Fred Goldstein, 84, died after a long illness on April 11, 2023. He is survived by his partner of 57 years, Naomi Cohen Goldstein, and their daughter, Lila Natalie Goldstein, as well as a daughter from a prior marriage.
Part of the revolutionary youth movement of the 1960s, Fred Goldstein was inspired by the rising liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as the struggle against racism in the U.S. While a student at City College in New York City, Fred was a founding member of Youth Against War & Fascism and in 1962 helped to organize the first demonstration in the U.S. against the war in Vietnam.
He was a dynamic speaker and teacher, as well as a tireless organizer who had a gift for connecting meaningfully with people. In spite of the great difficulties now facing the multinational working class and oppressed in the U.S. and around the world, he remained a revolutionary optimist to the end.
August 28, 1963: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
At the march, comrades of Youth Against War & Fascism mass distributed Chairman Mao Zedong’s message of solidarity: “People of the World Unite to Oppose Racial Discrimination by U.S. Imperialism and Support the American Negroes in Their Struggle Against Racial Discrimination.”
50 years ago, December 4, 1969: Black Panther Party comrades Fred Hampton and Mark Clark assassinated by the Chicago Police and FBI. We do not forget or forgive!
The banner “Avenge Fred Hampton” was made by members of Youth Against War and Fascism to protest the Dec. 4, 1969, murders of Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by a Chicago police death squad working with the FBI’s Cointelpro assassination program
Hundreds of flags and banners with this logo were carried outside New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, where President Richard Nixon was speaking a few nights after the murder. Thousands of protesters broke through barricades and battled police through the night. The banner was reproduced by YAWF chapters across the U.S.
Veterans of YAWF are among the founders of Struggle-La Lucha newspaper and the Socialist Unity Party / Partido de Socialismo Unido.
One hundred and fifteen people packed a restaurant in the Dominican Republic city of Santiago on Feb. 29 to honor the life and work of Puerto Rican revolutionary activist Tom Soto. Reservations had been made for 50. Soto now lives in Santiago and is battling cancer.
During the CCNY struggle, Soto met members of Youth Against War and Fascism, a militant organization that included some of the founders of Struggle-La Lucha. He joined YAWF and led its Prisoners Solidarity Committee. It was a time when prisoners across the country were organizing against intolerable conditions. The PSC raised the slogan that “Prisons are concentration camps for the poor.”
On Sept. 9, 1971, inmates at the state prison in Attica, N.Y., rebelled, seizing one of the yards and taking guards hostage. They called for observers from people’s organizations, and Soto, representing the PSC, went there. He was able to enter the yard and meet the prisoners. Soto and the PSC stood with the inmates and their demands for union wages and representation, union-run vocational training for inmates and an end to racism and brutality by the guards and administration. The state evicted the observers from the prison when they refused to be used against the prisoners. On Sept. 12, billionaire Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s state troopers invaded the prison and murdered 43 people, inmates and hostages both. The PSC organized protests around the country, breaking up banquets and public appearances by butcher Rockefeller.
Soto was also active in the American Servicemen’s Union, an organization of anti-war GIs and veterans. As the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, many GIs were coming home to a jobless economy. Black, Latinx and Native vets had it the worst.
Members of Struggle-La Lucha from Baltimore and New York City also attended the event. SLL members did a video interview with Tom and are preparing a documentary on his life and work.
Film shot by the NYPD’s political surveillance unit at an August 1969 demonstration in Midtown Manhattan shows an early appearance of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) as it joined other left and radical groups.
Historic footage of the Gay Liberation Front, Youth Against War & Fascism and others at a New York City anti-war action in 1969, shortly after the Stonewall Rebellion. Several comrades of Struggle - La Lucha for Socialism got their start in YAWF.
Cool that this exists and is online for historical purposes; creepy that it was shot by the NYPD Red Squad.
Lessons of Chicago: 50 years since protests at Democratic Convention
By Fred Goldstein
This week marks the 50th anniversary of the militant protests and massive state repression at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. This article originally appeared in the Sept. 13, 1968, edition of Workers World newspaper.
Several hundred police, who tried to attack a Grant Park rally after someone lowered the U.S. flag, were literally driven away by the youth in the crowd. The cops were hit with everything that could be thrown and then surrounded by barricades of benches and immobilized before they withdrew in defeat.
Mobile street demonstrations were carried out, during which obstacles were strewn about to slow down police cars. Youth at Lincoln Park built such sturdy barricades to keep from being driven from the party that police had to saturate the area with tear gas many times in order to drive them out.
Many so-called leftists frown upon these new tactics as “adventuristic” and inadequate to defeat such a heavily armed force as the police. But those who are serious about leading a revolutionary struggle against imperialism must take a carefully constructive attitude towards the initial burses of revolutionary energy shown by the young people in Chicago.
Opponents of imperialism will try to assist the militants to improve their tactics, not throw cold water on them.
In general, the Chicago events have shown that the capitalist will always resort to force if popular will stands in the way of their imperialist objectives.
These events have confirmed the Marxist analysis of the state. This resort to violence on the eve of new imperialist crises has pointed out to thousands of young people that revolutionary resistance to boss rule is the only way to stop wars of aggression.
