From South Central to Downtown—Fighting the Power, Putting Revolution Front and Center

July 13, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From the Revolution Club, Los Angeles:

On Saturday, July 9, the Revolution Club, LA led a march through South Central, calling people into the streets to not let this system get away with its official terror against Black people, and in the wake of the cops being killed in Dallas, not allowing the powers that be to change the subject. We put the call out the day before, aiming to reach and draw forward all kinds of people who have been looking for a way to stand up. While we didn’t accomplish this on a mass scale, we did lead an important march that drew forward basic people who were very angry. Together with them we challenged and inspired many more people and we put REVOLUTION front and center, the need for it, and projecting the force organizing now to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time.

Starting from Florence & Normandie—where the 1992 rebellion began and where we’ve been out the past few days—we marched to the hated 77th Division police station that terrorizes people day in and day out and is responsible for the murder of Keith Bursey just a few weeks ago. Keith Bursey was 31 years old. He and his girlfriend had parked their car in a parking lot of a store where people were hanging out. The pigs made his girlfriend sit inside with her hands on the steering wheel and made Keith get out of the car. Then they shot him in front of her. They made up the same lying excuse they always use, saying he had a gun—while witnesses saw his empty hands up.

The march started with the Revolution Club and a few other people who had heard about it and came full of rage and pain and ready to take to the streets. As we stood on the corner, people passing by began to join. A woman pulled her car over and walked over, angry and determined to act. She was in a dress and high heels and called on others passing by: What are you waiting for? Till it’s somebody you know? Till it happens to you? She and others felt and said: They are killing our people and it’s too much. There were others who couldn’t march but joined in on the corner for as long as they could—standing and chanting with signs for a few minutes, getting the RCP Central Committee Message, “Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution,” and getting it out to others. Almost all of the people who joined in on the spot had seen us on that corner already one of the other days we were there and decided to step up and be part of it.

We began marching with a little over a dozen people and took over one lane of traffic. Cars slowed down to go alongside the march and get the RCP Central Committee Message through the window. People honked in support with fists up. People along the sidewalks or on porches and balconies filmed on their phones. Those who had joined in got on the bullhorn and challenged people who were watching and filming to stop filming and come join in. Some people took up the challenge and did. Early on the police tried to get us to get back on the sidewalk, but decided not to try to enforce it.

When we got to 77th Division, more people joined to speak out right in front of the police station. The pigs blocked off the street on both sides so cars couldn’t come through. People pulled over to find out what was happening. One young guy from Compton spoke bitterly about the police murdering people in cold blood: “We’re listening, our hands is up, our hands is behind our backs, we’re on the floor, we’re pinned down straight, and ya’ll still shoot us down. So I’m gonna say straight out to y’all, simple as that, we gotta fight back...”

On the way back to Florence and Normandie, the march had grown to over two dozen people. Everyone in it was serious and people saw themselves as the ones stepping forward first to bring forward others like themselves. One young Latino guy who joined in made sure everyone passing by got the RCP Central Committee Message. Everybody in the march was chanting, “How do we get out of this mess? Revolution—Nothing Less!” And when we did the “Mighty Mighty Revcoms” chant, people driving by in their cars were chanting along with us. When a number of police cars zoomed past us with their sirens blaring and so close they could’ve hit people, everyone chanted, “Fuck the Police!”

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Afterwards, people who stayed around got introduced more deeply to what the revolution is about and got to hear a Revolution Club member read the RCP Central Committee Message out loud, which everyone paid closed attention to. Everyone also got invited to a Revolution Club meeting the following day and several people we met from this march came to it.

After this march, the Revolution Club headed downtown to connect up with a protest we’d heard was planned for the evening in front of LAPD headquarters. There were about 100 people rallying when we got there, with different organizations speaking on a loudspeaker, and soon after they called for people to march in a circle in front of the building. We decided we would get in our marching formation and join the picket as a force. We got on the bullhorn to indict the whole system and bring forward the need for revolution, to call on people to take to the streets for no business as usual—and we called on people to get organized for an actual revolution. We did the “Mighty, Mighty Revcoms” chant, among others.

When the picket stopped, we split up in teams and went through the crowd getting out the RCP Central Committee Message. People had different responses to the message, but one conversation that stood out was with a Black man in his 40s or 50s who’d been part of different movements of mass resistance against police brutality and against mass incarceration but had been feeling lately that more was required to really put a stop to it. He also expressed admiration for the man who is said to have killed the cops in Dallas. We had a serious discussion about getting organized for an actual revolution, including why revolutionaries don’t initiate violence at this stage. He was very open minded and said he would read the Message and we arranged to meet to get more deeply into all these questions.

 

 

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