Justice for Rodwell Spivey Brothers: It’s not just Baraka—it’s kkkapitalism

Before heading to work, a group of PLers marched to the courthouse in Newark to stand in solidarity with the Rodwell Spivey brothers for their early morning hearing. A group of antiracist fighters coming out en masse for over a year has produced more worker wins than these bosses ever have and ever could. Justin Rodwell was released after a #FreeJustin campaign led by the Rodwell Spivey family, college students, educators, nurses, and PL called the Rodwell Spivey Defense Team. Because of this work, the word spread like wildfire that Justin and his brothers and neighbors came to each other's defense when one brother was stopped and frisked by undercover police in front of their home. Although the news spreading on X, formerly known as Twitter, helped drive the campaign, we still pushed and recognized the importance of building the struggle in our local neighborhoods and workplaces. The struggle even expanded to Kingsborough Community College campus in New York, where comrades and students recognized and cited the same police terror threatening the working class in Newark and also being alive and well in the Bronx.

Building mass fightback led to a waged war against the Newark courts to drop the charges against the Rodwell Spivey brothers from 40+ years to lower-level municipal court charges. Now that the mass fightback has simmered down and the capitalist bosses did not win their usual opportunity to lock these young Black men up for profit, the judges and prosecutors are shelving the case and brushing off the family. As a result, the most recent court hearing was canceled, and family members were notified only after losing a day of work to get there. One family member of a PLer who attended spoke outside of the courthouse about how Black workers, particularly men, are set up to fail under this system, and it prevents them from working and being dedicated family members. One of the brothers affirmed that he applied for Amazon and UPS, and the potential charges were cited in his rejection letter. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Another fallacy under a system that keeps the bosses’ hands clean and shoves workers with the muck.

Two comrades spoke out against a neighborhood vigilante who went viral after recording himself stepping to Mayor Baraka at a local basketball game for selling out workers in Newark who are being left homeless and vulnerable to corporate buyouts. The mom of the brothers stated, “Still, the Mayor wishing death upon him isn’t right, and if it wasn’t for him no one would know about our case.” We adamantly noted that raising the politician’s attacks against this vigilante over the politics of the situation will dangerously win workers to fight more broadly on social media and for him or against Baraka alone, which is a weakened approach to fightback.

It’s much harder for bosses to get away with attacks against the working class where ideas are being transmitted through fightback that concretely reveal evidence to workers of how racist profiteering is being made primary over our housing needs. Therefore, it’s not just Baraka, it’s Capitalism! This is a hard lesson we experienced when a comrade got fired for teaching their students to fight racism outside their school and was known to challenge the Principal rather than build a long-term base with teachers and students. This is also a challenge we must face inpunleashing the massive potential of the Rodwell-Spivey fightback. Although the family and PL thank this person for bringing attention to the Rodwell-Spivey case, we still recognized and pointed out that the cult of personality around him is dangerous and he is not above criticism.

Furthermore, we need masses of workers with the same anger and militancy to fight for an internationalist communist revolution with unity en masse and long-term strategy to build on the jobs in our neighborhoods. That is what PLP brings to the struggle. We aim to continue to build on our relationship with the family and broaden the struggle to fight to smash police and imperialist terror throughout the state and internationally.