Memphis is no stranger to struggle. The entire city’s history is one of people grappling with powerful forces whose interests were best served by oppressing and exploiting the people of the Mid-South. At every turn in our history average people have stood up against the forces of discrimination and hate. Famous author Richard Wright refused to be shut out of a public library during Jim Crow and Dr. Martin Luther King spent his final moments here standing in solidarity with the Memphis sanitation workers.
Today is no different. While true racial equality has yet to be realized in our nation, those who oppress and exploit the working class and their allies have selected another segment of our society, the LGBTQ community for hyper-discrimination.
We, the Communist Party USA in Memphis, will not sit silently by while our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer friends, co-workers, family, and neighbors are singled out and denied their civil rights in Tennessee.
We are students, professors, coppersmiths, journalists, historians, lawyers, chefs, medical professionals, sound technicians, and activists. We are members of the labor and faith community. An attack against one of us is an attack against us all.
We stand in complete support and solidarity with the Tennessee Equality Project and their initiative to pass an anti-hate ordinance in the City of Memphis.
The Communist Party USA in Memphis.
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Friends, please take the time to read and sign this petition urging the Memphis City Council to enact the TEP's non-discrimination ordinance. The fact that you can legally discriminate against someone because of who they are is ridiculous.
