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Remarks On Behalf of the YCL for Jarvis Tyner's 80th Birthday Celebration

This speech was presented at Jarvis Tyner’s 80th Birthday Celebration on December 04 2021, by New York YCL Co-Chair Justine Medina.

I feel honored and humbled to be speaking today -- with the giants of our movement, leaders of the working class and freedom struggle in this room, attending in zoom, Jarvis not the least among them

Jarvis’s dedication to the practical day to day work of the struggle has never slacked. He was at the first Communist Party meeting I went to in January of 2020.

In the last 2 years since joining in the work of the Party, I have learned so much -- from elder and youth comrades alike -- of Jarvis’s innumerable contributions to the struggle to build working class power and socialism. So many in and out of the Party, and certainly all of us in this room, are greatly inspired by his work and legacy.

While there is often a lot of discussion of Jarvis’s more high-profile areas of work -- such as his twice running for Vice President along with Gus Hall -- less discussed, but no less important, is his integral involvement in the historic movements of the latter half of the 20th century. His work in the nuclear disarmament and peace movements. The international movement to end wars around the world, most notably the war in Vietnam. His underappreciated work as a rank-and-file labor organizer and unionist. And perhaps most inspiring to those of us currently in the Young Communist League, his critical role as one of the cadre who rebuilt the Party following the 2nd Red Scare in this country.

For those of you who do not know, Jarvis joined the Party in 1961, when he was 20 years old. In Philadelphia, he joined and helped build the DuBois Clubs, before moving to New York City and becoming the national chairman of them. And he was one of the founding members of the Young Workers Liberation League in 1970, the youth league of the Party at that time.

This past summer, the Party held a national Young Communist League school, once again rebuilding the young cadre to move the Communist Party forward in the current period of momentous struggle. The School opened with remarks from Jarvis. Ever inspiring, Jarvis spoke about the current times we are living through, the changes that are happening all around us. So many people are awakening, he said, to a “sense of necessity, a sense of [how] we can’t live this way anymore.” He spoke of how the great working people of this country are ready for socialism and ready for the Communist Party to take its place of leadership and help guide the people in the revolutionary struggle we must undertake.

Jarvis told us that we are going to see socialism in our lifetimes. And he charged the young people at the school with building socialism, building the Party, and achieving the revolution that the working and oppressed people of this country, and this world, so greatly need.

We in the YCL stand on the shoulders of giants. We strive to follow the example of Jarvis. May we live up to his legacy and have the honor of being remembered as half-as-great of comrades as he is.