Worldwide, the summer months are a time of training for Progressive Labor Party (PLP). As we gear up for a summer of learning, it’s helpful to reflect on past Summer Projects. The following article is a reprint from CHALLENGE in 1979.  

This issue, we look at the Tupelo Project of ’79.

Lessons include:

In the face of the KKK, neo-Nazis and racist capitalist government, we must be bold and have confidence in the working class to take the lead of communists.

Multiracial unity is our class’s weapon, and the bosses’ greatest fear.

To sustain our gains, we must grow the Party and train more Black, Latin, Asian, and white young people in leadership.

Significance of Mississippi

To many who remember the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Mississippi symbolizes the most extreme racism, the most brutal murders of Black workers and antiracists, and the stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan.

For Progressive Labor Party, Mississippi signified a base for revolution among Black and white workers, spreading the ideas of multiracial unity and the fight for communist ideas in the South. Today, we celebrate the heroic struggle of the Tupelo Summer Project of ’79. About 100 communists and friends—Black, Latin, Asian, and white—took part in this struggle.

Though relatively small (population of 20,000), Tupelo was an industrial center with over 14,000 workers. The South was important to the U.S. ruling class as an industrial area because its carefully nurtured tradition of racism made it the citadel of low-wage, non-union labor, where the bosses could keep the working class divided and weak to extract extra profits.

The project showed that masses of white workers and students in Tupelo and throughout the South are winnable to antiracism.

Below is an edited excerpt from PL Magazine (Fall 1979) analyzing an aspect of the Tupelo Summer Project:

The great July demonstration

Sixty-five antiracist marchers, organized by Progressive Labor Party and its [then-mass organization] International Committee Against Racism (InCAR), were marching through the streets in Tupelo, Mississippi chanting, “Death to the Klan.”  
Shots rang through the air.

As the bullets grazed two marchers, a disciplined group of people, Black and white, rushed out of line, isolated the racist who wielded the gun, and beat him to the ground. In the fight that ensued with this Klansman, or Klan supporter, the antiracists broke his neck. While this was happening, the marchers, maintaining a tight discipline that won them the respect of Tupelo’s working class, continued the march. The marchers, encouraged by the friendly faces that lined the streets and by the workers who joined the march, were able to withstand the menacing threat of the Tupelo police, who aimed their cocked guns at them.

From the start, it was clear that the racist local rulers wanted to stop this march. A new ordinance was created by the city government banning sound devices (in response to successful PLP-led rallies in the past). The police and their flunkies systematically tore down posters in the housing projects, and a permit for the march was not granted until the very last minute.

As the march gathered in front of the courthouse, the bosses’ seat of power, a militant rally began, attracting a lot of people in the area who joined in chanting, “The cops, the courts, the Ku Klux Klan, all a part of the bosses’ plan.”

‘Before I was scared, now I’m mad’

Many militant workers in Tupelo have come to see InCAR as the main mass organization that can lead workers in the fight against racism and the resurgence of fascist groups like the Klan. One Black woman worker said, “Before I was scared, but now I’m mad.” This represents the feeling of many people here, that there is no longer the luxury to sit back and watch the ruling class and its flunkies hold power, that they have to get active and build a movement that has as its goal the destruction of the ruling class ideas of racism and fascism, and in the final analysis, the ruling class itself.

The political climate is changing rapidly in the South, and only groups like PLP are prepared to respond to the changes, give leadership, and organize the multiracial, antiracist fightback that is necessary to move workers to the left.

The United League, a Black reformist group, recently canceled a march scheduled for Okolona (a town not far from Tupelo) because its leader, Skip Robinson, essentially chickened out of the struggle. More and more people are realizing that UL's leadership cannot stand up to the rigors of the class struggle.

Workers put themselves on the line

Respect for PLP was growing in Tupelo. Two residents of Tupelo put up their houses as collateral so that our comrade could be bailed out of jail. When the two marchers who had been wounded were treated in the hospital, they were warmly received and treated by white doctors and other hospital workers. After the march stopped to rally, hundreds of Black workers surrounded the marchers to protect them from the cops (who would have been only too glad to be trigger happy).

This was the first time a racist had been beaten by an antiracist march in Tupelo. The leadership of the UL had always guaranteed the safety of the KKK and the cops by holding back the anger and hatred of Black workers in the fight to liberate themselves from the racism they faced every day. The bosses always think that they can destroy a workers’ movement by getting its leaders, but little do they know that leaders always spring up in the midst of struggle. There were many, many people right in Tupelo, and other cities North and South, and there still are today, who can develop as working-class leaders in the fight against racism and fascism, and they were and are being trained by Progressive Labor Party.
This was readily proven by the response not only of the marchers, in their determination to continue the march without being intimidated by the cops’ harassment, but also by the tremendous support of the local people. Over 200 copies of InCAR Arrow and CHALLENGE were sold, and four people joined InCAR on the spot. Another demonstration was planned on the spot.

The main lesson PLP learned in Tupelo, as everywhere, is to be bold. The bolder we were, the more seriously people took us and the more willing they were to respond to us. Workers understand that the system will come down hard when you try to fight it. They are also ready to understand that you only win on the offensive.

The struggle continues

Forty-five years later, workers are sharpening class struggle against both ultra-right racists and liberal centrists of our time. Even with disagreements over neo-Nazism and multicultural capitalism, both sides of the ruling class agree on the concept of capitalist dictatorship over us workers and working-class students. We cannot wait or vote for the bosses to hand us revolution. We must take and build the egalitarian world that our class needs, with the same militancy and unity as the multiracial fighters in Tupelo. 

To put our most recent practice of building against the genocide in Gaza, especially under fascist repression, to the test, we are taking the streets of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, July 15-19 during the Republican National Convention (RNC). Following this week of fightback, we will march with our left fists raised to the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, August 19-23. Until the ruling class’ ideas of racism and fascism are smashed to dust, we will not stop, we will not rest. Join us this summer to build the Progressive Labor Party in our fight for One World, One Party. Contact your local PL’er or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for more info!

Over 1,000 New York City high school students walked out of school to protest the U.S.-backed, Israeli genocide in Gaza. Composed of students from every borough in New York City, hundreds of young people rallied at the headquarters of the Department of Education to demand justice for their class siblings in Palestine. Brave high school students spoke out, connecting the fact that NYC has the largest, most segregated school district in the nation, the same anti-Muslim, racist system of apartheid that fuels mass murder in Palestine.

From Gaza to NYC worker-student fightback is key

A student from the Columbia University encampment also spoke of the police terror and rising fascism that young people are facing for their protests. From suspension and expulsion to brute police force, youth understand that the veneer of liberal democracy is crumbling. The ruling class has run out of arguments and reasonings—Joe Biden and his clique are falling back on naked violence to silence dissent. But it is despite this ruling-class terror that young people continue to risk and sacrifice in the name of multiracial and internationalist solidarity. Indeed, young people see themselves in the cause of Palestine: the genocidal destruction of worker’s futures in Gaza echoes the receding future that young people everywhere are experiencing as climate change, poverty, and escalating war rack the planet.

As courageous students put everything on the line in these protests, it is critical that they do not  succumb to cynicism. Nationalist misleaders are already attempting to hijack youth energy, diverting it into supporting the Palestinian ruling class. These nationalist elements are ready to sell out workers, to silence calls for revolution, and to accommodate a future occupation of Gaza on terms acceptable to Israel.

To liberate Palestine, nationalism must go

Against nationalist misleaders, Progressive Labor Party (PLP) was also at the high school rally fighting for internationalism. Educators of the Party stood with their students, distributed CHALLENGE, and continued to build a base for nothing less than communist revolution. The working class needs a party that unifies the entire working class and sustains revolutionary optimism. From all the rivers to all the seas—you too should join PLP to keep the fire of class struggle burning brightly from the Department of Education to Palestine, to Sudan, to Congo, to Haiti, to the ends of the earth.

Newark, NJ, June 5 - The Rutgers-Newark encampment was squashed by liberal university bosses in cahoots with Black nationalist misleader Mayor Ras Baraka. Although students and workers did not win their demands after 40 days of demonstrating, winning workers closer to the Party is a victory. To steel our minds and morale for inevitable fascist attacks, NJ school teachers within Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held a fiery teach-in on fascism at the encampment days before. 

With many workers and students one emergency away from homelessness and one ruling class conflict away from genocide, liberal misleaders are struggling to sell the idea of keeping capitalist democracy alive. Despite well-intentioned words and reforms,  liberal misleaders are marching our class into the hands of fascism and World War III. To reverse and smash this plan, workers, students, and soldiers must channel mass fightback into a single internationalist fight for communism. Only a united multiracial, multi-gendered, multigenerational working class of millions organized under the red banner of a communist Party—PLP—can smash this genocidal system for all time.

From the masses to the masses: learning to identify fascism to smash it

The PLP-led teach-in began with questions from two dozen multiracial, working class fighters. How is fascism connected to Newark? What does fascism look like in schools? Afterward, we read a May Day speech from a Brooklyn-based PLer who was reprimanded by the school administration for encouraging his students to fightback against the genocide in Gaza. PLers mobilized students and teachers against the bosses who violently forced him to stop teaching. He won his job back.

The shared working class wisdom revealed the following: What we associate with fascism, be it violent racist, sexist, or anti-working class tendencies within our families, neighborhoods, or workplaces, is always linked with the competition of ruling bosses across nations. For example, a principal firing a teacher for encouraging students to take a stance against the genocide in Gaza is acting on behalf of U.S. bosses. We discussed how the popular conception of fascism as attacks from the far-right on progressives is just the tip of the iceberg. Fascism involves a larger process of class warfare responding to the changing conditions of capitalism. 

Our collective conclusions were put to the test in determining Mayor Ras Baraka’s roles. Two older workers argued Baraka was not fascist because he implemented reformist initiatives, including temporary shelters for some unhoused workers. In response, a Black community member revealed those small deeds didn’t change Newark’s economic apartheid. Baraka is allowing a division to grow between Black and Latin workers facing evictions and the more stable base of multicultural workers for capital being used to replace and isolate them. A high school student brought the teach-in home by declaring: “Ras and these people are still participants in a fascist system and cannot ultimately avoid having to play their role in developing fascism when it is needed.”

Fascist Baraka shows himself

Days later, antiracist fighters woke up to a blaring bullhorn, warning demonstrators to clear the encampment or face arrest. While most of the city was home asleep, Newark PD mobilized to close off all traffic surrounding the encampment so that the Rutgers PD could move in. PLers met campers at nearby Harriet Tubman Park, where many young people started to see the role that Baraka plays for the ruling class. Some took to social media to blast the Mayor. Baraka distanced himself and the Newark PD from the incident, but the fighting workers and students shot back with photos and videos of Newark PD on the encampment clearing them out. 

As the Black community worker expressed in the teach-in, this isn’t about one person. If it isn’t Baraka, it would be someone else. These encampments are teaching the working class lessons about internationalism and multiracial unity as anecdotes against fascism, be it from a liberal or outright racist. The danger of the Trump-led racist and sexist movement is real, but the attacks from the liberal wing of the U.S. ruling class (the Big Fascists) exposed their willingness to be servants to ruling class bosses when capital is on the line. 

As comrades reflect on this teach-in and the end of the Rutgers encampment, we are reminded that what we do counts. Only by fighting alongside the students and workers at the encampment and within our schools were we able to have a great turnout and enthusiasm at the teach-in. Several of our friends advanced their political understanding as a result of not only seeing the need for internationalism and multiracial unity but also a communist, internationalist party to keep up the fight. The quantity of these efforts qualitatively advances the fight for communism.

In a community east of the Valley of Mexico, a group of comrades and friends of the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) have organized with our neighbors to fight the water shortage that has affected our neighborhoods for years. Recently the shortage has worsened, due to the overexploitation of wells and the criminal negligence of the bosses who refuse to maintain the hydraulic network, instead favoring the business of selling bottled water or workers needing to pay for supply through pipes.

Capitalism is incapable of meeting workers’ basic needs, even access to clean water, that under this system becomes a commodity that you can only have access to if you can buy it. Under a system of social equality like communism, workers’ needs would be the top priority, as our collectively organized society will ensure access to healthy water for all.

Bosses monopolize water

The capitalist ruling class in Mexico has privileged the business of selling bottled water. The country ranks first place in the world in consumption of bottled water (and sweetened drinks) because only around 60 percent of homes have a reliable daily supply (El País, 9/8/2023). Additionally, the bosses prioritize the water supply for agricultural use, the brewing industry and mainly for agroindustry and industrial zones.

The Valley of Mexico, where 22 million people live, is supplied with water mainly extracted from wells (75 percent), which are overexploited and of poor quality (La Jornada, 4/1). The rest is brought from the Cutzamala system, which is at critical levels due to low rainfall, overexploitation and pollution of the basins.

Within the community in struggle, the neighbors first organized a protest to demand that water be supplied to the area's hydraulic network, but the municipal government responded that the pump to extract it is useless and it will take months to repair, so they offered to extend the water pipes to homes, free of charge.

While the authorities agreed to install enough pipes to supply each household with two thousand liters of water, the municipality only sent three to four water pipes which only supplies half of what they promised – an insufficient amount to provide water for the working class here.

Workers can and must take control 

In an example of how the working class can organize society collectively, neighbors formed brigades to direct the supply of water in pipes to the homes where it is needed most, those with children, elderly or workers with illnesses. Our comrades meet every week with neighbors to evaluate and organize actions and report on the problem. We have helped organize marches where chants like “Water is not for sale, it is cared for and defended” ring furiously in the streets. But capitalism, which makes everything about profit, can't help but exploit and destroy nature and put a price tag on it. 

In places like Ecatepec’s fifth district, a municipality in the state of Mexico, water comes from the Cutzamala system, a complex network of canals, tunnels, pipelines, pumping plants, dams, and reservoirs, yet around 90 percent of the water pipes have been privatized (Sin Embargo, 6/25/22).

The system has been overexploited as the local bosses smuggle the water out of the systems and resell it back to the working class for profit. The local authorities have exposed this criminal business, but are “powerless” to stop it.  Also, there are car assembly companies that, in collusion with the municipality, steal water that they pay an average of 1,500 pesos for when they should pay close to 2 million, due to their high consumption. This is another clear example that capitalism is based on corruption, violence and theft, above the needs of workers.

Smash capitalism to liberate resources

Our comrades have put forward the communist analysis of this water struggle in our community by showing that capitalism promotes companies to monopolize water and profit from the need for the vital resource, putting the health and lives of millions of workers and their families at risk. But at the same time, we show in practice that these problems must be faced through the fight against capitalism, a harmful and deadly system that needs to be overthrown, so the working class can organize and run a superior communist society.