Organizing in the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival for Revolution!

PINEVILLE, KENTUCKY, May 27—Progressive Labor Party (PLP) held a cadre school and sponsored a booth at the Kentucky Mountain Laurel Festival. We met a lot of people whose relatives were in bloody Harlan in the 1930s and told us some of their stories about armed battles between striking coal miners and mine owners and their goons.

We had a lot of good conversations. We engaged with about 70+ people.  We gave out free water, tootsie rolls, flyers for the cadre school, and lots of CHALLENGE newspapers. We had a backpack full of PLP literature that we shared as well as a pamphlet we wrote about rebellions in Appalachia. We also learned not to get chocolate that melts.

There were far more good people than bad at the Festival,  but we faced some reactionaries on the first day. We left our table for 10 minutes to put things away and they spilled something sticky like Sprite on our table and wrote "f@#x you commies". Still, we were able to answer all questions of some of the people who had reactionary ideas. Of course, if someone is just a bully there’s no good response!

They have this special potato chip only in Appalachia called grippos like spicy barbecue chips, they were really good! We also had many comrades from Chicago come too and at the end of the cadre school we sent them home with plenty of grippos.

The outdoor cadre school went well, but rain kept the attendance a little lower than we expected. We had talks on the opioid crisis and the history of addiction under capitalism. A comrade from Kentucky talked about how Appalachia seems like a colony since much of their economy revolves around a single commodity like coal or timber, and most Appalachian capitalist enterprises and land are owned by people outside of Appalachia.
Build the revolutionary  communist movement everywhere!