Meeting in South Central L.A. Church: Confronting the Challenge of Driving out a Fascist Regime
On Tuesday, February 28, Ward AME (African Methodist Episcopal) Church in South Central Los Angeles hosted an important meeting of about 50 people to take up the challenge of confronting the Trump/Pence Regime. A congregant from Ward AME had joined Refuse Fascism in L.A. and begun spreading the Call to Action, including to her church leadership and others in the Black progressive faith based community. She also was inspired by a letter written by AME bishops after Trump’s inauguration, which asked the entire denomination to “join with us in action”, and put some focus on the Church expressing its opinions to the U.S. Congress.
Several prominent AME leaders spoke at the meeting. A Bishop elder and former pastor of Ward AME gave some history of the church’s involvement in significant struggles, from the 60’s to fighting apartheid in South Africa, and challenged the crowd to be a “force for justice in the world.”
A representative from Refuse Fascism in Los Angeles read the entire Call to Action from Refuse Fascism. She explained that this is fascism, and right now there is an urgent necessity, a window, to “work with all our creativity and determination toward that time when millions of people can be moved to fill the streets in cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate – Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until the Trump/Pence Regime is Driven from Power.”
From the Call to Action: “This is not just a pendulum swing from Democratic to Republican, but a regime that is moving to establish a fascist order under the signboard of ‘America First.’ Acting as if the election in 2018 or 2020 is the way to deal with this regime is folly, betraying a lack of understanding of just how fast, furious, and profoundly this regime will change the rules, cement its rule, destroy lives and crush spirits. You cannot try to wait things out….” She said the new Call to Action must get out to society and we must act on this understanding.
A panel of religious leaders called for many more Black churches to take up the struggle to stop attacks on immigrants. Speakers made moving descriptions and comparisons of Black slave families torn apart under slavery and Trump’s ICE raids happening … with more to come if it’s not stopped. People were encouraged to join the rapid-response network being forged among many church denominations in Los Angeles and So Cal right now.
Discussion and debate continued through the end of the meeting. Some contention centered on whether we can wait for the next election cycle, or whether we must work to drive out this fascist regime before they are fully consolidated – before they clamp down on all resistance, remake the laws etc. and that we don’t have much time…
Importantly, the congregant who’d initiated the event stood up and called for Black churches in the area to walk out of church and “hit the streets” very soon because of the urgency. Many people signed up with Refuse Fascism and took Calls to Action and NO! posters to put up in areas where they live and work. Meetings are being set up, with speakers and attendees.
The next evening, a member of the church came to the Refuse Fascism organizing meeting and made plans to go back to people at the Ward event with the Call of Refuse Fascism. She wants them to reach out to many other denominations – she’d been greatly moved by the Call to Action. She said people need to continue the discussion and debate over the need to accomplish what is called for in Refuse Fascism’s Call to Action: people stepping outside “normal channels” in their millions and tens of millions, in a very concentrated period of time, to call out this fascist regime as illegitimate – with the single unifying mission to Drive Out the Trump-Pence Regime.