Build Labor/Black Power Now!

On April 29, in its Louisiana v. Callais decision, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the last meaningful enforcement mechanism of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), a key gain of the Civil Rights Movement. SCOTUS ruled that creating majority black legislative districts, which give black people some modicum of voting power, unconstitutionally discriminates against white people! Across the South, MAGA legislatures are scrambling to eliminate black districts and purge black Democratic Congressmen. They split Memphis, a 60 percent black city, into three huge, white rural districts. Meanwhile, Democrats are doing the same thing in reverse, carving up white rural districts in California and Virginia to get ahead in the midterms. As usual, black people and the working class are collateral damage in the Dem/GOP redistricting wars.

“Why does this country hate me so much?” asked a black Alabama voting rights activist who cried for 30 minutes after learning of the Callais ruling. Millions share her sorrow. Black people know this means worse times ahead, and they’re already catching hell. From DEI purges and government layoffs to grinding inflation, kill-crazy cops and mass incarceration to decaying housing and education...things look bad.

Liberals and black Democrats say the solution is voter registration and a midterm “mass turnout.” Some dress up stumping for votes like that’s a new civil rights movement. But this rollback of black rights proves the Civil Rights Movement was only able to achieve partial, token, reversible gains, like the now dead VRA. Subordinated to liberal Democrats, the Civil Rights Movement opened some doors to the black elite, but betrayed the aspirations of the black masses. It could not end segregation because its leadership respected the limits of what was acceptable to the liberal wing of the ruling class. Today, the South remains the poorest region in the U.S., and the ghost of Jim Crow haunts every aspect of life where the majority of black people now live. It will take more than some black mayors to fix this.

Black Democrats have held office across the North and South throughout the 60 years since the VRA was passed. They haven’t done a damn thing to change the fact that the black masses are forcibly segregated at the bottom of society, with the worst jobs, housing, schools and healthcare. Dems might act less racist than Republicans to get votes, but they represent the same capitalist ruling class that needs black oppression to prop up its profits and power. That’s why liberals and Democrats have only led the black movement to defeat.

We must build black political power, especially in the South, but the question is: how? Black power must be forged in the working class, in opposition to the bosses’ Democratic charlatans. For decades, the bosses have moved industry south to exploit the vast pools of cheap, unorganized labor. The working class in the South is powerful, but held back and dragged down by the rulers’ oppression of black people. As a key component of Southern labor, black people have exceptional leverage to beat back the current racist attacks. The first step to wielding their power is to organize the South.

Like always, the bosses will whip up racist reaction to derail organizing by claiming that unions leave white workers worse off. To cut through this, unions must fight against segregation and inequality, while making clear that white workers have every reason to support unions as a fighting force for all workers against the common enemy. Anti-union forces will mobilize their dogs of war—from the cops to ICE to the Klan. Race terror must be met with organized, armed self-defense and a labor struggle against racist cop terror.

Pursuing this campaign will require a fight in the unions. Northern workers, including the many black trade unionists, must push their unions to take up the black struggle and Southern organizing as a necessary measure of self-defense in the coming period. But the current union tops will be an obstacle. They are tied to the ruling class and their parties. Many deem raising race “divisive.” At best, they see their job as winning a few crumbs from the bosses’ table. Especially in the present period of instability and decline, this simply will not do.

A militant struggle to organize the South will bring forth and test new political leaders. Only by struggling to build labor/black power will we cohere a mass political organization representing the interests of workers and the oppressed. This is the way. Liberation depends on class independence, and we must fight our way there now.

• Organize the South! Fight against segregation and for equality!
• For organized, armed self-defense against racist terror!
• Break with the Democrats and Republicans!