Vol. 72/No. 22      June 2, 2008

We also congratulate the supporters of the paper around the world who participated in this very successful campaign. Not a single local area that took a quota failed to reach it—in full, and on time.

The Militant was particularly marked over the past two months by working-class struggles across the United States in response to factory raids, deportations, and abuse against foreign-born workers by federal and local cops. For the third year running, at mass actions on May Day, thousands took to the streets to demand legalization for all undocumented immigrants.

The Militant has been welcomed in Iowa in the aftermath of a May 12 raid in the town of Postville. Nearly 400 workers were arrested—many brought to a detention center and base set up by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement cops in Waterloo.

“One of the most interesting things was how—not everybody—but more people than I expected, were opposed to ICE setting up its detention center in the middle of town,” said Frank Forrestal, a Militant supporter in Des Moines, in a phone interview on his way back from Waterloo May 21.

“Taking the paper door-to-door and at the protests, a number of workers who were born in Iowa—white and Black—would often come up and buy the paper and express their disgust at the raid. Many joined the protests,” Forrestal said. Some 25 people in the area subscribed in the week following the raid.

Supporters of the Militant threw themselves into the effort to build May Day actions for legalization in their areas. They wrote stories for the paper as the activities were building and won nearly 700 new readers to the paper between April 30 and May 7, the majority at the May Day actions themselves.

Spring 'Militant' Subscription Drive chart: Week 8 of 8 (final chart)