April Rosenblum
April Rosenblum
For May Day and Beyond
For May Day and Beyond: White People Stepping Up for Immigrant Rights! was a letter circulated in May 2006, among people mostly affiliated with the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.
Open Letter to White Communities
- In the past month, five million people, mostly immigrants of color, have mobilized for justice and are making history, flooding the streets in unprecedented numbers. Meanwhile, the most visible participation by white people is coming from the racist and right wing leaders who are defining and dominating the debate in the Federal government and in the news, radio and opinion pages. Where are the voices of anti-racist white people in this crucial moment, when the worst anti-immigrant legislation in decades is still poised to drop?
Signatories included April Rosenblum, author, The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All Our Movements . [1]
R2K Legal Collective members and supporters
In the course of defending themselves against their own criminal charges, several RNC arrestees became core members of the R2K Legal Collective, personifying the DIY ethic of legal strategy by and for those most directly affected.
They included: Jacqueline Ambrosini, Caleb Arnold, Alexis Baden-Meyer, Bill Beckler, Christopher Day, Adam Eidinger, Jamie Graham, Jessica Mammarella, Dave Onion, Laura McTighe, Carlos Muilos, Danielle Redden, George Ripley, Kate Sorensen, Ethan Spier, Camilo Viveiros, and Chris White.
Movement attorneys were an important part of the R2K Legal Collective and took direction from their dissident clients while ardently defending them against political charges. They included: Paul Hetznecker, Larry Krasner, Paul Messing, David Rudovsky, and Lester Roy Zipris, as well as public defenders Bradley Bridge, Meg Flores, and Shawn Nolan. Some attorneys-such as King Downing from New Jersey, Anastasia Pardalis and Ron McGuire from New York-came regularly to Philadelphia to help defend protesters. Marina Sitrin and Bill Beckler, recent law school graduates at the time, temporarily relocated from New York and, along with others, helped redefine the relationship between defendant and attorney. They also helped to politicize the criminal cases and make that a key element of the legal strategy.
At the heart of the R2K Legal Collective was a group of dedicated activists who did not themselves face charges but fiercely supported RNC arrestees. They included: Jill Benowitz, Kristin Bricker, Amy Dalton, Julie Davids, Jody Dodd, Bull Gervasi, Tim Groves, Christian Hansen, Lee James, Katie Krauss, Amy Kwasnicki, Eric Laursen, Bronwyn Lepore, Elena Madison and Elliott Madison, Sara Marcus, Nicole Meyenberg, Rachel Neumann, Clarissa Rogers, April Rosenblum, Matthew Ruben, Curtis Rumrill, Marlene Santoyo, Mac Scott, April Smith, David Webber, Susan Whitaker, and Lesley Wood.
a lot of the comrades who were organizing these actions were really focused on dealing with anti-globalization." Barrow and other activists felt that the best way to connect struggles in the global south with the struggles in Philadelphia was to focus on the prison industrial complex (PIC), "because you couldn't talk about racism, white supremacy, capitalism, and not talk about PIC." Philadelphia activist Amadee Braxton agreed: "The political work that has most galvanized people organizing for racial justice has been the fight against the racist criminal in-justice system."[2]