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Angela Davis High Highlights Chicago Rally

Angela Davis High Highlights Chicago Rally image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
July
Year
1975
OCR Text

Angela Davis High Lights Chicago Rally

Ribbons, banners, hats and flags filled Chicago's International Amphitheater, Sunday. June 29, which marked a Bicentennial Festival sponsored by the Communist Party, USA.

Angela Duvis, the keynote speaker, received a standing ovation as thousands welcomed her. "Abraham Lincoln talked about a government, of the people, by the people, and for the people," said Davis. "Today we are facing a country, of the Corporation, by the Corporation and for the Corporation." She went on to say, "We are not here in the spirit of people who have bombed the world. We demand of those in the White House, that we want our country back!"

Davis explained that we are in for serious times, as she spoke of murders and assassinations. "The CIA tried to bring down the government of Cuba; instead they brought down the government in the White House," she added.

A lot of emphasis was put on monopolies and capitalism as being the cause of the economie crisis of today. "We are going to perish Rockefeller and his system," she said with a powerful voice.

Gus Hall, general secretary of the Communist Party, was the second keynote speaker at the festival.

"Their idea of the 'land of the free and the home of the brave,' has been tarnished and tattered," Hall said. He went on to explain that this country has had the same problems for 200 years. "There must be basic flaws in the system," he said, referring to inflation, unemployment and racism.

Gus Hall is expected to be the CP candidate on the Presidential ticket: in 1976, with Angela Davis in the vice-presidential slot.

Other speakers included Anne Braden, a southern civil rights activist, Sammy Rayner, Jr., former Chicago Alderman, Bill KJamen, National Student Association, who spoke in place of President Kathy Kelly, and James Steele, National Chairman of the Young Workers Liberation League. Over 3,000 people from across the country attended the well publicized rally. The gathering closed the 21st annual CP convention.

A cultural half hour, at the end of the program, was designed to revive the culture of the people. The Volga Ukrainian Dancers, from Detroit, Suni Paz, a Latín American singer, and others joined in the cultural celebration of the festival.

-Roslyn Riddle