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Can Class Solidarity Beat Race Division?
What could make an activist so dangerous that the FBI would need to assassinate him in his sleep at the age of 21? That’s what happened to Fred Hampton of the Chicago Black Panther Party in 1969. What could make a singer such a threat that the US government would deny him the right to travel or perform? That’s what they did to the singer/scholar/athlete/actor Paul Robeson.
What made these men so dangerous? They were able to unite people of different races and ethnicities on the basis of class, the unity our rulers fear more than anything else. When 0.1% of the people control everything, while maybe 20% prosper, and the rest struggle to survive, the rulers’ power absolutely depends on keeping people divided. They’re happy with racial conflict; they know they can win that by turning people against each other, but in a class war they would be overwhelmed. So, they work full time on both the Left and Right to keep the subject focused on race.
Hampton and Robeson powerfully challenged that narrative, and people listened. Hampton said in 1968, “The Panthers’ struggle is primarily about class. We’re not going to fight racism with racism. We fight racism with solidarity. We don’t fight…
