Race, Class, Gender, and Movement Vision for the Current Moment: Lessons from the League of Revolutionary Black Workers

Through a historical materialist lens we analyze the revolutionary process within the contradictions and antagonisms of global capitalism in the 21^st century, focusing on the U.S. We explore lessons for today’s generation of movement actors and revolutionaries rooted in decades of political practice of former members of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers (LRBW) in the Detroit auto and related plants and communities, 1968-1970, who remain engaged in revolutionary struggle. Black labor represents a concentrated expression of capitalist alienation, exploitation, and oppression. Black workers at the point of production and in their communities in the 1960s are today at the point of crisis, dispossession, and state violence. They are a conscious and powerful force within today’s multiracial and multigendered transformative class struggle for humanity and the planet.

We locate this analysis and vision within the current political moment. The world is in transition and embodies an irreversible capitalist crisis, and intensifying state violence, white supremacy, patriarchy, xenophobia, ecocide, war, political polarity, and struggle from below. The 2017 Trump presidency ushered in an intensification of the polarization of wealth and poverty, “democracy” for billionaire capitalists, and developing fascism for the masses. Forces of resistance and revolution are rising up. The underlying cause of these crises is rooted in the revolutionary process of economic revolution – robots and automation, social and ecological destruction, and political revolution. The resolution calls for fundamental systemic transformation – the creation of a cooperative and egalitarian society in which all human needs are met and the earth is protected. It is urgent that conscious movement forces engage in collective study and leadership, and develop a collective vision, revolutionary consciousness and strategy.

We will share a short video (15 minutes or less) from LRBW Media & Education Project www.revolutionaryblackworkers.org

Jerome is a former member of LRBW)