ATLANTA GA, November 13—Twelve thousand public health workers descended on Atlanta for the annual American Public Health Association (APHA) conference. Some were there to learn, some to present their research, and some to network, but Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members were there to organize against fascism and for communist revolution. For weeks we had been planning to have a rally against Atlanta’s COP CITY, which has revealed the true fascist nature of the Democratic Party politicians in Georgia (CHALLENGE, 12/13). But then the Israeli government responded to the Hamas attack on Israeli and migrant workers by murdering tens of thousands of Palestinians. This fascist attack was fully supported by the United States government and further demonstrated the role of the Democratic Party in promoting fascism. They have attacked workers, professionals, and students who oppose genocide, labeling them anti-Semitic (See article on this issue). Throughout the conference, PLP members spoke openly about why the U.S. is so determined to support Israel no matter what: the U.S. ruling class is determined to protect its Mideast oil resources and pipelines and maintain a power base against Iranian, Russian, and Chinese competing capitalist interests.
The leadership of APHA is firmly in bed with the Democratic Party. These liberal misleaders of public health workers have opposed any resolution or action against racist state violence and imperialism for years. Just before the conference, Georges Benjamin, head of APHA, tried to head off debate about genocide in Gaza by putting out a mealy-mouthed, hand-wringing statement about all violence being bad for health, while emphatically stating that Israel has a right to “defend” itself. He did not even call for a ceasefire, infuriating APHA members.
Public health workers fight back, take on the Zionists
A few friends quickly wrote a “latebreaker” policy statement calling for an immediate ceasefire, and the release of all hostages, and included historical information about the Zionist apartheid system in Israel and Palestine (www.multiracialunity.org). The Zionists within APHA instead called for peace through charity and never once mentioned the word “occupation.” We organized our friends to attend hearings on the competing policy statements and spoke in favor of the ceasefire policy and against the deluded ahistorical Zionist position.
PLP members and the Palestine Health Justice group of the APHA’s International Health Section prepared quickly for the APHA Governing Council (GC) meeting where such policy decisions are made. At a planning meeting the night before the vote, 75 people agreed to hold a silent protest and observe the GC vote. PLP members suggested being prepared with a chant if the ceasefire resolution failed. One newer member gathered everyone’s contact information and started a Signal group chat that grew from 10 that evening to 80 by the following morning. Other students in the chat began helping refine and remind folks of the plan in a great collective effort.
The morning of the vote, the Zionists handed out flyers full of lies about the ceasefire policy, but when the policy debate started, the back of the GC room was filled with 50 people wearing all black and holding or wearing single sheets of paper that said CEASEFIRE! As the meeting went on, that number tripled! The Zionists had organized their people to speak against the statement, repeating racist and false propaganda and calling our advocacy of a ceasefire “unbalanced.” PLP members provided leadership to the supporters of the anti-genocide policy statement on the convention floor. We spoke about the number of healthcare workers murdered by the Israeli government and the number of people who supported a ceasefire in the U.S. Supporters also attacked the racist statements of the Israeli fascists about the Palestinians (calling them animals)—a reminder that “racism is a public health crisis.”
The outcome
As the room kept filling with young people interested in seeing whether the APHA would take a stance on ceasefire, Executive Director Benjamin moaned, “What are we going to do? This could be awful” to a friend of ours, as he gestured to the determined young people in the back of the room. A compromise position was reached by jettisoning the 11-page policy statement with its 40+ references and just voting on a one-sentence resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire. Eighty-nine percent of the governing council members voted “Yes” and the crowd broke out in cheers. This victory, while hardly complete, represented the only large health-related organization to call for a Ceasefire and can be used to defend the many healthcare workers and students who face attacks by their institutions for opposing genocide.
Forty-five of us, including eight PLP members, met outside to debrief and discuss the next steps. Fighting imperialism and capitalism took center stage, as 25 people signed our mailing list and everyone got both a CHALLENGE and an APHA CHALLENGE. We met up with many of these students later that evening and had more political conversations with them.
This APHA conference was one of our most active annual meetings in years and showed that organizing in professional spaces and on the job is crucial for communists. The young people who spent much of their first professional conference organizing this protest and demonstrating for three hours at the GC meeting show the great possibilities for the international working class.