“If this were the only thing wrong with this system, it would be more than enough reason to sweep it off the earth!” Leo from the Revcom Corps Chicago, quoting Bob Avakian 

On July 6, 36 year-old Sonya Massey was shot in the face and murdered by a Springfield, Illinois pig. When a video showing her cold-blooded execution was shown, people in Springfield, across Illinois, and throughout the country were outraged. Yet another Black person gunned down by marauding, murdering cops! As Revolution wrote last week: “Heartless pigs enforcing a heartless system.  REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!!”

On July 26, THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity held a speak-out denouncing the murder of Sonya Massey outside the Revolution Organizing Center in Chicago’s South Side, one of the largest centers of Black people in the U.S. When Leo spoke the words at the top of this article, he and another member of the Revcom Corps stood surrounded by people holding up signs with photos of people killed by police. They were facing a large array of TV cameras and reporters, and news of it was aired on all the local TV stations that night.

The speak-out was MCed by another member of the Revcom Corps, who also led people in chants: “From the slave catchers, to the KKK, to the killer cops of the modern day, convict the cops and keep them in jail, the whole damn system is guilty as hell”; “Say her name, Sonya Massey”; and “No More! Stop Killing Us!”

Going around the neighborhood around the Revolution Center, revolutionaries found that almost everyone we reached had seen the video of Sonya getting shot in the face by a Springfield pig, after she had called 911, fearing a prowler. People’s outrage was palpable.

Several people spoke at the rally. They included a neighborhood resident and small business person who held a photo of Paul O’Neal, a young man he helped raise—killed by Chicago police in 2016. 

Reverend Jennifer Stephens, a Methodist minister from Chicago’s northside, read a statement that condemned this outrage, called on people to remember Sonya’s humanity, and ended with “No more! Enough is enough!”

Gloria Pinex held a poster with a photo of her son Darius—killed by Chicago police in 2011. She said, “I’m out here standing in solidarity, with my family and all the other families that lost their lives from the police. I’m angry all over again. My son been gone 13 years, 13 long years and still no justice for him. So again. I’m out here, 'no justice, no peace' and yes I’m with the revcoms. Ten toes down.”

Leo read the following from a speech by Bob Avakian in 2018: 

… in the way this country has been built, and for the powers that be in this country, the humanity of Black people has never counted for anything—they have never been valued as human beings, but only as things to be exploited, oppressed, and repressed. Six years later, and with cold-blooded murders by police continuing in an unbroken chain, I will say again what I said then: How many more times does this have to happen? How many more times do the tears and the cries of anguish and anger have to pour forth from the wounded hearts of people?! How many more times, when another of these outrageous murders is perpetrated by the police, do we have to hear those words that pour gasoline on the already burning wounds: “justifiable homicide, justified use of force” by police?! How many more?!

Fired by those words and shouting “No more!” we took to the street and marched through part of the South Shore neighborhood, carrying banners with photos of people whose lives had been stolen by murdering police.