Build the new united civil rights movement to defeat
the rightwing attacks on minorities and on immigrants
Perspective for the next phase of the struggle
Adopted March 5, 2004 by unanimous
vote (145 for, 0 against, 0 abstaining)
The new civil rights movement that BAMN has
built in defense of affirmative action has shown the way to defeat
the rightwing attack on civil rights and on immigrants. The young
activist civil rights leaders must use this conference to clarify
ourselves politically and strategically and to prepare for a
large-scale development of integrated anti-racist struggle for
equality in California, on the West Coast and throughout the
country.
We have to learn from our victory at the US
Supreme Court in defense of affirmative action. It is mass,
militant, integrated struggle that can beat the rightwing, just as
the 50,000-person civil rights march organized by BAMN at the US
Supreme Court secured the upholding of affirmative action in the
University of Michigan cases. The whole series of attacks on
affirmative action, integration programs and on immigrant rights has
been originated by the same set of rightwing, racist forces in the
Republican Party. It is a matter of practical strategy and logical
consistency to interweave the different elements of our struggle
against racism and for equality. The rightwing forces responsible
for these attacks comprehend the interconnection of the attacks on
affirmative action, integration and on immigrants' rights. We must
as well.
BAMN has been the leading civil rights
organization defending affirmative action and integration in
America. The fight against racism and for equality in America
requires BAMN now to become the leading civil rights organization
fighting for full rights and dignity for immigrants. The rightwing
attacks on civil rights and on immigrants are the leading edge of
racism in America. The rightwing is now focusing a renewed attack on
immigrants. To be effective in defeating these divisive,
mean-spirited and bigoted attacks, our new militant independent,
youth-led civil rights movement must link these fights together in a
seamless, integrated whole. In doing so, we must unite black,
Latino/Chicano, Native American, Asian Pacific, Arab, other minority
and anti-racist white people of all ages, documented and
undocumented in a generalized struggle against racism and for
equality.
Building the new civil rights movement to
defeat the rightwing attack on civil rights and on immigrants means
a new layer of young leaders of all races and backgrounds coming
forward. It means building BAMN as the one organization that has
maintained its independence from the establishment political parties
and has acted on the perspective of building a united, mass,
integrated, militant, youth-led civil rights movement.
If we can deliver this rightwing a few more big
tactical defeats, we will begin to turn the tide on the whole set of
attacks on the gains we have made toward equality and integration in
American society. We can usher in a new period of progress toward
Martin Luther King's Dream of a society of sister- and brotherhood,
of justice, integration and equality.
Over the coming months we must defeat the new
anti-immigrant Proposition 187 with mass actions and a mass public
campaign. We must energize the fight to remove Ward Connerly from
the University of California Regents as the leading opponent of
affirmative action in the country. Along with the boycott of Coors
beer - a major funder of the attack on civil rights - these
campaigns will help defeat the attack on affirmative action. Since
the US Supreme Court victory, the attack on affirmative action has
moved to Michigan, where the new civil rights movement is fighting a
Proposition 209-style initiative. The West Coast civil rights
movement must defend the Berkeley Unified School Districts
desegregation program, the first voluntary K-12 desegregation plan
in the country, from a rightwing legal and political attack.
At the same time, we must build the May 15,
2004 National Civil Rights March to Realize the Promise of Brown
v. Board of Education and Defend Affirmative Action. This march
marking the 50-year anniversary of Brown, must both declare
the birth of a new phase of struggle for the aspiration to equality
and integration in education that Brown has stood for and it must
express the culmination of the very successful last phase of
struggle to defeat the rightwing attacks on minorities.
Join us in building this new movement.
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