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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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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March 4: Young teachers lead the fight in Newark, NJ…

"Who are the high school students and who're teachers?!", one old-head was heard asking another, while joining the afternoon picket-line of nearly 100 young activists at Military Park in Newark on March 4, 2010.

The fight against funding cuts to public schools (which began over a year ago with students hitting the streets, taking over buildings and seizing campuses at state and city colleges in California) turned national on March 4. The influx of very young warriors that this represents is the most exciting development that these aging activists of the People's Organization for Progress has seen in many years.

A new organization, Teachers as Leaders in Newark (TaLiN), had called the demonstration on short notice, asking POP's endorsement merely days before. The organization was so new at that point that Leah Owens, the founder of TaLiN, told POP members that demands for demonstration had not been formulated yet. This seeming lack of organization is why some grumpier, older activists were shocked to see how well attended and expertly organized the Newark picket-line, march and rally were in the end.

This was truly a young people's demonstration, with students, young and recently hired teachers and even very young candidates to the Newark Board of Education making up the bulk of participants. The young activist teachers of TaLiN pulled together a coalition including student groups like the East Side High School Debate Team and the American History debate team along with more established groups like POP and NOW. The demands TaLiN's members united around indicated their political depth as well as their dedication to struggle:

• Flat Tuition
• No Educational Cuts
• No Layoffs of Staff
• Jobs and Education, Not War and Occupation!

As TaLiN's leaflet explained:

Governor Christie has just announced a freeze of a half billion in education funding and $62 million in state college funding. Newark Public Schools is losing close to $102 million.

The cuts well set off a round of public layoffs, cuts to education services at the K-12 level and hikes in tuition and fees as well as cuts at the state college level.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration is not allowing bail outs for state budgets and has frozen service funding increases for every thing but war spending. The US is spending $57,000 per minute on the war in Afghanistan, as of December 2009, and that cost has gone up considerably since.

These young teachers and their student allies are the new leaders of these struggles with slogans like: "We need Jobs and Education, Not War and Militarization!" Leading an extremely broad and very multi-ethnic new movement, these young comrades have a lot to teach the People's Organization for Progress and our traditional allies. Compared with the hundreds of demonstration across the US yesterday, in the context of the hundreds of thousands of people activated in this fight, our experiences in Newark, NJ may appear to be insignificant. But what we learned yesterday in this small, aging, former industrial hub of New Jersey has far-ranging lessons for the future of activism here and everywhere…

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