February 26: Day of Outrage and Remembrance for Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis
Defiant Actions Around the Country Declare: No More!
March 10, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The refusal of the system to convict Michael Dunn for the murder of 17-year-old Jordan Davis this February—on top of the exoneration of George Zimmerman last year for the vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin—was a declaration from Amerikkka, yet again, that Black people have no rights that whites are bound to respect. It was crucial that this outrage be met with a powerful response. And on February 26, on the two-year anniversary of Trayvon's murder, people did step out—in rallies and marches on the streets, public squares, and campuses, and in various other ways like candlelight vigils and artistic/cultural expressions.
In a recent interview with Revolution, Carl Dix, from the Revolutionary Communist Party and an initiator of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, spoke to why it was so important that people acted on February 26:
"[When the mistrial of Dunn came down] there was sentiment of: 'Can we do anything about this?' Not that people felt that it was anything less than a horrible outrage, but a sense of maybe we can't do anything. And it was very important that this sense was gone against, that this sense was engaged and struggled over. And we began to notice it very sharply right after the verdict came down.
"I remember being in Harlem and encountering some youth who listened to me speak—people had read my statement, and I got up and expounded on some things. And they listened intently, but then when we approached them and asked them for their thoughts one of them said, 'I have no thoughts.' And then the other said, 'I've got a lot of thoughts, but it wouldn't make any difference if I told you about them. It would just make me madder, and what could we do about it anyway?' And we realized we had to get into it with these two young people, and they ended up taking material to go into their school and to mobilize people, getting that it would make a difference if they remain silent in the sense of hammering in that assessment—'nothing we can do, we just gotta roll with this stuff.' But it makes a difference the other way if people like them—they and people like them—begin to act, begin to counter that sentiment, begin to say: no, we don't have to accept this. And begin to grapple with this question of revolution and what kind of world could be brought into being—is that possible, and what does that mean that people like them need to do? Which they were taking a beginning step by getting Revolution newspaper and taking some of the palm cards around the National Day of Outrage and Remembrance, that they were actually beginning to engage that and step into it....
"So the word began to be spread, people took this up, and it was very important that in the face of ... coming off of the anger people have, but also in the face of questioning if there was anything that expressing this anger could do, any role it could play, it was very important. Because when people look back at the Trayvon Martin murder and the exoneration of the killer, it made a very big difference that people took to the street, and took to the street in significant numbers—not large enough, but in significant numbers. I guess there were thousands of people who marched into Times Square in New York, people in LA who blocked traffic on an interstate—things like that happening all across the country. And it does make a difference if these are met with determined response. Because if they're not, there's a message involved in this: a message of the criminalization of these youth, permanent suspects, targets on their backs, no rights that white people are bound to respect—all of this being declared. And if that becomes something that people accept as just the way things are, it is not only going to continue to happen but it is going to escalate, it is going to get even worse. Because there is really a call for the white supremacists, fascist foot soldiers, to come forward and play a role in enforcing this putting of the oppressed back in their places."
The call from the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN) for February 26 was spread widely. Word got out through Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. On February 26, BET.com ran a video report (viewable at right) from the Day of Outrage rally at St. Nicholas Park in Harlem (there were also actions later that afternoon and evening at Union Square and Times Square)—with the BET correspondent ending the report with, "New York isn't the only place that this rally is taking place in. This is a national event, with many states such as Florida, Texas, and Connecticut participating." Carl Dix himself was in Jacksonville, Florida, that day, speaking at a rally in front of the courthouse where the trial of Jordan Davis's killer had taken place.
Carl Dix spoke to Revolution about what is known so far about the impact of the call for February 26: "Right now we know of 18 cities—including something came in last night, this morning, that it happened in Birmingham [Alabama] on the 26th—that people took up the Hoodies Up! call. It happened in the areas where the Stop Mass Incarceration Network already has some organization or beginning organization. And that was important. People in the Oakland area did a rally at Fruitvale Station, the scene of the murder of Oscar Grant by a cop on New Year's Day of 2009. People acted in Chicago, in New York.
"But also we began to find out that there were places where the Network had no contact with people who heard about this call for the Hoodie Day and did something. There were people in a sorority in Houston. People at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee organized an event which they posted at SMIN's website and that got covered in the media there. But there were also media things like Bethune Cookman, which is a historically Black college in Florida—some students there did a vigil. This began to be taken up more broadly, and what it does speak to and address is that there was a feeling that something needed to be done. There was anger about this, a feeling something had to be tapped into and mobilized and organized."
The actions on this day are just a start. There is a vision to make a leap in building a mass movement of millions to resist the criminalization of our youth, through a Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration this October. (See excerpts from the Carl Dix interview on this: "Stop Mass Incarceration Network Calls for Month of Resistance in October.")
As Carl Dix told Revolution, "This has to actually become a period where people look back and say: 'Boy, a lot of people started along the path to coming to understand that this system is just no damn good, it is illegitimate, and it's gotta be gotten rid of, and it's going to take revolution—nothing less—to do that.' And that's a message that needs to go out to people and is going out to people. It has to go out in a much broader way, in an escalated way, because this is what people need to be engaging... and it's what they need to be grappling with....
"We are talking about vicious oppression that's built into the fabric of this system, and people hate this—a lot of anger—and not only among the people who directly suffer it. Because after the Trayvon verdict there were large numbers of white people who came out to these demonstrations and who were saying: I don't want to live in a society where this happens, where whether somebody lives or dies is determined by the color of their skin.
"And it's important to tap into that anger and that sentiment and give it forms of expression because there's another side that comes out in relation to that. There's a way in which the powers-that-be can't help but recognize the sentiment that's developing among the people and they take steps to misdirect it, to try to channel it back into the system. Like it was at the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington last year, and there was a lot of talk about: 'We need a new civil rights movement, we need to get activated in trying to get more reforms of the way the system works and to try to hang onto some of the reforms that were being taken back that we thought had been won in the past."... And it's very important that the actual reality be brought out... This is not a system that is basically working and there are a few excesses that need to be reformed or tweaked. It is ... institutions that have been unleashed to target people, that's a key part of the program of suppression, targeting Black and Latino people... and that it needs to be fought, it needs to be stopped, and to get rid of it once and for all is going to take revolution—nothing less."
Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.