J20NOLA coalition issues a call to action

By C.C. Campbell-Rock
Contributing Writer

The J20NOLA Coalition continues its united and national resistance campaign with an organizing meeting, Saturday, February 11, 2017, from 1p.m. – 4 p.m., at Christian Unity Baptist Church, 1700 Conti Street, New Orleans. The purpose of the meeting is to plan a “People’s Assembly,” set for Saturday, June 3, 2017.

J20NOLA Coalition’s call to action started with the successful Anti-Trump Inauguration and the People’s Unity and Resistance Rally & March on January 20, 2017. At least 5,000 people gathered in Duncan Plaza, across from New Orleans’ City Hall, in a show of multicultural, ethnic, religious, and patriotic unity to send a strong message to the Trump Administration and local and state officials that fascism will not be tolerated in the U.S. or Louisiana.

“We are organizing a People’s Assembly of residents of Orleans Parish, for the purpose of democratically building a holistic political platform that speaks to the issues needed across Orleans Parish; framed with clear demands,” said the event’s organizers.

Organizers say a People’s Assembly is needed because: there is a sweeping assault by Trump, Wall Street & the Pentagon against the poor and middle class; working class people face pay cuts, a loss of benefits, and continuing poverty wages; citizens are under assault from state and city leaders, who have allowed the super-rich to create gentrification and displacement, unemployment, poor education, mass imprisonment, and inequality.

Of equal importance is the new threat of fascism that is permeating American cities, as a result of the selection of Donald Trump by the Electoral College, in spite of Hillary Clinton getting 2.8 million more votes than Trump. According to Merriam-Webster, “Fascism is a political system headed by a dictator in which the government controls business and labor and opposition is not permitted.”

In his first week in office, Trump he unilaterally signed executive orders killing the Affordable Care Act, implementing a Muslim Ban, giving the go-ahead to the Keystone and Dakota Pipelines, struck down federal funding for Planned Parenthood, and called the Main Stream Media the “Opposition Party,”: in a thinly veiled attempt to strike down the First Amendment, among other authoritarian orders. Trump is joined by at least seven state legislatures who have filed bills to criminalized protesting, in an effort to stop the political debate in the streets organized by groups like the J20NOLA Coalition.

The J20NOLA Coalition is comprised of more than 70 organizations from metropolitan NOLA and the surrounding parishes,

People interested in attending the J20NOLA Coalition meeting can call (504) 657-3171 or email info@takeemdownnola.org for more information.

This article originally published in the February 6, 2017 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.