movement & memory: reflections on labor and the genealogy of resistance w/ Saladin Muhammad Pt. II

Saladin Muhammad argues in an article titled Black Workers for Justice, Twenty-year of Struggle, in Against the Current that: “The national oppression of African Americans in the U.S. South makes Black workers in the South the most exploited section of the U.S. industrial working class. Black Workers for Justice [BWFJ] thus bases its trade union and political perspectives on the principle of the centrality of the Black working class.” “The struggle against racism, for political power and self-determination for African descendant people are key aspects of this principle in forging the unity of the Southern and U.S. working class. BWFJ has tried to create an identity, confidence and political presence of the Black worker and trade union organization in the U.S. South.” BWFJ believes that the struggle against African American national oppression must take on sharper Black working-class and internationalist features. It must put forward a perspective for, and be active in building, a strong rank-and-file democratic and radical labor movement in the U.S. South” [Saladin Muhammad, Black Workers for Justice, Twenty-years of Struggle, Against the Current, No. 101, November/December 2002]. With this, Saladin Muhammad, firmly situates Black Workers for Justice in the continuity and long arc of Black liberation movements that center the Black working class/workers, such as, but not limited to: Ad Hoc. Committee of Concerned Black Steel Workers; the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement; League of Revolutionary Black Workers, to name a few. What you will hear next is Pt. II of our conversation with Baba Saladin Muhammad. Be sure to tap into Pt. I to pick up the flow of our conversation! Saladin Muhammad is an organizer, theoretician, writer. He published a number of articles that explore issues ranging from exposing the structural and systemic racism in labor to ways to understand the interdependence of human rights and Black internationalism. Saladin Muhammad is the co-founder and national chair of Black Workers for Justice and until his retirement, he was an international representative for the United Electrical Workers [UEW]. His praxis has been forged in Black freedom work for than three decades. The idea is not to replicate, but I understand there is a path. To see that there is a way. A way – a genealogy... Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native/indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana; and Ayiti; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people. Listen intently. Think deeply. Act accordingly. Enjoy the program!