At Occupy the Bronx

In the early afternoon of Saturday, October 15, Bert Schultz, an old Frodham SDS comrade and I spent an hour and a half at "Occupy the Bronx" in Fordham Plaza and came away totally inspired. There were between 75 and 100 people there, the vast majority of them Bronx residents and people of color, plus maybe 10-15 Fordham
students and a handful of old timers like me and Bert. We proudly held up the Fordham SDS banner, handed it to current Fordham students and got some pretty good film footage of the event

But what was most impressive was the people running the event and speaking at it. Passionate, clear, well organized with a message of community empowerment that rang very true with the people passing by as well as the folks assembled there and a clear straegic message- we need to take the Occupation movement to "the hood" so that working class peopleand families can have input to it and draw strength from its power. The main local issues they raised were the need to take control of the
Bronx's economy through worker cooperatives and the need to combat police harassment and violence against Black and Latino youth.But the overarching message was that the Occupation needed to establish a major center in the Bronx or Harlem

I will have more to say about this in the future, but for both me and Bert, it was an experience we will remember for some time. The energy here brought back memories of some of the best days of our movement

And the best is yet to come. The young people who organized this- Bronx Residents of Color All-, which included people in their teens through their early 40'swill not be denied