Since the publication of the last issue of Liberator, BAMN has achieved two of its major historic aims. Through the course of a month-long trial in the University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case from January 16 to February 16, 2001, we executed the most aggressive and comprehensive legal defense of affirmative action in the history of American law. As the driving force behind the first successful student intervention into an affirmative action case, we fought for and won the right to a trial, and put on a defense of affirmative action based on recognizing and fighting to overcome the racist inequalities in today's society. We defended affirmative action as a means both to offset the racist and sexist inequalities in society, and as a means to achieve integration. A future issue of Liberator will be devoted to telling the story of the trial. In late October of 2001 we will rally in Cincinnati, Ohio for the Sixth Circuit Court appeal of District Court Judge Bernard Freidman's sweeping anti-affirmative action decision. Our organizing efforts around both the two University of Michigan affirmative action legal cases will grow over the coming months. On May 16, 2001, the movement we have built and led forced the University of California Regents to reverse their ban on affirmative action in admissions and hiring throughout the UC System. The UC Regents' ban on affirmative action began the nationwide attack on affirmative action of the last six years. This original attack was also the catalyst for the formation of BAMN. The new civil rights movement that has emerged and that we are at the center of has forced the UC Regents to retreat. This is a historic, trend-setting victory. In addition to these historic accomplishments, there are three other events that bear mention here. BAMN's name has changed from the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action By Any Means Necessary to the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary. In October of 2000 we passed a new set of principles that are printed in this issue, as well as a Youth Declaration, also printed here. Both of these are programs of mass struggle that were adopted by democratic votes at mass meetings of the movement. Each has been reread, discussed and reconfirmed by democratic vote numerous times--they are now the basic program of the new civil rights movement. - The Editors

Liberator Declaration We declare our intention to defend affirmative action, integration and all the gains of the previous Civil Rights Movement. We declare our determination to struggle for a society wholly free from the racist inequality and segregation, discrimination and prejudice, sexist abuse and degradation and fundamental inequality that stifles human potential and dulls the mind and spirit. We aim for an integrated society, a society of equality and sister- and brotherhood where the ability of all is developed to the fullest. We will struggle for these aims by any means necessary.

 
Founding a New Civil Rights Movement

Over the weekend of June 1-3, 2001, leaders, activists and campus representatives from over 20 states and twice as many schools came together for the founding conference of the new civil rights movement. It was held at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. Jointly calling this historic event were the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), United for Equality and Affirmative Action (UEAA) and Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH organization.

The weekend was electrifying. What made the event so dynamic also made it historic: full democracy, wide-open discussion, the active participation and leadership of high school and college youth, representation of a plethora of viewpoints, a focus on direct action and mass mobilization, independence from the powers that be, and organizing focused on the current actual struggles of black, Latina/o and other minority people, including defense against the attacks happening right now. These basic methods are what is needed for the success of the new civil rights movement.

The idea of the National Student/Youth Conference to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Struggle for Equality was conceived on March 27, 2001, the day of a large emergency-response demonstration protesting the sweeping anti-affirmative action decision by a federal district judge in the University of Michigan Law School legal case. The conference was pulled together in the two months that followed. It was organized to build and coordinate the defense against ongoing attacks on the gains of the first civil rights movement and to give more unity, power and organization to the struggles of the new civil rights movement.

The people present discussed how to move the new civil rights movement forward. We talked about local struggles and how to put them in the overall context of the movement we are building. We discussed, amended and adopted a series of resolutions. All decisions were made by majority vote after open discussion, so when the conference took action on the different proposals, it was a somewhat raucous process, with a great deal of excitement, enthusiasm and input from all sides.

On the first day, when hundreds of high school students were present, the conference passed two resolutions. The first was a resolution to build the national mobilization to Cincinnati, Ohio for the Appeals Court hearings in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases in late October 2001. (The exact date has not yet been announced.) The second resolution adopted on the first day was a petition to end high-stakes standardized testing.

Four resolutions were passed on the third and final day of the conference: a resolution to form a coordinating committee, a resolution asserting the new civil rights movement's commitment to fighting racism against Asian Pacific Americans, a resolution calling for an end to the death penalty, and a Conference Declaration.

The challenge of the new civil rights movement is expressed in a ringing section of the Declaration: "Our aim is to build broad and popular struggle to defeat the attacks on affirmative action and to fight all forms of racism, inequality, oppression and injustice in this society. We understand that building the new independent civil rights movement is necessary to transform American society, and to win equality and justice for all."

 

---

The Story of the Founding Conference
of the New Civil Rights Movement:
A Participant's Report

The story of the National Student/Youth Conference to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Struggle for Equality, its two-month-rise from idea to reality, its planning, organizing and the event itself is difficult to describe. To find words that capture the spirit and excitement of the conference courts the impossible, but it is this spirit of exuberance that expresses the historical weight of the event most accurately. The exuberance that marked the final day of the conference tells of the new moment of American history into which we are now entering. The promise of this new period could be seen in the smiles, in the embraces and in the clasping of hands.

Beginning in 1995, BAMN understood that by extending the attacks on affirmative action to higher education, the right wing had created the conditions for the birth of a new, mass, integrated civil rights movement. We set about building this movement with the understanding that this new phase of mass struggle could transform American society in a progressive direction, thereby changing the whole context of the fight over affirmative action. Now, this new youth-led civil rights movement, with the defense of affirmative action as its point of departure, is positioned to start transforming society. The story of this conference is the first part of a new chapter of American history.

Origin of the Conference Idea

The idea of the conference was first discussed at an airport in rural Michigan so small that the road leading to it is surfaced with dust and coarse gravel. Washboard bumps and a plethora of potholes merge with weedy stalks of grass at the road's edge. Reverend Jesse Jackson arrived at the airport late in the morning of Thursday, March 29. He had traveled on unusually short notice to be one of the featured speakers at a rally initiated some 36 hours earlier by the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). The rally had been called to denounce the sweeping anti-affirmative action decision in the University of Michigan Law School case,  Grutter v. Bollinger, that had been handed down the previous Tuesday by conservative federal district court judge Bernard Friedman. In direct contradiction to the standing US Supreme Court precedent of the Bakke decision, he ruled that diversity is not a justification of affirmative action. This ideological and intellectually dishonest decision, a decision that ignored the great weight of the evidence presented at trial, has served as a wake-up call for people around the country as to the critical nature of the struggle over affirmative action in higher education. This decision sounded an alarm clear and loud enough to bring 3,000 people together in 36 hours, including the Reverend Jackson, who flew in from out of town.

In the moments before heading down the gravel road out to the highway and to the rally, Reverend Jackson and the core of the national leadership of BAMN had an exchange of ideas. The BAMN leaders raised with Reverend Jackson the idea of a national march on Washington, DC, in defense of affirmative action and integration; Reverend Jackson agreed and replied that he thought it was necessary to convene a conference at the University of Michigan of student leaders from across the country to discuss what next steps were necessary in the struggle. In the rally that followed, Shanta Driver, the National Organizer of BAMN and the National Coordinator of United for Equality and Affirmative Action (UEAA), the umbrella organization of intervening defendants in the University of Michigan Law School affirmative action case, and Reverend Jackson called for the mutually agreed-upoon two-part plan. From that point forward all conference organizing and preparation was in BAMN's hands. After settling on the June 1-3 weekend, organizing began.

Organizing the Conference: Email and a Long Road Trip

Beginning in early May, four central organizers from the University of Michigan BAMN chapter made a long and fruitful road trip to over a dozen campuses on the eastern seaboard where struggles of various kinds had been developing over the spring semester. They traveled many miles in eleven days, driving long hours crammed in a small Toyota that acquired a brand-new dent in the rear left bumper at a highway rest stop. The integrated team canvassed campuses where students were in struggle around a host of issues: mass struggle against racist threats and murder at Penn State, the occupation of an administration building at Harvard in the fight for decent wages for campus workers, and demonstrations against the racist defacement of a student art project at Columbia University in New York City.

About halfway through this tour of campus struggles, the New York Times took interest in the team's travels and did an interview with a then-sophomore from Detroit at the University of Michigan, Ben Royal. The interview was conducted via cell phone en route from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island to a rally at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The New York Times story of the road trip presented Ben as a wide-eyed idealist youngster striding out into the storm with his knapsack, ready to change the world: while a little embarrassing to Ben, this article was good publicity for the conference.

"We learn to fight,   we fight to learn."   One of the awakenings taking place in the context of this new movement is an intellectual awakening. Upon becoming part of the movement, many students, often bored or generally disinterested in school, take up the fight to learn about the world and about human history with a newfound intensity. This drive for understanding is inseparable from the aspiration to leadership of a new generation. As new leaders develop, they reach out for the tools they need to understand the society and the world, in order to know best how to change it. A vision-impaired conference participant expressed this phenomenon succinctly: "We learn to fight, we fight to learn."

What these four organizers found, and what was also the theme of the New York Times article ("Allow Us to Demonstrate," 13 May 2001), was a new dynamic on the campuses they visited, a new attitude, and a new understanding that collective struggle can change society. Caroline Wong, the road trip team leader, would later describe the students, flushed with the energy and excitement of struggle, as "vibrating." The team found a kind of social energy and the sense of people stepping up to change history on campus after campus.

In addition to the road trip, the other main means of organizing for the conference was the internet. The now shopworn media references to the central role of internet in the new movement are true: we are utilizing internet technology to the fullest. Email is cheap; it relies on the ability of a message to inspire interest and support to get forwarded and spread to large numbers of people. These features are suited to the new movement: its shoestring budget, and its ability to inspire increasing numbers of people to action around the country. As access to the internet grows, this will be even more true. The revolution may not be televised, but it will be on the internet.

The many registration forms being submitted through the BAMN website expressed the positive response to the conference idea. Our email announcement of the conference was forwarded a great deal. People began registering from states all over the country. Satisfying the transportation needs of the conference became a Herculean effort; the effort required and the finances available were in inverse proportion. The shortness of time and money were our two conspicuous hurdles, but bit by bit the conference came together.

 
THE MOVEMENT IN CONFERENCE

 

DAY 1-High School Youth Take the Lead

A cold, drenching rain framed the much-anticipated first morning of the conference.

The first day was focused on mobilizing and organizing high school students. Inside the University of Michigan's student center building, known as the Union, the opening mass plenary session began to assemble. Four very simple, identical posters greeted the eye of attendees, one in the hall outside the conference room, one on the podium and one to each side on the wall behind the podium. They stated simply "A New Civil Rights Movement" with the conference dates, venue and a large photograph of Malcolm X staring straight at the camera. The posters, the high, cathedral-style windows, polished hardwood floors and the gray, rain-filtered daylight set a serious tone for the mass meeting.

By the time the first mass plenary session began, over 400 people from Southeast Michigan and all over the rest of the country filled the room. The majority of the participants were black and other minority high school students. Throughout the session, cars, vans and busses of people from out of town straggled in, exhausted from long hours driving.

Shanta Driver gave a one-hour opening speech that presented the struggle against American racism and inequality in its historical context and motivated the next series of necessary steps for the movement. She spoke on the struggle to abolish slavery and the transformative period from ten years before to ten years after the Civil War, drawing out the fundamental theme of the relationship between struggle and progress in society. Her statement was simultaneously very historical, very political, and thoroughly practical. The assembled conference paid rapt attention to the presentation. The end of her statement was met with prolonged, thrilled applause; many students jumped to their feet, clapping in enthusiasm.

One of the national BAMN leaders, Luke Massie, made a statement motivating two resolutions and the reaffirmation of BAMN's "Youth Declaration for a New Civil Rights Movement" followed Ms. Driver's opening speech. The first resolution called for a national mobilization to Cincinnati, Ohio in late October, 2001 for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing on the University of Michigan affirmative action cases; the second was a petition opposing high-stakes standardized testing designed to be circulated nationally. Following this statement, the mass meeting was opened up for discussion from the floor. Twenty-some people took the microphone at the front of the room, the vast majority of them high school students, but some of them teachers and college students. A strong debate developed on standardized testing. People used their statements in part to work out their arguments for affirmative action out loud and to state their commitment to the growing movement.

Ryan Johnson, a sophomore from Cass Technical High School in Detroit who had attended part of the U of M Law School affirmative action trial, declared that he was more of a leader than federal district court Judge Bernard Friedman, who had ruled against affirmative action in March and had refused the Cass students' invitation to visit their school to see for himself the deplorable conditions at one of Detroit's top schools. The young man declared that anyone who could not look black people in the face was no leader.

At the end of this mass-democratic process we voted. The Resolution for a National Mobilization to Cincinnati received over 400 votes for, none opposed, and 6 abstentions. The petition to end high-stakes standardized testing received over 400 votes for, 3 opposed, and 13 abstentions, and the reaffirmation of the Youth Declaration for a new Civil Rights Movement received over 400 votes for, none opposed, and 3 abstentions. Following these votes and lunch, the Cass Tech Marching Band led a spirited march through Ann Arbor, chanting anti-racist, pro-equality slogans of the new movement. The rain had cleared.

After the march there was a wrap-up rally on U of M's central square, the Diag. From the steps of the Graduate Library, students who had arrived over the course of the day and who hailed from all over the country, spoke briefly about the diverse struggles they had helped to lead. Gary Flowers, the National Field Director of the Rainbow/PUSH organization, greeted the crowd, urging young people to continue the fight and also informing the attendees of Reverend Jackson's absence due to ill health and that Reverend Jackson would address the conference over the phone the following day. Some initial discussion of the basic aims of the movement and of the agenda for the next two days occurred back at the Law School, where the rest of the conference was to take place.

Ivy, Stone and Struggle

Vibrant green ivy, lush trees, flowers and grass envelop the Law School. Hallways of rose-hued gray stone arch into a point at their apex. Strange, antiquated paintings depict categories of crime on stained glass windows that look out on green, flowered courtyards-here "Adultery," there "Robbery," there "Conspiracy." The architectural design of the Law School is meant to reinforce the powerful, moneyed tradition of the elite, to give it a sense of ages of its rule.

Contrasting with the silent austerity of the Law School's stone halls, the conference was a scene of political ferment and dynamism-the spirit of an elitist, moneyed tradition was absent. There were tables of political books and literature, newspapers and flyers. Photos were shown of the struggles at various places-University of California Berkeley, Harvard University, and a whole series from Penn State taken by a talented photographer who had herself been involved in the events. A television with a VCR played a videotape of an enthusiastic mass meeting, rally, and march to reverse the ban on affirmative action in the University of California system that happened on March 8 at the at UC Berkeley. Political discussion and debate raged.

DAY 2-Reports from the Front Line

The Saturday morning session began late, with the conference deciding to start with reports from the actual struggles against racism and for equality that had taken place around the country during the preceding months. Many of Friday's exhausted students were still exhausted, now not from driving long hours but from talking long hours.

Integration of the Movement The three-day event was fully integrated. During the last discussion on Friday, a black woman student from the East Coast made a statement about how personally moving it was for her to see people of different races united in struggle. There were tears in her eyes. A feeling of pride and inspiration and fundamental human dignity comes from standing side-by-side making a common fight. The integration and the democracy of the conference and this new civil rights movement are not static, lifeless categories; they are about movement, struggle, and transformation.

The reports began with BAMN members Hoku Jeffrey and Ronald Cruz, two of the student leaders of the movement at UC Berkeley. Hoku and Ronald described the recent, history-making victory in California of forcing the UC regents to reverse the ban on affirmative action in the UC system; spontaneous applause interrupted the announcement of this victory. As they sat backwards on the desks near the front of the lecture hall, facing the assembled conference, the modesty of their demeanor contrasted with the audacity of the victorious effort they had just led.

The whole recent series of national attacks on affirmative action began with the UC regents' July 1995 vote to ban the use of affirmative action in admissions and employment throughout the University of California system. That originating attack has been forced back and reversed. Hoku and Ronald told of BAMN's collecting 30,000 signatures on a petition to reverse the ban on affirmative action in the UC system, and leading many thousands of students and community members in marches, rallies, mass meetings and days of action. The state that led the nation backward is now set to lead the nation forward.

Next, LaKeisha Wolf, Brian Favors, Joe Dawkins, Chenits Pettigrew, Robin Hoeker, and Charlene Morris from the Penn State Black Caucus gave a report on the events in central Pennsylvania. They told of the racist death threats that black leaders on campus had received and how students had protested the inadequacy of the administration's response to a series of racist murders to which the threats had referred. Trading a microphone back and forth, seated on the desk from which the previous report had been given, the Penn State student leaders related how the Black Caucus had occupied a campus building and how hundreds and hundreds of students of all races had come out in support to form what became known as The Village. They related how students at Penn State have faced a concerted media blackout.

Substantial discussion followed the report, with people relating their thoughts on what had happened and what the new movement could do about it, including the idea of building a demonstration for the Fall and how to break through the media firewall. Students from many of the campuses represented at the conference spoke during this discussion about the struggles at their respective schools. LaShea Hill, student leader representing the NAACP chapter at Wayne State University in Detroit made a moving and memorable contribution when she lamented the fact that the main event her group had organized over the previous year had been a fashion show; she pledged that her NAACP chapter would pursue a more serious, political course. A representative from University of Massachusetts at Amherst told of the elimination of affirmative action by the school administration in absence of any legal or other challenge to the programs and what students were doing about it.

Brown University students Kohei Ishihara, Sarath Suong, Brian Rainey, Maya Pinto, Miyo Tubridy and Kimberly Bowman did a multimedia presentation of the struggle that had developed on their campus over a racist ad in their school paper. They had produced a videotape that included public statements, a soundtrack and clips from the local news coverage of the events.

Velocity of Discussion Because of the conference's shoe-string budget, the bulk of out-of-state students stayed in the co-op of two U of M BAMN members. Living quarters were tight. This facilitated discussion outside of the formal conference. Friday evening there was so much discussion that it took a substantial group of conference attendees 45 minutes to make it from the lawn to the porch of the co-op. Through discussions like these, our new movement is fighting to learn the lessons of the mass struggles of the 1960s and how to take this new movement forward. The discussion inside and outside the conference illustrated the fact that people learn more quickly and deeply in the midst of struggle. The velocity and intensity of discussion is increased when questions are posed in a practical, immediate way.

Caroline Wong gave the University of Michigan presentation. The rapid-fire recounting of events drew out the method of the various interrelated campaigns that the U of M BAMN chapter had led, including a successful fight the previous spring to reverse a five-year drop in minority enrolment. That campaign consisted in collecting 8,652 signatures on a petition that were presented in-person to the president of the university at a rally outside the administration building. Caroline told of the student intervention in the U of M Law School affirmative action case, where, during the trial last winter, the student intervenors put forward an overwhelming and comprehensive case about the role of race and racism in America. The BAMN-led intervention was the first time students have been full defendants in an affirmative action trial, and the first time affirmative action has been defended in court on the basis of overcoming racist inequality and recognizing integration as a compelling state interest.

Two Harvard students, then told part of the story of the occupation of the administration building that had punctuated their spring term. A group of 20-some students sat in to demand decent wages for University employees and in so doing had won the support of a very broad group of people, including many hundreds of students, as well as celebrities and others in the public eye.

These five reports gave a sense of the shift in consciousness that is taking place in American society, starting with students and youth.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke to the assembled conference through a telephone speaker hookup after a late lunch break. He encouraged the conference attendees to build the movement and committed himself to building for the national mobilization to Cincinnati, Ohio, for the Appeals Court hearing of the University of Michigan affirmative action legal cases in late October. After his presentation, he answered several students' questions and had an exchange with Shanta Driver over organizing nationally for Cincinnati.

Two sets of workshops followed the reports and ended the Saturday session of the conference: a workshop by high school students on high school organizing, a discussion of Asian Pacific Americans in the new civil rights movement, more on the struggle at Penn State, a workshop on organizing the homeless, and a presentation on mass organizing. The kind of summer storm that brings early darkness and a loud hush of soaking rain marked the Saturday evening of the conference. There was a poetry slam with spoken word performances and songs at the co-op that night. Scores of people crammed into the hot attic room of the co-op, with the poets using a small people-free area in the center of the audience as their stage. There was a great deal of response and engagement back and forth between the artists and their audience; applause was frequent. Part-way through, the lights in the room were turned out and the performances continued in the dark.

DAY 3-Democracy in Action

Sunday began with BAMN leader Luke Massie making a report. The report motivated the proposed resolutions coming out of the first two days of the conference by drawing some lessons from the origins of the new movement. By looking back at where we have been, we can see where we need to go. He related how, starting at UC Berkeley in 1995, BAMN had focused on the defense of affirmative action, seeing this defense as the key to rebuilding mass struggle and to the entire direction of the society.

Luke emphasized that the question of racism has always been at the center of American history; it has been and is now the axis around which other basic social and political questions tend to revolve. This is true despite the fact that the majority of the population has yet to comprehended it fully, and has thus underestimated the gravity of the question of affirmative action. He said that the fate of affirmative action will determine whether we as a society move forward toward more integration and equality for black, Latina/o and other minority people and for women of all races or backward toward increasing segregation, inequality and bigotry. It is not a coincidence that what began as a measure to actively offset racism and racist inequality was extended to address sexism and sexist inequality in society. Nor is it a coincidence that the defense of affirmative action has been the point of departure for the new phase of mass struggle that is emerging on various fronts.

Luke's report highlighted two key principles: first, mass organizing as the basis of our power to influence events; and second, the necessity of political independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties, school administrations and other official institutions. The principle of mass organizing is expressed in a range of methods, from mass mobilization, such as rallies and marches, to democratic mass meetings, to wide distribution of literature and petitions. Taken together, what this perspective amounts to is a theory of political power, a theory of how to influence events and existing institutions with the power of a mass movement that can itself become a new independent political force aimed at creating a society of real justice and equality.

The new civil rights movement must understand from the start that fighting racism is the key to changing America and that integration and equality cannot be achieved through reliance on litigation, legislation or the power structure of official society-mass struggle is what is needed.

Resolved to Struggle

After this statement opening the last day of the conference, the proposed resolutions were read one by one. Shanta Driver and Luke Massie co-chaired the final session when the resolutions were amended and adopted by democratic vote. The entire conference was fully democratic in a way rarely experienced by people in today's society. Everyone who attended the final day of the conference was moved by seeing mass democracy in action. The power of democracy to unite people in struggle is a profoundly compelling experience.

Most of the votes were passed by an overwhelming majority, one vote was unanimous, and one vote was really close. There were people with many different perspectives and ideas; despite this we were able to come together in a very short amount of time and agree on a common perspective. Many representatives from out of town had to leave by early Sunday afternoon, so we were under a direct time-pressure to make decisions quickly. Through the process a feeling of unity and common cause was created that was unmistakably strong and intense. The spirit of sister- and brotherhood was thick in the air.

The first resolution proposed was the Conference Declaration; it was submitted by BAMN and sums up the sentiment and discussion of the previous two days of the conference. It includes a basic perspective of building the new civil rights movement on a mass, militant, independent and integrated basis; it lays out a basic direction for the coming struggle, including committing the movement "to fight all forms of racism, inequality, oppression and injustice in this society." It pledges to mobilize nationally for Cincinnati in October, to publicize and mobilize support for the struggle at Penn State, to convene another national conference of the movement in November 2001, and to build the new civil rights movement generally. Of the four resolutions proposed for action by the conference on Sunday, this one drew the most debate and amendment.

The discussion on the Conference Declaration was another turning point in the conference. The people at the conference cared very deeply that we come to an agreement on this key resolution, but that in no way inhibited a lively debate. On the contrary, it meant that the basic velocity of the debate increased. Everyone was committed to reaching as much agreement as possible, and everyone knew that their voice would be heard.

An amendment to make independence from the Democratic and Republican Parties explicit was raised by a Green Party supporter but failed by a narrow margin in favor of a less specific statement of the necessity of building the new civil rights movement on an independent basis. The vote on this proposed amendment to the Conference Declaration was the only close vote of the conference. Added to the Conference Declaration was a series of concretizing measures proposed by Harvard student Stephen Smith for staying in touch, organizing the next phase of struggle and reaching out to other high schools and colleges and universities. This passed 91 for, 0 against, 5 abstaining. With agreement reached on this key declaration, the ongoing impact of the conference was guaranteed.

A resolution to form a loose Coordinating Committee, a resolution to abolish the death penalty, and a resolution on organizing Asian Pacific Americans in the new civil rights movement were all passed overwhelmingly and without amendment. The resolution on organizing APA's was passed unanimously; it declares this movement's commitment to fighting anti-Asian racism and to the full participation of APA youth in the struggle.

People leaving the conference felt they had participated in a turning point in history. The Montgomery Bus Boycott, the founding conference of SNCC or the Spring 1963 campaign against segregation in downtown Birmingham must have felt something like this. There was joy, excitement and a touch of eager uncertainty as to what the future will bring.

The statement of a young Chicana student summed up the meaning of the event: "This weekend is the first thing I see a future in that makes me happy." A black student from Penn State said, contemplating the moment carefully, "This is the best day of my life."

Just after the final vote, we joined hands, lifted them into the air and raised a call-and-response chant in unison: ".now, more than ever, we are sisters and brothers."

 

---

Resolutions Adopted at the Conference

Resolution for a National Mobilization to Cincinnati, Ohio to Coincide with the Circuit Court Appeal of the University of Michigan Affirmative Action Legal Cases

Over 400 voted For, 0 Against, 6 Abstaining - June 1, 2001.

The attack on affirmative action over the last 6 years has led to the creation of a new civil rights movement. This movement has taken a stand in defense of affirmative action at the University of Michigan.

The University of Michigan Law School affirmative action trial that began on January 16, 2001, was the first full trial on affirmative action in higher education where high school and university students have been independent defendants. At trial, the student intervenors put on a comprehensive and powerful case consisting of 15 of the total of 23 witnesses called in the entire case.

Conservative District Court judge Bernard Friedman ignored the evidence put before him at trial in order to reach a sweeping, ideological anti-affirmative action decision in the case.

In October 2001 the University of Michigan affirmative action legal cases will go in front of the Sixth Circuit court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio.

These cases are headed for the US Supreme Court and will determine the legal standing of affirmative action in higher education and throughout society.

This conference will mobilize nationally to Cincinnati, Ohio in October to demand that the Appeals Court uphold affirmative action as measures to offset the racist and sexist inequality of our society.

 
Petition to End High-Stakes Standardized Testing

Over 400 voted For, 3 Against, 13 Abstaining - June 1, 2001.

High-stakes standardized tests reflect and amplify the social inequalities of race, class and gender in our society.

High-stakes standardized tests tend to deform and circumscribe the subject matter of education, undermining both student and teacher creativity and forcing teachers to "teach to the test".

Standardized testing makes it more difficult for teachers to be innovative and creative and to tailor teaching to the needs of individual students.

High-stakes standardized tests reward rote memorization and minimize critical thinking.

High-stakes standardized tests further stratify students and schools into artificial ranks and orders.
The right-wing trend toward increased use of high-stakes standardized tests is an attack on the fundamental idea of equality of opportunity for all.

Tying the disbursement of resources to student test scores further erodes the resources in the poorest, most troubled schools and rewards relative privilege with more privilege.

Standardized tests do not measure merit or intelligence or human worth.

Standardized test scores correlate most strongly, not with any question of merit, but with the relative privileges of race and socioeconomic status and amount to a means of rationalizing preferences for certain racial and class privileges.

We, the undersigned supporters of the new civil rights movement, call for an immediate end to high-stakes standardized testing.

Conference Declaration

91 voted For, 0 Against, 5 Abstaining - June 3, 2001.

The first National Student/Youth Conference To Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Struggle for Equality, sponsored by the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and United for Equality and Affirmative Action (UEAA) convened in Ann Arbor, Michigan from June 1-3, 2001, is committed to building the new national, youth-led, mass, militant, integrated civil rights movement.

Our aim is to build broad and popular struggle to defeat the attacks on affirmative action and to fight all forms of racism, inequality, oppression and injustice in this society. We understand that building the new independent civil rights movement is necessary to transform American society, and to win equality and justice for all.

The May 16, 2001 reversal of the University of California (UC) Regents' ban on affirmative action proved that the new independent, youth-led civil rights movement can defeat the attack on affirmative action and can reshape the political landscape of this nation. We have to power to define the direction in which this nation moves, but only if we organize on an independent basis. The struggles to defend affirmative action and integration provide the basis for changing every aspect of the educational system and every other social institution in this society. As the new movement grows in numbers, strength and clarity, it will become possible to redress inequalities in educational funding and the growing resegregation of education, to explode the myth of meritocracy, to end the use of high-stakes standardized testing to determine educational opportunity, and to change the fundamental nature, substance, and goals of the whole educational system. Education must be based on the truth. The student intervenor-defendants' case in the University of Michigan Law School trial brought the truth about the central role of racism and the struggle to oppose it to an extensive public audience.

The student intervenors' defense of affirmative action in the University of Michigan Law School trial held between January 16 and February 16, 2001 explained the centrality of race and racism to the development of the social, economic, political and ideological foundation of this nation. The students proved that integration and the struggle for black equality is essential to social progress. In March 2001, thousands of white students and youth who were convinced by the students' case joined black, Latino, Asian-American, and other minority students to protest the Federal District Judge Bernard Friedman's reactionary, racist and sexist decision outlawing the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action policies-a decision now appealed to the Sixth Federal Circuit Court in Cincinnati.

The struggle to defend affirmative action and integration has helped to spark an increase in anti-racist mass struggle during the last two years. In South Carolina, more than 50,000 people turned out to remove the Confederate Flag from the State Capitol Building. In Florida, Jeb Bush's anti-affirmative action One Florida initiative provoked the largest civil rights rally in Florida's history, which in turn sparked mass opposition to the denial of voting rights to Florida's black electorate during the last presidential election in November 2000. The urban youth uprising in Cincinnati, Ohio this spring made clear that police brutality, racism and poverty, will lead to growing social struggle and unrest. Local high school and university campus struggles this spring signal the growth of a new student movement.

The aim of this conference is to bring forward a new generation of young leaders, to unite and lead this new national civil rights movement. We stand on the principle that through joint action and struggle, political education and discussion, and democratic debate and decision-making, we can build a new independent youth-based civil rights movement.

We pledge to:

• Organize a national mobilization for Cincinnati, Ohio in October 2001 in support of affirmative action and integration (See attached resolution).
• Organize locally and nationally to break the press blackout on the three racist murders and ongoing campaign of death threats that have occurred at Penn State University. We must publicize the strength of the integrated student struggle at Penn State and the broad national support for the Penn State students. We will do everything possible to realize Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow/PUSH pledge to organize a national demonstration at Penn State University for the Fall of 2001.
• We will publicize and support progressive high school, university, and local struggles.
• Convene a second National Student/Youth Conference To Defend Affirmative Action And Integration And Struggle For Equality in November 2001.
• Form and maintain an interactive website and email network with three purposes:
• Uniting our struggles through updates and an on-line newsletter
• Collecting and disseminating relevant research, information, and tactics
• Presenting a public face for our movement
• Actively recruit new universities, students and struggles to this movement.
• Support and coordinate sending delegations from our member schools to hold forums and do presentations across the country for the purposes of spreading the word and building the movement.
• Continue the vibrant debate and discussion in order to define, refine and direct our dynamic movement.

 
Resolution to Establish a Coordinating Committee of the First National Student/Youth Conference to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Struggle for Equality

81 voted For, 0 Against, 6 Abstaining - June 3, 2001.

This conference will establish a coordinating committee comprised of representatives from every organization in attendance at the conference and open to representatives from any organization that supports the conference's decisions.

The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action & Integration, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) will maintain communication among all members of the coordinating committee and convene the second National Student/Youth Conference to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration and Struggle for Equality in November 2001.

Resolution to Abolish the Death Penalty

83 voted For, 2 Against, 7 Abstaining, June 3, 2001.

Acknowledging that the criminal justice system is inherently biased and racist,

Noting that police brutality, the prison industrial complex, abuse within prisons against youth, women and lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender individuals and all forms of injustice within the criminal justice system must be stopped,

Further noting that the death penalty is the execution of the irreversible final step of a corrupt judicial process; corrupt by virtue of the classist and therefore inherently racist nature of the US injustice system,

Understanding that in order to rectify the inequalities within the criminal justice system we must actively organize

This conference calls for the abolition of the death penalty and all forms of injustice within the criminal justice system.

 
Resolution passed at the Organizing Asian Americans workshop

90 voted For, 0 Against, 0 Abstaining - June 3, 2001.

This conference will develop materials to tell the truth about the history of struggles of the different Asian Pacific American communities, especially Southeast Asians and other underrepresented Asian Pacific Americans, and material that explains how affirmative action and building a civil rights movement benefits and furthers the rights of all Asian and Asian Pacific Americans.

We call for affirmative action for all underrepresented Asians and Asian Pacific Americans.

 

---

Youth Declaration for a New Civil Rights Movement

Adopted overwhelmingly at the BAMN High School Student Mass Meeting, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 19, 2000; BAMN High School/Middle School Student Mass Meeting, Berkeley, California, October 26, 2000.

1. We call for a new, mass, independent, integrated civil rights movement to fight for equal, quality education for all, including the defense of affirmative action and integration.

2. The history of the past struggle for equality is a history of brave struggles by youth for their own futures. In the spring of 1963, the defiant courage of black teenage youth in Birmingham, Alabama made victory possible in the campaign led by Martin Luther King that set the stage for the great August 1963 March on Washington. Over and over throughout the 1960s, black and other antiracist teenage and younger youth were the often unsung heroes of the movements for equality and justice.

3. Despite the decisive role youth played in making it possible for the past movements to win victories, senior movement leaders did not usually recognize youth as leaders in their own right. Youth were usually not included when leaders met to make key decisions. This failure inevitably contributed to the limitation of the gains won by these movements and the fact that now so many of those gains have been reversed or are under attack.

4. As the people whose future is most at stake, high-school and middle-school youth will be at the forefront of any new movement for equal educational opportunities.

5. For this new civil rights movement to win, youth will also have to be recognized and respected as part of the leadership of the movement and be included in democratic discussion of the development of the movement's policies, tactics, and strategy.

6. For victory to be possible, the character of the new civil rights movement will have to be determined by the boldness and idealism of the youth, not the cynicism and despair of a tired-out older generation.

7. In our schools, we are victims of all the inequalities and discrimination of American society as well as overcrowded classes, under funded programs, and inadequate facilities. Middle-school and high-school students also have to deal with the problems of being disrespected by adults and fears of the curiosity, creativity, and sexuality of young women and men. As part of the new movement, youth will lead struggles in their schools for equal, quality education for all; for student rights; and for the dignity of youth.

8. Children and youth are the most vulnerable victims of poverty, inequality, and discrimination. Teenagers and older youth are the main victims of police profiling, harassment, and brutality. Youth fighting for their rights in schools will also become leaders of struggles for justice in their communities.

9. Young women and men will be fully equal, mutually respected partners in building the new movement.

10. In the new movement black, Latina/o, Arab, Asian, other-minority, and white youth will unite in an integrated, intransigent fight against racism and all forms of bigotry and discrimination. The new movement will also break down the divisions between inner-city and suburban and rural schools in a common struggle for improved education for all.

11. With a relentless desire to stand on the truth, the youth activists of the new civil rights movement will reject the lies and hypocrisy of an older generation of politicians and sellout leaders.

12. We declare our commitment to build and lead the fight for our own futures by whatever methods are necessary in order to win. We will not sell out, and we will not give up.

 

---

New BAMN Principles

Principles of The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN)

Adopted October 19, 2000 at the BAMN mass meeting and conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. (115 votes for, 0 against, 1 abstaining)

1. BAMN is a mass, democratic, integrated, national organization dedicated to building a new mass civil rights movement to defend affirmative action, integration, and the other gains of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and to advance the struggle for equality in American society by any means necessary.

2. BAMN will consist of local BAMN groups, other independent organizations that choose to affiliate or otherwise associate themselves with BAMN, and individuals who declare their support for BAMN's principles and express this support in action consistent with these principles.

BAMN groups will include independent community, labor, campus, high-school, middle-school, youth, and other political and activist organizations that endorse the principles of BAMN, conduct their internal business democratically, and commit themselves in action to the achievement of BAMN's aims.

3. BAMN is committed to making real America's founding declaration that "all men are created equal." Real equality of rights and opportunities for women and for disadvantaged black, Latina/o, Native American, Asian Pacific American, Arab American, and other minorities requires active, positive measures, a national policy of affirmative action. American society can overcome its fundamental inequalities only if positive measures are taken to transform it into what it should be.

4. BAMN is committed to making real the ideal of "government of the people, by the people, for the people." But democracy, too, must be a sham as long as the fundamental inequalities of poverty, racism, and sexism deform the relations of political power along with access to educational and economic opportunities. Here again, America can only become what it should be through a national policy of affirmative action.

5. BAMN recognizes that history has made clear that the positive measures, the affirmative action necessary to achieve genuine equality and real democracy will require the victory of the struggles of a new, independent integrated civil rights movement committed to fight for these aims by any means necessary. As Americans committed to saving our society from the evils of racism and sexism, we understand that racism and sexism are so deeply a part of the structure and institutions of American society that only the growing power of a new mass movement can uproot them.

6. BAMN defends the integration plans that were the decisive first fruit of the previous generation of civil rights struggles. We recognize that the attack on affirmative action has been accompanied by a less well publicized but even more dangerous series of right-wing attacks on integration plans in American public schools, even where these plans have been most successful and have had the widespread support of minority and white parents and students alike.

7. BAMN sees the attack on affirmative action and integration-policies that in practice have benefitted people of both sexes and all races-as a fundamental attack on the democratic character of American society itself.

This is true, in the first place, because of the intrinsic importance of the actual policies under attack as very modest steps in the direction of equality of opportunities for women and disadvantaged minorities. But it is also true because the victory of the opponents of affirmative action and integration will set the stage for a broader and deeper attack not only on the gains of the past civil rights movement but on the democratic rights won through the mass struggles of the labor movement of the 1930s and the youth, women's, and lesbian/gay movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

8. BAMN will employ whatever means are necessary to oppose and defeat these attacks on the democratic and egalitarian aspirations and struggles of our people. Specifically, BAMN will employ the methods of independent mass organizing and struggle, of mass education and action, of democratic discussion and decision-making, of telling the truth and only the truth, of rooting our fights in the courts or in elections in the growing movement on the streets, of building the leadership of the disenfranchised and oppressed.

9. BAMN will be independent of the Democrats and Republicans and of governments and school and university administrations. In any elections, BAMN will consider supporting only those candidates, slates, and parties whose support for affirmative action and the struggle of the new movement for equality is explicit and unequivocal.

10. Confident in the capacity of a new movement to learn, grow, fight, and win, BAMN rejects cynicism and despair.

11. BAMN rejects the principle of "separate but equal" as one of the great lies of American history. We will oppose every measure aimed at the resegregation of American society.

12. BAMN rejects biological determinism and its pseudoscientific ideological explanations of the inequalities of modern society.

13. BAMN rejects all claims that the inequalities of race and gender and the oppression of racism and sexism can be adequately explained as natural or inevitable consequences of human nature, original sin, biological destiny, or the supposed deficiencies of various ethnic cultures.

The inequalities of race and gender in American society are a result of the actual history of that society. Racism and sexism are expressions of the actual inequalities of wealth, power, and status that characterize the society that have developed through that history. Our aim should be to understand that history in order to end those unequal relations of power and privilege, not to invent theories to rationalize passive submission.

14. BAMN will expose the falsehoods of the baseless and arrogant attempts to use standardized tests to define merit or intelligence or human dignity. We recognize that such inevitably biased tests correlate most strongly, not with any question of merit, but with the relative privileges or disadvantages of race and socioeconomic status and amount to a means of rationalizing preferences for certain racial and class privileges.

15. BAMN stands proudly in the tradition of the great abolitionist, civil rights, and antiracist movements of the past, critically studying, learning from, and developing the lessons of the struggles of our heroic forebears. We look especially to the towering figure of Frederick Douglass ("If there is no struggle there is no progress"), and, as representative leaders of the 1960s, Martin Luther King ("The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges"), and Malcolm X ("action on all fronts by whatever means necessary").

16. BAMN will base itself on the new movement as it develops, viewing its tasks from the standpoint of the oppressed and the poor, not the privileged elite. While maintaining its independence and not shirking the duty of leadership or yielding the right of criticism and the obligation to tell the truth, BAMN will work hard to build any alliance that can help make the new, independent movement broader and more powerful.

17. BAMN defends the rights and dignity of immigrants against the divisive, racist, and chauvinist attacks that have deformed American political life over and over again throughout our nation's history.

18. BAMN sees itself as part of a reawakening international mass movement against racism and fascism and for equal rights and opportunities. We will develop links with antiracist and proequality movements outside the US in order to help where we can and in order to learn from the struggles of our sisters and brothers in other nations.

19. BAMN will fight for the democratic election of leaders of movement bodies; for the direct accountability of all leaders to the new movement; and for democratic discussion and decision-making in all the meetings and bodies of the new movement.

20. BAMN will be an organization in which strong women leaders play a fully equal role in all its work. BAMN will be built by women and male leaders inspired by the examples of the heroic women leaders of the abolitionist and civil rights movements-courageous fighters like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Ella Baker and Fanny Lou Hamer. BAMN will fight for the equal leadership role of women in the new mass movement.

21. BAMN will be an organization in which black, Latina/o, Native American, Asian Pacific American, Arab American, and other minority leaders play a full and prominent role. We will fight for full integration of the leadership of the new movement.

22. In any new movement, youth must play a decisive role. BAMN will be an organization of idealistic and brave youth, fighting for a future of genuine equality and justice for all.