First Published: People’s Voice, Vol. I, No. 1, August 25, 1965
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba
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The people of Los Angeles, beginning August 11, 1965, rebelled against the class brutality of the imperialist system – against unemployment, the lack of food, the oppression and the exploitation characteristic of the imperialist system. This was a spontaneous uprising of the most oppressed and the most exploited workers, and it was directed against the authority of the state.
THIS WAS NOT A RACIAL UPRISING. It was an uprising of the most oppressed and the most exploited elements of the working class. The ruling class seeks to make it appear to be a “racial uprising” or a “race riot” U.S. imperialism is the source of all racism in America – legal and illegal, political, social, and economic. U.S. imperialism fosters racism wherever U.S. imperialism is present – in order to divide the working class and to weaken those forces opposing U.S. imperialism.
The people’s immediate demands are:
1. An end to police brutality
2. Jobs and food immediately
Police brutality can be ended only by the people organizing into people’s defense groups to protect the people and to oppose the violence of the police and of U.S. imperialists everywhere. The uprising of the workers that began in Watts signifies the rejection of “non-violence” as a means of struggle and it signifies the adoption of revolutionary violence by the people as the means of struggle to oppose the counter-revolutionary violence of U.S. imperialism.
For the working people of Watts to get jobs and food immediately, the people, likewise, must organize against U.S. imperialism. The only end to police brutality and the only guarantee of food and jobs is for the working people to organize against U.S. imperialism – to destroy the imperialist system of oppression and exploitation. Johnson’s so-called “War on Poverty” is really war on the poor – a war against all the working people. It is really CLASS WAR. For us to end this class war, we must organize to put an end to the imperialist system.
Throughout the world the people are organizing to oppose U.S. imperialism. We are facing the same enemy ” U.S. imperialism. Part of this fight against U.S. imperialism is the fight against the Uncle Toms who have sold themselves to the U.S. imperialists and who are traitors to the Negro people.
The Los Angeles uprising is a heroic expression of the working class – and of its most exploited and oppressed section, the Negro and Mexican-American workers who rose together to strike at their immediate enemies – the imperialist state, and its instrument, the police. The rejection of non-violence was also a rejection of the imperialist front men, the Uncle Toms: Martin Luther King, Dick Gregory, H. H. Brookins, F. Douglas Ferrell, and all the other Quislings of U.S. imperialism. Those traitors to the Negro people were rejected by the Negro people in struggle.
The Negro people likewise rejected the chief spokesman for the U.S. imperialists, L. B. Johnson, that fascist, who compared the Negro people in Los Angeles to the Ku Klux Klan in the South.
The Negro people likewise are rejecting the U.S. imperialist concept of “integration.” The Negro people constitute a nation in the Black Belt of the South (from east Texas to Virginia) and from part of the world-wide national liberation struggle against U.S. imperialism. The Negro people must prepare to launch a struggle for self-determination for the Negro nation in the South and for equal rights outside the Negro nation. For this struggle the people must organize.
In every struggle the people face, they face the same enemy – U.S. imperialism. We have learned from the Los Angeles uprising that the people of Watts who have risen up in struggle are not alone; the revolutionary people throughout the world stand side by side with the Negro people in their struggle against U.S. imperialism. United in our struggle against oppression and exploitation, together we will destroy our enemy ” U.S. imperialism.
The fight is against our common enemy all around the world – in Vietnam, in the Congo, in the Dominican Republic, in the Negro nation in the South, and in Los Angeles – the fight is against U.S. imperialism, the enemy of the people of the world.
We must organize into people’s defense groups to defend the people against the brutality of the U.S. imperialists and their police. We call for the formation of the August 11th Movement as the people’s weapon against U.S. imperialism!
DOWN WITH U.S. IMPERIALISM AND ITS AGENTS – THE UNCLE TOMS, THE REVISIONISTS, AND THE TROTSKITES!
LONG LIVE THE HEROIC STRUGGLES OF THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE, THE CONGOLESE PEOPLE, THE DOMINICAN PEOPLE, THE NEGRO PEOPLE, AND ALL REVOLUTIOARY PEOPLE THROUGHOUT THE WORLD!
LONG LIVE THE PEOPLE�S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA, AND ITS CHAIRMAN, MAO TSE TUNG!