BAsics Bus Tour

Revolution Books, NYC, was decked out in crepe paper streamers, balloons and flowers for the send-off  party for the BAsics Bus Tour from Atlanta. Andy Zee opened the program: “That’s our blood down there”  referring to people in the Bible belt/Lynching belt South, and to the bus volunteers connecting them with the way out.  The actor Aladdin read from BAsics about “the youth with their pants hanging down,” and said he calls the bus, the “no bullshit, tell the truth bus.”  A university professor spoke movingly about his experience teaching at an all-Black college in North Carolina and how he would like to be on the bus: “These are people abandoned by the system: taken for granted by the political system taken advantage of by the economic system and assaulted ideologically by the religious system. There are ideological barriers that have to be confronted to unravel the contradictions to overturn the situation that oppresses people.” He spoke about how this BAsics Bus Tour is doing this. A letter written by a minister of an important church to one of the volunteers was read, along with the volunteer’s response: “I’ve been with you out there on the front lines in the battle against injustice, and know the seriousness and weight of your words and am personally emboldened and uplifted by them. I am going down South, to join with others on this BAsics Bus Tour. We ride to connect people with Avakian, whose life work and mission has been human emancipation. We ride with the hopes and dreams of a better world. Not just our own hopes and dreams, but of many who are watching what we do, many who have supported in various ways, and the many more who do not yet know who I am or that I am joining with others to do this. We ride with you.”