BA Everywhere:
Making Bob Avakian a Major Question Among Museum Goers

February 29, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Dear revcom.us/Revolution readers:

Some of us got together to make plans based on the article about BA Everywhere dinners to be held nationwide on the weekend of March 18-20: “Come Together, Raise Funds and Build the Campaign for BA Everywhere.” We wanted to share with you all one of the ways we are setting out to raise funds now and to make BA a major question among important sections of people who are in a lot of turmoil right now, looking for serious solutions in a world that many are feeling is more and more completely intolerable. We want to reach deeply into sections of people like this and challenge them to donate on the spot and to come to the fundraising dinner that will be held over the weekend of March 18 along with dinners nationwide, and to be part of wrangling over what difference it will make for BA and his revolutionary work to be known and debated all over.

Lots of museums across the country have “Free First Friday” or “Free First Saturday” programming that attracts young people, families, and culturally aware people of all ages. Last month, Revolution Books and a team of Revolution newspaper distributors had a significant impact on a Black History Month First Saturday at an important museum in our city. The First Saturday events at this museum have become a destination for a mainly under-40, mixed, culturally cutting-edge crowd of several thousand over the course of the day’s programming. There can be visual art exhibits, film, artist discussions, book discussions, family activities, music, and dance—all going on simultaneously in different parts of the museum. It can be a wild scene! Last month, about 100 of the special issue of Revolution newspaper announcing the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA got out in this crowd, tapping into the heartfelt need among many to know about a leadership to really make the revolution and radically change the same shit the Black Panthers and other revolutionaries set out to confront 50 years ago that is still going on today and worse. The legacy of the Panthers was a theme at this event, with a showing of the new film by Stanley Nelson (Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution) and a Revolution Books-sponsored discussion in an adjoining room on the legacy of the Black Panther Party and the role of Bob Avakian.

The next First Saturday at this museum has a Women’s History Month theme featuring women performers and creators in all kinds of disciplines. We decided this is a very important place to take BA Everywhere and the invitation to the dinner coming up over the weekend of March 18-20. There is no more thoroughgoing approach to emancipating the half of humanity that is humiliated, brutalized, objectified, and subjected to forced reproduction, rape, and subjugation just because they are female. But not just that: BA’s new synthesis takes the emancipation of women as a foundational and driving force for winning a real revolution and for continuing to radically transform society after the revolution toward fully emancipating all of humanity.

This is profound and people need to know it! We have a simple plan and approach: have a visually compelling team with BA Speaks: Revolution Nothing Less! and BA-image T-shirts as people are going into the event, pass out the BA image card—this is an artistically inclined crowd and the idea is to create intrigue and curiosity by passing out this beautiful and compelling image. Some people will also be handing out the BA quote cards with this quote:

You cannot break all the chains, except one. You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men. You can't say you want to liberate humanity yet keep one half of the people enslaved to the other half. The oppression of women is completely bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way revolution. The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution. (BAsics 3:22).

Break ALL the Chains!
Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution

Sampler Edition | Full Work

We will also be getting out Revolution newspaper—and the www.revcom.us website has a PDF poster on International Women’s Day, which can be printed out. We will have a display of the sampler edition of Break ALL the Chains! Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution—the publication of this sampler was funded by The Bob Avakian Institute. But we do want the image cards to create some buzz and interest without having to be “explained.”

Some people will also go inside the museum among the crowd, passing out the image card in particular. As people start leaving, the emphasis will be on getting out invitations to the BA Everywhere dinner and more of the materials—quote cards and Revolution newspaper. There will be BIG VISUALS of the BAsics 3:22 quote and BIG, WELL-DECORATED BUCKETS for people to donate on the spot, with a challenge to people to learn about BA’s all-the-way revolutionary leadership to emancipate ALL of humanity and be part of making this known and a point of reference all over, at a time when this revolution is needed more than ever. We will collect contact information and get back with people quickly to underline the invitation to the dinner, the challenge to donate for BA Everywhere now, and work with them to spread the word and invite and challenge their friends as well.

As the “Come Together, Raise Funds and Build the Campaign for BA Everywhere” article put it: “BA, his work and his leadership exist at a time when the influence and organized force of revolution—real revolution—is not nearly as strong as it urgently needs to be, but the basis for this is actually stronger than ever. The biggest immediate problem right now is that this is not yet known in the way it needs to be...”

So let’s get to really begin solving this now. Let’s go!

Join the BA Everywhere campaign