In the News

As virtually everyone knows, Jackie Robinson, the Negro Leagues star who joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, broke the color ban in baseball.

But few Americans know that it was Walnut Creek resident Lester Rodney -- working as reporter, columnist and sports editor for the Daily Worker, the New York Communist Party newspaper -- who prepared the ground, repeatedly referring to the ban as "un-American" and "the crime of the big leagues."

The Communist Party USA wound up its convention here in a fighting mood July 3, with the 450 participants vowing to pour their energies into blocking the ultra-right effort to take over the Supreme Court.

“This is a key struggle,” CPUSA National Chair Sam Webb said in closing remarks. The ultra-right “wants to lock in control of that court,” he said. “Perhaps they will begin with reproductive rights, but they won’t stop there.”

More than 300 Communist Party USA members joined the picket line of UNITE HERE Local 1 at the Congress Hotel on July 2. The workers have been forced on strike for the past two years.

The picket line action was held as part of the CPUSA’s 28th National Convention here. The picket line was loud and lively. Participants shouted, “2, 4, 6, 8 — help us negotiate!” “No Justice, No Peace!” and carried picket signs.

They still call each other "comrade". They still sing the socialist Internationale. But most of all, they are still around.

Members of the Communist Party of the USA, which was hounded during the McCarthyite political witch-hunts of the 1950s and marginalised by the cold war, gathered in Chicago earlier this week to mark the anniversary of their party's founding in the city in 1919.

A delegation of the Communist Party of Viet Nam (CPV) led by Vu Quoc Hung, member of the Party Central Committee and Vice Chairman of its Inspection Commission, attended the 28th National Convention of the Communist Party, USA (CPUSA) in Chicago, the US, from July 1-3.

"This morning I had a chance to listen to some of the final sessions of the CPUSA convention. The session included a trade union panel and credentials report..." -- Walter Lippmann is a writer, photographer and activist, who directs the CubaNews list, a free e-mail service.

Senator Joe McCarthy may be turning over in his grave, but communists are alive and well in the United States - and meeting in Chicago this weekend.

Nós não subestimamos a ameaça de direita que Bush representa para o nosso país e para o mundo. Caso Bush seja derrotado, teremos um terreno político distinto a nível interno e externo para continuar as lutas pela paz e a igualdade, por justiça económica e social». As palavras são de Sam Webb, Presidente Nacional do Partido Comunista dos EUA (PCEUA), que em entrevista concedida ao Avante! a 18 de Agosto, em Nova Iorque, analisa a importância das eleições presidenciais norte-americanas de 2 de Novembro próximo, e dá conta da crescente mobilização das forças de esquerda e progressistas pela democracia e pela paz.

"WE really need to have the same combative spirit as those five heroes,” affirmed Sam Webb, chairman of the Communist Party USA, during a meeting with the relatives of Gerardo, Ramón, Antonio, Fernando and René.

“It is ironic that these men should be fighting against terrorism and find themselves imprisoned in the ‘age of combating terrorism.’ This Bush administration is hypocritical, it lies all the time, but I am sure that we will win,” Webb added. He is on a visit to Cuba at the invitation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba...