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Coal From South Africa Apartheid in !Alabama Miners Say ggNo9g The Mines The foUoww mick & taken from a memomndum witten by Tom Bethell of the United Mine Worker: 01 Amm'a. It hreribea the new development of ma1 impont @m South AM, the threat th& ir to the job rarity of US. mlner:, ud the added rmnglh 1 will @vt to the mpnuive .patheid policier of the South Aj?lmn pvernmmt. Arrangements ue currently being made lo bring substantial quantities of lowsulfur steam mal into the United States from the Republic of South Africa This move on the parI of the coal and utilities industries requires a strong response on the part of the UMWA, because it takes jobs away from American miners and because coal is produced in South Africa under conditions very . .. close to slave labor. (Continued on ~c 7) Above: south e n mhen BIRMINGHAM, Ah.-Almost 1,000 people took part in a rplly'and picket line here on May 22. They were letting the stockholders of the Southern Company know that they were opposed to coal being imported from South Africa The occasion was the annual stocltholders' meeting of the Southern Compmy, r holding company which owns Georgia Power Company, Alabama Power Company, Mirdgippi Power Company, and Gulf Power Company. At issue was a contract signed by the Southern Company to import 2 million tons ($50 million worth) of coal from South African coal produan over the next 3 y w The fmt shipment will be brought into the Port of Mobile in mid-July and burned at generating stations in Florida. Rank and fde members, particularly from Dishict 20 of the UMWA and other unions, as well as people from various community organizations made the rally the largest and most militant gathering in Alabama in wer a decade. 1 The wd complnicr empbyiq Diatrict 20 membm reported abmntesirm at around 90%. The hem lid wtddc B- YR Muchant t&sd &out the IyncbinA lockouts, md "yellow dog' (mtiunion) they were not on atrike but that they were "Wrinl time' oontractc the w m w lud wed q*M the minen in off to t8ke care of burinera" the twenties md about bow her own brother lud bean Approximately 100 mincn went to the state apitol killed in a mof f.ll in the thhtiar She wid it wu profit m Mon@omcry to rce ekcted pwrnmcnt officirl tbt they had to fight then md it qu profit they lud to Gowrnor W&cc w s out of town md the wliticiuu a-.-- t now. . told the h e n that they couldn't do mi- to Don Stow of the Black Workers Con#ma cpokc prevent Ameriun mrpontions from imp- Mil about tbc conditions in the South Af&m wd fislds md At the Bimia@um picket line the men wmc . q~. M the impoNnm of futhu in both pLsos -st md they manifested then attitude both in their wmor- tihe rmc enemy, the momply capital& oorpontionr vtion md in the do#ans on their w: "Pull the nit& Andy Hima wound up with a statement about on Southcrn Co.", "Stop Southern Compmy Imp& ism" md "No Shve Cod". bow the Compmy wu not only ehireling the hem of Akb.rm out of jobs but thu the ekctric ntepayur of After two houn of picketin& the &en held a dly tbs rnrs b.jq expeded to pick up the tab. , On8 mrna0fthebotelLotAQal~coardlutmru r'L.r ry tLt Buy'=, wammd about Ubama ~ndy ot the hhu hqcd. M ubuu poritiai b t b Y Yn h too. wCll.thIt'sad.mn &.Look action pup which worked in the Iut United Miw at tha top tan Itockhokbn Db the Southern Compmny. Worken eleNon to klp thmw out the mnupt Tony They're rll New York City banks and .U they cur about Boyk nube. i mare profir" Among the rpeakers wu Iln John Yucht, the (Informelfon *om Andy Him: and the Georgia wife of a retired miner from Brookwood, a cod town Powr Roiea). urhn tha 80.tbh Cowmy. Bebw: Food h huth A f h minig amp. rned with a lhwel nd mhm h Bimim&am darotutn- Third-World comrades involved in those radical "multinational" organizations couldn't unmask it? They thought they were "Communists," but in practice their political framework of settleristic revisionism left them politically simple-minded, unable to prevent themselves from being pawns in the most vulgar white-supremacist maneuvers. Exposed and defeated, this fiasco was dug up out of its grave four years later. This time by a new crew - the Chinese-Amerikan-led Workers Viewpoint Organization (now called Communist Workers Party). In their campaign to recruit Afrikans, this grouping had organized an "African Liberation Support Commmittee" under its leadership to stage a large Afrikan Liberation Day 1978 rally in Washington, D.C.* They dug up and reprinted the old, staged UMW photograph of the Euro-Amerikan and Afrikan miners kneeling together, even going so far as to say that the 1974 white-supremacist UMW boycott gives "lessons for future struggles" by its "examples of international solidarity between all working people by supporting A frikan miners. " That old lie of four years earlier was revived as evidence to justify another round of integrationism. This organization certainly shows that even an entire group of radical Chinese-Amerikans can be indoctrinated into settler ideology. (9) While proletarian ideology has a clear relationship to the oppressed, it is not transmitted genetically. *We place "African Liberation Support Committee" in quotation marks to distinguish it from the earlier, genuine 162 A.L.S.C.
I I So we see that tactical unity is not just some neutral, momentary alliances of convenience. Tactical unity flows out of strategy as well as immediate circumstances. Nor is tactical unity with Euro-American workers simply the non-antagonistic working together of "complementary" but different movements. Even the simplest rank-and-file reform coalition inside a settler union is linked to the strategic conflict of oppressor and oppressed nations. The alliances formed around the fiery League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit illustrate all this. The rise of the League's Revolutionary Union Movements in 1967, first at the old Chrysler Dodge Main plant, had alarmed the United Auto Workers labor aristocracy. The League represented the militant, anti-capitalist and antisettler union sentiment of the young Afrikan workers in the Detroit auto plants. At least at Chrysler's Dodge Main and Eldon Ave. Gear and Axle plants the LRBW had won a clear majority support of young Afrikan workers against the UAW. The UAW leadership responded with numerous attacks of different kinds - from verbal to violence. Emil Mazey, UAW Secretary-Treasurer and the most prominent figure in the liberal grouping of settler trade unionists against the Vietnam War, denounced the LRBW as "black fascists. " He called upon Euro-Amerikan auto workers to respond to this new "black peril" (his words): "We can no longer tolerate the tactics of these young tnilirants. " (10) And when the UAW used direct police intimidation to defeat the LRBW's Ron March candidacy for union trustee at Dodge Main, the liberal settler union didn't look too much different from George Wallace. But the UAW was different. One of the key ways it reacted to contain the League was to promote alternative, non-revolutionary Afrikan unionists. The International UMW had always intervened everywhere in the local unions to keep settlers in charge. This became particularly important with the gradual rise of Afrikan membership - the UAW officially placed Afrikans then at 25% of the UAW membership. But the breakout of revolutionary leadership in the form of the LRBW had outflanked the Euro-Amerikan labor bosses. The UAW leadership selectively stopped organizing against those non-revolutionary Afrikan unionists who had been seeking the top offices in Detroit locals. After The LRBW broke out, moderate Afrikans were elected as the UAW local presidents at Ford Wayne Local 900, Chrysler Forge Local 47, Plymouth Local 51, Chrysler Mopar Local 1248, etc. etc. (11) So that in addition to cooperating with the companies to fire LRBW cadre, using police intimidation, etc., the settler union bureaucracy tried to undercut the League - that is to undercut revolutionary Afrikan leadership which rejected settler hegemony - by advancing alternative, moderate leaders for Afrikan auto workers.* Now, the League itself had made alliances with Euro-Amerikan radicals in the auto plants. Most importantly, they had responded positively to suggestions from the United National Caucus .for a cooperative working relationship against the UAW leadership. The United National Caucus was (and still is) the more-or-less official opposition coalition to the UAW leadership, with members 163 from reform caucuses in locals througout the UAW. It had grown out of the "Dollar An Hour Now Caucus", a caucus of Euro-Amerikan skilled craftsmen who were pressuring for an immediate dollar an hour raise for themselves alone. The UNC was organized by Euro- Amerikan radicals, and had an Afrikan co-chairman. He was Jordan Sims, an experienced activist and union reformer at Chrysler's Eldon Ave. Gear and Axle - an LRBW center of strength. Sims, while not a revolutionary, had defended the League in his attempts to win the local presidency. (After several stolen elections and getting fired, Sims finally became local President in 1973.) So this broad, "Black-white workers' unity" had some constructive possibilities. But the world of the automobile plants is, however important, not the entire world. In April, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. Detroit blew up - and settler Detroit armed up. In the Detroit white suburbs gun sales soared as settlers prepared to keep Afrikans out of their communities. Euro-Amerikan housewives were signed up in special handgun classes. A publication associated with the League reprinted a newspaper photograph of suburban Euro-Amerikan women practicing with their new guns - and referring to the settler women in unfriendly words. The problem was that one of the settler women photographed was the wife of a leading member of the United National Caucus! Incensed, the skilled Euro- Amerikan auto workers demanded that their caucus either break off ties with the "Black nationalists" or force the League to print an apology. The settler skilled tradesmen were raging mad that "their" women had been insulted by Afrikans. Naturally, the LRBW was unlikely to apologize for pointing out a true fact about Euro-Amerikan behavior. The relationship between the UNC and the LRBW was off, a casualty of the sudden lightning-bolt of truth that flashed across Amerika after King's assassination. Privately, the lender of thc Euro-Amcrikan skillcd tradesmen admitted that his people were wrong, that their attitude towards the LRBW was racist. But to be principled at that moment, he said, would be to "throw away" his years of work founding the United National Caucus and organizing settler auto workers into joining it. As a Euro- Amerikan radical he was unwilling to see his "rank-andfile" settler organization torn apart over their racism. *<strong>Bay</strong>ard Rustin, archflunky for the AFL-CIO and Zionism, crowed about this in his article, "The Failure of Black Separatism": "Some of the most interesting election victories were won at the Chrysler Eldon Gear and Axle Local 961 and Dodge No. 3 in Hamtramck, where the separationist Eldon Revolutionary Union Movement (ELRUM) and Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement (DRUM) have been active. At both locals the DRUM and ELRUM candidates were handily defeated by Black trade unionists who campaigned on a platform of militant integrationism.. ."
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The minority puts a dogmatic view i
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U.S. imperialism would rather that
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The final point we must make is tha
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carpenter would earn in a day. When
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while the evil planter and the Lond
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society of settlers. The large majo
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11. STRUGGLES & ALLIANCES The popul
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, . , in short what wee did in that
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more nearly fascistic. Bacon was th
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"democracy" through wresting their
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111. THE CONTRADICTIONS OF NATION &
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The Charleston conspiracy of 1822,
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IV. SETTLER TRADE- UNIONISM 1. The
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Cherokee Nation on "Trail of Tears
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taxation and other measures to give
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gospel truth by most settlers that
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their places as barbers and servant
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is a historic engineering achieveme
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Chinaman always have something to e
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While marching through a region, th
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off the former plantations at bayon
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hostility, can be expected of two-t
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the early 1830's, continued and gat
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dustries, trades, and nationalities
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Irish, (2) German, and (3) many sma
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On the other hand, there is the ten
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ed bribery: "The truth is this: dur
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narionally-disrincf strata (literal
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2. Settler Opposition To Imperialis
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His political thought was that wher
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fine and resumed his post as U.S. c
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workers from Southern and Eastern E
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and "Break up the narionalisric, ra
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While the I.W.W. was backward in ma
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As the Great Powers were drawn into
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The I.W.W. publicly criticised thos
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Magon once angrily wrote his brothe
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The authorities did not move to "re
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VII. BREAKTHROUGH OF THE C.I.O. It
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danger, because alcohol was needed
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Millions of settlers believed that
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President Roosvelt privately said i
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importantly, to break up the rising
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colored men whom they could guarant
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practiced segregation on a broad sc
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VIII. IMPERIALIST WAR & THE NEW AME
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This remarkable editorial was accur
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Japan would be forced into a "fairl
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tler reunification. The stormy conf
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Afrikans and Asians on the West Coa
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strategy to its limits, the U.S. Em
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I t I In 1921 the African Blood Bro
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secretly organizing in Tallapoosa C
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Negro is the goat of the STFU. " Al
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The support movement took many form
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These agricultural workers paid $8.
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Page 116 and 117: with a Negro World was five years a
Page 118 and 119: "(5) The U.N.I.A. is chiefly compos
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Page 122 and 123: workers would have to wear an arm b
Page 124 and 125: strike down the Afrikan Nation - an
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Page 128 and 129: and resisters. But this popular cur
Page 130 and 131: who had once started it. In the ear
Page 132 and 133: activists, former Communist members
Page 134 and 135: Campos. Afterwards, Foster wrote a
Page 136 and 137: Toure related this to the fact that
Page 138 and 139: XII. THE GLOBAL PLANTATION 1. The P
Page 140 and 141: presidents..five secretaries did th
Page 142 and 143: The maquilas do not constitute any
Page 144 and 145: The shortfall only exists because a
Page 146 and 147: For Every Party, There's a Morning
Page 148 and 149: While there are numbers of Euro-Ame
Page 150 and 151: suming things and owning things, no
Page 152 and 153: estricted crafts rose at a rate 3 t
Page 154 and 155: collection, swimming pools, better
Page 156 and 157: children. For them the flavor is so
Page 158 and 159: XIV. TACTICAL & STRATEGIC The settl
Page 160 and 161: Since Afrikan miners were perhaps 2
Page 162 and 163: man, would ask of you to dispel1 ai
Page 166 and 167: Besides, he continued, to be overly
Page 168 and 169: INTRODUCTION 1. AU references to di
Page 170 and 171: 26. ROGER W. SHUGG. Origins of Clas
Page 172 and 173: 162-166. 16. FRANCIS PERKINS. The R
Page 174: 6. New York Times. September 18, 19
Page 179 and 180: BALTIMORE, APRIL, 1968 - I'm not go
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