Gerardo Herrera reports that a couple of socialist workers and a Young Socialists drove from Chicago to Detroit for a Militant Labor Forum June 15. They arrived early and sold a copy of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution in a working-class neighborhood. The guy who bought it had been a farmer in Mexico and was forced to sell off his land because it was economically unsustainable. He said conditions are also getting worse in the United States, where immigrants are treated like dirt and face racist discrimination on the job. That same weekend, supporters sold two Militant subscriptions, three Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions, and four copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution at the Socialism 2002 conference in Chicago.

In the previous week, Militant supporters set up a communist literature table in Pilsen, the predominantly Mexican and Chicano area of Chicago. Several people came up and told them about a meeting at the nearby San Tio Church to protest investigations of Social Security numbers by the government and employers. The socialists joined the meeting attended by some 300 immigrants and others where they learned about the firing of workers across the city--some with 20 years seniority--because the government claimed they gave false Social Security numbers. A protest is planned at the Federal Building, which houses the Immigration and Naturalization Service offices, on June 25.

Dean Hazlewood, a meat packer in Newark, New Jersey, reported that socialists there sold six Militant subscriptions and three Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions in the ninth week of the drive. One of the new subscribers was the first customer in the new location of the Pathfinder bookstore in Newark.

"She is a student who lives in the neighborhood, and decided to check out the bookstore after getting a leaflet announcing the grand opening," said Hazlewood. "She wanted to learn more about the Cuban Revolution and bought a copy of Che Guevara Talks to Young People in addition to the subscription."
 

The University of Houston is known as a center for students from India and all of South Asia. When a couple of members of the Indian Student Association passed by the table, we encouraged them to read the editorial on the imperialists’ role in the current crisis between the regimes in India and Pakistan. And we told them we were very interested in what they thought about the editorial.

One returned to the table a few minutes later and said he thought the Militant clearly explains what is going on. He told his friends about the editorial and passed it around. He said he would also take the paper to an Indian community center. One of them has since bought a subscription.

Later, a student stopped by after reading our sign publicizing the Socialist Workers election campaign. He asked if we had anything on the Philippines, which sparked a half-hour discussion about U.S. imperialism and its bloody birth in the occupation of the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico in 1898 as well as its role today. By the end of the discussion, he picked up a copy of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution and Coal Miners on Strike.
 

Several times young people crowded around the table looking at the books and engaging in lively political discussions. "What kind of revolution are you talking about?" asked one student from Charlotte. A group of Black students from the Raleigh-Durham area invited the supporters to set up on their campus in the fall. Some said they wanted to go to the Militant Labor Forum on June 22 that will show the film Lumumba.

We sold three copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution by Jack Barnes; the new pamphlet by Thomas Sankara, We are the Heirs of World Revolution; Socialism and Man in Cuba; Black Music, White Business; The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform Under Capitalism; and books on the Palestinian liberation struggle.

Many people bought the Militant because of the coverage of the ruling class’s attempts to extend the reach of the FBI. They expressed revulsion toward giving the FBI the powers to spy even more on political groups, mosques, and others. Some people left the table with a copy of the Militant and the book Cointelpro: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, or Workers’ Rights vs. the Secret Police.

We underestimated the deep interest in the paper. Two of the three subscriptions we sold were on the first day after we had run out of papers except for one copy we marked "For display only."  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home