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   Vol. 69/No. 47           December 5, 2005  
 
 
25, 50 and 75 years ago
 
December 5, 1980
PHILADELPHIA—Fifteen hundred Black activists met here November 21-23 at a convention that founded the National Black Independent Political Party.

Convention coordinator Ron Daniels spoke at a press conference that day before the convention opened. “The independent National Black Political Party, which we gather to give form and direction to this weekend, must be at the center of a new national mobilization and campaign against racism.”

The convention called for a national congress of the new party for the summer of 1981…

The convention also adopted a charter, outlining the principles and structure of the new party. The preamble of the charter states: “Our party will not be like the Democratic and Republican parties….

“There are two kinds of mass parties, bourgeois and progressive….

“The progressive party exists to serve the interests of the working class and the poor, therefore our party will actively oppose racism, sexism, capitalism and imperialism.”  
 
December 5, 1955
The fight against Jim Crow in transportation registered an important legal victory on Nov. 25 when the Interstate Commerce Commission ruled against segregation in trains, buses and waiting rooms. The ruling followed the pattern of the Supreme Court decisions on segregated schools and parks. The ICC, however, ordered the railroads and bus companies to cease their Jim Crow practices by Jan. 10, 1956.

The response of the Southern white-supremacist politicians was immediate defiance. They announced that Jim Crow would go on as before. Their statements indicated a number of devices they will use to cheat the Negro people of the fruits of their legal victory.

The ICC ruling applies only to train and bus travel between states and waiting rooms for interstate travelers. Thirteen Southern states have segregation laws for travel facilities. Constitutionally such laws apply only to travel within the state. In practice the same bus and railroad waiting rooms are used both by interstate and intrastate travelers.  
 
December 1, 1930
The optimistic pledges of “recovery and stability”—the principal stock in trade of the capitalist politicians—have proved to be empty words calculated to soothe the discontentment of the workers.

The crisis, instead of showing signs of let-down, is becoming deeper. It is drawing into its train ever new thousands of workers, and marches hand in hand with the winter months to spread misery, hunger, and cold to every part of the land.

The capitalist class, and its agent Hoover, while doling out their measly charity to a few in order to allay working-class resentment, retain their fundamental idea on how to solve the crisis. Their program is: “Deflate labor!” Wage-slashing, the lengthening of hours, the speeding up of labor, the “stagger plan,” which means reducing the standard of living of the American workers at least half—these are the methods by which the ruling class is issuing out of its crisis at the expense solely of the workers.  
 
 
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