BALTIMORE, July 4—Comrades in the Baltimore area organized a Progressive Labor Party (PLP) sponsored trip to Cambridge, MD, where we visited two museums—the community-built Harriet Tubman Museum & Educational Center, and the ruling class-run Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center—dedicated to the life and struggle of antiracist abolitionist, Harriet Tubman.
Despite the heavy holiday traffic—during the July 4 weekend, dedicated to hypocritical celebration of U.S. capitalist independence—family and friends of the Party made the most of the occasion.
Before the trip, one comrade gave a short speech on the significance of Tubman’s—and many many others’—resistance to the institution of slavery, connecting her determination to the same attitude needed in the Party’s fight for the upcoming sisterhood and brotherhood of a communist world.
It was also emphasized that, like Tubman herself, we need to be active in mass organizations, building bonds with a diverse array of workers, to knock down the oppressors of the world.
Tubman brave fighter, not a“saint”
As part of the experience at the museums, both included short films depicting the numerous escape plans, tactics, and accomplishments of Tubman. One was an animated film that children could watch, and another was a biopic of Tubman throughout her life.
A comrade noted that the films portrayed Tubman as one of the many U.S. heroes who upheld the patriotic ideals…of the ruling class. Paintings in the national park museum added to that propaganda: Harriet Tubman as the Statue of Liberty, and others in a style inspired by Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych series.
Some art critics say those particular paintings by Warhol were commenting on the saint-like nature that fans often assign to celebrities, which in turn causes the public to approach celebrities with some sense of holiness. But Harriet Tubman was neither a saint nor someone to whom we should give glory, while remaining meek ourselves. No, she was one among many highly inspiring leaders in the struggle against slavery, someone we should emulate, but not praise passively.
The irony of equating Tubman with patriotism—which means being loyal to a country and its bosses, instead of upholding communist loyalty to the working class and oppressed people of the whole world—did not go unnoticed.
“Strenghtening connections, struggle, and the Party”
Throughout the day, we enjoyed snacks, meals, and the scenery of rural Cambridge. Along the way, we also enjoyed each other’s company and learned more about one another. At one point, a participant described his deep respect and appreciation for one of our comrades, from whom this participant has learned much about topics involving working class struggle and how they connect personally to his life.
We further connected through discussing family dynamics and history. This was of course the most significant part of the trip. Building connections with our working class family strengthens our bonds and deepens our respect for one another, making the Party stronger.
We ended our trip coming away with a more profound understanding and appreciation for the work that Tubman did. A strong-willed and compassionate woman, Tubman’s life ended with her continued practice of support for those in need, despite her own financial insecurity.
Of course, her diligence—working with many others to smash the horrid institution of slavery—must be a reminder to all of us, who expect change, that one must be in the fight completely for the oppressed with no tolerance for indecision or betrayal. Let Tubman’s leadership and legacy embolden the struggle for winning working-class state power and communism!

Four days after the bodies of our Latin American brothers and sisters were discovered in an abandoned trailer in Texas, the bosses' deadly borders claimed the lives of more workers— this time in Melilla and Ceuta, two Spanish enclaves on the North Africa-Spanish border (hrw.org, 6/30).
On June 24, 37 migrant workers, all men from Sub-saharan Africa fleeing capitalist-created poverty and famine, were brutally beaten to death by police forces as they attempted to scale the border fence that divides Morocco from Spain. The Spanish Guardia Civil fired tear gas at hundreds of fleeing migrants. Those left behind were savagely clubbed. Graphic images of our Black brother’s mangled bodies left in pools of blood, rotting for hours in the sun expose the rotten racism of global capitalist nations and their borders (hrw.org, 6/30). The Melila massacre is the deadliest episode in a long history of the Moroccan and Spanish bosses' brutality against  Black African migrants seeking refuge in Europe (hrw.org, 2/10/14).
The Morrocan bosses have agreed to be Spain's border attack dog in exchange for regional independence (The New Arab, 7/4). Spain's rulers have learned well from their savage imperialist partners in the U.S., and have recently begged NATO to help them beef up the racist, fascist border security (Voanews, 7/5), calling the recent uptick in Black African migrants seeking asylum as a security threat. The vicious treatment of African migrants is in sharp contrast to the treatment received by the 75,000 Ukrainian migrants the Spanish government welcomed with open arms (La Moncloa,  4/26).
The Melilla massacre is a warning that as inter-imperialist rivalry sharpens in Europe, so too will fascism. The Spanish bosses' war against African workers is an extension of the miserable conditions faced by workers in Spain where unemployment is the highest in Europe (FEE.org, 02/27). The massacre further exposes the fact that liberal fascists from Spain’s social democratic President Pedro Sanchez to the U.S. Big Fascist in Chief Joe Biden are the main threat facing our class.
As inflation, climate catastrophes, famine, and war choke our class, more workers will be forced to flee capitalist violent conditions. Sadly, this isn’t the last of the horrific violence we witnessed in Melila and Texas. The only way to put an end to the misery that displaces and kills workers is to build a communist world in which profits and racist borders cease to exist.

On June 20, 53 migrants died horribly, abandoned in the back of a truck with no ventilation or water in 100 degree Texas heat (125-135 degrees inside the truck) having just crossed the border at Nuevo Laredo, Texas. A comrade’s son called him from Peru to tell him the news before his father had even learned of it in New York City. The world’s working class watched in horror how the migrants died. Small Fascist (see Glossary on page 6) MAGA aligned Texas governor Greg Abbott blamed Joe Biden for his “open border policy.” Racist liberal fascist Biden said “No grandstanding... [we] need to go after criminal trafficking rings.” The three smugglers currently live in Bexar County, Texas near San Antonio. Their business in the profit driven system is collecting thousands of dollars from migrants to turn them over as cheap labor to U.S. bosses. Workers’ lives are cheap under capitalism, unlike the products that workers buy.
The international working class doesn’t need politicians, Congressional hearings, and courts to know that capitalism, with its racist borders, is guilty of racist genocide. The working class doesn’t need borders. We need to run the world based on our needs with no racist, sexist profiteering. Under communism workers will go wherever needed to build an egalitarian world. As the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) chant says, “The only solution is a communist revolution!”                                
Imperialism: A Genocidal System
The migrants who died were from Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras, including 20 who have not yet been identified. The workers were forced to flee their homes due to poverty, exploitation, terror, and devastation of resources, becoming victims of imperialism. Vladimir Lenin called imperialism the highest stage of capitalism when top capitalists seize control of labor, resources and markets of countries outside their borders. Their fascist tactics include control of production, monetary control, fake elections to install puppet governments, orchestrated coups and full blown invasions. Twenty migrants died in the Libyan desert of their war stricken country because of rivalry between major imperialist countries, the U.S., China and Russia. U.S. imperialists imposed sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s which led to the death of a half a million children followed by U.S. invasion of Iraq to steal their oil.                     
If or when migrants make it  to the U.S. or other capitalist countries in Europe, they face new horrors: super exploitation, racism, terror, deportation and possible death. The capitalist controlled media brands them as “criminal illegals” and on the other side of the coin, the liberals cry and make false promises. The world’s capitalists are gangsters on the planet, setting and breaking their own rules at will. Imperialism is guilty of the deaths of the migrants in Texas as well as millions more worldwide. The international working class needs a communist revolution where we organize society based on our needs not on profit.                      
Crisis at the border
There is a massive caravan  of workers and their families and unaccompanied children walking hundreds of miles to the U.S. / Mexico border to flee the devastation of capitalism in their countries of origin. More than 1,000 have died at the border so far this year. The majority of those who manage to cross are caught by border control and deported, with exceptions that include workers from Cuba, Venezuela, and the Ukraine. Most borders in the world are aflame due to war and emigration. The bosses use borders to restrict or increase the number of migrant workers into given countries, keeping them as a form of cheap labor to super-exploit, as their needs determine.e Borders also enforce racist ideas among workers that “other” workers are dangerous, untrustworthy, and out to steal their jobs, sowing further division amongst the working class. Since 1986 U.S. bosses Employers Sanctions Provision, Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) has functioned to criminalize undocumented workers, forcing them to work in the shadows under terrible working conditions for measly wages. IRCA has also had the effect of lowering wages for all workers and keeping unemployment high, particularly among Black workers.
Our PLP group is struggling with the immigrant community group we’re in to react to the migrant deaths as well as talking with our study group and distributing CHALLENGE. It is in this process of class struggle and fightback on our jobs, in our neighborhoods and networks that we grow our Party into a powerful multiracial class conscious fighting force for international communist revolution.

This is part nine of a series about Black communists in the Spanish Civil War. In the early 1930s the urban bourgeoisie (capitalists) of Spain, supported by most workers and many peasants, overthrew the violent, repressive monarchy to form a republic. In July 1936 the Spanish army, eventually commanded by Francisco Franco, later the fascist dictator, rebelled to reestablish the repressive monarchy. Hitlers Germany and Mussolini's Italy gave Franco massive military aid.
In 1936 the International Communist Movement, called the Comintern, headquartered in the Soviet Union and led by Joseph Stalin, organized volunteers, mainly workers from more than 60 countries into the International Brigades (IBs) to go to Spain to defend the Republic. Black workers, especially Black communists, emphasized the importance of fighting racism to win anything for the working class. And they brought this antiracist fightback with them when they returned to the United States. They were building a movement they hoped would lead to communist revolution around the world. They succeeded in organizing millions around communist ideas and practices. But the movement believed that uniting with liberal bosses to defend the Republic in Spain would further the fight for communism. This was part of the united front against fascism, which resulted in only fortifying the bosses system and laid the basis for the corruption of the old communist movement.
In the Progressive Labor Party, we are against any unity with capitalists. They all have to go and the working class must rule: that's communism.
If the working class is to seize and hold state power throughout the world, Black workers’ leadership is essential. That is the only way our class can destroy racism, the lifeblood of capitalism. The following is a story of one such leader, Milton Herndon.

Hendron joins the Communist Party
Milton Herndon was born on March 10, 1908, in Wyoming, Ohio to Paul Herndon, a coal miner, and Harriet Herndon, a maid. After completing two years of high school Herndon went to work as a steelworker. He also served 18 months in the National Guard. Herndon exemplified the internationalism of the communist movement and the importance of Black workers leading the class struggle, not just against the U.S, capitalists, but for the international working class.
He joined the Communist Party in 1934 and became an organizer in Chicago. In July, 1934, Herndon wrote of the struggles of the Black, single, jobless workers of Harlem in the magazine Hunger Fighter, published by the Communist-led United Action Conference on Work, Relief, and Unemployment (price 3 cents). Other articles exposed Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia’s cops who clubbed and jailed demonstrators on May 26, 1934.
On September 1, 1934, Herndon was arrested with three other Black and white workers while picketing the Empire Cafeteria on Lenox Avenue and 125thStreet, in Harlem. The demonstration was organized by the Young Liberators Club of Harlem, a Communist-led group. They protested the refusal of Empire Cafeteria’s bosses to hire Black workers in any other job except porter.
Hendron dies fighting fascism in Spain
Herndon continued his organizing efforts until he volunteered with other Communist Party members to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Using the alias "Milton Braxton" he departed for Europe on May 8, 1937.
In Spain, Herndon became section leader in the newly-formed Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the International Brigades. He fought in the battles at Brunete in July, 1937, and at Belchite, on the Aragon front, in October.
During the Mac-Paps’ first action on October 13, 1937, at Fuentes de Ebro, Herndon was ordered to move a machine gun up to support the advance of the Battalion. In carrying out the order Herndon was killed along with his entire gun team by long-range machine gun fire. He was 29 years old.
Hendron’s last letter
A few days later, his last letter was received by Anna Damon, secretary of the International Labor Defense, The ILD was a legal advocacy organization established in 1925 in the United States as the American section of the Comintern's International Red Aid network. The ILD defended Sacco and Vanzetti, was active in the anti-lynching, movements for civil rights, and prominently participated in the defense and legal appeals in the cause célèbre of the Scottsboro Boys in the early 1930s. Its work contributed to the appeal of the Communist Party among African Americans in the South. In addition to fundraising for defense and assisting in defense strategies, from January 1926 it published Labor Defender, a monthly illustrated magazine that achieved wide circulation.
Here are some excerpts from that letter, published in the Communist Party’s newspaper Daily Worker on October 21, 1937. They give some indication of Milton Herndon’s dedication to the fight against racism and fascism.
We Americans who are fighting in Spain greeted with great joy the success of the ILD and its many friends in freeing four of the nine Scottsboro boys Yesterday we, the members of the Frederick Douglass Machine Gun Company, had a meeting and explained to our Spanish comrades the importance of joining the American ILD in its fight for the freedom of the remaining five Scottsboro boys. One of them replied in broken English: “When we get through with Franco we will go back to the states with you and help to drive out the anti-democratic forces in your country.” …
… I believe it is possible to obtain aid for the suffering people in Spain by building a world people’s defense movement against the horrors, the desperate slaughter and injustice of world capitalism.
The letter ends:
Comradely yours, Milton Herndon
P.S. Fascist planes just flew overhead and dropped some bombs.
The effort of Herndon to bring the struggle to free the Scottsboro Boys to workers in Spain, was a powerful example of international working class unity. The working class is involved in a single unified struggle against capitalism. But the capitalists are constantly trying to divide us. None more so than the fake leftists who are always trying to separate the people fighting back into smaller and smaller groups and smaller and smaller struggles.
Even as he was battling in Spain, Herndon understood the anti-racist struggle for the Scottsboro Boys was the front line and put communist ideas into practice. He saw his role in Spain was to expand the understanding and unity of the working class struggle across the bosses racist divisions and capitalist borders.
Richard Wright, later famous as the author of such books as Native Son and Uncle Tom’s Children, and at this time an active member of the Communist Party, wrote three unsigned articles about Herndon for the Daily Worker. One of them announces the formation of the “Negro People's Committee for Medical Aid to Republican Spain,” made up of medical doctors and others in Harlem. He wrote that “The organization of this committee was the result of the death of a number of American Negroes in Spain, particularly that of Milton Herndon …”  
In a November 29, 1937 article Wright wrote that Ms Audley Moore, Chairman of the Woman’s Commission of the Upper Harlem Section of the Communist Party, stated:
I can think of no finer tribute to Milton Herndon than build the Communist Party which fights for that democracy for which Milton gave his life in Spain.
In the November 27, 1937 Daily Worker Wright wrote about the large number of prominent leaders of civic and anti-racist organizations who were scheduled to speak at the memorial service for Milton Herndon on November 28 at a Harlem Church.

Sources:
Daily Worker
New York Times, 10/20/1937
 ALBA-VALB biography
 Earle Bryant, Byline: Richard Wright (2015)
 Frederick Griffiths, in African-American
Review, Winter 2001.