In a report to the meeting, YS National Executive Committee member Samantha Kern noted the important role youth have played in recent protest actions. Kern pointed to the January 17 demonstration in Columbia, South Carolina, demanding that the Confederate battle flag be removed from the state capital building, and to high school students in New York who organized walkouts in protest of the "not guilty" verdict of four New York cops who killed Amadou Diallo in his apartment building last year.

During the discussion, YS member Shem Morton from Los Angeles explained a fight developing at El Modena High School. The school board there is planning to suspend all noncurricular activities to keep the Gay-Straight Alliance, an organized student group, from holding meetings at the school. The YS supports the fight of the students to be able to meet and discuss politics on the campus. He said he has noticed that young people "are starting to wake up because of the fights that are breaking out everywhere."

YS member Willie Cotton from Tucson, Arizona, said he was recently invited to speak about the Cuban revolution at a class at his university. After his presentation on the Cuban revolution, students were interested in discussing socialism and what it has to offer to humanity.

Kern pointed out that these activities highlight the opportunities for young people to become involved in politics and the need for a revolutionary organization to be an effective part of those struggles. By being involved in these protests and by raising a communist perspective with other youth, the YS will continue to recruit members and build chapters.

"Politics in the United States is opening up," Kern said. "Attacks like the new 'anticrime' legislation in California targeting youth and democratic rights in general, and moves to end affirmative action in Florida are being responded to by young fighters who are looking for real solutions to the pressures and problems that capitalism breeds."

Over the coming months YS members will reach out to fighters such as these, "following the real lines of resistance taking place around the country," the YS leader said. "Along this path we will meet young workers and students interested in joining a revolutionary youth organization and fighting to overthrow capitalism."

YS members plan on joining teams around the country that can reinforce the work of socialists who are setting up units in Fresno, California; the coalfields; the Carolinas; and elsewhere. Many YS members will participate in the teams during their spring break from school and work. YS members are helping to lead this geographic expansion of the socialist movement in the Western coalfields and central California.

At the center of the Young Socialists' activities in the coming months will be the Socialist Workers 2000 election campaign. The Young Socialists want to take advantage of this opportunity to meet young fighters interested in an alternative to the big business politics represented by the Democrats and Republicans. In addition to the presidential ticket, socialists in many states will run for U.S. Senate and Congress, as well as state offices. This provides a political axis around which Young Socialists members can get out to all parts of the country to campaign for communism and to attract young people toward joining the Young Socialists.

The NC members at the meeting also voted to move the YS National Office from San Francisco to New York City, the heart of political activity in the United States. The YS chapters in the Northeast have become stronger in recent months, and there is enough leadership in the area to sustain the responsibilities of maintaining the national office. A new National Executive Committee was elected to organize the work of the YS in the coming months and to lead the spring campaigns.  
 

Building delegation to OCLAE congress

Another main campaign of the YS will be building participation in the conference of the Continental Latin America and Caribbean Students Organization (OCLAE), which will take place in Havana, Cuba, April 1-–5. YS members from across the country reported on activities they are part of to build local delegations of students and other youth. YS members anticipate there will be many discussions at the congress about communist political perspectives advanced by Ernesto Che Guevara, the Argentine-born leader of the Cuban revolution. Participants in the YS leadership meeting discussed the need to read and study Che Guevara Talks to Young People with others going to the congress.

The YS National Committee also decided to launch a national fund drive March 15 that will run through June 1. The YS organizes fund drives twice a year so the organization can be self-financed and organizationally independent. In each city where there are YS members, plans will be made to set a goal and chart a course for reaching it through a regular rhythm of fund-raising throughout the drive. Some of the ideas for fund-raising include producing political T-shirts, speaking at events on campuses, and organizing raffles.

The weekend ended with a public meeting to celebrate the accomplishments of the communist movement and to hear a reportback from the Havana International Book Fair held last month in Cuba. The celebration also welcomed the YS national office to New York.

The YS raised $160 at the meeting for the move to New York and sold 100 copies of Join the Fight for Socialism: Join the Young Socialists pamphlet, which will be distributed to young fighters all over the country interested in finding out more about the YS and in joining a revolutionary youth organization.  
 
 
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