May First in Houston: “Thank You for Introducing Me to BA”

May 4, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From readers:

On May First, we took out a sound truck through a neighborhood and a university campus in Houston. High school students came by to stop and look at the Stolen Lives banner on the truck. Some of them said that they couldn’t look at the faces because it hurts too much and they think that there is nothing we can do about it. Other students took copies of Revolution newspaper because they wanted to learn about how things can change through revolution.

A guy driving by pulled over and said, “You’re the ones with BA, thank you for introducing me to BA.” He said that he had seen a poster on a pole and went to revcom.us, and that he has been watching video clips and now he is so happy that he found a way to get involved. Other people stopped to get Revolution, Dialogue palm cards and flyers of Carl Dix’s statement to get out to others.

At a housing project, a couple of women came out and asked, are we going to march? One of them started chanting, “Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution.” People talked about how they have been following what’s going on in Baltimore. One woman, speaking of the indictments, said she knows that nothing ever changes if people don’t stand up and fight for justice. Others said they are very aware that just because they’re indicted doesn’t mean they’ll go to jail. “They always try to keep us quiet and to wait for the system to work, but it doesn’t.”

At the university, a woman said she has been following all the murders by police and been thinking that things have been set up this way from the beginning. She said she thinks the police need more training. But she was excited to learn about the Dialogue between Bob Avakian and Cornel West and Ardea Skybreak’s description of the event.

Later that evening, we took Revolution to a rally in support of the people of Baltimore. About 80 people – activists, people from the neighborhood, and students came out. A couple of young women held up the enlarged Stolen Lives banner as people spoke. Many other people – maybe a third of them – held up this and other posters from revcom.us. The Stolen Lives banner became a focal point and reference point for people who spoke. Many of the speakers referred to the faces on the banner, including Janet Baker, who said her son Jordan's picture is on the banner, and challenged people to stop murder by police.

Many of the people by then knew about the charges filed against the pigs in Baltimore. The overall response was that they know the indictments were brought only because the people stood up. But the question of how to advance was hotly debated. As people got up to the mic, a public debate erupted – a revolutionary read the revcom.us statement, “On the Indictments of the Pigs who Murdered Freddie Gray.” Other people got up to talk about voting or organizing for reforms like body cams, while others expressed their rage at the systematic brutality of the system. Some people argued for community self-defense and fuck the police. One young woman said that today, you can’t be neutral, you have to take a side.

A Black man who brought his kids so that they can see what protests are about said that all the indictments in Baltimore show is that now is the time to take this fight further, and until it stops, we cannot back down. Several people made the point that they don’t expect the government to reform itself and at the same time, they didn’t see how just anger would change things. One woman said that we need to have something to go for, to actually change things. Many people got copies of Revolution, and a good number of them took Dialogue palm cards to get out and said they are going to watch the Dialogue online.

An older Black man explained what he has been thinking: When it’s just one person, or two people, he figured that maybe they did something wrong, but not like this, with hundreds of people being killed by the police, it’s systematic. He said “I believe that we all need to come together as a whole and fight this system. It’s a system, that’s all it is. The system is corrupt. I’m one that wants a better world, for my grandkids’ sake. They’re our future, and right now, it’s a very grim future.”

A weekend full of activity and potential for advancing the movement for revolution lies ahead. On Saturday, May 2, another protest in support of the people of Baltimore and demanding Justice for Freddie Gray is happening, and a bus with at least one revolutionary aboard headed out early this morning to Dilley, Texas, to protest the immigrant detention center there. On Sunday, an internationalist May Day dinner is being held here in Houston.

 

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