Locals Report — DSA Activism at the Grassroots

BOSTON
Boston DSA’s biggest ongoing project is the Working Family Agenda, a state-wide coalition effort to raise the minimum wage — which passed the State House with help from former Boston DSA Chair, State Representative Jim Marzilli. Boston DSA also organizes with housing project activists in Somerville, where our members go door-to-door with a left critique, and try to get out the vote. Monthly talks on different aspects of the global economy bring in 40 to 60 people. Recent presentations have included economist Barry Bluestone on “Wall Street vs. Main Street;” a discussion of genetic engineering and corporate agriculture; and a meeting on “Global Warming: the Heat Is On.” Boston DSA’s bi-monthly newsletter, Yankee Radical, has been regularly published now for over thirty years.

Boston DSA held its annual party and reception for City Councilors it has endorsed, and a forum on future directions for labor with members active in unions. In June, we will be having a fundraising dinner featuring Bob Haynes, President of the state AFL-CIO, with whom we work frequently.

Local Contact: Harris Gruman, (617-354-5078).

CHICAGO
Chicago DSA organized members and friends to participate in the April IMF-WB demonstrations in Washington, DC; and Chicago is one of the cities around the country where follow up demonstrations are scheduled. A weekend of educational activities is also being developed. With the Open University of the Left, an informal collection of organizations and individuals with whom Chicago DSA has developed a close working relationship.

Chicago DSA’s large annual Debs-Thomas-Harrington Dinner will gather the city’s broad left in one place, for the fortieth year in a row, while our new Queer Commission has been quite active in protesting anti-gay violence in Chicago. Some of this involves picket lines outside of businesses that have a record of tolerating such behavior. The local also raised money for the campaign against the Knight initiative in California.

The University of Chicago Young Democratic Socialists have continued their work in the Anti-Sweatshop Coalition. The campaign to get the University to adopt a responsible monitoring process for the goods it sells should be coming to a head soon. The YDS chapter has also been active in the Student Labor Action Project, and with financial assistance from Chicago DSA, sent several van loads of students to the YDS Fight Back Conference at the University of Delaware — and from there to the April 16th demonstrations in DC. With some hard work, we may see several new YDS chapters in Chicago by this time next year.

Local Contact: Bob Roman (robertmroman@earthlink.net).

COLUMBUS/CENTRAL OHIO
1999 was a good year for Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio. Our annual Debs-Thomas-Harrington Awards dinner was successful. It help finance our activities in support of the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (AFL-CIO) in their boycott of Mt. Olive Pickle Co.

The local continues to build a living wage coalition, and sponsor annual International Women’s Day and May Day events.

We have active members, and monthly meeting attendance averages twenty people. Our Activist Committee is developing a strategic plan to enact a Living Wage ordinance and identifying other local struggles in which DSCO should be present. We hope to initiate two local demonstrations this year as a follow-up to the energy unleashed in Seattle and Washington, DC. A main priority in 2000 will be to increase our number of activists and develop a new member education program to provide the training and skills people need to become self-confident activists.

Local Contact: George Boas (georgenancy@earthlink.net;
(614) 297-0710).

METRO DETROIT
Detroit DSA is also organizing for electoral work this summer and fall. We are coordinating efforts with the state Democratic Party to retake the state legislature from the Republicans. We consider this effort critical not only because we have a reactionary governor who wishes to make Michigan a right-to-work state, dismantle public education, and prevent meaningful healthcare reform, but also because the next legislature will determine how Michigan’s Congressional districts are drawn.

Local Contact: David Green (DSAgreen@aol.com).

GREATER PHILADELPHIA
Philadelphia DSA played host to DSA’s National Political Committee, and staged a reception at the AFSCME district council with activists from other progressive organizations. GP-DSA’s recent large public outreach event was a well-attended, “Real Discussion of Poverty” forum, which featured a panel of local notables, including a city councilman, a radio host, and several political leaders. The forum, part of a national DSA initiative to respond to President Clinton’s tepid “initiatives” on poverty and race, featured a discussion of how the structure of capitalism increases and perpetuates poverty. Attendees also viewed a clip from the recent film Michael Harrington and Today’s Other America (a video cassette is available from the national office for local house parties and public meetings).

The local holds regular bi-monthly membership meetings (open to the public) with a speaker on an activist issue in which members can then become involved. Recent speakers have included a Green Party candidate for City Council; an organizer getting out the vote in poor communities; and City Council staff opposed to public funding of stadiums for private teams, an issue in which a number of local members have been heavily involved.

GP-DSA helped organize an anti-sweatshop rally outside Banana Republic and at the Gap, on the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. The Philadelphia DSA banner, with fist-and-rose logo, garnered CNN camera time during coverage of the April 16th DC demos.

Philadelphia DSA co-sponsors the Independent Media Center of Philadelphia, which recently showed The Battle in Seattle, featuring YDS staff organizer Daraka Larimore-Hall as the final speaker/image in the film. 150 people attended the screening.

GP-DSA has also been instrumental in the recent re-election of Philadelphia’s two progressive City Council members; an anti-sweatshop resolution, and a death penalty moratorium resolution.

Local Contact: John Hogan, Co-Chair (jhogan@law.penn.edu).

SACRAMENTO VALLEY
Sacramento DSAers returned from the national convention determined to implement our organizational goal of re-building DSA locals. In that spirit, our local played host to a Hate Crimes Panel at California State University, and supported African-American faculty who had received bomb threats. A student group emerged from these efforts which has become a campus DSA chapter. A key part of our work was to focus on defeating Proposition 21, the anti-youth “Juvenile Justice Initiative,” and Proposition 22, an initiative banning state legal recognition of gay and lesbian marriages. Our local provided the Sacramento area core of the “No on Proposition 21” campaign and major contributions to the “No on Proposition 22” campaigns. Information on these campaigns is on the web site www.dsausa.org/antiracism

When we take on a campaign, we try to build a DSA recruitment plan into our work.

Local Contact: Duane Campbell, Chair (campd227@pacbell.net).

SAN DIEGO
San Diego DSA is involved in two particularly significant coalitions. The DSA-inspired WTO Alert Coalition, a continuation of the MAI Alert, meets regularly and is drawing increasing numbers of people. We recently presented the film Showdown in Seattle in area libraries, and sent several people across the continent to the IMF/World Bank demonstrations in Washington, DC.

Since mid-February, we have been meeting with other Left organizations to talk about building a more ethnically and racially diverse left in the region. This resulted in a speaker tour of campuses, and recruitment of young people, including several Asian-American students from UCSD, to DSA. The group is planning a public forum with name speaker to discuss, from a socialist perspective, a topic relevant to a diverse community. One of our priorities is to address how to come out as a publicly-identified socialist. Other socialist organizations are often less shy about being open about who they are, even though DSA’s political orientation may well be more attractive to a broad range of citizens.

Local Contact: Virginia Franco (vfranco@inetworld.net ).

TWIN CITIES
Twin Cities DSA co-sponsored “May Day 2000: College Students, Labor Movements, Political Action,” a conference at Anoka Ramsey Community College. DSA National Director Horace Small was the highlight of this event, and DSA had a literature table. Other speakers included Billie Davenport, President, Teamsters Local Union 2000, and Mary Rosenthal, State Director for the National AFL-CIO. Our local is meeting monthly, and seems to expand gradually. To get the word out, TC-DSA is in the process of putting together a modest newsletter.

Local Contact: Dan Frankot (mndsa@hotmail.com).

Twin Cities DSA is one of several locals that are in the process of rejuvenation. We urge any members who wish to revive a local or start a new one to contact the national office for information, literature, and assistance.