Packed-out Socialist Party meetings hear American socialist and Black Lives Matter activist

Darletta Scruggs photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Socialist Party reporters

"Within hours of Donald Trump winning the US election we were able to get 40,000 people on the streets and put socialist ideas out there, at the time when we had the biggest audience", said Darletta Scruggs when talking to over 60 people, mostly from the local black community, who squeezed into a public Socialist Party meeting in Hackney, east London. Darletta is a member of Socialist Alternative, the Socialist Party's co-thinkers in the US and a Black Lives Matter activist in Chicago.

The meeting followed others the day before in Lewisham, south London, where over 40, mainly young, attended, and a meeting of students at the University of Arts. In Birmingham, Darletta spoke to a packed-out, energetic public meeting of over 60.

Malcolm X

Afterwards Darletta and Socialist Party members visited Marshall Street in Smethwick where, 51 years ago, just days before he was assassinated, black revolutionary Malcolm X paid a visit.

Some residents of Marshall Street were calling for the council to buy up empty houses and make them available to white families only. Malcolm X said he was visited because he was "disturbed by reports that coloured people in Smethwick are being treated badly".

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