Rachele Fruit has been running for office on a socialist platform since the 1970s. Now, she’s running for president as the candidate for the Socialist Workers Party.
Fruit, 74, lives in Miami, Florida, but spent seven years living in Baltimore as a young adult. Over the years, she has participated in and organized for the protest movements against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa. In the wake of Oct. 7, Fruit has been vocal about advocating for Israel and for the Jewish people.
She presents herself as a working-class counterpart to Joe Biden and Donald Trump, neither of whom she says adequately represent working class Americans.
Fruit was in Baltimore this week, and she spoke to the JT about her Jewish background, the anti-Israel protests and the value of third-party candidates.
You used to be a Baltimore resident. Could you tell me about that?
I first worked at Eastern Air Lines. I was the first woman they hired to work on the ramp at Eastern Air Lines. This was in 1986. And then I got laid off, and I worked the rest of the time in that garment industry. I worked at Jos. A Bank for five years making men’s suits both as a sewer and a presser. I was politically active in many, many different things, like the fight against apartheid. I was in Baltimore when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and elected president. But I’ve been active in the labor movement for all of my working life.
Did you have any electoral experience before deciding to run as a third-party presidential candidate?
Yeah, I’ve been running for office since the 1970s in every place I’ve lived. I lived in Georgia for 16 years, and I’ve lived in Florida for 12-14 years now. I ran for governor in a bunch of different places, and for secretary of agriculture in Florida. I actually ran against Stacey Abrams for governor in 2018 in Georgia.
What was your upbringing in the Jewish community like, and how are you involved in it now?
My family was secular but celebrated holidays. I went to Hebrew school and to synagogue once or twice a year. My involvement has really increased, obviously, since Oct. 7, like I’m sure it has for many, many Jews around the world. There’s a new need to speak out against antisemitism and hatred, which is on the rise in the world today, and to defend Israel’s right to exist as a refuge for Jews, which is more obvious every day, but it’s necessary.
There have been comparisons made between the current anti-Israel protest movement and the protests against the Vietnam War and South African apartheid. As someone who was involved in both, how do you think this is different from those movements?
I think it’s a completely false analogy. In the case of the Vietnam War, you had a revolution against imperialism going on in Vietnam, which people were attracted to and wanted to defend and understand. It was the beginning of a whole generation learning about what U.S. imperialism is and what it does to the people and the resources of the world. And in this case, this is not a case of supporting a liberation movement in any way. And anyone who is interested in reading and learning about the history of Hamas will be convinced that it’s not about liberation. It’s about genocide against the Jews. And that’s an important point because there is a legitimate Palestinian liberation struggle, but there’s no leadership. To resolve the Palestine national question and the Jewish national question will take the working class of both people to find a way to work together to figure out how to live together on the same land and move forward.
The South Africa analogy is also extremely important because the goal of the African National Congress was to have all residents of South Africa to live together on the land, and their opponents’ position was a settler one, which was to drag the whites out of the country. And that’s much more in line with Hamas’ position. Mandela defended the Jews in South Africa and talked about an important role they played in the country and in the liberation struggle.
Since third-party candidates don’t win presidential elections, some people don’t put much stock into the idea of running as part of a third party. With this in mind, why do you think it’s still important to have third-party options in presidential elections?
One of the main planks in our platform is that workers should break from the Democratic and Republican Party. Neither one has the interests of the working people in mind. Their policies defend the interests of the ruling rich. So we call for a labor party, a working-class party that will organize us to fight for the things that we need, against inflation, for higher wages and safer working conditions. This is why unions are extremely important, but we also need a vehicle to fight in the political arena. And our party is an example of that. It’s an example that workers can look towards of how we can organize an independent party. You have to start somewhere, and we’ve been speaking all over the country, talking to workers on picket lines and all kinds of protests. So to get this message across, and there’s a lot of interest, we ask anyone who agrees that we need our own party to speak for our interests to endorse our campaign. It’s the beginning, it’s an example.
