BY OLGA RODRÍGUEZ
NEW YORK - Thousands of people -the overwhelming majority of whom were Black - participated in the Million Youth March (MYM) event in Harlem September 5. Many people came to express national pride and dignity, as well as to protest police brutality and New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani's unsuccessful attempts to prevent the rally. When the event ended hundreds of participants raised their fists in the air and cheered.

The police assault on people at the end of the rally and attempts to arrest organizers in the following days continue to be a topic of debate in this city.

The New York Times reported 20,000 people participated. Police said the turnout for the event was 6,000, while organizers put the number at 50,000. The majority of participants came from the New York-New Jersey area. Hundreds of others came by bus, van, and car from cities including Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, North Carolina, and Washington, D.C.

"We came here together peacefully," said Eric Sanders, 26, a book clerk at Harlem City College who attended the rally. "Every day there's cop brutality and false arrests. Sometimes they grab you and take you to jail without reading you your rights. And when you go to court they tell you what you did - after you've spent the night in jail."

Camilo Reyes, 62, of the Dominican Workers Party, explained why he and more than 20 members of his organization came. "We solidarize with the Afro-Americans in the fight for social justice in the Harlem community and against police repression." Addressing Giuliani's campaign against the demonstration, Reyes explained, "We are within our rights to demonstrate because this is the sentiment of all those who fight for social justice, not only in the United States but in all of Latin America."

"I am here to support Black and Latino unity," said Yolanda Rodríguez, a Puerto Rican activist.

"I hope this action will help all of us to fight for self- determination and free political prisoners."

Giuliani and Police Commissioner Howard Safir went on the offensive to justify the actions of city cops, who stormed the stage at 4:01 p.m. in full riot gear.

Cops storm stage at 4:01 p.m.
"If you want to know why the police came in at 4:01, go read the court order," Giuliani declared at a news conference the next day. "They had their free-speech right. And at 4:01 it was over. And I am very proud of the police for making sure it was over." He added, "The police commissioner and I were determined we were not going to have it for one minute more."

The city administration failed to overturn the court order granting the organizers of the Million Youth March a permit to hold the event in Harlem. But the appellate judge placed limits on the number of hours of the event - from 12 noon until 4 p.m. - and confined the activity to six city blocks.

More than 3,000 police were mobilized at the event, including cops on rooftops in Harlem and helicopters hovering overhead during the entire day's activities.

Four subway stations on the line closest to the event were shut down, making it more difficult for those seeking to join the activity to do so. Thousands of city cops were deployed on the outer boundaries of Harlem, and people were blocked by metal barricades at every street feeding into the rally site.

Those who managed to get into the six-block area found themselves penned in most of the time and were prevented from mixing it up with others. Many were not let into the march area until well after 1:00 p.m. Impromptu demonstrations of hundreds of people sprung up at the main entrance on 125th Street. Angry, but disciplined chants of "Open up the streets!" "Let the people march!" and "Who's streets? Our Streets" got louder until cops were finally pressured to let the event-goers pass. Cops made the many hundreds of people enter one-by-one.

Each of the six blocks was closed by interlocking metal barricades. The police were amassed at each entry and exit point, and along the length of each side of the six blocks. Residents were prevented from getting to their homes or cars parked on those streets for a time.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people tried to enter through side streets, only to be told by cops that they would have to wait. After the barricades were opened up and people were told to enter, one young woman asked, "Why did they do all that?" Her friend responded, "That's to let you know who has the power here and what they will use it for. If you didn't know before, you just got a lesson."

News clips of the police assault indicate that the cops' actions were part of a staged provocation, which included a police helicopter swooping low at the front of the stage area twice as rally participants were leaving the area at 4:00 p.m. Cops muscled their way through the crowd towards the stage immediately after rally organizer Khallid Muhammad ended his speech. Some participants responded by hurling bricks, bottles, garbage cans, and chairs at the cops.

"The cops were forming up before Khallid took the stage," said James Burgess at a September 8 meeting called to protest the cop provocations.

`Police are treating us like beasts'
While a daily campaign of violence-baiting by Giuliani and other Democratic and Republican party politicians helped to cut across participation in the march, the turn-out was seen as a victory for democratic rights by working people, especially in the Black community. The bulk of those participating showed considerable restraint in the face of the provocative police presence.

Many participants at the rally expressed indignation at the massive cop operation.

"Police are treating us like beasts," declared Louise Freeman, an 80-year-old resident from the Bronx. "They're treating us like savages. This is a march where people have pride in themselves. The way the police are handling it reminds me of the Jim Crow South. My mother was from North Carolina, and I lived through that."

In the weeks leading up to the action, Giuliani, Democratic and Republican politicians, including several Black elected officials, the capitalist media, and reactionary organizations like the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Defense League seized on the anti-Semitic slurs and anti-white demagogy of Khallid Muhammad as a pretext to block the rally. Giuliani branded the activity as a "hate march." The Anti- Defamation League ran a full-page ad in the New York Times, featuring a photo of Muhammad leading an armed march in Jasper, Texas, protesting the lynching of a Black man. The ad urged parents to keep their children away from the Million Youth March.

In the wake of the cop attack on the stage for the Million Youth March event, the NYPD has stepped up their provocations against the Black community. Organizers of the MYM and other activists called a meeting that 250 people attended September 8 at the House of the Lords Church in Brooklyn to protest a raid by scores of police armed with assault weapons on the home of a march organizer in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The meeting called for a "Black power rally against police brutality" in Harlem September 15.

Opposition to the cop action at the Million Youth March has put the Giuliani administration on the defensive. The mayor and police commissioner now claim that the cops only moved against the organizers after they were attacked by demonstrators.

Bob Herbert, a New York Times columnist who is Black, wrote a September 7 piece entitled, "An Insult to Harlem," that read, "Mr. Giuliani...abused the power of his office by turning a large section of Harlem into a police encampment. By doing that, he humiliated thousands of law-abiding residents whose only offense was that they are black." Commenting on the use of helicopters to swoop down on rally participants, Herbert continued, "This was Harlem, not Vietnam. There was no need for cops in riot gear to storm a rally that was ending."

A grand jury investigation of the events at the end of the rally by Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, has begun. The District Attorney said that the grand jury would consider charges urged by Giuliani and Safir against rally organizer, Khallid Muhammad for incitement to riot for statements he allegedly made in his speech.

One march participant, Shaheed Muhammad, reportedly turned himself in to the 84th precinct September 8 in Brooklyn after the police issued a warrant on charges for allegedly assaulting a police officer. The cops claim Muhammad threw a brick during their assault on the rally.

Olga Rodríguez is a member of the International Association of Machinists. Al Duncan, Ruth Nebbia, and Maurice Williams contributed to this article.  
 
 
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