African American History Month Event Includes Art and Writing Competition for Students 8 to 12

CT People’s World Committee

The 49th annual People’s World African American History Month event will be held this year on Saturday, Feb. 25, at 4 p.m. at the New Haven Peoples Center, 37 Howe Street, and also live streamed. The theme is The Power of Youth – The Power of Collective Action:  Equity Requires Revenue. The program will include prizes and recognitions for the high school arts and writing competition, as well as a panel discussion and performances.

When we reflect on the activism of youth over the past 50 years, we see the efforts, the impact, and the legacy of young people and the power of collective action. From the Children’s Crusade and the East LA Walkouts in the 1960s to the Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives Movements of our current moment, young leaders inspire us to be bold, to demand radical change, and to remember that another world is possible.

In 1963 thousands of African American children in Birmingham organized to walk out of their classrooms to protest segregation and demand civil rights. In 1968 thousands of Mexican American students in East Los Angeles organized walkouts to protest discrimination and demand improved learning conditions in their schools.

The Black Lives Matter and March for Our Lives Movements continue to engage young people in the organizing and activism we need to demand a better world.

Connecticut to Join Poor Peoples March on Washington June 18

by New Haven Peoples Center

Preparations are underway in Connecticut to join thousands of people from across the country at the June 18, 2022 Mass Poor Peoples and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly “March on Washington DC and to the Polls,” led by Rev. Dr. William Barber.

“There are 140 million poor and low-income people in this country,” says Barber. “If we unite together, we have the power to overturn the interlocking injustices that keep us all struggling,” including systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism.

The New Haven Peoples Center is organizing a charter bus to attend the march in the nation’s capitol. Participants will represent the struggles unfolding in Connecticut since the pandemic demanding racial and economic equality and the rights of essential workers and all workers.

“There are abundant resources to meet our needs, and we march to summon the political will to do so,” says the call to the march referring to rising billionaire wealth and the bloated military budget.

In this session of the Connecticut General Assembly, the Recovery for All coalition and many unions and community and faith groups organized for pandemic pay, work scheduling and other measures to improve conditions for low-wage workers. This week a bill prohibiting employers from requiring attendance at anti-union “captive audience” meetings was signed into law, making it easier for workers who want union representation to organize.

The march on Washington will launch a mass mobilization to register voters and get out the vote this year in response to increased voter suppression efforts across the country.

Organizational partners for the march include over 200 union, faith, peace and environmental justice groups.

March organizers say that the assembly “will be a generationally transformative declaration of the power of poor and low-wealth people and our moral allies to say that this system is killing ALL of us and we can’t…we won’t…WE REFUSE TO BE SILENT ANYMORE.”

The Peoples Center has issued an invitation to young people and everyone to participate in what promises to be an inspiring and historic experience that will boost ongoing organizing in Connecticut.

Bus reservations can be made by filling out this electronic form: https://forms.gle/ZVuHK5fjWSb3KHFG8 or leaving a phone message at 203-624-8664.