From the Revolution Club, Chicago:

Building Support Among the People and Getting Ready for Car Caravan to Standing Rock

November 30, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The Chicago Revolution Club is planning to send a car caravan to Standing Rock in answer to the call at revcom.us. Last night we met to discuss the importance of Standing Rock and our being there. The discussion was robust and addressed many questions, including: What does our going there have to do with fighting to bring into a being a revolutionary situation? How does the Trump victory make what is happening at Standing Rock even more urgent? Why is it important that basic masses from Chicago go there? What about the risks involved and why is taking them worth it? And more. We also talked some about the history of Native Americans and how this struggle is part of opposing the genocide directed at them as well as its connection to the whole question of the environment.

Inspired by the example of the Revolution Club in LA that they wrote about in "Heading to Standing Rock" (the beauty of sharing experience at revcom.us), we made a banner to take out to the neighborhoods of the oppressed to be signed and brought to the people of Standing Rock. The banner said, "The Streets of Chicago Stand with Standing Rock." We took it out to Englewood, a South Side neighborhood where a youth, Kajuan Raye, was just killed by the police. This is also an area where the violence among the youth is intense and where we have been taking out our call, "Stop Killing Each Other, Start Fighting the Real Enemy, Get Into the Revolution."

We went into a neighborhood as an elementary school was letting out and put the banner on the side of our van. We discovered that only one person out of several dozen there knew anything about Standing Rock. Several people told us that they watch the news but never saw anything about this struggle. So as we were challenging people to sign the banner, we were telling them about the battle at Standing Rock. The outrage among the basic people was fierce in support of the Native Americans' struggle when they learned about what people have been going up against in this fight to protect their lands, burial grounds, and water and the great concern for the safety of the planet with these fossil fuels, as well as knowing a little bit about the whole history of killing off Native Americans. A couple of people pledged donations for the Revolution Club car caravan to Standing Rock.

The Club talked about getting people who stayed behind to post up graphics and articles about Standing Rock to bring the understanding to an even broader audience in these areas where we are setting out to also impact the people to stop fighting each other and start fighting the real enemy as part of gathering the needed forces for an actual revolution.

So far, several core members of the Club are committed to go. And we have a meeting in the morning with four people, not yet in the Club, who have expressed a desire to go with the Club. There is also a car coming down from Cleveland of Revolution Club members. We are heading out early Friday morning in a caravan of 2-3 cars.

We will stay in touch and share our experience with others at revcom.us.

 

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