It was a gorgeous day and a team from Revolution Books in Honolulu set up a booth at the June 4th Gay Pride Festival at a local beach park. The Pride Parade had just ended, and the atmosphere was festive. Most of the people with booths were selling clothing, jewelry, and health products. A few promoted political candidates and some represented GLBT organizations. Our tent was decorated with red stars and mobiles with the cover of BAsics, from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian mounted on silver posterboard that caught the sun as they turned. We brought a banner BAsics 1:13, the “No more generations…” quote from the book, and laid it down inside the booth and displayed copies of BAsics next to it. People were immediately drawn to the banner, in the pictures above. We’ve had tables at Pride events in the past, but this was the best ever!
On Memorial Day three supporters of the BAsics Bus Tour went to a popular beach park carrying our beautiful BAsics 1:13 banner, copies of BAsics, “Twelve Ways That YOU Can Be Part of Building the Movement for Revolution – Right Now” and Revolution newspaper.
The park was filled with clusters of people barbecuing , talking with each other, or just enjoying the day. Most were proletarian: Filipinos, Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. There were obvious gatherings of military guys and church groups. Entering the park the first group we saw was a huge church group where homeless were being given lunch while a preacher carried on nearby. We spotted individuals from other conservative churches leafleting amongst the picnickers. We felt a little awkward getting into the mix with our own banner and wondered what the reception would be.
Children from the first family group we approached stepped up to read the banner while their parents watched skeptically. As we got into it with the kids, their young parents perked up and began asking their own questions. “What’s this all about?” “What do you want us to do?” We introduced them to the Bus Tour and BAsics. They talked about their dreams of a better world for their kids, signed the banner, and invited us to share their lunch. Their welcome erased any misgivings we had about wading into the park and inviting people to discuss, debate, sign the banner, and get down around BAsics.
We went from group to group, standing quietly while they read the banner. When we explained that this quote was being taken out to parks and gatherings across the U.S. on Memorial Day, and that the quote was the focus of the Bus Tour that was in Sanford FL, the town where Trayvon Martin was murdered, people began seeing that we were part of something larger and many stepped forward to sign the banner. Some wanted to share their own experiences. A few disagreed but almost everyone agreed that there should be more discussion and debate like the ones we were having. Most took materials about the BAsics Bus Tour and we observed several young people lying on the grass studying the pages of Revolution newspaper soon after we left their group.
Here are a few snapshots of our conversations:
