Voices from the BAsics Bus Tour: Day 2, Dinner in the Bronx!
Our BA Everywhere crew had been out in the streets and around some projects of the Bronx on a summer afternoon – taking out BAsics, distributing palm cards, working to bring people into the movement for revolution. We were soaked with sweat and a little tired, but excited about the beginnings of our work in the Bronx and looking forward to a very special night to cap it off.
Our BAsics van didn’t have a difficult time finding the house we were looking for as we drove it down a quiet, tidy street in the Bronx. One of its brick sides is painted in black, with portraits of two young men murdered by NYPD superimposed on the background. A few words under the portrait on the left side had their names followed by the word “EXECUTED.”
The front of the house is painted blue. It contains the names of about 40 people – Anthony Rosario, Hilton Vega, Malcolm Ferguson, Frankie Arzuega, Leonard Lantin, Jose L. Zarete, Patrick (Hessy) Phelan, William Whitehead, Amadou Diallo – above them all the words “in memory of.” A tombstone placed in front of the house said, “In our grieving hearts we acknowledge police brutality and Racial Injustice, ‘Thou shalt not kill’ said the lord.”
Everyone named on this wall was murdered by the NYPD. The BAsics Bus Tour was being welcomed to a dinner by two of the mothers fighting police brutality and murder for a night of warm companionship, stimulating discussions, and heartfelt exchanges about future possibilities that were deep and sprinkled with humor. Ample quantities of delicious food had been prepared. These parents and some other members of their families mingled late into the cool of the evening, along with the BA everywhere crew that had come from throughout the country and other parts of the city. No one who was there will forget this night in the Bronx.
One of the BA Everywhere volunteers said after the event, “there’s a lot of things rattling around in my head. All the people killed. All the people whose names haven’t been recognized here in this city and all around the world would fill up this whole neighborhood and beyond”.
Watch and spread this video everywhere! It paints a compelling picture of how the movement for revolution is developing, growing and cohering through the BAsics Bus Tour. Hear from people who met the tour and hear Carl Dix, Sunsara Taylor and Clyde Young. The film captures the hope people feel when they find out that there could be a radically different and far better future by encountering the vision and works of Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader who has developed a new synthesis of communism. BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian concentrates all this and is at the heart of the Tour. It needs to be seen by thousands of people today, which can make a big difference in involving people in the movement for revolution.
We highly recommend that it be used for fundraising shown not only at events and collective efforts, but also to individuals who are able to contribute larger sums. Send the intro above and the link to the film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsBxMETRSio) to everyone you know, especially people just finding out about all this. Ask people to spread it widely, post it online, and share via their social networks. Make copies of the film by downloading it from Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/45323963) and get these copies everywhere so people can show them on the streets, on portable dvd players and with individuals.
Fly The Red Flag! support and $10 donation from prison
The following was written by a prisoner when the BAsics Bus Tour was in the South.
Greetings within and beyond, Amandla! I hope this finds all of you, my comrades, in the very best of all things possible, especially health and Revolutionary Spirit!
This is in regards to my monthly pledge of $10.00 for the “BAsics” Bus Tour in Texas. During this time I’d like us all to remember to carry forward the Rememberance of our beloved late Damian Garcia flying the Red Flag over the Alamo. Let’s also strive to put forward our lives with revolutionary communist zeal, and Spirit as this dearly missed comrade has done to further the advancement of our Communist revolutionary Vanguard.
Now’s the Time so Seize The Time! Fly The Red Flag over Texas and put a Bus in every major city in Texas. Get the Book “BAsics” into every school campus and let the ferment and wrangling begin.
Sincerely,
In Truth, Solidarity, and Preperation of The Real Revolution, Communist Revolution
XXX
P.S. Included is my monthly $10.00 for The Bus Tour!
The themes of the BAsics Bus Tour impacting NYC and surrounding areas in July are these two quotes from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian.
BAsics 5:7
American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People’s Lives.
BAsics 5:8
Internationalism—The Whole World Comes First.
Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
A commentary about getting BA Everywhere out broadly:
I picked up a copy of BASics for a friend of mine I work with. I kept asking if he read it and he’s always like, “I know you say I can skip around and read quotes, but I like to read a book cover to cover and I’m reading a novel right now.” He does read Revolution each week, though, when I finish reading it and give it to him. Anyway, so I see him one day, and he’s like, “I was riding on the subway back to Brooklyn and there’s a girl across from me reading BAsics, and so I tell my girlfriend, ‘Hey, there’s that book our friend keeps telling me to read.’”
NYC BAsics Bus Tour send off
Bring yourself, your friends and your kids. Bring your hopes, dreams and ideas. Bring your music, your words and your contributions of funds, food and hugs to send off the BAsics bus tour volunteers who have arrived from all over the country to take the movement for revolution and the leadership of Bob Avakian — especially the book BAsics — to connect with the people of New York’s abandoned, locked down neighborhoods and to nearby cities.MONDAY ** 10AM ** 123rd & Morningside Ave. (corner of Morningside Park). A, B, C, D train to 125th Street - walk west on 125th Street 1 block to Morningside, turn south and walk two blocks to 125th. #1 train to 125th Street - walk east on 125th Street to Morningside, turn south and walk two blocks to 125th.DROP-OFF & ORGANIZING CENTER IN THE BRONX MONDAY-SATURDAY 5-6pmMothers on the Move 928 Intervale Ave. in the Bronx (next to Rainey Park).Train Directions: Take the #6 train to Hunts Point Avenue stop, walk 4 blocks east on 163rdStreet, turn left on Kelly one short block, then right 20 feet on Intervale Avenue.Or take the #2 or #5 to Intervale Avenue, walk 1 block south.The BAsic bus tour volunteers need:1. Housing for the volunteers for parts of the next 2 weeks2. Donations of food3. Volunteers to help prepare displays, visuals and materials 4. Volunteers for shopping, driving, picking up equipment and more.If you have an hour, a day, or two weeks — if you can make peanut butter sandwiches, make a dinner, bring cases of water or apples or a tune or a poem — there is a place and a need for you and for your contributions.Come to the drop-off organizing center at Mothers on the Move 5-6PM Monday through Saturday or call us at 718.664.4164, or email to ba.everywhereny@yahoo.com. FOLLOW THE TOUR AT: basicsbustour.tumblr.comThe BAsics bus tour features these quotes from Bob Avakian’s book BAsics:BAsics 5:7
American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People’s Lives.BAsics 5:8
Internationalism—The Whole World Comes First.BAsics 1:13
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, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
the volunteer send-off fundraising dinner held on July 9th.
Here are some additional quotes from people in response to the BAsics quotes of the month (these are in particular responses to BAsics 5:7):
From a Black musician and jewelry artist:
Every time I hear Obama say “America is the greatest country in the world” I feel like running to the bathroom, sticking my finger down my throat and trying to throw up - hoping the bile comes out. How do you think people around the world feel when they hear that. I’ve seen pictures of kids with their arms blown off by American bombs. And we’re fighting for their “democracy and liberation.” American democracy and liberation really worked out for the American Indians, didn’t it?
From a Black veteran of the war on Afghanistan:
The American Dream is the world’s nightmare. It’s everyone’s nightmare. How egotistical can you get? Why should someone from the Congo be less important than an American, just because they happened to be born there instead of here? When I got back from Afghanistan, I had had it with America. All I wanted to do was bring it down.
It’s summer in New York City and things are heating up as the BAsics Bus Tour is set to roll through in just a few days
Article by Alice Woodward- Building support for the BAsics Bus Tour beginning this Monday in New York City
Donate to support the BAsics Bus Tour
Greetings fellow bus riders around the country, all those who know about this movement for revolution and are finding out about it, contributing, working on it in so many ways, becoming part of the campaign to get BA everywhere. It’s summer in New York City and things are heating up as the BAsics Bus Tour is set to roll through in just a few days. Seriously hot, like you’re covered in sweat in a few minutes kind of hot, like the sun sets and it still feels like there’s a damp towel wrapped around you. It’s a blazing July in the city.
If you traveled through the city on a late afternoon when the streets bustle and you might by chance catch a cool breeze, you’d find in several locations large public pools with long lines snaked around the block as people wait to soak up the cool relief. Ice cream trucks and bicycles, fire hydrants that kids mess with spraying cars as they go by, basketball courts where the heat somehow loses out to how good it feels to play a game of ball. Think of the millions of people, many without air conditioning, packed in together in housing projects and apartment complexes, sometimes families of immigrants living together, many to an apartment. It was not the heat itself, but it mixed with the smoldering contradictions in a society where the masses of people are kept down and pit against each other, that first compelled the city to open up large public pools decades ago. Today those same contradictions among the people and even more so, the systemic overt racism and fear of Black people that gets whipped up, came to the surface when one of these pools reopened this summer in a recently gentrified neighborhood in Brooklyn. The NY Times has contributed to this dynamic with reports on “complaints” about youth coming there from “other neighborhoods”.
Preparing for the BAsics Bus Tour coming to the Bronx: Going to Soundview
Photo: At the door where Amadou Diallo was shot and killed by NYPD. Neighbors hold up Revolution posters (PDF|JPG).
This week, as we have gone to community centers and people we have met in the Bronx to prepare places for the tour volunteers to stay and more, we went to the Soundview area and to the block where Amadou Diallo was shot 41 times by NYC police in the alcove of his apartment building in 1999.
Raising Funds for the BAsics Bus Tour!
Raising Funds for the BAsics Bus Tour!
We will report in a few days on the results of the efforts to raise $25,000 by the weekend of July 6-8 for the upcoming leg of the BAsics Bus Tour set to begin in New York soon. Volunteers across the country are packing their bags, teams in NY have been spending time in the areas the Tour will be going to… people are beginning to get involved. In order to make all this happen, fundraising for the Tour needs to go to a whole other level… reaching and involving many more people, and giving them the opportunity to be part of something that can make a big difference in the world: a Bus Tour aimed at spreading Bob Avakian’s vision and works throughout society, connecting with sections of NY and the surrounding areas that are most cast off, repressed and brutalized by this system as well as reaching out further to other strata who don’t like this situation… through this Tour, all these people finding out about Bob Avakian, and getting organized into the movement for revolution.
A total of $50,000 needs to be raised by August 1. For the coming week, along with ongoing forms of mass fundraising – the yard sales, tamale sales, events, all of which are essential in the BA Everywhere Campaign, we also want to encourage people do a lot of meetings with individuals about contributing. See this post for a call for matching contributions as one aspect of what people can do (though there are also people who can give larger sums who should be reached about this Tour).
Remember to also ask people for a statement saying why they are contributing and encouraging others to donate too.
Here are some key fundraising materials to use (also see the “What You Can Do” page of this blog):
Video about the last leg of the Tour
BAsics Bus Tour Phone Banking Script (Word file)
“I gave to the BAsics Bus Tour” card (to give to donors as a memento of their much appreciated contribution)
