As one who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr., both in support of civil rights and in opposition to the war in Vietnam, I want to go on record in support of the BA Bus Tour into the southern USA and in my strong admiration for the courage of those who are making this witness to the deepest values of this great country and all its people.
Dr. S. Scott Bartchy, Professor of Christian Origins and the History of Religion, UCLA; former Director of the Center for the Study of Religion
Be a part of a movement to spread the vision, voice and work of Bob Avakian, everywhere.
- Donate right now to start funding the next leg of the BAsics Bus Tour and spread its message. Go to http://basicsbustour.tumblr.com/donate
- Write your own statement of support. Write your response to the focal point of the Tour, BAsics 1:13, and why you support the Tour. E-mail baeverywhere [AT] gmail.com
“No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born. I say no more of that.”
— Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:13
Bringing a message to Sanford with BAsics and 100s of voices from across the country
This following piece has been reposted from Revolution newspaper. It was first published HERE.
by Sunsara Taylor
Down in Sanford, Black people are still seething over the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on February 26 on his way home from a 7/11 convenience store. It is NOT “old news.” Neither is the fact that the police refused—for 45 days—to arrest his killer, George Zimmerman. More, they are following the case closely and recognize the preparations underway to exonerate Zimmerman.
When we rolled in on the BAsics bus, projecting the leadership of Bob Avakian and calling on people to get into the movement for revolution to put an end to the system that has foreclosed the lives of so many generations of Black youth through the entire history of the USA and of millions more throughout the world, it didn’t take any work to get people to open up with their outrage or their own bitter experience at the hands of the police, in the prison system, or in their dealings with the thick white supremacy which permeates the entire country but is more openly trumpeted in this part of the confederate-flag-waving South.
Black mothers told of having had to bury their teenage sons due to violence the police didn’t even bother to investigate, of having lost their sons to police murder where there was never even a case opened up, of struggling to be strong for other sons as they were sentenced by racist judges for crimes they didn’t commit or which were too petty to merit years of hard prison time, and of fearing for the indignities and brutality that was destined for the grandbabies they were now raising whose fathers had been stolen.
Everywhere we went, outrage poured forth. Bitterness. Anger. Heartbreak. Fear for the future. What took work—in many cases it took repeated and sharp struggle—was for people to really hear and get the meaning behind the word REVOLUTION. Not just protest. Not just “marching till our feet bleed” or “screaming until our voices are hoarse,” which is what many people told us was good but would never change things. But REVOLUTION. An actual victorious struggle for power and the defeat and dismantling of the oppression institutions of the old state power, when the time for that is on the agenda—when the system is deep in crisis, when millions of people are ready to put everything on the line to bring the system down and with the necessary leadership and strategy.
In an Atlanta Neighborhood with the BAsics Bus Tour by Sunsara Taylor
This is an article from Sunsara Taylor about the beginning of the BAsics Bus tour in Atlanta, GA.
The neighborhood has been completely abandoned. Expanses of lumpy shrubs and deep grass surround it on three sides. On the fourth side, the sun glints off razor wire, row after row of it surrounding a federal prison; men inside are forced to live in captivity, routinely brutalized, insulted and humiliated and forced to do backbreaking labor, often on chain-gangs in the Georgia sun. Across a busy street from the lone apartment complex, a tiny parking lot hosts three little shops. No fresh fruits or vegetables are available, but liquor is in abundant supply. Despite the luscious green that surrounds almost everything down here in the South, many of the courtyards of the apartment are filled only with brown dirt. This is where the children play.
The first time w
e visited this neighborhood, I didn’t make it fifteen feet out of our car before a young Black man who had been sitting in the shade on the curb pointed at the poster I carried “That was me,” he said. The first time he was beaten by police he was just fifteen years old. They held him up against a wall by his neck, hanging and choking him before they worked his whole body over with their fists and batons. “Over there,” a slightly older man added as he pointed toward one of the nearby fields. Someone had been killed by police over there just a few months ago.
I told them that I was part of the BAsics Bus Tour, a group of revolutionaries who had come together from across the country to live and travel on an RV through the South to connect people up with Bob Avakian, the leader who has re-envisioned revolution and communism, and to bring people like them into the movement for revolution.
Speakout at the Sanford Police Station – WE SAY NO MORE, by Alice Woodward
Sweltering afternoon sun beats down through towering oaks and Spanish moss on the streets of a Black community in Sanford, Florida. A community that has witnessed a very different scene for the past two days. The BAsics Bus Tour has been rolling through bringing the BAsics of revolution and building for a special speakout right there in Sanford. For two days fliers went out with a picture of Trayvon Martin, “We Say ‘No More’ Speakout at the Sanford Police Station 4pm,” the news spread by word of mouth from friend to friend and on the radio with Carl Dix and Sunsara Taylor making appearances on local stations to announce that the BAsics Bus Tour came to Sanford with a purpose and a message.
We came to Sanford because this is the place where Trayvon Martin was gunned down by the racist wanna-be-cop George Zimmerman. The place where the killer of a young Black man went free and police refused to arrest him for six weeks and only arrested him and charged him because people stood up and protested in the streets for weeks all around the country. We came here not because this is the only place that this kind of thing happens, but because this kind of thing happens all the time in cities and neighborhoods, to Black youth everywhere. The killing of Trayvon Martin concentrates the reality for oppressed youth throughout this country every hour of every single day and that’s why this resonated so deeply and people declared, “We are all Trayvon Martin.” Now people are being told to sit back, get out of the streets and allow the courts to “do their job” as the media goes into motion creating public opinion for Zimmerman’s acquittal, painting him as the victim and dragging Trayvon Martin’s reputation through the mud, all this working to lay the basis for this system to do what we’ve seen it does again and again – let the killer of a Black man go free.
We Say "NO MORE" printed in Florida Star
We Say “NO MORE” statement was published in the Jacksonville Florida Star on Thursday, May 24th. Click this link and go to page A3 of the e-edition.
Signed by Don Cheadle, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, Tavis Smiley, Carl Dix, and others. This is a statement that the killing of Trayvon Martin and the 2.4 million in prison make clear that there is a whole generation of Black and Latino youth marked and treated as a “generation of suspects” to be murdered and jailed. This is not an issue for Black people alone but for all who care about justice; it is not a random tragedy. We say NO MORE!
Share this Statement with everyone you know, say “no more!” and mean it, and spread the message widely!
Getting Oriented and Getting Started, the first 2 days of the BAsics Bus Tour, by Sunsara Taylor
Its been two days now on the BAsics Bus Tour. The volunteers are an impressive bunch. What hit me first is our obvious diversity. Younger and older, Black, white and Latino, male and female, with a tremendous range of different life experiences and depth of experience in the revolution. What hits me just as hard, though, is our common enthusiasm for Bob Avakian and the real revolution.
The first day’s orientation began with a showing of the first segment of Bob Avakian’s Revolution talk, “They’re Selling Postcards of the Hanging,” where he gets into the founding of this country in slavery and the hundreds of years of white supremacist terror which was inflicted on Black people as part of the enforcing the “American way.” BA describes not only the lynchings, but how white people would gather in a festive atmosphere to witness the lynchings of Black people and to snap pictures and make postcards of the hangings.
People in Atlanta respond to meeting the BAsics Bus Tour. This will be played at parties across the country TONIGHT along with another video (soon to come). Be part of “pushing the Bus forward”… Start organizing a gathering Tuesday night (a special video announcement about the Tour will go up Tuesday morning for people across the country). FOLLOW this blog, SHARE with others, and CONTRIBUTE towards the rest of this leg of the BAsics Bus Tour… and for the next leg. So we can connect people up with the movement for revolution, and with Bob Avakian - the leadership we have for the revolution we need.
