“Struggle, it never stops. It moves on. We make
progress but we have to keep on fighting.” declared Jarvis Tyner,
chair of the New York Communist Party to a standing ovation in the
packed auditorium at Troup School during the 42nd Annual People's
World African American History Month Celebration.
Emphasizing
the necessity for all-out unity to make sure Donald Trump does not
become president, Tyner's impassioned remarks placed the 2016
elections in the context of the on-going African American freedom
struggle from slavery to reconstruction, to the Civil Rights movement
and the election of President Barack Obama.
Recalling
how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began to doubt himself after his
house was bombed during the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1955,
Tyner said that it was the people that inspired Dr. King to keep
fighting. He concluded, “Leaders are wonderful but it’s really
the people that are the greatest leaders we have. The people will
lead the way.”
The
multi-racial audience, including many young people, union members and
elected officials enthusiastically welcomed Tyner who was a candidate
for Vice President on the Communist Party ticket in 1972 and 1976.
Tyner
spoke at five venues in New Haven and Hartford during the weekend
themed around the 65th anniversary of the presentation of the “We
Charge Genocide” petition to the United Nations in 1951 by William
L. Patterson and Paul Robeson. The petition, which details
lynchings, racist terror and crimes against African Americans, is
being re-issued this year by International Publishers with an
introduction by Jarvis Tyner.
Addressing
the still pervasive structural racism in this country, Tyner singled
out the water crisis in Flint, Michigan saying, “They can kill you
with a gun and they can kill you with chemicals.” He said the
crisis goes beyond Flint and that “90% of coal refineries are near
Black and Latino neighborhoods.”
Pointing
out that Republican presidential candidates deny climate change
because of their ties to the fossil fuel industry, Tyner emphasized,
“If the voters are inspired and mobilized, the right-wing
extremists can’t win!”
During
the Hartford event, held at the King-Davis Labor Center, Tyner passed
around a photograph too painful to look at of a child chain gang in
the South following the violent overthrow of Reconstruction, and
quoted W.E.B. DuBois, “The slave went free, stood a brief moment in
the sun, then moved back again towards slavery.”
The
New Haven event included African drumming led by Brian Jarawa Gray
and a welcome from the Troup School principal. Some members of the
school choir led the audience in “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Alfred
Marder, president of the Amistad Committee spoke of the acquittal of
the Amistad captives by the Supreme Court 175 years ago. He
concluded, “Black lives matter in 1839 and black lives matter now!”
The
winners of the People's World African American History Month High
School Arts & Writing Competition read their poems and displayed
their artwork centered around the question, “What Lessons from
Reconstruction Era for 2016?”
Ice
the Beef Youth put on a multi-genre performance culminating in the
chant, “We Gotta Stop the Violence with Peace!”
The
events gave voice to the outrage at institutionalized racism, and
offered hope and inspiration. “We've got to win this one and hand
our children a beautiful future,” concluded Tyner.
