Chicago, IL — 900 activists from across the country gathered at the Chicago Teachers Union Hall, Friday, November 14 for a rally on the opening night of the National Conference of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR).
The rally was focused on uniting the fight against Trump’s racist agenda, and featured Chicago political leaders, including Mayor Brandon Johnson, and organizers from across the country, including Chicano liberation movement veteran Carlos Montes and NAARPR Executive Director Frank Chapman.
The program was a testament to the diversity and strength of the movement being built by the National Alliance, and platformed 17 speakers from the immigrant rights and Chicano liberation movement, the Black liberation movement, the Palestinian liberation movement, the anti-war movement, the LGBTQ, women’s rights and reproductive justice movements, the labor movement, and faith organizations.
NAARPR has organized four national conferences since its refounding in 2019, and the latest showcased the tremendous growth of the organization and its fighting capacity since its original founding in 1973 out of the national movement to free Angela Davis.
A season of struggle
A common thread through all the speakers’ remarks was the need for continued and heightened political struggle under the new conditions of Trump’s unprecedented racist and reactionary attacks, as well as the victories that are possible when progressive forces unite in action.
Frank Chapman shared in his remarks the gravity of the current political moment, in which Trump is seeking to turn back the clock on all progressive forces and usher in an era of reactionary brutality while simultaneously creating the conditions for unprecedented struggle, led by the movements of working and oppressed people Trump has targeted.
“Trump brought out the casket to bury us,” Chapman said. “But it ain’t us that’s gonna be buried.”
Syd Loving, representing the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), echoed Chapman’s remarks and rallied the audience with the analysis that U.S. imperialism, in all its brutality, is a dying system – but the people need to give it a kick in the pants on the way out.
Loving stated, “At the beginning of this mess, we said we were not just ready for a fight, we were looking for one. We found it, and we brought the heat. We brought more people into the fight—more people off the fence and into the streets to change things.”
A U.S.-wide movement
Many speakers highlighted the importance of a national organization like NAARPR to coordinate strategies and tactics across the uneven landscape of Trump’s violent ICE raids, military takeovers and economic devastation.
Gabriel Quiroz Jr, a leader with Centro CSO, described in his remarks the way skirmishes with ICE in other cities inspired their organization to fight even harder in LA.
“On June 3 we woke up to texts that ICE was in our neighborhood in LA,” Quiroz Jr said. “The same day in Minnesota, [the Minnesota Immigrants Rights Action Committee] had confronted ICE, and [the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression] had run ICE out of Little Village in Chicago. So, we went to confront ICE knowing that our comrades were doing the same. You should have seen how scared they were to see hundreds of pissed off Chicanos.”
Building a broad front
As Trump takes aim at all working and oppressed people, the conditions have never been better for unified resistance, the speakers agreed. In Chicago, the Coalition Against the Trump Agenda (CATA) is an example of this sustained, coordinated struggle among broad movement forces, according to Gianna Escareno, one of the co-chairs of the coalition.
With over 100 organizations signed on, CATA has led emergency mass protests thousands-strong against the violent and ICE raids and the surrounding suburbs, as well as against the threat of federal military occupation. Between Trump attacking federal workers, encouraging police to be brutal, empowering ICE to racially profile and terrorize immigrants and U.S. citizens alike and funding the genocide in Palestine, all oppressed people and workers have a clear foundation to fight back together, Escareno said.
“We must continue to fight and organize against Trump’s racist agenda,” Escareno said. “We must struggle and show up in solidarity for each other because we all have the same enemy.”
Mayor Johnson, who was elected with broad support from the movement and the Black and brown communities in Chicago, has become a national leader among mayors and other elected officials who are standing with the working and oppressed people against Trump’s racist attacks. In his remarks, he recognized the power present in the room and called for even greater unity and struggle in the coming year.
“We are all coming together to build a system that is not just better than what it was before we found it, but a transformational system that is more than enough for everyone,” Johnson said.
Johnson also called for support in passing a city budget that taxes the richest corporations in order to invest in housing, mental and public health resources, fully funded schools, and more, saying that our victories in Chicago will create the conditions for progressive wins across the country.
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