FREDERICK, MD— At Hood College, at least 50 students gathered at the campus’s chapel for a rally and march in solidarity with workers and families suffering from the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza. This is the second student-led rally on campus this academic year—the first being on November 9th. Inspired by their experience at the first national solidarity rally in Washington, DC on November 4th, multiple students and leaders of student organizations coordinated in just five days the first student-led mass protest since 2018, which was when the administration approved a “No Hate at Hood” walkout.

Unlike the 2018 demonstration, the organizers did not get approval from the college. The rally provided students a way to express their rage at both the college administration and Joe Biden for their continuing support of genocide. The genocide in Gaza—just like in Congo, Myanmar, and Darfur—is part of ongoing attacks on the international working class due to inter-imperialist rivalry. The U.S. is desperate to maintain its imperial status against rival imperialists in China and Russia. As capitalism falls deeper into crisis, the ruling class turns to war and fascism to save their atrocious system. 

Students take the lead

November 9th of last year, between 60 and 80 students, professors, and community members walked out from class and work to denounce the Israeli government’s ongoing genocide of workers in Gaza. The student-led walkout came as part of a call for a national day of solidarity for workers whose lives have been destroyed by the fascist Zionist Israeli government, as well as the cowardly Hamas leaders. Our comrade worked with classmates to spread the word about this walkout, posting flyers around campus and online.

The fightback continues

One member of Progressive Labor Party and a student at the college helped to spread the word for the February rally and march. They coordinated a fiery music playlist of international and revolutionary music, created politically sharp posters with a classmate, and ensured the safety of the rally as students walked off campus into downtown Frederick. Our comrade, with three friends, distributed dozens of CHALLENGEs and flyers. 

In a display of classic Hood College hypocrisy, campus safety officials stopped short of the campus entrance. This left students at the mercy of potential racist attacks and local police officers who followed the march both in uniform and in unmarked cars to try and intimidate the march.

Students led rallying cries against President Andrea Chapdelaine, Genocide Joe Biden, and blood-soaked Benjamin Netanyahu. We chanted demands for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. This ruffled the feathers of the thinly veiled racists from both Hood College and Frederick.
Like the first rally, the energy was electrifying. Students’ frustration with, and disappointment in Chapdelaine’s refusal to acknowledge the genocide, sparked necessary discussions—the same discussions that the administration was all too eager to conduct in 2022 soon after the war in Ukraine began.

Our comrade spoke to the need for solidarity among all students and workers, more than what the pro-Palestine chants called for. Instead of arguing over choosing sides and who is more deserving of compassion, the comrade clearly stated that workers are more than their national borders and ethnic backgrounds. Capitalism needs racism and nationalism to keep workers divided and justify their imperialist wars and genocides.

Administration's racism exposed 

Since Hamas’s attack on workers in Israel and the government’s monstrous response, there have only been passive emails from Chapdelaine calling for peace, and a history lecture on Israel and Palestine since the early 20th century. Hood College, like many liberal arts campuses, regularly advertises itself as an inclusive, diverse community that celebrates open discourse and varied perspectives. Students and faculty who have been here for years know this is a bald-faced lie. Within two weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the administration held a pro-Ukraine campus rally and a panel discussion referring to the “Crisis in Europe.” All of this and more were recalled by speakers during the November walkout, joined with cries of “Shame!” toward the administration and those who denied the deadly reality of the workers in Palestine.

The second rally shows that not only are students still fed up with Chapdelaine and her attempts at “keeping the peace,” but that they are ready for stronger action that challenges the campus and bursts its picture-perfect bubble of a small, liberal arts college. In the weeks since the rally, students have been continuing conversations that the college refuses to facilitate. With this being our comrade’s final semester, much of the work will continue to focus on channeling the righteous student anger into organizing and planting the seeds for even more militant actions. There is great potential among students here and as communists, we must continue to bring revolutionary, internationalist politics to the struggle.

CHICAGO, May 4 —“Whose day? Our day! What day? MAY DAY!!” An audience of over sixty multiracial, multigenerational workers and youth filled a local fieldhouse this afternoon to celebrate our annual May Day dinner and program. The abundant enthusiasm and energy from organizers and participants alike served as a reminder that the collective spirit of the international working class will never be extinguished.

The theme for our program this year was “No War but Class War.” Conflicts for the capitalist bosses’ profits are threatening to engulf practically the whole planet in blood and fire. Meanwhile, these same bosses want us to choose a side based on anti-worker identities like nationality or religion, to shoot and kill our working-class siblings around the world. We say, “Hell no!” As communists we want to transform imperialist war into international class war that overthrows the racist bosses and sets up a communist society where workers run things.

This communist world is being actualized by students who have set up encampments across the country against the genocide in Gaza. Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members went to the encampment at University of Chicago the evening before to show our support and appreciation for the students’ revolutionary actions and courage. Students gladly took CHALLENGE and were extremely open to our communist politics.

This revolutionary optimism weaved through our program, speeches, and even our decorations today. We will no doubt carry this energy back with us to the streets, our workplaces and campuses as we continue to build Progressive Labor Party and a mass communist movement to take state power.

Get with the revolutionary program

After gathering and dining on some delicious food, the May Day program officially kicked off with an interactive discussion in which each table brainstormed a list of songs that contained themes of work and class struggle. Using a different picture of working-class art at the center of each table, we then decided which song from our list best matched the image. Each table also turned in their list to compile a revolutionary music playlist to use for future events and actions.

We then heard our keynote speech, delivered by a veteran health care worker comrade. This comrade skillfully connected her experiences organizing at her job, her children’s school, and mass organization to the need to be in a Party which connects all the struggles together. She pulled no punches in calling for the need to transform the current fightback into openly revolutionary struggle:
“We know that the only good war is the war against the ruling class. This is why we say, ‘No war but class war.’ A class war is when the working class, led by communists, fights the ruling class to take state power (this means to overthrow the government and win over the military) and use these resources to redistribute wealth and build a society for equality of all workers.  

In practical terms, this means finding the antiracist fightback in your community, school, and job and joining in with the political outlook of multiracial unity and a class analysis of the problem you are fighting against. It means talking to workers and soldiers about overthrowing capitalism with communist revolution. It is up to us to organize, build relationships with each other and other workers and students, and fight back in every way that we can so that we can build class consciousness and an antiracist, anti-fascist, working class movement. Just like it took a civil war to destroy the institution of slavery, it will take another revolutionary war to rid us of capitalism.”
Next up was our take on a popular game show, where instead of wanting to be a millionaire we asked, “Who Wants to Be a Revolutionary?” A comrade quizzed the audience on historical questions relating to past revolutions and civil wars.

Two health care workers newer to the Party as well as a high school senior then shared recent experiences also organizing on their jobs and within their mass organizations against Israel’s genocidal slaughter against workers and children in Palestine. Similar to the keynote speech, they described how being a part of a fighting Party like PLP helped them to push the struggle further.

We rounded things out with a sharp anti-nationalist poem by a retired teacher comrade followed by a blistering internationalist speech by a comrade actively building a base with migrant workers around the city. And of course, we ended with singing the communist anthem the Internationale with raised fists!

Communist culture sustains us on May Day and beyond

Building revolutionary culture and community on May Day is essential to sustaining our movement as we gear up for the summer and sharper class struggle ahead. We plan to carry this communist culture and the Party’s politics to the ongoing Gaza solidarity encampments in the city and win more fighters to the lifetime commitment of revolution!

Our spirited May Day march through Cambridge ended at the locked Harvard Yard gate with acclaim from the anti-genocide in Gaza encampment inside Harvard.

Along the march, our militant chants were "Arab, Jewish, Black, and White or Asian, Latin, Black and White, Workers of the World Unite”, “Joe Biden you can't hide, we charge you with genocide,"  "Smash racist deportations, working people have no nation."  Many passersby took our leaflets and quite a few thanked us for our action. One person joined the march and wanted to work with our party.

After the Boston and State Cops destroyed the Northeastern University encampment early this morning, arresting over 100 protesters, a Northeastern student gave a stirring speech at our picket line through the Harvard gate, cheered by the Harvard anti-genocide protesters.
The student said "They can arrest the protesters but they can't stop the movement...We students of Northeastern stand in solidarity with the students of Harvard ... denounce the genocide ...We support the brave Northeastern staff who will almost certainly be fired for protesting,...We cannot rely on the police or the government to keep us safe! We keep us safe! Northeastern is more concerned with their ties to Raytheon and other companies complicit in genocide than with their students...power to the working class ..."

Another speaker remembered the first anti-Vietnam War demonstration in the U.S., by the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) in 1962, about the same size as our rally today. At that demo, a speaker said, "The Vietnam War marks the beginning of the end of U.S. imperialism."  It led to the Worker-Student alliance and the spread of militant action against imperialist war. Only a few years later, the anti-Vietnam War movement spread to millions upon millions, from campuses to workplaces to the U.S. military itself, with rebellions by U.S. soldiers against the war. This anti-genocide movement will also spread. It's critical that the anti-nationalism, anti-capitalism and antiracism line of PLP be put in the lead of these protests.

Some of the marchers overcame fear and demonstrated in public for the first time in their lives! A member of the Boston Teachers Union (BTU), who is also a Harvard student, warmly greeted a fellow BTU member at our picket line.
We passed out bunches of leaflets and CHALLENGE newspapers through the locked Harvard gate to the demonstrators inside as we chanted along with them, fists in the air, “Disclose, Divest, We will not stop, We will not rest.”

Soon after the march, one of the marchers joined our Party.  We want to make that one new member the next step as we grow into thousands and millions, to tear down worldwide capitalism and build a communist world!

LOS ANGELES- A multi-racial, multi-generational group of more than 80 workers and students came together to celebrate May Day with Progressive Labor Party (PLP). We hosted our 5th straight celebratory dinner at a local park in South Central Los Angeles in the neighborhood where Alex Flores was murdered by KKKops.  The Flores fightback is still going strong and they continue to celebrate May Day with the PLP.

The event was led and emceed by new, young members, who brought the energy of the fightbacks on their college campus to our event making it especially vibrant and engaging.

The festivities opened with a performance from a local Aztec Danzante troupe who has consistently supported the family of Alex Flores and their fight against racist, police terror.  This was followed by a lively “History of May Day” skit written by a college student and acted out by high school and college students. There was a moving speech from a veteran comrade on their 50th May Day and a symbolic “passing of the torch” to a new comrade who talked about why they joined PLP.  The last was by a comrade and teacher who delivered an inspiring speech about the “power of yet” describing where we and our class is in this moment and our heroic potential as communist organizers. Interspersed were songs and poetry and a popular "speed dating" segment that got everyone up and meeting new people.  It was an all around inspiring May Day with more in depth articles and letters to come.  Happy May Day!