This year marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed on April 4, 1968 while supporting striking Memphis sanitation workers. Like so many fighters for the oppressed, the ruling class fears and opposes them while they are alive, but following their death an attempt is made to render their legacy harmless through distorting their actual ideas. During his lifetime King inspired millions with his vision that fundamental change in U.S. society was possible.

The Scottsboro Boys case in the ‘30s became an important struggle for racial and economic justice in the South and throughout the country. The “Scottsboro boys” were nine African-American men who were sentenced to death by an all-white jury after being falsely accused of raping two white women on a freight train. These convictions were eventually overturned after a mass defense campaign led by the Communist Party, whose role is very instructive for workers, youth and people of color trying to build a movement now.

The events in Jena, Louisiana, attacks on immigrant workers, and a spate of police killings of black men demonstrate that racial and class oppression are alive and well in a society that purports to subscribe the ideals of justice, equality and freedom. With a weakened US dollar and onset of world economic crisis, the question facing the working class, poor and people of color are: how do we end the triple evils of racism, poverty and war?

On the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, African Americans still face systemic racism and inequality. This can be seen in the enormous disparities in the prison population, as well as the recent decision to demolish thousands of public housing units in New Orleans.

Florida - a place of sunny beaches, wholesome resorts, and slave labor. Just this December, three Florida fruit pickers were found after escaping an employer who brutally beat them and forced them to work as slaves for over a year.

It seems like on the cusp of being real. For the first time in the U.S., a black man has a serious chance of being the next occupant of the White House. Barack Obama won the Democratic caucus in Iowa and finished a strong second to Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

On December 4, 2006, six black high school students were arrested in the small town of Jena, Louisiana for beating up a white high school student after he allegedly called several black students “nigger.” This case has brought to mind racist miscarriages of justice during Jim Crow, not least in Louisiana itself, and struck a deep chord with African Americans.

The immigration bill that was agreed to by both Bush and key Democratic lawmakers has failed to pass in the Senate and is now basically dead. From the point of view of immigrant workers and the entire working class, it shows the need to organize mass actions against the attacks on immigrants.

Media personality Don Imus, Hip-Hop artist 50 cent, comic/actor Michael Richards of Seinfeld fame and the resurgence of the gore and snuff films like the Quentin Tarantino presented Hostel I and II are at the center of an important debate about racism, sexism, violence and the use of language within U.S. society. To discuss these individuals or events in isolation is to underestimate the impact of capitalism on cultural products.

For the second year in a row, the large-scale celebration of International Workers Day has made its historic return to the United States.

Over the last few years, the Michael Bianco factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts has been producing bullet-proof vests, backpacks, and other textiles for the U.S. military. For Michael Bianco, Inc. (and many other more powerful companies in the U.S.), the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have meant big profits. And like any number of U.S. employers, this company has been cashing in by employing low-wage, undocumented workers.

Sean Bell was a young working-class African American who went out to a club in Queens, New York City on November 25, the night before his wedding. He never made it home, dying in a hail of 50 police bullets fired into his car. Bell was trying to flee after being accosted outside the club by an undercover cop who failed to identify himself. The police claimed that they feared Bell and his friends had a gun but no gun was found inside the bullet-riddled car.

Sean Bell has joined a long list of victims of police violence by the NYPD. His friends, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield, also struck by police bullets, are still being treated for their wounds on that fatal night. The firing of 50 shots into a car in which no weapon was found was reminiscent of the methods used in the occupation of Iraq. But what it brought to the surface is the seething anger, especially in the African American community, about the daily profiling and harassment of young Black men by the police. The killing of Sean Bell reminds us once again of the violent, racist and class nature of capitalism.

Forty years ago, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was founded. It represented the highest point of the vast rebellion against racism and poverty that swept the U.S. in the 1950s and 1960s. At the height of their influence, J Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, described the Panthers as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

Although the United States is the most prominent example of a nation based on foreign immigration, the U.S. government has long discriminated again immigrants. In recent decades, the focal point of the immigration debate has become our neighbor to the south, Mexico.