Three Days of Education and Struggle in DC

WASHINGTON, DC, October 18 — Today, high school and college students concluded three days of study and struggle hosted by the Progressive Labor Party here, raising the commitment of the participants inspired by Ferguson and connecting the fight against racism to the fight for communism. The weekend was also a major advance for our youth leadership in the area, with high school comrades taking the responsibilities upon themselves to lead everything from discussions to demonstrations.
On the first day, PL’ers and friends participated in a forum called “Inequality, Racism, and Capitalism: Advancing the Struggle,” sponsored by the Howard University Department of Economics. Over 60 participants, including public housing residents, transit workers and healthcare workers and other workers joined faculty members from Howard University and North Carolina A&T in analyzing mass racist incarceration, gentrification, educational struggles.
There was also a critique of the current best-selling book Capital in the 21st Century, by Thomas Piketty, a book being pushed by the liberals because it ignores racism and the need for working-class struggle, cynically arguing for reforms that even Piketty admits are not likely to happen.
The next day, PL’ers met to study dialectical materialism, the philosophy of the working class, as a way of analyzing struggles like that in Ferguson. Comrades who had just returned from the battle in Ferguson showed clips of the struggle there to illustrate some principles of dialectics.  Then, on Saturday, the high school PLP leaders met for several hours in a strategy session to plan for a demonstration. This was a new experience, not only for the young PL leaders planning this but for many students this was their first time demonstrating! Everyone agreed that the goal of the demonstration should be to inspire workers and students here in Washington, DC to “fight like Ferguson” and once a plan was made, everyone collectively made signs for a rally.
We marched with our signs and red flags, chanted, and distributed over 200 CHALLENGEs to students, Howard University alumni heading towards the homecoming game, and neighborhood residents.
Our boldness paid off and the response was fantastic — as our march culminated in a rally outside a train station, our chants of “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, Fists Up, Fight Back” were met by almost everyone coming up the escalator raising their hands in solidarity. Our first-time marchers were energized and this rally raised the bar for our work here in DC- everyone returned to their area enthusiastic about continuing the struggle and learning more about the Party’s fight for communist revolution!