SolidarityEconomy.net

RU a Txt Votr?

By Daffodil Altan

Nov 03, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO–The numbers are in, and the drive to register a million new voters after massive immigrants’ rights marches earlier this year came up short. But most analysts missed an experimental and successful registration process that sought to engage young Latino voters a la “American Idol.” Using cell phone text messaging technology and online networking sites like MySpace, young voters reached out to other young voters via the digital maze that now dominates communication among the 35-and-under crowd. (more…)

Finding a Way to Solidarity

By Glen Ford
BAR Executive Editor

When as many as two million immigrants and their supporters, most of them Latino, turned out for demonstrations against draconian undocumented worker legislation in cities across the nation this spring, everywhere the question was raised: Is this the new civil rights movement? By all appearances, some kind of great awakening had indeed occurred which, if sustained, would transform the participants and, eventually, the society at-large.

However, Black opinion was decidedly mixed. Traditional and progressive African American organizations generally supported the explosion of Latino activism, and marveled at the coordination and sheer size of the rallies in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Dallas, Houston, Seattle – at least two dozen cities, nationwide. Luminaries such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, NAACP chairman Julian Bond, the SCLC’s Rev. Joseph Lowrey, and numerous Black congresspersons were quick to make a positive connection to the struggles of the Sixties.

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