In the hottest summer in 120,000 years, the restless hearts of people have been stifled. People have been too silent as maga-tons of virulent white supremacy have been hurled from the “bully pulpits” of Trump and DeSantis, fascist country singers, racist police, and the howling of aggrieved white people who want “their AMERIKKKA” back again. So the courageous and spirited picture of Black people standing together to take on a pontoon of good ole boys has been cause for some needed uplift and celebration.

For 45 minutes on Montgomery, Alabama’s riverfront, on Saturday, August 5, the riverboat Harriott II tried to dock while a boat of racist white people refused to move. As the people aboard the Harriott II chanted “Get Out the Way,” the ship’s co-captain took a small boat ashore to tell the white people their pontoon had to be moved. When the good ole boys refused, the co-captain Damian Pickett, who is Black, moved their pontoon so the riverboat could dock and the 273 passengers aboard could get off. The white people then proceeded to assault Damian, knocking him to the ground and pummeling him with kicks and fists while spewing racist slurs and threatening to kill him. At that point, a 16-year-old member of the crew jumped off the riverboat and swam to the rescue—followed by members of the crew and bystanders who also came to the rescue and engaged in some righteous self-defense.

Since then, the confrontation has been memorialized in viral videos, with many set to music and pictures of Damian Pickett throwing his hat in the air to signal “enough is enough.” The now famous folding chair has been memorialized in memes where it is set in the arms of the two athletes who gave the Black power salute at the 1968 Olympics and in the hands of the statue of MLK that sits on the National Mall.

As one columnist put it, the unquestioned hero was the 16-year-old who first dove in to swim to the rescue—defying the myths that Black people won’t fight back and can’t swim in one bold stroke.

An Ugly History… but What Is the Future?

Not lost on people who know the history of Alabama is the symbolism of the very riverfront where this incident took place. Montgomery was one of the principal slave trading centers where hundreds of Black human beings per day were auctioned off as property, along with land and livestock. The dock where this incident took place sits on the edge of Commerce Street where slaves were unloaded and packed like cattle into warehouses and then paraded to auction. At least 164 slave traders were licensed—their offices lining Commerce Street where the wealth of the United States was built upon the commercial sale of human beings that also fueled the development of capitalism as a system of exploitation and the systemic subjugation of Black people.

A Righteous Example

This expression of people standing up and coming to the rescue is a much-needed example of people not standing by while our people, not just Black people but oppressed people everywhere, are being brutalized. It stands out on the current political terrain where far too many people are passively going along, putting their heads down into “me and mine,” and tuning out the world—all the while that the fascists itching for a civil war are on the offensive across the country. So, yes, it does the heart some good to see a video like this—instead of people helplessly videotaping the wanton brutality and murder by gangs of police and of depraved racists like those who murdered Ahmaud Arbery—which people have had to watch over and over and over again.

But It’s NOT Enough…

But let’s also be for real—even a billion retweets are not going to stop all this when all the signs of civil war are looming. It’s not enough! The random white boaters who felt emboldened to try and beat down the co-captain of a riverboat with hundreds of people on board did not just feel the history of the Confederacy at their back—they felt the backing of powerful forces at the top of society, who are willing to use everything at their disposal to forcefully impose their passion for “restoring America.” Restoring it back to even more violently enforced white supremacy, brutal male supremacy, ugly persecution of LGBTQ people, hatred of immigrants, the so-called “superiority of Western civilization” and the disregard of any facts or reality that would restrain them.

“This situation needs to be radically changed, to where there are masses of people prepared to defeat these fascists and to do so as part of getting rid of this whole system, which has bred these fascists, along with all the other horrors it continually perpetrates.” (A Declaration, A Call to Get Organized Now for a Real Revolution, from the revcoms)

Getting Organized to Fight for Real… and a REAL Revolution

If this example of standing up is to count, this willingness to fight that is essential has to contribute to and be organized on a whole different level around the leadership and strategy for revolution—a revolution that could not just pull up at long last the roots of white supremacy but bring into being a fundamentally different system and a whole new way to live.

Yes, we are talking about a real revolution—where the existing capitalist-imperialist system and its institutions are abolished and dismantled—and replaced by a new socialist system based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

In WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM, the point is made that this new system will do the following:

Eliminating Discrimination, Inequality, and Oppression in Every Form

In the new socialist society, eliminating all the oppressive divisions that characterized the old society—including oppression based on nationality and race, sex and gender—will be a fundamental goal and of the highest priority. Special attention and resources will be devoted to overcoming the terrible legacy of slavery and genocide, and the continual discrimination and brutal degradation, to which Black people, Native Americans, Latinos and other people of color have been subjected throughout the history of the USA. Immigrants, from all parts of the world, who have a sincere desire to contribute to goals of the new socialist republic will be welcome in this republic. The rights of LGBT people and of women, including the fundamental rights to abortion and birth control, are guaranteed in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America and will be protected and enforced by the government of that new socialist republic. As emphasized in this Constitution, the oppression of women arose together with, and for thousands of years has been woven together with, relations among human beings based on exploitation, and this is a defining feature of the capitalist-imperialist USA. Abolishing and uprooting all this will be one of the most important objectives of the new revolutionary society based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

Time to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution

This is what the Revolution Clubs exist for—to make revolution at a time when the chances for revolution are more possible… not in some far-off future, but in this period. At a time when society is being pulled apart, we can’t allow ourselves to side with either the Democrats or the Republicans; we can’t be about saving this capitalist system, we need to be abolishing it.

As the most important revolutionary leader and thinker in the world today, Bob Avakian, has laid out the strategy and roadmap for being able to win in this rare time of deep divisions and acute crisis:

[T]here is plenty that calls, urgently, for great courage and boldness in doing what needs to be done: to be part of rising up against this system and getting ready to go all the way with revolution as soon as the time is right—and, as an important part of that, supporting, and defending, people who are constantly being subjected to unjust attacks on their rights and their very being….

All these attacks on people and their rights need to be powerfully opposed, and people on the good side of this need to be actively protected and defended, where they are assaulted with threats and even outright physical attacks.(from  Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed. A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution, emphasis added)

If you are serious and dream of a different world, if you have a fighting spirit, then YOU need to get with the revcoms—NOW.