This week the Twin Cities CPUSA Club (Minneapolis/St. Paul) was active in community engagement. On Sunday, we participated in Open Streets Festival, which the City of Minneapolis describes as “part of a global movement to make streets places that put people first.”
At 10 a.m., the city of Minneapolis closed Franklin Avenue, a major thoroughfare, to car traffic and opened the streets to people biking, walking, rolling, and connecting with neighbors and a variety of community organizations.
Our club set up a table with our banner, flags, party literature, candy, and our party signs highlighting the need for community control of police, reproductive rights, and peace and justice. Comrades answered questions, chatted with, and passed out literature and flyers to pedestrians.
Many people were interested in party literature, particularly in the BLM pamphlet by Jarvis Tyner and the pamphlet about LGBTQ+ liberation by C. J. Atkins and the Michigan Writers’ Group. Farmers from western Minnesota grabbed Tim Wheeler’s pamphlet about rural comrades in the struggle, and by the end of the event, all of the copies of Bill of Rights Socialism were taken by participants. Passers-by added names and contact information to our club list for further contact and follow-up.
We reminded community members that “when you join the Party, you’ll be joining a community. The Communist Party USA brings together the working class in a supportive and caring community of committed, like-minded revolutionary activists.”
Images: Minneapolis CPUSA.