prairie fire organizing committee

Speech for May Day 2000

by benjamin evans

Fellow Workers,

This is the first May Day of the new millennium and it's wonderful to be here in Chicago reclaiming the radical tradition of Lucy Parsons and the Haymarket Martyrs. We are standing in solidarity with our fellow workers around the world against a system that tries to turn us against each other. We are standing in solidarity with the women in Saipan, sewing clothes in sweatshops for retail stores like the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic. We are standing in solidarity with the women in Haiti, sewing clothes in sweatshops for Disney Quest to sell for top dollar. We are standing in solidarity with immigrant workers here in Chicago who are threatened with deportation by sweatshop owners who want to exploit their labor. We are standing in solidarity with women all over the world who are leading a global struggle against sweatshop working conditions; against low pay, long hours, abusive treatment, denial of the right to organize, and dangerous working conditions. We are here to take action against these global crimes.

On the 25th anniversary of the Vietnamese people's historic victory, we stand in solidarity with people all over the world who continue to struggle against U.S. imperialism. We stand in solidarity with our sisters and brothers from Mexico who are criminalized and labeled "illegal" for crossing a border a border created in 1848 when the United States illegally seized half of the Mexican nation. While multinational corporations cross borders with ease, human beings who cross borders come under attack. This must end. We demand unconditional amnesty for all immigrants.

We stand in solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico who are struggling to end over one hundred years of U.S. colonialism. This morning 1,000 U.S. Marines arrived off the coast of Puerto Rico to aid the F.B.I. and the Federal Marshalls in removing the non-violent demonstrators from the beaches of Vieques. Puerto Ricans have been occupying the beaches in defiance of the United States since April 19th, 1999, when David Sanes Rodriguez was killed by bombs dropped from a U.S. Marine Corp jet. We are here today to send a message to the U.S. government that the bombing of the Puerto Rican island of Vieques must stop.

And we stand in solidarity with the Filipino people and the people of Columbia who are demanding an end to the U.S. military's presence in their countries. We stand in solidarity with these struggles because those who are the most oppressed must lead the fight against oppression and those who have been the victims of U.S. imperialism must lead the struggle to defeat it.

It is an honor to be here speaking to you today, representing my comrades in Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. We all should be proud to be here in Chicago on May Day. And we know that for everyone one of us who is here, there are many people who would be here if they could; who would be here if they weren't caring for those who are sick or injured, if they weren't caring for young children, or if they had the luxury of being able to call in sick to work, or to take the day off.

And we can't forget those who would be here if they weren't locked down in prison. There are over two million people in U.S. prisons. That's more people than were in prison in South Africa under Apartheid or in the Soviet Union. And we especially need to remember the over one hundred dedicated revolutionaries in prison for their political beliefs; people like Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement activist locked up in Leavenworth, Kansas, and Albert Woodfox, the Black Panther Party activist locked up in Angola, Louisiana, and Marilyn Buck, the revolutionary anti-imperialist locked up in Dublin, California, and Oscar Lopez Rivera, the Puerto Rican independentista locked up in Terre Haute, Indiana. And we need to especially remember Zolo Agona Azania, a New Afrikan political prisoner on death row in Indiana, and, of course, our dear comrade Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther on death row in Pennsylvania.

There is a quote from Bertolt Brecht painted on the side of the old Puerto Rican Cultural Center up on Claremont Avenue. It reads, "Those who struggle for a day are important. Those who struggle for years are even more important. Those who struggle for a lifetime are indispensable." In conclusion, I would like to take a minute to remember one such indispensable revolutionary who was buried this morning in a traditional Islamic ceremony in New York. He was a former Black Panther, a member of the Black Liberation Army and a devout Muslim. In 1973 he was framed for the murder of a New York policeman as part of the F.B.I.'s war on the Black liberation movement. During my entire lifetime he has been imprisoned for the crime of daring to fight for the rights of Afrikan people in America. Albert Nuh Washington died on April 28th at 5:31am, after a courageous five-month battle with liver cancer.

In addition to his revolutionary activism, Nuh was a poet. There is one of his poems which seems especially appropriate to recite here in Chicago on this rainy May Day:

  Clouds hide the sun 
  Still the sun shines 
  Rain falls on the just and unjust 
  Without thought 
  Death is a natural process 
  Why fear it  
  Life is to be lived 
  So deny yourself not 
  For the clouds only temporarily hide the sun 
  And the sun would not put out its light 
  For a few clouds 
  Only a man denies himself life 
  Out of the fear of death 
  If he but knew 
  Not to live, out of fear 
  Is to be dead and not know it 
  A very useless life

Free All Political Prisoners!
Unconditional Amnesty for All Immigrants!
No Human Being is Illegal!
End Sweatshop Labor!
U.S. out of Vieques!
U.S. out of the Philippines!
U.S. out of Colombia!
Stop Police Brutality!
The Struggle Continues!

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