Greg Moore
Greg Moore
Communist youth festival
The National Preparatory Committee for the 12th World Festival of Youth and Students met in New York on March 2 and March 23 1985.
The meetings of representatives of the area preparatory committees and participating national organizations reflected the tremendous growth of the Festival movement over the month. Three hundred endorsements' have, now peen gathered by the more than 40 area' preparatory committees. The APCs have nearly tripled in number since late January.
Brenda Davenport, youth coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Greg Moore, president of the U.S Student Association; Philip Oke of the UN Office of the Christian Peace Conference, Sharon Burgess of District 65 ~ New Jersey Region, United Auto Workers; and Bernice A. King; of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Change were among those that attended the latest meeting, Ms. King is the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr..
The NPC meetings called for stepping up the pace of the festival movement and agreed that the April 20 demonstration for peace. jobs and justice in Washington D,C. was a key part of the work. Many area committees reported renting buses and signing youth up to go.
At the March 2 meeting, Ethel Lobman of Local 3882 of the American Federation of Teachers said, "It is our duty to bring together all those who suffer from Reagan's policies to protest" Ms. Lobman' was also a delegate to the New York Central Labor Council and án activist in the labor outreach committee of the New York coalition building April 20th.
- There wil be 250 delegates to the festival and 300 "special participants" who will attend the festival in Moscow for four days, then travel to other parts of the USSR for an additional ten days. It was agreed that 100 of the 250 delegates would be picked from a national "pool" in order to ensure the most representative delegation possible.
Five co-chairs were elected at the meeting including Brenda Davenport of SCLC: Julien Epstein, aide to Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.); Andy Mager, the first New York draft registration resister to be imprisoned; James Steele, national chairman of the Young Communist League; and Sue Wray, president of the Student Association of the State University of New York. Two slots were left open for representatives from the trade union and Latino communities.[1]
References
- ↑ Dynamic, newspaper of the Young Communist League, April 1985