Playing the Piano… People's Organization for Progress ups the ante of struggle in NJ

POP members, supporters, and community residents honor the 1967 Newark Rebellion at the site of the monument to 1967 at the intersection of Springfield Ave., Irvine Turner Blvd., & 15th Ave.

Updated  8/1:
There was a time some years back when "playing the piano" was the phrase folks would use to describe carrying out multiple revolutionary campaigns simultaneously. We could, it suggested, have one hand doing one thing while the other did another. With the People's Organization for Progress organized Daily People's Campaign for Jobs, Peace, Equality & Justice, POP has upped the  ante. But with the past week's 44th annual We Remember the Newark Rebellion & its Victims" event, we proved we POP can "play the piano"…


The People's Organization for Progress has held this annual event for more than 25 years, sometimes at the precinct house where the rebellion initially began and often (since the monument to the citizens who died was first placed on the 30th anniversary in 1997) at the monument itself (to see a slide show of Ingrid Hill's excellent photos from this year's remembrance, please click on this link). 


On July 12, 1967, Newark erupted in a rebellion against the scourge of police brutality and oppressive racially-biased living conditions. The rebellion prompted a massive police riot and a brutal armed crackdown marked by the National Guard and other police forces occupying the city for several days. It would lead to 39 people, overwhelmingly unarmed Black civilians, getting killed in that dramatic upheaval.

The next (and subsequent days this week) the People's Organization for Progress was back at the Lincoln statute in front of the Essex County Court House for our ongoing campaign for Jobs, Peace, Equality & Justice.


POP's ability to sustain and carry out multiple campaigns simultaneously is a testament to the organization's maturity, both politically as well as structurally!


Thanks to the reader who suggested we track down brother Hamm's speech at CEMOTAP. to view Larry's presentation click on this link. Then go to Drums in the Global Village to see the full speech.

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People's Organization for Progress "Daily People's Campaign," Part II

People's Organization for Progress daily demonstration attracts community residents
as well as POP members.

Monday, July 11 will mark the third week of daily demonstrations since the People's Organization for Progress launched our bold "Daily People's Campaign for Jobs, Peace, Equality & Justice" on June 27! As POP state-wide chairman Lawrence Hamm noted, “There have been times in history when the people have been faced with grave challenges, and they have met those challenges with profound, sustained actions that have made a difference, and we believe that this is one of those times.” 


Among the issues the campaign will address are a need for a national jobs program, a call to end military actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, a call to stand against police brutality, a call to preserve workers rights and collective bargaining, a call for a moratorium on foreclosures, a call for national health care and for affordable higher education, and more.


POP is calling on a broad range of organizations to endorse and participate in the campaign. This is in an effort to contribute to the forging of a progressive united front for social justice for this area. This is a bold and audacious effort in this period, but the response from motorist driving past the Court House  shows without a doubt that the campaign reflects the sentiment of the community. Other organizations are beginning to commit themselves to participation. This past weekend, members on NJ Chapter-21 of Veterans for Peace responded excitedly to a call to join the daily pickets in front of the Lincoln Monument at the intersection of Springfield Avenue & West Market Street.

Michael McPhearson, a longtime POP member and former Executive Director of the national Veterans For Peace, interviewed Chairman Hamm about this campaign (click on the video image above or the linked "INTERVIEW" before the parenthesis to watch video).


The daily actions continue daily from 4:30p.m. to 6:00p.m. at West Market Street and Springfield Avenue, near the Lincoln Monument and will take place their everyday for an indefinite period of time.

On Saturdays the actions take place from 12noon to 2:00p.m on corner of Broad and Market Streets in Newark.

On Sundays the action is from 2:00p.m. to 3:00p.m. back on West Market Street and Springfield Avenue, near the Lincoln Monument.

For more information, please call (973) 801-0001.

Special thanks to our POP Corresponding Secretary, Ms. Ingrid Hill, for her 

excellent photography

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Remembering Gideon Rosenbluth

I spent a good chunk of yesterday at a memorial celebration for a great comrade, Gideon Rosenbluth, who died last fall. 80 people--family, neighbors, fellow union members and veterans, and, in large numbers, those who had been his comrades in the '70s and '80s--gathered to remember him.

Rather than starting this post at the obvious place, by reprinting the short review of Gideon's life from the memorial flier everyone present was given, I want to reprint the moving message Michael McPhearson, the executive director of Veterans For Peace, sent from St. Louis. His message cites the connection between Gideon and another comrade who died last year, Dave Cline, whose life Fire on the Mountain has posted about extensively, starting here.

Michael's words also contain a profound and sorrowful insight, which I have taken the liberty of highlighting in boldface, because they resonate so strongly with me:

I last spoke to Gideon Rosenbluth sometime ago after he left NYC. He was in good spirits and wanted to know what was happening nationally. He asked me about VFP vets in Kentucky and if they were active. We talked for a while. Before I hung up I promised to call him back and said I hoped to see him in the near future. Unfortunately, we never talked again.

Gideon was one of the first veterans I met when I joined Veterans For Peace. He, with a handful of others, was the first WWII vet outside of my uncle with whom I really had a chance to sit and talk. I met him during one of the NYC veteran meetings. I was impressed with his sharpness and fierce resistance to the hypocritical and immoral actions of our government. At the time he was also on the VFP board. I was recently reading past VFP board minutes and guess who nominated David Cline for VFP Board of Directors President on January 13, 2002 in Saint Louis ? That’s right, Gideon.

Gideon’s death is very sad for me because I wanted to know this great man better, but the demands of the struggle against this war have taken over all of our lives, and at the time his as well. Ironically the war has brought people together who would have never know each other, like me and Gideon. Then it steals our time and emotions from us so that we cannot fully enjoy life with each other. Gideon is a comrade VFP will sorely miss and one we are all happy and lucky to have known.

Thank you Gideon from everyone in VFP and especially from those who had the honor to serve with you.

Michael T. McPhearson
Veterans For Peace
Executive Director

What follows is a brief outline of Gideon's life, in the form it was given out at the celebration. A slideshow by his nephew and testimony from many who knew him put flesh on these bare bones and conjured up the Gideon we know and loved. Some of us want to try and set up a permanent website where all of this material and more can be available to those who knew him and to the many more who might benefit from the lessons his life story holds.

Gideon
1919-2007

Gideon Irving Rosenbluth

Born to a working class family in 1919, Gideon grew up poor in a Jewish neighborhood in New York, as it was rocked by the Great Depression. His family, his community and the broader world became a school where he learned that survival required struggle and class solidarity.

Gideon enlisted in the Army right after Pearl Harbor in 1941. He served in North Africa, Italy, France and Germany, and was demobilized as T-5 (sergeant) in 1945.

After the war, Gideon became a garment worker. He worked in the needle trades for 35 years, and was an active rank and filer in his union, District 65. When he felt the union leadership was wrong, Gideon was not one to bite his tongue. Even after he retired in the 1980’s and District 65 was merged into the United Auto Workers, Gideon served for years as President of UAW Local 2179 Retirees.

Gideon also became active around veteran's issues at the war's end, joining the battle in NYC for housing for married vets. (He and his wife Phyllis needed it, for themselves and their daughter Karen Eve Pass.) This was another struggle he stuck with for the rest of his life. He was active in supporting Veterans from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, protested the Vietnam War as a veteran, and became a core member of Chapter 34 of Veterans For Peace, becoming especially active after the invasion of Iraq.

Gideon Rosenbluth was, and remained to his death, a revolutionary, convinced that a better world is possible and determined to help bring that world into being. Those who came to know him over the last two or three decades of his life were always surprised to hear how old he really was. His verve, his sense of humor, his appetite for living and for struggling, kept him in the thick of things until close to the end.

He is missed...

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