20 October: Jesse Jackson to join anti-cuts activists at Downing Street

Reverend Jesse Jackson, renowned anti-racist and social justice campaigner, is to speak at a Downing Street protest rally against public sector cuts. The rally, organised by Coalition of Resistance, is on the day Chancellor George Osborne announces deep cuts to public services and welfare.

The government's Comprehensive Spending Review will be greeted by a number of protests, with the Downing Street event - 6pm on 20 October - a major unifying focus for activists.

Jesse Jackson, the most prominent veteran of the American civil rights movement, will join Tony Benn, Green MP Caroline Lucas, NUS President Aaron Porter, Labour leftwingers John McDonnell MP and Jeremy Corbyn MP, Lee Jasper (Black Activists Rising Against Cuts) and Dot Gibson (National Pensioners Convention).

The rally will also be addressed by trade union leaders Bob Crow (RMT), Mark Serwotka (PCS) and Jeremy Dear (NUJ), and follows a march initiated by Camden Trades Council and supported by a range of trade union bodies.

Coalition of Resistance urges everyone to participate in the trade union and student demonstrations as well as the rally at Downing Street. It calls for maximum unity on what will be a landmark day:

 'When Osborne announces the cuts on 20 October, we need to challenge head-on the Con-Dem lie that ‘there is no alternative’ and that ‘we are all in it together’.

We need to break through the media consensus that working people and the poor have to pay for a crisis caused by the bankers, big business, and the rich. That means making the protest on the 20 October big, loud, and vibrant.'

See HERE for more on the protests.
 
See HERE for Lee Jasper's message about Coalition of Resistance.
 
Image: Jesse Jackson speaking at the massive Hyde Park rally opposing war in Iraq, 15 February 2003.

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