Black NJ: Over 1,000 marchers in Newark demands federal Civil Rights charges against Zimmerman

Immediately after the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in February of 2012, POP took to the streets

“We want President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder to launch a federal investigation and bring civil rights charges against George Zimmerman,” Larry Hamm, NJ state chairman of the People's Organization for Progress.

When the usual "hard-core" 18-25 People's Organization for Progress members and supporters who begin every rally or march became a spirited picketline of more than 50 nearly an hour before an event is scheduled to begin, you know that the event answers a felt need in the community. 

When the picket demanding Justice for Trayvon Martin at the intersection Broad & Market in downtown Newark on Sunday quickly filled up the entire sidewalk on one side of the intersection, Newark police practically begged POP to take it to the streets! Before 3:00 PM, nearly 500 marchers were lined up on Broad Street to march down to the Federal Building. By the conclusion of the march and rally, the Newark Star Ledger  estimated 700 participants, so I would suggest that 1,000 marchers is probably a conservative evaluation (see Hundreds Rally in Newark… for the Star Ledger's report on Sunday's march and rally).

Reflecting on the NAACP's call for federal Civil Rights charges, People's Organization for Progress has a bit of experience with the strengths and weaknesses of this tactic. In 1999, when the State of NJ refused to even consider prosecuting the Orange, NJ police officers responsible for the murder of aspiring rapper Earl Faison (in what the Federal Prosecutor would later refer to as a "stairwell of torture" in the Orange PD building), the only option available was charging the officers with violating Mr. Faison's civil rights. 

Remember, that judicially, murder, manslaughter and homicide are state crimes. There is no federal equivalent, so the closest to justice that the Faison family could hope for was that a literal conspiracy of wilding by the cops would result in a few short jail terms.

Similarly for the family of Trayvon Martin, a federal civil rights conviction against George Zimmerman simply means he is not blameless, as the acquittal in Sanford court indicates the jurors believe. A greater victory, more justice for Mr. Martin's family would probably be the repeal of racist "Stand Your Ground" laws in Florida and throughout the US.

Interestingly, Newark mayor "Hollywood" Booker has gone out of his way to distance himself from those angered by Zimmerman's acquittal (see Booker, other NJ figures…). Apparently, part of his US Senate campaign involves making himself so "non-offensive" to those he sees as his constituents that, by comparison, NYC's racist Mayor Mike is an absolute radical! Hopefully this will make Ras Baraka's election certain…

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UPDATED: “History had me glued to my seat…”

Ms. Claudette Colvin speaks at Newark's Abyssinian Baptist Church

Ms. Claudette Colvin had more than 200 assembled activists stuck to their seats as she shared the story of her 1955 arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama city bus. As a fifteen-year-old youngster who'd heard Black History Week presentations in her high school, she felt the spirit of Harriet Tubman "like a hand on my shoulder forcing me to remain seated," when the driver instructed her and three other students to move so a young white woman could have a seat alone on two benches.

After her arrest, Miss Colvin became active in the Montgomery NAACP Youth Council organized by Mrs. Rosa Parks, so she had multiple sources of inspiration, though she was taken off the bus and busted some nine months before Mrs. Parks herself was arrested.  

MS. Colvin with POP members Aminifu Williams and Sharon Hand

"Mrs. Parks was our Esther," Miss Colvin suggested, explaining the difference between her own arrest that became part of a legal battle that reached the Supreme Court and ended segregation on public transit in the US and that of Rosa Parks, which became the basis of the 381-day Montgomery Bus Boycott. Esther, from the Bible, she explained had a variety of unique gifts that allowed her to fight in ways unavailable to other Hebrews in ancient Persia.

Lawrence Hamm, chairman of the People's Organization for Progress, also spoke about these two different direction in the people's struggle, though matter-of-factly. 

"Inside and outside," Larry said. "Though legal, court battles are less exciting than taking to the streets and marching, they each complimented one another, and the struggle against segregation on Montgomery buses could not have been won without both components."

Larry Hamm, Newark City Councilman Ras Baraka, NJ Poet Laureate Amiri Baraka & Claudette Colvin before the evening program

Hamm expanded on this, speaking about POP's 381 days of struggle for Peace, Jobs & Justice this past year. We'd mounted daily picketlines, in the heat of summer and the snows of winter, under all weather conditions, demanding a National Jobs Program; the End to Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya; preservation of Workers' Rights and Collective Bargaining; a Moratorium on Foreclosures; the End to Privatization Schemes and other Attacks on Public Education; a National Healthcare Program; Affordable College Education. 

Why 381 days? Because the People's Organization for Progress took our cue from the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott, and our goal was to keep our Campaign for Peace, Jobs & Justice running at least that long. In the course of this campaign POP built a coalition of nearly two hundred labor, grassroots, community, and religious organizations, and, as Chairman Hamm noted, the campaign is still active with weekly demonstrations and other activities.

New Jersey State Assemblyman Thomas Giblin

As Assemblyman, and President of the Essex County Central Labor Council, Tommy Giblin noted, this "was one heck of an impressive achievement." Giblin, who spoke as a member of the NJ Assembly for Essex County, was by no means the only elected official present. Municipalities from all over northern New Jersey sent proclamations honoring Ms. Colvin. From Elizabeth to Paterson, from Montclair to Irvington; Essex County, Union County, Passaic County, nearly every elected official wanted to be part of this event. Irvington Mayor Wayne Smith included the Key to the City with the proclamation he presented to Ms. Colvin. Noteworthy, and somewhat perplexing, was the slim participation of Newark elected officials. South Ward council member (and mayoral candidate) Ras Baraka may have been the only local municipal elected official in attendance. 

Approximately 200 community residents and other activists filled the pews of Newark's Abyssinian Baptist Church.

As we honor Ms. Colvin and share the lessons of her life, as well as this successful forum, it is important to remember that Aurelia Browder, Susie McDonald, Mary Louise Smith, and Jeanette Reese were also plaintiffs in the case Attorney Fred Gray brought before the US Supreme Court, ending segregation on public transportation across the country. But perhaps more important in this era when Mrs. Parks' memory is applauded and lionized, when a statue of her likeness stands in the Capitol Rotunda, is that Rosa Parks herself was for many years the "forgotten woman of the Montgomery Boycott."  In 1960, she was living in Detroit where she'd been forced to move after the successful struggle in Montgomery. Ill, unemployed, poverty-stricken and ignored by the Montgomery Improvement Association and NAACP alike, it was only through the efforts of the militant United Autoworkers NAACP branch at the Ford River Rouge plant that she received support, and eventually a staff job with the newly-elected Congressman John Conyers.

[UPDATE: Click on the link Claudette Colvin to view over two hours of video of the entire event, including Ms. Colvin's presentation, Thursday evening, March 28 at the Abyssinian Baptist Church. Out thanks to WBAI videographer Fred Nguyen]

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Black New Jersey: 381 Days of Struggle, another milestone for the People's Coalition for Jobs & Justice…

Over the course of the past year, this blog has reported repeatedly on the daily picket lines in Newark initiated by the People's Organization for Progress. On April 11, in "Success on Many Fronts: POP's People's Campaign for Jobs & Justice shows how to carry out multiple struggles," we considered and applauded the organizational maturity POP had developed over the course of the campaign. That blog entry celebrated the ability carry out multiple campaigns simultaneously, and referenced "Playing the Piano: People's Organization for Progress ups the ante of Struggle in NJ," an early report in this ongoing campaign of over a year. Last week, FotM's original blogger, Jimmy Higgins, posted "The Most Important Demonstration in NYC This Summer," sharing why he deemed it essential to participate.

The Black is Back Coalition and New Caucus of Newark Education Workers marched Wednesday as coalition member organizations

On July 11 this past week, POP and the coalition we built of 179 supporting organizations achieving the milestone 381st day of continuous daily action. It is time to move on to the next phase of the struggle. Internally, the People's Organization for Progress debated continuing the campaign at least through election day in November. While the continuing world economic crisis, linked with the apparent collapse of the Occupy! movement in this country, make continuing the campaign extremely important, the amount of work required would make it impossible to maintain the schedule of daily demonstrations.


The women leaders and organizers of People's Organization for Progress (particularly POP Corresponding Secretary sister Ingrid Hill, who oversaw every aspect of the campaign since its inception) had genuinely overextended themselves during the past year and more. Their heroic efforts were essential to everything we've done. The decisive factor in this evaluation is that the campaign never achieved "critical mass." Many, many community, labor and religious-based organizations signed on, but relatively few brought out their membership. With 179 supporting coalition member organizations, we should have easily had 2,000 marchers on Wednesday. 


For example, the contribution of teachers and other education-based groups has been impressive over the year, but even though they participated Wednesday, it was a foregone conclusion that teachers weren't building this among their students and concerned parents in July. Continuing the struggle will need to take new forms as POP and activist members of the coalition searches for other ways to build the fight-back such as door-to-door organizing in the community; church, mosque, and synagogue visits, etc., etc. This shift is currently under debate at weekly POP meetings. Join us on Thursday evenings, 6:30 PM at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, 224 West Kinney St. in Newark to help formulate the future of this campaign…

Newark Teachers Association president, Annette Alston, addresses the rally prior to Wednesday's march as Larry Hamm, chairman of the People's Organization for Progress, looks on.

Readers may wonder why I project a mixed assessment of the genuine victory that our rally last Wednesday represents. As Amilcar Cabral once noted, "tell no lies, claim no easy victories…" (see Cabral's Revolution in Guinea for the full text of this essay). A serious approach to fighting for genuine change demands we take Cabral's lesson to heart. However, it is interesting to note that Newark's newspaper of record, The Star Ledger, which is often fairly critical of community activists in general (and POP in particular) published a very positive assessment of our July 11th demonstration in their Sunday, July 15th Essex County edition (see Group ends 381 consecutive days of protest in Newark).


To see a page of my friend Jon's photos from this exciting event, click HERE.

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WWJD about Income Disparity?

Does the 1% versus the 99% mean it's time to throw the moneychangers out of the temple of finance?

"What would Jesus say about corporate greed?" Larry Hamm, NJ state chairman of the People's Organization for Progress, challenged motorists passing the Essex County Court House on Christmas afternoon.

For nearly six months, the People's Daily Campaign for Jobs & Justice has met challenges and grown, as more than 130 community-based, union-affiliated and religious organizations have join the campaign that People's Organization for Progress initiated last July. We haven't missed a single day of protest in the past 182 days. Through hurricane, flood, torrential downpour, and a pre-winter ice storm, the picket line/demonstration has rallied POP members, supporters and community residents every day.

Today however, POP and the Campaign for Jobs & Justice may have weathered our greatest test in the past six months. Christmas is traditionally a day folks feel compelled to spend at home with the family. To continue the campaign through this holiday constituted a serious challenge to the coalition. But, to some activists' surprise, today's rally drew more participants than many others days. Starting with about twelve pickets, the rally quickly grew to nearly fifty activists. As one veteran coalition member observed, "today may have been cold and windy, it might have been a day I'd have prefered to spend with my children, but it we had a great time!"

As much as the massive march and rally this past December 6th represented a turning point for the coalition and the campaign (see the People's Daily Campaign Honors Rosa Parks), the Christmas Day picket line proved the staying power of the People's Coalition for Jobs & Justice!

(to view a handful of additional photos from the Christmas Day demonstration click here)

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People's Daily Campaign for Jobs & Justice Honors Rosa Parks

When physicists refer to "critical mass" (the transformative moment when "the smallest amount of  fissile material needed for a nuclear chain reaction" occurs), it is a potentially violent and nearly invariably ugly moment. But when the people's movement reaches this level of activity it is beautiful!


It can be truly glorious, like when Christian Egyptians formed a protective line of defense so their Muslim brothers and sisters could observe Azzan (the call to prayer) during the Arab Spring uprising at Tahrir Square. It can be awe-inspiring, like when the NYC municipal unions joined Occupy Wall Street and that youth-led movement became truly mass in scope, or when folks replicated OWS in city-after-city (and small towns as well) across the US! It is fantastic, like the day People's Organization for Progress chair Larry Hamm recalls from the divestiture movement at Princeton when the daily demonstration against apartheid South Africa grew from tens of participants to hundreds!

Young Occupy Newark activists marched from their Military Park occupation site to rally with the People's Daily Campaign at the Essex County Courthouse.

And Newark's People's Daily Campaign may have hit this "transformative moment" on Tuesday, December 6 (a day so rainy that many activists feared the planned demonstration might flop) when more than 200 marchers, representing approximately 130 churches, labor union locals, students from Essex County Community College, school kids from Science High, activists from the recently begun Occupy Newark encampment, and many, many more joined the regular daily picket line near the Essex County Courthouse (see the Star Ledger article, here).

Youth participation is key to the future of popular movements.

The People's Daily Campaign for Jobs, Peace, Equality & Justice chose December 6 for this march and rally to honor Mrs. Rosa Parks who was arrested on December 1, 1955 when she refused to vacate her seat on a public bus for a white passenger and sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-1956. The People's Organization for Progress and the Daily Demonstration Coalition took our inspiration from that boycott which began on December 5th when the Women's Political Council of Montgomery and labor activist E.D. Nixon (a Pullman Porter who worked with A. Philip Randolph) began the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That boycott continued for more than 380 days, and it is POP's intent to continue the daily pickets for at least the identical length of time.

Unionized hospital workers represented by 1199SEIU join the People's Daily Campaign.

The role of both movement elders and young activists was critical to the success of this transformative rally and demonstration. Stalwarts of local community and national activism Amiri and Amina Baraka joined us on this difficult rain-drenched evening as they marched along-side their son Ras Baraka (South Ward Councilman and principal of Newark's Central High School).

Poets and activists Amina and Amiri Baraka march with their son, City Councilman Ras Baraka, as well as Newark Public School Advisory Board member Richard Cammerieri.

The importance of new and younger organizers was highlighted by the presence of Occupy Newark, high school students from Science High, young teachers from Teachers as Leaders in Newark, and an impressive number of other young people.


For additional photos from this important demonstration see pictures by my friend Jon Levine here.

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Breaking News: ILA Checkers shut-down Port Newark! (Update)

UPDATE: Since Monday morning, many ILA members have added additional photos, including the one from Bayonne tacked on at the end of the blog entry. Also updated is an additional news link to an article from the Journal of Commerce:


Early in the morning on September 28, union members represented by the International Longshoremen's Association Local 1291 began informational leafleting at Port Newark—Elizabeth Port, and with the support of ILA Checkers Local 1, who declined to check ordered longshoremen on their various piers, the informational work slowdown spread to every terminal in Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey.


On Thursday, July 22, 2010, Del Monte Fresh Produce, NA demanded $5 million in labor cost reductions from the International Longshoremen's Association and approximately $25 million in infrastructure improvements from the State of New Jersey (Del Monte operation is on the Camden, NJ side of the Port of Philadelphia). While ILA Local 1291 agreed to meet these onerous demands in hoping to save 200 family sustaining jobs. The State of New Jersey also acted quickly and offered but a modification package and an extended lease to Del Monte on Pier 5 in Camden, but Del Monte imposed an unrealistic four-day deadline on their demands. Now they've served notice of their intent to move to a non-union facility in Gloucester City, NJ. To quote the leaflet distributed at terminals in Newark and Elizabeth, NJ, "the workers lose, the employers lose, and the states on both sides of the Delaware River lose."

Camden Local 1291 members report the Holt Logistics (owned, along with Packers Avenue Marine Terminal, by Leo Hot) is the source the dispute. See the Philadelphia Inquirer and Transport Workers Solidarity Committee for more information. Holt claims that his Gloucester Terminals is "fully unionized" holding contracts with an organization called "Dockworkers Union Local #1," but these so-called labor agreements pay workers $12 an hour with no benefits. Holt Logistics will also save money by ignoring the Port of Philadelphia's safety-based rule requiring that all vessels arrive accompanied by two tug boats.

At Fire on the Mountain, we have seen this kind of attempt at union-busting before, in the Port of Charlestown, North Carolina (see Charleston 5). Most of today's entry revolves around Port Newark/Elizabethport. The pictures  are all from APM Terminals, but the photo below is from Bayonne, near Global Terminals, taken by a Newark ILA member ordered to a car ship in that port.

See todays article about Del Monte dispute in the Journal of Commerce.

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Newark's Celebrity Mayor: Wrong Again!

UPDATE: Friday, August 6, 12:30 AM— 
Additional information and corrections to yesterday's FotM blog

Picket line in front of Newark City Hall

Mayor Cory Booker, darling of New Jersey's suburban middle class, stands up against the interests and needs of Newark's citizenry once again!

This is getting to be old news, but apparently information that the news media can neither learn or even report on. Some months back Fire on the Mountain (FotM) reported on the water crisis in Newark in the blog entry Black New Jersey: The community fights "Hollywood" Booker over water rights …Newark Wins! We've also reported on Booker's anti-community stance on police brutality, street violence, and his personal aspirations that leave our community in a sorry second (or third) place to his political career.

After his backers' money-grubbing attempts to privatize Newark's world-renowned water supply failed to win City Council approval last October, "Hollywood" Booker is at it again! [editor's note: Those who doubt our statements about the pristine purity of Newark's water supply may not know or remember that the original breweries in the NY metropolitan area all used Newark water. Mostly they were located in town, but even Knickerbocker across the river transported Newark water to brew their beer. Before Milwaukee's water let it claim the title "Beer Capital of the World," before Shlitz billed itself as, "The Beer that Made Milwaukee Famous," every US brewery wanted Newark water. And Newark still draws the same water supply from the same reservoirs, fed by the Pompton and Ramapo Rivers.]


Chants of "No M.U.A.!", "We Are Not for Sale!" and "Water is a Human Right!" rang out in front of Newark City Hall as upward to 75 demonstrators from the People's Organization for Progress, Newark Water Group, the New Black Panther Party and many unaffiliated concerned community members picketed the meeting of the City Council. Speaking for the Newark Water Group, Brenda Toyloy presented in-depth background, recounting the role of Andrea Hughie, chair of the People's Organization for Progress Youth Committee played in bringing the issue to light last fall. The Council was deliberating on the Booker Administration's proposed "Municipal Utility Authority" scheme to sell the City's water. The M.U.A., in the name of covering budget shortfalls, will also create 6-figure taxpayer funded "jobs" for Corys' loyal friends. 


POP friend, Councilman Ras Baraka, left the demonstration to join in Council discussion of the vicious proposal.

FotM regulars who've followed this story from the beginning will remember the leading role that students and young people have played in this fight from the first. It was a young nurse and community activist who first brought the issue to POP's attention when she went on a home visit to the apartment of a young mother with children and discovered that the rules of her employment would require the termination of assistance to this family because there was no running water. This struggling family was on public assistance (with rent paid by state agencies), so it was the landlord and not the mother who was responsible for the unpaid utility bill. Yet it would be the children forced to pay the price of the landlord's greed.

Our children will be forced to pay for elected officials' greed, aspirations, and their blindness
to community needs. 

The City Council tabled the Municipal Utilities Authority privatization plan at its meeting the day after the Water Coalition demonstration. "This is an important, if partial victory," according to Lawrence Hamm, Chairman of the People's Organization for Progress. "But we must also recognize the systemic roots of the urban crisis that forced Mayor Booker to promote this barbaric attack on Newark residents. 


"The crisis is real and would exist no matter who sat in City Hall. Cutbacks in funding of urban aid go back to the Reagan Administration, at least. For more than twenty years, the U.S. government has funded military adventures abroad at the expense of aid to the cities. While this has only become worse with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the gutting of community support to bailout banks and failing corporations has a long history," Hamm added.

Many organizations and individuals are working to protect our water, the very "life's blood" of our city. The Newark Water Group, the People's Organization for Progress, the Newark Chapter of the New Black Panther Party as well as  countless others all have a role to play in safeguarding our children's legacy and future. For additional information about this key fight please join us at the weekly POP General Assembly meeting, 6:30 PM every Thursday evening at Newark's Abyssinian Baptist, 224 West Kinney St., between Prince and Broome Streets, just below Irvine Turner Blvd.

(Special thanks to Ingrid Hill, POP's Corresponding Secretary, for the photographs in this Fire on the Mountain. Ingrid was gracious enough to make her shots available when FotM's usual Newark photographer couldn't attend the demonstration.)

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First anniversary of Basire Farrell's murder shows "Hollywood" Booker is on the way out!

One year ago Saturday, May 15, when Newark police beat Basire Farrell to death while in handcuffs, Mayor Cory Booker was riding high on the Oprah Effect (see Black NJ: People's Organization for Progress Transforms Victims into Fighters, and Hollywood Mayor Looks to Move Up — And Out of Newark for previous FotM coverage of this case). This "Hollywood Bubble" seemed to grant our pretty young mayor license to commit heinous acts that no Newark leader has gotten away with since Hugh Addonizio "literally delivering the city into the hands of organized crime," according to the former U.S. District Judge who tried the case. And if you ask Newark residents of the period, turning over city government to the mob was less significant than the violent police attacks on the Black community.

With Mayor "Hollywood" Booker, once again the cops have an Addonizio-esque freedom to harrass our youth. Booker's self-proclaimed success heading into the recent election was that he'd reduce crime, a complete fabrication based on funny-math and manipulated statistics. And while some commentators may point to the fact that Booker retained the mayoralty by a 59% margin, the most telling indicator is how well Cliff Minor did with minimal funding. Minor defeated Booker the South Ward 5,028 to 4,025, notwithstanding the more than 20-to-1 campaign-finance difference. Likewise, Cory's staunchest ally, South Ward Councilman Oscar James, lost by a landslide to Ras Baraka.

Councilman Ras Baraka addresses rally at the site of Basire Farrell's murder

What does this have to do with the police murder of Basire Farrell? It was probably best explained by District Leader Lynda Lloyd, herself a victim of police brutality, who thanked and congratulated Ras Baraka for attending the rally. "Oscar James would never have attended this rally," Ms. Lloyd said, referring to the previous councilman.

South Ward/Clinton Hills District Leader Lynda Lloyd

Basire's aunt, Sharonda Smalls, echoed these sentiments through barely controlled tears as she called for accountability from elected officials for ALL police violence in Newark and Essex County. Sharonda, a true people's leader in both POP and the South Ward, applauded Councilman Baraka for his commitment to the community. Ms. Smalls spoke from personal experience about Baraka's role as a teacher and school principal. "We know, love, and respect this young man," she said, "who has served as a mentor to so many of us and our children."

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Black NJ says: May 1st—Justicia Ahora!!!

"We don't just demand jobs for all," People's Organization for Progress chairman Lawrence Hamm proclaimed, "Slavery had a JOBS for ALL plan! We demand jobs at a living wage, good union wages that will allow us to educate our children. We demand jobs that won't require us to hold three or four separate ones at the same time just so we can buy shoes for our babies!!!"

In the wake of Arizona's racist new anti-immigrant law (SB 1070) which requires local police to stop and question anyone they may suspect of being born outside the U.S., and further obliges anyone who might be questioned to carry papers to prove their status, the battle against this apartheid-like ruling has drawn the line for May Day marches. Latina/o and other immigrant workers, immigrants' rights advocates, and the labor movement in general planned major May 1st rallies in immigrant population-centers across the country. Not since the massive, multi million-strong immigration rights rallies of 2006, has the International Workers Holiday been celebrated with huge rallies in so many locations.

The New York-New Jersey metropolitan area hosts many massive immigrant communities, so it ought to be no surprise that NYC and Brooklyn, as well as Trenton, Newark, and Morristown all had multiple rallies May 1st. Newark's wasn't among the largest, but the working people in attendance may have been among the most motivated.

May Day originated in Chicago during the struggle for the eight-hour day in 1886. That first May Day saw more than 300,000 U.S. workers walk off their jobs in over 13,000 businesses. May Day has, from the first, been associated with immigrant rights and the struggle of Black workers as well as "simple" labor-economic demands. The bulk of marchers in that first May Day were foreign-born workers and relocated former-slaves looking for labor-justice during the "Long-Depression" (1873-96) following the Civil War.

While the actual history of May Day may be of limited academic interest, it becomes truly important as U.S. workers develop the understanding necessary to fight the modern 21-century fascism of the "tea-party" movement. As POP's Larry Hamm pointed out, no worker is illegal to the mortgage companies who scam us into "loser-loans" that big bankers then speculate on, and no social-security card is required by employers if they can use the threat of our status (or lack of status) as a wedge to keep us from uniting to fight in our own collective interests.

Union members from the Laborers International Union (LIUNA), the CWA, the International Longshoremen's Association, the IBEW, and other labor organizations joined the rally. Soulful music and incisive speakers prepared the crowd of more than 100 to plan ahead, build the growing movement, organize future actions and take the next steps. Newark mayoral candidate Mirna White spoke (in English and Spanish) about the city's responsibility to its citizens. Ms. White didn't condescend, patronize or speak-down to the foreign-born demonstrators (as current mayor "Hollywood" Booker often seems to do), and I was impressed.

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Young Teachers Lead The Way In Newark (part two)

UPDATE:

The United Front to Defend Public Education has announced state-wide on-campus demonstrations for Tuesday, April 27 (FotM readers on Facebook see this link). The organizers write:

"As many have heard, the new governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie has recently made mass cuts in state education. In fact, he has already cut 475 million dollars from the budget, and plans to cut more...the cuts will total just about 1 Billion dollars. Many After-school programs are going to cease to exist from now on. That means sports teams, clubs, arts and musics programs are going to no longer exist in NJ Schools…"

This is a very important call to action, please read it and sign on to participate. The Facebook page linked above has additional links to many supporting documents…

Readers will remember that March 4th this year saw an impressive campaign of demonstrations for education across the entire country. Teachers as Leaders in Newark (TaLiN), a group of young NJ teachers, brought together the United Front to Defend Public Education for those actions locally. This coalition of community residents, teachers, students and others consists of The Abbott Leadership Institute, Community Unity LLC, the Eastside High School Debate Team, One Newark Education Coalition, People's Organization for Progress, Teachers as Leaders in Newark and an ever growing blend of concerned community residents and leaders (see "March 4: Young teachers lead the fight in Newark, NJ…" for info on the Newark March 4th march and rally.)

Faced with the unprecedented attacks from the new Christy Administration in Trenton, TaLiN has proven that the United Front to Defend Public Education was no flash-in-the-pan, no one-time coalition for the national day of action on March 4th. TaLiN and the United Front to Defend Public Education has held multiple demonstrations since the big day of protest, including rallies and marches to Newark Board of Ed meeting and other county and city education-related meetings. This past Wednesday, TaLiN and allies demonstrated at Springfield Avenue and Irvine Turner Blvd during rush hour and then marched to Central High School for the meeting there on School Improvement Grants.

In the words of Leah Z. Owens, Chief Organizer of TaLiN, "Wednesday evening’s meeting at Central High School concerning the School Improvement Grants was yet another example of the executive administration ignoring the demands, wants, needs, and questions of the community… If the District is not going to address the questions and concerns of the community, [our next line of defense is] the principals… We need you to advocate for our students!"

These attacks on education are not going to stop! Krispy Kreme Christy is not going to end his assault against public education unless we unite and force its end. Public education is the last vestige of the victories of Reconstruction. Public education in fact would not exist in the U.S. if the Freedmen's Bureau hadn't enforced it a an early reparations plan for the children of former slaves after the Civil War. This bombastic attack on our children's future has nothing to do with "budget shortfalls" and is entirely about one more outburst against African Americans achievement.

Once again the young people of Newark lead the way! For additional photos from this impressive rally and march, where TaLiN brought together nearly 100 young teachers and students, please view this link.

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