ANN DOUGLAS explains why US visitor Jarvis Tyner is the perfect person to hear speak during Black History Month. (Article originally appeared in Morning Star 10/11/2006) One of the most prominent and influential leaders of the American left will begin a speaking tour of Britain next week, during what is appropriately Black History Month. Jarvis Tyner has been a tireless fighter for civil rights since the campaigns of his youth in his native Philadelphia. Today he is one of the most prominent black figures in the US peace, labour and anti-racist movements. His experience shows how the dimensions of race, class and anti-imperialism can be combined in revolutionary action. Fresh out of high school in 1959, Jarvis Tyner joined the struggle against discrimination in employment, housing and local services. When the black students sat in to protest against Woolworth’s segregated meal counters in Greensboro, North Carolina, he helped organise a boycott of the company’s ‘five and dime’ stores in Pennsylvania.
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