****************************************************************** People's Tribune (Online Edition) Vol. 21 No. 25 / June 20, 1994 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654 Email: jdav@igc.org ****************************************************************** INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition) Vol. 21 No. 25 / June 20, 1994 FRONT PAGE STORY FOLLOWS INDEX Editorial 1. CALIFORNIA 'SOS' INITIATIVE SETS DANGEROUS PRECEDENT News 2. MEXICAN CANDIDATE MEETS ZAPATISTAS 3. JUNETEENTH: THE BATTLE FOR EMANCIPATION GOES ON 4. COMMUNITY ORGS LAUNCH FIGHT FOR HEALTH CARE IN CALIFORNIA 5. WOMEN'S URGENT NEED FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM 6. 'WE THE PEOPLE LIVING WITH AIDS/HIV' WAGES HUNGER STRIKE TO KEEP HOSPICE OPEN (PHILADELPHIA) 7. WE NEED ALL THE 'PEOPLE POWER' WE CAN MUSTER (BOSTON DEMO) 8. LIBERATION RADIO -- A PLEA FOR HELP Deadly Force 9. ORGANIZATIONS PICKET FOR JUSTICE Culture Under Fire 10. SOUTH AFRICAN MUSICIAN HUGH MASAKELA BOOGIES ON APARTHEID'S GRAVE 11. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE +----------------------------------------------------------------+ UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS ARE NOT TO BLAME FOR CRISIS Governor Pete Wilson blames undocumented immigrants and their children for the crisis California faces. Since Mr. Wilson and Company have no solutions to the massive unemployment in the state, they are, once again, striking at one of the most vulnerable sections of people at the bottom. This time, the attack takes the form of the "SOS" -- Save Our State -- initiative. This measure has received 570,000 signatures and will appear on the November 1994 state ballot. If passed, the initiative will deny undocumented immigrants and their children basic social services, particularly health care and education. The SOS initiative would turn teachers and health workers into snitches. If the initiative is approved, the members of these professions would have to report any school child or person seeking medical care who appeared to be undocumented. The campaign to pass this initiative cannot be separated from the other blows directed at people on the bottom. The SOS initiative follows from previous actions designed to control the great mass of poor people who this economy can no longer provide for. We, the poor of this country, have to unite, regardless of creed or color. Can we trust Pete Wilson and Company, people who, when they call for cutting Aid to Families with Dependent Children, propose taking food out of the mouths of children? Can we trust Mr. Wilson and Company, people who have promoted California's "three strikes and you're out" measure and supported a federal crime bill that will make us all accomplices in the execution of 13-year-olds? No! Mr. Wilson, we're sick of your lies: your blaming of the undocumented worker for the budget deficit; your proposal to balance the state budget by cutting the AFDC budget by 25 percent; your cruel attempt to convince us that 13-year-olds should be executed instead of educated. These are our children: black, white and brown. These are our children: documented and undocumented. Mr. Wilson and Company, we will stand by them, fighting you all the way. For more about the fight against the SOS initiative, see the editorial, story 1. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 1. EDITORIAL: CALIFORNIA 'SOS' INITIATIVE SETS DANGEROUS PRECEDENT The immigrants came in waves. They fled terrible poverty and entered California, the "Golden State." Soon, thousands were on relief; their children swelled the public schools. As resentment grew, the Chamber of Commerce blamed the newcomers for rising taxes. "Exclusion" legislation was introduced in the General Assembly. Sound familiar? Sure does, except the year was 1938 and these immigrants, one-third of a million of them, had not come from Mexico or Central America, but from Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas. People called them "Okies" and "Arkies." Most were white, Anglo-Saxon and Protestant. A sign in a San Joaquin Valley theatre summed up their social status. It read: "Negroes and Okies upstairs." Today, the "SOS" -- Save Our State -- initiative proves that anti- immigrant fever is alive and well in California. If this measure passes, undocumented immigrants will be legally barred from public aid, public education and medical care. Social service providers will become stool pigeons, required to turn in any undocumented immigrant who enrolls a child in a public school or comes in for a check-up at a county hospital. Naturally, California Governor Pete Wilson and his rich and powerful friends back the SOS initiative. These hypocrites blame the state's budget crisis on the poorest of its residents, while stuffing their pockets with tax breaks, corporate write-offs, interest-free bonds and billions of dollars in different kinds of "welfare for the wealthy." But consider this: a study by the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. called Immigration and Immigrants: Setting the Record Straight found that, in general, the taxes paid by immigrants to all levels of government exceed the cost of the social services they receive by $25-30 billion each year. Many people sense that if one section of the population can be denied rights, no one's rights are safe. One such person is Glen Lewis, an African American father from Compton. Lewis rallied blacks and Latinos together after a Lynnwood shopkeeper shot a 14-year-old Mexican youth for allegedly stealing a bag of cookies. "We want Mexicans to know that blacks accept them ..." said Lewis. "If we don't make sure the Mexicans are protected, we won't be well-protected." It's a good thing California has people like Glen Lewis. Let's make sure we mobilize all the people like him, all our neighbors, friends and co-workers, to go to the polls in November to hand the SOS initiative the defeat it deserves. ****************************************************************** 2. MEXICAN CANDIDATE MEETS ZAPATISTAS By Alejandro Caballero The following are excerpts from an account -- in the May 17 issue of _La Jornada_ (Mexico City) -- of the meeting in Chiapas, Mexico between Subcomandante Marcos, spokesperson of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN), and Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, presidential candidate of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD). MONTES AZULES, Chiapas, Mexico -- After making a sharp critique of the Revolutionary Democratic Party (PRD), which he accused of "repeating in its midst those vices which have poisoned the party in power since its beginnings," and of internally practicing "palace intrigue, bureaucratic agreements, lies, and the worst methods of settling accounts -- betrayal," Subcomandante Marcos, in front of the Zapatista community and in the presence of Cardenas and his retinue, said that "if there's no peaceful road on the path to democracy, there's still on our part, the faceless men and women, another path, that of war." Earlier, in a private meeting with Cardenas -- the first he has had with a presidential aspirant -- Marcos maintained that "if the state party regime is not ended, there will be no peace." With 18 members of the EZLN Clandestine Indigenous Revolutionary Committee (CCRI) and a dozen PRD leaders also present, he foresaw that with his [Cardenas'] visit to the Zapatista Army, "they will try to connect him to the armed and masked people that have spoken by fighting against the government." He [Marcos] congratulated him, though, that circumstances had led him to be the first presidential aspirant to meet with them. And he quietly added, "We think that those who are worthy, those who have never had anything, those who like us are voiceless and faceless, will understand this message [Cardenas' visit]." Marcos, a lit pipe in his hand along with the perhaps six sheets of paper of his speech, read: "The path of democracy, freedom and justice, of the demands to give a voice to the voiceless, a face to the faceless, a tomorrow to those without a tomorrow, and a life to our death, will be that which our people follow through whichever of the two doors are open (peaceful transition or war), even at the cost of the lives of all the Zapatistas." "Many forces support the candidacy of Senor Cardenas Solorzano for the presidency of Mexico, but they won't be the definitive ones for the transition to democracy. Neither will we, the Zapatistas. The power to make a democratic change ..." he continued, amidst the total silence of his listeners, "is the power of the people, the power of those without a party or organization, the power of the voiceless and faceless. Whoever truly gains this power will be invincible." [Via the N.Y. Transfer News Collective and translated by Mike Pearlman.] ****************************************************************** 3. JUNETEENTH: THE BATTLE FOR EMANCIPATION GOES ON By General Baker, chair of the Steering Committee, NOC DETROIT -- June 19, 1994 will be celebrated across the country as Emancipation Day for the African American people. Even though, from time to time, other dates have been celebrated as Emancipation Day, Juneteenth has continued to be the most widely celebrated day. In 1979, Al Edwards, an African American legislator from Houston, introduced House Bill 1016 into the Texas legislature and won its passage, making Juneteenth the only emancipation celebration accorded official state recognition. Regardless of its origin, Juneteenth has proven to be the best time of year to sum up the experience of the struggle for equality. Today, the poorest districts in this country still exist in the South, the historical home of the emancipated slave. On almost every matter concerning the standard of living, the Southern states are the most threatened. In an analysis of 153 U.S. counties where at least three people aged 19 or younger were killed by gunfire, the newspaper USA Today found that 65 of those counties, or 43 percent, were in 11 Southern states. Of the 20 deadliest counties, 12 were in the South. As we approach Juneteenth 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Shaw v. Reno has reopened the debate over race-conscious remedies to discrimination and called into question the very constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Shaw v. Reno decision threatens to wipe out minority districts in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas. This could destroy many political gains which have been made in the South, like what happened at the end of the Reconstruction era over 100 years ago. Lastly, the current economic revolution and political crisis threatens the existence of over 100 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Battles are being waged state by state over education budgets. Thus, as we approach Juneteenth 1994, the struggle for emancipation from the past goes on -- county by county, district by district, state by state. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE LESSON OF JUNETEENTH June 19, 1994 marks 132 years since President Abraham Lincoln signed an act of the U.S. Congress prohibiting slavery in all the territories of the United States. Ever since, June 19 has been known and celebrated as "Juneteenth." Lincoln's action on June 19, 1862 set the stage for the more general Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect January 1, 1863. Both actions were taken by Lincoln only following intense pressure from the abolitionist and labor movements in the North during the Civil War. In 1862, the Union was having difficulty defeating the slaveholders' rebellion. The "Red Republicans" around Lincoln finally persuaded him that to rally the common people of the North to the Union side, he would have to give them a moral cause to fight for: the abolition of slavery. The history of Juneteenth shows that to unite all the poor in America, we have to begin by fighting for complete equality for African Americans. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ THE FIGHT FOR FREEDOM CONTINUES: FORTY YEARS SINCE THE BROWN DECISION By Abdul Alkalimat On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court made the racial segregation of schools illegal. A lot of people considered this to be as important as making slavery illegal. In both cases people wanted freedom, but what they actually got was the opportunity to carry out a new stage of struggle. Human freedom is only realized in the struggle to change society for the better, always under definite historical conditions. Emancipation from slavery was made possible by the industrial Northeast gaining economic superiority. The Civil War enabled the North to take control of the federal government, but turn social and political control over still backward, plantation-based Southern states to the former slaveholders. Forms of the militant fight for freedom were transformed from slave revolts to union strikes. The Brown decision was made possible when the industrial system revolutionized Southern agriculture by using the mechanical cotton picker to replace unskilled field labor. The decision became necessary when the new urban-based black industrial workers became an organized political fighting force and black middle class leadership was consistent and often militant in support of progressive policies. The Brown decision ruled that legal "apartheid" had to end "with all deliberate speed." We're still waiting. The fundamental goal of the Freedom struggle has always been to expand democratic opportunity for a decent life based on economic security. Things have gotten worse. The new electronic revolution of computers and robots has changed the technological basis for organizing society. Society is being polarized into new extremes of wealth and poverty, as productivity goes up while jobs are being eliminated. Most black people are forced to live in inner city "forbidden zones" of poverty full of violence and fear. Many others are one or two paychecks away from this living hell. Schools are being reorganized based on this and democratic values are being smashed: public schools face privatization, teachers and librarians face censorship, and schools for poor people face isolation and police surveillance. The fundamental goals that led to the Brown decision have to be fought for today -- freedom and democracy. Each step on our line of march includes a battle to fight to defend public education: community-based control; multicultural diversity in faculty, students, staff and curriculum; and information access and empowerment based on the new computer-based "information superhighway." The fight for freedom continues! +----------------------------------------------------------------+ General Baker and Abdul Alkalimat, the authors of the above articles, are available to speak in your city. Contact the People's Tribune Speakers Bureau today. Call 310-428- 2618 or 312-486-3551 or write to us at: P.O. Box 5412 Compton, California 90224 +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 4. COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS LAUNCH FIGHT FOR HEALTH CARE IN CALIFORNIA THE FIGHT FOR HEALTH IS A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL! By Joyce Mills, R.N. OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA -- On May 7, community organizations representing poor women, minority health and housing issues came together here. They launched a health campaign to guarantee our communities "Thrive, Not Barely Survive." California is a particularly volatile state for these concerns. AFDC Medi-Cal recipients in 13 of the largest counties are being mandated in 1995 into various kinds of "gate-keeping" health systems calculated to save the state money on poor families' health. Some recipients have begun to fight for representation on consumer boards to protect themselves from what they view as a "death plan" for needy families. Health activists, frustrated by earlier attempts to get a "single- payer" measure into legislation, have just placed an initiative on the ballot. Supporters of this bill will be in a pitched battle with the insurance industry and other profit-makers over this initiative. While these struggles are raging, the state is enmeshed in a battle over whether or not to further deny health benefits to undocumented workers. This debate is part of a larger strategy by many elected officials, including the governor, to scapegoat the undocumented for the state's current financial woes. Local chapter members of the National Organizing Committee health committee have solicited a series of articles from leaders in these movements for the People's Tribune and Tribuno del Pueblo. These will help PT and TP readers in building the movement for health care reform that guarantees no one is considered expendable. Readers can contact sponsoring organizations by calling WEAP at 510-451-7379 or Jubilee West at 510-839-6776. Contact the Oakland Organizing Committee's health and disability committee at 510-464- 4554 for more information. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ What a single-payer health plan could look like in the United States: * Universal coverage for all residents * Comprehensive coverage of all medically required services * Reasonable access to insured services * No deductibles, co-payments, or extra billing * Free choice of health care providers * Portable between jobs and residences * A single payer, funded from a progressive tax base, which replaces Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance * Public administration on a nonprofit basis * Global budgets for hospital operating expenses with separate funds for capital improvements +----------------------------------------------------------------+ ****************************************************************** 5. WOMEN'S URGENT NEED FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM Part ONE By Barbara Newman, M.D., MPH [A version of this article appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on Dec. 12, 1993.] Despite the well-publicized presence of three women in positions of power in institutions concerned with health -- Donna Shalala as head of the [Department of Health and Human Services], Joselyn Elders as Surgeon General, and Hillary Clinton as head of the President's Health Care Task Force -- the Clinton plan, which they all are promoting, comes nowhere near meeting the health needs of U.S. women. There is a better alternative for women, the single-payer system, which for political reasons has received far less consideration. But the recent publication of the results of a Congressional Budget Office study, showing substantial savings under such a system, makes it imperative that women speak out for true health care reform, embodied in the McDermott/Conyers Bill (HR 1200), the Wellstone Bill (SB 491), and the proposed Single-Payer Initiative for the November 1994 California ballot. Why should health care reform be of special concern to women? Four important factors place women's health in jeopardy: low social status, economic disadvantage, disproportionate vulnerability to chronic disabling disease, and lack of reproductive rights. Two-thirds of America's poor are women. Of the elderly living in poverty, more than three-fourths are women. If they are too young for Medicare and are among the more than one-half of the country's poor who do not qualify for Medicaid, they are forced to rely on the chronically underfunded public health care system. And employed women dominate occupations which are rarely insured: clerical, retail, home care, food service, housekeeping. Women make up two-thirds of the part-time work force, which is almost never insured. Low income and inadequate insurance prevent many women from buying appropriate medication or receiving follow-up care. Clearly, women need a system which provides health care irrespective of marital or employment status, income, or pre- existing medical condition. A system ensuring lifelong access for all to the same high level of care. A system emphasizing prevention and education and ensuring full reproductive rights for all. [Next: How the Clinton plan fails women and what we can do about it.] ****************************************************************** 6. 'WE THE PEOPLE LIVING WITH AIDS/HIV' WAGES HUNGER STRIKE TO KEEP HOSPICE OPEN INTERVIEW WITH LINDA SMITH, PART TWO PHILADELPHIA -- It's not in a Third World country; it's right here in the U.S.A. -- 13 people, most of them living with HIV and AIDS, on a hunger strike to keep open Betak, the city's only hospice for the poor. This is Part Two of an interview with Linda Smith, one of the victims of HIV, who is fasting. Smith is on the board of We The People Living with AIDS/HIV of the Delaware Valley. In Part One she explained why she and the others began this hunger strike on May 23, when the state's welfare department stopped the funds for Betak. The hospice had 40 residents. Four people have died since the protest began. PEOPLE' TRIBUNE: If AIDS is not God's wrath as some people say, how do you explain it? LINDA SMITH: It's a disease. A disease like cancer, lupus, leukemia. It doesn't mean that because we have this, this makes us less than anybody or more than anybody. When you have cancer, they treat you with chemotherapy. When someone says, "My husband died from cancer," nobody says, "Oh, that's God's wrath." But when you say you got the HIV virus -- it's God's wrath? What kind of shit is that? PT: How does it make you feel that Governor Casey of Pennsylvania, who is cutting welfare money for AIDS facilities like this one, snapped his fingers and was given a new heart? LS: This guy just went into a hospital. He's a human being like all of us and he wants to live like everybody else. The thing is, he had money. So he goes into the hospital today and tomorrow he has brand- new insides. We as taxpayers are wondering if the heart was really put into this guy. If it was, they didn't connect it correctly, because he hasn't been out here, he hasn't shown concern. By the way, we're not only human beings, but members of this state and where's he at? Somebody said, "Oh he's really too ill to come down." I say he needs to come sit here at Betak for three or four days and look around. We're out here with the disease -- hunger- striking. He can pull up in a limousine with the red carpet, with a nurse on one arm and a doctor on the other. But no, he's too sick to come here with us. I'm out here and he's no sicker than I am. But I'm not eating. He is, I'm sure. He's no sicker than these people in here. Since we've been here, we've lost four people out of this facility. I get angry and hurt ... nobody's been out here. When I say nobody, I mean the governor. The only people who have come out have been our allies and friends. PT: How long are you going to stay? LS: We had a bomb scare here, somebody called and said they'd do bodily harm to us. We're going to stay here until they tell us that we got a permanent residence here; until they tell us these people are going to be able to die in grace and dignity like anybody wants to do, you know? People with AIDS need special care and it's just a sad thing to think that some of us forget where our hearts are. We forget that any time, we or somebody close to us could be struck, and if that happens, they're going to need this place. Sometimes it has to get into your own back yard for you to take a step. A lot of people want to close their ears and their eyes to the truth, but reality is smacking them every day and smacking them hard, because if they're not infected by it, you better believe, in the next three or four years, they'll be affected by it. Governor Casey can't seem to utilize the heart the taxpayers paid for him to have. PT: Does this country have the capability to end this disease, or at least let people live with dignity until it can be cured? LS: Sure they got it. I read someplace in the paper that they put a satellite in the desert because they wanted to hear some sounds in space. Who the hell wants to talk to E.T. when people down here are dying? They had enough money to send somebody into space to collect some damn rocks. We got enough damn rocks. We've got sick people here. We've got hungry people here. We've got poor people here. We've got people here who don't have homes. What do we really care about some rocks? We've got people lining up to pay for some shuttle ride into space when we've got people dying here, fighting for struggles such as this. Where are people's hearts, man? We're out here to let everybody know that we are worth it. We are not going anywhere. When you say how long will we be out here for the struggle? We'll be out here for as long as it takes. And longer. And when we can't be out here any longer, then another group will come here and take our place. We're gonna be here. This is important to us. [Send donations to: We The People Living with AIDS/HIV of the Delaware Valley, 425 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19147-1126, or call 215-545-6868 for more information.] ****************************************************************** 7. WE NEED ALL THE 'PEOPLE POWER' WE CAN MUSTER BOSTON DEMONSTRATION LINKS JUNETEENTH AND FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY By Abdul Alkalimat BOSTON -- There is a major demonstration being called by the leaders of the anti-poverty struggle in Boston. Under the leadership of Dottie Stevens, the National Welfare Rights Union and the Up and Out of Poverty Now Campaign, a coalition of forces is coming together to celebrate Juneteenth and to respond to recent attacks against the victims of poverty. For nearly one week, from June 21 through June 27, a people's poverty protest camp will be set up in the Boston Commons park directly across from the state Capitol (near Tremont and Beacon). There will be daily prayers, workshops to educate and organize, free meals and speeches. The protest will end with a press conference of leaders in the anti-poverty fight. There are many organizations coming together, especially representing the organized workers and the victims of poverty. This demonstration has been endorsed by the Massachusetts state AFL-CIO, National Welfare Rights Union, ARMS (Advocacy and Resources for Modern Survival), WINGS, Campaign for Real Welfare Reform, Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts, Boston Shorter Work Time Group, A Job is a Right Campaign, Survival News, and the National Organizing Committee. This demonstration links Juneteenth and the anti-poverty fight. Juneteenth is the celebration of the successful fight to end slavery. The 19th century struggle was to end slavery and fully unleash the forces of industrial development. Now we are fighting against the genocidal poverty being forced on us at the end of this industrial system and the beginning of the computer age. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ CELEBRATE JUNETEENTH -- WEEK-LONG DEMONSTRATION BEGINS JUNE 21 IN BOSTON VACATION PARADISE FOR POOR PEOPLE CAMP OUT ON THE GRASSY KNOLLS AND SUNNY SLOPES OF BEACON HILL. ENJOY PUPPET SHOWS, ARTISTS, MIMES AND MORE ... FOOD AND SONG WILL BE PROVIDED. BRING YOUR CHILDREN. To counter the vicious cuts and punitive policies from the House Ways and Means Committee, the Massachusetts Welfare Rights Union is organizing a grassroots, Juneteenth, week-long demonstration outside the statehouse -- a survival siege! We need all the people power we can muster. We must pull all our creativity and weight together to counter these cuts. Gear up for the Motor Voter Bill which becomes law on July 1. (Workshops: welfare rights, legislative strategies, voter registration, etc.) Come make your protest known! Call the Massachusetts Welfare Rights Union at 617-298-7311 for more information. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ The People's Tribune interviewed Dottie Stevens, a leader in the Welfare Rights Union and the Up and Out of Poverty Now Coalition, about the current crisis for poor people in Massachusetts. PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE: There have been a lot of attacks on poor people in Massachusetts. Can you tell us about this? DOTTIE STEVENS: In Massachusetts, the House Ways and Means [Committee] came out with a 5.5 percent cut in AFDC grants, a "two years and you're off" limit, a family cap (meaning if you get more children then you don't get any more money). It also voted for learnfare, meaning if your child misses school for more than three days per month, they cut off that child's portion of your grant! The legislator who led the attack said ... maybe these welfare recipients will think about the consequences before they do "the act." This is more than mean-spirited, this is genocidal. PT: How have poor people responded? DS: Poor people are organizing to fight back. There have been small demonstrations by many different groups, but these have gone unheeded. Now we are pulling these groups together for a unified act of protest, across from the Statehouse in the Boston Commons. PT: Why do these politicians think they can get away with this? DS: Many of them, including incumbents, are running unopposed. This should be a wake-up call -- code red, urgent. We, poor people and people fighting for economic security, are the majority and we should be fighting to throw these bums out. There is a Motor Voter Bill taking effect July 1, so we will be able to register to vote in every state agency. We're gonna mount a massive drive so that poor people can elect themselves and not these mean-spirited political terrorists. They are terrorizing women and children and we're gonna take a stand and speak out against our oppressors. They can't kill us all. PT: The Massachusetts governor is a Republican and the U.S. president is a Democrat. Do these parties make a difference? DS: To myself and the people that I represent, it doesn't make any difference. Neither deal with the fundamental issues of the poor; they both use Band-Aids. We face rich folks in office and we need to replace them with the victims of poverty. We have to be our own leaders. That's why I ran for governor in 1990 and am encouraging poor people to get involved so we can take over. ****************************************************************** 8. LIBERATION RADIO -- A PLEA FOR HELP The following is excerpted from a letter we received from Napoleon Williams in Shawnee Correctional Center in Vienna, Illinois. Greetings, Freedom Fighters: As I write this, I wonder how many of you readers can recall the story of Liberation Radio and Unique Dream Williams that appeared in the People's Tribune? Liberation Radio was the voice of poor and oppressed people in Decatur, Illinois. Unique Dream Williams is the five-year-old child whose parents operated Liberation Radio. Unique remains in foster care. Over $10,000 has been spent to keep Unique away from her parents, although we have never been accused of doing anything wrong to our child. The Department of Children and Family Services has violated court orders concerning our visits with Unique and officials in this agency simply look the other way. Unique is one child who shouldn't have been taken from her parents. We intend to fight until the people responsible for this injustice admit their wrongdoings. I'm presently incarcerated in the Shawnee Correctional Center as a result of appearing in court for Unique. I was arrested for criminal trespass to the court building while handcuffed behind my back. I was abused by a police officer and charged with aggravated battery on the police. I'm doing three years. On December 13, 1993, Mildred gave birth to a beautiful little girl. We named her Atrue Dream Williams. We let it be known over Liberation Radio that we would fight to the death to keep our child. A DCFS investigation was done by a David Pritts out of the Springfield, Illinois office and he could find no reason to take Atrue Dream away from us. When asked about Unique Dream's case, Mr. David Pritts said we are a family who fell through the cracks. I need your help. I was the breadwinner in my family and now that I am locked up, Mildred is having a hard time with bills and things like that. I'm afraid the Department of Children and Family Services might try to use Mildred being behind in her bills as an excuse to try and take our child. We need the support of every last one of you to help us make it through this. I pray that my sisters and brothers in the struggle will help us in our time of need. Send your statement of support and very needed financial contributions to: Mildred Jones 756 S. Wise Street Decatur, Illinois 62522 or phone her at 217-422-3710. You can write me: Napoleon Williams, A-78447 P.O. Box 300 Vienna, Illinois 62995 The struggle continues, Napoleon ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ "Deadly Force" is a weekly column dedicated to exposing the scope of police terror in the United States. We open our pages to you, the front line fighters against brutality and deadly force. Send us eyewitness accounts, clippings, press releases, appeals for support, letters, photos, opinions and all other information relating to this life and death fight. Send them to People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Ill. 60654, or call (312) 486- 3551. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 9. ORGANIZATIONS PICKET FOR JUSTICE By Dianne Flowers LYNNWOOD, California--After store owner Michael Kim shot and wounded 14-year-old Aldo Vega for allegedly stealing a 49-cent bag of cookies, Glen Lewis was mad and hit the streets fighting for justice. Lewis, who is black, didn't care that Aldo Vega is Mexican. He felt a bond with the boy. He felt that his own rights were put in danger by what happened to Aldo. Lewis and members of his organization, the Economic Empowerment Enforcement Committee which is based in neighboring Compton, have picketed and protested in front of Kim's store many times since the April 2 shooting. The Association for Independent Triumph, which takes citizens' civic complaints to the authorities when they feel helpless, has also been picketing with Lewis' group. "Every time we show up to demonstrate in front of the store about 12 sheriff cars show up. I've told all the officers that we want a citizen's arrest because Kim committed a crime: he shot someone. The sheriffs all say he hasn't committed a crime, that he had a right to shoot the boy because he was stealing from him," said Lewis. "Our plan is three-pronged. Our strategy is to be visible to make the plan work. Our first demand is that the store owner pay the boy's doctor bills, go to his home with TV coverage, hand the boy a pack of cookies and apologize, and say he realizes that his life is more important than a package of cookies. Then we'd leave Kim alone right there. "If Kim doesn't do that, our second prong is to bring enough noise to the community in the immediate area so that they will put pressure to get Kim arrested. "Our third prong is to improve relations between blacks and Latinos. This child was mistreated and we want to make sure he gets the treatment due any citizen. We want Mexicans to know that blacks accept them as well as any other citizen of the United States and we defend them as much as we defend blacks. "It doesn't matter if Mexicans are legal citizens. They have the right to equal protection as much as anyone in the U.S. They are human. There's law in this country to protect humans. If we don't make sure the Mexicans are protected, we won't be well-protected." The goal of the Economic Empowerment Enforcement Committee is to align the fights against police brutality and merchants who are mean and unreasonable to their customers. "We are working to bring economic power to the underprivileged. The youth foundation is our key," said Lewis. You can contact the EEEC at 1000 S. Dwight Avenue, Compton, California 90220. Telephone: 310-608-1254. ****************************************************************** +----------------------------------------------------------------+ CULTURE UNDER FIRE Culture jumps barriers of geography and color. Millions of Americans create with music, writing, film and video, graffiti, painting, theatre and much more. We need it all, because culture can link together and expand the growing battles for food, housing, and jobs. In turn, these battles provide new audiences and inspiration for artists. Use the "Culture Under Fire'' column to plug in, to express yourself. Write: Culture Under Fire, c/o People's Tribune, P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654. +----------------------------------------------------------------+ 10. SOUTH AFRICAN MUSICIAN HUGH MASAKELA BOOGIES ON APARTHEID'S GRAVE By Michael Lipton History was made and people celebrated in the streets as the African National Congress won a landslide victory in South Africa's first election to include its black majority. Nelson Mandela, the party's candidate who spent nearly 30 years in prison, was reluctant to claim victory before a plurality was tallied. In a statement that rang true to the nature of his people, he proclaimed, "We'll boogie nonetheless, because we think it's about time." Thousands of miles away in a Vermont hotel room, South African musician Hugh Masekela echoed his friend's sentiments nearly word for word. "We are living for more than just freedom," he said in a phone interview. "We are living to really boogie. We've been waiting a long time. White people really don't know how to boogie. Now they're going to boogie with us." Masekela, who has shared stages with everyone from Jimi Hendrix (at the legendary Monterey Pop Festival) to Paul Simon (as part of his Graceland Tour), is touring in support of a CD entitled Hope. Hope is all he and his people have had since the government created the apartheid state in 1948. The disc also marked the first time Masekela was able to work with South African musicians since his self-imposed exile more than 30 years ago. For the occasion, he revisited some of his most popular cuts. It is, he explained, a gift to his people. "These were musicians who grew up with these songs and people I was looking forward to playing with someday," he said. "I didn't have to write anything down; they put the music where it belongs. It's great to give them back to the audiences being played by South African musicians." Musically, nowhere is the emotional impact of Mandela's victory more evident than in "Mandela (Bring Him Back Home)," a tune Masekela penned a decade ago, after receiving a card from the imprisoned ANC leader. "I was living in Botswana and he sent me a card from jail," he said. "Everything he wrote was so clear and concise. The spirit of freedom just lifted off the pages. It was like I was in jail and he was a free man writing to me; the song came very easily to me. It is one of the songs that will never go away." "Mandela has yet to be able to walk around freely in his own country but it seems like it is going to eventually happen. I really didn't think this [the election of a black leader] would happen in my lifetime. It was inevitable because I knew the people in South Africa would always be determined to get their freedom but I didn't think I would not only live to see it but to enjoy the benefits." With Mandela's victory nearly certain, Masekela seemed to muster some compassion, albeit sardonic, for the white minority. "The unfortunate thing for them was they were a very small minority," he said. "Privilege is a hard thing to give up and it's very hard for them to swallow what's happening. But it's like Bob Dylan said, ÔIt's all over now, Baby Blue.' "I would say our oppressors are very lucky that they had us to oppress because we are very generous people. Mandela has said even the bombers should still be able to come and sit down at the negotiating table. They are very fortunate because if it was another country, they would be massacring the white people by now." ****************************************************************** 11. ABOUT THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, published weekly in Chicago, is devoted to the proposition that an economic system which can't or won't feed, clothe and house its people ought to be and will be changed. To that end, this paper is a tribune of the people. It is the voice of the millions struggling for survival. It strives to educate politically those millions on the basis of their own experience. It is a tribune to bring them together, to create a vision of a better world, and a strategy to achieve it. Join us! Editor: Laura Garcia Publisher: National Organizing Committee, P.O. Box 477113, Chicago, IL 60647 (312) 486-0028 To help support the production and distribution of the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, please send donations, letters, articles, photos, graphics and requests for information, subscriptions and requests for bundles of papers to: PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE P.O. Box 3524 Chicago, IL 60654 Respond via e-mail to jdav@igc.org Reach us by phone: Chicago: (312) 486-3551 Atlanta: (404) 242-2380 Baltimore: (410) 467-4769 Detroit: (313) 839-7600 Los Angeles: (310) 428-2618 Washington, D.C.: (202) 529-6250 Oakland, CA: (510) 464-4554 GETTING THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE IN PRINT The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE is available at many locations nationwide. One year subscriptions $25 ($35 institutions), bulk orders of 5 or more 15 cents each, single copies 25 cents. Contact PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE, P. O. Box 3524, Chicago, Illinois 60654, tel. (312) 486- 3551. WRITING FOR THE PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE We want your story in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE. Send it in! 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