WASHINGTON, DC, November 15— After a 34-day occupation that turned Howard University’s Blackburn Center into a “tent city,” Howard students forced the administration to “plan to find a resolution” to the campus’s horrid, racist living and learning conditions.
It remains to be seen if the administration will fulfill its promises. When one of the organizers returned to her dorm, she found flooding from a broken pipe! Even in victory, reforms are limited under a nightmare system called capitalism! These deplorable conditions are “normal” because this system is built on profit, not working-class needs. At Howard, we have a Black President, Wayne A.I. Frederick, subjecting mainly Black students to deplorable housing conditions in a historically Black campus (HBCU).
Only communist revolution can create a society that meets the needs of workers and working class students.
Racist conditions at an HBCU
Students were fed up with mold, broken pipes, intermittent WIFI, and roaches in their dorms, and were also incensed at the administration’s indifference to their plight (see CHALLENGE, October 23). Just last month, the university’s own report listed 34 concerns related to “suspected fungal growth, across more than 5,050 beds-- 0.67% of all on-campus beds” (ABC News, 11/17).
The students demanded what would have never been an issue in the first place under a needs-based system—a) an in-person town hall with Howard's president, b) a meeting with university leaders about housing and legal, disciplinary and academic immunity for protesters, c) student voice in Howard's new housing plan, and more.
Support from faculty
Faculty and alumni rallied in support of the students during the occupation, which has come to be known as #BlackburnTakeover . On Friday, November 5, the adjunct faculty members organized in the SEIU union sponsored a support rally, linking their working conditions to the students’ learning conditions.
Tenured faculty also spoke, one noting that their participation in negotiations with the adjunct faculty union was summarily canceled when the administration hired a union-busting lawyer to represent the university in these negotiations instead.
A Progressive Labor Party (PLP) member spoke of the need for revolution against the entire capitalist system, since the horrendous conditions facing students are a trickle-down from the entire racist exploitative system of which Howard University is a part. Alumni speakers recounted their own negative experiences with the administration, and set up a tent to join the protesters in their 24/7 occupation and tent city.
What was the victory?
After 20 whole days of negotiations with the administration, students felt their concerns had been met, on paper. “We came, we saw, we declared, and we won,” claimed one of the organizers of the University’s Blackburn Center occupation. What was the victory? What have we won? President Frederick “plans to make improvements throughout the campus, and is committed to maintaining ‘safe and high-end housing’” (ABC News, 11/17). While they may make some improvements in housing, it remains locked in a process of gentrification as it sells off its properties to developers, forcing Black workers out of the city. There is no escaping the capitalist system, with profits primary, as long as we limit our vision to reforming our immediate circumstances.
Jesse Jackson and Ras Baraka visited the protesting students. The former is a historically Black misleader who functions as a pacifier against antiracist fightback. The latter is a leader of student rebellion at Howard in 1989 and current mayor of Newark responsible for racist policies! But these liberal reformers lead us to accept a system in decay. No matter how hard we try, we can’t expect a tree with rotten roots to bear fruit.
Real victory against rotten daily conditions, racism, and capitalism can only come with the building of a revolutionary organization. Step up to fight in the class struggle today to build the long-term struggle for communism, the abolition of all forms of exploitation, and join the PLP!