------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the March 1, 2001 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- WWP LEADER SPEAKS AT WEST COAST MEETINGS: IN THE WORDS OF MALCOLM X, DON'T VOTE FOR A SYSTEM OF ENSLAVEMENT By Gloria La Riva San Francisco Larry Holmes, a national leader of Workers World Party and an initiator of Millions for Mumia, spoke at several Black History Month events on the West Coast sponsored by WWP in mid-February. In San Francisco on Feb. 10 and in Los Angeles and San Diego, Holmes focused on the ongoing struggle against the brutal racism of the U.S. prison-industrial complex, and the suppression of the African American people's civil rights in the recent U.S. presidential election. He opened up talking about the execution of Wanda Jean Allen, "the first Black woman who was executed in 50 years in the U.S. " "The day after the execution you could hardly find a word about it in the national media. It got maybe two lines in the Oklahoma newspapers. Here it is, the first Black woman legally lynched, it was a big outrage. "You know why it wasn't covered? Let's talk about the obvious reason. It was a few days before the inauguration and they didn't want people to be thinking about execution, because you have Bush as president who is associated with more executions than anyone else. "It is hard," said Holmes, "to celebrate Black History Month with more than 2 million people in U.S. prisons, 35 percent of them African American, with more than 3,600 people on death row, more than 50 percent of them African American or Latino, with Mumia Abu-Jamal, our revolutionary brother still facing death. "And so this important month that came about as a result of the struggle against racism and cultural genocide must be an opportunity to plan the militant struggles that will liberate all oppressed people," Holmes said. Holmes gave tribute to the heroic prisoners who engaged in the biggest prison rebellion in U.S. history, 30 years ago this year, the Attica rebellion of Sept. 4-9, 1971. 1964 AND 2000 He also compared the 2000 presidential elections to 1964 and the searing commentary given by revolutionary leader Malcolm X in his famous 1964 speech, "The Ballot or the Bullet." Holmes said, "What happened in Florida makes me think about Malcolm X's words. His speech was a polemic against what happened during the 1964 election. It was in his view a big effort to scare Black people into voting for Lyndon Johnson out of fear of [Sen. Barry] Goldwater." Holmes reminded the audience of Goldwater's blatant rightwing, racist, warmongering program, and how the Democrats tried to contrast Johnson. "Malcolm went over who Johnson was, a downright racist, descendant of slave masters. "Malcolm basically said, 'If you vote for him ... then you vote for a system that perpetuates your enslavement, and you shouldn't be surprised after you cast your vote, if your relative is next to get lynched. Voting for Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee is not going to free you.'" Just days after the Israeli election of Ariel Sharon, Holmes saluted the Palestinian people who maintain their struggle in the face of such brutal repression, before and after the elections there. "It was good to see the demonstrations in Gaza and West Bank the day after the elections, where they had both Sharon and Barak's pictures in a kind of equal sign, like they're both the same." Holmes' talk was the basis for much discussion afterwards. He pointed to the many ways that the Black struggle continues, against racism, poverty, prisons and the system. Most heartening was his call for dedicating Black History Month to Black women in prison, "in fact," he said, "to all women in prison." Autumm Beard, a college student and lifelong resident of Bayview Hunter's Point in the city, emceed the Feb. 10 Black History Month forum in San Francisco. Beard told the audience that it was the Black historian, Carter Godwin Woodson, who put Black history on the map with his designation of "Negro History Week" in 1926. Born to former slaves and a coal miner himself in Kentucky, Woodson was not able to enter high school until he was 20 years old. After working in the coal mines and pursuing his educational dreams, he became Harvard University's second Black doctoral recipient. Later his organization, the Association for the Struggle of Negro Life in History successfully got Black History Month official recognition in 1976. Beard said, "Before his work, this field of vital history of African Americans had been largely neglected or distorted under the control of bourgeois capitalist historians." Willie Ratcliff, publisher of San Francisco Bay View newspaper, a prominent African American weekly in the city, also spoke at the meeting. Ratcliff said that it is impossible to talk of just racial justice, without also talking of economic justice, of the right to housing, the right to a job, food and education. Significant audiences also attended the public WWP forums in Los Angeles and San Diego. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. 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