“You see! They’re at it again” it’s getting wild over
there”, said James, a resident of the housing projects in Jackson.
We are standing in his doorway watching Israel
pound Lebanon
with missiles and Muslim women crying in the streets. The news story switches over to Downtown
Jackson, where Flip Benham is organizing his lynch mob to burn Gay Rainbow
Flags and torn up pages of the Koran.
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Today we took the message of World Can’t Wait – Drive Out
the Bush Regime and the challenge for people to step up and get involved with
October 5th to a Housing Project in Jackson, Mississippi. The people here have a gut hatred for
President Bush and let out a slight chuckle when we begin talking about a mass
movement to drive out the Bush regime. “Are you for real?” Many people
were shocked by our honesty and the radical edge of our message, hoping that we
are for real. The Mississippi sun was overpowering, but the
urgency of having less than 90 days until October 5th pushed us
forward in hitting the pavement and going door-to-door.
Most people in the projects are involved with the church,
but don’t identify and agree with Bush’s program and Operation Save America. A majority of the people we talked to were in
support of a woman having the right to have an abortion and many recognized the
societal pressures weighing on women when they find out that they are
pregnant. Hurricane Katrina hit home
with people and many residents had family members who lived in New Orleans. A homeless man wandering an abandoned factory
district rode the freight trains back and forth between New
Orleans and Jackson
and a woman at a record store housed a dozen of her family members who survived
Katrina. Many youth we talked to spoke
about having no real options for their future and the drug scene eating up many
of their friends. “We have no future
here, we definitely don’t have no future under Bush or people like him”, said a
young woman hanging out in a parking lot with her friends.
We looked for political openings when talking with people and
tried to take it as far as we could with them.
Maybe they would deny the reality of what we were saying, but
developments in the news and outrages by the Bush Regime might change their
views. It meant a lot for us to be
taking this message to people, and many of the residents never had a white
person ask them what they thought about evolution or their feelings about the
future. We gave people stacks of World
Can’t Wait Calls, posters, fact sheets and stickers from the group Refuse and
Resist that read: “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology”.
A City in the Deep South
The city of Jackson
is spread out and there is minimal foot traffic. Long country roads stretch out through the
town and connect Downtown Jackson with quiet neighborhoods. Old homes with rickety porches and stores
with hand painted signs dot the roads.
We talk to old folks on porches and stop in BBQ joints to talk with
people about the crimes of the Bush Regime and the need to take a stand on
October 5th. Many of the
homes have been converted into soul food eateries and the bathrooms tend to
have still have bathtubs. We stop to eat
and talk to the cashier about the food stand being an organizing center for
October 5th. A group of Black
college students stop in for lunch and the place becomes alive with
conversations about the clinic downtown and the possibility of them organizing
for October 5th on their campus.
In the restaurant, I look up and see a painting depicting
the “Last Supper of Christ” from the bible with Jesus and his disciples
portrayed as Black people. The
historical experience of Black people, especially in the South, acts as an
anchor for the Black community from being pulled into the current theocratic
movement and adopting Bush’s full program.
Although we have recently witnessed Black churches marching against gay
marriage and powerful Black preachers signing on to the Bush Agenda, the
historical experience of Black people in the U.S and the intolerable conditions
Black people face today, provide a volatile mix of views that could potentially
be explosive in reshaping the political landscape. The illegitimacy of the war in Iraq
and the outrage over Katrina provided opportunities to struggle over abortion
and homosexuality when people didn’t agree with the World Can’t Wait Call.
On the car ride back home I was trying to think of new and
creative forms people would have to develop to manifest resistance on October
5th in an area like Jackson
and the powerful message it would send if a movement swept up through the South
demanding the Bush Regime be driven from power.