Build working class unity, says veteran anti-apartheid campaigner
At a Black Lives Matter rally on Saturday (13 June) in Shepton Mallet, Somerset, the rally’s organiser, Morning Star supporter Pete Stevenson, read out this stirring message from veteran anti-apartheid campaigner and communist Ken Keable. There were over 200 people at the rally and the message was warmly received. Social distancing was strictly observed.
Communists: Britain must confront its racist and imperialist past – and present
Following the toppling of a statue of Edward Coulston, a notorious slave trader, in Bristol on Sunday (7 June 2020) by protesters involved in Black Lives Matter demonstrations, there has been a general backlash in the mainstream and right wing media. Coulston was responsible for forcibly transporting at least 80,000 slaves to the Americas, with tens of thousands dying in the process.
The Communist Party’s Anti Racist Commission and the Young Communist League released the following statement yesterday (10 June 2020) in support of the action.
Poetry Corner: Let America be America again by Langston Hughes
Let America be American again by Langston Hughes, 1936
YCL USA on George Floyd protests
Maicol Lynch of the YCL USA Organising Committee talks to Johnnie Hunter about the protests in the United States surrounding the murder of George Floyd for ChallengeTV.
Black man, George Floyd, murdered by US police in Minneapolis
Late Monday on night (25 May 2020) footage emerged from Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, showing the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed 46 yr old black year but US police.
The footage shows Floyd handcuffed and pinned to the ground with one police officer’s knee pressing against his neck, while Floyd protested that he could not breathe. This went on for five minutes, all on camera, until Floyd eventually passed out. He died in hospital a short while later.
Poetry Corner: VE Day 75 – Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too?
As part of the celebrations around the 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, Challenge’s Poetry Corner will be featuring a selection of poems from across the world, inspired by the war and its events.
Here we feature Will V-Day Be Me-Day Too? written by Langston Hughes. The poem is written from the perspective of a black US serviceman. It is a profound comment on the profound and structural racism on which the USA is and was based and the sad fact that black servicemen were abroad fighting to defeat the same racist and oppressive ideologies they were forced to endure at home.
14. Racial Oppression
Working people of minority social groups in Britain continue to face official and unofficial forms of discrimination in their social and economic life.
The forms of oppression and the significance for our struggle also depend upon the context. For example, in Britain, British Black and British South Asian groups make up 3.4% and 6.8% of the population of the UK – 2.2 and 4.4 million people respectively.
