Freedom Party
Freedom Party
Founding
The "memory of Fannie Lou Hamer is inspiring Black and Latino/a activists throughout New York state to build the new Freedom Party.
The party is running New York City Councilperson Charles Barron for governor, Buffalo educator and historian Eva Doyle for lieutenant governor, and Bronx activist Ramon Jimenez for attorney general.
“We are asserting our right to self-determination, our right to continue the history of that great woman — Fannie Lou Hamer — who was beaten to a pulp trying to get some parity and inclusion for Black people in the Democratic Party,” declared Barron at a June 17, 2010, news conference held at Sistas’ Place in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant community. There, he announced the forming of the Freedom Party and kicked off its election campaign.
- Barron has spoken countless times at anti-war demonstrations. He’s spoken at immigrant rights’ rallies, including the huge May 1, 2006, rally in New York City’s Union Square. Barron is at the forefront of the movement for reparations for African-American people.
Barron, Doyle and Jimenez spoke at a July 11 rally held at Siloam Presbyterian Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant. So did Assemblywoman Inez Barron, life-partner of Charles Barron; Viola Plummer of the December 12th Movement; and “Attorney-at-War”Alton Maddox, who for 20 years has been suspended from practicing law because of his courageous defense of Tawana Brawley. (In 1987 Brawley, who is African American and was then 15 years old, charged that six white men, including police officers, had raped her.
The Freedom Party is a break from the imperialist Democratic Party that politically strangles poor and working people. Top labor leaders avoid any real struggle against unemployment by pouring union money into Democratic congressional candidate coffers.
“We’re the only party that’s going to raise police terror,” declared Barron at the July 11 rally. He asked how the cops could justify firing 50 shots at Sean Bell and 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, killing both unarmed men.
Barron called for freeing all political prisoners. He demanded reparations for African Americans and the right of Black people to return to New Orleans. He denounced the idea of any budget cutbacks since Wall Street made $61 billion in profits last year.[1]
Democrat Party supporters
The Freedom Party, was formed by City Councilmember Charles Barron after he left the Democratic Party” (Socialist Worker, 30 March, 2011).
Barron himself saying: “We are all registered Democrats.” Barron vociferously supported Democratic candidate Obama in the 2008 presidential election, when he assured voters Barack Obama would put forward a “black agenda.”
The Workers World Party practically liquidated into Barron’s campaign for governor on the Freedom Party in 2010. [2]
- These reformist self-proclaimed socialists are always looking to “ally” with liberal Democrats. They say “fight back” against calls to “cut back,” but they don’t say break with the Democrats. Class collaboration rather than class struggle is the name of their game. They just want to build their “movement.”