TURNING THE CORNER: BUILDING A MASS MOVEMENT FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE

Harry Targ

                                                   
                             There's something happening here
                              But what it is ain't exactly clear  

There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware

There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking' their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind

It's time we stop
Hey, what's that sound?

Everybody look - what's going down?

“For What It's Worth" Buffalo Springfield

Hundreds of thousands of people, reflecting the diversity of America hit the streets in over 700 cities and towns to declare that “Families Belong Together.” The specific occasion for the mobilization of so many people in such a short time was the news of at least 2,000 migrant children being separated from their parents along the Texas/Mexican border amid the smug assertion of Trump administration spokespersons that the children and their parents were in the United States “illegally.”

In addition, Fox News commentators were framing the separations as a net gain for the children: comfortable quarters, summer camp-like conditions instead of the reality of children housed in cages. The specific crisis of the children reinforced anger at the general brutality caused by the broken immigration system that has led to the brutalization of people seeking refuge from violence and poverty in their home countries.

Named organizers of the rallies around the country included Moveon.org, the American Civil Liberties Union, The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Amnesty International, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Women’s March.  Also, many actors and actresses, such as Alicia Keyes, and politicians participated in rallies, particularly in coastal cities.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, Democrat from the state of Washington, expressed the anger and frustration of masses of people: “The idea of kids in cages and asylum seekers in prisons and moms being separated from breast-feeding children, this is beyond politics, it really is just about right and wrong, (Alexandra Yoon-Hendriks and Zoe Greenberg, “Protests Across U.S. Call for End to Migrant Family Separations,” The New York Times, June 30, 2018).

The marches and rallies represented a sense of outrage, an expression of the fact that, as the Congresswoman suggested, certain government actions may be just plain wrong, grotesquely immoral. And in those cases people of good will must stand up and say “enough is enough.” Families Belong Together, the event organization, articulated three central demands: that separated migrant families be reunited immediately, the government end family detentions, and the Trump administration end its “zero tolerance” immigration policy.

But beyond this extraordinary mobilization is perhaps a deeper meaning, a deeper purpose, and a possibility of hope for change. First, the placards signaled how marches were seeing the connection between the tragedy of the 2,000 children separated from their parents and broader issues: “fight for families,” “childhood is not a crime,” “human rights have no borders,” “abolish ICE,” “my people were refugees too,” “November is coming,” “no hate no fear, immigrants are welcome here,” “no one is illegal on stolen land,” “Nazis were following the law too, abolish ICE,” “Trump for prison, lock him up.”

Second, a multiplicity of organizations, beyond the mainstream national ones, participated in mobilizations around the country. Youth organizations, progressive alliances, and democratic socialist groups played a role in organizing the events and brought out their members to support the actions. For example, in Milwaukee, Democratic Socialists (DSA) participated in two mobilizations with placards calling for the abolition of ICE. In addition a radical immigrant rights group, Voces De La Frontera, which concentrates on immigrant rights and class issues participated prominently. Also, in Milwaukee, there was a strong representation from progressive sectors of various faith communities: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish.

Third, the June 30 Families Belong Together nation-wide mobilization may be the largest since President Trump assumed office. Beginning with the inauguration day rallies led by women, there have been mobilizations around peace, immigration, guns, women’s rights, the right of workers to organize, and against police violence. Peoples’ movements are growing in size. Mobilizations more consciously seek to connect the particular issues that occasion rallies and calls to action with other issues. And, with the emergence of the New Poor People’s Campaign, spokespersons of that movement are making the case that issues around poverty and racism are connected to militarism, war, and the destruction of the environment and all these are connected to the history of the brutalization of  Native Americans, African Americans, and immigrants seeking asylum from violence and poverty in Latin America. As Reverend William Barber calls it there is an emerging “fusion” of issues and a “fusion” of movements.

Will this lead to a well-organized purposive, multi-issue movement that will challenge capitalism and imperialism?  Will it create the building blocks for a humane and democratic, and socialist future? As the song says: There's something happening here. But what it is ain't exactly clear.