Detroit participants in the March 4 demonstration and rally to defend public education. The demonstration called for the restoration of all funding cuts in public education and an end to privatization.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
October 7th has been declared the next national day of action to defend public education. The organizers for the March 4 national day have continued to organize since March 4 to make October 7th as dynamic as the previous mobilization. On March 4th tens of thousands of students, faculty, teachers and other education workers, along with workers from many sectors, community organizers and parents took to the streets against the budget cuts, layoffs, furloughs, tuition increases and attacks against public education in general.
The announcement and planning for the October 2nd One Nation Working Together march on Washington, addressing the massive unemployment, especially amongst people of color and youth, the attacks on undocumented workers and students and calling for the money spent on war and incarceration to be spent on social needs is inspiring.
The call for the October 2 2010 march for jobs on Washington is merely 5 days before the nationally coordinated days of action to defend public education on October 7th. To have two such events within days of one another highlights the importance, especially during this time of severe crisis and the passing of austerity budgets, of mass mobilizations to win importance gains, but also to push back against right-wing racist elements that confuse working people into fighting one another.
We would like to propose to the organizers, the youth and student movement, the labor movement and all progressives that there be a contingent led by students and young people. We are proposing that contingent march through the streets of Washington D.C., from the Labor Department to the Justice Department and ending up at the main rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
The crisis that working people and students are facing is prolonged. There has been no relief offered for the millions of unemployed and struggling poor, conditions which are much more acute in communities of color. Any shift in priorities, away from war, the criminalization of workers, militarization of the border—the hundreds of billions spent on these anti poor and anti worker endeavors and the billions more spent to bail out the banks, to a massive spending on infrastructure, on a real jobs program, rebuilding the public sector and on public education will require a peoples, movement.
We, the organizers of the National October 7th Adhoc Committee invite all student organizers, community member, activists and workers to join us for the student/community/labor contingent/feeder march as we make important progressive demands and seek to build a stronger alliance as we struggle together.
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