On February 5, the Revolution Club in L.A. hosted a fundraising Future People Open Mic to contribute to the current $100,000 Fund Drive for putting revolution on the map in 2023. It was a great evening of powerful and moving poetry and art, and people just speaking out about the atrocities of this system and revolution and responding in very heartfelt ways to each other. People were together lifting their sights to another way the world could be, including watching a clip from the Bob Avakian Interviews about the importance of a poetic spirit and appreciating beauty in order to lead a new society. And they were really appreciating each other as most were coming together for the first time and doing something they’d never done before. It was a small, but very meaningful gathering where some people stayed together talking for hours afterwards about big questions and problems of the revolution. We raised $216 towards the fund drive, and two people bought the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

The Open Mic was conceived of at the beginning of the year as a cultural event and fundraiser, but took shape in the context of a rolling jolt through society, as, first, three people were killed by LAPD in January and then the murder of Tyre Nichols tore inside the hearts of people across the country, followed by the murder of Anthony Lowe in L.A. And it took shape on a terrain of sharpening attacks on women and people rising up against that around the world. It came together involving people who are newly stepping into the revolution—a young shy poet and skateboarder who watched the BA Interviews and decided he wants to, as he said at the open mic, put his time and money into something that is about changing the world… a high school student who led walkouts for abortion rights before the court decision crushing those rights and loves art and is drawn to striving for a better world… a junior high student who just met the revolution after the murder of Tyre Nichols and jumped into a planning meeting right away because she said she studied history and slavery and always wanted to be part of a revolution… a woman trained as a teacher who recently joined the Revolution Club after hearing a segment from Bob Avakian on the radio about the murders by police and making it our mission to put revolution on the map. This committee of people collectively took responsibility for envisioning and building for the event, with some helping to host it.

The Open Mic was opened with a welcome and someone reading a quote from Bob Avakian’s book BAsics that was highlighted on the Open Mic flyer and invitation, which starts with, “Let’s imagine if we had a whole different art and culture. Come on, enough of this ‘bitches and ho’s’ and SWAT teams kicking down doors. Enough of this ‘get low’ bullshit. And how come it’s always the women that have to get low? We already have a situation where the masses of women and the masses of people are pushed down and held down low enough already. It’s time for us to get up and get on up.” The Points of Attention for the Revolution were read and pointed to as the kind of world we are fighting to bring into being and the kind of culture we are there to forge as part of doing that.

Two moving and deep poems were read by a high school teacher who brought her mom and her daughter—poems that drew connections through history of the oppression of Black people and gave expression to the yearning and need for revolution and a new world. The shy poet who was part of the host committee broke new ground in reading his poem and speaking to the audience—something he had never done before.

Other poems and art spoke viscerally to the violence against and dehumanization of women throughout the world and gave expression to rebellion against that and fighting to be free of this everywhere. This included a poem written by a member of the National Get Organized For an ACTUAL Revolution Tour inspired by the women in Iran. It also included a picture of a drawing of Malala Yousafzai done by the junior high student on the host committee. She wasn’t able to come, but sent the picture and comments to be read about why she drew it, telling how Malala stood up for girls in Pakistan who were violently being prevented from going to school and was shot for it but recovered and continued to protest.

Midway through the open mic Maria Ortiz spoke. She had come with her daughters to tell people about the murder of her son by police and ask for help in demanding justice. She held a hand-drawn image of her son, Edgar Ortiz, who was 32 years old and a father of seven when he was shot to death by police last March in front of her home. She told how he was shot running from them, and he ran because he was terrified from being previously brutalized, and she told the story of that incident of brutality. How she had called the police for help when he was having a schizophrenic episode and they came and five cops jumped on him and were beating him while he was saying he couldn’t breathe. She told how at that time her daughter stepped into the middle of this and when police threatened to shoot her she said shoot me, I’m not moving until you get off of my brother and then others nearby also stepped forward to help.

Maria thanked everyone for listening to her story and asked people to help her fight for justice. Everyone had tears in their eyes and one person got up on the mic to express her condolences and say, “That’s why I’m here, so that won’t happen to others.”

Throughout the Open Mic, the MCs gave people a sense of how this is part of bringing forward a revolutionary people and seizing on the rare time we’re in when revolution is more possible to build up the forces for making revolution to really bring into being a whole new society. At the end, Revolution Club national spokesperson Noche Diaz lifted people’s sights to aiming for that new society and called on people to step into this and be part of forging a force that is transforming the thinking of the people and defending the people as part of getting ready for revolution—and then performed a soaring poem he’d written.

When the event ended, some stayed around for hours talking with each other in a rare atmosphere where people who had just met each other talked as if they’d known each other for years. People talked about all kinds of things, but including big questions of how this system of capitalism-imperialism really works and why it needs to be overthrown, what is the current lineup of the divide in this country and what does it mean and look like to work on “repolarizing” for revolution, what new experiences people have had in beginning to step into the revolution and what questions they’ve encountered—including what is up with the attacks on Bob Avakian and how are we taking this on, and thinking about what it looks like to forge a force that is willing to put their own bodies on the line to prevent brutality and murder by police and fascists.

There’s a lot to learn from this experience and the next open mic is already in the works.