First Published: The People’s Tribune (Online Edition), Vol. 20, No. 2, January 11, 1993.
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
Sisters and brothers,
The American people are under attack!
Our communities are under siege. In the cities, the rural areas and the reservations from Selma to Watts, conditions are all the same. Jobs are minimum wage and factories continue to close. Unemployment benefits are a joke and welfare benefits can’t feed our children or pay our rent.
Some of us are forced to live in the streets like animals. Our communities are flooded with drugs and alcohol. Our children have no future. The police arrest, beat and kill us. The politicians and their political parties don’t represent us. They are tied by a thousand threads to the real estate developers, the banks, the rich, the powerful and the rest of the capitalist class.
A system that cannot feed, clothe and house its people does not deserve to continue to exist. We can and must organize to replace it.
How?
By preparing the people to take this country from the exploiters and run it in our interest. This calls for a national organization that will:
* Root itself among the oppressed, the exploited, the homeless and the hungry of all colors and nationalities.
* Develop a national long-range vision, strategy and plan for victory.
* Educate the people on the situation we face, who the enemy is and how to fight.
* Coordinate the varied scattered fights so that we can have an impact.
* Build a structure that is in line with our local and national needs.
* Develop the tools necessary to win: publications, schools, cadre, etc.
This organization would be made up of the leaders of our scattered fights; those who want to develop a national analysis, strategy and resources; those unwilling to compromise with a system of exploitation, hunger and misery; those who want to win.
Having discussed the Open Letter written by Marian Kramer and General Baker, we, the undersigned, call upon all who understand this need to join us and form Organizing Committees to establish an organization of revolutionaries. In the spirit of Nat Turner, John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Joaquin Murrietta, Chief Crazy Horse, Lucy Parsons, Albert Parsons, Malcolm X and others too numerous to mention, we make this call.
Abdul Alkalimat
Nacho Gonzalez
Ethel Long-Scott
John Slaughter
Leona Smith