By ADAM RITSCHER
“I’m interested in attending Socialist Action Summer School, and joining a group of young activists.” These words from a young woman college student in San Francisco exemplify the type of response members of Youth for Socialist Action have been getting in trying to sign up youth for the summer school.
Already some 50 young people in the Bay Area alone have either signed up or expressed real interest in attending, and this doesn’t include the car and plane loads that will be coming in from places as far afield as Northern Wisconsin or Southern California.
Youth for Socialist Action, an organization that was born out of a similar gathering in August of last year, has grown organizationally and matured politically since that time.
And it was through our participation in numerous struggles on our campuses and communities that both educated us in how to be young revolutionary activists and earned the level of respect and recognition that is now allowing us to sign up so many of the young people we met in these struggles.
This conference will be YSA’s first since it was founded, and is going to be used to review our gains from the past year, and put ourselves on a new campaign footing going into the new school year.
The attendance of Johana Tablada, the Second Secretary of the Cuban Interest Section in Washington D.C., and Pam Africa from the International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal will be big boosts in our commitment to continue and expand our work to free Mumia and defend the Cuban Revolution. Both Johana and Pam will be speaking on Youth & Revolution Day, the day set aside for workshops organized by YSA.
On the following day we will also hear from socialists from Mexico talk about the huge struggle being waged there by students to defend higher education. This is the same struggle the YSA has been active in here in the United States.
Among the other speakers on Youth & Revolution Day will be local YSA activists from across the country, bringing out the lessons of what we’ve done this past year, but also explaining the significance for American youth of the struggles led by young people in Mexico, Indonesia, Iran, and Greece.
As internationalists we strongly believe in the importance of recognizing that the youth radicalization is worldwide-and in that lies its power!
We look forward with great anticipation to the enthusiasm and comradeship of 1999 Socialist Action Summer School, and invite all young activists to come and join us there!
