Saturday Harlem March Denounced NYPD Violence — Today Is National Walkout Day

“Stop the Urban Youth Violence” group and Revolution Club NYC join up in Harlem November 29.

Forty people rallied Saturday at the State Office Building in New York’s Harlem, and then marched through the streets and on the sidewalk to the NYPD’s 28th Precinct, headquarters for countless acts of brutality, police murder and harassment in Harlem over many years, a fountain of violence against the people that spews terror still.

Many marchers carried signs reading: “Ferguson Is Everywhere: Police Brutality and Murder Must Stop!” with the revcom.us logo. Chants rang out: “Indict, Convict, Send the Killer Cops to Jail—The Whole Damn System Is Guilty as Hell!”; “Black Lives Matter!”; “Justice for Mike Brown: If We Don’t Get It, Shut It Down!”

Then, right at the doorstep of the precinct, with dozens of cops lined up and media lights and cameras aimed at them, person after person got up, gave their name, and heroically exposed and denounced the many atrocities of the police in New York City and around the U.S.

A middle-aged woman spoke about how, because she wears dreadlocks and drives a nice car, police stop and harass her and accuse her of dealing drugs. Another woman spoke about the military-style raids that swept up dozens of youths in Harlem projects last June.

A young woman opened her remarks by saying that brutality doesn’t just hit men, but women as well. She went on, full of emotion, to describe how at age 11, she was falsely accused by police and swept into a hellhole of group homes and state homes for several weeks, before being exonerated. A young man spoke out about the constant harassment of his generation. Another woman talked about being badly beaten by the police, then thrown in the hole for weeks.

A very powerful moment came when a young woman rose to say that she had never been the victim of the police, but lived in constant fear of what might happen to her brother, and said that the endless murders of Black men “make me afraid to have children of my own, something that I have wanted my whole life.”

Travis Morales made the point that police forced the marchers off the street with the threat of arrest, but that police could kill Black and Latino people and never face arrest, and said this tells us a lot about this system, and why we need to take this new movement to stop police brutality to a whole new level, but do this as part of preparing for revolution to sweep away this entire system. A young brother from the Revolution Club also spoke to the truth that voting, telling youth to pull up their pants, and other so-called solutions were useless or worse than useless, and that it would take “Revolution, Nothing Less,” to put an end to these outrages.

After a half hour of these stinging denunciations, which were again and again linked to more well-known crimes, like the murders of Mike Brown, Ramarley Graham, and so many others, and were echoed and cheered by the crowd, people regrouped and marched back to the State Office Building, ending with the vow to continue to take things higher, eyes focused on today, Monday, a national day to Walk Out of School and Work to demand Justice for Michael Brown.

Earlier, the NYC Revolution Club and supporters were enthusiastically invited to join a march against NYPD violence against Black youth that was also on the streets. This march was organized by “Stop the Urban Youth Violence,” many of them people concerned with so-called “Black-on-Black” violence, but also the murders of so many youth in Black communities by the police.

This group included several parents of police murder victims, including Juanita Young, Iris Baez, and Hawa Bah, the mother of Muhamad Bah. Queen Mother Blakely, the community mayor of Harlem was also in this group.

Please see www.revcom.us

Editor’s Note: Please sign the Petition demanding that the Department of Justice file charges against Darren Wilson for violating Michael Brown’s life by wrongfully depriving him of his life.