This past week two supporters of the campaign in Fort Collins sold four subscriptions to the Militant and one subscription to Perspectiva Mundial at a table set up at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado. "We kept our table up for five hours and got to meet a number of students from campus," said Jan Miller. "The team went to the campus the previous evening and approached students from the Cultural Diversity Club about getting a table on campus. They agreed to sponsor it.

"We sold one subscription to a student whose father is a member of the Steelworkers union and is a taconite miner from northern Minnesota. He wants his subscription sent home where he will be this summer, so both he and his father can read the paper."

Miller said they sold another subscription to a student who lives in the town of Paonia, a coal mining area about 70 miles from the campus. "She wants us to visit her area for more discussion and to bring the Militant to coal miners there. She comes from a family of coal miners. We also met a professor who wants to place an order for Pathfinder books for classes he is teaching at the campus. He was particularly interested in the book Che Guevara Talks to Young People, although he wants to order other titles."

Supporters in every area can emulate this and similar efforts to make this a truly international campaign. In some places where participants in the drive are behind schedule they may want to organize special activities to catch up.

To build on these successes and get more momentum in the drive, the Militant is calling a target week for the campaign April 29 through May 7. This will provide an eight-day opportunity for socialist workers, members of the Young Socialists, and other partisans of the international circulation effort to map out plans for organizing extra sales activities and reaching out to broader layers of workers on the job and in other regions. Supporters of the socialist press can build up momentum in the target week to boost the campaign.

All across the United States and other parts of the world actions are popping up, such as the solidarity events demanding that Washington get its Navy out of Vieques, Puerto Rico. The Steelworkers union has organized labor solidarity actions in Iowa and Missouri; janitors are fight for contracts in many cities; aerospace workers struck the Lockheed Martin plant in Texas; Overnite strikers will soon mark the six-month anniversary of their strike; and there are many others. Workers, youth, and others participating in these actions will welcome the socialist press for its coverage not only of these actions in the United States but similar resistance worldwide.

Militant supporter Floyd Fowler in Atlanta said they sent a sales team to Valdosta, Georgia, last weekend where they joined a march and rally for justice for Willy James Williams, who died in police custody more than a year ago.

"Participants in the protest responded to the Militant's front-page article on the demonstrations in New York against the latest police killing there, as well as the articles on the labor movement and activities of the Young Socialists," wrote Fowler. "We sold 5 subscriptions, 5 Pathfinder titles, and 18 copies of the paper. One of the new subscribers had already purchased and read several Pathfinder books, and decided that she also needed the Militant every week to follow political developments around the world more closely."  
 

Thursday we ended up having a good day, but it didn't start out that way. The first place we tried to set up a table we were kicked off by a security guard. So we went to another location where young people shop and eat in University City. At this location we sold two Militant subscriptions and two copies of the Marxist magazine New International. On Friday we went to the demonstration against Adams Mark Hotel, which was organized by the Historical Society.

On Saturday, supporters came up from Cape Girardeau to join us. We sent teams to an antiracist speakout at the Adam Mark Hotel and a forum at Webster College about the exploitation by oil companies in Columbia and of the Ogoni people in Nigeria. We sold one PM sub at the forum. On Sunday we went back to the Overnite picket line, where we sold one Militant subscription to an Overnite striker.

During the first week of the campaign we publicized a Militant Labor Forum that featured the struggles of coal miners. Around 18 people attended this forum, including two people who we had met during the week. One of them was a student who came from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois.

In the first week of the drive we sold 50 copies of the Militant, 5 Militant subscriptions, 1 PM sub, and 2 copies of New International. This week we have sold one Nouvelle Internationale at a protest organized by Haitian workers in the city. There is a series of antipolice brutality forums we will be attending. We have also sold 13 Pathfinder books during the campaign so far, and have met 20 people who we will be following up on.  
 

The team was particularly interested in following up on political developments since the Militant reports on cop rallies March 3 and 17 protesting the mayor's firing of Police Chief Eugene Sherrard. Last week the Louisville Courier-Journal carried a series, "Use of Force," throwing a spotlight on various aspects of police brutality and racism.

Jesse Jackson was in town on March 30, laying a wreath at the spot where Black youth Desmond Rudolph was shot last year. He also spoke to a "crowd of hundreds" according to the Courier-Journal, calling for "reconciliation" and justice. A march has been called for Easter Sunday April 23. Four single issues were sold in the Black community, with one youth particularly drawn to the Militant coverage of the sustained protests in New York City against police killings there.

We also wanted to return to the Tyson chicken plant in nearby Corydon, Indiana, the site of a strike against the chicken processing giant in 1999. We returned to the plant gate to sell twice, and sold three Militant singles and a PM subscription. One worker, Ivan, who described himself as having scabbed during the strike, complained that workers only got a raise of about 50 cents an hour.

"They took away one of our paid half-hour breaks so that we have to work longer at the end of the day to make up the time," he said. This, however, was instead of taking away both paid breaks as the company had demanded. Annette Murray, however, who was one of the strikers, had a different view. "We didn't get all that we wanted. For example, we still have to work Saturdays. But I'm ready to go on strike again! Being on strike is the most fun I've ever had."  
 
 
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