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Hospitality Workers Shutdown Decatur Street

In commemoration of International Working Women’s Day, over 150 workers and supporters sat down in the middle of crowded Decatur St. in the French Quarter. For half an hour, the workers showed the city a taste of their power, shutting down the street in solidarity with the hospitality workers being forced to work for almost no wages, without healthcare, sick leave, or reliable public transportation. Other workers nearby cheered them on, including bus drivers and truckers who paused in their routes. Many hospitality workers came out of their workplaces raising their fists in solidarity.

The New Orleans Hospitality Workers Alliance and the New Orleans Peoples’ Assembly led a coalition of working women to demand the city and the Tourism Board return $180 million in taxes that currently line the pockets of the rich ruling class instead of serving the people. Hospitality and workers from other industries spoke up in the streets, demanding childcare, maternity leave, sick pay, better schedules, pensions, an end to racist and sexual harassment, and healthcare. All these programs could be funded by the tax money currently hoarded by the city’s greedy capitalists. Speakers included leaders from the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Alliance, Women With a Vision, the New Orleans Abortion Fund, the Amalgamated Transit Union (Bus Drivers) Local 1560, Erase the Board Coalition, New Orleans Workers Group, and others. The rally was conducted in English and Spanish.

As the workers marched out of the French Quarter, they chanted “We’ll be back,” promising to continue the fight.

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Peoples Assembly Women’s Dinner: Black August, Solidarity With Prisoners

By Shera Phillips

I am increasingly more and more excited for each Women Dinner’s Wednesday. This past one set fire down in my soul. August is famous for solidarity with the incarcerated in the form of black august. There have been prison strikes all over the country in which the incarcerated demand to be regarded as human beings.

I learned a great deal and we had a host of dynamic speakers educate us on various topics from mass incarceration and its connection to slavery and racism, the enormous capitalistic gains of private corporations and individuals made by the prison complex, what a world could look like without prisons and a powerful testimony of how the prison industry has affected the institution of family made by Fox Rich, as well as spoken word.

The power in the room moved many to tears. We sang, we shouted and we cried. We found community, empowerment and ways to engage in this much needed work for liberation of all.

Join us in our next Women’s Dinner Wednesday where will be hosting a community sing. Singing negro spirituals fuels us, encourages us, purges us, and rejuvenates us. We are reminded of the state of being and passion of our ancestors as they endured and fought for non-negotiable progress.

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Peoples’ Assembly Continues Fight Against Mass Incarceration City Budget

By Sanashihla

Elected officials who have control over public tax dollars compromise with white supremacists and owners of major corporations who operate with capitalistic greed and a desire to maintain a white power structure.

After $7.5 billion dollars in wealth was generated for the year by tourism, the city of New Orleans should not have the extreme levels of poverty and disparities that exist here. Yet poverty is pervasive, even though many of the people living in poverty are folk who get up and GO TO WORK every single day.

The newly elected mayor, LaToya Cantrell, who is Black and the first woman to be mayor in the 300-year history of a colonized New Orleans, said “New Orleans is a city with two truths — the first is one filled with promise, while the second is one filled with crime.” Let’s take a moment to get clear what these crimes are.

New Orleans has a $647 million dollar budget, and 63% of it goes towards cops and jails that have shown NO evidence of making our city any safer. This demonstrates that the city’s primary existence is to feed mass incarceration, to exploit the labor of prisoners, fill the pockets of privatized prison owners and build the wealth of the rich ruling class on the backs of “free” working class people. Yet how free are working class people really?

Nearly 50% of children live in poverty, and only 3% of the New Orleans city budget is dedicated to children and families. This right here is a crime. A 3% investment is NOT the way to ensure New Orleans children have a fair start in life. Therefore, if such a LOW amount of money is invested into the lives of families and children, then clearly in a predominantly Black city, made up of predominantly Black families with predominately Black children the elected officials of New Orleans do not care about the overall well-being of Black families or Black children.

In New Orleans, nearly 50% of Black males are unemployed. So, to invest only 1% of the entire city budget on job development is also criminal. Investment in job development through a public jobs program that pays a living wage and provides quality “on the job” paid training would be a way to ensure residents are working and able to care for themselves and their families, in healthy, proactive, productive ways.

The city cries poor, saying that the $647 million-dollar budget is not enough to do all that is needed in the city. But does not redirect the 63% of the budget that is invested into cops and jails.

The city GIVES at least $140 million tax-dollars dollars directly to the biggest tourism corporations each year, bypassing the city budget. Rather than invest this money into the needs of the people, the city of New Orleans rings every tax dollar out of working class people and does not invest that money back into the working class. The city also refuses to pass/push/or demand an ordinance for a living wage for the same working-class people of New Orleans who keep the city running. The city should take back the $140 million into the city budget to serve the people who serve this city best. For New Orleans to make the kind of progress that it needs (symbolically & systemically), there must be:

  • no more compromises with white supremacy!
  • no more compromises with oppression!
  • no more compromises with economic exploitation!
  • We must DEMAND that elected officials stop using OUR money and OUR resources to keep the white power structure in place. 
  • We must DEMAND that our tax dollars be used to invest in children, families and job development. 
  • EVERY time the city allocates resources, we must remember, those resources are ours. 
  • Wherever there is oppression, there will be resistance!
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Peoples’ Assembly Women’s Dinner In Solidarity with Immigrants

By Shera Phillips

May 2nd was my second People’s Assembly Women’s Dinner. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but I knew there would be women of different religious and cultural backgrounds speaking about their unique experience in the “Land of the Free and Brave”.

The evening was entitled Solidarity with Immigrant Women. The guests were from Central America, Haiti as well as a Muslim woman. Our sister from Central America allowedus, the audience members, to see a glimpse of what life was like for her as an undocumented woman. She explained that the act of merely paying a traffic ticket could mean the end of life as she knows it. I immediately could draw from my own experience as a brown woman in the U.S., but listening to her amplified my experience and overwhelmed me with emotion. I had never before heavily considered what being pulled over might mean for an immigrant. When I go to court, praying that my ticket will be thrown out, Maria is praying that she can pay hers and go home. I had never even thought about the variation of discrimination that immigrants have to endure here, being mistreated by employers and landlords, fearing to speak out about injustices because it could mean deportation, imprisonment or worse. This one conversation caused a change in perspective in which I was able to awaken to an entirely different existence, one that would cause fear to pulsate through the veins of any suspecting body.

Most people build a reality and only include in it things and people that correspond with it. Many of us rarely socialize with people who aren’t a part of our social and cultural existence. We live in a bubble, and our circle becomes a focus group that confirms and reaffirms variations of our own experience. We travel through life in this vortex, in which we are the center of the universe and anything that doesn’t conform to this matrix is unpleasant and therefore we defend our position or avoid anything outside of it. Just take a look at yourself and your friends. Are any of them from different countries or states, different social, religious, economic or racial backgrounds? If your answer is yes, congratulations. You are unlike a majority of the population. The People’s Assembly provides a safe space for people of different walks, to come, learn and work together towards liberation.

The Women’s Dinner is the first Wednesday of every month. Transportation, childcare and dinner are provided all by the men of People’s Assembly. Women are appreciated, celebrated, encouraged to relax and converse about the issues we experience, find resources, and learn how we can collectively combat our oppression.

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Peoples’ Assembly Women’s Dinner Wednesdays

The New Orleans Peoples Assembly Organizing Committee meets every Wednesday. The first Wednesday of every month is dedicated to our monthly Women’s Dinner Wednesday. On Women’s Dinner Wednesday, we gather as working class women to connect, build in strength, and become informed about the specific systems that affect our lives most, and how to overcome oppression that hinders and harms our abilities to be healthy and whole. We are bold in the fact that we center working class women, which includes those impacted by homelessness.

During our first two meetings, we focused on the history of International Working Women’s day and what it means to us now, and also the “Work Week Ordinance” that the New Orleans Hospitality Workers Committee is advancing on behalf of the 88,000 hospitality workers and all other workers in the city. This is important because women make up such a large force of the working class, and the impact on our lives, children and families is straining and oppressive.

Audre Lorde said, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.” This is why we call out to all working class women to join forces to organize on behalf of our collective liberation.

Contact us at:
Facebook.com/NewOrleansPeoplesAssemblyOrganizingCommittee/

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Dr. Barnwell Brings Fellowship and Harmony to New Orleans with Community Sing

By Antranette Scott, Peoples’ Assembly Organizer

On April 7, the Community Sing, headed by Wendi Moore-O’Neal, hosted a weekend of events that featured Dr. Ysaye Maria Barnwell. The weekend started with a welcoming dinner for Dr. Barnwell. Wendi and The Heart Team broke bread and fellowshipped with Dr. Barnwell; sharing the work that various members of the Heart Team and each individual’s passion for our collective liberation from white supremacy and freedom for all people in the city of New Orleans and around the globe.

The Community Sings acts as a bridge between the front lines of struggle and a way to recharge and energize ourselves for the work ahead. By focusing on songs of struggle, liberation, and freedom, we connect the past with our present day fight. These songs give us a type of technology that can be used to flex our collaborative muscles, practice intentional vulnerability, and realize that there is no safe space, only spaces that we step into courageously.

On Saturday, at the White Buffalo Community Center (CORE USA), Wendi and Dr. Barnwell lead a workshop centered on Singing in the African American Tradition and Organic Harmonizing. Voices were lifted and attendees were given a sweet sample of the power of communal sound. Black Swan Food Experience prepared a lunch that fed everyone body and soul. After lunch attendees worked with a song written by local freedom fighter and songwriter Rodneka Shelbia “I Am the Prize”. By utilizing her phenomenal understanding of sound, Dr. Barnwell transformed the community singers in ways they had never imagined and brought out the power of Rodneka’s song in new ways.
Later that evening Dr. Barnwell closed out Tulane’s “What is the Sound of Freedom?” concert. Dr. Barnwell was joined by Dr. Courtney Bryan, Dr. Tyshawn Sorey, as well as William and Patricia Parker.

The highlight of her visit, was when Dr. Barnwell led a Community Sing held at Southern University’s Dr. Millie Charles Building of Social Work. Over 200 folks were in attendance to learn of Spirituals as Storytellers. Dr. Barnwell harvested the power of our vocal community and truly transformed the space. The Peoples’ Assembly presented a call to action for equity and equality of the working class people of New Orleans by recognizing we have to wage relentless struggle against symbols and systems of oppression.

We are forever grateful to Dr. Barnwell for answering the call and sharing her knowledge with the Community Sing. Also thank you to Wendi Moore-O’Neal, Jaliyah Consulting and The Heart Team.