Nationally,
Socialist Resurgence is a new group, kind of. We were founded in October of 2019, but we didn't come out of nowhere. We were founded by an experience group of activists with many decades in the movement and who previously had been part of a group called Socialist Action. Socialist Action was founded in 1983 by comrades who came out of the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP was founded, in turn, was by Trotskyists who James Cannon led out of the Communist Party in 1928. And the Communist Party was founded in 1919 by revolutionaries who came out of the Socialist Party, which was founded back in 1901 by Eugene Debs and other socialist collectives, some of whom traced their origins back to the very beginning of the Marxist movement in the U.S. in the mid-1800s. We list this not as some kind of royal sucesion, but to illustrate that we have roots that go way back in the history of the socialist and workers' movement of this country.
Locally, however, our group began in 1996. In that year a small group of students and workers inAshland , Wisconsin
Our initial projects included organizing against welfare "reform", the Navy's Project ELF communication base in Clam Lake, stopping the proposed sulfide mine in White Pine and against the devastating US/UN sanctions against Iraq. We also did labor solidarity work in support of the 1997 UPS strike, raised money for striking newspaper workers in Detroit, and on behalf of the Ashland Trades & Labor Council, organized a boycott of the local anti-union Wal-Mart store.
In the late 1990s, one of main projects was organizing on behalf of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Towards that end we set up a regional coalition called the Northern Mobilization to Free Mumia (later this was shortened to Northwoods for Mumia). It had chapters in Ashland, Steven's Point and the Twin Ports, raised several hundred dollars for Mumia's legal defense through a series of concerts and got the Northland College Student Association to sponsor a student referendum that voted overwhelming for Mumia to get a new trial.
In 2001 we expanded our base from Ashland to the Twin Ports. We had a rocky start though. Our first meeting in May of 2001 at UWS was shut down by a reactionary campus security guard. Following bad press about the incident, the college stopped blocking our ability to hold meetings there. But that Fall 911 happened. It just so happened that we had planned to hold meetings on the anti-globalization movement that day at UWS, CSS and UMD. It was out of those meetings, on the very day the towers came down, that Students Against War was launched.
As the countries grief over 911 was funneled into a call for war, we threw ourselves into anti-war organizing. And this at a time when few were willing to publicly oppose the war. Students Against War spread to eventually have chapters on a dozen different colleges and high schools from the UP of Michigan to International Falls, MN.
Hundreds of people turned out to the initial anti-war protests in 2002, but we sensed more was possible. SAW put out a call for a broad anti-war coalition that would be based in the community, rather than just the campuses. This resulted in the launching of the Northland Anti-War Coalition. NAWC's first protest, which was held on Jan. 25, 2003 drew 2,500 people. At the point, it was the largest protest in the history of Duluth.
At the same time we were putting a lot of time and energy into the anti-war movement, our socialist group got involved, and ended up heading up an effort to unionize the Canal Park hotels through the HERE Local 99 union. While ultimately the campaign did not succeed, it did force the hotel owners to pay their workers more, and resulted in our group beginning to build a presence in the labor movement.
Over the next few years, dozens of young people from the anti-war movement and the hotel campaign joined a youth group that we set up (which was then called Youth for Socialist Action). It had chapters in International Falls, Duluth, Superior, Ashland, Park Falls and Washburn.
In the mid-2000s, while anti-war organizing continued to be our main focus, we also branched out and either initiated, or worked closely with a number of projects. Here is an incomplete list of them:
-The Cannabis Community Coalition: which unsuccessfully called for Duluth to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.
-The Coalition for the Freedom to Stand Still: which was formed to opposed the anti-loitering ordinance that the Duluth City Council passed, but later dropped.
-The Militant Madonnas: which was a dynamic socialist-feminist group started by the women of YSA and that organized an interesting series of forums, protests and discussion groups.
-Organizing in support of HERE Local 99's efforts to beat back union busting by the Spot Bar in International Falls, and by Bernick's Pepsi at the Duluth Airport. We also threw ourselves into strike solidarity work during the 2005 AMFA strike at the Duluth Airport.
-Same-Sex Marriage: in the mid-2000s we organized a series of marches and rallies in support of same-sex marriage. This was a defensive campaign against the efforts to get the state of Wisconsin to add an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Unfortunately our efforts failed, and the ban happened in 2006.
-Tuition Hikes: Our YSA comrades did a lot of organizing against tuition hikes, especially when Regents and other VIPs were in town. And at UWS, our comrades put together a slate of candidates for the student senate to oppose the hikes, and the plans to build an expensive, and unnecessary new student center. Two of our three candidates were elected.
But the biggest splash we made in the middle of the decade, was in relation to the Arrowhead-Weston transmission line. This giant, for profit power line had plans to tear through 700+ farms, along with sensitive wetlands, so that they could sell cheap but dirty Manitoba Hydro electricity to Chicago. A dedicated group of farmers and others call Save Our Unique Lands had been fighting the powerfline for years. Once we met them, we threw ourselves into their struggle, mobilizing students, labor and other community activists into their ranks. The struggle culminated in a dramatic vote at the Douglas County Board where we were able to stop the power line by refusing to allow it to cross public County land. Over 300 people turned out for what ended up being a 4 hour meeting. But alas, our victory was overturned when the Republican state legislature and Democratic governor passed the Montgomery Bill, which allows for private corporations to essentially use eminent domain on local governments. It was a sobering outcome to how dirty big business plays, and how at the end of the day both major parties work for them.
As the decade wore on, we did some modest organizing around a series of death row inmates in addition to Mumia. Among them was Kevin Cooper and Scott Panetti.
We also successfully ran one of our members, Adam Ritscher, for Douglas County Board. However we found there is very little a long elected official can do in local government, unless there is a mass movement backing them up. We spent our time on the Board fighting against money for cops and armored cars, and in support of land conservation and workers' rights.
Locally, however, our group began in 1996. In that year a small group of students and workers in
Our initial projects included organizing against welfare "reform", the Navy's Project ELF communication base in Clam Lake, stopping the proposed sulfide mine in White Pine and against the devastating US/UN sanctions against Iraq. We also did labor solidarity work in support of the 1997 UPS strike, raised money for striking newspaper workers in Detroit, and on behalf of the Ashland Trades & Labor Council, organized a boycott of the local anti-union Wal-Mart store.
In the late 1990s, one of main projects was organizing on behalf of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Towards that end we set up a regional coalition called the Northern Mobilization to Free Mumia (later this was shortened to Northwoods for Mumia). It had chapters in Ashland, Steven's Point and the Twin Ports, raised several hundred dollars for Mumia's legal defense through a series of concerts and got the Northland College Student Association to sponsor a student referendum that voted overwhelming for Mumia to get a new trial.
In 2001 we expanded our base from Ashland to the Twin Ports. We had a rocky start though. Our first meeting in May of 2001 at UWS was shut down by a reactionary campus security guard. Following bad press about the incident, the college stopped blocking our ability to hold meetings there. But that Fall 911 happened. It just so happened that we had planned to hold meetings on the anti-globalization movement that day at UWS, CSS and UMD. It was out of those meetings, on the very day the towers came down, that Students Against War was launched.
As the countries grief over 911 was funneled into a call for war, we threw ourselves into anti-war organizing. And this at a time when few were willing to publicly oppose the war. Students Against War spread to eventually have chapters on a dozen different colleges and high schools from the UP of Michigan to International Falls, MN.
Hundreds of people turned out to the initial anti-war protests in 2002, but we sensed more was possible. SAW put out a call for a broad anti-war coalition that would be based in the community, rather than just the campuses. This resulted in the launching of the Northland Anti-War Coalition. NAWC's first protest, which was held on Jan. 25, 2003 drew 2,500 people. At the point, it was the largest protest in the history of Duluth.
At the same time we were putting a lot of time and energy into the anti-war movement, our socialist group got involved, and ended up heading up an effort to unionize the Canal Park hotels through the HERE Local 99 union. While ultimately the campaign did not succeed, it did force the hotel owners to pay their workers more, and resulted in our group beginning to build a presence in the labor movement.
Over the next few years, dozens of young people from the anti-war movement and the hotel campaign joined a youth group that we set up (which was then called Youth for Socialist Action). It had chapters in International Falls, Duluth, Superior, Ashland, Park Falls and Washburn.
In the mid-2000s, while anti-war organizing continued to be our main focus, we also branched out and either initiated, or worked closely with a number of projects. Here is an incomplete list of them:
-The Cannabis Community Coalition: which unsuccessfully called for Duluth to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.
-The Coalition for the Freedom to Stand Still: which was formed to opposed the anti-loitering ordinance that the Duluth City Council passed, but later dropped.
-The Militant Madonnas: which was a dynamic socialist-feminist group started by the women of YSA and that organized an interesting series of forums, protests and discussion groups.
-Organizing in support of HERE Local 99's efforts to beat back union busting by the Spot Bar in International Falls, and by Bernick's Pepsi at the Duluth Airport. We also threw ourselves into strike solidarity work during the 2005 AMFA strike at the Duluth Airport.
-Same-Sex Marriage: in the mid-2000s we organized a series of marches and rallies in support of same-sex marriage. This was a defensive campaign against the efforts to get the state of Wisconsin to add an amendment to the state constitution banning same-sex marriage. Unfortunately our efforts failed, and the ban happened in 2006.
-Tuition Hikes: Our YSA comrades did a lot of organizing against tuition hikes, especially when Regents and other VIPs were in town. And at UWS, our comrades put together a slate of candidates for the student senate to oppose the hikes, and the plans to build an expensive, and unnecessary new student center. Two of our three candidates were elected.
But the biggest splash we made in the middle of the decade, was in relation to the Arrowhead-Weston transmission line. This giant, for profit power line had plans to tear through 700+ farms, along with sensitive wetlands, so that they could sell cheap but dirty Manitoba Hydro electricity to Chicago. A dedicated group of farmers and others call Save Our Unique Lands had been fighting the powerfline for years. Once we met them, we threw ourselves into their struggle, mobilizing students, labor and other community activists into their ranks. The struggle culminated in a dramatic vote at the Douglas County Board where we were able to stop the power line by refusing to allow it to cross public County land. Over 300 people turned out for what ended up being a 4 hour meeting. But alas, our victory was overturned when the Republican state legislature and Democratic governor passed the Montgomery Bill, which allows for private corporations to essentially use eminent domain on local governments. It was a sobering outcome to how dirty big business plays, and how at the end of the day both major parties work for them.
As the decade wore on, we did some modest organizing around a series of death row inmates in addition to Mumia. Among them was Kevin Cooper and Scott Panetti.
We also successfully ran one of our members, Adam Ritscher, for Douglas County Board. However we found there is very little a long elected official can do in local government, unless there is a mass movement backing them up. We spent our time on the Board fighting against money for cops and armored cars, and in support of land conservation and workers' rights.
In 2009 we walked the picket line every single day with the illegally fired union workers at the Pickwick restaurant in Duluth. We also organized fundraisers and collected supplies for a series of aid caravans for Cuba sponsored by Pastors for Peace.
We entered the 2010s with a lot of energy. We held a series of exciting Camp Class Struggles, set up a Radical Cheerleaders group, and ramped up our annual Marxmas holiday parties.
When Scott Walker was elected governor of Wisconsin, and went after public workers, our comrades organized a walk-out of UWS students, and daily pickets in front of the school. After three months we switched to weekly pickets, and continued to hold them for a whole year, and the end of the drive to recall the Governor.
As luck would have it though, around 2012, the majority of our members moved away. Some moved for family reasons, some for school. For the first time in a decade and a half, the socialist movement in the Northland almost went extinct. But the lone remaining member kept at it, and after a few years was was joined by new comrades, and some old comrades who moved back. The torch wasn't allowed to go out!
We put a lot of time into the Occupy movement, and especially a local spin off called Project Save Our Homes. Project Save Our Homes was a group that tackled the home foreclosure movement by putting together campaigns around threatened families, and shaming the banks into cancelling their eviction plans. This dynamic group saved three homes that way, and bought time for three other families to pursue other options.
We also were active supporters of Idle No More, a Native American group that did some amazing organizing work in the middle of the decade. This in turn led to our participating in a number of powerful anti-racist initiatives, like Black Livers Matter, the Duluth Racial Equity Project, the Justice City Coalition and Save the Kids.
Our comrades also initiated the Twin Ports Women's Rights Coalition to defend the Building for Women and the abortion clinic inside from anti-choice protesters. The Coalition later renamed itself the Feminist Justice League, and continues to be a dynamic feminist group in the region.
Currently, in addition to the Feminist Justice League, our comrades are active in a number of prisoner solidarity projects (Letters to Prisoners and Formerly Incarcerated Peers) and organizing efforts around housing (the Homeless Bill of Rights and Housing Justice Duluth). We also continue to help in every way that we can in the environmental movement, from trying to stop Polymet and Line 3, to opposing the reconstruction of the Husky refinery in Superior.
As socialists we feel that all of these issues have value in and of themselves. We feel it is our duty to stand by side with people wherever and whenever they stand up to fight back against exploitation and oppression. But we also see the interconnectedness of all of these issues - and that is why we continue to try and build a socialist movement that can connect the activists of all of these important movements into a revolutionary organization that can challenge the whole capitalist system, and create a better world. Our local group has been at it for over two decades now, and we don't intend to stop fighting until justice is won. We invite you to join us!
1 comment:
Thank you for your important work!!!!
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