Report on the June 9, 2001, demonstration in Columbia, South Carolina, to free the Charleston 5 dockworkers.

Two buses left New York City on Friday, June 8, 2001, carrying a labor-solidarity contingent bound for Columbia. The bus trip was subsidized by the South Carolina AFL-CIO and locals 1422 and 1771 of the International Longshoremen’s Association, with perhaps some local funding from the New York City Central Labor Council (CLC).

On our bus alone there were members of all sorts of local NYC unions, and representatives of the Transport Workers’ Union and the CLC. Among political groups or parties, on our bus alone were the International Action Center (IAC), the International Socialist Organization (ISO), and the League for the Revolutionary Party (LRP), and perhaps more who had not yet identified themselves by distributing their literature.

On the bus ride, we were able to see a videotaped interview of Ken Riley, in which he explained, among other things, that part of the reason the police and state cracked down so hard on his local was their efforts on behalf of South Carolina’s Democratic Governor Jim Hodges, during his 1998 campaign.

After about 14 hours of bus travel, we arrived in Columbia. At the demonstration there was a huge Teamsters truck out of which the introductory program was microphoned: a Native American (a black Cherokee) delivered the opening prayer--one of many to come.

Several union functionaries and bureaucrats spoke as we waited for the largest delegation of solidarizing dockworkers: those from Atlanta. There were several buses full of dockworkers and their supporters from Florida as well. But the Atlanta delegation was 10 busloads. When they arrived, we walked with the crowd toward the Statehouse, passing out some copies of the leaflet below.

There were various other locals and other industrial sectors, like UNITE, the garment and textiles union; these various union locals came out in color-coordinated T-shirts, with their own banners, and there were several such groups--more than 5, maybe more than 10--of these humongous crowds of red or blue or yellow or some such combination.

And these union contingents were predominantly black--nearly all black, which raises the question of whether their shops and locals really are that black or whether the white coworkers didn’t feel it important enough to ride a bus for that long from Florida or Atlanta or wherever else they came from. This is not to say there were no white workers among these huge contingents: there were plenty.

It’s just that the blacks predominated. When we arrived at the Statehouse, we found representatives of all the left sects and parties, from the publishers of The Militant to the CPUSA, and from Worker’s World to the Spartacists. Some even had tables set up on the sidewalk in front of the Statehouse.

There were even two groups of anarchoid youth: one was punkish, gender-integrated, and had no banners and no white dreadheads; the other was mostly men, had a big banner and an anarchy-symbol flag they stuck into the ground, and dreadlocks, along with paint-splattered pants, appeared to be obligatory.

Upon our arrival at the Statehouse, I would estimate that the crowd was anywhere from 1500-2000 people at its height. People drifted away during the speeches.

For good reason they should have, although I fear simple weariness was the reason for the drift: The speakers, mostly union bureaucrats (like Linda Chavez-Thompson) and SC Democratic officials, were overtly religious, patriotic, and civil-rightist. There was hardly even a whiff of Black Power rhetoric. (John Sweeney and Jesse Jackson, who is from South Carolina, were scheduled to appear but did not.)

I stopped paying much attention, except for one Korean man, a Daewoo worker, who delivered a resounding message of solidarity, and stressed the international nature of our struggle.

We don't want to dwell on the terrible speakers and officialdom too much, but one unfortunate expression of this ideology still deeply rooted in the working class was the explosive applause at the mere quotation by the president of the United Mine Workers of "Free at last, free at last...."

You know the rest. Thankfully, Democratic and democratic ideology does not seem as powerful: one shameless Democratic functionary delivered a line about how union workers had to keep on voting Democratic. He got a minimum of applause.

Then he decided to say that, while labor is loyal to Democrats because Democrats are friends of labor, labor should also be prepared to work with Republicans. He got even less applause.

We noticed that the police presence was minimal. Less than 50 officers in all, to my eyes, for probably 2000 people at one point, whereas the dockworkers, 200 at most, confronted 600 cops on January 20, 2000. We decided that the appearance of 50 cops was misleading: the Democrats and the union bosses were subcontracted deputies today.

Anyhow, we Friends finished leafleting, and it was time to get back on the bus for the long ride back to the Big Apple. We expect some responses to our leaflet, because many of the people we handed it to expressed surprise, doing a double-take at the title, and at least 3 people were pleasantly surprised at our use of language in the leaflet: we try hard to keep our language conducive to actual thought. We use no slogans or catchphrases.

But the title was what grabbed a lot of people, who would begin to refuse, saying "I already got it..." but who would then see the title and snatch one.