeros en general. El transporte público es la vida de los pasajeros y el MTA ha creado intencionalmente condiciones que son hostiles e incómodo. MTA esta creando un sistema de transporte que es segregada potencialmente empujando a pasajeros a otros medios de transporte, posiblemente coches. Este sería un coche más añadido a los 7 millones de automóviles que existen actualmente en Los Ángeles, decreciendo pasajeros y quemando el planeta. Lucha por el Alma de las Cuidades las ciudades y El Sindicato de Pasajeros están construyendo un caso contra la MTA y necesitan escuchar acerca de sus experiencias con “fare evasion”, porque sabemos que cada pasajero del autobús ha pagado sus tarifas a la MTA a través de impuestos antes de abordar un tren o autobús. necesitamos que escuchar de usted ahora 213-387-2800 El centro estrategia 3780 Wilshire Boulevard, #1200, Los Angeles, CA 90010 213-387-2800  |  info@thestrategycenter.org Facebook: FightForTheSoulOfTheCities    Twitter: @fightsoulcities   fightforthesoulofthecites.com Tomar acción ahora Descargar volantes y propaganda Inscríbase a nuestro boletín Envíe sus comentarios a info@thestrategycenter.org  #NoEnMedidaM #PonerFinPararYRegistrar #EndMetroAparthied #NoForeverTax [...] Read more...
July 14, 2016Thanks Jesse Williams. It took a lot of bravery for you to get up at the BET Awards Ceremony and give a speech filled with anger and rage at the system— and the way that the killings of Black people are being televised as if each event were a public lynching. But in my opinion you didn’t go far enough. I begin with the Comment I put onto Facebook the day after your remarks: “I’m not so sure about the speech Jesse Williams gave the other night… It’s full of exciting rhetoric and a good analysis of the system… But there was no call to action. You could have told the audience… “Let’s call on President Obama to end the Federal 1033 Program that gives military weapons to local police forces—like in Ferguson—to kill our people. Let’s demand Jobs or Income Now for our people and not be afraid of public welfare programs that we have earned. Let’s cut police spending in every city by 50 percent now! And let’s cut U.S. emission of greenhouse gases by 50% now as well.” A good organizer doesn’t simply get people riled up— You always need a call to action and very specific demands.” While I think Jesse’s remarks are a great beginning, as an organizer trying to make specific demands on the system in the hopes of liberating all Black people, it is sad to see entertainers getting more support for general statements while movements such as ours are being suppressed by the L.A. Times and even Democracy Now for the real work that we’re putting in. Read the Full Article on The Black Commentator Read the Full Article on Huffington Post     Channing Martinez is a Black-Garifuna Queer Organizer with the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles. He is also the producer of Voices from the Frontlines, on KPFK/Pacifica Radio. He can be reached at channing@thestrategycenter.org   [...] Read more...
July 1, 2016WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FORTH OF JULY A DEEP APPRECIATION Eric Mann As we Approach the Hollow, Hypocritical, Horrific History of the United States reflected in the pathetic professions of its Fourth of July celebrations the Labor/Community Strategy Center is happy to present, in full, the brilliant oration of Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.” If Muhammad Ali’s “The Vietcong Never Called Me a N—-r” is the greatest anti-racist, anti-imperialist agitational line in U.S. history, then Frederick Douglass’ “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” is the greatest piece of anti-racist, anti-imperialist propaganda. In reading it, for me, the warm-up is at times hard to bear—“get to the point Frederick, let them have it from the jump.” But Douglass, like a brilliant attorney, chooses to move his white audience step by step, through a history lesson that begins rather calmly, patiently, and deliberately beginning with the Declaration of Independence from Britain as the prelude to his discussion of slavery (in this text 12 pages of introduction.) And then comes the cannon fire, the artillery, the Great Slave Rebellion that was reflected in the Black leadership in the defeat of the Confederacy. Douglass’ “punch line” in my eyes is the most brilliant exposition of the inherent barbarism of U.S. society and the brilliance of Black revolutionary opposition. This speech precedes the end of slavery, the racist overthrow of Reconstruction, the long nightmare of Jim Crow, the next Great Slave Rebellion of 1955-1980, and now the long-nightmare of the Racist Re-Enslavement Complex. Today, 1 million Black people are in prison and virtually every Black person in the U.S. is subjected to the U.S. army of occupation. We urge you to read his powerful words below, study his entire encyclopedic indictment of white, racist, U.S. Imperialist society, and join us in our present-day campaign to End MTA Genocide against the Black Nation. (Flyer attached.) God Bless you Frederick Douglass. Every Fourth of July your mighty words give me strength to fight on and give millions all over the world the historical power of righteous resistance. “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.” -Frederick Douglass Speech delivered on 5 July 1852 at a meeting sponsored by the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, Rochester, N.Y. Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I have had in addressing public meetings, in country school houses, avails me nothing on the present occasion. The papers and placards say, that I am to deliver a 4th July oration. This certainly sounds large, and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Hall, and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have of Corinthian Hall, seems to free me from embarrassment. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable — and the difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former, are by no means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised, if in what I have to say, I evince no elaborate preparation, nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. “May not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. . . . There is consolation in the thought that America is young.” This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day, and to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men; but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, portending disastrous times; but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young, and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice and of truth, will yet give direction to her destiny? Were the nation older, the patriot’s heart might be sadder, and the reformer’s brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom, and the hope of its prophets go out in sorrow. There is consolation in the thought that America is young. Great streams are not easily turned from channels, worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty, and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury, and bear away, on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel, and flow on as serenely as ever. But, while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up, and leave nothing behind but the withered branch, and the unsightly rock, to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory. As with rivers so with nations. Fellow-citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that, 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your “sovereign people” (in which you now glory) was not then born. You were under the British Crown . Your fathers esteemed the English Government as the home government; and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did, in the exercise of its parental prerogatives, impose upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens and limitations, as, in its mature judgment, it deemed wise, right and proper. But, your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government, and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints. They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable, and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow-citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would, certainly, prove nothing, as to what part I might have taken, had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England towards the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so; but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men’s souls. They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men. To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! Here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed. Feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty, and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated; they did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptionable. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness and scorn. Yet they persevered. They were not the men to look back. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold, when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger, as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But, with that blindness which seems to be the unvarying characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British Government persisted in the exactions complained of. The madness of this course, we believe, is admitted now, even by England; but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present rulers. Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a startling idea, much more so, than we, at this distance of time, regard it. The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that day, were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will, probably, ever have a place on this planet; and their course, in respect to any great change, (no matter how great the good to be attained, or the wrong to be redressed by it), may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars. They hate all changes, but silver, gold and copper change! Of this sort of change they are always strongly in favor. These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers; and the appellation, probably, conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though a somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers, applied to some of our old politicians. Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful; but, amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. On the 2d of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease, and the worshipers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution; and as we seldom hit upon resolutions, drawn up in our day, whose transparency is at all equal to this, it may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. “Resolved, That these united colonies are, and of right, ought to be free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, dissolved.” Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours; and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation’s history — the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen. Heavy billows, like mountains in the distance, disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks! That bolt drawn, that chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day — cling to it, and to its principles, with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spar at midnight. The coming into being of a nation, in any circumstances, is an interesting event. But, besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified and sublime. The population of the country, at the time, stood at the insignificant number of three millions. The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination, such as exist now. Neither steam nor lightning had then been reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these, and innumerable other disadvantages, your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Fellow Citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am compelled to view them is not, certainly, the most favorable; and yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. They loved their country better than their own private interests; and, though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue, and that when it is exhibited, it ought to command respect. He who will, intelligently, lay down his life for his country, is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interests. They were peace men; but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men; but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed forbearance; but that they knew its limits. They believed in order; but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was “settled” that was not right. With them, justice, liberty and humanity were “final;” not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. How circumspect, exact and proportionate were all their movements! How unlike the politicians of an hour! Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment, and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles, and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them! Fully appreciating the hardship to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an on-looking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism, and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the corner-stone of the national superstructure, which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The din of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day. The ear-piercing fife and the stirring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day; while the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation, echoed back by all the hills, valleys and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion one of thrilling and universal interests’ nation’s jubilee. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary. Many of you understand them better than I do. You could instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel, perhaps, a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. I remember, also, that, as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make in their own favor. This is esteemed by some as a national trait — perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact, that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans, and can be had cheap! will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans, if I say I think the American side of any question may be safely left in American hands. I leave, therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen whose claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine! THE PRESENT My business, if I have any here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever-living now. “Trust no future, however pleasant, Let the dead past bury its dead; Act, act in the living present, Heart within, and God overhead.” We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy a child’s share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blest by your labors. You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sydney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtues of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. This truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable, hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have “Abraham to our father,” when they had long lost Abraham’s faith and spirit. That people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham’s great name, while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country to-day? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traders in the bodies and souls of men, shout — “We have Washington to our father.” Alas! that it should be so; yet so it is. “The evil that men do, lives after them, The good is oft’ interred with their bones.” “What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?” Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold, that a nation’s sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation’s jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the “lame man leap as an hart.” But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people! “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yea! We wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth.” Fellow-citizens; above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, “may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!” To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave’s point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery-the great sin and shame of America! “I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;” I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just. But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be), subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral, intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, there will I argue with you that the slave is a man! For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing, planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading, writing and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all, confessing and worshipping the Christian’s God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove that we are men! Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? speaking of it relatively, and positively, negatively, and affirmatively. To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous, and lo offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him. What, am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood, and stained with pollution, is wrong? No! I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength, than such arguments would imply. What, then, remains to be argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman, cannot be divine! Who can reason on such a proposition? They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past. At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour. Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE Take the American slave-trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy; and millions are pocketed every year, by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave-trade) “the internal slave trade.” It is, probably, called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave-trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government, as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere, in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave-trade, as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it, is admitted even by our DOCTORS OF DIVINITY. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa! It is, however, a notable fact that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave-trade, the men engaged in the slave-trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable. Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field, and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession, as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his blood-chilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives! There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes! weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn! The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength; suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the centre of your soul! The crack you heard, was the sound of the slave-whip; the scream you heard, was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains! That gash on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me citizens, WHERE, under the sun, you can witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave-trade, as it exists, at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States. I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave-trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot Street, Fell’s Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves, the slave ships in the Basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mart kept at the head of Pratt Street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival, through the papers, and on flaming “hand-bills,” headed CASH FOR NEGROES. These men were generally well dressed men, and very captivating in their manners. Ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness. The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile, or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation, a certain caution is observed. In the deep still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead heavy footsteps, and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at the sight. “ Is this the land your Fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the earth whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in?” But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason & Dixon’s line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the star-spangled banner and American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman’s gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is hunting ground for men. Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your President, your Secretary of State, your lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics, enforce, as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country, and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have, within the past two years, been hunted down and, without a moment’s warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children, dependent on them for bread; but of this, no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, not religion. The Fugitive Slave Law makes MERCY TO THEM, A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American JUDGE GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man’s liberty, hear only his accusers! In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this Fugitive Slave Law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe, having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty, and, if the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind, or most wickedly indifferent, they, too, would so regard it. At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty, and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences, they are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance, and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the “mint, anise and cumin” — abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion, it would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church, demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal! And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old Covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at every church door, and heard from every pulpit, and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown by Knox, to the beautiful, but treacherous queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country, (with fractional exceptions), does not esteem “the Fugitive Slave Law” as a declaration of war against religious liberty, implies that that church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle, requiring active benevolence, justice, love and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy; psalm-singing above right doing; solemn meetings above practical righteousness. A worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy, is a curse, not a blessing to mankind. The Bible addresses all such persons as “scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, who pay tithe of mint, anise, and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.” THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery, and the shield of American slave-hunters. Many of its most eloquent Divines who stand as the very lights of the church, have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may, properly, be a slave; that the relation of master and slave is ordained of God; that to send back an escaped bondman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. For my part, I would say, welcome infidelity! Welcome atheism! Welcome anything! in preference to the gospel, as preached by those Divines! They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny, and barbarous cruelty, and serve to confirm more infidels, in this age, than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke, put together, have done! These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action, nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that “pure and undefiled religion” which is from above, and which is “first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.” But a religion which favors the rich against the poor; which exalts the proud above the humble; which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves; which says to the man in chains, stay there; and to the oppressor, oppress on; it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind; it makes God a respecter of persons, denies his fatherhood of the race, and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man. All this we affirm to be true of the popular church, and the popular worship of our land and nation — a religion, a church, and a worship which, on the authority of inspired wisdom, we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed, “Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto me: the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me; I am weary to bear them; and when ye spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea! when ye make many prayers, I will not hear. YOUR HANDS ARE FULL OF BLOOD; cease to do evil, learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge for the fatherless; plead for the widow.” The American church is guilty, when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery; but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery. The sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as of commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all observant of the actual state of the case will receive as truth, when he declared that “There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.” Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds; and that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility of which the mind can conceive. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry; but how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared — men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. The LORDS of Buffalo, the SPRINGS of New York, the LATHROPS of Auburn, the COXES and SPENCERS of Brooklyn, the GANNETS and SHARPS of Boston, the DEWEYS of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land, have, in utter denial of the authority of Him, by whom they professed to he called to the ministry, deliberately taught us, against the example of the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the Apostles, they teach “that we ought to obey man’s law before the law of God.” My spirit wearies of such blasphemy; and how such men can be supported, as the “standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ,” is a mystery which I leave others to penetrate. In speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of the religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States, of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, Samuel J. May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend* on the platform, are shining examples; and let me say further, that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave’s redemption from his chains. RELIGION IN ENGLAND & RELIGION IN AMERICA One is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church towards the anti-slavery movement, and that occupied by the churches in England towards a similar movement in that country. There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, elevating, and improving the condition of mankind, came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave, and restored him to his liberty. There, the question of emancipation was a high religious question. It was demanded, in the name of humanity, and according to the law of the living God. The Sharps, the Clarksons, the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, and Burchells and the Knibbs, were alike famous for their piety, and for their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement there was not an anti-church movement, for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement: and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement, when the church of this country shall assume a favorable, instead of a hostile position towards that movement. Americans! Your republican politics, not less than your republican religion, are flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity, while the whole political power of the nation (as embodied in the two great political parties), is solemnly pledged to support and perpetuate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crowned headed tyrants of Russia and Austria, and pride yourselves on your Democratic institutions, while you yourselves consent to be the mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them, and pour out your money to them like water; but the fugitives from your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education; yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation — a system begun in avarice, supported in pride, and perpetuated in cruelty. You shed tears over fallen Hungary, and make the sad story of her wrongs the theme of your poets, statesmen and orators, till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors; but, in regard to the ten thousand wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce the strictest silence, and would hail him as an enemy of the nation who dares to make those wrongs the subject of public discourse! You are all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or for Ireland; but are as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You discourse eloquently on the dignity of labor; yet, you sustain a system which, in its very essence, casts a stigma upon labor. You can bare your bosom to the storm of British artillery to throw off a threepenny tax on tea; and yet wring the last hard-earned farthing from the grasp of the black laborers of your country. You profess to believe “that, of one blood, God made all nations of men to dwell on the face of all the earth,” and hath commanded all men, everywhere to love one another; yet you notoriously hate, (and glory in your hatred), all men whose skins are not colored like your own. You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare, that you “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;” and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, “is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose,” a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country. Fellow-citizens! I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes your name a hissing, and a by word to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your Union. It fetters your progress; it is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education; it fosters pride; it breeds insolence; it promotes vice; it shelters crime; it is a curse to the earth that supports it; and yet, you cling to it, as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh! Be warned! Be warned! a horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation’s bosom; the venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic; for the love of God, tear away, and fling from you the hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever! THE CONSTITUTION But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced is, in fact, guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States; that the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution framed by the illustrious Fathers of this Republic. Then, I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your fathers stooped, basely stooped “ To palter with us in a double sense: And keep the word of promise to the ear, But break it to the heart.” And instead of being the honest men I have before declared them to be, they were the veriest imposters that ever practiced on mankind. This is the inevitable conclusion, and from it there is no escape. But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least, so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length — nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esq., by William Goodell, by Samuel E. Sewall, Esq., and last, though not least, by Gerritt Smith, Esq. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. “et me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it.” Fellow-citizens! There is no matter in respect to which, the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon, as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument I hold there is neither warrant, license, nor sanction of the hateful thing; but, interpreted as it ought to be interpreted, the Constitution is a GLORIOUS LIBERTY DOCUMENT. Read its preamble, consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? Is it at the gateway? Or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters, a slave-holding instrument, why neither slavery, slaveholding, nor slave can anywhere be found in it. What would be thought of an instrument, drawn up, legally drawn up, for the purpose of entitling the city of Rochester to a tract of land, in which no mention of land was made? Now, there are certain rules of interpretation, for the proper understanding of all legal instruments. These rules are well established. They are plain, common-sense rules, such as you and I, and all of us, can understand and apply, without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice-President Dallas tells us that the constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive, and no American heart too devoted. He further says, the constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible, and is meant for the home-bred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow-citizens. Senator Berrien tells us that the Constitution is the fundamental law, that which controls all others. The charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Breese, Lewis Cass, and many others that might be named, who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument. Now, take the constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand it will be found to contain principles and purposes, entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future period I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. “Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country.” Allow me to say, in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation, which must inevitably work The downfall of slavery. “The arm of the Lord is not shortened,” and the doom of slavery is certain. I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. While drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American Institutions, my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world, and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long established customs of hurtful character could formerly fence themselves in, and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of the strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over and under the sea, as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide, but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are, distinctly heard on the other. The far off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet. The Celestial Empire, the mystery of ages, is being solved. The fiat of the Almighty, “Let there be Light,” has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage whether in taste, sport or avarice, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe, and crippled foot of China must be seen, in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. “Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God.” In the fervent aspirations of William Lloyd Garrison, I say, and let every heart join in saying it: God speed the year of jubilee The wide world o’er! When from their galling chains set free, Th’ oppress’d shall vilely bend the knee, And wear the yoke of tyranny Like brutes no more. That year will come, and freedom’s reign, To man his plundered rights again Restore. God speed the day when human blood Shall cease to flow! In every clime be understood, The claims of human brotherhood, And each return for evil, good, Not blow for blow; That day will come all feuds to end And change into a faithful friend Each foe. God speed the hour, the glorious hour, When none on earth Shall exercise a lordly power, Nor in a tyrant’s presence cower; But all to manhood’s stature tower, By equal birth! THAT HOUR WILL, COME, to each, to all, And from his prison-house, the thrall Go forth. Until that year, day, hour, arrive, With head, and heart, and hand I’ll strive, To break the rod, and rend the gyve, The spoiler of his prey deprive- So witness Heaven! And never from my chosen post, Whate’er the peril or the cost, Be driven. This speech by Frederick Douglass—“What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”—was originally published as a pamphlet. It can be located in James M. Gregory’s, Frederick Douglass, the Orator (1893). More recent publications of the speech include Philip Foner’s, The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (1950) and The Frederick Douglass Papers (1982), edited by John W. Blassingame. “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” is reprinted by the Labor/Community Strategy Center on the occasion of the publication of a new book by Black revolutionary political prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz–Maroon the Implacable (Oakland: PM Press, 2013). Fight for the Soul of the City Powered by The Labor/Community Strategy Center, 3780 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1200, Los Angeles, CA 90010 Phone: 213-387-2800 | Fax: 213-387-3500 info@thestrategycenter.org Take Action Now [...] Read more...
May 31, 2016Read this Article on Alternet A coalition of Los Angeles high school students and grassroots organizers just accomplished the unthinkable. After nearly two years of sit-ins and protests, they forced the police department for the second-largest public school district in the United States to remove grenade launchers, M-16 rifles, a mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicle and other military-grade weaponry from its arsenal. But the coalition did not stop there. Members took over a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) board meeting in February to call for proof that the arms had been returned to the Department of Defense—a demand they eventually won in the form of an itemized invoice for every weapon sent back to the DoD. Going further, the coalition successfully pressed board members of the school district to apologize for greenlighting the policing of K-12 students with weapons of war. “I now understand that especially in the context of the many conflicts between law enforcement and communities of color across the nation, our participation in this program may have created perceptions about the role of our district and our school police that my silence exacerbated,” Steve Zimmer, the president of the board of education, wrote in a May 19 letter to the groups Fight for the Soul of the Cities and Labor Community Strategy Center, which played a key role in the campaign. “Please accept my apology for any and all of my actions that contributed to feelings of betrayal and injury and interrupted our important collaborative efforts for equity and justice in all aspects of public education.” Perhaps most stunningly, the coalition eventually persuaded the Los Angeles School Police Department to issue its own apology. “The LASPD recognizes the sensitive historical aspect of associating ‘military-like’ equipment and military presence within a civilian setting,” wrote Chief Steven Zipperman in a letter dated May 18. “We recognize that this sensitive historical component may not have been considered when originally procuring these type of logistics within a civilian or K-12 public school setting.” The resounding victories were won in a district where the vast majority of students are Black and Latino. In the era of Ferguson, they have seen images of young people who look like them being shot and killed by police. Amid mounting nationwide outrage over police use of weapons of war to patrol civilian neighborhoods, the win marks an unprecedented stride toward the demilitarization of public schools. “I know that this will transcend my school district and state,” Bryan Cantero, a senior at Augustus F. Hawkins High School, told AlterNet. “I feel like I was part of something that is bigger than me. I prevented something terrible from happening to someone’s brother, sister, friend or daughter. We prevented a tragedy. We prevented a war. When the police got those weapons it was a call to war. Am I viewed as a student or prey? What do they think I am? At the end of the day, something had to be done, and we took charge.” Read This Article on AlterNet ‘Not a War Zone’ The Strategy Center describes itself as a movement-building think tank “rooted in working-class communities of color.” According to director Eric Mann, the organization first discovered that the Los Angeles Police Department possessed an arsenal of military-grade weapons two years ago. At the time, Mann and his colleagues had just returned from a solidarity delegation to Ferguson in 2014, where they witnessed the deployment of tanks and assault rifles against civilian protesters. Mann said the delegation “understood this was part of the war against Black people.” The revelation that Los Angeles school cops were in possession of military arms immediately provoked a civil rights uproar. Yet, in September 2014, the school district and police department refused to return all of the weapons, agreeing to hand back grenade launchers but insisting they needed armored vehicles and rifles. “While we recognize, this armored vehicle is ‘military-grade,’ it is nevertheless a life-saving piece of equipment that the District would not otherwise have,” the school district stated. The subsequent campaign “took a lot of work and time,” Ashley Franklin, lead organizer for the Strategy Center, told AlterNet. “We organized on each of the blocks we work in, organized in different high school campuses, going in and doing classroom presentations at the school about how this is rooted in institutional racism. We had phone call campaigns, turned in 3,000 petitions and made over 300 calls to school board members. It was a long campaign, and those were just the easy tactics.” Taking Action clubs at multiple high schools in the district played a critical role. “Young people decided to put their bodies on the line, following after Malcolm X and Fannie Lou Hamer,” Franklin said. “They did multiple sit-ins at the school board and disrupted meetings, declaring that this should not be business as usual.” At the early February school board meeting takeover, students and activists refused to leave until their demands were heard, leading to a charged scene described in the L.A. Times. “Asst. Supt Earl Perkins hurried forward and motioned to camera operators, with a hand slashing across his throat, to cut the live video feed while meeting chairman and board member George McKenna tried to establish order,” wrote journalists Sonali Kohli and Howard Blume. When administrators eventually left the meeting, students and activists remained, declaring the gathering a ‘people’s school board.'” Monique Jones, a junior at Augustus F. Hawkins High School, was one of the young people who took action. “I believe the campaign was important because every day somebody of color, Black or Latino, is being shot by police officers,” she told AlterNet. “Why would you bring those types of weapons into school campuses? It’s not a war zone. You’re not going to war with your own citizens and people who are in kindergarten through 12th grade.” Some board members appear chastened by the exchanges they have had with students like Jones. In an apology letter dated April 22, LAUSD school board member Monica Garcia declared, “The need for safety is a collective responsibility that must balance our lessons learned from history, our present challenges and our vision for the future… Together, with community partners, LAUSD has come a long way. And to use the words of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘we have a long way to go.’” ‘We Want Police Military Weapons Destroyed’ Despite the Los Angeles victory, police departments nationwide remain heavily militarized. This is largely because of the federal program that allows police agencies to acquire weapons of war. The current iteration of the initiative dates back to 1990 and was escalated by the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act, which established that, under the “1033 program,” Department of Defense may transfer “excess” military equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies. According to the Defense Logistics Agency, the program has transferred at least “$5.4 billion worth of property” since its inception. In 2014, the same year Black Lives Matter protests gripped the country, “$980 million worth of property (based on initial acquisition cost) was transferred to law enforcement agencies” the agency concludes, noting that more than 8,000 law enforcement agencies count themselves among the program’s enrollees. However, the actual amount of public dollars that have been funneled into this program is far higher. A report from the Center for Investigative Reporting in 2011 found that since 9/11, “$34 billion in federal government grants” has gone toward the purchasing of military-grade weaponry for police departments. As in Los Angeles, many of these weapons have found their way into school police departments. The police department for San Diego’s public schools revealed in 2014 that it had also purchased its own MRAP, a piece of equipment that has become a fixture of the U.S. military’s occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The 1033 program is just one facet of the militarization of police departments nationwide, which also includes SWAT deployments for drug searchers and collaborations between police agencies, arms manufacturers and foreign militaries. An ACLU report released in 2014 found that the “use of hyper-aggressive tools and tactics results in tragedy for civilians and police officers, escalates the risk of needless violence, destroys property, and undermines individual liberties.” Poor people and communities of color disproportionately see their neighborhoods turned into war zones by police, the investigation determines. Last year, President Obama issued an executive order placing some limits on the transfer of certain kinds of military weapons, referencing the demands of civil rights leaders and Ferguson protesters. However, he declined to eradicate the program or immediately recall all of the heavy arms that have been distributed to police departments across the country. High school senior Cantero believes Obama’s order does not go nearly far enough. “The 1033 federal program still exists in the nation, and I think the following step is to abolish the program in its entirety,” he said. “No school should have military-grade weapons. We want police military weapons destroyed.” “When you are a teen you feel like you have no control over anything,” he continued. “But what is amazing to me is that there were so many teenagers all over the city who felt the same way we did and stood up together. Power in numbers is an amazing thing. This is a national problem at the end of the day, because this is what the youth is going through. We’re not going to stop.” Sarah Lazare is a staff writer for AlterNet. A former staff writer for Common Dreams, she coedited the book About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahlazare. [...] Read more...
May 23, 2016 Read more...
May 23, 2016Today, after 18 months of ferocious uphill organizing the Labor/Community Strategy Center reached an agreement with the Los Angeles Unified School District and the Los Angeles School Police Department. They agreed: To return all military grade weapons to the Department of Defense “Excess Military Equipment Program” AKA the 1033 Program that is arming police departments all over the U.S. In particular, they returned 1 Tank, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle, 3 grenade launchers (“37 mm less less-lethal launch platforms” and 61 M-16 rifles. To withdraw completely from the 1033 Program. To provide a complete inventory to the Strategy Center and the public of every weapon they received under the program, when it was received, the serial numbers, and when and where it was returned. To apologize for the policy that brought the weapons to Los Angeles in the first place. The Strategy Center is the first group in the U.S. that we know of to win such demands. The LAUSD and the LASPD are the first government agencies that we know of—a police force of 500 officers and staff— to return all the weapons, withdraw from the program altogether, give a complete inventory of every weapon received and returned, and to issue a public apology to a civil rights organization and the Black and Latino students and communities whose lives were threatened by the program. The precedent can be explosive. We have shown that even if by one bullet alone—let alone a tank, 3 grenade launchers, and 61 M-16s—we can reduce the police arsenal of weapons just as they try to increase them and can win the ideological war against the growing police state. In our view, remembering Amilcar Cabral’s “tell no lies and claim no easy victories” this is a major structural, symbolic, and ideological victory for the Civil Rights, Black Liberation, Chicano Liberation, and revolutionary movements in the U.S. Lessons from our No Tanks in L.A. and the U.S. Campaign That Can Help Organizers in Every Urban Center Let me tell you the story of how we won this grueling battle of ideas and arms and some lessons for organizers in the U.S. who understand that the battle against the police/warfare state is the cutting edge of transformative organizing. Identifying our own government as a center of counter-insurgency against the Black Nation. In August, 2014 Strategy Center organizers Manuel Criollo, Ashley Franklin, and Julian Lamb went to Ferguson, Missouri in solidarity with the movement protesting the murder of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson—and the larger crime of the U.S. government against the Black community and the Black nation. When we saw the use of tanks, assault rifles we understood this was part of the war against Black people. At the time, we did not know about the Department of Defense 1033 Program but we and others soon found out. As CBS news reported, “For several nights this week, tanks, combat gear and assault rifles were seen in Ferguson, Missouri. It looked like a military operation. That’s because police departments in the St. Louis area—like those across the country—are arming their officers with equipment once on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. Much of it is free of charge or bought with federal grant money authorized by Congress. In the past year, the Department of Defense has given local law enforcement over 600 MRAPs, the armored vehicles designed to withstand roadside bombs. Texas alone has received 68, Florida 45. The Pentagon program has given police departments over $5 billion worth of surplus equipment since the program launched in 1991: helicopters, firearms, protective gear, night vision, even computers and camouflage clothing. The local police also get federal grant money to buy the military-style equipment. One recent study by The Center for Investigative Reporting found the federal government has doled out more than $34 billion to local police departments since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.” We did our research and found out that in Los Angeles the Los Angeles Police Department LAPD had amassed over 1,600 M-16 assault rifles, a military truck, military cargo plane and helicopter while the LA Sheriff has over 1,000 M-16 assault rifles, 2 MRAP tanks, and 62 mine detectors, all through the DOD 1033 program. We chose to begin the campaign by focusing on the School police because that was where we were doing most of our organizing and the issue of tanks in the schools would generate, we hoped, the greatest outrage that we could then bring to bear on the LAPD and President Obama. Exposing the Double Cross by the LAUSD. At the time, the Strategy Center was involved in negotiations with the School Board challenging the school to prison pipeline. We had won the overturning of the Daytime Curfew Law through which the LAPD and LASPD had issued 38,000 tickets to Black and Latino students for “truancy.” We had passed a School Climate Bill of Rights to end the offense of “willful defiance” that was code for disciplining Black boys in particular for any signs of life or rebellion. And while we were negotiating in good faith with the school board and police we found out that, behind our backs, they had contracted for the tank, the grenade launchers, and the M-16s. Making clear demands. The Strategy Center operates on a theory of “counter-hegemonic demand development” that I developed in my book, The Seven Components of Transformative Organizing. I learned that theory from my work with CORE, SNCC, SDS, the Black Panthers and my reading of Mao, Lenin, and revolutionary history. The objective is to raise real demands on the system that go to the heart of its ideological, economic, and political power and challenge the system itself. Manuel Criollo, the Center’s director of organizing, and I wrote a public letter to LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines with very clear demands. Immediately withdraw the District’s participation in the Department of Defense 1033 program Call on President Obama to end the entire DOD 1033 Program Destroy or dismantle all military grade equipment obtained by the LASPD: specifically the documented 61 M-16 assault rifles Make a complete inventory of LASPD’s military equipment and weaponry acquired throughout your enrollment in the 1033 Program Document all weaponry currently in LASPD’s possession Write to other school boards calling on them to discontinue their participation in the 1033 Program Work with us to call on the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department (LASD) to immediately withdraw from the 1033 Program and to destroy their military weapons obtained through the DOD 1033 Program — in that LAUSD students and our Black and Latino communities are subject to the jurisdictions of those departments as well. As you can see, this was both very specific in nature (almost all of which we eventually won) but also had the tenor of a revolutionary manifesto. (See www.fightforthesoulofthecities.com and Google for the full text of the letter). Building a base around the demands. The Strategy Center is very lucky to have Ashley Franklin as our lead organizer. Recruited from Scripps College with strong roots in Belize and the Black community she is a truly gifted group builder, propagandist, and agitator. Under her leadership, Elmo Gomez, Cindy Donis, Laura Aguilar, Monique Jones, Michael Davis and dozens of other politically conscious students from our Taking Action clubs, especially at Roosevelt High School in East L.A. and Augustus Hawkins High School in South L.A. carried out extensive classroom presentations, one-on-one studies, revolutionary art exhibitions, call- in campaigns to board members and direct confrontations with the board. The moral power of the students themselves was a big factor in turning the tide. These are the people on the frontlines. They decided that killing the 1033 Program in the Schools was a life and death issue for them. Framing the Debate Historically. Ashley, Manuel, and I teach revolutionary history as a critical component of political consciousness and building long-distance runners. Manuel teaches a course on the colonial nature of U.S. education for Blacks, Indigenous people, and Latinos. Ashley teaches about slavery and the Black codes. We use my book, Katrina’s Legacy, and the chapter on Black history, “History Can Guide US” in our political education work with students and faculty. In particular, we situate the counterinsurgency culture as a conscious effort by the white power structure to suppress the history and traditions of Black-led revolution in the U.S. And we say this directly to the people in power. In our letter to Superintendent Cortinez we wrote, “In our reading of history, the expansion and militarization of urban policing was a deliberate backlash against the militancy of a Black Movement—a very orchestrated and racist ideological campaign waged by the Nixon administration with the support of many Democrats to portray Black and Latino communities as violent and inherently criminal. The war on crime, war on drugs, and war on gangs —and now, the indefensible war on “thugs and criminals”—has been a racist subterfuge to lock up Black and Latino youth for jaywalking, marijuana and alcohol possession, “resisting arrest”, “parole violation”, disorderly conduct, and loitering. It is an ideological and military response to a people’s right to protest and resist oppression and the virtual re-enactment of the Black Codes. It is shameful that the LAUSD would want any connection to these crimes against humanity and our communities. This has led to the most blatant character and actual assassination of Black youth in Los Angeles, Sanford, New York, Ferguson, Baltimore and every city in the country. We saw after the Sandy Hook shooting that the LAPD, with the support of Superintendent Deasy, authorized additional police patrols in and around elementary schools. For those who have a world view of advocating for police expansion they will consistently call for increased armed force used against unarmed communities, when in reality our communities need homes, jobs, mental health clinics, health care and a dramatic reduction in police. In the wake of the heartbreaking and devastating increase of police shooting of civilians throughout the country and growing scrutiny of the militarization of police, we have witnessed the weapons LAUSD has in their possession similarly being used against protestors in the city of Baltimore. The National Guard was deployed against a people overwhelmed with feelings of grief and anger.” The students tell the school board they are aware of the racism of the system and its long traditions in the Black Codes and the war against the Black and Latino movements. The Board members, white liberal, Black, Latino do not like the accusations but the historical arguments give the students more confidence that this is not specific to their experience. They go beyond, “This is not good policy” to “You guys are trying to kill us.” They confront the board with bullet proof vests and cardboard tanks and helicopters with the slogan, “Students are not bullet proof.” Bringing the War Home Ashley Franklin explains, “We won the battle of ideas with our own students. We explained that the U.S. is already at war with Black and Latino communities; the only question is do we want to fight back in the war. These weapons were there for a reason—what we call “counterinsurgency” against the next freedom fighters. The students understand and agree, through our Freedom Summer and other educational programs, that the Black and Latino communities are oppressed nations and peoples inside the United States, not just suffering “discrimination” but national oppression by U.S. imperialism. That explains why M16s used to kill civilians in Vietnam are used to kill civilians in Ferguson, Baltimore, and L.A.” We confronted LAUSD President Steve Zimmer, “Your silence is consent. You say you did not know about them. Then you say you are “working on it” behind the scenes but in front of the scenes you do nothing but support educational and military racism.” We disrupted LAUSD Meetings forcing them to go into closed session and to turn their backs on the students. We called it “educational and military racism.” The students made bullet proof vests saying, “Students are not bullet proof” and kept asking the board, “Why do you want to kill us?” Challenging the Democratic Establishment. How is it possible that the U.S. is able to bring weapons of mass destruction into its cities with little or no opposition? Despite their efforts to demonize Trump, Cruz, and the Republicans it is the Democrats who are the main danger in every major city in the country. With the defeat of the revolutionary movements of the Two Decades of the Sixties the Democrats have built corrupt, gentrifying, corporatized white liberal, Black, and Latino political elites who are both servants and agents of corporate capital and imperialist urban development. It was Bill Clinton who led “Effective Death Penalty and Counter-terrorism Act” and “ending welfare as we know it.” It was L.A. Democratic mayors Tom Bradley, Antonio Villaraigosa, and now Mayor Eric Garcetti who enthusiastically embraced the title of “corporate tool” as a badge of honor. And it is the Democrats who have created the “normalcy” of police surveillance and occupation in Black and Latino communities. Most churches, community organizations, and social service agencies are “on the take and in the make.” They are part of the urban dictatorship of the political classes that suppress dissent and any challenge to Democratic officials from the local dog catcher to President Obama. In this 18-month campaign we worked every way we could to build a broad coalition to challenge the police state. But most labor unions and community groups, even in Black and Latino communities, said they agreed with the problem but in actuality chose to sit it out. That is why it took 18 months—we built this movement virtually alone, not out of sectarianism or self-promotion but out of necessity. Finding people of good will on “the other side—raising the moral challenge to those in power. It would be the height of arrogance or delusion to believe we brought the school board or the Los Angeles School Police Department to their knees. Our movement was impressive but still relatively small by historical standards—but relatively large by the standards of this age of reaction. When we disrupted the school board meetings we did so with elected officials we knew by name and had negotiated with for years. They knew we were smart organizers and were just doing our job. They could have called the police on us—but they didn’t. They chose to adjourn the meeting and go into “closed session” behind closed doors. And then we would meet with them and engage them directly one-on-one. Through conversations, arguments, phone calling campaigns, letters of record, demonstrations in the schools, the interventions of great teachers like Mark Gomez at Hawkins, inch by inch the system did move. There are some people “on the left” who think that protest in itself can win victories and that “street heat” is the key to victory. But in this campaign and in “the movement” in the U.S. we rarely have the power to defeat elected officials or to win by force alone. We did not have the power to take over the system let alone overthrow it. But, we had the power to confront people who believed they were not agents of state repression and as such, could appeal to them to confront the contradiction between their stated beliefs and their actions. In the end the school board and the LASPD did the right thing and we are very appreciative that they did. While we had many battles with Board President Zimmer he did move, in his own way at his own speed, to end the program. Compare that to Mayor Eric Garcetti who lied to the Strategy Center, the Bus Riders Union, and the bus and rail riders. He voted to raise the bus fares after he had promised us he would not. He broke every promise he made at public hearings, backed every rail contractor in town, and didn’t give a damn when 500 bus riders and community groups told him they could not afford one penny more let alone $25 a month for the transit pass. Or look at L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas, once of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and now of the Friends of Capitalism caucus who does not even pretend to give a damn about low-income bus and rail riders but is part of the MTA plan to once again raise sales taxes to pay for more gentrification. Our organizing in the No Fare Increase—No Cars in LA Campaign was at least as creative and militant as the No Tanks in L.A. campaign. But there was not one elected or appointed official on the MTA board who would support our demands or our movement. They didn’t care if MTA riders ate bread or cake, drove a car, rode a bus, or walked to work. In this story there are two more people who deserve real recognition for this victory—Board Member Monica Garcia and LASPD Chief Steven Zipperman. Monica Garcia, a member of the LAUSD board from East Los Angeles, has always been the strongest voice on the board to work with us to end the school to prison pipeline, to end punitive and racist educational policies, and to fight for “positive behavior support” as an alternative to excessive discipline, policing, suspensions, and expulsions. At a time just weeks ago when our allies from Dignity in Schools Campaign all over the country were coming to Los Angeles to support our demands we asked every board member to come out to support us, call for the full accounting of the weapons, and to issue an apology. I worked with Monica Garcia to encourage her to put forth the first public apology for the 1033 Program that was so essential to our campaign. We could not allow the LAUSD and LASPD to just return the weapons—we had to get an agreement that the policies were wrong and harmful to the Black and Latino communities. She wrote to the demonstrators, “To the Members of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Dignity in Schools Campaign…I regret that LAUSD’s participation in the 1033 program may have caused a lapse in the trust LAUSD was building with many community partners including the Dignity in Schools Campaign. I apologize for any misunderstanding caused by this participation and the perception among some that LAUSD seeks to perpetuate division instead of creating communities that are safe, supportive and successful. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “we have a long way to go.” Let us commit ourselves to continue to work towards 100% graduation by increasing support services for our scholars, increasing graduation, fully implementing the historic Student Climate Bill of Rights and ultimately eliminating the racial disparities that exists in suspensions, expulsions and academic achievement.” “Regret” “Apologize” “perpetuate division” “racial disparities” In this political context this was the first board member to apologize and as I read it to 300 demonstrators this was the strongest public acknowledgment of the role of our campaign and the demands we had raised. And in the end, this civil rights victory against police abuse could not have happened without the support of LASPD Chief Steve Zipperman. Chief Zipperman is a unique, principled police chief who has a conscience, can be appealed to, works with instead of suppressing community groups, and accepts the contradiction of his role in society. Manuel Criollo and he have worked together for years and many LASPD officers have worked with us to oppose the “zero tolerance” rules they have been asked to enforce. Manuel and I met with Chief Zipperman for two hours several weeks ago. When the LAUSD announced that they had returned all the weapons to the DOD the press asked us to claim victory and put the campaign to an end. We refused. We explained that we had no verification that all the weapons were returned and would not accept the undocumented statements of the board. We asked for a full accounting of every weapon—serial number by serial number. And then we demanded an apology from the School board and the police force. Now in organizing, you do have to know when to declare victory and when to stop making demands you can’t win after years of work. But the students were adamant that without verification and without an apology there were no guarantees the weapons were returned and no guarantees the policies would not be carried out again. On May 18, Chief Zipperman kept every promise, word for word, that he made to us. He began his seven page letter by saying, “Our past and ongoing commitment to strengthening trust and partnerships with the Strategy Center and other community organizations remains paramount.” This was followed by pages of every invoice, every weapon, every serial number, with a page of 61 M16s that start with serial number 1289118 and end 61 lines later with 1826156A along with the Fed Ex tracking numbers we requested. He ended his letter to us and the public with the following, “A final thought. The LASPD recognizes the sensitive historical aspect of associating “military-like” equipment and military presence within a civilian setting. We recognize that this sensitive historical component may not have been considered when originally procuring these type of logistics within a civilian or K-12 public school setting. LASPD regrets that not recognizing that aspect of your group’s philosophical stance may have strained our relationship with the Labor-Strategy Center and various members of the school committee.” In today’s historical context and in his institutional context this is a principled and perhaps risky decision— in which a police chief actually worried that he was straining his relationship with a militant civil rights and social justice organization as a rationale to agree to the issues we raised. Revolutions take place in unique and historically specific ways. We are very fortunate that the creative, impressive, and relentless organizing on our part had people on “the other side” who could be moved by our moral and political perspective. So now the campaign—no we never stop—moves on to make demands on President Obama to issue an executive order to disband the DoD 1033 program altogether. He has already issued a very weak executive order modifying it; he has the power to end it once and for all. As the California Democratic Primary is on June 7 we will be calling on Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton to support this demand on the president now—as well as pledging to end it if they are elected. Last night at the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities Planning Committee, members celebrated the victory and already began to talk about “So what do we do next.” We all agreed it would OK to defer the question for a few days and to use this Saturday’s general membership meeting for a big celebration—food, highlighting the work that people did, Martinelli’s sparkling cider (the full extent of our “letting go,” dancing, singing, drumming, and of course, more food. Victories are so hard to win against the state. It was exciting to hear a student say, “This is my first campaign and I can’t believe I have won such a big victory” while others, the young veterans, are saying, “You’ll see, there will be others ahead.” Eric Mann, a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers, is the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center. He is the author of Katrina’s Legacy: The Black Nation and the People of the World Confront the U.S. Empire and its Genocidal Climate Crimes. He is the host of KPFK Pacifica’s Voices from the Frontlines (www.voicesfromthefrontlines.com) He welcomes comments at eric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com Follow Eric Mann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EricMannSpeaks Read the article on Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-mann/the-strategy-centerfinall_b_10060222.html [...] Read more...
May 23, 2016Dear Mr. Eric Mann, First, I want to thank you for your dialogue with me, other Board Members and with Chief Zipperman over the past few weeks. Yesterday you received a detailed letter together with an inventory and timeline from Chief Zipperman. I very much appreciate your response. I am grateful for the Chief’s leadership and for his willingness to meet the requests presented by the campaign. I do believe the detail and the carefully compiled data shows without any question, LAUSD’s participation in the 1033 program has ended fully and completely. I also want to assure you that as long as I am a Board Member, LAUSD will never participate in any program like this again. Our recent meeting and dialogue has led me to review my actions as Board President during this difficult period. Upon reflection, I failed to understand the amount of pain and frustration our participation in the 1033 program could cause in the community and especially with our partners from the Dignity in Schools Campaign and the fight for the Soul of the Cities. The campaigns have been such important allies in our effort to transform school climate throughout LAUSD. I regret that I did not listen carefully enough to our student activists or to activists who have been struggling against systemic racism in many forms for years. I now understand that especially in the context of the many conflicts between law enforcement and communities of color across the nation, our participation in this program may have created perceptions about the role of our district and our school police that my silence exacerbated. Although the weapons obtained through the program were never intended for deployment or any use other than training, I now understand that even the possession of such weapons in the context of this moment damaged trust that we now must all work to rebuild. Please accept my apology for any and all of my actions that contributed to feelings of betrayal and injury and interrupted our important collaborative efforts for equity and justice in all aspects of public education. I know that you understand that I continue to support Chief Zipperman and the men and women of our Los Angeles School Police. I also believe that together we can move forward with nation leading work on transforming school climate in ways that will enhance the rights and dignity of every student in every school. By re-establishing a strong working relationship, we can recapture the momentum that led to key changes that school districts across the nation are beginning to replicate. Thank you again for our continued dialogue. I appreciate the opportunity to engage with the students who will be most affected by our policies and decisions. It is my hope and belief that we can move forward from this difficult moment. Thank you for your leadership in the struggle for civil rights, human rights and labor rights throughout my lifetime. Sincerely, Steve Zimmer President, Board of Education   [...] Read more...
May 23, 2016  [...] Read more...
May 20, 2016Dear Sirs: Our past and ongoing commitment to strengthening trust and partnerships with the Strategy Center and other community organizations remains paramount. It was a pleasure meeting with both of you on April 26,2016, to discuss the Los Angeles Schoot Police Department’s (LASPD) past involvement with the Department of Defense (DoD) Excess Military Equipment Program, commonly referred to as the “1033 Program.” The purpose of our meeting was to engage in continued dialogue on various questions and offer you clarity to the LASPD’s involvement with the program, Specifically, you were asking for a brief historical perspective of the 1033 program, clarity on the recent return of the equipment, and creating a deeper understanding on our part of your group’s position on law enforcement involvement w¡th the program, This correspondence was agreed upon to summarize our conversation and bring to closure any further discussion on this topic as it related to the LASPD and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). A Brief History: The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) excess property 1033 program has assisted law enforcement agencies for nearly 25 years in providing law enforcement agencies with critical but previously unavailable equipment for little to no cost. Over the years, equipment such as generators, tents, bedding, blankets, first aid kits, and water purification systems, to name a few, have been used to assist law enforcement agencies during natural disasters. Violent armed encounters such as the 1997 North Hollywood bank robbery; the lggg Columbine High School shooting; the events of September 11 , 2001; the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting; the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre; and public mall and theatre shootings càused many law enforcement agencies to reflect on how prepared they needed to be in dealing with real-world events such as “active shooter,” “mass casualties,” and “domestic terrorism,” which have become all too commonplace in the 21st century. Since 1971, over 130 School Shootings have taken place in the united states, resulting in over 27g fatalities. A Final thought: The LASPD recognizes the sensitive historical aspect of associating “military-like” equipment and military presence within a civilian setting. We recognize that this sensitive historical component may not have been considered when originally procuring these type of logistics within a civilian or K-12 public school setting. The LASPD regrets that not recognizing this aspect of your group’s philosophical stance may have strained our relationship with the Labor-Strategy Center and various members of the school community. A list of those items returned is included for your review as an attachment to this correspondence. Should you have any questions, feel free to contact the Office of the Chief of Police at213-202- 4508. Sincerely, STEVEN K. ZIPPERMAN Chief of Police Take a look at the attached PDF to see the Inventory of 1033 weapons returned by the LAUSD [...] Read more...
May 20, 2016To the members of the Labor Community Strategy Center and the Dignity in Schools Campaign, The need for safety is a collective responsibility that must balance our lessons learned from history, our present challenges and our vision for the future. I very much appreciate our LAUSD staff that embraces the tremendous responsibility to provide space and energy for the development of relationship, safety and environments for our children to learn. I regret that LAUSD’s participation in the 1033 program may have caused a lapse in the trust LAUSD was building with many community partners including the Dignity in Schools Campaign. I apologize for any misunderstanding caused by this participation and the perception among some that LAUSD seeks to perpetuate policies of division instead of creating communities that are safe, supportive and successful. Together, with community partners, LAUSD has come a long way. And to use the words of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “,.,we have a long way to go,” Let us commit ourselves collectively to continue our work towards 100% graduation by increasing support services for our scholars, increasing graduation, fully implementing the historic Student Climate Bill of Rights and ultimately eliminating the racial disparities that exists in suspensions, expulsions and academic achievement. I appreciate your spirit of collaboration. ln the spirit of hope, [...] Read more...
May 2, 2016View on Flickr View on Flickr [...] Read more...
April 29, 2016Imágenes de las noticias del canal 52 en abril de 22 para la lucha por el alma de las ciudades y la campaña por dignidad en las escuelas demostración nacional   [...] Read more...
April 20, 2016Dear LAUSD Board President Zimmer and Superintendent King: Urban Youth Collaborative is a civil and human rights organization working to stop the school to prison pipeline and the mass incarceration of Black and Latina/o students and communities in New York City. We are also allies of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and it’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities. We too are calling for President Obama to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program and other programs militarizing our schools and communities. [...] Read more...
April 20, 2016April 17, 2016 Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education Office of the Board 333 S. Beaudry Avenue, 24th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90017 Dear Board Members of the Los Angeles Unified School District, CESA (Community Education for Social Action) is a collective in the greater East Los Angeles area collaborating with working class communities to educate each other about social economic issues to gain political consciousness for social action. We work out of an autonomous community center in South Central Los Angeles which presents artistic events/workshops rooted in social justice, feminism, decolonization, and solidarity. We are also allies of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and its Fight for the Soul of the Cities. We too are calling for President Obama to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program and other programs militarizing our schools and communities. [...] Read more...
April 20, 2016Dear LAUSD Board President Zimmer and Superintendent King: The GSA Network of California is a racial and gender justice non-profit organization working to stop the school to prison pipeline and the mass incarceration of Black and Latino students and communities in California and across the United States. We are also allies of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and its Fight for the Soul of the Cities. We too are calling for President Obama to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program and other programs militarizing our schools and communities. [...] Read more...
April 20, 2016Dear Chair Zimmer and Superintendent King: We hope this message finds you well. The Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) is a national coalition of over 100 organizations in 26 states and Washington D.C. working to end the school-to- prison pipeline. We support alternatives to a culture of zero-tolerance, punishment, criminalization and the dismantling of public schools. We join the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a member of our coalition, in calling on school districts throughout the country and President Obama to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program’s lending of military weapons to law enforcement, including those working in K-12 public schools. [...] Read more...
April 20, 2016Dear LAUSD Board President Zimmer and Superintendent King: The Alliance for Educational Jsutice is a national network of 29 youth and intergenerational groups working to dismantle the school to prison pipeline and end the mass incarceration of Black and Latino students and communities in 21 U.S. cities. Many of these cities’ school police departments have also received weapons from the Federal 1033 program. As allies of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and it’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, we too are calling for President Obama to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program and other programs militarizing our schools and communities. [...] Read more...
April 19, 2016FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  April 13, 2016 Contact: Eric Mann, ericmann@mindspring.com, (213) 387.2800 Nancy Treviño, nancy@dignityinschools.org, (786) 201-8958 Manuel Criollo, manuel@thestrategycenter.org, (323) 243.9304 Students and Parents from Across Country Join Action Demanding De-Militarization of Los Angeles Schools We Want Full Account, Public Apology and Reparations Los Angeles– In late February, the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) informed the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities campaign that they had returned all military grade weapons granted by the Department of Defense’s (DOD) 1033 program. After a year and a half of campaigning for 1033 weapons to be destroyed, the Labor Community Strategy Center (LCSC) and Fight for the Souls of the Cities are demanding full accountability from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and LASPD for harm caused to the Los Angeles community. Strategy Center will hold an action on April 22 at 3:30pm at the Los Angeles Unified School District administration building with community members and students and parents from across the country of the Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC). The action will be a call for the LAUSD and the LASPD to provide transparency about their involvement in the 1033 program and a public apology. The organization will also call on the Obama Administration to end the DOD’s 1033 program and demand that LAUSD and LASPD take the following steps to repair the harm caused to the Los Angeles community: •     A full documented history of LAUSD and LAUSD involvement with the 1033 program, including a list of weapons received and returned to the DOD with documented proof. •     A public letter to LAUSD parents, students, teachers and other stakeholders including Labor/Community Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities coalition stating that LAUSD and LASPD have completely withdrawn from the DOD’s 1033 program. •     Full documentation of LAUSD and LASPD leadership role in applying for the 1033 program and the reasoning behind the action. •     Reparations for harm caused to community members and a commitment from LAUSD to cut the LASPD budget by 50%, reduces the LASPD police force by 50% and reduce the amount of existing LASPD weapons by 50%. •     Hold LAUSD Board of Education meetings at convenient times for full community engagement and restructuring of meetings to maximize public participation and district engagement. Join the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Dignity in Schools Campaign to call on LAUSD and the LASPD to de-militarize Los Angeles schools. WHAT: Action to end militarization of Los Angeles schools WHO: 100’s of Parents, students and community members of Los Angeles and members from 34 organizations representing 16 states of the Dignity in Schools Campaign WHEN: Friday, April 22 at 3:30 p.m. PST WHERE: Los Angeles Unified School District Administration Building, 333 S Beaudry Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90017 Backgound: Letter to Allies   Dignity in Schools Campaign Letter sent to LAUSD [...] Read more...
April 19, 2016Dear LAUSD Board President Zimmer and Superintendent King: The Philadelphia Student Union is a youth-led, civil and human rights organization working to stop the school to prison pipeline and the mass incarceration of Black and Latino students and communities in Philadelphia, PA. We are also allies of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and it’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities. We too are calling for President Obama to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program and other programs militarizing our schools and communities. [...] Read more...
April 13, 2016We hope this message finds you well. The Dignity in Schools Campaign (DSC) is a national coalition of over 100 organizations in 26 states and Washington D.C. working to end the school-to- prison pipeline. We support alternatives to a culture of zero-tolerance, punishment, criminalization and the dismantling of public schools. We join the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a member of our coalition, in calling on school districts throughout the country and President Obama to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program’s lending of military weapons to law enforcement, including those working in K-12 public schools…. [...] Read more...
April 13, 2016  [...] Read more...
March 28, 2016El distrito escolar fue urgido a mejorar la educación, a apoyar a la comunidad y a los estudiantes, en vez de aceptar programas militares  que lo dotaron de armas de alto poder. Y así puede tomar la delantera en este tema a nivel nacional. En este contexto, el Sindicato de Maestros de Los Angeles (UTLA, siglas en inglés) consideró que las autoridades educativas deben hacer un pronunciamiento de gran alcance, sobre todo en este momento crítico, cuando “el debate politico nacional se ha envenenado con ataques explícitos a la comunidad de color y se emplea un lenguaje racial tremandamente peligroso”. En el tapete de la discusión, estudiantes, maestros y dirigentes comunitarios han expuesto un tema álgido: las armas de alto poder –una tanqueta, tres lanzagranadas y 61 rifles de asalto M-16- recibidas por el distrito escolar para fortalecer la seguridad, como parte del programa del Departamento de la Defensa 1033.  Aunque – debido a la presión social- ya fueron devueltas, los cuestionamientos siguen, la polémica está encendida. “Este proceso nos ha dejado con más preguntas que respuestas y con mucho enojo”, afirma Manuel Criollo,  director de la Campaña La lucha por el Alma de las Ciudades, que luchó contra la “militarización del distrito escolar”, desde el momento mismo que se supo que ese armamento esta en predios educativos, hace año y medio. Lea el artículo completo sobre el LA Educación [...] Read more...
March 14, 2016A civic group protesting the military-style weapons once held by LA Unified police said they will continue to disrupt meetings and hold demonstrations until they get answers and action. The group, Fight for the Soul of the Cities, took over a committee meeting at the LA Unified school board headquarters last month, and this week held a loud protest of about 50 students, parents and teachers outside Tuesday’s board meeting shouting chants and banging drums. “We do not believe that the district has taken away all the weapons, and we are asking for more,” said the group’s director of organizing, Manuel Criollo. “We will not stop the protests and disruptions.” Read the Full Article on LA School Report [...] Read more...
March 9, 2016Dear Allies, We are happy to announce a major development, breakthrough and victory in our struggle against the Los Angeles Unified School District participation in the 1033 Program.  After a year and half the Strategy Center and its Fight for the Soul of the Cities campaign has convinced the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) to return all the weapons that they have received from the 1033 Program including the 61 M-16s that they held on to even after President Obama’s order and our demands. We are inviting your organization to participate in the National Campaign to End the DOD 1033 Program. We urge you to come to Los Angeles for a regional and national all-day organizing campaign meeting on Friday May 6 and participate in the Los Angeles campaign meeting on Saturday, May 7 to integrate the L.A. and national campaigns. The victory and ongoing campaign in L.A. can energize our campaign to get President Obama to issue an executive order to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program altogether.  The Strategy Center, through almost two years of organizing in high schools, communities, and media has forced the second largest school district in the country to return these weapons. We are now expanding rather than ending this campaign. We are calling on the LAUSD to:   Stop the Cover-up about LAUSD’s Educational and Military Racism, Tell the Full Truth, Return all the Weapons, and Document that they have done so. We need a full history of the first time the LAUSD and LASPD applied for weapons from the DOD 1033 Program, each weapon received, and when it was returned. We need the correspondence with DOD showing each weapon received and returned to prove there are no more DOD 1033 Weapons in the possession of the LAUSD and LASPD.  Sever All Ties with and Withdraw Completely From the DOD 1033 Program. We need a public letter to all students, parents, teachers, and civil rights groups including the Labor/Community Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities proving there is no relationship whatsoever now between LAUSD, LASPD, and DOD 1033. Take Personal and Collective Responsibility for Educational and Military Racism and Counter Insurgency against Black and Latino Students and Communities. We are calling on each LAUSD board member and LASPD staff to document their role.  We still have deeper questions for LAUSD Board and LASPD leadership. Who made the decision to ask for these weapons?  Who approved them?  What was the rationale given to ask for and receive military grade weapons to use against Black and Latino students and communities. Make a Public Apology. We are asking LAUSD board members and officials to publicly apologize for their actions and repudiate the entire concept of getting military grade weapons to use against our communities. We want an apology for their duplicity in asking for those weapons behind the backs of civil rights and community groups and their perpetuation and escalation of the armed occupation of Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles.   Grant Reparations. We are calling on the LAUSD and LASPD to repair the damage they have done to their relationship with Black and Latino students, parents, teachers, and the civil rights and human rights community. We are asking the LAUSD to cut the LASPD budget by 50%, cut the LASPD police force by 50% and cut all existing LASPD weapons by 50% now. Stop Undermining Participatory and Democratic Rights at LAUSD. We are calling on the LAUSD board to hold board meetings on evenings and week-ends so that students, parents, and community residents can attend. We want a commitment from the LAUSD that they will not turn off the public television cameras that provide live broadcasting of meetings when civil rights and community groups protest their policies. Call on the Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (that presently possess DOD 1033 weapons) to withdraw from the DOD 1033 Program and to return all DOD 1033 weapons. Call on President Barack Obama to Completely Terminate the Entire DOD 1033 Program.In terms of our national campaign: Please write a letter to the Los Angeles Unified School Board President Steve Zimmer and LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King in support of the demands above on your own letterhead. Please of course send us a copy as well. We are attaching a national sign-on letter urging President Obama to End the 1033 Program.  Even if you cannot attend the Los Angeles meetings please sign on to the letter. For those who will be participating in the national Dignity in School Campaign convening in Los Angeles from April 22-24, we will host an action to end the 1033 program in front of the LAUSD school board.  Please join us. For those who will be attending the May 6 meeting in Los Angeles (and if possible staying for the May 7 meeting) please confirm your attendance. In solidarity, Eric Mann, Director, Labor/Community Strategy Center Manuel Criollo, Director of Organizing, LCSC Ashley Franklin, Lead Organizer, LCSC Please email all responses to ericmann@mindspring.com   Had LAUSD declared a war with its student?  Why was the LAUSD Board debating if it can have weapons to shoot students or anyone else? After a year and half of organizing by the Strategy Center Fight for the Soul of the Cities organizers, leaders and members, we have received a letter from LAUSD that announced that reportedly LAUSD had finally returned all weapons received from the federal Department of Defense 1033 Program, a real milestone for the work but in many ways for us the struggle has just began and we need your support to expose a hurtful and malign civil, human and educational rights violation. As many of you know that LAUSD and the Los Angeles School Police Department applied and enthusiastically received surplus military weapons from the Department of Defense 1033 Program, including 61 M-16 assault rifles, 3 Grenade Launchers, an a MRAP tank, first used by Apartheid government in South Africa!  LAUSD went as far to try to explain that the M-16 rifles was a “standard law enforcement weapon”; the same M-16 that was declared by the International Red Cross as an ‘inhumane weapon’, first used in the battlefields of Vietnam.  At least, the LASPD rationale that while the ‘Grenade Launchers’ sounded like a bad thing, in reality we shouldn’t fret because they had no intention to use them to launch grenades but were planning to use them primarily as gas launchers for “crowd dispersal” which can only mean that the system is truly preparing itself for future social movement insurgencies that will rightfully be taking the streets to demand their rights. Instead of taking responsibility, LA School Police and the LAUSD Board of Education has basically refused to be held accountable for their decision to support a program that armed the Ferguson Police, Baltimore Police, Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio, ICE, the LAPD SWAT by participating in this indefensible program of counter-insurgency.  This program transferred over $5 billion worth of weapons of mass destruction creating a military occupation mentality and that has declared a war on Black and Brown communities.  LAPD has amassed over 1,600 M-16 assault rifles, a military truck, military cargo plane and helicopter; while the LA Sheriff has over 1,000 M-16 assault rifles, 2 MRAP tanks, and 62 mine detectors, all through the DOD 1033 program. The cities of the United States are an urban battleground—a war between the system’s counterinsurgency against a people’s insurgency that is just in the incubation stages—after 40 years of the system’s counter-revolution against the Great Revolution of the Two Decades of the Sixties led by the Black and Vietnamese liberation movements.  We have to understand that the militarization of local police were first established to squash the Black Liberation Movement in the 1960s and 1970s -and that Los Angeles was ground zero with the establishing of the LAPD SWAT team to suppress the Black Panther Party. As such, we see the Department of Defense 1033 Program as part of a U.S. counterinsurgency program targeting low-income Black and Latino communities who are already suffering from poverty, gentrification, and increasingly, drought, heat, flooding, and “extreme weather events” caused by the “polluting, policing, privatizing” government.  The system, in our view, is planning further suppression of the very communities who are standing up to the police state in a terrifying cycle of state violence with no end in sight. Let’s call this for what this is, it’s a Racist WeaponGate!  LAUSD sneaked in these weapons, now they want to sneak them out.  From the beginning of this debate, we asked the LAUSD to give us a full inventory of all weapons in LASPD possession-the public has a right to know, debate, question, and reject it.  They have refused to answer who ordered these weapons?  What were they planning to use them for? Who approved them? LAUSD instead of publically announcing that they have gotten rid of weapons because of community pressure by the Fight for the Soul of the Cities, the LAUSD and the LASPD have been moving slower than molasses to get out of this program.  We were informed by the media that the LAUSD transferred the MRAP tank to the Barstow Police Department and returned the three grenade launchers. But how could the District have asked for those weapons in the first place?  In June 2015, the LAUSD and LASPD claimed to “discontinue” their participation in the Department of Defense 1033 Program, yet it had refused to provide an inventory, show written proof of ending its relationship permanently with the 1033, or given proof of destroying or returning all the weapons and in fact asserted the right to retain at least the 61 M-16 assault rifles, nor willing to take leadership to urge President Obama to end the 1033 Program. And as a last insult, the LAUSD and LASPD leadership last week wrote an impertinent and aggressive letter announcing their decision to reportedly return the last weapons they had in their possession, expecting a thank you and let’s move forward.  It has been very painful for us and the people we represent to have to continue to debate with LAUSD about the moral unacceptability, in any way, to participate and collaborate with a U.S. government Department of Defense counter-insurgency program.  This is an attack on Black and Latino students and communities in Los Angeles and all over the U.S. We need answers now!  We need results, now!  We need our human and civil rights now! You can help by writing a letter and making calls to LAUSD Superintendent King, LASPD Chief Steve Zipperman, LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer and the entire LAUSD Board.  Join us on March 8th for a Rally at the LAUSD Board of Education meeting at 4:00 PM.  The Strategy Center’s has called for an LAUSD Board of Education motion to hold a Student and Community Accountability Session regarding the District’s participation in the Federal Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, March 8, 2016.    Demand a Student and Community Accountability Session regarding the District’s participation in the Federal Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program. We believe that a way to redress the harm inflicted on the community by LAUSD and LASPD deciding to participate in this program is to have a public accountability session.  It is critical that students and their families are provided with the complete facts and a timeline of the District’s participation, receive a public apology, and the District should provide redress for the LAUSD’s 18 year participation in the 1033 program. Fight for the Soul of the Cities Can Make Presentations to Your Organization and Base on the 1033 Program and Our Fight at LAUSD and Nationally to End the 1033 Program.  Support FFSC on social media Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/FightSoulCities and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/FightForTheSoulOfTheCities/ #‎End1033 ‪#‎DemilitarizeLAUSD ‪#‎ReparationsNow ‪ #makehistory #‎EducationRacism ‪#‎MilitaryRacism or keep up on our site fightforthesoulofthecities.com   Let’s Demand LAUSD to:  Stop the Cover-up about LAUSD’s Educational and Military Racism, Tell the Full Truth, Return all the Weapons, Prove that You Have Done So. We need the LAUSD and LASPD to document the full facts. We need a full history of the first time the LAUSD and LASPD applied for weapons from the DOD 1033 Program, each weapon received, and if they were returned, the correspondence with DOD, which weapons were returned, and a complete inventory showing each weapon received and returned to prove there are NO more DOD 1033 Weapons in LAUSD and LASPD possession. Formally Sever All Ties with and Withdraw Completely From the DOD 1033 Program. We need a public letter to all students, parents, teachers, and civil rights groups including the Labor/Community Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities proving there is no relationship whatsoever now between LAUSD, LASPD, and DOD 1033. Take Personal and Collective Responsibility for Educational and Military Racism and Counter-Insurgency against Black and Latino Students and Communities—each LAUSD board member and LASPD staff must document their role.  We still have deeper questions for LAUSD Board and LASPD leadership: who made the decision to ask for these weapons?  Who approved them?  Why did they really truly need them? A Public Apology. We are asking LAUSD and LASPD board members and officials to publicly apologize for their actions and the entire concept of getting military grade weapons to use against our communities, their dishonesty towards the community and their perpetuation and escalation of the armed occupation of Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles. Reparations — We need the LAUSD and LASPD to repair the damage they have done to their relationship with students, parents, teachers, and the civil rights and human rights community and to indicate penance for these abuses. We are asking the LAUSD to cut the LASPD budget by 50%, cut the LASPD police force by 50% and cut all existing LASPD weapons by 50% now. Stop Undermining Participatory and Democratic Rights at LAUSD—We Want Convenient and Effective LAUSD Board of Education Meetings for LAUSD Black and Latino Students, Parents and Community Members. We need to shift the culture of having Los Angeles Board of Education meeting at inconvenient times for student and parents and transform its current format and structure to maximize public participation and district engagement. Call on the LAPD and LA County Sherriff’s Department to Withdraw from the DOD 1033 Program. Call on President Barack Obama to Completely Terminate the Entire DOD 1033 Program.   Take Action Now [...] Read more...
March 3, 2016March 2, 2016 LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King, LAUSD President Steve Zimmer, Monica Garcia, George McKenna, Scott Schmerelson, Ref Rodriguez, Monica Ratliff, Richard Vladovic Los Angeles Unified School District 333 South Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor Los Angeles, California 90017   Dear Superintendent King: We are calling on the leadership of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) to create a motion to hold a Student and Community Accountability Session regarding the District’s participation in the Federal Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 program at 4:30 pm on Tuesday, March 8, 2016. LAUSD’s decision to participate in the counter-insurgency DOD 1033 Program and its impacts on the educational, civil and human rights for LAUSD Black and Latino students and their communities needs to be given space and we need a public accountability session.  This session will ensure that the greater community will have a public process to share their input and for the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities campaign to present our demands and case on the violation of LAUSD’s Black and Latino students and families educational, human and civil rights. From the beginning of this debate, we asked the LAUSD to give us a full inventory of all weapons in LASPD possession—the public has a right to know, debate, question, and reject it.  It has been very painful for us and the people we represent to have to continue to debate with LAUSD about the moral unacceptability, in any way, to participate and collaborate with a U.S. government Department of Defense counter-insurgency program for over a year and half. Instead of taking responsibility, LA School Police and the LAUSD Board of Education has basically refused to be held accountable for their decision to support a program that armed the Ferguson Police, Baltimore Police, Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio, ICE, the LAPD SWAT by participating in this indefensible program of counter-insurgency.  Let’s call this for what this is; it’s a racist cover-up!  LAUSD sneaked in these weapons, now you want to sneak them out.  As a last insult, last week we received a defiant and aggressive letter announcing your decision to return the last weapons you had in your possession, with the expectation of acting like we can just move forward. We believe that a way to redress the harm inflicted on the community by LAUSD and LASPD deciding to participate in this program is to have a public accountability session. It is critical that students and their families are provided with the complete facts and timeline of the District’s participation, receive a public apology, and the District provides redress for the LAUSD’s 18 year participation in the 1033 program. We believe this request goes beyond a personal need rather it creates a transformative format for true public participation. As we wrote to you yesterday and in our past correspondence, we believe that LAUSD Board of Education meetings have fostered a discourteous and undemocratic culture of participation and engagement between students, parents and their communities and the LAUSD Board and staff.  We believe that our request for a Student and Community Accountability Session with a time specific for the convenience of students and families, and a topic specific format will garner effective participation for LAUSD Black and Latino students, parents and community members. This must become LAUSD’s norm.  Likewise, we hope you will encourage a richer and responsive culture at LAUSD.  As you know Black and Latino students suffer various forms of racism, including the degrading way they are treated. Students understand this treatment as reflective of the negative view the system has about them. Therefore, when Black and Latino (and young women) students speak at public comment and the District representatives do not respond to them, this is interpreted as an act of racism and even if this is not people’s intent, it is the impact. Sincerely, Eric Mann                                                                                Manuel Criollo Executive Director                                                                 Director of Organizing Barbara Lott-Holland                                                           Ashley Franklin Associate Director                                                                 Lead Organizer   Download the PDF Here: Letter Superintendent King Request for a Student Community Accountability Session RE 1033 Take Action: Join us at the next LAUSD Board Meeting on March 8th @ 4pm (333 S. Beaudry Ave. LA CA 90017) Subscribe to our Newsletter Email a Comment or Question to Eric Mann Share this Page on your Facebook Buy Katrina’s Legacy Volume 2 Donate Leave a Comment Below [...] Read more...
March 3, 2016March 1, 2016 LAUSD President Steve Zimmer, Monica Garcia, George McKenna, Scott Schmerelson, Ref Rodriguez, Mónica Ratliff, Richard Vladovic, Superintendent Michelle King 333 South Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor Los Angeles, California 90017   Dear LAUSD President Zimmer: We strongly rejected the District’s participation in the Department of Defense 1033 Program; it was and continues to be a form of educational and military racism to participate in this counter-insurgency program. While it’s an important milestone that you have reportedly returned all the weapons received through this program including the last of the M-16 assault rifles; it’s unacceptable that there has not been a true factual account of your decision to participate in said program, no attempt to meet our demand to give us a full inventory of LASPD weapons, no public apology, no attempt to repair your harm on the school community, and no real resolve to reject this program all together given that it will impact Black and Latino students and their families. With the growing movement by Black and Latino communities, responding to systematic police criminalization, abuse and violence, and the numerous raids in immigrant communities by ICE and coordinated with local police departments—we understand that 1033 is a counter-insurgency program meant to suppress marginalized communities and repress movements and protesters as we witnessed in Ferguson, MO and Baltimore, MD. The Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities demands and calls on LAUSD to immediately: Stop the Cover-up about LAUSD’s Educational and Military Racism, Tell the Full Truth, Return all the Weapons, Prove that You Have Done So. We need the LAUSD and LASPD to document the full facts. We need a full history of the first time the LAUSD and LASPD applied for weapons from the DOD 1033 Program, each weapon received, and if they were returned, the correspondence with DOD, which weapons were returned, and a complete inventory showing each weapon received and returned to prove there are NO more DOD 1033 Weapons in LAUSD and LASPD possession. Formally Sever All Ties with and Withdraw Completely From the DOD 1033 Program. We need a public letter to all students, parents, teachers, and civil rights groups including the Labor/Community Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities proving there is no relationship whatsoever now between LAUSD, LASPD, and DOD 1033. Divulge and end any other ties to the DOD. We need to know if there are any other relationships between LAUSD, LASPD, and DOD that we do not even know about. Take Personal and Collective Responsibility for Educational and Military Racism and Counter-Insurgency against Black and Latino Students and Communities—each LAUSD board member and LASPD staff must document their role. We still have deeper questions for LAUSD Board and LASPD leadership: who made the decision to ask for these weapons?  Who approved them?  Why did they really truly need them? A Public Apology. We are asking LAUSD and LASPD board members and officials to publicly apologize for their actions and the entire concept of getting military grade weapons to use against our communities, their dishonesty towards the community and their perpetuation and escalation of the armed occupation of Black and Latino communities in Los Angeles. We need the LAUSD and LASPD to repair the damage they have done to their relationship with students, parents, teachers, and the civil rights and human rights community and to indicate penance for these abuses. We are asking the LAUSD to cut the LASPD budget by 50%, cut the LASPD police force by 50% and cut all existing LASPD weapons by 50% now. Stop Undermining Participatory and Democratic Rights at LAUSD—We Want Convenient and Effective LAUSD Board of Education Meetings for LAUSD Black and Latino Students, Parents and Community Members. We need to shift the culture of having Los Angeles Board of Education meeting at inconvenient times for student and parents and transform its current format and structure to maximize public participation and district engagement. We urge you to change LAUSD Board of Education meetings on weekends and/or weekdays after 4 pm. Also, allow public comment at the beginning of every meeting and secure more slots for speakers on agenda items especially on issues that are highly contested, budgetary or regarding civil rights items.  Lastly, over the past six months in our challenges to the LAUSD board the LAUSD TV broadcasting has been shutoff while we were addressing the board. We interpret this as a true suppression of the public’s right to speak and undermining the public right to know of policies that are violating their civil and human rights. Call on the LAPD and LA County Sherriff’s Department to Withdraw from the DOD 1033 Program. Call on President Barack Obama to Completely Terminate the Entire DOD 1033 Program. As an institution of learning, LAUSD must lead the nation in rejecting the militarization of the police and the human rights violations against Black and Latino people in LA and nationally. Sincerely,   Eric Mann                                                                                Manuel Criollo Executive Director                                                                 Director of Organizing Barbara Lott-Holland                                                           Ashley Franklin Associate Director                                                                 Lead Organizer Download the PDF Here: Letter to President Zimmer on 1033 for Public Apology Reparation Resolution Take Action: Join us at the next LAUSD Board Meeting on March 8th @ 4pm (333 S. Beaudry Ave. LA CA 90017) Subscribe to our Newsletter Email a Comment or Question to Eric Mann Share this Page on your Facebook Buy Katrina’s Legacy Volume 2 Donate Leave a Comment Below [...] Read more...
March 1, 2016By: Sonali Kohli and Howard Blume The Los Angeles School Police Department doesn’t have any more weapons from a controversial Department of Defense program, according to a letter the school district sent to activists on Monday. The weapon collection included grenade launchers, a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicle and rifles. On Feb. 5, the department returned the last of the weapons it had obtained through a Defense Department program that stocked local police departments with surplus weapons and equipment. The district sent the letter to the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a civil rights group, and provided it to The Times. But on Tuesday, a handful of activists commandeered an L.A. Unified school board committee meeting to demand proof. Returning all the weapons isn’t enough, Strategy Center Director Eric Mann said. He and the others want proof that the weapons have been returned, an apology from the district and a pledge to sever all ties with the Defense Department. They also want to see a reduction in the school police force and in existing weapons, he said in an interview. Read the Full Article here: http://lat.ms/1Ty1Wf7   Take Action: Subscribe to our Newsletter Email a Comment or Question to Eric Mann Subscribe to Voices From the Frontlines: your National Movement Building Show Share this Page on your Facebook Buy Katrina’s Legacy Volume 2 Donate Leave a Comment Below [...] Read more...
December 23, 2015teleSUR English speaks to Manuel Criollo, the director of organizing at the U.S.-based Labor rights and environmental campaign group The Strategy Center about the possible failure of nations to reach an agreement in COP21 climate change talks and what any forthcoming pact could mean for Latin America. Delegates from numerous countries have been locked in negotiations for hours in a bid to thrash out a climate change pact and have yet to reach a total agreement. As a result, the summit’s official closing date is being extended. What are the stumbling blocks the negotiators have faced in their talks for the 2020 climate change agreement? Manuel Criollo: The story stays the same as it has for the past 20 years during this tragic climate chess game called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: On one side, the ex-colonial and imperialist powers of Europe, Japan and the white-settler nations of the Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United States (its ringleader) and on the other side, stand the nations and peoples of the Third World (in U.N.-speak often referred as Developing Nations). It’s been a game of attrition, bullying, intimidation, divide-and-conquer and the constant changing of the rules at every turn. The binding agreement has to recognize and compensate for the climate crimes and climate debt that these Developed Nations (developed out of colonial and imperial plunder) have and will continue to cause on the planet. As a new draft of the Paris climate talks hits the halls of the U.N., one of the most important and yet utterly complicated early outcomes has been the embracing of a 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold by many parties, including the United States, to not surpass this climate threshold—a critical demand that many people of the world and those most impacted by the global warming have advocated for. Yet as negotiations move forward the details of the draft would render this important threshold a toothless and unenforceable goal and worst it would attempt to circumvent the idea of what been called “loss and damages” (U.N. talk to say climate reparations) for the climate crimes caused by the advent of U.S., European, Japanese colonial capitalist polluting development over the past 150 years…. Read the Full Article     Back to Cop21Paris   [...] Read more...
December 16, 2015The just concluded Paris Climate Conference — the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) — was a critical juncture in human and planetary history. Could the world’s governments, all representing Homo sapiens often at war with each other, come together to stop the capitalist and carbon-based catastrophe that in only 200 years is destroy all that God and nature produced for millions of years — since the last mass extinction. As the world’s emperors in varying degrees of clothes congratulated themselves we face a +3 degree world in which 775 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa are facing a world of catastrophic heat, droughts, floods, and famine. The pre-determined outcome in Paris was that the United States and President Obama needed a political victory more than the planet needed one and that all the parties, despite enormous antagonisms and conflicts of interests, would yield to the will of the world’s policeman and sole superpower. President Obama’s unique combination of charm, diplomacy, charisma, political will, and brute force gave him the victory he needed. But for a climate justice movement that does is just coming into being the challenge is can we convince people to give a damn enough to want to know the truth — and then can we get them to bring real structural demands on the president. The battle over Paris is not at all over. In fact, it is just beginning and the battle of the sum-up is the critical ideological and scientific baseline in the battle between hope and despair. Let me summarize some of the key battles that we have to fight and win that were not won in Paris. Read The Full Article Download the PDF File of the Article Here: The Paris Climate Talks [...] Read more...
December 8, 2015We’ve gotten a taste of what police militarization looks like—in cases like the events following police killings of black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore. Barbara Lott-Holland, associate director at the Labor Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, worries that these confrontations will only intensify as the threat of climate change grows. People were fighting for basic human rights in Ferguson and Baltimore, she says, and responses will be much more violent when protesters demand access to fundamental needs like water and food. Her solution? Abolish the program that supplies many of these weapons. The Department of Defense 1033 Program provides law enforcement agencies equipment for police militarization. That’s one of the strategy center’s four demands that Lott-Holland brings with her to the U.N. climate talks in Paris. The Department of Defense’s 1033 Program provides law enforcement agencies equipment for police militarization, such as aircraft, armored vehicles, and body armor. About 8,000 local law enforcement agencies have used the 1033 Program, but Lott-Holland’s efforts focus on Los Angeles. Last year, LA school police returned grenade launchers to the DOD after pressure from education and civil rights groups, including the Labor Community Strategy Center. The groups are especially concerned about safety for children of color. The school police ultimately kept 61 rifles, but how officials plan to use these weapons is still unclear, Lott-Holland says. “The responsible thing for them to do is to destroy the weapons,” Lott-Holland said, later adding, “We should have never had them in the first place.” Read the full article at Yes Magazine:  http://bit.ly/1SAHUAt [...] Read more...
December 4, 2015Posts from Paris: The World Is On Fire But the United Nations Is Not Post from Paris–Daily Commentaries for Pacific Radio The World is on Fire. But can the governments of the world put it out? I am here in Paris at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This is a critical struggle by the world’s governments to see if we can protect the planet from the ravages of the capitalist economic system. The United States and Europe are the very governments that started the fire and are still pouring gasoline on it as they speak. This would be pretty ironic if not funny–if the future of every living thing on the planet and the planet itself was not at stake…. Read the Full Article [...] Read more...
December 3, 2015President Barack Obama’s mission in Paris should be to join the world, not dominate it. We demand that he make real climate changes. The world is demanding that the United States dramatically reduce its emissions and pay climate debts to third-world victims of its obsessive production and consumption. Please join with the Labor/Community Strategy Center organizers who are in Paris calling on President Obama to take serious steps: We are calling on President Obama to announce in Paris (and return home to vigorously promote) these measures: — The United States contribute $10 billion a year to the United Nations Green Climate Fund to help finance third-world transitions to cleaner fuel and to pay for “loss and damages” caused by U.S. and E.U. emissions since 1850. — Reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2025 — starting now. Sign The Petition Here [...] Read more...
December 3, 2015Check out “Wine and Books” The Katrina’s Legacy international book launch if you happen to be in Paris at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.       [...] Read more...
December 3, 2015Check out Eric Mann’s Interview on the Laura Flanders Show Eric tells of how he first joined the movement and the atmosphere of the Black Revolution Movement of the 1960’s. He also speaks about the 4 demands that The Strategy Center is taking to the United Nations to put in front of President Obama. Cut U.S. Greenhouse gas Emissions by 50 percent of 1990’s levels by 2025 Starting Now. Contribute 10 billion dollars in to the Green Climate Fund Starting Now Return 100,000 internally displace black people to New Orleans End the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program which give military grade weapons to local police departments   [...] Read more...
December 3, 2015The Republican Senate just voted to reject plans by President Obama and the EPA to dramatically reduce emissions from coal power plants. This is reactionary politics. It is also political theater that plays right into the hands of the President. This allows President Obama to create the illusion that he is the embattled climate warrior–going to Paris slaying the Republicans with one sword and the Koch brothers with the other. But both parties and the Democratic-dominated Beltway environmental groups are complicit in a charade. The Republicans are simply carrying out election-year posturing while the president will veto the Republican bill and they don’t have the votes to override him. The U.S. media, especially those close to the Democratic Party, is now saying that the Republican vote will “weaken” the President’s hand in Paris. In fact, President Obama is the commander in chief of the U.S. army, the CEO of the U.S. Empire, and the manager of 800 military bases all over the world. He runs a drone program that targets and assassinates his political opponents. The president is nobody’s prisoner and nobody is tying his hands. At the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC), the President has told the world’s delegates that he needs to come out of Paris with a victory that can pass Republican objections. Even his allies are laughing because everyone knows there is no possible positive outcome that the Republicans would support. Instead, they blame the president for weakening if not destroying an urgently needed climate agreement in Paris–a plan he is carrying out for Democratic not Republican objectives. The President’s positioning for Paris is brilliant but reflective of American Deceptionalism. The President wants to give the impression that he is a visitor or at best a participant in the Paris UNFCCC when in fact he is in charge of it. The U.S. and President Obama are playing a very destructive role at the Paris UNFCCC. He is preventing a binding agreement in climate reductions and substituting voluntary and unenforceable Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC). He is misrepresenting the U.S. INDC by using a 2005 baseline from which he is calculating intended reductions of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions instead of the 1990 baseline that most other nations are using. As such, his already inadequate proposed 28 percent GHG emission reduction plan is at most a 14 percent reduction by 2025. He is opposing language in the Durban Platform, the final statement to the world of the UNFCCC, that would call for a 50 percent to 70 percent GHG reductions by the U.S. and the E.U. He is opposing language calling for massive payments, climate reparations, to Third World countries for “loss and damages” caused by the U.S. and the E.U. that could “finance” their development based on low and zero emission energy plans. Unless the U.S. plan is overturned in Paris the present draft is a scientific and ecological disaster. At this point in history, the primary goal of courageous elected officials is to present the radical, political, economic, and personal changes that will be required to save the planet–not just humanity but all species and the entire ecosphere. Given that the president was the leading force who pushed through the format of “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” the President should lead with a commitment to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2025. What does he have to lose? All he has to say is that he “intends” to do it. He will explain that he will make a lot of that happen through the most expansive interpretation of his Executive power and Executive orders. The rest he will aggressively place before state and federal legislative bodies including the U.S. Congress. He could write the following script, “I understand that planetary climate change is creating a catastrophe in front of our faces and having a disastrous impact on Third World and developing nations. I would like to profoundly apologize to the world that my selfish nation–with only 5 percent of the world’s population but more than 25 percent of the world’s GHG emissions–has a moral responsibility to reverse our legacy of climate disasters that some are even calling climate crimes. I plan to reduce U.S. emissions by 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2025. I plan to shut down U.S. highways two days a week and prevent auto use in large parts of the U.S. I plan to stop all drilling for oil and natural gas, and as I have learned from the Peoples Republic of China, shut down all factories for days if needed to dramatically reduce emissions right on the spot. I realize that ten years after Hurricane Katrina, one of the world climate disasters in U.S. history, there are still more than 100,000 Black Internally Displaced people in my country. I plan to enact executive orders to carry out the Effective Right of Return of those 100,000 Black people back to New Orleans.” So what could the Republicans do? Organize another No vote that he could veto? Condemn the president politically and call him what, everything they have called him since he was first elected in 2008? No, the problem is the Democrats who fear a strong climate platform will generate an exodus of corporate contributors and selfish voters to the Republicans. But the problem goes deeper. There are no prominent Democrats who are willing to support a 50 percent reduction in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions now. No Democratic presidential candidate has challenged the President’s weak and destructive policies in Paris. No Democratic presidential candidate has called for the Right of Return of Black residents to New Orleans. Let me escape from the mundane and self-serving Democratic Party debates to address the world crisis of mass extinction and in particular the clear and present danger to the people of Africa. A recent article by Justin Gillis and Somini Sengupta in the New York Times, “Limited Progress Seen as Even More Nations Step Up on Climate,” states that based on the governments’ “pledges” for Paris, “if fully honored would reduce the warming of the planet at century’s end to about 3.3 degrees Celsius from an expected 4.4 degrees Celsius.” But the terrible reality is that the pledges are deceptive and will not be fully honored unless a true climate justice revolution can beat off the ground. But even assuming all the pledges are real and honored the 2 degree Celsius alleged wall has been breached. Let’s look at what 3 degrees Celsius means for the people of sub-Saharan Africa. Mark Lynas in his book Six Degrees explains, “Sub-Saharan Africa in a three degree world will experience an extent of drying that is going to be far off any scale that would permit human habitation. And for people already eking out a living on the margins of subsistence the result can be summed up in one word: famine.” “Sub-Saharan Africa” is made up of real nations, real people. Those nations are Angola, Burundi, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Sao Tome and Principe, the Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Zimbabwe with a combined population of 775 million people.” We need people who place the future of the planet and the truth as primary to challenge both the Democratic and Republicans parties and to build a climate justice movement–as we did during the 1960s–willing to challenge J.F.K., L.B.J. and the Democrats on civil rights and the war in Vietnam. We need Democrats willing to challenge the U.S. President and stop hiding behind the Republicans as the excuse for their own cowardice and opportunism as the world is on fire. My organization, the Labor/Community Strategy Center, rooted in the traditions of Martin Luther King, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, and the broader civil rights and anti-war movements is going to Paris to ally with NGO and government forces who do not see the U.S. or the Democratic Party as the center of the earth–but rather, see the center of the earth as the challenge to the U.S., the Democratic Party, and President Barack Obama. Eric Mann is an NGO delegate to the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference representing the Labor/Community Strategy Center. He will be doing daily “Posts from Paris” for Pacifica and his KPFK radio show, Voices from the Frontlines, www.voicesfromthefrontlines.com His new book, Katrina’s Legacy: The Black Nation and the People of the World Confront the U.S. Empire and Its Genocidal Climate Crimes will have its international opening in Paris in December 2015 and its U.S. opening in Los Angeles in January 2016. He can be reached at eric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com   Read the Original Article on Huffington Post [...] Read more...
December 3, 2015In December 2015 the world’s governments will meet in Paris for a truly historic event — the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference. (UNFCCC). The objective of the conference is to protect Mother Earth from the assault of its most ungrateful inhabitants. The challenge is whether Homo sapiens, especially those of the ruling classes of the United States and Europe, can be civilized by the rest of the world before it is too late for all of us. The challenge to the UNFCCC focuses on the growing world demand that the U.S. and Europe — as the greatest historical polluters, the initiators and beneficiaries of the Industrial Counter-Revolution, and the creators of economies based on slavery and conquest — must lead the way with radical reductions of Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) of at least 50 percent if not 60 percent or more over the next decade. My fear is that the world’s governments, under pressure from the United States, President Obama, and the leaders of the European Union, will be unable to reach any agreement as we move towards the catastrophe of a 2 degree and then 3 degree world — as massive and hysterical production and consumption in “the West” and the world system proceeds unabated. I am a civil rights and climate justice organizer. I have been working at the United Nations through the World Conference Against Racism in Durban in 2001, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002. I have spent the last year reading every version of the U.N. Durban Draft, and have attended, along with Strategy Center Associate Director Barbara Lott-Holland, two preparatory UNFCCC meetings in Bonn, Germany in May and October. I have spoken with hundreds of representatives of world governments and international NGOs. Based on this investigation and assessment I am deeply troubled by President Obama’s role in this process and want to put forth some positive and necessary programmatic proposals. The President’s Present Trajectory — A Tragedy in Four Acts 1) President Obama is not just attending the UNFCCC in Paris — he is running it. The U.S., as the world superpower with 800 military bases and its hand in every zig and zag of the Paris Process, is the elephant in the climate change bathtub. Whatever UNFCCC’s achievements or failures, President Obama and the U.S. will be the chief architects. In my assessment, the U.S. tactical plan is to prevent any strong commitments in Paris that will expose the paucity of its own proposals. As I’ll explain it is working to prevent a strong final document and is setting the bar for success very low so that the President can claim victory and protect any Democratic Party candidates from having to defend and run on a controversial climate agreement. 2) The President and the E.U. have set the ground rules for Paris that prohibit any legally binding agreements such as Kyoto — which the U.S. had refused to ratify. This time the U.S. has imposed a plan for Paris called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC). Under the INDC process every nation is free to make up whatever GHG emissions reduction numbers it chooses, to present them without an implementation plan, and to leave Paris without any obligation to carry out its “intended” reductions. This is planetary destruction on the honor system–what I call Pretended Nationally Deceptive Retributions. 3) The U.S. INDC is based on a mathematical misrepresentation — with disastrous consequences. Most of the nations’ INDC proposals are based on reductions in emissions from 1990 levels. But the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — a well-known reactionary bloc at the U.N. called JUSCANZ — have arbitrarily rejected the 1990 baseline and instead, submitted their INDC proposals based on 2005 emissions. As such, the President’s already inadequate proposal for a 28 percent reduction is in fact only a 14 percent reduction from 1990 levels. As the Centre for Science and Environment observes in their compelling study, Capitan America, “Just by changing the base year, the US has avoided cutting 500 Million Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide Emissions (500 MMTC02E GHG)” 4) The President is the main obstacle to progress in Paris. Contrary to his view that he is “dragging the world behind me to Paris” (as he told Rolling Stone) most U.N. delegates see the President and the U.S. as the main obstacles to a strong agreement in Paris. The UNFCCC has been working for a year to reach an agreement on the final text off a document — The Durban Platform. This, while not binding, could possibly set a high moral and scientific standard for emission reductions and, like the Pope Francis’ Climate Encyclical, create a moral pressure on governments. Third World governments are proposing language based on what is called “common but differentiated responsibilities” that calls on the primary polluters to make the largest cuts. There is proposed language for what is called “loss and damages” that would require the large polluters — U.S., Canada, E.U — to make massive payments, specifically100 billion a year, into a Green Climate Fund to “developing countries.” This would be used to facilitate their transition to less polluting and zero emission development and to give “technology transfers” from the “developed nations” to the “developing nations.” And yet, at every daily debate of the governments, the U.S., the E.U., and JUSCANZ, have blocked any language in the document in that direction. The last preparatory conference in Bonn, October 19-24, was marked by bitter denunciations from many Third World nations of “powerful forces” who were blocking any strong statements. This battle is not over as many representatives of the G77 and China served notice there would be very contested negotiations in Paris to prevent a cover up masked as a coronation. And yet, many seasoned delegates from governments and NGOs told me they fear that President Obama will recreate his power play at the 2009 Copenhagen COP where he came in at the last minute and pushed through a draft agreement that undermined all the work that others had done — and undermined what was left of the Kyoto agreements. In their view, President Obama shifted the burden from the U.S. and the E.U. to China and India. From President Obama’s point of view, as he boasted to Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone, in Copenhagen, he “crashed” a meeting of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, China, India) because he felt that the work they were doing was “a disorganized mess.” He felt he had to “rescue” all the parties by “strong arming” them to agree that “it wasn’t enough just for the advanced countries to act — that China, India, and others, despite having much lower per-capita carbon footprints, given the sheer size of their populations and how rapidly they were developing, were going to have to put some skin in the game as well.” An alternative view, from the most militant climate organizers I have spoken with in both India and China is that President Obama, in fact did not lead with addressing the U.S.’ historical responsibilities but rather, resorted to what they called “India and China bashing.” And his “strong arming” was little more than Great Power Bullying. While it was a public relations victory for the president, in their view, his heavy handed behavior in fact set back the world climate movement immeasurably. I have spoken with representatives of the Small Island States at the U.N. — Tuvalu, Marshall Islands, Samoa, who have begged the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to stop the floods and destruction of their islands and cultures. They observed, “The President has refused, telling us he can’t get a strong commitment through a Republican Congress. But we feel it is he who does not really want to do it — for all he has to do is make the case and make the Republicans look bad. But the U.S. is too powerful for us to challenge them directly. That is your job.” Four Climate Justice Proposals for Paris My organization is going to Paris with four action proposals that we are asking the president to endorse and for which we will be organizing international support. 1) The United States must cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2025 — starting now! The established science and the world climate crisis mandates the U.S. to initiate at least a 50 percent reduction of emissions from 1990 levels by 2025. Such a plan would have to go far beyond setting stricter standards for power plants and fuel efficiencies for cars. It would require shutting down factories, closing freeways, and stopping the U.S. society’s obsessive compulsion with consumer goods. The Strategy Center has initiated a No Cars in L.A. and the U.S. Campaign as a radical but reasonable response to the severity of the problem. The president does not have to put forth a comprehensive plan to achieve a 50 percent reduction but since he was the one to impose the idea of “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions” he must start with the intention to do what is scientifically and climatically necessary–which is to popularize the concept of at least a 50 percent reduction from 1990 levels starting now. 2) The United States must contribute $10 billion a year into the United Nations Green Climate Fund—starting now! In 2010 the United Nations established the GCF as a mechanism to move funds to Third World, “developing” nations to finance transitions to lower emission and zero emission development. The stated goal is to raise $100 billion a year but most governments have either made weak promises or not even funded what they pledged. For example, the U.S. has pledged $3 billion but makes it ambiguous about whether that is $3 billion a year or $3 billion over 5 years. So far, the president has only pledged $500 million and none of it has been allocated by Congress or deposited in the fund. President Obama can make the pledge for $10 billion a year (compared to the U.S. military budget of more than $600 billion) and then we can build the movement to get the government to actually pay it. This should be in the form of cash payments not the ambiguous proposals of loans or “mobilizing funds from the private sector.” 3) The United States must bring back more than 100,000 Black internally displaced residents to New Orleans — with jobs, housing, and medical benefits — starting now! In my forthcoming book, Katrina’s Legacy I explain Ten Tactics by which the U.S. carried out a Genocidal Climate Crime in New Orleans by consciously driving more than 250,000 Black people out of New Orleans in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina and working to prevent their return. Now, there are still more than 100,000 Black Internally Displaced People, former residents of New Orleans, scattered and discarded all over the U.S. This demand has been raised by the Survivors Village and Advocates for Environmental Human Rights in New Orleans and is still an ongoing and real demand requiring presidential intervention. We plan to bring this to the UNFCCC to build international support for this demand and call on President Obama to take executive actions to make it happen. 4) President Obama must end the federal Department of Defense 1033 Program that gives military grade weapons to local and state police forces including school police. The Strategy Center has initiated a No Tanks in LA and the U.S. Campaign along with other civil rights groups calling for an end to this counter-insurgency program — that provides tanks, armored vehicles, and M16 rifles to local police forces. As the protests against police brutality and poverty in the U.S. escalate so has police violence and intimidation tactics against demonstrators. As the climate crisis intensifies both inside and outside the United States, daily life is marked by droughts, floods, extreme weather events, food shortages, hunger, famine, mass poverty. This in turn generates massive movements of internally displaced people and world refugees and immigrants who in turn will be making demands on world governments including the U.S. It seems clear that U.S. ruling circles have no plans to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emission but do have plans to repress rather than address mass protests — thus arming local police forces with tanks, grenades, and M16s. We have to end this Department of Defense civil rights, human rights, and environmental rights injustice and bring international awareness about and pressure upon the Obama administration to end this repressive program. On November 28 and 29 in Paris hundreds of thousands of demonstrators will be calling on the world governments to make the most radical reductions in GHG emissions and take the strongest actions possible to reverse the pace of lethal global warming. On November 30 through December 11 tens of thousands of government officials and NGOs will meet in Le Bourget, Paris to fight for a strong platform and agreement. Manuel Criollo, Barbara Lott-Holland, Channing Martinez, Ashley Franklin, and I, representing the Strategy Center, will be participating in those epochal events. Of course we cannot, alone, make history but as part of massive movements around the world for climate justice we can play an important role — to raise the central question, “What are we doing to do about the United States?” President Obama, who began as a community organizer, understands that our job is to bring clear proposals and demands on those in power with a strong scientific and moral rationale. We have seen the president respond positively to the militancy and moral clarity of the Dreamers and change some aspects of his immigration policies, respond to the militant advocates for gay marriage, and respond to Indigenous and environmental groups who called on him to end once and for all the Keystone XL Pipeline. It is our job to build a base around our program — to call on the president to change his baseline from 2005 to 1990 and his Intended reductions from 14 percent to 50 percent, to contribute $10 billion into the Green Climate Fund, to bring 100,000 Black Internally Displaced Residents of New Orleans back to their homes, and to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program. Paris is a great arena for organizing, for as we said during the 1960s, “The Whole World is Watching.” The President and we both understand the wisdom of Frederick Douglass who argued, “Power concedes nothing without a demand — it never has and it never will.” Eric Mann, director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, is an NGO delegate to the United Nations Framework Climate Change Conference. He will be doing daily “Posts from Paris” for Pacifica and his KPFK radio show, Voices from the Frontlines, www.voicesfromthefrontlines.com His new book, Katrina’s Legacy: The Black Nation and the People of the World Confront the U.S. Empire and Its Genocidal Climate Crimes will have its international opening in Paris in December 2015 and its U.S. opening in Los Angeles in January 2016. He can be reached ateric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com [...] Read more...
December 2, 2015LIVE FROM PRELUDE TO PARIS; Eric Mann, Manuel Criollo, Ashley Franklin, and Channing Martinez speak about the 4 demands being put in front of President Obama by The Strategy Center, and their delegation (including Barbara Lott Holland) during the ‪#‎UNFCCC‬ in Paris this December Listen to the Live Recording Here   [...] Read more...
August 19, 2015Read this Article on Huffington Post On Thursday, July 30, 50 Black and Latino students wearing mock bullet proof vests with stickers that stated #StudentsAintBulletProof #End1033, from the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, once again asked the Los Angeles Unified School District to give us a list of the weapons they received from the Department of Defense 1033 Program, to return 61 M-16 assault rifles we believe are still in their possession, and to apologize for being in the program in the first place. Students said, after three public comment testimonies, four long letters (September 2014, November 2014, May 2015, July 2015), over 3,500 petitions, appeals, and every other method of persuasion “Why is the LAUSD trying to kill us?” This campaign is part of the Strategy Center’s No Cars in LA and the U.S., No Tanks in LA and the U.S. Shortly before the board meeting Manuel Criollo, the Center’s director of organizing and I received a letter from LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines informing us that “the Los Angeles School Police Department discontinued its participation in the DoD 1033 Program. This decision was made prior to the release of the May 2015 Presidential Order 13688 limiting or restricting law enforcement agencies nationwide participation in the aforementioned program.” We wrote back saying that language was very vague — what did “discontinued its participation” mean? Was the LAUSD completely out of the program? What military grade weapons had it received from the DOD, which weapons and when had it returned (such as the DOD MRAP tank) and which weapons, such as the reported 61 M-16 Assault Rifles, it still retained and when it planned to return them. We did not receive a reply. When we talked to new LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer and other board members there was ambiguity about what they knew and what they were told — and they agreed to at least find out the answers to our questions. But we wrote back that we needed more than that. We needed a commitment that they would introduce a motion supporting the demands we had been raising for a year — including calling on President Obama to end the entire program. But we also raised deep concerns about what we believed was the board’s disrespectful behavior towards the public during “public comment — in which students and parents pour their hearts out but board members do not comment, empathize, or offer encouragement. Instead, after each person speaks, the chair says, “next!” turning “public comment” into a sterile exercise of sham democracy. We believed we had the commitment of one board member to change that behavior, to respond to Strategy Center’s demands we have raised for more than a year, to introduce a motion to make a full accounting of the process and the weapons, to let us know if they had any remaining weapons, and to commit to returning every one down to the last bullet. But the students did not get a positive response or from most board members, any response at all. One LAUSD Board member did address the group — in response to students’ demands from the audience. Sadly, Dr. George McKenna (the sole Black member of the board) aggressively defended the tanks, M-16s, and other lethal weapons in the schools. He argued that gangs, drugs, terrorists are all a threat to the public safety, that he wanted to keep the weapons, and added, provocatively, that he would ask for “drones” if the federal government gave them out. Then, the LAUSD staged its own “walk-out” and left the meeting to go behind closed doors into “closed session” a political and symbolic reflection that the board was truly closed to the needs of the students. As the LAUSD abandoned the students they chanted, locking arms, “students ain’t bullet proof,” “students first we want answers now,” “back to school, no weapons,” “silence is consent,” “if Black lives matter return the weapons.” Then, in an empty board room, the students held their own public hearing and testified as to their fears of going to schools that have armed police and a school board that clearly sees them as the main danger — including asking for even more weapons to suppress them. We understand that many people would argue, out of frustration, that we are wasting our time going through these formal processes and board meetings and votes and should just move to protest, exposure, and calls for revolt, rejection, and revolution. But Ashley Franklin, the lead organizer of the Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities, explained that there is dialectic between reform and revolution and rather than being opposites in fact they are two parts of a revolutionary whole. The Strategy Center has a general strategy of social revolution that requires the most radical structural changes in society and is working to build new structures, like the Bus Riders Union, Community Rights Campaign, and Fight for the Soul of the Cities, that can be new base areas of grassroots resistance. We based our work on the great radical experiments of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, Dr. King and Malcolm X, Black Panther Party, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, and the 1970 Black Political Convention — where the slogan was, “It’s Nation Time.” During that period, “the Movement” created structures of resistance. They recruited people to very specific reform struggles that challenged the ideology and power of the system and won important material and political victories for the people. In that context, we have worked with the LAUSD in a complex but at times constructive, even positive manner. We won the roll back of truancy ticketing and the racist day-time curfew in which more than 37,000 Los Angeles Black and Latino students were ticketed and fines of $250 to $1,000 were eliminated. (The stop and frisk of students for truancy was not eliminated.) We worked with the School Board to pass the School Climate Bill of Rights with our allies Brothers Sons Selves in which they banned the use of so-called ‘willful defiance’ suspensions, ushered in restorative justice as alternative and intervention, and limited the role of police in school discipline. The Strategy Center introduced the Equal Protection Plan which the board adopted. The EPP has eliminated thousands of tickets and arrests in schools by decriminalizing a whole range of everyday student behaviors from schools fights, tobacco and alcohol possession and normal discipline issues. But we were also training tens and at time hundreds of students, parents, and teachers in a real-life political education process. In the process of struggle we learned how the system works, how to fight it, how to win victories, and how to keep up the political initiative. We felt we were making modest progress towards weakening, derailing, and eventually dismantling the school to prison pipeline. And yet, in June 2014, while we were negotiating in good faith with the LAUSD and Los Angeles School Police Department, they, without consulting or even informing us or any other civil rights groups, made a clandestine application to the Department of Defense to bring more surplus military grade weapons into the schools with the express intent of using them — otherwise why ask for them in the first place. This is institutional racism and part of the conscious, intentional national policy in the U.S. in which the Black nation is subjected to a systematic counter-insurgency plan. This plan to crush the civil rights and Black Liberation Movements and their positive influence on Chicanos, Asian/Pacific Islanders, Indigenous peoples, women, and supporters of all races, has proceeded unabated for more than 40 years — from Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and sadly, President Obama despite occasional deviations from the script. These policies are a unified matrix of exclusion from the job market, deteriorated housing, ending of the social welfare state, massive hunger and poverty, environmental degradation, daily attacks by police and a consistent police presence that is a conscious army of occupation in Black neighborhoods and institutions. Let us be clear. The DOD 1033 program is a part of a conscious “counter-insurgency’ strategy by the system. Those in U.S. ruling circles, including President Obama, well understand that these policies are already generating mass rebellion (thus the government tanks in Ferguson, Missouri, the mass uprising in Baltimore) and is ramping up military grade weapons to suppress the greater rebellions it knows it is provoking. On May 18, 2015 President Obama passed an executive order on the Department of Defense 1033 program that was heralded as a major blow to the program. But a closer examination indicates its profound limitations. Positively, it specifically prohibits the use of the DOD 1033 military weapons for school police departments that exclusively serve K-12 schools, which we and other civil rights organizations have been demanding for a year. But it is unclear if it demands that the school boards return the weapons they already possess. Moreover, it places very few restrictions on institutions like the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department to get new weapons. Our goal is to get President Obama to follow through and to end the DOD program altogether. You can help! We need people all over the United States to rally against this human rights violation and the rights of the Black nation and Latino people in LA and nationally with two key demands: 1. Send a letter to President Barack Obama to end the 1033 Program now. The president, as “commander in chief” but also as the head of every federal agency, can end this program through executive power and an executive order if necessary. While this story talks about the abuses in Los Angeles there are DOD 1033 weapons military weapons in every major urban center in the U.S E-mail President Obama Now 2. Send a letter to LAUSD President Steve Zimmer, LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines, LASPD Chief Stephen Zipperman. Call on them to: Terminate all LAUSD ties to the Department of Defense. The school board has told us they have “discontinued participation in the program” but will not answer when that happened, which weapons they still retain, and their commitment to return them Give a full accounting of when the Los Angeles Unified School Board applied to the 1033 program, which weapons they initially received and why they felt a need for such lethal weapons against their own students Provide a full accounting of any weapons they still possess from the DoD 1033 Program and an agreement to return and destroy those weapons within 30 days at the latest with a clear statement they are out of the program permanently The LAUSD should call on President Barack Obama to end the DoD 1033 Program completely and now With the growing rebellions in Black communities in response to systematic abuse, assault, imprisonment, torture, and murder of Black people, we truly fear a greater repression of demonstrators by armed police, national guardsmen, and other forces of state repression. We need a systematic and symbolic win — that every police force in the U.S. must give back every weapon from the 1033 Program, that every city and town pull out of the 1033 program, and President Obama overturn the whole program. Let’s seize the time and fight to win. Call LAUSD Board Chair Steve Zimmer: 213-241-6387 Send him your letter: steve.zimmer@lausd.net Call LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines: 213-241-7000 Send him your letter: superintendent@lausd.net Call LASPD Chief Stephen Zipperman: (213) 202 – 4508 Send him your letter szipperman@laspd.com Eric Mann is the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and The Fight for the Soul of the Cities. He is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers and the author of Katrina’s Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He is the host of KPFK Pacifica’s Voices from the Frontlines and will be attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris December 2015. He can be reached at eric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com Follow Eric Mann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EricMannSpeaks [...] Read more...
July 30, 2015LAUSD and LASPD has proclaimed its discontinued relationship with the Federal Department of Defense 1033 Program, FFSC Rally and Demonstration Demanding LAUSD to Destroy/ Return All 1033 Weapons On Thursday, July 30th  at the Los Angeles Unified School Board, the Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities Campaign members and leaders will rally and hold a demonstration calling on the Los Angeles Unified School District to end the militarization of our schools by ending their relationship with the Federal Department of Defense’s 1033 Program and destroy all equipment received through this program. The Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Fight for the Souls of the Cities Campaign received a second copy of a letter dated June 19th from LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines stating that the Los Angeles School Police Department has “discontinued” participation in the Department of Defense 1033 Program.  This program permits the transfer of surplus military weapons to local police agencies, including those police departments serving K-12 schools, since its inception in 1990 where over $5 billion of weapons have been transferred to date.  The use of military equipment in urban settings comes out of the reactionary traditions of “counterinsurgency” against people making demands on corporations and their government—policies that violate people’s human rights all over the world including the United States.  Last summer, it was revealed that LAUSD and its LASPD had received at least 61 assault rifles, 3 grenade launchers and 1 MRAP vehicle. We recognize that this letter is a critical advance by the LAUSD and LASPD in ending its relationship to this racist program of counter-insurgency.  Yet, as a civil rights and human rights organization with deep ties to the 650,000 LAUSD students and many of their parents and teachers – we are obligated to get clear exactly what was done, when, what verification there is, and again what weapons does the LAUSD, if any, still have in its possession. For the Strategy Center, a clear way we can measure if LAUSD and LASPD has ended its relationship with the 1033 program will mean: 1) an official letter of LAUSD to the DOD stating their intent to end their relationship to the program, 2) that LAUSD destroyed or returned the unaccounted 61 M-16 assault rifles, 3) a public statement on the LAUSD board decision to discontinue its relationship to the 1033 Program and its destruction or returned status of all DOD 1033 program acquisition including the M-16’s.  We hope LAUSD/LASPD will agree that these are important markers to move forward and that we are discussing the same outcomes, with the same set of facts and agreements. Clearly, if Strategy Center can get verification on all this points, we believe LAUSD discontinuing its participation in the DOD 1033 Program will be an important breakthrough for the organizing we have engaged over the past year to demilitarize the LASPD.  LAUSD is the second largest school district in the country and the LASPD is the largest dedicated school police department in the country.  Our ultimate goal is to end the Department of Defense 1033 Program – our Fight for the Soul of the Cities No Tanks Campaign has been building a national campaign urging President Obama to end the program all together.  We are calling on Los Angeles Sheriff Department and Los Angeles Police Department’s to end their relationship and destroy all the equipment received from the 1033 program (LAPD has amassed over 1,600 M-16 assault rifles, a military truck, military cargo plane and helicopter; while the LA Sheriff has over 1,000 M-16 assault rifles, 2 MRAP tanks, and 62 mine detectors, all through the DOD 1033 program). Fight for the Soul of the Cities wrote to the Superintendent on July 28, 2015, on the matters of substance, it is encouraging that “The Los Angeles School Police Department discontinued its participation in the DOD “1033 Program.” We have several questions: When did that take place? Is there a formal letter to the DOD informing them of that decision?  If so, would LAUSD send it to us?  Has the Superintendent sent it to the Board of Education? Has LASPD returned the 61 M-16 rifles that were in their possession?  There had been four previous correspondences and each time we have asked LAUSD to first give a full public inventory of all the weapons they had ever received from the DOD 1033 program, which one had they returned, and which did they presently have.  When they state that the LAUSD has “discontinued participation” it does not indicate whether they have returned all weapons from the 1033 program.  We have asked them to inform us if they have and if so which weapons, when, and by what process? The Strategy Center and our Community Rights Campaign and the Fight for the Soul of the Cities has organized hundreds of students reaching out to thousands of students asking LAUSD to do the right thing to end it relationship to the 1033 Program, which we believe was an important factor in the in the district’s statement to discontinue its participation to the 1033 program.  The district should’ve never had taken weapons from this program of counter-insurgency.  We have waged this struggle over the 1033 Program with the district for close to a year which included several letters to the board and federal government, thousands of petitions, very well covered community actions and forums, many public speakers at LAUSD Board of Education meetings, individual meetings with LAUSD Board members, let alone the actions and energy from the streets in Los Angeles, New York, Cleveland, St Louis, Baltimore where a real sentiment and demand’s to demilitarize police, to end programs like the 1033, that everyday mass criminalization and incarceration needs to end for Black and Brown people.  Honestly given the work we have all done – we think this should’ve been an easy decision, it shouldn’t have been a drawn out attrition of procedural decisions by LAUSD leadership. For us, we have been clear that the school to jail track goes hand in hand to the mass outcry of police violence and mass criminalization of the Black community and the deportation and incarceration of Black, Latino and immigrants that is playing out in the community.  There is such a growing mood, finally, of deep anger and fight-back in the Black community in particular, an outrage about state violence that Black community has faced for centuries, there is a growing discussion that these policies are not just racist but truly genocidal–an attack on a whole people struggling for their very survival. [...] Read more...
July 30, 2015Written by: Eric Mann, Director of the Labor Community Strategy Center, Revolutionary, Civil Rights, Anti-war, Labor, and Environmental Justice Organizer. Originally Posted on Huffington Post On May 19 in front of Augustus Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles — on the 90th anniversary of Malcolm X’s birthday — 100 Black and Latino high school students, bus riders, security guards, hotel workers chanted, “President Obama: No Tanks in LA, No Cars in L.A.” Initiated by the Labor/Community Strategy Center and its Fight for the Soul of the Cities, we called on the president to end the Department of Defense’s 1033 Program that gives “surplus” military grade weapons to local police forces all over the United States — including the Los Angeles School Police Department and to go to the December 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris with an “frontloaded” “verifiable” “enforceable” plan” to cut U.S. emissions by 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2015 — starting today! But how can 100 people talking about No Tanks and No Cars in LA expect to get the president of the United States to make radical changes in national and international military and climate policies? Obviously there is no guarantee but the line between delusional and visionary can only be determined in retrospect and we have a real plan to win. All great social movements begin with an unassailable and irrefutable moral argument. U.S. policies are burning up our own cities and the planet. Today in every urban center in the U.S. Black and Latino communities are under a permanent military siege by the police and surveillance state with the express policy objective of beating back the revolutionary ideologies and achievements of the great revolution of what I call “The Two Decades of the Sixties” — from the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Bandung Conference of Non-Aligned Nations in 1955 to the defeat of the U.S. invasion of Vietnam in 1975. The ruling language of “counter-insurgency” shapes why there are 2.5 million people in U.S. prisons 1 million of whom are Black and 500,000 of whom are Latino. Ending the “war on drugs” “war on crime” “war on gangs” will never work until the U.S. ends it war on Blacks and Latinos. The Defense Department’s 1033 program gives tanks, rocket launchers, assault rifles, MRAPs and M-16 rifles to local police forces all over the country and the application form says, “If you want it you can have it.” The Los Angeles Unified School District has 61 M-16s and the LAPD 1600 M-16s. (The International Red Cross has called the M-16 an inhumane weapon…) The goal, to shoot down protesting students, parents, teachers, community residents who rise up in anger demanding radical changes in our society. We are calling on the Los Angeles Unified School Board and the Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s Departments to relinquish all their weapons from the 1033 program and “burn them, don’t return them” so they can’t be used on others inside our outside the U.S. Recently the president announced “modifications” to the program that restrict some of the weapons (and yes, the tanks) and create administrative procedures for the use of other weapons. But the police are still allowed many lethal weapons from the program and can kill people with impunity and then will deal with any sanctions after the fact. President Obama must end the 1033 program down to its last bullet. The president’s climate policies so far, have been marked by moments of inspiration followed by lethargy and a lack of will. Nature is not impressed as we approach the 10th anniversary of the Katrina climate catastrophe and the last ten years of federal inaction in the face of deteriorating permafrost, floods, droughts, melting coral reefs, and extreme weather events as the U.S. fiddles as the planet burns. The 2015 United Nations Climate Change conference is a big world stage event where governments try to finally grasp the enormity of the rapidly escalating rise of the earth and water’s temperature towards 2 degrees Celsius and beyond. But spoiler alert. Unless reversed, the conference is headed for a disaster because the ground rules of the UNCCC, unless reversed, allow each government to set its own policies, to have no mandated international inspections of emissions, and no penalties for non-compliance of goals that can’t be verified in the first place. The president recently signed a climate agreement with the Chinese government in which he pledged to cut U.S. emissions by 28 percent over the next 10 years. Many Beltway environmental groups have praised the president while not challenging the vague nature of the commitment or the inadequate goal of only a 28 percent reduction. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that while he is not clear about exactly what the president is saying he is clear he opposes it. So, as a social movement we begin by setting the terms of the debate and hoping that one key demand from U.S. organizations can at least push the U.S. and the UN governments into a debate about one clear, enforceable demand. We are proposing that President Obama go to Paris with a plan to cut U.S. emissions to 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2025 — starting now! Here’s how he can do it. Cut U.S. auto production and consumption by 50 percent immediately. Cut U.S. gas, coal, oil production and consumption by 50 percent immediately Support the Strategy Center’s No Cars in L.A. Campaign of dramatic restriction in auto use through auto free zones, auto-free rush hours and days in every city in the U.S. and making a major investment in a 5,000 zero-emission bus fleet, running 24/7, and yes, free public transportation through direct transfers of funds from the military budget to mandated bus systems all over the U.S. (The fiasco of the L.A. “rail” system and it raids on the L.A. bus system is the subject of the successful civil rights law suit we brought against the Los Angeles MTA-and the 2,500 new compressed natural gas buses were won were only a down payment on what is needed. This bus-centered system could be up and running now with dramatic expansion of buses on the streets in 18 months to 3 years.) I am on my way, along with Barbara Lott-Holland, Associate Director of the Strategy Center, to Bonn, Germany for preparatory meetings of the United Nations Climate Change Conference where we will be part of the broad governmental and NGO movement to make the Paris UNCCC the greatest success possible. In that international imperative, the president should issue every executive order under the sun to radically reduce emissions — and rally popular support around his proposals. But of course, here is where “organizing” and “movement building” come in. The 100 people at the rally are organizers not spectators; We are going door to door in South Los Angeles with 2,000 lawn signs with pictures of President Obama “No Cars in LA, No Tanks” in L.A. meeting with 100 new churches, labor unions, and community groups in the next 60 days — speaking at UCLA, USC, community colleges, and groups of liberal Democrats. We are reaching out to Black and Latino communities, civil rights and social justice organization, teachers and janitors unions, and the environmental justice movement in every city in the US. to call for “No Cars, No Tanks in Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Houston, Ferguson, Harlem, Baltimore” They are excited about our call for “the social welfare state not the police state — the climate justice state not the warfare state” and want to join a national campaign whose demands can be fought for and won strengthening our national movement. All great campaigns start with an unequivocal moral argument and as Frederick Douglass taught, making very clear demands on those in power. So, President Obama must end the 1033 Program now and put forth a plan to reduce U.S. carbon emissions to 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2025 — now. Do you agree? If you do then the No Cars, No Tanks campaign has already picked up one new organizer. Eric Mann, a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers is the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center and its Fight for the Soul of the Cities campaign. He is the author of Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer and the host of KPFK/Pacifica’s Voices from the Frontlines–Your National Movement Building Show. He welcomes comments at eric@voicesfromthefrontlines.com Take Action: Subscribe to our Newsletter Email a Comment or Question to Eric Mann Subscribe to Voices From the Frontlines: your National Movement Building Show Share this Page to you Facebook Buy Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer Donate   Read More Articles  [...] Read more...
July 29, 2015  LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines LAUSD Board of Education 333 South Beaudry Avenue, 24th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90017 Dear Superintendent Cortines, We received the second copy of your June 19th letter addressed to us and the LAUSD board regarding our call for you to end all participation in the 1033 and return all weapons in your possession received from the program. We welcome the continued conversation. We will be at the board meeting on Thursday, July 30, and look forward to meeting with you, if possible, the week of August 3 to continue these discussions. Let us outline our sense of progress, our questions, and our concerns. In terms of our mutual communication, we did not receive your email response of June 25. We are assured that you sent it but both of us have checked our inboxes and neither of us received them. In our correspondence with you we always send a hard copy follow up. Did you send a hard copy to us? Let’s agree in the future to that procedure. Our emails are: ericmann@mindspring.com and manuel@thestrategycenter.org. Please send email copies to both of us and send hard copies to Labor/Community Strategy Center, 3780 Wilshire Blvd. Suite 1200, Los Angele, CA 90010, and Attention: Eric Mann. On the matters of substance, it is encouraging that you have informed us that “The Los Angeles School Police Department discontinued its participation in the DoD “1033 Program.” We have several questions: 1) When did that take place? 2) Is there a formal letter to the DoD informing them of that decision? If so, would you please send it to us? Have you sent it to the board? 3) Have you returned the 61 M-16 rifles that you reported were in your possession? You know there have been four previous correspondence and each time we have asked you to first give a full inventory of all the weapons you have ever received from the DoD 1033 program, which you have returned, and which you presently have. When you state that the LAUSD has “discontinued participation” it does not indicate whether you have returned all weapons from the 1033 program. Please inform us if you have and if so which weapons, when, and by what process? As a civil rights organization with deep ties to the 700,000 LAUSD students and many of their parents we are constantly asked to monitor specific agreements for compliance. We are obligated to get clear exactly what was done, when, what verification there is, and again what weapons does the LAUSD, if any, still have in its possession. We want to express our concern that in our correspondence thin our view, you continue to take a very aggressive defense of the overall militarization of the schools while we have been calling for demilitarization — with the reduction in police and weapons moving towards the end of police in the schools as the objective. We don’t mind the debate but for example, to tell us, “the number one priority is educating our students and ensuring a safe and securing a safe and secure environment for that process to take place” and then go on about police it seems provocative. In our view the number one priority of the school board is to “educate the students” period–and even then we have real concerns about how that process is taking place. We feel that your continued conversation about “safety” is in your view a defense of police and weapons; whereas, the students have been testifying for years that the police presence itself creates a major problem in their own safety. We also want to discuss the statement “that all the weapons are ‘standard’ police force grade” which may be true but we want a full inventory of all the existing weapons outside of the 1033 Program since many of them are lethal in nature and pose a clear and present danger to the students. We also feel that given that this is clearly a moral and political problem we wish you could acknowledge and empathize with the real concerns about institutional racism, civil rights, state violence and repression against Black and Latino communities and students, the growing nation-wide condemnation of the police and surveillance state on the part of religious leaders, parents, teachers, students and elected officials all over the country and the role of social movements in making the structural changes our society needs. . We do feel you have the moral obligation to condemn the entire concept of 1033, there is no constraint on your speaking out against the program as a public educator and asking the LAPD and LA Sheriff’s Department to do the same. We are unclear about your statement that you have taken our request to review the “current inventory” of weapons “forwarded to the proper channels…” We had hoped you would say that you will help us get that information and hope that is your intent. Clearly it is in your authority to do so. We are very concerned that there is still a correspondence of words back and forth and very little effort to reach out to us to validate any of the concerns we have raised. At the time when we were working with the LAUSD and LASPD on issues of “school climate” and “civil rights for students” the LAUSD, without anyone’s knowledge, was applying to the DOD to get military grade weapons to use against students, teachers, and parents (who else would they be used against?) which has created a major setback in our relationship and in our view the Board’s relationship to the community. While we are truly pleased, if that is the case, that LAUSD is no longer in the 1033 program and has returned every single weapon it has received from the 1033 program–which we have no assurance is the case–it still raises the very disturbing question of why the LAUSD board, superintendent, and LASPD felt it needed and wanted those weapons in the first place–and who made the decision to apply and who made the decisions as to which weapons to request? We look forward to our continued conversation which we hope to have in person next week at your convenience. Sincerely, Eric Mann Executive Director Strategy Center Fight for the Soul of the Cities [...] Read more...
July 29, 2015June 19, 2015 Eric Mann, Director Manny Criollo, Director Labor/Community Strategy Center 3780 Wilshire Boulevard, Suite 1200 Los Angeles, CA 90010 Dear Sirs: The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Office of the Superintendent, is in receipt of your letter dated May 15, 2015, pertaining to the Los Angeles School Police Department’s (LASPD) participation in the Department of Defense (DoD) “1033 Program” and related requests of equipment inventory and oversight. The Los Angeles School Police Department discontinued their participation in the DoD “1033 Program.” This decision was made prior to the release of the May 2015 Presidential Executive Order 13688 working group recommendations limiting or restricting law enforcement agencies nationwide participation in the aforementioned program. The LAUSD and the LASPD respect the findings and recommendations of the published report. As previously mentioned in a correspondence to your organization on January 13, 2015, the number one priority is educating our students and ensuring a safe and secure environment for that process to take place. Ensuring safety on our campuses also requires the ability for our police officers who serve this District to be properly trained and equipped to respond to any potential life-threatening or armed encounters that may occur on our campuses or safe passages. All weapons and equipment currently maintained in the inventory of the LASPD are weapons and equipment that are “standard” civilian police force grade. The equipment currently maintained is essential life-saving items that will remain for life-saving purposes. While the LAUSD and the LASPD have taken action to discontinue its involvement with the “1033 program,” it is not within our purview or scope of authority to recommend or encourage other municipal or county law enforcement agencies to reevaluate, alter or change their operational policies. We believe that the newly-published Presidential Executive Order Committee’s recommendations provide the necessary guidance and policy direction for all law enforcement agencies to follow. As to your other inquiries within your correspondence, the LASPD maintains an accurate and complete list of all weapons and equipment within their inventory. The Office of the Superintendent and the Board of Education will review the current inventory to ensure that all items are within the best interest of student, staff, community and officer safety. Labor/Community Strategy Center Page 2 Your request for an itemized list of police equipment will be forwarded to the proper channels within LAUSD and processed within the current laws, policies and procedures for all Public Records Act requests consistent with the State of California Government Code. Should you have any questions, feel free to contact the Office of the Superintendent at 213-241-7000, or the Office of the Chief of Police at 213-202-4508. Sincerely, Ramon C. Cortines Superintendent of Schools c: Members, Board of Education Michelle King David Holmquist Chief Steven Zipperman   [...] Read more...
July 29, 2015July 24, 2015 LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer LAUSD Board of Education 333 S. Beaudry Avenue, 24th Floor Los Angeles, CA 900173 Dear LAUSD Board President Zimmer, We are writing to you on behalf of our Fight for the Soul of the Cities Campaign and the work we have done in LA’s Black and Latino communities in LA for decades. We continue to call for the Los Angeles Unified School District and its Los Angeles School Police Department to end its relationship with the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 Program and its continued possession of the 61 M-16 assault rifles acquired through the DOD 1033 Program. Attached is our May 15, 2015 letter (the fourth letter of record) to you, LAUSD Superintendent Cortines and other members of the LAUSD School Board. We feel very disappointed, perplexed and angered that there has not been any real engagement or even a real response to our letter, let alone any movement towards ending the district’s continued participation in the DOD 1033 Program. Lastly, we are asking you to move public comment to the beginning of the LAUSD Board meeting on Thursday, July 30th, to allow the public time to address you and other Board Members on this issue, and other issues important to the public. We would assume that a Board that is lauded for its efforts to curb criminalization and zero tolerance, that often credits the youth, parents and community organizations that called for these changes, and that has publicly demonstrated sympathy to the movement demanding justice for victims of state violence and the special urgent needs of LA’s Black community that the issue of LAUSD collaboration with the DOD 1033 Program would be a simple response – the immediate termination of district collaboration and destruction of the weapons still in its possession. Furthermore, there has not even been a formal response to the President Obama Executive Order 13688 released on May 18th, that states clearly that local law enforcement agencies that solely serve K-12, hence the Los Angeles School Police Department, would no longer have access to specialized firearms and ammunition under .50-caliber (that includes the current M- 16s in LAUSD’s possession). Superintendent Cortines’ sole correspondence to us argued that M-16s are standardized police equipment. Outside of clever words, let’s be clear that the LAUSD Board silence and inaction is a form of justifying its right to have these deadly weapons that the International Committee of the Red Cross has described as inhumane. We once again ask you to destroy the 61 M16 assault rifles acquired through the DOD 1033 Program. Lastly, our members and the community will be mobilizing for the scheduled LAUSD Board meeting on Thursday, July 30th. We expect that given that this meeting is scheduled for a 6 pm start, that you will agree to have public comment at the beginning of the LAUSD Board agenda – we hope that it allows our youth and community leaders to be able to further elaborate on their concerns and demands to the Board. We believe this request goes beyond our own needs – a transformative format for true public participation – that before any formal business the Board should hear from the public on their concerns, grievances or even accolades on something with such great impact on our youth and schools. For too long, public comment at LAUSD has been a tactic of attrition, leaving space for community voice only at the very end and after lengthy meetings. Often by the end of the meeting there is a minimum of Board quorum and even LAUSD Board Members and staff seem more interested in ending the meeting than really engaging in the content and potentially seeking resolutions, or minimally providing at least brief responses to the public and next steps for LAUSD staff to work with the public to seek solutions. We look forward hearing from you. Sincerely Eric Mann , Executive Director Manuel Criollo, Director of Organizing [...] Read more...
May 29, 2015Last week, President Obama issued an executive order to regulate the use of military equipment within local police departments, as part of an ongoing effort to address police violence in communities of color. Images of officers rolling through the streets of Ferguson – and, more recently, Baltimore – in armored tanks pushed the issue of police militarization into the national spotlight. But it’s not just police departments that have been outfitted with military weapons. Through the Department of Defense’s 1033 program, created in 1997, K-12 school districts across the country have received equipment like mine-resistant ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles, grenade launchers, assault rifles and an outfitted SWAT team. One district in Utah alone received a dozen AR-15s, the weapon notoriously used in the Sandy Hook school shooting. Read the Full Article on Rolling Stone [...] Read more...
May 29, 2015from Ashley Franklin When I joined the Strategy Center, I was drawn to Eric Mann’s book Katrina’s Legacy, that called for the right to return home for the people displaced in New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and for its bold demands on the government for the right to self-determination for Black people and to end the attacks on the Black community, from its denial of shelter for the survivors after the storm to the criminalization of their very beings. It was clear to me, that the Center placed Black people at the heart of the movement and I couldn’t imagine, 6 years later, that we would have to demand that Black people should have a right to live. Over the course of the past 2 years, there have been millions of people who have taken to the streets after the murder of our community members like Aiyana, Ezell Ford, Freddie Gray and countless other people. When these protesters take their grief, frustration to the streets they are being met by an armed police force with tanks, reminding us that at the height of Black folks vulnerability after the storm, they too were met with tanks and armed guards. We must understand that from Katrina to the murders of black people by armed police forces—the US is at war with the Black Nation. This war has manifested itself as a counterinsurgency of unemployment and the divestment in our neighborhoods to prioritize police and militarization. This war has lasted for the past 40 years, from LA to Baltimore—from the creation of SWAT by LAPD to attack the Black Panther Party, COINTELPRO’s outright war on the Black Liberation Movement and the bipartisan attack on all the Black civil rights victories and black livelihood through coded terms like war on crime, drugs, and gangs, which essentially means attack by any means necessary all Black and Brown poor people. Now we face a blatant declaration of police murder with the Department of Defense 1033 Program that creates militarized “warrior cops” to occupy our neighborhoods and preparation for a new revolution that people itself can’t even truly imagine or conceive in these times. But enough is enough. Today, there is a spring of insurgencies where people are taking to the streets from Ferguson, New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore and even electoral insurgencies in Jackson, Mississippi and Newark, New Jersey demanding Black liberation and Fight for the Souls of the Cities is committed and contributing to this Black-led resistance struggle. However, going to war in not a walk in the park because we have all witnessed what happened to Paul Robeson, WEB Dubois, Claudia Jones, and the killing of Fred Hampton and George Jackson. Or exiled like Assata in Cuba and Mumia who is dying slowly because the masses fought to overturn his death penalty. When we try to disrupt or derail the status quo, they employ poison, harassment, prison or death to stop us. Once we understand that we are at war, that leaves us with one option—nation building for dignity and self-determination. This is a nation forged through slavery, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, the urban ghettos and black belt south and most importantly a resistance movement of over 400 years that ended slavery, advance public education, defeated convict leasing and the outright US apartheid, and its spirit lives in Ferguson, Baltimore and South LA. We need a Black united front. And we are seeing people in the streets of Ferguson and Baltimore doing just that, such as the truce between the Bloods and Crips. All black forces for liberation need to unite because for too long the battle has been our differences and contradiction among each other— young vs old, women vs man, straight vs queer, pan African vs Marxist but at the end of the day officers and this government see Black, and treat us a threat. Thus using lethal force first and creating an explanation later as to why. So let’s be clear, our enemy is white supremacy and the imperialist war of genocide that has engulfed 2.5 million prisoners, mis-educated and pushed out generations of young people, and has 1.5 million black men gone missing. However, organizing young people and working class people is hard work. I put in 10-12 hours a day to organize myself, dozens of young people, two schools, younger organizers and volunteers, and while often very rewarding and there’s always new terrain that’s being won—it can also be very lonely and hard to put yourself out there. The hundreds of daily challenges between my will, the people’s will and the systems’ tools of demoralization, miseducation, poverty, self-hatred and illusion-prone culture are too real—sometimes opportunities and hard work meet, and you excel, other times it’s a struggle to get two people to a key meeting or vote. So I am constantly thinking about how I can stretch myself and yet not lose sight that our work in the school, on the bus or a train, at the school board, or in the neighborhood are keys for any reconstruction. There is hope. Fight for the Soul of the Cities, Bus Riders Union and the Community Rights Campaign, our next year we will focus on and demand of President Obama the right to protest and resist; calling to demilitarizing police and ending the war on the planet, with a frontloaded, verifiable and enforceable 50% reduction of greenhouse gas emission starting now—No Cars/No Tanks in LA is the intersection of Black liberation and climate justice. We need to stop the Black genocide and environmental Armageddon by ending the Department of Defense 1033 Program, demilitarizing LAUSD and LA County, stopping LA Metro Stop and Frisk Apartheid system and shaking up the Paris Climate Talk—these are our goals because as Katrina’s Legacy showed us, the system will use any excuse to undermine our livelihood and existence. [...] Read more...
May 27, 2015by Manuel Criollo Let me take you way back to the spring of 1993, the first time I met Maria Guardado at a student club meeting of the Student Organization of Latinos (SOL) at Los Angeles City College. She was introduced at that meeting. After she cleared her throat, she recited one of her most enigmatic poems MADRE (Mother), a poem about a mother’s search for her kidnapped children in El Salvador. You could hear the pain, the emotion, the panic, that hope for one more search and yet the poem ends with hope and strength in the name of freedom. After declaring her poem, she continued with the detailed testimony of her torture by the Salvadoran military and their US advisors as they beat her, as they tried to break her body, mind and spirit. For me, it was one of those moments of clarity—both challenging and exhilarating—it’s almost like when I first read Malcolm X, it shattered something I knew was rotten but was programmed to think otherwise, which was both scary and liberating. Maria spoke of revolution; anti-imperialism; the misery caused by capitalism; El Salvador as a new colony; the need for building black and brown unity; and more importantly teaching us that those thoughts and ideas had to be put into action—take it to streets and win over the people, she’d say. Since that day, my life and Maria’s life has intertwined in ways I couldn’t have imagined during that meeting—my first exposure to Salvadoreño history, Marxism, Cuba, revolution, was with the FMLN and the many veterans and young activists that took me under their wing. Maria, of course, was one of the anchors of the FMLN in Los Angeles. Not surprising given her affiliation to the Communist Party of El Salvador that dates back to the 1960’s, where she was part of a 10-person unit and the only woman. Her unit leader was none other than Shafick Handal. The same Shafick Handal who is a national hero for liberation and whose electoral run in 2004 electrified the country, the FMLN and the Latin American Left. I had the honor of going with Cynthia Rojas for the Strategy Center to cover the elections and document ARENA’s and the US rightwing attack on Shafick and his election with a media campaign that came with veiled threats of diplomatic sanctions, mass deportations, fear and lies—which momentarily defeated the FMLN’s run, but victory came five years later and now the FMLN has been able to win two straight presidential elections. Maria was an important figure of the Bus Riders Union—she and many other Latin America leftists from the First Unitarian Church and their Monseñor Romero congregation were one of the first recruits to the Bus Riders Union—it’s like the left gods crossed for the Strategy Center and this group of Latin American leftists to meet. Maria, Ricardo and Noemi Zelada along with Pearl Daniels became name plaintiffs against the MTA in 1994—in the now historical LCSC, BRU vs MTA case and its consent decree that was able to secure over $2.7 billion of bus improvement and saved public transportation as we know it. Maria had been to over 20 years of BRU and LCSC meetings and actions—always there on the frontlines and who never lost sight that the fight for transportation justice for working class people in Los Angeles and helped lay the foundation of a socialist vision for a peoples’ reconstruction. In fact those were her words to me at my first BRU meeting back in 1999. Maria worked in the Crack the CIA Coalition with Michael Zinzun and Representative Maxine Waters. Maria’s insistence on the connection between US intervention, the contra war in Nicaragua, the war on drugs and the devastation of the crack addiction epidemic in black and brown communities, all played a dynamic role in expanding the discussion and political work of this coalition, which was able to uncover the most sickest of crimes of the CIA and top US military and political officials of the 80’s and 90’s that accelerated the racist mass incarceration complex of today. Maria’s life resume is really a who’s who of struggle and history making. The Strategy Center will be publishing her book of poetry through Frontlines Press to be released this summer. I have the privilege of compiling her art and struggle, and for me it’s both deeply rewarding and daunting. I know that Maria’s words are really the words of my peoples’ struggle for liberation. It’s storied pain and victorious moments. It’s about Farabundo, Anastasio, Ana Maria, and a war for liberation and socialism and the devastation of neo-liberalism, torture, disappearances, and of US intervention. Maria’s poetry is 80 years of a person’s life and the people that touched her life. It’s about Monseñor Oscar Arnulfo Romero, who she met when she was a child and who 20 years later called for her liberation from military jail cells. It’s about Rudy Pisani, her comrade in arms in Los Angeles, on the frontlines picketing at the US federal building in the 80’s to the 2007 MacArthur Park LAPD attack. They are odes to Father Roy Bourgeois, Ali Primera and Father Olivares and the lesser known sheros like Gloria Torres and la Abuelita Maria Luisa. It’s about you and me taking action. Her poems are battle cries for an anti-imperialist, socialist and Bolivarian front. Her poems are also the therapeutic words from a trauma and torture that only a few have ever experienced and lived to tell the world of. She tells us through her organizing, her poems, and her movie—which was beautifully executed by Randy Vasquez. And of course her poems have been heard and felt by thousands of young people who she has touched and mentored for over 30 years. She battled cancer and gave a courageous battle almost like any battle she’s engaged in. It was hard to see my friend sick and her mortality in full display when I visited her, especially since she has defied death almost all her life. I know for many Maria is a symbol of courage and rebellion, and she is. And yet she’s like any of us, strong and sweet, courageous and scared, so very HUMAN. She’s always pushed us not to be fooled by short term victories or setbacks, not losing sight that true victory will be a revolution for human emancipation and transformation. I know, I’ll pray for her type of courage and conviction every day. ¡Maria Guardado, Presente! [...] Read more...
May 18, 2015May 15, 2015 Superintendent Ramon Cortines Los Angeles Unified School District 333 South Beaudry Ave., 24th Floor Los Angeles, CA 90017 Dear Superintendent Cortines: We have received your letter dated January 13, 2015 regarding the Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) continued participation in the Department of Defense (DOD) 1033 Program and your continued possession of lethal military weapons acquired by the Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) through this program. While we disagreed with it from the outset, we have been in discussions with many students, parents, teachers, community residents, and board members to further clarify our views. Over the past months, we have sent several letters of correspondence to you and the LAUSD Board of Education; given public comment on this subject at several LAUSD board meetings; and turned in thousands of signed petitions urging LAUSD to end its participation in the 1033 Program. We have attached copies of our mutual correspondence so that we all have a common factual record. We continue to urge you and the LAUSD Board of Education to take the necessary action to: 1) Immediately withdraw the District’s participation in the Department of Defense 1033 program 2) Call on President Obama to end the entire DOD 1033 Program 3) Destroy or dismantle all military grade equipment obtained by the LASPD: specifically the documented 61 M-16 assault rifles 4) Make a complete inventory of LASPD’s military equipment and weaponry acquired throughout your enrollment in the 1033 Program 5) Document all weaponry currently in LASPD’s possession 6) Write to other school boards calling on them to discontinue their participation in the 1033 Program 7) Work with us to call on the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles County Sheriff Department (LASD) to immediately withdraw from the 1033 Program and to destroy their military weapons obtained through the DOD 1033 Program— in that LAUSD students and our Black and Latino communities are subject to the jurisdictions of those departments as well. In short, we completely disagree with the tone, content, and arguments stated in your letter. It did not even acknowledge that we are talking about the Department of Defense 1033 Program; it did not name specifically the weapons that LASPD still has in its possession. We strongly reject your defense of the District’s participation in the DOD 1033 program, which gives military grade weapons to police departments all over the country including the Los Angeles School Police Department and your assertion that the District is retaining the 61 M-16 assault rifles obtained through this program. What is profoundly troubling to us is that after working with the LAUSD and LASPD on several important reforms of police policy and practices there is dismissal of our deeper concerns about the entire system of policing of our communities. There is an implied view that despite our continued explanation that far more radical and structural changes are needed that you believe that the problem is over and any further changes can be dismissed out of hand. To be clear, at present the LAUSD and LASPD are part of the DOD 1033 Program. Your participation gives moral legitimacy to the entire program—weapons which are also in the possession of the LA County Sheriff Department, Los Angeles Police Department, but also the Maricopa County Sheriff and Feguson Police Departments. Recent information released to the public shows that the LAPD has amassed over 1,600 M-16 assualt rifles, a military truck, military cargo plane and helipcotper; while the LA Sheriff has over 1,000 M-16 assualt rifles, 2 MRAP tanks, and 62 mine detectors, all through the DOD 1033 program. This goes beyond a disagreement over “policy” to one of values, civil and human rights—for in essence your letter is justifying a state of military and political siege of our students, parents, and Black and Latino communities. We call on you to reverse this view and these policies. In your response to our concerns, you state: “Strict policy and procedure guidelines remain in place for accountability of all equipment, with a review process that evaluates the deployment and use of any such equipment. Currenty, the LASPD does NOT possess any military-donated vehicles, launchers or items recognizable as, and exclusively for military use. All current weapons and firearms deployed in the field by the LASPD are standard law-enforcement issued models that have not been received or procured through a military equipment donation.” We have no doubt that your stated police policy is “consistent” with industry standards and those of other police departments such as the LAPD and LASD. That is the core of the problem. The industry standards are those of community suppression—otherwise why are LAPD, LASD, and LASPD involved in every aspect of a student’s life. As we stated in our Black, Brown and OverPoliced in L.A. Schools, “it is a common experience in many low-income Black and Latino neighborhoods for a student to walk out their door in the morning and run a gauntlet of LAPD in their neighborhood, then LASD patrols in public transit, then LASPD and Probation at their school all day, at the front gate, in the halls, the cafeteria at lunch, in random bag searches during their classes. At the end of the day, they must pass through the same gauntlet in reverse to get home.” The level of the policing in our community is unacceptable and a form of public policy that is institutionalizing a genuine police state. When people wore t-shirts that said, “I can’t breathe” to publicize the murder of Eric Garner in New York it was also a broader metaphor that the police have our communities in a permanent choke-hold and our communities and youth “cannot breathe” in the deepest sense of the word. From the beginning of this debate, we asked the LAUSD to give us a full inventory of all weapons in LASPD possession—the public has a right to know, debate, question, and reject it. We were informed by the media that the LAUSD transferred the MRAP tank to the Barstow Police Department and returned the three grenade launchers. But how could the District have asked for those weapons in the first place? What we can extract from your explanation is that the District is retaining the 61 M-16 rifles from the 1033 Program. But how can LAUSD’s and LASPD’s possession of 61 M-16 rifles be defended? The M-16 rifles fire 5.56×45mm NATO cartridges. The rifle entered United States Army service and was deployed for jungle warfare operations in South Vietnam in 1963. These are weapons of mass murder. The 5.56×45mm NATO cartridges can produce massive wounding effects when the bullet impacts at high speed and yaws (“tumbles”) in tissue leading to fragmentation and rapid transfer of energy. This produces wounds that were so devastating that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and many countries considered the M-16 to be an inhumane weapon. We will be doing presentations to parents groups, churches, and student organization so that they can understand the full implications of your decision to maintain even 1 M-16 or even one bullet and to explain the terrible, deforming, crippling, lethal force you believe LASPD deserves to own and potentially use. In our reading of history, the expansion and militarization of urban policing was a deliberate backlash against the militancy of a Black Movement—a very orchestrated and racist ideological campaign waged by the Nixon administration with the support of many Democrats to portray Black and Latino communities as violent and inherently criminal. The war on crime, war on drugs, and war on gangs — and now, the indefensible war on “thugs and criminals”— has been a racist subterfuge to lock up Black and Latino youth for jaywalking, marijuana and alcohol possession, “resisting arrest”, “parole violation”, disorderly conduct, and loitering. It is an ideological and military response to a people’s right to protest and resist oppression and the virtual re-enactment of the Black Codes. It is shameful that the LAUSD would want any connection to these crimes against humanity and our communities. This has led to the most blatant character and actual assassination of Black youth in Los Angeles, Sanford, New York, Ferguson, Baltimore and every city in the country. We saw after the Sandy Hook shooting that the LAPD, with the support of Superintendent Deasy, authorized additional police patrols in and around elementary schools. For those who have a world view of advocating for police expansion they will consistently call for increased armed force used against unarmed communities, when in reality our communities need homes, jobs, mental health clinics, health care and a dramatic reduction in police. In the wake of the heartbreaking and devastating increase of police shooting of civilians throughout the country and growing scrutiny of the militarization of police, we have witnessed the weapons LAUSD has in their possesion similiarly being used against protestors in the city of Baltimore. The National Guard was deployed against a people overwhelemed with feelings of grief and anger. For these reasons, Superintendent Cortines, we believe that police must be under civilian control and must be held to the strictest limitations of any form of armed force let alone lethal force. Our long-term goal is to arm our schools with sufficient counselors and adequate resources to fully support and care for the physical, emotional and mental health of our students and the full school community. Anything short of that and we are compromising the vision for schools that are truly violence-free, healthy, and holistic. We urge you to reject the DOD 1033 program and support our movement to end the program all together. Like the rounding up of immigrants, shooting of unarmed civilians, police brutality, and mass incarceration, the DOD 1033 program is indefensible. The LAUSD must get out of, and condemn, the DOD 1033 program now. We will urge every LAUSD board member to rise up in outrage, not compromise with injustice, to explain they agree this is long overdue. Now, is the time to do so! We look forward to speaking with you at your earliest convenience. Sincerely, Eric Mann Director Manuel Criollo Director of Organizing [...] Read more...
April 5, 2015About 50 students and activists disrupted the LA Unified school board meeting on July 30 in a protest over the district police force’s having dozens of M-16 rifles from the federal government’s controversial 1033 Program. While LA School Report was at the meeting and covered the protest, the general public was unable to see what occurred due to the district making the rare decisionnot to provide live-stream coverage of the meeting as it normally does. Read the Full Article on LA School Report Watch the Video Here: [...] Read more...
March 12, 2015It was a beautiful, sunny LA day. A great day for a rally as Strategy Center members joined with over 50 organizations and over 2,000 people as they took over the streets to honor and support women leaders and women’s liberation. If we are really serious about honoring International Working Women’s Day we should start here to eradicate violence against women. From the assault on our communities, to traffickers, to violence in ICE detention centers, and in the army and by the army, there is a legacy of violence against women. On Sunday, March 8th, for the better part of the day, we let our voices be heard in the streets as we marched in unity, our route taking us from the steps of City Hall, to the LAPD HQ, the ICE Detention Center, and ending with a rally in Mariachi Plaza. [...] Read more...
February 26, 2015Grassroots Global Justice and the World March of Women March 8th International Working Women’s Day Action Meet at City Hall 11:30 A.M. 200 N Spring Street “Women Leaders and Women’s Liberation Black and Latino Liberation and the liberation of all women Stop all U.S. violence against women in the family, community, workplace, prisons, ICE detention centers, by the traffickers and the police, in the army, by the army. Stop U.S. violence against women in the Third World and all over the world.” We Join with AF3IRM & Ovarian Psyco-Cycles March begins at City Hall: free clinics for women’s reproductive health including the right to abortion and protection against forced sterilization March to the LAPD HQ: protest state and police violence against women Free all women prisoners at Lynwood jail for women—free the U.S. 2.5 million prisoners. Federal Bldg: Stop all U.S. drone attacks, invasions, murders of civilians, torture. Stop the trafficking in women in the Third World and all over the world ICE Detention Center: stop all U.S. attacks on immigrant women, men, and children, open borders and amnesty for all immigrants March ends at Mariachi Plaza: Protest the MTA’s role as a real estate gentrifier. The Mariachi Plaza is beautiful but who will be able to afford to live there? How many families will be evicted? Stop the MTA’s gentrification of our neighborhoods. Call 213-387-2800 for more information. www.thestrategycenter.org | www.fightforthesoulofthecities.com [...] Read more...
December 19, 2014A small but loud group from The Labor Community Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities and Community Rights Campaign protested outside of LA Unified headquarters yesterday, demanding that the LA School Police Department give up any military weapons it received through the Pentagon’s controversial 1033 Program. Read the Full Article on LA School Report Check out the attached video for highlights of the protest. [...] Read more...
November 26, 2014The growing outcry and struggle to bring an end to state sanction violence against the Black community is on the rise. We stand in solidarity with the national day of action under the slogan #StoptheWaronYouth coordinated by the Alliance for Educational Justice, Journey for Justice and other youth national alliances. An important arena in that battle is the demand to Demilitarize LAUSD – No Tanks in LA. We are calling on the LAUSD and its Los Angeles School Police Department to end the collaboration with counter-insurgency programs and expanding militarization of police with the Department of Defense 1033 Program. We want to end the school year with a strong action to call on the LAUSD to:  Document and delineate all military weapons and materials purchased and those received from the Department of Defense and other federal programs End LASPD and LAUSD participation with the 1033 Program Agree that the LASPD as a matter of public policy destroy all weapons, not transfer them to other communities Work with us to urge other school boards to do the same Work with us to urge the LAPD and LA Sheriff’s Department to end their participation with the 1033 Program Establish Black and Latino Community-Control of LA School Police Department As Black youth in Ferguson and across the country have courageously taken the streets to demand justice for Michael Brown and helping to spark the reconstruction of a new freedom movement. It has inspired a worldwide people’s movement to reject police murder of Black men and women, the criminalization and incarceration of Black and Brown communities and the growing suppression of protest and organizing through militarizing police and counterinsurgency politics. Read the Full Article on The Strategy Center website [...] Read more...
November 21, 2014Los Angeles Unified’s school police have returned their armored vehicle after community outcry over a federal program that sent military weapons to local law enforcement agencies. That “1033 program” came under scrutiny in the wake of scenes from Ferguson, Mo., where police confronted protesters with military weapons. The school police had also accepted battle-ready weapons. After returning three grenade launchers in September, School Police Chief Steven Zipperman said Friday he sent back the mine resistant and ambush proof (MRAP) vehicle his department received in June. “We’ve decided that particular vehicle, based on its sheer size and maneuverability and the resources it takes to operate it, wasn’t viable for us,” Zipperman said. At nearly 20 feet long, the more than 14-ton vehicle was designed to keep troops safe during ambushes in which enemies would blow up the lead vehicle of a convoy, while raining down gunfire on Marines and soldiers who were trapped. Read the Full Article on Daily News website [...] Read more...
November 18, 2014The Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Community Rights Campaign rejects Boardmember Ratliff’s resolution to study expansion of police into elementary schools, proud members of the Ethnic Studies Now – #OurHistoryMatters, Dismantle #School2 Jail Track, #DemilitarizeLAUSD Coalition After many months of work in schools in South Los Angeles and Boyle Heights the Strategy Center’s Community Rights Campaign has been organizing our classrooms and neighborhoods to push for the approval of an Ethnic Studies graduation requirement at LAUSD. As a group that has been a leader in the movement to end the LAUSD’s school to prison pipeline, we believe that the establishment of Ethnic Studies in our schools is another cornerstone in tackling the school to prison pipeline. The building of a students’ knowledge of our people’s history further strengthens the student sense of self, builds greater understanding of others, breaks the monotonous teaching of standardized testing and can further support a more inclusive school environment. New Resolution Calls for Study to Expand Police in Elementary Schools Los Angeles Unified School District Board Member Ratliff introduced and was originally calling for a vote at the November 18th Board meeting on a resolution geared towards expanding school police in the elementary schools under an ‘opt-in’ system. The resolution was postponed to the December 2nd meeting after concerns were raised by the Community Rights Campaign. If Boardmember Ratliff’s resolution passes it would direct the District to conduct a study of the fiscal impacts of litigation under the premise that adding police to more schools would offset these costs. The Community Rights Campaign questions the costs to students and families and finds this move on the part of Boardmember Ratliff extremely dismissive of the work and success that students have achieved with the Board challenging the school-to-prison-pipeline through the School Climate Bill of Rights resolution, the truancy reforms and the LASPD guidelines to curb police interactions with students. Read the Full Article on The Strategy Center website [...] Read more...
October 7, 2014Michael Davis’ block in Los Angeles used to have huge trees on both sides of the street, so big they created a canopy. “They were beautiful,” says the 17-year-old high school senior. “They covered the whole top of the block.” But recently, he says, the trees were cut down. In their place, there are now bright lights and security cameras. Davis is a youth leader with the Community Rights Campaign and its student club Taking Action, which organize around the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of black and brown communities in Los Angeles. Having the trees on his block replaced with cameras and lights was just one sign of what Davis describes as a nationwide trend of police militarization against communities of color. One stark example of that militarization was the revelation last month that the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and school districts around the country have been receiving military-grade weapons through the federal Department of Defense’s 1033 program. The program, which authorizes the transfer of excess Defense materials to federal, state and local agencies for law enforcement purposes, gained notoriety after protests in Ferguson, Missouri were met with a hyper-militarized response by the police. Compiling data from the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) and a number of media reports, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Texas Appleseed paint a disturbing picture of the program’s reach into K-12 schools: At least five school districts in Texas have been outfitted with materials through the program, including one with a SWAT team; at least five districts in California, with both San Diego and Los Angeles receiving Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles; as well as a number of other states including Utah, Georgia, Florida, Kansas, Michigan and Nevada that received materials ranging from blankets and laptops to assault rifles. Read the Full Article on Rolling Stone [...] Read more...
September 18, 2014L.A.’s top school-district cop says his department will return the grenade launchers they borrowed from the Pentagon, but will hold on to the M16 assault rifles and the military-grade armored vehicle…just in case. “We at the Los Angeles School Police Department would not utilize within a school environment,” Police Chief Steve Zipperman, head of the Los Angeles School Police Department, told Fusion in a statement. The three grenade launchers “will be removed from our equipment inventory,” he said. But the department will keep the other equipment —61 M16 assault rifles and an anti-mine military vehicle— that they’ve taken on loan from the Pentagon’s controversial 1033 program.The equipment, he said, will be used only “under extraordinary circumstances.”   Read the Full Article on Fusion.net [...] Read more...
September 16, 2014It has come to our attention, in information released this past week that several California school police departments, including Los Angeles Unified School Police, have received highly specialized military equipment from the U.S. Department of Defense 1033 program. Make no mistake, the equipment doled out to these school police departments are the same ‘weapons of war‘ we have witnessed utilized by police in response to social activism in the Black community in Ferguson, Mo. The recent images from Ferguson are reminiscent of a 1968 magazine cover, Law & Disorder: The Chicago Convention and Its Aftermath. Instead of a school bus and batons, which caused quite enough damage in the 60s and 70s, police are now geared up with assault rifles and armored military vehicles, ‘Mine Resistant Ambush Protected’ (MRAP) vehicles to be exact. Read the Full Statement on the Strategy Center Website [...] Read more...
September 16, 2014Statement by the Labor/Community Strategy Center’ Fight for the Soul of the Cities and Community Rights Campaigns. It has come to our attention, in information released this past week that several California school police departments, including Los Angeles Unified School Police, have received highly specialized military equipment from the U.S. Department of Defense 1033 program. Make no mistake, the equipment doled out to these school police departments are the same ‘weapons of war’ [link: http://www.thenation.com/article/181315/catalog-ferguson-police-weaponry#] we have witnessed utilized by police in response to social activism in the Black community in Ferguson, MI. The recent images from Ferguson are reminiscent of a 1968 magazine cover, Law & Disorder: The Chicago Convention and Its Aftermath. [link: http://www.amazon.com/Law-Disorder-Chicago-Convention-Aftermath/dp/B000L2IG44] Instead of a school bus and batons, which caused quite enough damage in the 60s and 70s, police are now geared up with assault rifles and armored military vehicles, ‘Mine Resistant Ambush Protected’ (MRAP) vehicles to be exact. What Community Rights Campaign understands at this time is that the Los Angeles Unified School District and its school police department have received 61 assault rifles, 3 grenade launchers and 1 MRAP vehicle. [link: http://www.calema.ca.gov/publicsafetyandvictimservices/pages/about-the-1033-program.aspx] We are also aware that the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, and school boards and police departments all over the U.S. have been receiving these weapons. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0ByME-GBaHL24bmJ3Y2k0VDRYREE/edit?pli=1 One of the five major programmatic proposals of the Fight for the Soul of the Cities is “Fight for the Right to Protest and Organize: Stop the Surveillance and Police State Against the Movement.” (LINK) It is widely recognized that our society is in a free fall of deterioration of social services, jobs, wages, housing, environment, and a terrifying increase in police, prisons, and surveillance. It should be expected that a movement of militancy and insurgency of social protest in urban centers is long overdue and should be welcomed as people fight for their rights. We believe the LAUSD board and staff has modeled how elected and appointed officials can understand people’s righteous anger and can work with grassroots groups who are proposing specific policy solutions to address actual problems of racial profiling, racial discrimination, punitive policies that in fact set back the educational hopes of an overwhelmingly Black, Latino, and low-wage, low-income student body and their families. Certainly that progress cannot continue to take place if students, teachers, parents, and administrators who exercise their rights to protest fear for their lives. The use of military equipment in urban settings comes out of the reactionary traditions of “counterinsurgency” against people making demands on corporations and their government—policies that violate people’s human rights all over the world including the United States. The Labor/Community Strategy Center and its Fight for the Soul of the Cites and Community Rights Campaigns applauds the actions of the Davis City Council (California) which adopted a resolution this week that orders the city to come up with a plan to drop the MRAP (mine-resistant ambush protected) war vehicle http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/08/28/davis-city-council-tells-police-to-tank-bulletproof-vehicle-militarization-mine-resistant-surplus/and Strategy Center sign-on to the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Texas Appleseed letter to the Department of Defense urging it to “end the transfer of military weapons to local school districts and police departments through the Department of Defense’s (DOD) 1033 Program for use in K-12 public schools”. We are also heartened by President Obama’s statement that he wants to re-examine the policy of arming police with military weapons. We urge the LAUSD to work with us to: Ask the LASPD to document all military weapons and materials received from the Department of Defense and other federal agencies since they first began receiving them—one estimate is 2001 but whatever the effective date it began. Agree that the LASPD should return all those weapons and write to other school boards urging them to do the same. Work with us to encourage the LAPD and LA Sheriff’s Department to also return their military weapons in that LASPD students are subject to jurisdictions of those departments as well.     Eric Mann, Executive Director, LCSC Manuel Criollo, Director of Organizing, LCSC Ashley Franklin, Lead Organizer, Community Rights Campaign Barbara Lott-Holland, Co-Chair of Bus Riders Union [...] Read more...
March 7, 2014  Dear Mayor Garcetti: We are writing to request a meeting with you to discuss our proposal below to dedicate the March 29 Public Hearing to discuss our comprehensive proposal for the best use of your $4.95 billion budget and our complete opposition to your proposed rail and highway construction/fare hike proposal. We are asking the MTA, the civil rights, human rights, immigrant rights, environmental and environmental justice, public health, and clergy communities to support the Labor/Community Strategy Center’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities and our No Cars in L.A. campaign platform. We ask the MTA to reverse its present “privatizing, polluting, policing” policies and adopt our proposals below. MTA’s current fare increase proposal includes the following: Base Fare: Currently $1.50, it would rise to $1.75 in September, $2.00 by 2017, and $2.25 by 2021 in Option A. In Option B, the peak hour fare would rise to $2.25 in September, $2.75 by 2017, and $3.25 by 2021. A free 90-minute transfer would be available only for those with TAP cards. Day Pass: Currently $5, it would rise to $7 in September, $8 by 2017, and $9 by 2021 in Option A. In Option B, it would rise to $9 in September, $11 by 2017, and $13 by 2021. Monthly Pass: Currently $75, Option A would see it rise to $100 in September, and then be eliminated and combined with a county wide pass for $120 in 2017 and $135 in 2021. In Option B, it would rise to $125 in September, be eliminated and combined with a county wide pass for $150 in 2017 and $180 in 2021. Senior/Disabled Pass: Currently $20, it would rise to $24 in September, $24 by 2017, and $28 by 2021 in Option A. In the Option B, it would rise to $22 in September, $25 in 2017, and $28 in 2021. K-12 Student Pass: Currently $24, it would rise to $29 in September, $35 by 2017, and $42 by 2021 in both options. College Student Pass: Currently $36, it would rise to $43 in September, $52 by 2017, and $62 by 2021 in both options. As you know, this conversation has been taking place between the Bus Riders Union and many community groups with the MTA since 1992. Only through a temporary restraining order by the Federal District Court in 1994 were we able to stop your efforts to eliminate the monthly bus pass altogether and raise the bus fare from $1.10 to $1.35.  Only through a negotiated Consent Decree between the BRU and MTA for 10 years (1996 to 2006) backed up by federal court orders were we able to get the bus pass reduced to $42 for seven years—all despite the MTA appealing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on a “states’ rights” platform. You tell the public, truthfully, that you now have “the largest clean fuel bus fleet in the U.S.” but do not explain that the Bus Riders Union made it happen, another victory of the federal Consent Decree. Since the end of the Consent Decree in 2006, you have moved against civil rights and against bus riders with a vengeance. You cut the same one million hours in expanded service the BRU won. You raised the bus fare from $42 to $52 to $75 and eliminated your own department to document overcrowding on the buses. You’ve gone on a rail and highway building rampage supported by increased sales taxes. In 2007, 350 people literally begged you not to raise the transit fares, and then you went ahead and raised them. People come to testify and you treat them with contempt. For new MTA board members, we ask you to completely disassociate yourselves from this agency’s history of polluting the environment, violating civil rights, attacking its own passengers, arresting them, leaving them in the rain and cold, and when they come to complain, surrounding them with police, cutting them off in mid-sentence, and not once addressing their concerns. For those who have participated in these policies, we ask you to change your mind and reverse this history. We ask each of you by name to show a sense of decency and withdraw this motion and to work with us to reduce bus fares now. The following demands represent our own platform and vision for transportation in Los Angeles County for the short and long term: Stop all plans for any fare increase. Restrict auto use through bus-only-lanes, auto-free days, auto-free rush hours, auto-free areas of the city, freeway bus service, restricted freeway use for cars, and massively expanded bike and pedestrian infrastructure.  Start with bus-only-lanes project on 15 major surface streets. No Fare: Free Public Transit. No Fare: Free Student Bus Pass. Restore the 1 million hours of bus service that the Bus Riders Union won through our Consent Decree with the MTA, that the MTA cut as soon as the ten year Consent Decree expired No Arrests by L.A. Sheriffs and MTA Police on MTA Buses and Trains for “fare evasion.” Expand the bus fleet to 5,000 zero-emissions buses with 24/7 bus service. As a first step, immediately purchase 2,500 buses and provide jobs for drivers, mechanics, maintenance, technical, and clerical workers. Moratorium on rail and highway projects. End corporate welfare construction contracts. Radically restrict the contracts of construction and engineering corporations—Parsons, Brinkerhoff, Kiewit, Fluor, the Walsh Group, J.F. Shea, CH2M Hill, among others—who are getting rich with taxpayer money Cease and desist the contempt for the public by MTA Board Members. All MTA board members must attend all 12 MTA board meetings. No use of cell phones by board members. No use of police to cut people off if they speak more than 59 seconds. No going into “closed session” while the public is asked to wait. Finish the business of the meeting and then go into “closed session” afterwards. Listen to people as they testify. Dignify people with an occasional response instead of “next speaker.” We make the following arguments to support our proposal above. Current MTA policies are destroying any chance to strike a blow against climate change. Within 35 years, global average temperatures will be hotter than historical extremes. That is one finding of a study published late last year in Nature, which attempts to create a region-specific index of climate change. According to the study, if carbon dioxide emissions continue unabated, Earth’s mean climate could depart from historical averages in 2047. “Very soon, extreme events will become the norm,” says lead author Camilo Mora, an environmental researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The study that found that aggressively cutting greenhouse-gas emissions to stabilize the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would delay the timing of Earth’s overall ‘climate departure’ by 22 years, until 2069. “Twenty years is not a lot of time, but it could be a window of opportunity to prepare ourselves to adapt to these new climate conditions,” says Mora. James Hansen, the country’s most prescient climatologist, is out with another must-read paper, “Climate sensitivity, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide.” The paper, co-authored by a number of Hansen’s former colleagues at NASA, is an antidote to the rosy scenarios the mainstream media have recently been pushing.  The key findings are: The Earth’s actual sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 levels from preindustrial levels (to 550 ppm) —including slow feedbacks—is likely to be larger than 3–4°C (5.4-7.2°F). Given that we are headed towards a tripling (820 ppm) or quadrupling (1100 ppm) of atmospheric CO2 levels, inaction is untenable. “Burning all fossil fuels” would warm land areas on average about 20°C (36°F) and warm the poles a stunning 30°C (54°F). This “would make most of the planet uninhabitable by humans, thus calling into question strategies that emphasize adaptation to climate change.” Burning all or even most fossil fuels would be a truly scorched Earth policy. In light of this information, present MTA policies position the agency as a big climate polluter, a bad actor, a global warming denier, and a contributor to mass suffering in the world.  The MTA is increasing auto emissions in Los Angeles by building super expensive rail with low ridership, then stealing money from the bus budget to pay for it, cutting bus service, raising fares, and giving the highways millions of dollars to expand.  The 6.5 million cars in Los Angeles County are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. In the City of Los Angeles, transportation already accounts for 48% of all greenhouse gases and the emissions from people living in suburban areas has shown to be double those in the city. In California, 58 percent of emissions from gasoline-powered vehicles and the state generates more greenhouse gas emissions than all but 20 countries in the world. As the world is calling on Los Angeles to take drastic action, the MTA has given lip service to climate concerns but is now a big part of the problem—not part of the solution. In the early 1990’s, the agency destroyed the bus system and then was forced to rebuild it under federal court order. In 2007, at the end of ten years of investment in the bus service and lower fares—all ordered by the federal courts—MTA’s ridership was nearly at an all-time high. Then the agency turned itself into a gentrifying construction agency, building rail projects at enormous expenses with very few riders. This new construction boom was made possible by growth in the MTA’s budget from $3 billion to $5 billion, and that growth was made possible in large part through the injection of $700 million in new annual revenue with the passage of Measure R in 2008. Yet in the same period—2007 to the present—the agency cut one million hours of bus service and raised fares twice. Despite the misplaced hype around the opening of two rail lines in 2009 and 2012, these fare hikes and service cuts have pushed people off the system, and overall transit ridership is still substantially lower than it was in 2007. Worse, the MTA has created an unholy alliance with the highway lobby against bus riders and the bus system­—an alliance critical to the passage of Measure R—so that the MTA actually advocates expanding freeway service at the same time it cuts bus service and ridership. How drastic would the loss in overall transit ridership be from the proposed fare increase? Focusing on Option A of the proposal, we project an 11% drop in ridership from current ridership levels in the first year. By 2017, ridership will have dropped 19% from current levels. By 2021, a ridership will have dropped 26% from current levels. Option B in the proposed fare increase, with fare more significant fare hikes, would result in even greater losses in overall ridership. MTA policies are racist attacks on the Black and Latino working class. Present MTA policies are a mean-spirited, racist, attack on working people. These increases will pose cruel and unnecessary financial hardship on hundreds of thousands of Los Angeles County residents, and are a direct attack of 500,000 MTA riders who are at least 55 percent Latino and 20 percent Black, 65 percent women with family incomes between $15,000 and $25,000 a year. Under this proposal, transit costs for a transit-dependent family of four by the year would increase by 2021 by nearly 80% or $2,000 under Option A 126% increase and $3,200 under Option B.  The idea of raising “public” transportation fares on the most low-income public, to raise fares on security guards, hotel workers, janitors, students, young people in and out of the criminal injustice system is truly cruel and unusual punishment, and vindictive public policy. You know these policies will literally be taking food out of children’s mouths, clothes off their back, and a roof over their heads. Free Public Transportation: We are already paying too much for MTA service. “Fare box recovery” is an artificially created concept to get money for MTA service that has already been paid for by the public through 3 separate sales taxes, including Measure R in 2008. In that sales tax, the MTA promised the voters that 20 percent of the funding would be used for bus service. But in a cynical bait and switch, MTA simply used money from Measure R to replace other funds previously used for bus service, and moved those funds to rail operations, construction and other expenses. This theft of bus funds creates the artificial “operating deficits” now being used to justify fare increases. The upshot is that free public transportation and a free student bus pass would not in fact be free, but would be paid for out of sales taxes and other tax revenues already paid by the public—but based on profoundly different MTA policy choices. Free public transportation and a free student bus pass would dramatically increase ridership, get many people out of their cars or even give up cars as too expensive, and provide greater mobility and significantly fewer toxic and greenhouse gas emissions. Stop “Stop and Frisk” on the buses and trains. Remove all Sheriffs’ officers from the trains and stop the practice of “fare enforcement.” End “Stop, Frisk, and Ticket” on LA public transit.  We are deeply concerned that while MTA proposes to raise fares, the Sheriff’s Department is escalating a racialized attack on MTA riders in the name of “fare enforcement.” Black and Latino young people are the primary target. With regular searches and exorbitant tickets now commonplace when they can’t come up with $1.50, public transit is becoming just another public space where their mere presence is criminalized.  Recent stories point to a pattern of unwarranted brutality by the Sheriffs against passengers, yet the MTA’s rewards the Department with a contract that’s now ballooned to $85 million annually. We demand an end to the criminalization of fare evasion on all MTA buses and trains. No Sheriffs or MTA Police can be used to check passenger fares. The fight to reverse these fare increases is just the tip of the melting iceberg. We urge you to make a full 180 degree u-turn on previous MTA policies and work with the Bus Riders Union and many community organizations to: Stop All Fare Increases. We will not pay one penny more in fares or taxes. No Cars in L.A. Restrict auto use now! No Fare: Free Public Transportation, Free Student Bus Pass. Stop “Stop and Frisk.” There is no such crime as fare evasion. Moratorium on rail and highway expansion. 5,000 zero emission buses running 24/7 in Los Angeles. Again, we look forward to meeting in person to discuss all these matters. We will be in touch to set up a meeting and you should also feel free to contact Eric Mann or Barbara Lott-Holland at 213.387.2800 / info@thestrategycenter.org. Sincerely, Eric Mann, Director [...] Read more...
December 2, 2013Right now, five key fights are in motion. Your donation will help us immediately hit the ground running with all five in 2014. We can do it with a movement. That means you. Will you make your donation today? Our five fights: • Climate Justice Now! No Cars in LA. • Stop criminalization of Black and Brown youth! • End racist zero-tolerance. Create Supportive Schools. • End LA’s transit stop and frisk! Free student Bus Pass! • Working class, immigrants, youth, and LGBTQ at the front. You know and we know what our cities face: a polluting, privatizing, policing and mass incarceration agenda. But you share the vision-cities by and for their working class Black and Latino majorities. Led by organizers like Ashley Franklin, Rosa Miranda, Ron Collins, we know we can win neighborhoods and schools made safe by jobs and resources, not cops. And 24-hour, free zero-emissions mass transit. You know our hope-to build an independent grassroots left movement not to soften the edges of our increasingly unforgiving cities, but to transform them altogether. That’s why every single member of our staff is fired up to raise $15K in the next 15 days. Will you be help us with a one-time gift of $200, $100, $50 today? Or power our work each and every day by becoming a sustainer? Will you take a minute to spread the word about our work and encourage your own friends and family to donate? Check out our sharables page with ready-made Facebook, Twitter, and Email messages. [...] Read more...
November 25, 2013Source: “Black, Brown, and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools” www.CommunityRightsCampaign.org       LAUSD Schools with the Highest Rates of Ticketing in 2012-2013 Arresting and ticketing students as a form of school punishment has systemic civil rights consequences: Black and Latino youth are pushed out of school and into the “school-to-prison pipeline.” The racialized treatment of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is perhaps best understood by examining the geographic concentration of school policing in certain regions of the school district. Take a look at the map above to see where your local LAUSD school ranks. Read the full report, “Black, Brown, and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools”: http://bit.ly/17xsndK [...] Read more...
November 8, 2013On November 7, 2013, Fight for the Soul of the Cities hosted an online presentation of Community Rights Campaign Organizers discussing their new report: “Black, Brown, and Over-Policed.” Following the live presentation of the facts within the report, our online community joined in by posting questions to our Facebook wall and tweeting them with the hashtag #OverPoliced. You can watch a video of the event, below. For more on what you can do to join the movement to decriminalize youth in Los Angeles’ public schools -join Community Rights Campaign organizers on Saturday, November 9th, 2013, at Immanuel Presbyterian Church, 3300 Wilshire Blvd in Los Angeles. A Few Live-Tweets From the Event:  We need to understand the role of #police on campus and expose the continued impact it has on #students http://t.co/fExf4hMdby #OverPoliced — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   In 2012 and 2013 black students were 20x more likely than white #students to be ticketed for disturbing the peace. #OverPoliced #Race — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   We are seeing the criminalization of #youth. When we give young people tickets we are sending a message that we don’t care. #OverPoliced — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   We want to mark the progress of the movement to dismantle the #school2prisonpipeline in #LAUSD #OverPoliced — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   “Black, Brown, and #OverPoliced“: We want to present the most current data and the ongoing civil rights harms of tickets and arrests. — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   “Black, Brown, and #OverPoliced“: We want #LAUSD and #LASPD to cease tickets and arrests for all school discipline matters — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   Maunuel (@Redpipil ): When we support young people we can shift the culture of the school system. #School2Prison #RestorativeJustice — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   Cynthia: When a #student receives a ticket they don’t usually have a discussion with their #teachers. We need restorative #justice. — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   Maunuel (@Redpipil ): We need more counselors, psychologists – We need money going back into our schools not into #police. #OverPoliced — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   Maunuel (@Redpipil): Ticketing a young person only festers the problem. #OverPoliced — FFSC (@FightSoulCities) November 8, 2013   Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date on the movement surrounding “Black, Brown, and Over-Policed”: https://www.facebook.com/FightForTheSoulOfTheCities [...] Read more...
November 1, 2013Join us on Thursday, November 7th at 5pm PST for a live, online discussion about “Black, Brown, and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools.”  CLICK PLAY TO WATCH THE LIVE BROADCAST: Community Rights Campaign Organizers will introduce the findings of the new report and will discuss proposals to end the LAUSD school-to-prison pipeline. Join the conversation by submitting questions and comments via Twitter using the hashtag #OverPoliced or post your questions to the Fight for the Soul of the Cities Facebook page.  Join the Facebook invite online: https://www.facebook.com/events/638550042831815/ Please invite your friends and spread the word.  A few sample posts:   Learn more about the movement to decriminalize #LAUSD #Students – Join the discussion on 11/7 @ 5pm http://bit.ly/HEorO7 #OverPoliced Keep the Decriminalizing Momentum #LAUSD. Join the movement to end the #school2prison pipeline in #LA http://bit.ly/HEorO7 #Overpoliced   Tweets about “#OverPoliced” [...] Read more...
October 30, 2013The Community Rights Campaign, an organization within the Labor Community Strategy Center, has released a new report: “Black, Brown, and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools.” The structural proposal focuses on how to end the school-to-prison pipeline in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and  build a national movement to stop the mass incarceration of Black and Latino communities. The citation and arrest patterns of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and the Los Angeles School Police Department’s (LASPD) for the school years of 2011-2013 are analyzed through the lens of race, gender, age and neighborhood impacts. Despite an important ticketing decrease in the 2012-13 school year, “Black, Brown and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools” illustrates that while there was marked progress by LAUSD and LASPD to curb ticketing in the past year (nearly a 80% decrease in Daytime Curfew citations and tickets overall have decreased 50% in the 2012-13 school year) there remain troubling patterns in L.A. School Police ticketing practices that have increasing racialized impacts. In the 2012-2013 school year, more than a full year after major reforms began taking hold:  Latino students were more than twice as likely as white students to be ticketed  Black students were almost 6 times as likely as a white student to be ticketed  47% of tickets to youth 14 and under; several as young as 9 and 10 years old  70% of tickets to males  Black students were 29 times more likely than white students to be ticketed for Disturbing the Peace (often issued for school fights or perceived defiance) Geographic concentration of highest ticketing rates in schools in South LA and in the majority-Latino neighborhoods of the San Fernando Valley, Westlake and Boyle Heights. These are civil rights and educational rights harms that obstruct the educational outcomes for students of color and require an immediate remedy. Virtually all of these tickets and arrests were for incidents that schools traditionally handled without criminalizing youth prior to the institutional expansion of school policing. Skipping class, smoking, drinking, writing on desks or walls, school fights are being funneled to the Los Angeles County Juvenile Court and Probation system. The reality is that with budget cuts and supportive school personnel positions being cut, many schools have defaulted to using school police as disciplinarians (school police officers have expressed privately and publicly that this is not their role). Los Angeles School Police Department is the largest dedicated school police department in the Country, with a $52 million annual budget. We Call on LAUSD to Continue the March Toward Educational Justice to End Punitive Discipline and Student Criminalization. We recognize the leadership of several LAUSD officials and LASPD Chief Steve Zimmerman have been critical to the on-going community engagement to change the culture of our schools, reduce suspension and ticketing rates and ushering in important reforms to change overall school climate with the recent passage of the School Climate Bill of Rights. Nationally and locally, the task to reverse the school to jail track is a priority-from Denver, Colorado to Clayton County, Georgia to the State of Texas to Pasadena – have already implemented or adopted school police protocols to curb the criminalization of students in school. The Community Rights Campaign looks forward to continuing to engage with the LAUSD and LASPD to address the harms documented in “Black, Brown and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools.” We also urge them to adopt the Community Rights Campaign’s Equal Protection Plan which would create long-term civil rights protections and consolidate important LAUSD policy shifts to end punitive discipline and police practices and expand school-based restorative intervention practices and programs. The Equal Protection Plan is a model district-wide policy with school police protocols to limit ticketing and arrests, address racial disparities for Black and Latino students, end ticketing and arrest of elementary and middle school students, remedy high ticketing patterns in South LA, Boyle Heights and San Fernando Valley and secure funds for positive discipline and restorative justice coordinators.  Read the full report: “Black, Brown, and Over-Policed in L.A. Schools” [...] Read more...
October 23, 2013Whether it was First Nations people on reservations or poor white folks in Appalachia the entire country is abuzz with resistance and it’s beautiful.  By Ron Collins, Fight for the Soul of the City Organizer  For the past five days I attended a gathering of over 8,000 youth environmentalists from all across the nation and the political spectrum. I lead a delegation of five other Labor Community Strategy Center (LCSC) youth organizers and we were able to learn from and build with a variety of different people and organizations. The conference was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania a former hub of the steel industry that has made great strides in building a more sustainable city. Most of the attendees were white college students with a delegation from their campus group or from one of the big green NGO’s. There were also youth from several different First Nations tribes as well as a scattered presence of local grassroots organizations. Our delegation was able to present on three different panels talking about our work around the environment and the school to prison pipeline. We attended some 30 panel discussions over the course of the conference covering everything from the spread of hydraulic fracturing, the movement to pressure institutions to divest from dirty energy,and the actions being taken to end the Keystone XL Pipeline and the devastating effects of Tar Sands.These panels helped our organizers deepen their knowledge on the range of the environmental justice movement as well as understand solutions to the devastation we are seeing in our communities. Being that the conference was focused on environmental justice rather than traditional environmentalism we were able to see quite a few people from under represented communities as speakers. The most impactful experience of the whole conference for me was getting to hear the stories of other frontline communities and how they are fighting for a better way of life. Whether it was First Nations people on reservations or poor white folks in Appalachia the entire country is abuzz with resistance and it’s beautiful. While the conference had its contradictions, I believe that all of the participants were well intentioned and want to build a world free of the devastation of capitalism and environmental degradation. In the coming days you will be hearing from all of our delegates and getting a firsthand account their personal thoughts and reflections on the conference. [...] Read more...
October 2, 2013The Labor Community Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities declare today the beginning of the online action campaign for the “Voting Rights Referendum for Trayvon Martin.” The Trayvon Martin case, like the Emmett Till case 58 years ago, is shaping the consciousness of a new generation of civil rights and Black Liberation organizers.  This is a challenge to see if we can get the federal government to enforce civil rights laws. So far, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have yet to bring civil rights charges against either George Zimmerman or the Sanford, Florida Police Department—and the indictment of the police is essential to confront the institutional form of racism. How can this be, after so many organizations and people in unison called out to the Obama administration to take Trayvon Martin’s civil rights seriously? This is a test case not just for the president but for those of us on the ground doing anti-racist work in Black and Latino communities and all people who want to build an invigorated civil rights movement. We need your help! Once we heard the verdict in the George Zimmerman case, Fight for the Soul of the Cities  began an on-the ground “Voting Rights Referendum for Trayvon Martin” calling for justice. Soon,Chicago for the People  joined the campaign and set-up eight polling places in their city. Our “Voting Rights Referendum for Trayvon Martin” was a success, with 5,000 votes tallied at polling stations across Los Angeles and many more in Chicago. Today we are officially ending on-the ground polling and transitioning online! During our on-the-ground work we focused on voting rights in our Referendum for Trayvon Martin because we are outraged that so many people in our communities—people caught in the mass incarceration system, young people old enough to die in wars but not to vote, and immigrants, as well as those facing increasing demands for identification—are denied the right to vote. By opening up this referendum to everyone we got many people who had never voted in an election to vote in ours. While this specific petition to the President and Attorney General focuses on the Trayvon Martin demands we will be working with more groups in the future to make voting rights demands on the federal government. The Labor Community Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities declare today the beginning of the online action campaign for the “Voting Rights Referendum for Trayvon Martin.” The President and Attorney General, have the authority to act. Demand that they do, by sending them this letter: President Obama and Attorney General Holder: We Continue to Demand Justice for Trayvon Martin If you are an organization looking to join us in this campaign, email Ronald (at) thestrategycenter (.org) ________________________________________________________________ Please consider sharing this campaign on Twitter and Facebook.     A few sample tweets: Send a letter to #Obama (@WhiteHouse) and #Holder (@TheJusticeDept) demanding justice for #TrayvonMartin http://bit.ly/18H9m6E Join @FFSC in continuing to seek justice for #TrayvonMartin. Send a letter to Obama and Holder: http://bit.ly/18H9m6E #CivilRights Go to the root of systemic #racism: Call on Obama and Holder to indict the Sanford Police department http://bit.ly/18H9m6E #J4TM #VRR4TM Follow us and use #PeoplesVote4Trayvon and #VRR4TM:   [...] Read more...
August 5, 2013Join the Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Fight for the Soul of the Cities in taking to the streets of South Los Angeles. We are demanding that President Obama and Attorney General Holder, investigate and indict George Zimmerman and the Sanford, FL police department for violating the Civil Rights of Trayvon Martin. How can I get involved? “I am heartbroken about Trayvon and want to do something effective.” We are excited to ask you to join us in our “Voting Rights Referendum for Trayvon Martin” beginning in South Los Angeles, a Black and Latino community of 850,000 people, on Friday, August 2.  Here are all the ways you can plug in: Cast your vote in the Voting Rights Referendum for Trayvon Martin campaign. We’ll have three permanent polling places: 1. Martin Luther King and Crenshaw Blvds. 2. Leimert Park at the corner of Vernon Avenue  & Crenshaw Blvd. 3. The Southern California Library, 6120 South Vermont @ 61st Street. Volunteer for the campaign! Sign up for a shift to help us get out the vote at community events, community institutions, and in neighborhoods. Help put up posters and distribute flyers. Work in our campaign office. Organize your family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors to vote. Share information about the campaign with them and encourage them to go to one of the polling places to vote. Ask your workplace, church, mosque, temple, community organization or school to participate in the campaign. This means:  1.  Endorse the campaign.  2.  Serve as a polling place. We will set a voting box and a sign in their office, lobby, etc where members of the public can vote.  3.  Invite a campaign poll worker to attend to a meeting, class or service to get all the people in attendance to vote. Promote the campaign through social media! Follow, share, re-post on: Facebook: facebook.com/FightfortheSouloftheCities Twitter: @FightSoulCities Instagram, Tumblr, and Google+ Use hashtags #PeoplesVote4Trayvon & #VRR4TM What Are Your Demands?  We will be asking the Obama Administration to: Investigate and indict George Zimmerman for violating the civil rights of Trayvon Martin under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, in support of the NAACP’s national call, and Investigate and indict the Sanford, Florida police department for violating the civil rights of Trayvon Martin under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 What is Behind Those Demands?  The President is not acting forcefully enough. He must be pushed. President Obama asked the country to have a national dialogue on race but we want federal action to stop racist police forces and vigilantes carrying out beatings and murders. In particular, while George Zimmerman pulled the trigger, it was the Sanford, Florida Police Department that did not indict Zimmerman for 45 days – and not until after a major public outcry. It was the Sanford Police that did not aggressively collect evidence at the crime scene and sabotaged the pathetic prosecution with a detective who never wanted to arrest Zimmerman and testified at the trial as a hostile witness to the “prosecution.” (The Florida State Attorney’s Office should also be investigated, given their “fight to lose” plan, but that is not in our demands). As a woman from Florida recently stated, “Cities like Sanford see themselves as separate countries not bound by the constitution and are centers of racism and apartheid.” Do President Obama and Attorney General Holder Have the Power to Enforce Those Demands?   Absolutely. They have the power to indict George Zimmerman under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate crimes Prevention Act of 2009. They have the power to indict the Sanford, FL police department under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. In fact, this Justice Department, to its credit, has investigated 13 separate police departments including Miami and New Orleans under this statute, and forced them to sign consent decrees agreeing to radically change racial profiling, brutality, denial of due process practices. We need that power exercised for Trayvon. And we need it expedited because the Justice Department is telling people to “be patient” and “these investigations take a long time.” They must be pushed to move on this and move on it fast. Why is this called a referendum? A referendum is a big up or down vote on a large political question—should Black people have the right to secede from the United States, should all immigrants have the right to immediate civil rights, should the people of Chile vote out the dictator Pinochet, “Yes” or “No.” (See the great film in theaters, “No” that dramatizes the story of how the Chilean people voted out the dictator.) In this case, it is a referendum on whether the Obama Administration should investigate and indict George Zimmerman and the Sanford, Florida Police Department. Why are you calling this a “Voting Rights” Referendum?  Because our referendum is open to all people regardless of immigration status, past or present dealing with the criminal injustice system, or age. Because the United States is not a democracy. It denies the vote to Black people who built this country on their backs as slaves, who fought to get the vote and are now having it taken away from them because they vote too much. This country also denies the vote to youth who this county sends to war, to immigrants who are helping to build this country and coming from nations exploited and oppressed by the US.  It denies the vote to prisoners and ex-prisoners, the vast majority of whom should never have been arrested in the first place. As this country becomes more and more a country of color, the large corporations that run this country fear a powerful movement of the low-wage and no-wage Black and Latino working class. They are carrying out a sustained movement to restrict the votes of Blacks and Latinos. That, in turn, is a conscious tactic on the part of the system to allow unchecked police brutality, mass incarceration, and vigilante justice imposed on the Black and Latino communities. Our Voting Rights Referendum is an exercise in Black and Latino political power to build a society in the interests of all people of color and all people of good will. All are welcome and encouraged to vote, will get a sticker, “I voted for Justice, My vote counts!” For many of our friends and members, this will be the first time they have ever voted! What is your larger strategy, where does this campaign fit in?  Consider the murders of Trayvon Martin and Oscar Grant; the 2.5 million people in prison and the 50 percent unemployment rate for young Black men; the unjust wars in which our children go to kill and be killed and come home mentally and physically disabled; you will find that this country is a system run for profit and not the people. While we have to fight one abuse at a time, the Fight for the Soul of the Cities is trying to build a broad movement. Our demands are: free the U.S. 2.5 million prisoners; no cars in LA—and U.S. cities; 5,000 zero emissions buses in LA; free public transportation; amnesty and open borders for immigrants; support the right to protest and organize; stop U.S. drone attacks; and for President Obama to enforce, restore, and expand our civil rights. We fight for Justice for Trayvon Martin because it is the right thing to do, regardless of chosen strategy. And for us, it is part of a longer-term movement to challenge the system with a Black/Latino alliance at its core. What are other people doing about Trayvon Martin? Our Campaign is just one good idea among many. It will take ALL of our efforts to win justice for Trayvon Martin and to challenge this system that is based on greed, racism, and conquest. Some other organizations doing excellent work include: NAACP Justice for Trayvon Martin Trayvon Martin Foundation Hip Hop Caucus The Dream Defenders Malcolm X Grassroots Movement What is the Strategy Center’s history of civil rights organizing? The Fight for the Soul of the Cities is a project of the Labor/Community Strategy Center, the Bus Riders Union, and the Community Rights Campaign. Many of you are already familiar with the civil rights advocacy, organizing, and enforcement we’ve done since 1989. This includes our report, Reconstructing Los Angeles from the Bottom Up and our successful coalitional campaign to defeat the Weed and Seed Program in 1992. It also includes our landmark lawsuit in 1994 against Los Angeles County MTA, for Violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. With excellent representation by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, from that suit we won a 10 year Consent Decree with the MTA. In this suit we were “class representatives” and  won more than $2.5 billion for 500,000 low-income Black, Latino, Korean, working class bus riders. Our present, “President Obama: Enforce, Restore, and Expand Our Civil Rights Campaign” has been asking the Obama Administration to support the Bus Riders Union in our complaint against the Los Angeles MTA in front of the Federal Transit Administration. We charged the MTA with once again violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for cutting 1 million hours of bus service from Black and Latino bus riders, and we are now asking the President to enforce that act in every city in the U.S. The Voting Rights Referendum for Trayvon Martin campaign is part of that tradition. How to get involved and stay connected: The campaign is organized by the Labor/Community Strategy Center and it’s Fight for the Soul of the Cities Campaign. For more information, call 213.387.2800 or e-mail fight@fightforthesoulofthecities.com.   Follow us and use #PeoplesVote4Trayvon and #VRR4TM:   [...] Read more...
July 23, 2013By Ronald Collins, Strategy Center and Fight for the Soul of the Cities Organizer I have been working in the movement since I was 16 years old, only a year younger than Trayvon, I am now turning 24. In the last 8 years since I have been politically conscious I have seen some truly disturbing things that I must, at this point in my development as a leader in the movement, begin to address. Firstly I want to talk about Trayvon Martin and why this trial has impacted me on so many levels, and then I want to talk about how we are living in the most institutionally racist time since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s. I know almost nothing about who Trayvon Martin was or what kind of man he was destined to become, but I do know that he was innocent. The only crime that this young man committed was being young and Black near George Zimmerman and that cost him his life. No matter what way you slice and dice and dissect what happened a young Black life was taken and the human being responsible was allowed to walk free. This besets me with an inconsolable rage because it is the very same as saying that Trayvon Martin’s Black life was meaningless. Again I know nothing about this brotha, but I know that his life was worth more than an unfair trial and a media circus. This trial is representative of how the institution of U.S. Empire feels about me and every person who comes from the same ancestry as I do. Our lives are worthless to the U.S. Empire. George Zimmerman was able to take a life and walk away while my brother, my own flesh and blood, has had to endure torture chambers called solitary confinement for “crimes” that amount to little more than him trying to make a living in this racist society. This trial wasn’t a trial of George Zimmerman it was a trial of justice in “Land of the Free” and this country was found guilty, guilty of racism, guilty hating black people, and guilty of imperialist war crimes against the Black Nation of the Americas. By allowing a child’s killer to walk away the U.S. has told us that they not only don’t care about our lives, but they don’t care about our continued existence in this country. We must as a people take this warning as an understanding that this is the moment to move the masses and take a stand. When speaking about the Tragedy of Trayvon Martin we must take it into context of the political climate of the country. In Los Angeles working class Black people were robbed of 1 million hours of bus service, in Chicago 61 schools in Black communities are being shut down, in New Orleans black families are still displaced from Katrina, and all over the Southern United States black communities are being subjected to racist voting laws. These are not isolated incidents they represent an intentional attack by the Right in this country to disenfranchise and disempower the black community completely. It started with the COINTELPRO and it is continuing with the murder of innocent Black children in the streets. The political climate in this country has taken a turn for the worst and it has done so under the watch of a Black President. Every single one of these travesties with the exception of the actual striking of Katrina has been under the watch of none other than America’s own First Black President, Barack Obama. While this man bailed out Wall Street and continues to give glorious sweet heart deals to weapons contractors to build the Drones of the Empire our children are dying in the streets. In his own state of Illinois where he was a Senator they have seen some the bloodiest urban violence since the 1980’s and all while they dismantle public education for Black youth. What has having a Black man in the oval office done for me? The same thing it did for Trayvon Martin, absolutely nothing. It is necessary for the Movement and the survival of our communities that we begin to demand that President Obama intervene on behalf of Civil Rights. We demand that the U.S. Justice Department immediately bring a Civil Rights law suit against George Zimmerman. In addition we demand that every federal agency enforce civil rights law to the fullest extent possible through investigating and defunding government entities for violations of civil rights. We must as Black organizers and Black people see this moment for what it is, a declaration by the State saying; black lives mean nothing in this racist, capitalist, imperialist country. It is our duty to fight and it is our duty to win. Do not let these words fall idly on your ears; let them inspire you to come to the movement and raise the hell that the complacent middle class has been waiting for. Now is the moment to move action, we did not get Justice for Trayvon Martin, but we can have Justice for the Future if we ban together against the Empire. We call on President Obama to Enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act by mandating the Department of Justice to open an investigation and indict George Zimmerman, the Sanford Police, and the State of Florida for the Civil Rights violation of Trayvon Martin. Join us in signing the NAACP petition. [...] Read more...
June 10, 2013By Eric Mann originally published in Colorlines Magazine on June 10th, 2013. Make Demands, Try the System  George Zimmerman will go on trial today for the murder of Trayvon Martin. But let’s be clear, within the defense’s opening arguments, for many who follow the trial—which will be televised!—it will be Trayvon Martin who will be on trial. He in fact already is. On May 23, the Orlando Sentinel offered the following news: New evidence in Zimmerman case: Trayvon texted about fighting, smoking marijuana about a week before he was killed. The evidence that George Zimmerman’s attorneys have uncovered on Trayvon Martin’s cell phone paints a troubling picture of the Miami Gardens teenager: He sent text messages about being a fighter, smoking marijuana and being ordered to move out of his home by his mother. And photos from that phone offer more of the same: healthy green plants—what appear to be marijuana—growing in pots and a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun. So here we go again with a script deep in the white American psyche: the impossibility of Black innocence. My first experience with the horror of racism was the murder of Emmett Till in 1955; he was only a year older than me when he died. It was alleged that Till, a 14-year-old Chicago black boy visiting Mississippi for the summer, did not know his place and whistled at a white woman in a store. That evening the husband of the woman and his friend came to the house of Emmett’s grandfather, kidnapped Emmett, beat him beyond recognition, and then drowned his body. When his mutilated body was found, Emmett’s Mother, Mamie Till, insisted that his casket be left open because, in her words, “I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby.” The images shocked the black community and attracted great anger and sympathy from anti-racist people all over the world. And yet, for some, the debate focused on whether Emmett had or hadn’t made any flirtatious advances toward a southern white woman—with many believing that if so, he had brought his murder on himself. When I worked in the Newark Community Union Project in 1966-1968 in the city’s black south and central wards, we worked on many community issues including police brutality. In each case we worked to identify the facts of the story and document the specifics of the brutality. I still remember George Richardson, a militant black political figure explaining to us his views on the realities of police brutality cases as if it was yesterday. You know, Eric, in these police brutality cases, we are always looking for the perfect black victim, the completely “innocent” black man, but he doesn’t exist. In our ideal case, a white cop beats or shoots a black man and it turns out it was a black doctor walking down the street doing absolutely nothing when a white cop comes up to him and beats him badly. But that is never the way it is. The guy usually is poor or working class, has a criminal record, he was drinking, he talked back to the cop, he ran a traffic sign, he shoplifted, he ‘resisted arrest’, he yelled at the cop, he raised his hand whether in self-defense or even to fight back. But that has nothing to do with the fact that he was beaten half to death for being black. In every case, the black man is on trial, guilty until proven innocent and you what, for most of these folks, even our hypothetical black doctor could never be innocent enough. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black manchild leaving a gated community and shot down in cold blood was as close in reality to that hypothetical black doctor as one can imagine, but it did not save him from an early grave. So now, in this important test case, it’s essential that the civil rights movement and organizers in communities of color put the system on trial—for this trial is not about George Zimmerman alone, but also about how a system that sanctioned the murder of an un-armed black teenager until mass national and international pressure forced a trial. We have to win the argument that there are no extenuating circumstances in the stalking and murder of unarmed black men, and while we are there, we have to win the argument that a pen, or a knife, or a shopping cart, or a parked car or “something that looked like a gun” are not lethal weapons at 15 feet, and that lethal force is not an option. Every time someone raises any questions about Trayvon, and we can be assured that as the trial goes on, the character assassination of Trayvon Martin will escalate, we have to counter with the most radical and structural demands on the system possible, to shift the therms of the debate and put the system on trial. This tactic—what’s been called “counter-hegemonic demand development”—was the great contribution of the civil rights movement and is rooted in Frederick Douglass’ advice: Power accedes to nothing without a demand. We have to roll back all the stop and frisk laws, all the “hold your ground laws,” all the “war on drugs” laws, the endless web of laws that have put one million black people in prison and millions more in probation and parole. We have to demand President Obama enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and use his statutory power to withhold federal funds from any agency using those funds in a racially discriminatory manner—from Los Angeles to Chicago, from New York to Houston and everywhere else in between. We need to demand the social welfare state, not the police state—1,000 more buses, 1,000 more teachers, 1,000 more nurses, 1,000 fewer police. When we say Trayvon Martin did not die in vain, we have to fight for the maximum program that his life and his death and his innocence deserve. The Demands At A Glance: Roll back all the stop and frisk laws, all the “hold your ground laws,” all the “war on drugs” laws. Demand President Obama enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and use his statutory power to withhold federal funds from any agency using those funds in a racially discriminatory manner. Demand the social welfare state, not the police state—1,000 more buses, 1,000 more teachers, 1,000 more nurses, 1,000 fewer police.   Eric Mann, a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, United Auto Workers and Students for a Democratic Society, and is the director of the Labor/Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles. He is the host of KPFK’s Pacifica Voices from the Frontlines and the author of “Playbook for Progressives: 16 Qualities of the Successful Organizer.” He can be reached at eric@voicesfromfrontlines.com. [...] Read more...
May 21, 2013What progressive activists can learn from a grassroots campaign against transit racism. By Eric Mann originally published in The Nation Magazine on May 27th, 2013. On November 6, 2012, as progressive voters cheered the re-election of Barack Obama, activists in Los Angeles also celebrated a lesser-known victory: the defeat of Measure J, a ballot initiative that would have directed $90 billion in taxpayer funds to local rail and highway projects, and would also have led to crippling fare increases and service cuts for the city’s bus riders. For twenty years, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Bus Riders Union have been locked in a transit war, with the MTA pouring cash into costly rail projects at the same time that it cut bus service and raised fares. But rail not only generated far fewer riders than a first-class bus system would; it also had massive cost overruns that the MTA solved by raiding bus system funds. The BRU called this “transit racism”: some 500,000 passengers—with a median household income of under $14,000 a year—relied on buses as their means of transportation. Ninety percent of these riders were black, Latino or Asian/Pacific Islander. In 2011, the Federal Transit Administration rejected a civil rights complaint on behalf of the BRU seeking FTA intervention in one of its latest battles with the MTA. The complaint charged the transportation authority with violating Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits agencies receiving federal funds from allocating them in a racially discriminatory manner. The FTA’s refusal to offer a remedy inspired an ambitious national strategy by organizers in Los Angeles. In the spring of 2012, the Labor/Community Strategy Center, a movementbuilding “think tank/act tank” that I direct, rolled out the “Fight for the Soul of the Cities” campaign. In twenty years of organizing, we had seen a corporatized urban plan dominate the public discourse. It was time to fight back against its Disneyfied fantasy and Blade Runner reality with an aggressive social- and environmental-justice master narrative for the city. We began by calling on President Obama to use his authority under Title VI to overturn the FTA’s decision and make civil rights enforcement a top priority for his administration. At the same time, we called on Los Angeles County voters to defeat Measure J, arguing that it perpetuated transit racism and environmental destruction. As the campaign unfolded in the months before the November election, we learned difficult and valuable lessons about achieving regional victories that can shape a national movement. As activists around the country attempt to pressure the president on a range of issues over the next four years, the story of how we organized in Los Angeles can offer an example of a winning strategy for the progressive movement. The Los Angeles Bus Riders Union was founded by the Labor/Community Strategy Center in 1992 with the goal of organizing low-income riders to fight against residential segregation and for jobs and environmental justice. In 1994, represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the BRU, along with other community groups, went to federal court to block the MTA’s fare increases and service cuts, charging it with violating Title VI, using funds in a racist manner, and balancing its rail budget on the backs of the black and Latino working class. The courts sided with the BRU, which in turn led to a negotiated consent decree between the parties. Through ten years of negotiations, mass actions and court orders, the MTA lowered bus fares, replaced dilapidated diesel buses with 2,500 new compressed natural-gas buses, significantly reduced overcrowding, and added 1 million hours of bus service. All told, the BRU’s “Billions for Buses” campaign won $2.7 billion in added service and benefits for bus riders—and, for a moment, changed the face of transportation in a megacity. But in 2006, the consent decree expired and federal oversight was lifted. The MTA wasted little time raising the cost of monthly bus passes from $52 to $75 and also eliminated the 1 million hours of service the BRU had fought so hard to win. Encouraged by the election of Barack Obama, in 2010 the BRU and the nonprofit law firm Public Advocates filed a civil rights complaint with the FTA and asked the agency to withhold federal funding if the MTA did not restore the cuts to bus service. In 2011, the FTA found that the transportation authority had violated parts of Title VI and ordered a Corrective Action Plan. But in March 2012, shortly before FTA Administrator Paul Rogoff issued his decision, MTA chief executive Art Leahy publicly stated that Rogoff had assured him that his ruling would not require the MTA to restore any bus service. Concerned, we called Rogoff to ask if he had made such an assurance. He denied it and said that he was still deliberating. But in April 2012, when the final ruling came, it was just as Leahy and the MTA had predicted, word for word. Technically, the investigation is still pending. But it was time to up the ante. The BRU devised a plan. With Obama’s re-election campaign poised to get under way, his platform was sure to come under greater scrutiny. Many civil rights groups felt the administration was weak on civil rights enforcement and encouraged us to make the fight over transportation in LA a test case for federal enforcement of Title VI in terms of employment, the environment, schools, hospitals—in short, every aspect of federal funding. Los Angeles is a high-visibility media center, after all, and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the chair of the MTA board as well as the 2012 Democratic National Convention, is a highprofile Latino with close ties to the president. With Democrats courting Latino voters, there were 5 million such voters in Los Angeles County alone. The city was also a major fundraising haven for the president. A high-profile campaign might convince liberal donors to pressure Obama to take a stand. We titled the campaign “President Obama: Enforce, Restore, Expand Our Civil Rights,” kicking it off with a July 26, 2012, rally on the steps of City Hall. Hundreds of demonstrators wore yellow BRU T-shirts featuring pictures of the president, and massive posters showed his image as well. The next day, the Los Angeles Times ran a large photo of the rally with the headline: “Bus Riders Union calls on Obama to restore service hours in L.A.” The BRU had delivered its message. The next day, the BRU got a call from the president’s Domestic Policy Council in response to a letter we had sent to its director, Cecilia Muñoz. The DPC offered us a meeting at the White House, with the caveat that Obama could not intervene with the FTA. Allies involved in the fight for the Dream Act told us that they, too, had been told by Muñoz and the DPC that the president had no authority to help them, before he did just that. So they encouraged us to continue the conversation and keep up the pressure. In August 2012, members of the campaign traveled to Washington and met with the DPC. We began with a short presentation on the MTA’s twenty-year history of civil rights violations against its own passengers and asked the president to restore the 1 million service hours and to withhold federal funds from the MTA until it complied. We were told that while the DPC welcomed our views and supported strong civil rights enforcement, its members could not discuss our case in Los Angeles since it was still under review. Guillermo Mayer from Public Advocates replied, “How can you support enforcement in general but not discuss one of the most egregious cases that requires your intervention?” But we agreed to keep in touch, knowing that the administration would wait to see how the fight over Measure J played out, while we held on to the option of pressuring President Obama beyond the election. No sooner had we returned to LA than we discovered that a “mayoral summit” on transportation and other issues was being held a month before the election. Several high-profile supporters of Measure J were listed as featured speakers. Among the invited guests was none other than DPC director Cecilia Muñoz. We considered dramatically escalating the public pressure on the White House by staging a sit-in at Obama’s campaign headquarters in LA and challenging him at high-visibility fundraising events. But instead we decided to focus all of our forces on defeating Measure J. If we won, not only would we deny the MTA $90 billion in additional revenue over thirty years; we would also shape the terms of the debate. And if Obama was re-elected, we would be in the strongest possible position to re-emphasize the need for federal intervention in Los Angeles. Still, building a grassroots movement to defeat Measure J was a daunting prospect. The “Yes on J” coalition had money and powerful backers, including Mayor Villaraigosa, rail and defense contractors, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, chambers of commerce and the Natural Resources Defense Council. It also had a $2 million advertising budget. What’s more, the deceptive ballot language, which was written by the MTA, promised everything from traffic relief to job creation. It glossed over the fact that the measure was a tax extension— an important point, since this also meant it required twothirds approval from the voters. In 2008, the MTA had successfully passed the same sales tax and had won by only 38,000 votes out of more than 2 million cast. Assuming a similar turnout in 2012, we calculated that we would need to win over some 19,000 voters to defeat Measure J. We decided to focus our work on South Los Angeles, home to 850,000 black and Latino residents. The “No on J” coalition began with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and created a diverse alliance: the groups opposing the MTA’s construction of a tunnel for the 710 freeway, which would bring truck traffic into communities; the neighborhood advocacy group Union de Vecinos, opposing MTA-led gentrification; Beverly Hills High School parents, opposing MTA drilling in high-methane areas; and the Crenshaw Subway Coalition, fighting against MTA underinvestment of transit funding in historically black cultural centers. “No on J” argued that the measure would allow the MTA to raid public funds and direct them to corporate rail developers at the expense of 500,000 black and Latino bus riders, who would experience more service cuts and fare increases. The coalition argued that despite more than $10 billion of rail construction over twenty-five years, the bus system still carried 80 percent of all MTA riders and was the only viable future for mass transit in LA. It pointed out that Measure J’s promise of money for the bus system was a deception— the MTA had made similar promises in the past, only to raid the funds and redirect them to rail. For those who asked why rail and bus service couldn’t get along, the “No on J” campaign explained that the MTA was building a rail/highway coalition, with 20 percent of Measure J funds slated for freeway expansion to subsidize the trucking industry and the ports, dramatically increasing greenhouse gas emissions at the very time we need to radically restrict auto use and freeway access. We framed the vote as a referendum on the “Fight for the Soul of the Cities” campaign: a choice of either a city run by the corporatizing, privatizing, polluting and policing classes, or a city with the black and Latino working class at its heart—and with 1,000 more buses, 1,000 more schools and 1,000 fewer police. More than 100 BRU members organized a phone bank operation, calling 30,000 voters in South LA. Opponents of the 710 tunnel did voter outreach in Northeast LA and the San Gabriel Valley. Another 150 BRU members put up 1,000 Fight Transit Racism, No on J lawn signs and distributed 50,000 brochures on buses, in churches and in their communities. They generated 40,000 robocalls in English and 20,000 in Spanish. They put their message online and on mailers that reached hundreds of thousands of people. On November 6, Measure J was defeated by a margin of 16,000 votes. The “No on J” coalition had won, defeating its powerful adversaries in business and government and denying the MTA $90 billion in future funding. The BRU capitalized on its victory by sending a letter to every member of the MTA board, asking them to restore $120 million a year to the bus budget that had been transferred to rail, to restore the previously cut 1 million hours of bus service, to reduce the monthly bus pass to $42, and to expand the bus fleet from 2,500 to 3,500 buses. It also urged the board to emphasize Bus Rapid Transit instead of rail; to use sales tax revenue to provide free, round-the-clock zero-emission bus service; to work with the residents of the San Gabriel Valley and South LA to change its policies; and—of great importance—to end its war on bus riders and its alliance with the highway lobby. Instead, the MTA is now trying to amend California law to reduce the percentage of votes needed to pass “transportation taxes” from two-thirds to a 55 percent majority. It also plans to increase its advertising budget and to ask the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (LACFL) to devote even more funds and canvassers to a future fight. So the BRU is gearing up for a new battle, working to broaden its support and reaching out to allies in the SEIU, AFSCME, the Amalgamated Transit Union and more. We are asking them to call on Maria Elena Durazo, head of the LACFL, to break her alliance with the construction companies and unions who love so-called “shovel-ready projects” and to side with the vast majority of the working class—from bus drivers and mechanics to hotel and restaurant workers, students and security guards—who are waiting longer and walking greater distances to their low-wage jobs and underfunded schools. The BRU is also asking its allies in the environmental movement to withdraw from the rail/ highway coalition and join the fight for a free, zero-emission bus system and radical restrictions on auto use to reduce greenhouse gas and toxic emissions. The Labor/Community Strategy Center is also refocusing the national civil rights campaign targeting the Obama White House through a strategy that begins with grassroots organizing, a clear set of demands and the moral arguments to back them up. In his second inaugural speech, President Obama invoked Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall—real struggles that transformed the national debate and changed federal law. In the future, national civil rights and other progressive campaigns must include inside-the-Beltway groups, but they cannot be the center of gravity. Instead, a national movement will pivot on whether people can organize coordinated transformative social movements in New York and Chicago, Houston and Detroit. It will take a series of high-stakes, high-visibility fights for the soul of the cities to put concerted pressure on the Obama administration to act. In Los Angeles, we are once again calling on the president to demand that the MTA restore the 1 million hours of bus service, dramatically lower fares and otherwise increase service—or lose its federal funding. More broadly, the goal is to pressure the president to address the discriminatory effects of the Supreme Court’s 2001 ruling in Alexander v. Sandoval, which undermined the 1964 Civil Rights Act and held that “private parties” do not have the right to sue to enforce “disparate impact” regulations under Title VI. President Obama can and must reverse this by introducing new federal legislation to restore the right of civil rights groups and other socalled “private parties” to sue government agencies that allocate funds in a racially discriminatory manner. This has to be a top legislative priority for the president’s second term. But in the meantime, President Obama still has enormous statutory authority to enforce civil rights law and combat structural racism. The Supreme Court has held that the executive branch has the power to withhold funds from agencies practicing racial discrimination and that “disparate impact” is sufficient grounds to do so. In every major city in the country and across all counties and states, local governments use funds in ways that have a racially discriminatory impact on schools, hospitals, prisons and more. If he had the political will, Obama could stop all federal funding, not just for the Los Angeles MTA (more than $500 million a year), but for the Chicago school system and New York City jails—and he could use that power to push through dramatic solutions to civil rights abuses. But that would mean challenging allies like Antonio Villaraigosa, Rahm Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg. This may seem like a stretch, but history has shown that challenges to Democratic administrations by independent social movements have achieved momentous victories. Even as Martin Luther King’s protests were blocked by Democratic politicians from Selma to Chicago, elected officials, ministers, and labor and community leaders with close ties to the Democratic Party were breaking the silence on segregation and the Vietnam War. The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party—led by Fannie Lou Hamer, Victoria Gray Adams and Annie Devine—and courageous SNCC volunteers lined up Democratic delegates who challenged the lily-white Mississippi delegation at the 1964 Democratic convention and generated a debate that Lyndon Johnson and Hubert Humphrey could repress but not control. Courageous Democrats like Abraham Ribicoff condemned Democratic Mayor Richard J. Daley’s “Gestapo” police tactics against protesters at the 1968 convention. Democratic Senators Wayne Morse, Ernest Gruening, George McGovern, Frank Church, Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy spoke out against Lyndon Johnson and the Democrats’ war in Vietnam and sided with the anti-war movement that was shaping the terms of the debate. It is with this history in mind that we will once again bring the demands of Los Angeles bus riders to the White House as part of a national civil rights initiative. There would be no greater use of the president’s executive authority than to take up Title VI, the hammer of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and strike a powerful blow against racism in government policy in every city in the land. Click here to send an e-mail to President Obama urging him to Enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act! Comments welcome. [...] Read more...
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