Chicago PL Youth Tie Haiti, Katrina to Capitalism on King-Day March

CHICAGO, January 16 — “We know what we’re fighting for!” echoed down 63rd Street in Englewood, drawing people out to watch the multi-racial group of youth and adults march, chanting “No more rich and no more poor!” The march, hosted by a church in Hyde Park, was against poverty and for equality, to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, but the tone turned militant when youth around PLP, mostly Englewood residents, took over the chanting.

We distributed a flier connecting the capitalist-inflicted poverty and the devastation in Haiti following the earthquake to the similar economic-related Hurricane Katrina disaster. PLP’s “Fight-Back!” chant had people dancing in the streets, at the bus stops, raising their fists and chanting. It was a welcome change from the usual gang members walking down 63rd Street!

After the march, there was a panel discussion with professors and community activists. Half the audience was youth, but the discussion was definitely not geared towards them. In fact, activists on the panel repeatedly said that students needed to try harder in school and listen to their elders to fight poverty. If that worked, we would have fixed these problems a long time ago!

The professor spoke with his back toward the students, holding posters that identified high poverty areas. We know where the poor people are —  just walk through the segregated communities and look for boarded-up buildings! We walked past plenty of them on 63rd and King.

To engage the students, a PLP member wrote questions down and passed them around. The youth responded, read each other’s responses, and wrote more questions. This was a more insightful discussion! When the panel ended, three youth informed one of the speakers that the way she talked about students was ‘adultist’ — meaning it had a bias against youth and didn’t value their opinions and abilities.

After we left the church, we had a student panel discussion over pizza. This gave us a chance to debrief. We agreed that the walk was too long and the panel was too dry, but it was overall a good day. We discussed how poverty came from the creation of class society; that it hadn’t always existed, and that a lot of the poverty we see today is based in racism. Students who had been around PLP explained what the Party is and everyone who came took a CHALLENGE. Participating in events like this brings more youth around the Party and, at the end of the day, we gained a new member for PLP!