The Struggle Continues... Join the Movement!
The Louisville Workers Brigade
1/1/2025
2025 is here and the tasks facing working and oppressed people are as urgent as ever.
Last month, the Brigade outlined various ways to get involved, to organize in the new year. We began by stressing the importance of reading and studying working class and labor history and theory. We continued with a call for expanded, militant workplace organizing. Lastly, we highlighted other ways to join the Movement by organizing with a working class organization.
It’s important to remember that our work in the Movement is part of a long continuum spanning across the globe and centuries of time. Those who have come before us—both recently and not-so-recently—have laid the groundwork for our contribution to the struggle today. In other words, no matter how dark the current political landscape may be, no matter how daunting the tasks are before us, it’s comforting to know that we, as contemporary organizers, are not faced with the prospect of “starting from scratch,” but have the example and experiences of thousands of organizers before us.
Here, the Brigade wishes to again reiterate the three primary ingredients to becoming an effective organizer: study, mentorship, and practice! All three are essential. The study of history, economics, and theory informs our understanding of society and shapes our work according to the scientific process we, as organizers, utilize. Mentorship continues the legacy of the great organizers to come before us, ensuring inter-generational solidarity that transmits the lessons of the past. And, through practice, organizers are able to test the theory they’ve studied, matching it with the real-world conditions in their communities, and improving their effectiveness through the process of action, self-criticism, and adjustment.
Just as it’s important to remember the work of those who have come before us—for such legacies inspire us, teach us vital lessons in theory and praxis, and inform our understanding of scientific organizing—it is also important to know that this continuum of organizing has not ceased: it is happening in nearly every corner of the globe, live and in real-time. In nearly every community, the most politically advanced working and oppressed people, called the “militant minority” by the great William Z. Foster, are actively engaged in the struggle. Folks are organizing workplace unions, fighting social chauvinisms, educating workers, uniting students, renters, and prisoners, and are standing against imperialism, climate change, and all forms of oppression and exploitation. These contemporary organizers represent a vanguard of our class, the working class leaders who daily educate, agitate, and organize among the masses.
Last month, when Brigade organizers addressed Louisville Metro Council demanding the humane treatment of human beings incarcerated in the Louisville Metro Department of Corrections, we found the Brigade was among left-progressive allies: also there to address Metro Council were a number of other groups representing working class causes. Members of the Louisville Tenants Union were in attendance to advocate for the residents of Mt. Lebanon Senior Apartments. An organizer with Rubbertown Emergency ACTion (REACT) addressed the councilpersons about the dire environmental and workplace conditions facing the workers and residents of Rubbertown. Organizers with Get on the Bus, a campaign organized by the Louisville Democratic Socialists of America (LDSA), demanded proper and adequate funding of our city’s public transit system. And an organizer with Mask Bloc Louisville talked about the attack on residents’ civil liberties through the city’s mask-ban. All of these groups are active in our Louisville community, fighting for working and oppressed people. The Brigade hopes to platform their worthy causes and to find ways to coordinate and co-organize together in 2025.
For the month of January, The Class Struggle Chronicle will be highlighting some of the work of contemporary organizers and groups. We want to put a spotlight on the struggle as it currently exists today. We hope this month’s focus will inspire our readers to get involved, to get organized. The path before us is dark and treacherous, but there is a path… It’s a path mapped out by the march of history and a scientific analysis of the trajectory of our class society. It’s a path carved into reality by organizers, both past and present. It’s the path forward towards the liberation of all working and oppressed people!