New York City, May First Photo: revcom.us
On May 1, Revolution Books (RB) in New York City hosted an Internationalist Revolutionary Celebration. A group of older, retired Black people who come out of the 1960s struggles of Black folk in the U.S. came together to take responsibility for an inspiring fundraiser for May 1. In different ways, they all are looking to and want to see a revolution happen here. They are RB supporters who have been especially active around various fundraising projects over the past several years, especially cooking food, for RB and the movement for revolution.
An idea for a fundraiser for the revcoms’ $25,000 fund campaign leading up to May 1 came from a Revolution Books supporter who had recently done a Soul Food Fundraiser for Revolution Books, selling dinners in Brooklyn at a pop-up space donated by a small business in the community. She proposed we do a fundraiser for May 1, a team of four was forged, and over just five days the whole effort came together. (Watch her "thank you" video for the Revolution Books Soul Food benefit here.)
There was struggle from the beginning, good struggle over what the project would be, how to raise funds and bring people on board for the revolution. We decided to change the initial idea of selling dinners outside Revolution Books while the May 1 celebration was going on, to instead bringing the dinner entirely inside as an important part of the celebration itself so the returning marchers, the dinner team members, and everyone who came could all be part of it.
We were wrestling together to get more deeply into questions on the team about the need and the possibility for revolution, versus just their role being to make and serve the food. From there a strong collective process resulted in preparing 50 meals of barbecue chicken, macaroni and cheese and coleslaw, with a vegetarian alternative, and as people poured in from the march they were greeted by the team that had come together, with a full setup of delicious dinners. So instead of fundraising by selling dinners outside, a powerful fundraising pitch was done at the event, and overall at the celebration, over $600 was raised.
Along the way, in planning the dinners we watched and discussed a clip from The Bob Avakian Interviews, “How Do the Forces for Revolution Grow?” to dig into a question the crew has been getting into: “You can't make a revolution with such small numbers of people—how do we get more people?” We decided to watch the clip from the Bob Avakian Interviews together and dig into what the leader of the revolution had to say about this. Bam! This became a driving force for lifting heads, and solving problems.
Bob Avakian Answers People Who Say: “Revolution Sounds Good but It Ain’t Gonna Happen”
The conversation began to change as the group began to wrestle with the importance of taking science to the people. One woman loved the story Bob Avakian (BA) told about the Progressive Labor Party who embellished the truth and told lies to the people, hoping the people would just step in. This brought a smile to her face. No BS! No BS! Tell people the truth, she said. Don't hide that the revolution is small right now and working to grow.
Other questions we wrestled with were what this revolution is for—that we don't have to live this way, no more murder of Black and Brown people by police, destruction of the planet, forced motherhood, our people killing each other, that our people are the people all over the world—thinking about the people from Pakistan to the continent of Africa. We can raise funds from the people for the revolution to end all that. What was the importance of actively recruiting for the revolution—how would that happen in conjunction with the dinners. All of this and more was taken up, struggling through together to forge a new thing for May 1—a collective resolve to not only raise the necessary funds to put revolution on the map, but to do this as part of struggling for people to step into the revolution.
Raymond Lotta speaks at the celebration at Revolution Books, after May First march. Photo: Special to revcom.us
The day before May Day, the team interrupted preparations to read together the statement We Are the Revcoms. We read it aloud and people gave their first thoughts—speaking to how important it is to have "what this revolution is all about" spreading all over society so many more people can get involved and the people for revolution can go from small numbers to large. Folks know this CAN happen because they saw it with the Black Panther Party, but what does "fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution" in the statement mean? What is the "fighting" that is talked about here? "I know revolutions are always going to have some violence but how does it not just be fighting and chaos?" Getting into how We Are the Revcoms addresses this in a very beginning way moved people to be more determined and glad to make the dinner part of the May Day celebration contribute to getting this statement and the revolution on the map!
When the team stepped to the front of the celebration during the fund pitch to be acknowledged, there was deep appreciation in the room for what they had done.
