PROGRAM OF ACTION FOR THE NEW CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT:
Justice for George Floyd.
Jail all killer cops.
Real equal justice for all, at last.
To protect the movement and save democracy, Trump must resign or be removed now, by any means necessary.
To empower the movement to end police racism and violence:
- Make all records of charges against police public. All cops with racist history must be fired. No more hiring of racist cops.
- Ban all lethal force by police, including: tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, batons, chokeholds, all weapons of war and police techniques that carry a risk of killing people. Across the US, police departments have proven their incapacity to use such weapons and techniques, in particular in minority communities, in a way that is even remotely safe and not murderous.
- Free all protesters arrested during the course of the last weeks’ protests, with all charges dropped. The protesters are not criminals, but the heroes of our democracy.
- Police out of the schools.
Stop all the Trump-led steps towards a police state in America:
- The movement’s demands to end police brutality, racism, and abuse must be public policy. The movement must have the power to enforce its demands.
- The movement must defeat all Trump’s threats of a military seizure of power.
- Officers and rank-and-file soldiers must reject Trump’s call for the US military to be used against the American people. No racist civil war in America.
- Federal troops must be kept out of Washington, DC.
For the movement to unite all minority and oppressed communities in one mighty struggle for equal justice for all:
- The movement has the power to change our country for the better if it unites black and brown and all defenders of democracy and equality in a single, independent, integrated struggle.
- no more relying on politicians and political establishments that have failed over and over again for generations.
- The real power is in the streets.
Immigrant rights are civil rights:
- Full citizenship rights for all immigrants, Trump must go.
- No racist border wall; open the borders.
- Full defense of the right of asylum. Let the caravans in!
- Shut down immigrant concentration camps! No deportations!
- Pass the Federal DREAM Act!
To defeat injustice anywhere, the movement must fight for justice everywhere, and fight to save human lives against COVID-19:
- Defend Roe v. Wade.
- Free mass testing for COVID-19 available to all – whether the patients are symptomatic or not.
- Removing Trump will save thousands of lives—end his anti-science policy around COVID-19
- No in-person school reopening, protect our children.
- Defend quality public education–no school closings.
- Restore affirmative action programs in K-12 and higher education to fight racial inequality in our society.
We are living in a historic moment, and we are changing history. Millions of people have come out in the thousands, day in, day out, in every state of the nation and in over a dozen and a growing number of countries around the world. The power of our movement is palpable and grows with each passing day that we stay on the streets, inspiring more people to join us. Our current generation cannot remember another time in US history where the popular masses actually had so much power to dictate the direction of our country and make national changes in laws and policy at the thunderous sound of street chants from one day to the next. We are changing history despite the opposition or hypocrisies of established leaders. We have become our own political heroes. We know we cannot wait until the next set of business-as-usual elections.
As the struggle continues and intensifies, it has become clear this movement, in fighting for justice for George Floyd, is fighting for justice for all victims of racist police murder, and even more: the vision of an America truly based on equal rights for all. The mass militant social explosion initiated by the uprising in Minneapolis, led by the black community and supported nationwide, has woken up our new civil rights movement to express our nation’s social grievances as never before. Our movement is a dynamic force to reckon with, and the biggest enemy of the movement publicly threatening to violently shut it down is Donald Trump and his racist and tyrannical regime. Our movement must defeat him in order to win real justice for George Floyd and to transform our society into a truly fair and just society for all, regardless of race or economic or immigration status.
The movement must popularize nationwide and proclaim as a central demand the removal of Donald Trump and Michael Pence, and must oppose the sending of federal troops into any cities for the suppression of protesters. American soldiers and officers should not submit to the calls of an illegitimate, racist demagogue, madman and tyrannical president, Donald Trump. Every day, this president threatens to attack American citizens peacefully protesting in our cities; it is Trump who should be treated as the enemy of the American people and our democracy. The only way to stop this threat is for the new movement for justice to use its social power to demand the resignation or removal of Trump and Pence. Under no circumstances should American armed forces fire on American citizens and invade American soil as if occupying an enemy country. People ordering attacks on American protests for justice and equality are enemies of democracy and freedom and should be treated as such.
Our movement may be new, but we are learning very rapidly. Some of us are marching for the first time, some of us have been marching since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led the civil rights movement of the 1960’s. We have marched throughout Donald Trump’s presidency. We have come out against his racism, misogyny, homophobia and bigotry. We have come out to fight against Donald Trump’s moves to create an authoritarian regime. We have marched to defend our immigrant brothers and sisters. We have marched for science and democracy. In each instance, we have felt our power in the streets as the only real democratic expression of power in this nation. Our movement must not allow itself to be distracted and belittled into any politician’s electoral campaign. It is time to stop letting politicians co-opt our movement who simply see us as cheerleaders to build their individual fame and fail us time and time again.
The movement must be conscious of our power and the sheer scope of what it is possible for us to win now. We can ban the use of lethal force used against minority communities by police, but we can also win the forceful removal of Trump and Pence—this would absolutely increase our power to continue changing our society to meet the needs of people. It is vital for the ongoing life and growth of our movement to maintain our independence from politicians. Neither political party has control of the situation. Attempts to co-opt and shut down our movement with threats of violent repression or polite deception and distraction have utterly failed and showed their complete disconnection from the grievances of the movement.
The country is looking for leadership, especially to the most militant and consistent fighting cities like Detroit, Los Angeles, Oakland, New York, and Minneapolis. Marches are an expression of the power of our movement, and we must continue marching. This is the best way to keep our movement alive. We must ignore the calls for negotiations on the condition of stopping the marches, and the urging of those that tell us to go home. These are no friends of the movement. In the words of the militant civil rights leader of the 1960’s, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, “a movement means move,” and we must keep moving.
The most powerful recent civil rights struggle in this country was the immigrant rights movement of 2006, with millions of people led by undocumented immigrants and students shutting down cities across the country to defend immigrants against criminalization. In order to win real gains now, we must combine the power of that movement with the power of the movement fighting for justice for George Floyd and against all instances of racist police brutality.
As the Supreme Court approaches a decision to allow Trump to end DACA, the ongoing struggle is the best way to save DACA. We cannot let politicians cynically fail to save DACA, in order to use DACA as a political football yet again for the next presidential election. We can defend DACA if we fight to remove Trump now. We must act now.
Black and brown unity must be the leading, driving force of the movement—the fight against racism and the defense of immigrant rights are the most powerful and dynamic forces in the country and we face the same enemy—Donald Trump and his minions in different branches of government enforced through racist repression by police and ICE. Any attempts to divide our movement or limit the scope of the movement along sectarian, nationalist, or racial lines must be unequivocally rejected. The movement must make real the demands that can actually make justice for George Floyd and not accept the lies from politicians that we have heard over and over before.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor free‐ dom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass
West India Emancipation Speech
August 3, 1857
2020.06.08
