Gary Tyler Must Be Free! (sound)

[Music] October 7th 1974 black students on bus 91 from Recently desegregated destan High School were attacked by a mob led by the K Klux clan in the white Citizens Council a shot was heard and a white youth fell dead Timothy Weber 14 years old my name is Ernest C I was driving bus 91 was on the Monday we were told to go up to desan school they were having problems up there and when I got up there we were told to get in and get a load during the time I got in I got my load and I was on my way out we St that a shot was fired the bus was stopped the students were searched during that time wasn't a gun or anything found on the bus to me it sound like a firecracker and with the years I have in the service I can't see how kind of 45 can be shot so close that the uh wouldn't bust anybody at drums no member of the M was searched arrested or questioned the black students were forced to kneel on the ground for several hours and individually searched Gary Tyler protested the harassment of his friends and was arrested we went on up to the substation we stayed up there for about two and a half hours and there still wasn't any gun F that night the police reported a gun was found on the bus and 16-year-old Gary Tyler was charged with murder the attack on school bus 91 climaxed a week of Clan Le riots at destan high school after Gary Tyler's arrest David Duke a leader of the Klux Clan flew to destan from Boston where he had been organizing anti-busing attacks on black school children the Paris officials and the Press join in to whip up Lynch Terror Clan terror is nothing new to desan the clan has been used for a 100 years to terrorize black people and maintain the rule of the capitalist class Clan teror is one way that the plantation system has been preserved around destan and across the South since the Civil War the clan in white robes has always worked side by side with the black robe judges and the police to deny black people their Democratic rights not only in the schools but also in the courts Gary Tyler was Tried by an Ry jury rather than by a jury of his peers the judge assisted the prosecution in every way the state prosecutor had threatened one student with prison and forced her to lie and testify falsely against Tyler when Gary Tyler was convicted and sentenced to death it was the beginning of still another Le lynching so you see the Tyler case is historic it is the way America has always dealt with up it in [ __ ] is the way this country has always treated nonwhite people who it couldn't Smash and beat into submission the repression directed against black people has one purpose to maintain the system of cheap labor started with slavery that we are here for one reason the only reason they went to Africa and D dragged us over here cheap labor to accumulate labor out of the sweat of men all you had to do was feed like animals and women too cheap labor as slaves cheap labor as shared croppers and today cheap labor as part of a labor reserve for the capitalist a large reserve of unemployed or part-time workers to fill the lowest paying jobs when there are jobs why black kids going to school and coming out of high school and can hardly read and write they intend to keep black people ignorant in a period when it's necessary to have some skills and some knowledge and therefore they made public school concentration camps and detention camps not centers of learning that's America that's B sentinent and how do you you separate that from the courtroom that link es black people every day and that's what's happening but where there is oppression there is always resistance the afroamerican people have waged militant struggle against the capitalist class from the earliest slave rebellions through the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s to The Liberation struggle today the struggle of black people for freedom is a direct blow at the imperialist system that profits off their sweat and off the sweat of all workers the clan and the legal system used against Gary Tyler is just part of the way the imperialists maintain their rule they use the whole power of the state the police FBI National Guard and the Army to guarantee the safety of their profits and wealth a movement to free Gary Tyler has grown up born of the years of struggle of the afroamerican people and like that struggle the movement to free Gary Tyler must meet the imperialist system of of exploitation and repression head off Michael Williams a student at Southern University in New Orleans and we first heard about the Garett Tyler case from the media when it first happen from uh in from Southern come out of the lowest socioeconomic strata in New Orleans they all come from poor backgrounds they all come from backgrounds with can relate to the whole idea of police repression from uh to the whole idea of frame UPS from the whole idea of being convicted only because you're black and students from Southern just jump right on the whole idea of freeing Gary Tyler now the first thing we did was we declared Gary Tyler week ATO which meant we dedicated an entire week of activities on campus to the legal defense of Gary Tyler after that we heard that there was a defense committee that was going to be created of different organizations to come together in a coalition to free Gary Tyler and we felt that we wanted to be a part of the overall defense committee and so we sent uh representation to sit on the steering committee to represent Southern University in New Orleans the students of Southern University in New Orleans in December of 1975 the New Orleans workers fightback committee decided to take up the Gary Tyler case for a very simple reason Mrs W Tyler Gary Tyler's mother came to a um fightback committee meeting and she told us of her son's incident what happened to him how he was railroaded and so forth we discussed Gary Tyler's case and how it tied him with the fight back overall and one of our main slogans is in oppression against National minorities and women and this tied in directly with Gary Tyler's case so you know we had no choice I put it this way we were obliged to take up Garett Tyler's case if we're going to follow through what we believe in to spread the movement across the South the Southern Conference educational fund SCF called a meeting in Birmingham Alabama a southw coalition formed adopted slogans and called for a demonst ation in downtown New Orleans the National fightback Organization in the October League sent work teams to help build the movement to free Gary Tyler the work teams did education among black white and Latino people pointing to the imperialist system as the source of Oppression they organized broad multinational support for Tyler by raising self-determination of the Black Nation linking the struggle to the general workingclass movement well I work with the National fightback Organization I'm one of the national fightback staff and uh we came down here as a part of a work team with folks from all over the country to uh help the people here in New Orleans especially the New Orleans workers fight back to build for the case and to try and build multinational Unity it's real important that we try and link up the case uh especially bringing the education and the agitation here we say that it's not just uh one city politician or government or judge like uh uh Marino up in Dam but it's this whole system that we live under and the whole system is in in the North and the South it's in uh United States and South Africa it's necessary to beat back these attacks and overthrow the system this this mainly a white workingclass Community uh with a a sprinkling of black and Latino people and it's real poor there's a lot of unemployed people a lot of old people and uh people work in mostly in uh small Industries there's a few long shoreman people from major industries we've been pointing that out to them and pointing that pointing it out as a basis of unity you know we're fighting the same oppressor had a lot lot of response we've gotten I guess we've been out here about eight times and we've gotten about 300 signatures sold about 60 or 70 calls giv away hundreds of leaflets the work teams distributed leaflets and talk to people in Black communities like lafit projects where the youth particularly took up the struggle try to free we're going to have he going to get free we're going to have a demonstration downtown on [Applause] to link the Gary Tyler case with the day-to-day struggles of the working class the work teams organize mass leafing and rallies at the dock and plant Gates right now there's a cold strike going on in the appal area there still the rubber strike all kinds of other um struggles for working class against the employers against the capitalist there's going to be many other demonstrations and many more things we have to do before we can fully liberate ourselves from the capitalist and overthrow the system that oppresses all working in and uh people of color a demonstration is just one form of struggle begins to teach people begins to train people how to struggle it's uh it's like a strike it's a school struggle it's a school for Revolution and that's where the October league is coming from inspiration for Gary Tyler first come not just through Mass demonstrations but through protests through strikes through slowdowns through picket lines whatever form of mass strugle people can organize the call political newspaper of the October League which carried many articles about the Gary Tyler case was used broadly to link the struggle to free Gary Tyler with the fight against National oppression and exploitation the call pointed out the need to rely on the masses and not the courts it served as an educator and organizer in opposition to this revolutionary work in freeing Gary Tyler Walter Collins and his allies in the so-called Socialist Workers Party tried to limit the struggle by raising narrow demands opposing militant mass action and advocating Reliance on the courts they wanted to keep G isolated to say free G in that City not to try and Le it with segregation the October League uh many other Progressive organizations felt that the G case should be linked to other cases to other cases is a national pressure to economic crisis to unemployment it's the same system the same system that that uh uh put people out on the street that evicts people that has high rent and low wages High food prices low wages it's the same system that that put Gary Tyler in jail now we feel all of this should be linked because if you want to have a broad demonstration you have to show people that this is not an isolated incident the big success of the demonstration July 24th was proof of the enthusiasm of the masses for revolutionary demands and militant action buses rolled in from across the South black Latino and white workers assembled in Congo Square once the site of slave [Applause] auctions turn around turn around turn around [Applause] [Music] [Applause] roll over in the way we going to roll over him we going to roll [Applause] [Applause] back to roll that over we going to roll back do [Applause] militant and United the southw Coalition fill the streets as they March to the rally [Applause] speakers from many organizations showed the broad united front of the struggle to free Gary Ty we going K we going fight till we save G night we kick we going fight till we save G and I hope that this rally would be successful and go to show all the people that we mean business and I hope that this would be a very successful rally thank you very much this key I'll go on to Des foran Louisiana where we will go in and look for a wicked hearted judge by the name of Judge Marino we are going to take him and put him behind the bars of prison I come to tell you today that we are 100% behind G the New Orleans workers fight back committee and all fight back committees across the country are here to support Gary Tyler we said three things that to free Gary Tyler one is we must educate ourselves educate ourselves about the system which we live under the capitalist system which feeds off poor people and working people of this nation that feeds off NA national oppression to make its own profit then we must organize we must organize and demonstrate we must organize and fight like hell fight with everything we got because that's the only thing that's going to get Gary power fre we want we also want to raise two demands very important demands the demand for self-determination of the Black Nation we are a nation and the black Bel is our sou and the other demand is full Democratic rights for black people we've been denied them for years and that's what we want to raise not just free Gary toic there are millions of Gary TOS every day but four Democratic rights for all black people and all national minorities [Applause] [Applause] over 2,000 people marched down Canal Street the clan had promised to be there and stop the March and like the cowards they are never showed up [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] the July 24th demonstration was a turning point for the movement a lot of people came out to other people came out because they get evicted out of the house other people came out because they had brother and sisters in jail other people came out because they had been attacked by the clan so it's it's a matter of linking all these cases together to focus it in one particular enemy the capitalism following July 24th a number of things happened we begin attempt to organize ourselves along Democratic line and we begin to develop principles and goals about around which we would unify our organization aiana which I'm a member of became involved in the struggle to free Garett Tyler we became involved as pan-african nationalists which we are we believe that a struggle to save the life of one black person is a struggle actually to save the life of all black people to build a broad coalition to free Gary Tyler struggle has been waged against opportunists like Collins and the S swp as well as the revisionist Communist Party USA all of whom tried to limit the campaign to legalism and ride to glory on Gary Tyler's name this is a struggle that must continue against representatives of the imperialists who masquerade as friends targeting the capitalist system as the cause of Gary Tyler's frame up committees around the country organized demonstrations speaking tours and petition campaigns by October nearly 100,000 people had signed petitions demanding freedom for Gary Tyler we presented those petitions as an indication to let them know that GAR Tyler is not alone to let them know that we know who the enemy is and we are organizing against them when we went to Baton Rouge and presented those petitions that became another step in making people aware of where the real power lies and where the real struggle and who the real struggle is with in the course of fighting to free Gary Tyler the masses have been brought into the struggle against imperialism and National oppression with the G Ty situation we said that we will deal with the legal situation but we will depend on building a people's Movement we will depend on people demonstrating people joining together just like we will depend in this strength on the people out here the people who will come out and support the strikers this is necessary legalism means that the Louisiana Supreme Court will uphold a conviction of G Tyler who has obviously been franked legalism also means that the legislation will pass the right the Work bill which is a bill as as the sign the SL say the right to work is the right to slave that ain't what we about so as far as what people can do that a lot of people can do I think they can at this point learn what what capitalism is all about what kind of system we have because you going overthrow it you got to know how you going to overthrow it what you going to replace it with want us overthrown and what best methods to use to get people to understand why it needs to be overthrown we have to be organized if we can go against the system the system itself the capitalist themselves are very well organized we need brothers and sisters that are committed to the struggle that will eliminate the conditions that cause very ties it will eliminate the conditions that cause segregation that cause the clan mentality we need to smash not only the clan but white supremacy what they stand for and that can only be realized once the foundations of capitalism is is is brought down once people violently overthrow the system of capitalism and establish a state where working people are in control International support has grown rapidly letters of support and newspaper articles have come from organizations in Germany France Ecuador Chile Colombia the People's Republic of China Belgium Norway Canada and Iceland in November 300 Canadian supporters demonstrated outside the US Consulate in support of Gary Tyler a demonstration in Norway demanded freedom for Gary Tyler in the US black community newspapers and magazines like the Louisiana weekly the Milwaukee Courier and others have carried articles supporting freedom for Gary Tyler we're glad to announce that the struggle is more unified now than it ever was we're glad to announce that the PDC the people's defense coalition and the g Ty defense fund headed by Mrs Wanita T work hand in hand we are having rallies and we are not stopping and we are going on further as far as we could go to prove the show that we are trying to get Justice not only for my son Gary for many other po people that have never really had a trial of Justice in this country as demonstrations continue and the struggle spreads the words of Veteran black revolutionary and communist Otis Hy are important to heed and so I'm convinced after having seen some things and read a few things that we will never stop the Gary Tyles we may halt a few but next week they'll have another one until we attack the citizens that rule this country which is rooted in racism greed exploitation and social injustice and is damnable it is parasitical it must be destroyed and it's up to you to do it the people United will never be defeated the people United will never be defeated the people United will never be defeated the people United will never be defeated the people United will never be defeated the people United will never be defeated the people for