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Dynamic Magazine
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The quarterly magazine of the YCL
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YCL 8th National Convention May 2006
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Our Future, Our Fight: Youth Beat Back the Ultra-Right!
Young Communist League, USA
Eighth National Convention
May 27-29, 2006 * New York City
Our Future, Our Fight: Youth Beat Back the Ultra-Right
On Memorial Day Weekend members of the Young Communist League, USA refused to sit back while ultra-right attempts to destroy our future by holding our 8th National Convention in Brooklyn, New York. During the weekend, over 250 delegates and guests from Oakland, Chicago, Maine, Providence, Florida, St. Louis, New York and many other communities came together to celebrate the successes of the YCL in the last 4 years and to plan how to move the YCL forward in the struggle for peace, jobs and education for young people.
Convention highlights include:
Convention-goers attended “War and Peace”, an art exhibit and hip-hop performance co-sponsored by Dynamic Magazine, World Up and Upper Playground
Convention-goers demonstrated outside of a Brooklyn military recruitment center demanding money for schools, jobs and not for war
Convention adopted a national Action Plan, a document that provides a foundation for our work over the next 4 years
Convention approved resolutions covering our approach to the struggle of immigrants, the struggle for peace, and aid to survivors of Hurricane Katrina
Convention elected of new National Council and National Coordinator, Erica Smiley
The convention opened with a rousing speech from out-going National Coordinator Jessica Marshall, setting the tone for the rest of the weekend by noting “This country needs a radical youth organization, a strong and vibrant multi-racial organization. The YCL knows that unity is not a secondary vision. We are not victims, we are fighters!” Also addressing the convention were Congressman Major Owens (D-NY) who welcomed us to Brooklyn “on behalf of all the progressive forces of the nation and world”, Jarvis Tyner, executive Vice Chair of the Communist Party USA who reminded us that “Tomorrow is Yours”, and international guests from the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), YCL of Canada, YCL of Greece, YCL of Israel and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) of El Salvador.
Throughout the weekend YCL members and guests participated in workshops on topics ranging from issues such as “Youth and the Poverty Draft”, skills-building sessions on how to get involved in the upcoming elections to ideological workshops highlighting the YCL’s approach to fighting racism, the struggle women’s equality and the fight for democracy.
As we all return home, pumped from the Convention and ready to hit the streets in the upcoming elections, we invite you to join us in the fight for the rights of young people and for a better future for all youth. You can do this in many ways, signing up for the upcoming YCL School where you can dive deeper into the many ideological questions raised at the convention, you can participate in our elections work, and be a part of implementing our Action Plan in so many ways.
But before you do anything, consider joining the YCLUSA.
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Upcoming Events
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2008 Elections
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Check back soon for more information!
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More 1999 - July
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Workers on strike endure long and somtimes lonely hours on the picket line. When young people come out to show support, it's not only good politics--it's also good fun. At the end of our June 1999 National Council meeting, members of the Young Communist League USA, joined in solidarity with the kitchen workers of Angelo and Maxie's at their picket line for the right to organize.
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Every day in America, millions of television viewers are bombarded by their class enemy, right in the comfort of their own home. Television is the prime source of news information for the majority of Americans. And what do we get?
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The fight for Mumia Abu-Jamal focuses on the agenda of the right wing: the criminalization of youth (especially youth of color), the brutality of law enforcement, the suppression of dissent, the expansion of the death penalty, the gutting of defendants rights, and the whole political atmosphere based on a double standard of justice for the most oppressed citizens in the United States.
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April 30, 1999, will be the 24 anniversary of the ending of the Vietnam War. A generation ago our parents marched, burned draft cards, sat-in, and said, "Hell no! We won't go." Working class youth and students led the mass movement to end the Vietnam War. They also did most of the dying for the United States. Now the youth of America face the prospect of a ground war in Yugoslavia.
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The brutal shooting of Amadou Diallo, 22, in the Bronx, N.Y., has triggered a broad and growing nationwide response from students, community, and labor.
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Since January 1997, more than 2,000 young people have joined the YCL, and the trend continues. At the end of the 1990s, the young Communist movement in the U.S. is about to reach the next level - a mass Young Communist League.
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The 6th National Convention of the Young Communist League USA was a great success. Held June 5-7 at Temple Univ. in Philadelphia, the Convention was a challenge to rededicate ourselves to organizing a mass YCL and helping to unite the youth and student movement.
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This is the full text of the Youth and Student Bill of Rights, as passed at the YCL 6th National Convention June 7th, 1998.
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On July 25th, YCL clubs across the country took action to build the campaign for the Youth and Student Bill of Rights. Each action took us one step forward in our goal to popularize the Bill and build a broad coalition united around its demands.
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This past June, I was lucky enough to participate in what, I believe, will be looked upon in years to come as two historic events in the fight for jobs, education, equality and peace.
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I saw jesus being evicted today
and at the very moment i saw
a broken cross
lying next to some folding chairs
watched over by an old woman
muttering
"praise the lord"
I knew.
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The scene before the opening credits in F. Gary Gray's Set it Off lays out the themes for the rest of the movie: we witness a bank robbery, a number of graphic slayings, and a black woman getting screwed over by the system.
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More 1997 - February
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On November 15, the first Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, Dagoberto Rodriguez, visited San Antonio, Texas as part of a speaking tour of this state.
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It's 9:00 on a chilly Saturday morning in Chicago. As I pull my winter coat closer to myself I hear the distant bells signaling the arrival of my train. I'm on my way downtown once again to inform the Michigan Avenue shoppers of just where and by whom their clothes are being made. Today I'm headed for Nike Town.
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We put Alisa Gallo, one of our YCL organizers and leaders on the spot to respond to this great question from Missouri...
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