High school students energize West Wednesday rally

BALTIMORE, January 10—Activists and the family of Tyrone West continue to see through the bosses’ attempted bribes as they held the 233rd West Wednesday rally. Held once a week without fail, ever since the police execution of Tyrone in July 2013, this week’s rally got an infusion of enthusiasm and energy from five dynamic members of a high school club.
Tonight’s protest was held right outside Northeast District – the police station at which Tyrone’s killers worked. One member of the student club kicked off the rally with a powerful mix of singing and spoken word. Later, after a strong speech by Tyrone’s sister, Tawanda Jones, two other members of the club gave their own heartfelt speeches. And just after the rally, club members did a high-energy, impromptu freestyle rap, condemning injustice and upholding Tyrone’s name.
Holding these rallies unflaggingly for 233 weeks is a big deal. When families and friends of a worker killed by the police fight back, the bosses work hard to try to quiet them down, even paying out money. The West family rejected a potentially large settlement from Baltimore City – except for a portion specifically targeted to the children and grandchildren of Tyrone. Accepting that deal would have required agreement with a gag order, stipulating that family members could no longer say anything publicly about the horrific police murder. Selflessly rejecting temptation, the family turned their backs on that payoff so they could continue to wage the long-term anti-racist struggle for police accountability.
One of the key lessons from this struggle is the need for long-term commitment to the struggle against racism, and against capitalism. Decades of Progressive Labor Party’s work with the high school club made it possible to give students this opportunity to participate in a fightback against racist kkkop murder.
The weekly participation of PLP in the West Wednesday rallies, and the regular distribution of CHALLENGE newspaper, has had a significant, positive influence on the ideas embraced by regular attendees. As many PLers have in past West Wednesdays, a PLer spoke this evening, condemning capitalism as the root of police terror. Police accountability under capitalism, whatever that might mean, is not enough for workers. The role of police in this system is to keep workers in line and to keep them from being able to fight back against the exploitative, murderous nature of this system. The police can’t be “fixed” to make them nicer—it’s their job to terrorize!
The students, participating in their first West Wednesday, thought the rally was terrific, and said they’d be back. One of the students, a ninth-grader, said that her life’s goal is to be a fighter. Each of the students took a copy of CHALLENGE to bring home, and there was talk of perhaps incorporating one week’s West Wednesday into the club’s spring concert.
The working class needs masses of young people with this energy, and all workers, to see through to the essence of this system and fight back to ultimately smash capitalism. There are ups and downs in the struggle, as there was in the fight against slavery, over a span of several hundred years. But if the working class remains committed for the long haul, we will win!