White racism, always beneath the sur face in American cities, erupted in Bos ton last week. Scores of white hood. hums set up vigilante squads to prevent the implementation of a courtordered school desegregation. This involved black kids being taken to white schools in white areas in special buses.
The racists were determined to defend the special privileges enjoyed by whites. They went on the warpath. Blacks were attacked, a lynch mob was formed, and only policemen firing from claiming the life of a black Haitian, Jean-Louis Andre Yvon.
All this is happening not in some Southern backwater, but in Boston, Massachusetts, the heart of liberal America. Small wonder then that the lib eral heart-throb, Edward Kennedy, has States. failed to come out and support the blacks struggling for elementary civil and human rights.
KLAN It was white Boston also which played host to the white thugs of the Ku Klux Klin several weeks ago. Klan tally attracted thousands of racists, When Klan chief, David Duke, declared that : "The real issue isn't education, the real issue isn't a school here or a school there... the real issue i niggers" the crowd of bigots screamed its approval in no uncertain way. Duke referred to blacks as 'cannibals" and 'apes" saying "we don't believe Negroes fit into modern society.* The American Trotskyist weekly, Militant, reported that the trade union officials had either kept silent or supported the racists. A contingent of iron and construction workers marched in the 4 October "anti-busing' demonstration, and the officials of the Boston Teachers Union, the local affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, has threatened a strike or work stoppage until order is res fored" rather than coming out resolutely against the racist violence.' Many notables of both the Rep ublican and Democratic parties have, according to Mittant, been providing the actual leadership for the racist mobilisations, while the libcrals in both parties have been providing a 'respectable' cover for their colleagues.
In this situation many black community leaders and State representatives have called for federal troops to be sent in to deal with the racists and to implement the court order on desegregation. The attitude of President Ford was to attack the federal court decision which ordered busing shots in the air prevented the lynchers to end segregation in Boston's schools. Ford understands the extreme social and growing economic tension which exists in the cities. He does not want to take on white racists even to implement a court order in the months preceding elections in a number of DESPERATION The desperation of the black peopic is understandable. Like oppressed minorities in other parts of the world their first appeal is to the authority of the capitalist State, and yet we know that while federal troops or marshals might cool the situation temporarily, in the medium term they would back up the white racist power structure, particularly in northern cities like Boston.
In some ways the situation is analogous to the initial response of the oppressed catholic minority in Derry and Belfast when threatened with the Orange pogroms in the Six Countses: they welcomed and warmly greeted the British troops. A few months later the relationship had turned sour. The defence of the embattled nationalist minority was to be taken up by the Provisional IRA.
It is precisely the lack of self-defence organisations based in the black communities that makes the federal troops appear an attractive proposition. The black vanguard organisations that developed out of the ghetto rebellions of '68 and 69 no longer exist. The Black Panther Party was destroyed by repression. The Amerof such a group to the black masses.
In Boston today there must be or similar groups still existed. cause in the long run it will only be the self-organisation of the black masses which will effectively resist, combat and defeat racism.
ting white racism than federal marsh als. Though ironically cough it would be the existence and effect ivencas of such groups which would probably bring the federal marshals in rather quickly to "preserve law and order be purged.
ican rulers knew the potential appeal resume normal work thousands of blacks who must be secretly wishing that the Black Panthers ply with this ultimatum.
Becept watch the building The creation of armed black self-defence groups to defend black school students would, even in the short term, be a more effective method of combatLast weck one promp of Portuguese workers gave a new twist to the Government's call for "Sunday wofking'. The municipal work ers in the town of Santarein (just north of the capital, Lisbon) chose Sunday 13 Octo ber as the day to launch their strike and occupation of the local municipal offices.
The workers launched this action in reply to the municipal administration's refusal to meet their demand that memnections with the old fascist regime should The following day the administration demanded that all keys, vebicles and busldings held by the workers he returned in order that those who wished to could The workers were given until 8 am on Wednesday to com But the workers refused to give in. They replied by forcing workers still at work to leave another building, which they then occupied. Shortly afterwards the police arrived, but did notling exA little later two officers from the Lis bon Cavalry School lank unit (well known for its loyalty to the Armed Forces Morement) artived and informed the strikers that the Government considered the strike and occupation illegal The workers remained firm, however At 2 pm military policemen and armed soldiers from the Cavalry School surroundod the municipal buildings and forced the workers to leave under protest, This is the first strike and occupation since the deleat of the right wing on 28 September, and shows that the honeymoon between the workers and the army it already running into trouble. This action taken by the army against the municipal workers of Santarem shows That the armed larces car not be relied on to 'defend democracy" as the leader of the Portuguese CP, AI varo Cunhal, urged two weeks ago.
Only the organised power of the work ers movement can carry through the great victory of 28 September, and wipe out the fascists and far-right once and for all. The Santarem workers show the way for ward. But their set back abso shows the urgent noed to build a mass anti-fascist шоте одо TE WorKing CRs and, especially, within the ranks of the JoaD Alberto
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'SUNDAY BY ARMY