"CELEBRATE THE CHILDREN OF RESISTANCE": PROGRAM HONORS ROSENBERGS AND TODAY'S FIGHTERS FOR JUSTICE By Deirdre Griswold New York Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were honored here on the 50th anniversary of their executions in a spirit that affirmed the struggle for social justice to which they had dedicated their lives. In a moving program entitled "Celebrate the Children of Resistance," dramatic readings, song and dance linked their lives and struggles to those of political prisoners today like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier. The Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953, when the Cold War was at its very height. Washington was about to sign an armistice in Korea after the deaths of millions of Korean people, nearly a million Chinese volunteers and more than 50,000 U.S. soldiers. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who had wanted to take the Korean War to recently liberated China, had been fired by Harry S. Truman. There was a furor among U.S. imperialist strategists over who had "lost" China. Unable to crush the socialist revolutions in Asia or turn back the rising movements of oppressed peoples around the globe for self- determination, the U.S. ruling class turned on the progressive movement at home with a vengeance. The Rosenbergs were accused by the government of conspiring to pass crude information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. It was a time when many members of the Communist Party and other progressives were being hounded out of their jobs and portrayed as spies by Sen. Joseph McCarthy's House Unamer-ican Activities Committee. The "Communist menace" became the excuse for the sharpest period of reaction and repression in the United States since the Palmer Raids of 1919-20, when thousands of immigrant workers, mostly from Europe and sympathetic to the 1917 Russian Revolution, had been rounded up and detained without trial for long periods, and hundreds deported. The New York City anniversary event was very mindful that today the Bush administration is instigating a similar climate of repression and war over its aggression in the Middle East. Yet City Center in midtown Manhattan, which holds more than 2,700 people, appeared full to capacity as many older people from the political generation affected by McCarthyism were joined by younger activists. Tovah Feldshuh and Peter Yarrow started off the program reading prison letters from the Rosenbergs to their two sons, Robert and Michael, both of whom participated in the evening's program. Those letters of resistance and strong feeling, written up to the day of the execution, urged the children to never give up hope and remember that their parents were innocent. Robert Meeropol and his wife, Elli, who emceed the program, are today heads of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, which produced the event. Michael Meeropol also participated in the program. After the deaths of their parents, the two Rosenberg sons had been adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol. Abel Meeropol's powerful anti-lynching song, "Strange Fruit," was sung at the program by Janiece Thompson. Mazi Ibn Jamal, son of imprisoned Black journalist and revolutionary Mumia Abu-Jamal, was one of several recipients of assistance from the Rosenberg Fund for Children who spoke about its importance to their lives. His father is the first political prisoner since the Rosenbergs to face execution. A message from Abu-Jamal to the event was read by Harry Belafonte. Suheir Hummad, author of "Born Palestinian, Born Black," joined others in reading stories of those helped by the fund--both children of political prisoners and young people persecuted for their activism. Martín Espada, who collaborated on developing the program with the Meeropols, read some of his forceful poetry, including "Imagine the Angels of Bread," which begins: "This is the year that squatters evict landlords ... that shawled refugees deport judges ..." The politics of this program flowed effortlessly from its artistry. Bill T. Jones conveyed the beauty of life and resistance in his dance. The songs of Ronnie Gilbert of Weavers fame and Holly Near struck many familiar chords with the audience. Most of all, it was statements by Robby and Michael Meeropol about the need to continue to fight repression and war today that repeatedly brought the audience to its feet.