Happy International Working Womens’ Day! We are thrilled to detail this news of our organizational evolution and explain how we got here!
The failure of Roanoke’s elected officials to even support let alone get workers livable wages of at least $15/hr in our efforts in 2015, or do anything meaningful for workers in decades brought morale down in 15 Now Roanoke. Some of us stepped away from organizing, and the few of us who stayed continued supporting local workers’ strikes (like Verizon and Burger King) and joined in struggles against police violence (like Justice for Kionte and the Charlotte Uprising) and against environmental destruction from fossil fuel pipelines (like Standing Rock and the fight to prevent the Mountain Valley Pipeline). Following Trump’s election there was a lot of rightful fear and anger and energy in the air, so we held a rally at the Dr. King statue in downtown Roanoke to draw a line and see who wants to organize in Roanoke against all injustice.
A number of folks were interested, and we started meeting to discuss what efforts we thought were needed and useful. In January we supported the first ever Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Lexington (which has historically been occupied by a confederate parade), and joined solidarity events for #J20 and the Women’s March. In February we hosted and supported regional rallies against the racist and nationalist “travel ban”, and organized a Refugee Clothing & Food Drive. We were able to bring socialist organizer Lamont Lilly to the Gainsboro Library to speak & host a discussion on Black liberation. We supported local educators in Roanoke Education Association and their push for more school funding for livable wages and a petition to demand a democratically elected school Board instead of appointed by city council (as it is).
Through this work, reflection on our organization‘s previous efforts, and the nature of the root of our common struggles, we agreed that it was necessary to expand our basic principles to being anti-capitalist, anti-racist, no collaboration with police, and not putting our energy into electoral politics (a process that the ruling class almost completely controls). As such we felt changing our name was needed as we were no longer just an organization fighting for livable wages. On March 1st we officially changed our name from “15 Now Roanoke” to: “Roanoke Peoples’ Power Network”, which is an independent working-class organization that seeks to build power in the streets, focused on the local struggles against poverty, white supremacy, sexism, LGBTQ oppression, and state violence!
We’ve started a volunteer network called Feed The People – Roanoke with the goal of building a support system to transport families to food pantries & grocery stores, help with emergency food donations, provide resources to help families grow their own gardens and have started our own community garden in the West End neighborhood.
We have a propaganda committee that is working on making &
publishing infographics & articles to make the public aware of issues going on in Roanoke that are often hidden and how they connect with other issues.
We’ll also be planning something for May Day (International Workers’ Day), which will be our first big event!
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