M 26, 2011 Vol. 53, No. 20 50¢
• 1ro de Mayo en Colombia • Los Cinco Cubanos
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y Joyce Chediac
Thousands of Palestinian refugees fromLebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gazasurged across fenced off borders and into Is-rael on May 15, asserting their right to returnhome. The unarmed protesters were redupon by Israeli soldiers, killing 16 and wound-ing hundreds.These brave, coordinated, “Return to Pal-estine” marches by the Palestinian peoplemarked “al Nakba,” the Catastrophe, the an-niversary of the expulsion by force and terrorof 750,000 Palestinians from their homes by Zionists in 1948, and the establishment of Is-rael in its place.Inspired by protests in much of the Arab world, this was the rst time in 63 years thatPalestinian refugees marked their expulsion by going to the border in the tens of thousandsand calling for their right to go home. It electri-ed the Arab world and showed that, no mat-ter what forces are arrayed against them, thePalestinian people will not abandon their rightto return.Palestinians marching from Jordan wereattacked and stopped by Jordanian soldiers before they reached the border. The Egyptianmilitary red into crowds to repress them afterthree days of actions in solidarity with Pales-tine in Egypt, culminating in a protest in frontof the Israeli Embassy. Jordan and Egypt arethe only Arab countries that have signed apeace treaty with Israel.
Coordinaed acions reecHamas-faah agreemen
Speaking from Gaza, Palestinian Prime Min-ister Ismail Haneyya said that Palestinian and Arab blood spilt during Nakba marches sug-gests that Nakba is being marked with a new spirit and that the Palestinians have begun to“bury the Nakba” for good. He said that thesituation marked the “rst application” of therecent Fatah-Hamas reconciliation practicedon the ground, as differences were set aside forthe greater national interest.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah lauded those Palestinians mowed downas “martyrs” killed by “the Israeli occupation while they were in a demonstration commem-orating the Nakba inside the nation.”
No Wesern governmens condemnsraeli killings
The Israeli government responded withdeadly force against the unarmed protesters, who certainly posed no physical danger. This bloody response made clear who the terroristsare in this continuing struggle. But neither theU.S. government nor its European allies haveissued even one word condemning the mur-der of Palestinians by Tel Aviv. In fact, whilePalestinians mourn their dead, Israeli PrimeMinister Benjamin Netanyahu will be greeted by President Barack Obama in Washington onMay 20, and Netanyahu has been asked to ad-dress a joint session of Congress!Meanwhile, on May 16 the Israeli and Egyp-tian navies together opened re in internation-al waters on a Gaza freedom otilla ship, theSpirit of Rachel Corrie, carrying plastic sewagepipes to help restore the devastated seweragesystem in Gaza. None of the anti-war activistsand journalists, from Malaysia, Ireland, Indiaand Canada, were harmed. The vessel is now anchored in Egyptian waters, about 30 nauti-cal miles from Gaza.
Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, gyp
In
Lebanon
on May 15, thousands of women and men, young and old, secular andreligious, gathered in the mountain-top bordertown of Maroun al Ras, which has a panoramic view of occupied Palestine. For many it was therst time they saw their country, which previ-ously they had only heard described by theirelders.Soon after speakers began addressing thecrowds, thousands headed down the oppositeside of the mountain — though it was littered with Israeli landmines — towards the borderfence. Calling for their right to return, they
Afer 63 yeArs of forced exile
Palestinians storm Israel’s borders
Unarmed marchers sho demanding righ o reurn
Pht: Pul ilCx
50 yeArs AGo
Riding South or reedom
3
Vicor oro
Political reugeefghts deportation
5
Students, youth, workers join to fght austerity in New York City, May 12.
defeNd PUBlic scHools!
cAliforNiANew yorkwiscoNsiN
Studnts, tachrs,workrs unit
6-7
May 15, New York City, page 10.
Continued 0n page 10
Page 2 May 26, 2011 workers.org
n he U.S.
1934 Toledo Auto-lite strike, part 22A tribute to anti-racist Freedom Rides3 The heat’s on the natural gas industry 43 years o constant pressure leads to armworker victory 4Victor Toro continues struggle or political asylum 5Stop FBI stops the bank reeze5Conront Wall Street & austerity6 Thousands in Wisconsin say: ‘The fght’s not over’ 6 Teachers’ ‘state o emergency’ rocks Caliornia7Mass arrests at Capitol Rotunda in Caliornia 7 Thousands deend education in San Diego 7‘Nakba’ remembered in New York10
round he world
Palestinians storm Israel’s borders 1Juliano Mer Khamis, 1958-20115Events in Syria – Which side are you on? 8US-backed president installed in Haiti9US, Iraqi governments kill, torture civilian protesters 9Use War Powers Act to stop the bombing o Libya10Arica Liberation Day 201111
diorials
NATO’s crimes rom Kabul to Belgrade 10
Noicias n spañol
1ro de Mayo en Colombia 12Los Cinco Cubanos 12
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Workers World55 West 17 StreetNew York, N.Y. 10011Phone: (212) 627-2994E-mail: ww@workers.org Web: www.workers.org Vol. 53, No. 20 • May 26, 2011Closing date: May 17, 2011Editor: Deirdre GriswoldTechnical Editor: Lal Roohk Managing Editors: John Catalinotto, LeiLani Dowell,Leslie Feinberg, Kris Hamel, Monica Moorehead,Gary Wilson West Coast Editor: John ParkerContributing Editors: Abayomi Azikiwe,Greg Buttereld, Jaimeson Champion, G. Dunkel,Fred Goldstein, Teresa Gutierrez, Larry Hales,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Cheryl LaBash,Milt Neidenberg, Bryan G. Pfeifer, Betsey Piette,Minnie Bruce Pratt, Gloria RubacTechnical Staff: Sue Davis, Shelley Ettinger,Bob McCubbin, Maggie VascassennoMundo Obrero: Carl Glenn, Teresa Gutierrez,Berta Joubert-Ceci, Donna Lazarus, Michael Martínez,Carlos VargasSupporter Program: Sue Davis, coordinatorCopyright © 2011 Workers World. Verbatim copying anddistribution of articles is permitted in any medium with-out royalty provided this notice is preserved. Workers World (ISSN-1070-4205) is published weekly except the rst week of January by WW Publishers,55 W. 17 St., N.Y., N.Y. 10011. Phone: (212) 627-2994.Subscriptions: One year: $25; institutions: $35. Lettersto the editor may be condensed and edited. Articles can be freely reprinted, with credit to Workers World, 55 W.17 St., New York, NY 10011. Back issues and individualarticles are available on microlm and/or photocopy fromUniversity Microlms International, 300 Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Mich. 48106. A searchable archive is available onthe Web at www.workers.org. A headline digest is available via e-mail subscription. Sub-scription information is at www.workers.org/email.php.Periodicals postage paid at New York, N.Y.POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., 5th Floor,New York, N.Y. 10011.
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WORKERS WORLD
1934
Toledo Auto-lite strike
PR
Worker-unemployed solidaritydefeats union-breaking injunction
y Marha Greva
With 70 percent of Toledo, Ohio’s workers unemployedin 1934 — more than double the U.S. average even dur-ing the Great Depression — Toledo was an unlikely placefor a union drive to succeed. As management at Electric Auto-lite — one of the city’s several major auto parts sup-pliers — impressed upon the workers, they could be redfor any excuse and easily replaced. Yet the victory of the Auto-lite strike is recognized as one of the most impor-tant advances in U.S. working-class history.In February 1934, 13 leaders waged a symbolic strike,earning respect after standing up to the company and winning their jobs back after being red. Managementagreed to recognize the union — Local18384, a “federal labor union” of the American Federation of Labor —for 30 days. Yet no serious nego-tiations took place. On April 13,some 400 of the 1,500 produc-tion workers began walking apicket line. An equal numbercontinued working inside theplant. The remainder avoidedthe conict, staying home.Company President C. O.Miniger and hated Vice Presi-dent J. Arthur Minch couldnot conceive of a union vic-tory. They had a million dollarsset aside to break the union. Auto-lite spent $11,000 incompany funds on tear gas and munitions; only GeneralMotors had a more costly arsenal. They hired 300 addi-tional workers and gured that many regular employees would eventually cross the line rather than go hungry.The likely sexist assumption was that the workforce —more than 70 percent female — would capitulate. Yet for weeks the picketing went on, round the clock. As in the plant, nearly three-quarters of the pickets were women. Strikers were joined by autoworkers from otherplants, by members of other unions and by the LucasCounty Unemployed League.The strike wasn’t strong enough to stop production, but output was denitely curtailed. Many of the scabs were new hires with no factory experience. Accidentaldamage to machinery was eating at the million-dollar war chest.Neither side was advancing against the other, when onMay 3 Judge Roy Stuart granted the company an injunc-tion limiting pickets to 25. The judge assigned Sheriff David Krieger, elected with Miniger’s backing, the job of enforcement. Auto-lite paid for special deputies — vigi-lantes hired with no prior experience — whom Kriegeremployed to break the strike. At rst the injunction was obeyed. The strike com-mittee was militant against the company, but the classstruggle was new to them. What to do? A decisive initiative came, but not from the strikersthemselves.
Unemployed workers ake he lead
Thousands of unemployed workers — who might oth-erwise have been easy recruits for Krieger’s strikebreak-ing apparatus — belonged to the Unemployed League.Like the Unemployed Councils led by the CommunistParty in numerous other cities, the Unemployed Leaguehad class-conscious leadership. Ted Selander and SamPollock were Marxists, members of the American Work-ers Party. They had spent the past year building theleague by holding numerous demonstrations, sitting inat government relief ofces and blocking evictions.On May 5 Pollock, the league’s secretary, announcedin a public letter to Judge Stuart that the LCUL would“openly and publicly violate an injunction which, in ouropinion, is a suppressive and oppressive act against all workers.” Two days later only four showed up — Pollock,Selander, and two Auto-lite strikers. Still, for this act of deance, they were arrested for contempt of court. Thecourtroom, however, was packed with support-ers, and the next day several dozenstrikers and supporters violatedthe injunction.Each day the crowd grew,as did the number of ar-restees, but after a few daysthe scene in the jail and thecourthouse was so rowdy that Judge Stuart gave upenforcing his ruling. By making the injunction in-effective, the strikers andunemployed scored a mo-rale-boosting victory, andcrowds surrounding theplant grew by hundredsand then thousands. By May 21 there were 6,000 outsidethe plant. Auto-lite bought more munitions, and Krieger depu-tized more strikebreakers, including scabs inside theplant. On May 23 deputies, armed and well-supplied with tear gas, were stationed inside, around and on theroof of the plant.Hell broke loose when a metal object, dropped frominside the plant, injured striker Anna Hahn in the earand neck. Pickets attempting to storm the building andapprehend the perpetrator were pushed back by gas redfrom inside the plant.News of the incident spread fast, and by afternoon therebellious crowd had grown to 10,000. Further attemptsat dispersal were met with a hail of bricks and rocks untilno window was left unbroken. At this point the plant wascompletely surrounded, the gates were impassable, andthe tear gas supplies were exhausted. The scabs inside were trapped.It took 1,350 members of the Ohio National Guard —the largest deployment in state history — to temporar-ily disperse the still-growing crowd and clear a path forscabs and bosses to exit the plant. Production came to ahalt. Victory was possible!
Grevatt has been a UAW Chrysler worker for23 years. Email: mgrevatt@workers.org Source: “I Remember Like Today: the Auto-Lite Strike of 1934” by Philip A. Korth and Margaret R. Beegle. Michigan State University Press, 1988. Next: General strike talk!
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workers.orgMay 26, 2011Page 3
fiy years laer
A tbut t ant-at fm r
y bayomi zikiwedior, Pan-rican News Wire
May 4 was the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Freedom Rides, a majorcivil rights campaign that legally brokethe back of racial segregation in interstatepublic travel in the United States. “Free-dom Riders,” a powerful documentary di-rected by Stanley Nelson, aired on PBS onMay 16 and sparked much discussion on both the historical signicance of the CivilRights movement as well as the currentstatus of African Americans today.The documentary featured interviewsand archival news footage of the period in1961 when anyone, Black or white, chal-lenging segregation in the South riskedimprisonment, torture and even death.During the course of the lunch countersit-ins the previous year in 1960, a broad- based student movement was formed andorganized by the Student Nonviolent Co-ordinating Committee.The Freedom Rides were started by theCongress of Racial Equality, a nonviolent,civil rights organization founded in 1942.On May 14, 1961, a Freedom Ride Grey-hound bus was rebombed in Anniston, Ala. The Freedom Riders were then sav-agely attacked with lead pipes and base- ball bats by a racist white mob.Resisting pressure from the Kennedy administration to abandon the FreedomRides, SNCC activists based in Nash- ville, Tenn., under the leadership of Di-ane Nash, announced that it was essen-tial that the Freedom Rides continue.The documentary exposes the fact thatPresident John Kennedy and his brother,then U.S. Attorney General Robert Ken-nedy, were more interested in protectingthe image of the U.S. — which appearedincreasingly racist — than in supportingthe Civil Rights movement, including theFreedom Rides.Student activist Lucretia Collinssummed up the sentiments within SNCC when she said, “In Nashville, we had beeninformed that CORE was going to haveFreedom Rides that could carry peopleall over the South, and their purpose wasto test the facilities at the bus stations inthe major cities. Later we heard that a busload of the Freedom Riders had been burned on Mother’s Day in Anniston, Ala., and that another bus had been at-tacked by people in Birmingham.” (“TheMaking of Black Revolutionaries,” JamesForman, 1972)Collins went on to stress that “CORE was discontinuing the Freedom Rides,people said. We felt that it had to contin-ue even if we had to do it ourselves. Weknew we were subject to being killed. Thisdid not matter to us. There was so muchat stake, we could not allow segregation-ists to stop us. We had to continue thatFreedom Ride even if we were killed inthe process.” After the continuation of the FreedomRides by SNCC and their supporters, thefederal government was forced to inter- vene by pressuring the Interstate Com-merce Commission to repeal the segrega-tion laws that regulated interstate publictransportation. This was only done afterhundreds of activists volunteered to beimprisoned on false charges in Parch-man Correctional Facility in Mississippi,one of the most notorious prisons in theSouth. Although many were beaten andtortured in Parchman, racist repressiononly fueled this heroic mass, anti-racistmovement.
Changing he course o hisory
The Freedom Rides, as the sit-ins haddone the year before, provided greatermomentum for the Civil Rights move-ment. Increased mass mobilizations took place throughout the South beginning in Albany, Ga., in 1962, when an anti-segre-gation campaign brought out thousandsfor mass protests and arrests.In 1963, the Civil Rights movement would advance even further with massmobilizations in Birmingham involvingthousands of students. These demonstra-tions against segregation would spreadthroughout the South as well as theNorth, to cities such as Somerville, Tenn.,and Chicago.These demonstrations during thespring and summer of 1963 led to the rstmassive protests of the era, in Detroit onJune 23 and later the historic March on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 on August28. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was thenpassed outlawing racial discriminationinside the U.S. After the efforts of the Freedom Sum-mer of 1964 in Mississippi and other ar-eas and the voting rights campaign in Sel-ma during early 1965, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed ostensibly guar-anteeing universal suffrage. In 1966, themovement would become more militant when SNCC came out in opposition tothe draft and the Vietnam War as well asraising the slogan of Black Power duringthe “March Against Fear” from Memphis,Tenn., to Jackson, Miss., in June of that year.Just as it took courage and creativity to break down legalized segregation in theU.S., it will take greater efforts to defeatthe ruling class’s challenges placed beforethe people in the current period. Conse-quently, a broad alliance of the workersand oppressed must come together to takeon the austerity measures and repressionthat are the latest mechanisms designedto further the exploitation and oppressionof the majority of people in the U.S.
Go to www.pbs.org to view or for moreinformation about the documentary.
For more a 50 years, orkers ord/Mdo brero as corbeda revooary Mars perspecve a as sed g o eves, boeraoa ad domesc, from e po of vew of e eress of eworkg cass ad e oppressed. i as campoed ad epaed esrgge o ed s saabe capas pro sysem, wc s brgggref o e woe pae.From e bae es scos, were workers are gg a a-o osag; o e May Day raes for mmgra ad workers’ rgs;o beseged Gaza, were e Paesa peope are ressg israe ag-gresso, or acvs reporers sed rsad accos ad poos acoer e es ad dsoros e moopoy-owed meda.
oday, /M is the NLY socialist/communist newspaper in theU.S. that continues to publish a weekly bi-lingual printed edition,while also putting up a complete PDF version online that reacheshundreds o thousands o readers around the world each week.
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Firebombing o Freedom Ride bus, May 14, 1961, nniston, la.
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