“There is the potential for something of unprecedented beauty to arise out of unspeakable ugliness…”
Revolution Club Organizing Center Opens on South Side of Chicago
Updated March 2, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
This is a revised and updated version of an article posted earlier.
As the recent statement from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party says, “Chicago is infamous for the true horror of young Black people killing each other. And now Chicago is ground zero for Trump’s overall offensive against Black people.” Chicago is now also something else: ground zero for bringing forward an organized force for actual revolution to emancipate the seven billion people on this planet, from among those this system has, “for so long, not just exploited, but dehumanized, terrorized and tormented… in a thousand ways....”
On Sunday February 26, a new Revolution Club organizing center was launched on the south side of Chicago, with plans to open a second one soon on the west side, to bring forward forces for revolution at the same time uniting with all kinds of people to take up the urgent fight to drive out the Trump/Pence fascist regime.
To get the organizing center, people were reached out to widely to be part of meeting the immediate need for it in the context of this emergency situation for Black people and humanity as a whole. All kinds of people responded right away, offering their knowledge and resources and abilities. Various locations were suggested and possible spaces offered. People reached out to others they knew to make connections and some were actively involved in finding and getting the place.
But bringing the Revolution Club organizing center all the way into being was a real fight. There were some forces who didn’t want to see it happen. And others who not only welcomed it, but threw in to make it happen.
The forces who opposed and tried to prevent the Revolution Club organizing center didn’t like the idea of bringing something into the neighborhood that will reach out with revolution to the youth who are caught up in killing each other, and call forward powerful resistance to the Trump/Pence regime and the whole system it comes from. They worried this would be too disruptive and get in the way of attempts to “build up the community,” like the Obama library that is coming and plans to fix up golf courses. Some even have plans to get in on what is coming down from Trump. That is, they knowingly or unknowingly end up conniving in genocidal plots against the people. As the CC statement says: “Now comes Trump…he promises jobs. In reality, his agents will dole out a few jobs…to buy people as his enforcers. Trump will pull more Black people into the oppressor army to kill off other oppressed people.”
The reality is this system doesn’t have a future for the masses of Black people, especially the youth. Millions have been locked into poverty and misery, while the Black middle strata has been under intense economic attack since 2007, including suffering the hardest hit in the housing meltdown, with 240,000 Black people nationwide losing their homes. Now, with Trump’s whole racist program and slashing of government jobs, the Black middle class will be under even sharper attack. And the Trump/Pence program of violently repressing and at the same time dividing and degrading people, aimed at the inner-cities and right now focused on Chicago, will start with those in the most desperate conditions but affect all Black people.
Trump threatens to send in the feds to “fix” what his top advisor calls “black crime.” And the Chicago Tribune ran a column calling for the implementation of a detailed plan to barricade whole neighborhoods with National Guard and flood them with police who are ready to kill. The public schools in Chicago are in a crisis with not enough money to finish the school year, and Trump’s Secretary of Education plans to replace public schools with Christian fundamentalist “schools” that teach blind obedience and ignorance. The mass round-ups ripping apart immigrant families have already begun.
Reaching Out Broadly to Fight Through to Open the Center
Again the Revolution Club reached out to involve people in fighting all the way through to open the organizing center. Different people really threw in on this, and particularly key were the efforts of people among the Black middle class who have positions and influence that they were able to bring to bear. People expressed their view of the importance of this center to bring the youth together, and others felt the urgency of bringing forward resistance to the Trump/Pence regime. Through actively advocating for the opening of the center and in other ways they helped to clear the way.
The Revolution Club organizing center opened Sunday with beautiful REVOLUTION banners on the walls, the Points of Attention for the revolution prominently displayed, and other posters and banners that introduce people to Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution, and the new synthesis of communism he’s developed. Posters in three languages say, “NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America,” and a display in the window invites and calls on people to join the Revolution Club. In the days leading up to the launch, as we worked on getting the center ready, people in the area who know the Revolution Club stopped in to see the center and had the chance to talk with people in the club about what the Trump/Pence regime will mean for Black people and what to do about it now.
In addition to people in and around the Revolution Club, people who came to the launch were some from the area, some from the Refuse Fascism movement and the movement to stop police murder, and others who heard about it through text networks and Facebook.
The highlight and main feature of the program was a talk from Carl Dix. The program began with a welcome to the new center and the Revolution Club marching up to the front and standing in formation to read the Central Committee statement and the Points of Attention. Then Carl Dix came up and spoke about the importance of opening this center in this place at this time and gave a presentation that exposed both the straight-up repression of the Trump/Pence program against Black people and the component of turning some Black people into enforcers of that program at the same time: as police and ICE agents and Christian fundamentalist robots. He talked about the need to unite with many kinds of people urgently to drive out the Trump/Pence regime and at the same time he said in no uncertain terms that what we need to put an end to this situation for Black people and for humanity is revolution. He read the quote from Bob Avakian about the potential for unprecedented beauty to come from unspeakable ugliness and called on people to be emancipators of humanity.
There is the potential for something of unprecedented beauty to arise out of unspeakable ugliness: Black people playing a crucial role in putting an end, at long last, to this system which has, for so long, not just exploited but dehumanized, terrorized and tormented them in a thousand ways—putting an end to this in the only way it can be done—by fighting to emancipate humanity, to put an end to the long night in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves, and the masses of humanity have been lashed, beaten, raped, slaughtered, shackled and shrouded in ignorance and misery.
Carl Dix then put forward the challenge for people who are caught up in the system way of thinking of "what's in it for me," asking what if Harriet Tubman would have said that—and pointing to the reality that in fact she risked her own life and freedom for others. And he pointed to the need to take that challenge out into the streets to the youth who are killing each other.
The program ended with upcoming plans to impact society with the statement and a call from a representative of the Revolution Club to join the club and fight for and live by the Points of Attention. Afterwards, everyone stayed around to talk more deeply with each other and to get organized. Some people looked at video clips from revcom.us that were playing on a TV screen. People wanted to keep talking for a long while, eager to engage in discussion ranging from how to understand and what to do about the Trump/Pence assault on Black people to what is Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism and the strategy for revolution. Some people took stacks of flyers of the statement and gave small donations for them and talked about their plans of where they will distribute them. One person planned to come back to the center during the week to report back about the response he gets when he goes to get the flyers out to other people. Another person, who has been checking out different organizations in this highly politicized moment, got a copy of the book BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, and filled out an application to start the process of joining the Revolution Club.
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