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<h1><img alt="" src="cid:part1.05060701.05090006@workers.org"
align="left" height="298" width="200"><font color="red" face="Arial"><span
style="color: red; font-family: Arial;">Marxism, Reparations and</span></font><font
face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></font></h1>
<h1><b><font color="red" face="Arial" size="6"><span
style="font-size: 24pt; color: red; font-family: Arial;">the Black
Freedom Struggle</span></font></b><font face="Arial"><span
style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></font></h1>
<h2><b><font color="green" face="Arial" size="5"><span
style="font-size: 18pt; color: green; font-family: Arial;">Sat. June
23 - 4:00pm<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h3><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on"><b><font face="Arial"
size="5"><span style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: Arial;">Action</span></font></b></st1:PlaceName><font
face="Arial" size="5"><span
style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: Arial;"> <st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Center</st1:PlaceType></span></font></st1:place><font
face="Arial" size="5"><span
style="font-size: 16pt; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></font></h3>
<h3><st1:address w:st="on"><st1:Street w:st="on"><b><font face="Arial"
size="4"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; font-family: Arial;">284
Amory St.</span></font></b></st1:Street><font face="Arial"><span
style="font-family: Arial;">, <st1:City w:st="on">Jamaica Plain</st1:City>,
<st1:State w:st="on">MA</st1:State></span></font></st1:address><font
face="Arial"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></font></h3>
<h4><b><font face="Arial" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Arial;">Donation -- Refreshments
-- Childcare<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h4>
<h2><b><font color="red" face="Arial" size="5"><span
style="font-size: 18pt; color: red; font-family: Arial;">Meet the
editor Monica Moorehead<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<h2><b><font color="green" face="Arial" size="5"><span
style="font-size: 18pt; color: green; font-family: Arial;">Learn more
about this important book on Reparations<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h2>
<p class="vspace"><st1:place w:st="on"><strong><b><font
face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">New
World</span></font></b></strong></st1:place><strong><b><font
face="Times New Roman"> View Forum book on African American history
and resistance.</font></b></strong> <strong><b><font
face="Times New Roman">Essays cover the meaning of the ongoing Katrina
catastrophe; and</font></b></strong> <strong><b><font
face="Times New Roman">building Black-Brown unity and solidarity
against oppression.</font></b></strong> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="vspace"><em><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">These essays, from a variety of folks working
on a number of Black struggles, testify to</span></font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">the central truth that Black History is the
epic saga of resistance, rebellion and revolt. These</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">struggles show us all that true freedom is
still an objective to be attained, rather than a reality.</font></i></em>
<em><i><font face="Times New Roman">What, pray tell, did Katrina show
us?</font></i></em> <strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">— Mumia
Abu-Jamal, author, We Want Freedom:</font></b></strong> <strong><b><font
face="Times New Roman">A Life in the Black Panther Party; political
prisoner</font></b></strong> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="vspace"><em><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Other races or people have received
reparations for crimes committed against them,</span></font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">such as Japanese people and Jewish people.
Slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade were</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">crimes against humanity. Reparations for
African Americans are long overdue. The issue of</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">reparations has always led me to think more and
more about my right to ‘forty acres and a</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">mule.’ When people in the Black community read
this book they will be motivated to fight</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">back.</font></i></em> <strong><b><font
face="Times New Roman">— Robert Traynham, USWA Local 8751, <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Boston</st1:place></st1:City> School</font></b></strong>
<strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">Bus Drivers; former Black
Panther Party member</font></b></strong> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="vspace"><em><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">This powerfully—and passionately—written book
reveals how descendants of those who</span></font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">got rich from enslaving African peoples grow
ever wealthier today with that capital in their</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">vaults. Within these pages is fl esh-and-blood
understanding that the demand for reparations—</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">justice, delayed and denied—is a component of a
dynamic struggle for national liberation</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">that has raged since mass kidnap pings of
millions of people from Africa, the holocaust of</font></i></em> <em><i><font
face="Times New Roman">the Middle Passage and enslavement. No justice?
No peace!</font></i></em> <strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">—
Leslie Feinberg, award-winning author, Stone Butch Blues,</font></b></strong>
<strong><b><font face="Times New Roman">Transgender Warriors, Trans
Liberation, & Drag King Dreams; activist</font></b></strong> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"></span></font></p>
<hr size="2" width="100%"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></font><b><font
face="Times New Roman" size="6"><span style="font-size: 24pt;">Why
reparations are essential to class struggle<o:p></o:p></span></font></b>
<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"><!---deck--><!---byline-->By Greg Butterfield
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><!--end image--><!--begin paragraph-->Reactionaries
of all political stripes have ridiculed the idea of reparations for
African Americans, just as they ridicule the struggle for socialism. So
it’s fitting that these two great historical movements for social
justice should meet in the pages of a new book, “Marxism, Reparations
and the Black Freedom Struggle,” published by World View Forum.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->The
book—which includes speeches, eyewitness accounts, news reports and
historical analysis from the pages of Workers World newspaper—seeks to
elevate the call for reparations by showing its centrality to the class
struggle and self-determination in the United States and around the
globe.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->A
diverse group of writers demolish the ruling-class myth that white
workers are the ones being asked to pay for the crimes of slavery. A
victory for African-American reparations against Big Business and the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
government, they argue, would elevate the whole multi-national working
class and strike a blow against the bosses’ downward pressure on wages
and benefits.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->In
the words of a Workers World Party statement reprinted here, “Every
worker can understand that unpaid labor is theft—whether slave or
wage-slave labor.” <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">An historic demand</span></font></b></strong><!--end paragraph-->
<o:p></o:p></p>
<!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Reparations
for the descendants of African slaves is a demand that has been raised
over and over, in many forms, since the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region> government abandoned
its pledge of “40 acres and a mule” after the Civil War. Disdain,
violence and silence have all failed to bury this historic demand
because the lords of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
capital continue to grow fabulously wealthy off institutionalized
racism, while Black people pay the price of criminalization, police
brutality, discrimination and unequal pay.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The
modern reparations movement emerged at the 2001 United Nations
Conference on Racism and Related Intolerance in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Durban</st1:City>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">South
Africa</st1:country-region></st1:place>, where African-American forces
took up the call. Next came class-action lawsuits against Fleet Boston
Financial, <st1:place w:st="on">Aetna</st1:place>, CSX and other
corporate beneficiaries of the slave trade. The December 12th Movement,
National Black United Front, N’COBRA and other groups initiated the
Millions for Reparations Movement rally in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City
w:st="on">Washington</st1:City>, <st1:State w:st="on">D.C.</st1:State></st1:place>,
on Aug. 17, 2002.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Monica
Moorehead, the new book’s editor, writes: “The <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
government has a despicable history of downplaying or outright
dismissing the issue of reparations. To grant compensation to millions
of descendants of African slaves would expose the institutionalized
racism that African Americans and other people of color still suffer
today.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Reparations in context</span></font></b></strong><!--end paragraph-->
<o:p></o:p></p>
<!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Moorehead
has assembled a unique volume that places the reparations movement in a
broad global, historical and theoretical context. Articles put today’s
efforts in the context of the historic struggle for Black liberation,
from Reconstruction and Jim Crow through the Civil Rights Movement,
Million Worker March Movement and beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Originally
published as a pamphlet in 2002, this greatly-expanded and updated book
encompasses recent political developments, from the war in <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and the genocidal aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita to the
explosion of the immigrant rights movement in 2006.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It
breaks the illusion of isolation created by the corporate media and
political establishment, showing how reparations is a demand with
widespread appeal for oppressed peoples and nations around the world as
redress for centuries of colonialism, imperialist exploitation and war
crimes, from Jamaica to Iraq, Zimbabwe to the Black Belt South.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">An
overview of section titles give a sense of the book’s scope: “Black
liberation and the working-class struggle”; “The material basis for
reparations in the U.S.”; “Brief overview of racist oppression and
heroic resistance”; “What Hurricane Katrina exposed to the world”;
“Africa: A battleground against colonialism and for sovereignty”;
“Justice for the Caribbean”; “A salute to women revolutionaries”; “Why
fight-back is inevitable”; and “Black labor and class solidarity.” This
book is a must read in libraries, class rooms and for those activists
mobilizing in the streets.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><strong><b><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Black-Brown unity</span></font></b></strong><!--end paragraph-->
<o:p></o:p></p>
<!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Given
pride of place in the book is the need to build solidarity between
workers, with a special focus on unity between African Americans,
including those in communities devastated by Katrina and Rita, and
immigrant workers, who are under fierce attack but fighting back for
their rights.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In
his article “Black and Brown Unity,” Saladin Muhammad of the Black
Workers League writes: “Building the convergence of these movements
demands respect for their independence and diversity. A strategic
alliance ... must be concretized and built around real struggles that
enable both to see the power in unity to make radical changes in the
interests of democracy and revolutionary transformation. ... This is
why it is so important to focus this alliance today on the struggles
for Reconstruction in the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Gulf</st1:PlaceType>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">Coast</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> and the
struggle for immigrant rights.”<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Other
contributors include Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pat Chin, Sam Marcy, Larry
Holmes, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Clarence Thomas and Chris Silvera, Tony Van
Der Meer, John Parker, Teresa Gutierrez, LeiLani Dowell and many more.
The book features a stunning cover graphic by Sahu Barron and is
illustrated with photos and graphics throughout.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<!--end paragraph--><!--begin paragraph-->
<p><em><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;"><a
title="blocked::http://leftbooks.com/store/product211.html"
href="http://leftbooks.com/store/product211.html"
_base_href="http://www.workers.org">Available at www.leftbooks.com</a>.</span></font></i></em></p>
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