CHICAGO, February 26 – Around 50 Progressive Labor Party (PLP) members and friends gathered on the city’s south side today to celebrate our fifth annual Black and Red event. The multiracial, multi-generational and international crowd in attendance engaged in an interactive program that highlighted the invaluable leadership and contributions of Black communists in past, present, and future revolutionary struggles.
Our local collective began organizing this event five years ago as a response to the many anti-communist distortions and outright lies by the bosses that falsely claim communism to be a political movement limited to white workers. The truth is that Black workers have always given key leadership to the fight for communist revolution, correctly understanding it as the only force to destroy the racism, sexism, and exploitation inherent in the capitalist profit system.
In contrast to the bosses’ Black History Month celebrations, which emphasize the need for more Black-owned businesses and individual success, PLP emphasizes the importance of Black workers leading the Party with comrades all over the world to put an end to racist capitalism once and for all. To be Black and red is to be an antiracist revolutionary!
Working-class Black history is communist history
We began our day at the DuSable Black History Museum, a south side landmark for over 50 years. The museum was founded by Margaret Taylor-Burroughs and her husband Charles, two Black organizers with well-known communist affiliations. PLP members made a list of scavenger hunt questions for our group to engage with the different exhibits and highlight the more radical history of various freedom movements.
We next headed to the local fieldhouse for lunch, socializing, and an event program. After dining on some delicious West African dishes, a new comrade kicked festivities off with an impassioned reading of “Good Morning, Revolution” by Black communist poet Langston Hughes. Although modern sources prefer to ignore or minimize Hughes’ embrace of communist internationalism, any serious analysis of his works such as this poem demonstrate his commitment to revolution.
Another veteran PLP member then took the mic to give some historical context to the violent mass struggle to end chattel slavery and the influence that struggle had on the theories of the communist Karl Marx. Through his work as a journalist reporting on the Civil War in the United States, Marx was able to better develop his understanding of how racism is essential to the profits of capitalism and how one could not be seriously fought without fighting the other.
We next watched a short video also highlighting the influence of communist theory and practice on countless antiracist mass movements in the 20th century, including the defense of the Scottsboro Nine against legalized lynching during the Great Depression and the struggle against the brutal apartheid regime in South Africa. Far from being confined to the history books, the lessons learned from these brave struggles continue to inform our fight in the present day.
Lastly, to give the keynote speech, another veteran comrade drew on her decades of experience as a Black communist in PLP and how that has guided her fightback against racism and sexism in profound ways:
“The earliest comrades of our Party realized that the people who had this generational commitment to fighting the capitalist power structure had to lead this revolutionary movement for it to ultimately win.
Along with this leadership being mandatory for this Party to win, multiracial working-class unity also had to be a defining factor. Our Party views antiracism as more than just a ‘good feeling.’ It is dedicated fighting action in just about every way imaginable.”
Black workers are key revolutionary force
In the fight to destroy capitalism, the international working class must rely on the leadership of those workers most exploited and oppressed by this rotten racist system to truly win an egalitarian communist world. We salute our Black comrades and fellow workers for their ongoing role as an indispensable revolutionary force.