Peoples assembly for social justice

Activists from around the country and especially the Southwest met in San Antonio to participate in the Border Peoples Movement Assembly on March 19-23.

Photo: Ruben Solis

The BPMA is a follow-up to the work carried out by organizers and supporters of the U.S. Social Forum; within the USSF framework are both the Border Social Forum and the Southeast Social Forum.

In 2007, the U.S. Social Forum convened in Atlanta, where over 20,000 people, primarily people of color, met for the first time in the U.S. as part of the World Social Forum formation. The U.S. Social Forum aims to build a diverse grassroots social movement that addresses the many issues and problems working people face in this country and around the world.

The San Antonio meeting had as its goal “to establish a permanent base of social movement organizations ... working on the U.S. Mexico border.” It was also a first step “on the road to Detroit.”

The second U.S. Social Forum is scheduled to convene in Detroit the third week in June 2010. Organizers of the Detroit Social Forum stated that they aim to double the attendance from the 2007 meeting in Atlanta, to 40,000 people.

There were several outcomes to the San Antonio meeting. One was a Unity in Action calendar, which includes building for May Day 2009, organizing an anti-war action on March 20, actions against NAFTA and the militarization of the U.S./Mexican border and other actions, as well as supporting the April 3 action on Wall Street.