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ANDREW GOLDBERG

Building a

“Keep recording! This is histo-
ry!” yelled one hunger striker to a
videocam-wielding cop late last
Tuesday night, as NYPD and CUNY
Campus Security officers closed in
on about 40 students sitting in on
the second floor of City College's
North Academic Complex

The standoff had begun in the
early afternoon, when CCNY pres-
ident Yolanda Moses had refused
the hunger strikers permission to
remain in the NAC, where they
were set up with blankets, banners
and gallon bottles of water. She
insisted that they leave at 11 p.m
or face arrest. They decided to stay

‘We picked a hunger strike to
dispel the notion of us as violent
said CCNY student Martha Baez
We're depriving ourselves of nour-
ishment the way the governments
city, siate, federal—are depriving us
of an education, a future

When they came, at about 11:50
p.m., the arrests were sudden. The
students were hauled up, cuffed,
and led into paddy wagons; the
whole operation took about 15
minutes. It was the first time in
CUNY’s history that armed police
were called in to arrest peacefully
protesting students

FEEDER MARCHES FROM ALL CUNY CAMPUSES

Movement

Though the media has stayed
away since the CUNY Coalition’s
City Hall rally of 10,000 on March
23, the movement to fight cuts of
$162 million from the senior col-
leges continues. Almost as many
students were arrested at last week's
hunger strike—4+7—as at the City
Hall demo. And more significantly,
just as student organizing has
reached a level unseen since the
60s, activists from all over the city
are coming together in an explosion
of activity one longtime organizer
says “hasn't been seen in 20 years.
No fewer than three citywide
efforts to bring disparate groups
ommunities, and activists togeth-
er are under way, drawing on deep
desires for cooperation and coali
tion after a decade and a half of
mostly single-issue regrouping. The

Same Boat Coalition
set up a few months ago as a sort
of clearinghouse for community
organizations, now has more than

for example

200 groups on board

Same Boat, along with the
CUNY Coalition, plans to take part
in protests on April 25—as do
health care activists, advocates for
the poor, civil rights veterans, and
gay and lesbian groups. Indeed, the
April 25 protests—simultaneous
actions planned for four sites
throughout the city—are bringing
together unlikely allies: ACT
UP-ers and unionists are taking
part, but so are Asian community
organizers, shelter residents, cler-
gy, and Latino “street organiza-
tions” like the Latin Kings.

“For all of our different com-
munities,” says Richie Perez of the
National Congress for Puerto Rican
Rights, an April 25 organizer, “the
source of our problems is the same
But we've been struggling in iso-
lation, which leaves us all vulner-
able. Now we're trying to build a

movement that will be a microcosm |

of the society we want—a move-
ment that takes into account the
multiple identities we all have
April 25 promises a big splash
but a question raised by Kathy
Goldman of the Community Food
Resource Center—a Same Boat |
member—remains: “What’s going
to happen in a couple of months?
Will people just go home?’’ Per
haps the coalition efforts of Same
Boat, the National People’s Cam
aign drive to stage a mass
on May 6, and the process begun
ver months of planning for April
25 are signs that Movement-build
ing—not just the building of move
ments—has begun —NATASHA
STOVALL & ANDREW HSIAO

Simultaneous protests for jobs and
housing, for health care and AIDS
care, for an end to police brutali-
ty and racial and homophobic vio-
lence, and for public education are
planned for April 25. Times and |
places: 780-3293

125. Apr

WILL MEET AT JOHN JAY COLLEGE

(59th St. and 10th Ave.)

4:00 P.M

THIS CITY IS OURS

125. April 25.

IS CITY IS OURS

Apri

HIS CITYIS OURS