Communists in the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have been organizing in the American Public Health Association (APHA) for over 40 years in order to expose how capitalism and racism decimate health and health care in the U.S., especially for Black and poor workers. We have drawn inspiration from early communists in struggles for public health, exemplified by “red 48er” Rudolph Virchow who in 1848 showed that the deaths in the typhus epidemic in Germany were related to poverty and living conditions and then joined the Revolution of 1848 against the German aristocracy. In that spirit, we have put forward the need for a communist revolution while presenting CHALLENGE, holding annual PLP-led breakfasts or forums, writing and distributing annual analyses of capitalism and health, and participating in many sections and caucuses. Together with our friends, we have led yearly demonstrations inside and outside the conference and successfully put forward resolutions against racism, fascism, and war. Today we fight the Covid-19 epidemic and point out how it has the same root causes as HIV/AIDS (see CHALLENGE, 12/14/22). Highlights of these years of struggle point the way towards building a communist-led mass movement to topple capitalism and ensure better working-class health through communism!

1979 - Protesting closing of New York City hospitals
At the APHA conference in New York City in 1979, the opening session was dramatically interrupted: “Hey Hey, ho ho, Racist Koch has got to go!” rang out as PLP members charged the stage with banners and threw eggs at Mayor Ed Koch who had been invited to open the conference. He had the audacity to welcome public health workers to New York City while closing city hospitals that served Black and Latin communities, who themselves had been fighting back for months. Three comrades including a doctor were arrested but people on the streets cheered us and donated to the Party. Racist closures of city hospitals in NYC and many other underserved areas have continued throughout the years leading to the mass death and overcrowding that was seen during the AIDS epidemic and now with Covid-19. The capitalist policies of cutting back and kicking people out of hospital beds mean record profits for insurers and death for the working class. At APHA, PLP members have frequently presented examples of how rationing in services devalues and kills workers, a concept Friedrich Engels termed “social murder.”

Attacking eugenics then and now
Racist ideology and policies undermine health care and have a long history of academic justification. Since the days of chattel slavery, the U.S. ruling class has labeled Black workers as inferior and Black rebels as diseased. “Drapetomania’’ was the supposed illness that led enslaved Africans to escape from the American South. In the early 20th century, U.S. ruling-class scientists developed the racist pseudoscience of eugenics, on which the Nazis later based their racist mass murders. Again in the  1990s, biological determinism reappeared in the U.S. in the form of the Violence Initiative, which tried to argue that crime comes from abnormalities in the brains of Black boys. Columbia University and the National Institute of Mental Health began doing spinal taps while studying  young Black boys whose  brothers were in jail to prove this false notion. PLP leaped into action and demanded that the APHA call for an end to racist research. The campaigns within and outside the APHA forced a debate on the issue at a major session attended by thousands. A PLP member joined renowned Marxist biologist Richard Lewontin on the panel in not only exposing the so-called science as nonsense but also clarifying capitalism’s need to pretend that social problems are due to the biological defects of its most oppressed members (see CHALLENGE, 8/5/2021). Today’s medical emphasis on mental health needs under the stressors of Covid-19 similarly tries to obscure the capitalist determinants of anxiety, depression, and opioid use. In a worker-led, communist society, the needs of our class would be put first and treating the health of workers would be done in a holistic way.

Stomping out racism and sexism
The “War on Drugs”was an attack on Black workers in the U.S. that took a particularly vicious turn with  the emergence of Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (CRACK) that appeared in Washington DC in 2000. It targeted Black women who were substance users. Founded by Barbara Harris and backed by right-wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, CRACK offered women using drugs $200 if they  chose sterilization or long-acting contraception. Volunteers rode in police cars  to locate women in Black neighborhoods saying, “Don’t let a pregnancy interfere with your drug habit.” CRACK promoted racist eugenics by limiting the reproduction of poor women and contributed to the media’s image of “crack babies” as being hopelessly damaged – another myth weaponized against Black workers. In Washington, DC, PLP participated in a broad coalition of public health activists in reproductive rights, women’s health, anti-racism, and harm reduction. The coalition held forums reaching over 150 people in the city, demanded Metro remove racist CRACK ads from buses (they didn’t), launched a petition campaign, and drove CRACK out of town. At the APHA, PLP members drafted a resolution against CRACK, leading the APHA’s Executive Director to compare CRACK to Hitler on national TV. CRACK retaliated with a lawsuit. The APHA members overwhelmingly passed a resolution condemning CRACK and its ideology due to PLP’s work. This legacy of fascist ideology in modern dress was defeated by multiracial unity and  political education with both community members and public health professionals.

NO to racist police violence
Communists in PLP have helped lead many of the struggles on the street against racist police. Demands for justice for the police murders of Tyrone West in Baltimore, Shantel Davis in New York City, Archie Elliot in the DC area, and Alex Flores in Los Angeles have been years-long struggles. Communists in APHA brought this struggle into the public health arena in 2015 and in 2017 by introducing a policy proposal  “Law Enforcement Violence Is a Public Health Issue.” After three years of debate and protests, this  resolution finally passed at the annual meeting despite the opposition of APHA leaders who are pro-capitalist supporters of the bosses’ Democratic Party. The published resolution has helped in the  campaigns against racist police murders and has helped our public health friends understand the role of the capitalist state. Public health workers often work within the criminal legal system and some did not want to hurt their relationships with the police. But now more workers understand through these  struggles of communist workers challenging police terror that capitalism and the police are enemies of  public health and are more willing to speak out.

We have followed this victory with a policy on prison abolition and protests against ICE attacks on immigrants. Keeping up the pressure within public health continues through our work in APHA and other  public health advocacy groups.

Fighting racism vital to workers' health
Communists know that there is only one human race and that racism is used to separate workers from bonding together to destroy capitalism. When we study racism in public health, we see that racist  policies and practices make Black and Latin workers less healthy. For example, lived experiences of racism cause many infant and pregnancy related deaths and more high blood pressure. PLP has contributed to this understanding in work with other antiracist researchers leading to major publications and the widely distributed video “Unnatural Causes” by California Newsreel. Thus we continue to expose the capitalist misuse of genetics to attack Black, Native American, and Latin workers and to argue that our job as medical and public health workers is to build a militant multiracial force. Like Marx and Engels, Progressive Labor Party calls on workers to build a party and fight for a communist revolution. Antiracist class struggle is essential for the health of all. The mass movements against racism in the U.S. improved healthcare services and made kidney dialysis, Medicare, and Medicaid possible for millions of workers of all races. But we must take the struggle all the way to revolution for a society that values the health of the public and not the profits of the ruling class.

These highlights only scratch the surface of decades of communist struggle in this mass organization. Public health comrades also fight around international issues in the APHA, so stay tuned for future  articles on how our collective is addressing imperialism, war and global vaccine justice.

Newark, NJ - Over the last few weeks, workers and students, along with members from the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), have shown sparks of fury against the racist liberal bosses at Barringer High School  and the Newark School District, for firing a Latin, antiracist teacher over attending a rally with his  students in New York City (NYC). The rally was in solidarity with the mother of Raymond Chaluisant, a young man murdered by the police last July.

When teachers are punished for encouraging their students to be militant in the face of racism, that is a dangerous sign for our class. This is especially the case at Barringer High School. Whenever liberal run institutions lead the charge to fire and isolate antiracist teachers or suspend militant antiracist students, these attacks are warning of more intense fascist discipline to come. The bosses use such attacks to quash multiracial, antiracist fightback wherever it flourishes, be it in our schools, jobs, or on the streets.
 
In an education system that both students and teachers recognize as racist and mediocre, building communism means nurturing anti-racist, working-class teachers that teach students about how the real world works under capitalism and why working-class solidarity is crucial for everyone’s survival. We must defend our anti-racist, working-class teachers and students!

We keep us safe
The ruling class drives home the idea that a bigger police state is what keeps the working class “safe.” We have seen this idea carried out in schools. From metal detectors to cops in schools, the working class is told to trust the bosses when it comes to our safety. But during the George Floyd protests of 2022, one common slogan was “We Keep Us Safe” in response to the police terror. It is with this idea of working-class solidarity that antiracist teachers organize every day.

With this antiracist attitude, nine students chose to go across the Hudson River on their day off from  school and stand with the Chaluisant family against police brutality. Even though the students and their parents didn’t personally know this family, they still chose to stand with them in their fight against police terror. The bosses attempted to justify their firing of the teacher by stating that he created “unsafe conditions” for students. The reality is that this teacher’s classroom exemplifies the kind of safety that all students deserve. Last year this same teacher got written up because he allowed his students to stay in his warm classroom before school during the winter months. The administration would rather have them freezing outside in the cold. This was also the teacher who organized groups of other teachers to deliver food to families isolated during the pandemic.

The strengthening of the working class in fighting back against racism and for a communist world is the ONLY security that we need for ourselves and our future.

Keeping us safe through base building
After the teacher was attacked, he had the confidence to reach out to the parents of all nine students and they gladly opened up their homes. These families agreed that protecting this antiracist teacher was important. This reinforced the idea that trust between teachers and parents is safety we must build  without asking the school bosses that divide us for permission. Students have committed to sharing  leaflets about fighting back inside of the school even though the teacher is not there.

This demonstrates the level of work this teacher has done to build a base with students. These growing concentrations of united workers terrify racist bosses. In a community meeting, a multiracial and multigenerational group of former and current students and workers from the Newark School District, along with other community organizers and youth workers, came together, determined to figure out: How do we use this struggle to get students and parents to organize to improve school conditions everywhere? How do we turn this attack into an opportunity to expose the limits of capitalism in meeting our needs? When asked about organizing a student walkout, a freshman student asked, “What is it?” Someone else responded, “A walkout is when a group of students collectively decide to walk out of a school building at an agreed-upon time without permission in order to demand something from the school administration. Back in high school, I had been in several walkouts in response to my school being stripped of things we needed.” Given the chance to think collectively, this exchange of experiences between all of these working-class people gave us a huge victory. That freshman student was won to be a part of a new defense committee along with others present to keep this fightback going.

The struggle ahead
It is not a coincidence that Newark Public Schools are firing this antiracist teacher for building up a base of anti-racist students while attacks on Black and Latin students continue to go unchecked. Students at Newark School of Global Studies recently spoke at a Board of Education meeting about the unchecked racism that targets Black students at the school (Chalkbeat, 12/15/22). An elementary school in the Ironbound of Newark, one of the most racist sections of the city, was recently sued by a parent for attacks on her student who is one of the three percent of Black students in the school (nj.com, 12/22/22). Students at the school still don’t have access to fountains and struggle to learn in overcrowded classrooms. The attack by these liberal fascists against these teachers is to send a message to other teachers - don’t organize and fight - be quiet and teach the curriculum. This gives us a picture that this fight must spread to other schools in the districts.

Revolutionary communist workers must build unbreakable bonds within the working class to transform any attack by the bosses into another nail in the coffin of their system. We must continue building this and other fights in the bosses’ courts, schools, streets, and social media. Depending on the bosses to keep us safe is deadly. Only we, the working class, can keep us safe.

The following is part six of a seven-part series reprinted and lightly edited from the communist newspaper Daily Worker in September-October, 1932, written by famous communist Mike Gold. The series was titled, “Negro Reds of Chicago.”
 
Workers here are referred to as Black instead of the original “Negro” to reflect our antiracist principles as well as the linguistic shifts that occurred over decades of antiracist class struggle.
 
Communists have a long history of fighting against racist attacks on our class. One such fight was against landlords and evictions. In the early 1930s, amid Jim Crow segregation, a Great Depression with  record unemployment levels that sank the working class—particularly Black workers living in the urban industrial core—into deeper poverty and despair, the Communist Party in the U.S. (CPUSA) was fighting for revolution inside U.S. borders. This period was a golden age of class-conscious fightback when  communist ideas were popular and gripped the imaginations of the working class. Under the leadership of the CPUSA, workers organized militant housing councils, tenant unions that led bold actions that weakened the power of profit gluttonous landlords.

Today our class is in a different period marked by increasing volatility. We are choked by record high inflation, rent hikes, food price gouging compounded by stagnant wages, high unemployment, and an eviction crisis worsened by a still-raging global pandemic. Though the CPUSA is a shell of its former self, decaying into a toothless, reformist party, its history provides valuable lessons for us today.

This series highlights this antiracist revolutionary fightback and contains kernels of working-class wisdom.

Visiting comrade Squire in his home
Another ex-soldier and South Side communist is that remarkable person, Brown Squire. I shall never forget the afternoon I spent in his home.

It’s a bit tricky for whites to visit the south side. The police roam these streets ceaselessly in their squad cars. They pick up all whites who don’t look like landlords, installment agents or other exploiters. Then a visit to the police station, a few hours of questions, clubs, fists, etc. It has happened often.

One of these squad cars filled with beefy brutes rounded the corner just as we ducked into Brown Squire’s home.

Manly and attractive, one of those calm, smiling giants, it was good to see Comrade Squire. He was dressed in a khaki shirt, one of his seven kids on his powerful arm. Behind him, on a battered dresser stood a bust of Lenin. In the bookcase one saw Daily Workers, pamphlets, books.

All this in a typical Chicago slum, in a ruined shanty facing out on a backyard piled with a hill of the most amazing garbage. Signs of the new age: Lenin in the steel mills, Lenin in the stockyards, Lenin hovering over workers’ children playing on a garbage dump in Chicago.

Brown Squire fought in France for two years and eight months. He was a good soldier, a born leader, and rose from the ranks to return as a second lieutenant.

Yes, I was a good instrument for the capitalists,” he smiled, “a first-class soldier. You can still blindfold me, throw all the parts of a machine gun on the floor, and I will reassemble it by touch.

Lieutenant Squire came back from the war in 1919, believing he’d won his freedom. A month later, the race riots broke out.

“I’m a communist now”
I can understand them, now that I’m a Communist. They were part of the capitalist strategy, by which  they tried to separate the white and [Black] soldiers and workers. But then I was bitter. I fought in the riots; some of us captured guns from the lynchers and barricaded this street. No lyncher could enter it; many tried, but failed.

Then he shared, with most of his race in America, the years of the Garvey mirage. When he came out of that, he didn’t know where to turn. One day he saw a parade with banners against lynching. He was still bitter, couldn’t believe that whites would fight for such a cause. So he began to study this thing, “to see whether the Communists really meant it.” After two years he decided that they meant it, and joined the party.

I was one of the first [Black workers] in the party then. We were isolated, the cops singled us out. I can remember my first arrest. They almost tore off one ear, and shut my left eye. They stomped on my bare feet with their boots, and almost broke my bones. They burned my body with cigar butts. Yes, they like to kill me. They wanted me to say I’d go to no more Communist meetings. But I would not say it. It was pretty bad, comrades. I lay in bed for a week afterward, coughing up blood.

"But it made a solid red out of me."
That was on March 6, 1929. Since then Squire has been arrested at least a hundred times for his speeches and other activities. He is a leader in the fight against evictions, and in the Workers’ Ex-Servicemen’s League. This day of our visit was typical of all his busy days. He had just come from a meeting of vets. The bonus marchers needed food and tobacco, and he had been collecting nickels and dimes.

This afternoon he was collecting signatures for the Communist election campaign. He had already signed up eight blocks in his house-to-house canvass. At 5 o’clock he was due to speak in Ellis Park, at a demonstration against the Republican Presidential convention, at which the [Black] delegates were jim-crowed. In the evening he was booked to speak in a [Black] church on communism.

New York City—For the first time in over 40 years, over 1,100 New York Times journalists and staff walked off the job in a one-day strike for a major labor dispute. more than 1,100 unionized Times  employees walked off the job today in a 24-hour strike. The NYT Guild represents journalists, editors,  advertising sales, business staff and security guards who have been without a new contract since March 2021 (NYT, 12/7). The workers struck against the biggest liberal mouthpiece for the main wing of the U.S. ruling class. As long as capitalism rules, media workers won’t control the narrative. For workers to own our labor, we need to smash this profit-based system. This capitalist rag is unfit for workers.

Good on paper? Trash in reality
NYT workers were joined by a delegation of striking UAW workers from HarperCollins who have been on strike against the publisher for three weeks, striking Guild members from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, who have been on strike for a month, as well as members of the National Writers Union, CWA, and Teamster truck drivers who refused to cross the picket lines. One of the main issues is the company’s racist performance rating system and the demand for a more integrated newsroom. In a study released last August, the union found that, “white Guild members were more likely to get the top ratings, while Black and Latin members were more likely to get the lowest two ratings” (NYT, 12/7). Another issue is a safe post-pandemic return-to-work policy.

After decades of cutting back on wages, pensions, and healthcare, the NYT is making bank in a media market that has been facing massive cutbacks. The Times made over $300 million in operating profits this year, offered shareholders a big stock buyback and gave big raises to their executives. Yet, Times Chief Executive Meredith Kopit Levien cries that it’s not “what it used to be” (AP News, 12/8). The company hired scabs and international workers to deliver its content.

As capitalism continues to devolve into crisis after crisis, more and more workers may gain class consciousness. The NYT institution is the epitome of liberal democratic ideals, promoting themselves as a beacon of truth in the chaos. Yet, it can't provide basic conditions for its workers? The company touts worker-friendly ideas, but the strike exposes the hollowness and hypocrisy of this capitalist institution. In essence, as long as media is owned by the profit-making class, media workers are just as expendable as every other worker.

Media, an industry of class struggle
The media industry has become a hotbed of class struggle, the result of massive consolidation and cutbacks. About 25 percent of all newsroom jobs were lost during the pandemic and about 2,000 local media outlets have closed, being replaced by huge conglomerates and even Artificial Intelligence producing some sports articles. These vast “news deserts” have added to the sea of misinformation
and have aided groups like QAnon and various fascist militias. The News Guild (TNG) and other unions have organized tens of thousands of media workers in the past few years and the number of strikes and job actions are increasing. Staff at Reuters and several Gannett papers are also preparing for strikes.

Can these mostly young “white-collar” workers, along with striking part-time faculty at the New School in NY and 48,000 graduate student workers in California, represent the beginning of sharpening class war? From railroad workers to Amazon and Starbucks workers, there is a stirring among the masses. In NYC,  contracts are expiring among CUNY faculty, which is two-thirds adjuncts, and transit workers.

As the class struggle sharpens, Progressive Labor Party has the responsibility to turn class struggle into  grounds for revolutionary communist ideas. PLP will have to be embedded in these workplaces and among these workers, to move workers past the Democratic Party treadmill of reform, and onto the path of communist revolution. Slowly but surely, this is taking place.