Houston: Pouring into the Streets, Taking Over Intersections
November 26, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
Tuesday, November 25--People poured into the streets, taking over intersections, confronting police, and marching for more than four hours. People had been called by various forces to gather at McGregor Park at 5 pm the day after the grand jury decision. The park is part of the Black community but also near two major universities. The crowd quickly swelled to around 300, who marched into a major intersection to block traffic. After blocking the intersection for some time, people marched to the University of Houston campus, where protesters eventually grew to 600-700, before taking off into another section of the neighborhood where they passed a major housing project and the historically Black Texas Southern University (TSU). The deeper they went, the more tense and defiant things got. People poured out of their houses to check it out, many grabbed copies of Carl Dix’s statement, “AmeriKKKa must come to a halt…”, and copies of Revolution newspaper.
The crowd consisted of many young people of different nationalities, many conscious that youths had to take this up. There was a sense among many that there needs to be a combination of the experience of older activists with the fresh perspective of the younger generation.
As things got deeper into the neighborhood, the police got more aggressive, with many of the protesters determined to take it higher and block Highway 288, as people had done for Trayvon Martin, and the police were determined to prevent it. The perspective of different forces broke out over what needed to be done, with some trying to cool things out, others wanting to take it higher, and some people trying to split people off and leave.
After a series of intense confrontations, with demonstrators sitting down in an intersection, attempting to push through police horse lines and the burning of an Amerikkkan rag, people made their way to the TSU campus and finished there with a rally.
This was a big militant, diverse, and determined protest, one of the largest here in recent memory, and people are determined to continue and build off the day.
In the days leading up to this, revolutionaries were out in the very same neighborhood and on the campus building for resistance. Several university students responded to the call to come out to a corner by the housing projects the day before the big march. There is a real need and basis to bring forward a number of these young fighters, and there is a real sense among these youths that finally the dam has broken and people are standing up.
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