March vs. Columbia U.’s Ravaging of W. Harlem, Fake Jobs ‘Pledge’

NEW YORK CITY, December 9 — Today,  there was a breakthrough in the long struggle to force Columbia University to live up to its commitments to the West Harlem area that it has destroyed in order to build a new campus. Columbia promised to create 7,000 new jobs, but no one from the community has been trained or hired yet by the fake “Employment Information Office” just south of 125 Street.

At our past actions at this center to demand these jobs, we involved a few Columbia students and a small number of community residents and local church members. This time we had a very spirited demonstration, complete with drums and noisemakers, with a group of about 60, including 30 students, some supporters from Occupy Wall St, more church activists and members of the Coalition to Preserve Community, which has fought the expansion for years.

The marchers’ energy and militancy was exciting to the participants and passersby alike. We started at the gates of the Columbia campus where the NYC police and University security had previously tried to stop us from marching to the middle of campus; this time they didn’t even try.

Inside the main quadrangle, we gave speeches in the “human mike” Occupy style. Community members unaccustomed to public speaking gave rousing talks about their experiences with unemployment and housing displacement. A comrade exposed Columbia’s ties to imperialist war, how the School of International Affairs supported the architects of genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Carter’s National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Clinton’s Secy. of State Madeline Albright, and how the University trains the future leaders of U.S. capitalism.

After our campus demonstration, we marched up Broadway towards the “jobs” office. On the way we encountered teachers in the Precollege Division of the Manhattan School of Music who were picketing to demand union recognition and a living wage. We joined them for a short while, causing the administrators to look out their windows in horror. After getting some contact names, we continued to our destination.

The cops were ready with their barricades to pen us in, but we didn’t oblige and left them standing in the pen instead. Inspired by our unity and spirit, we proceeded to the church where hot soup awaited us.

After getting to know one another, a comrade and church leader told the students about its long history of anti-racist struggle uniting students and workers. The students were so interested that they requested an ongoing series of discussions after winter break. Nearly all of them eagerly took CHALLENGE with its articles analyzing the Occupy movements.

Certainly Occupy has inspired many, who were angry but cynical, with the spirit of activism and fighting back. As CHALLENGE pointed out, the movement’s weaknesses have been its lack of a class analysis and revolutionary perspective, and failure to emphasize multiracial and worker-student unity.

We certainly saw an emphasis on unity and working-class leadership on our march. Now we’ll continue our struggle with the students to build ties with campus workers. One student from the City University of New York also attended, and building unity with this more working-class school is also important. As we continue this campaign, it’s surely possible to win many students and workers to see the need to overthrow capitalism.