African Activist Archive

Testimony of Carl Shier of the UAW Illinois Community Action Program Council (CAP). The testimony says I am a Retired International Representative of the United Auto Workers (UAW), a Chairman of the Melrose Park Local 6 Retiree Workers Chapter, and a member of the City of Chicago Personnel Board. I am here representing the Illinois Labor Network Against Apartheid and supporting the request to the City of Chicago to endorse the South African Alexandra Community Project. The testimony says the Alexandra Community Project operated by the Alexandra Civic Organization performs valuable functions in trying to improve the conditions of life of the inhabitants who live under deplorable conditions; their obligation consists of working to improve Housing owned by the South African Government which imposes rents on shacks that have no indoor plumbing, practical no ventilation and where fifteen to twenty persons live in them. The testimony says the Alexandra Civic Organization works on sewage and rubbish removal for which Chicago's experience could help with advice on waste removal because there is no sewage system in the Township; similarly work has to be done on electrification. Fighting crime through the establishment of Block Committees are -a very important aspect of the work of the Alexandra Civic Organization. The testimony says a leading representative of the Civic Organization is Moses Mayekiso, the General Secretary of the South African Metalworkers Union; Mr. Mayekiso was one of five Alexandra Township people freed recently from subversion and treason charges; their trial was the cause of the international community; U.S. Judges, former Attorney General of the USA, a University of Yale President reviewed the case as did a prominent British Jurist, and Unions all over the world. The testimony says the City Council can play a positive role in helping the democratic forces of South Africa by endorsing the South African Alexandra Sister Community Project; by doing this they can protect the leaders from deportation and loss of citizenship, and the bulldozing of communities that would mean the people would be transported to Bantustan areas that would mean they would be non-citizens of their country.

African Activist Archive

REQUEST TO CITY OF CHICAGO TO SUPPORT THE SOUTH AFRICAN ALEXANDRA SISTER COMMUNITY PROJECT

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