Chicago Teachers Union Hosts Communist Convention Featuring Pro-Hamas Activists

Chicago's mayor Brandon Johnson also spoke at the convention

As previously reported in the K-12 Tracker, the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) hosted the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression (NAARPR) annual conference over November 14 - 16, 2025.

The convention included speakers who denied Israel’s right to exist, referring to it as Palestine; speakers who praised Hamas and armed resistance; and refer to the United States as the “Belly of the beast.”

At the convention CTU executive board member Kobi Guillory speaks about how CTU wants to “bring the system down” and that when CTU talks about “fighting back, we’re not talking metaphorically.”

One thing about the Chicago Teachers Union…when we talk about fighting back, we’re not talking metaphorically, we’re talking about actually taking these streets, we’re talking about actually shutting shit down. That is what we do….we’re going to bring the system down.

Guillory advertised the convention on CAARPR’s Instagram. In a CTU beanie, and touting his membership in CTU, Guillory says that NAARPR is fighting for “community control of the police.”

NAARPR, according to its Chicago branch, is

a mass defense organization that defends the rights of Black people and all oppressed peoples to unite, organize and fight for freedom, justice and equality. We were founded in 1973 and our parent organization was National United Committees to Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners. Today we see the police occupation of communities and mass incarceration as the two greatest obstacles to our fight for democracy and liberation.

The Chicago branch (CAARPR) shares its headquarters with the national branch - and Frank Chapman serves as executive director of both CAARPR and NAARPR. Chapman is also a leading figure in the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO).

FRSO calls itself a :

national organization of revolutionaries fighting for socialism in the United States… FRSO is recruiting and building towards the creation of a new Communist Party based on Marxism-Leninism. This is necessary to lead the way to socialism and liberation.

CTU, NAARPR and CAARPR

CTU has a longstanding relationship with NAARPR and its Chicago branch, CAARPR.

In 2020, Frank Chapman held a webinar with CTU members on CAARPR’s Civilian Police Accountability Council.

In 2023, CTU had also hosted NAARPR’s conference, and CTU President Stacy Davis Gates gave the keynote address.

Here is is Guillory talking about the NAARPR Conference in 2023, where Union president Stacy Davis Gates, Mayor Brandon Johnson, and activist Angela Davis spoke:

Hello, friends and comrades. This is Kobi Guillory with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and I’m here to tell you about a historic conference that’s happening in less than a month. So if you didn’t know already, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression is having its conference from November 3rd to the 5th. This is the 50th anniversary conference. The kickoff rally is going to be November 3rd at 6:00 PM at CTU Hall. That’s my union and my union President, Stacy Davis Gates, is going to be addressing the crowd at that rally alongside our mayor, Brandon Johnson, together with Frank Chapman, the executive Director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression, as well as Angela Davis, the legend herself, who was actually freed by the movement that gave birth to the National Alliance. So it’s definitely going to be a historic event. There’s going to be all kinds of movement veterans as well as young people who are leading the movement today. So please register now as soon as possible for that conference. Tell all your friends, tell your family, tell your coworkers, your comrades, your enemies. Tell everybody we need everybody to be at this conference because it is going to be historic. Aluta Continua. I’ll see you all there.

In April, Guillory published a piece on the CAARPR website: “All Progressives Should Join CTU In Building a Forcefield Against Trump’s Agenda”

Per Guillory, CAARPR “stand[s] in complete unconditional solidarity with the resistance in Palestine. We understand that international law recognizes the right of oppressed people to resist against oppression by any means necessary.”

At the 2023 conference, NAARPR adopted the following resolution:

WHEREAS, the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression is an organization that fights racism and national oppression both in the United States and abroad, such as the fight against apartheid South Africa;

WHEREAS, Israel and its Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have colonized and illegally occupied Palestinian and Arab land since zionist militias (with support from British imperialism) invaded historical Palestine and displaced 750,000 Palestinians, killing thousands, in 1947-1948 in a disaster known as Al Nakba;

WHEREAS, since 1948 Israel in war after war has seized more Palestinian land, including East Jerusalem, as well as other Arab country’s land such as the Golan Heights in Syria,

WHEREAS, the Israeli government has settled tens of thousands of Jews in Palestinian lands in the West Bank,

WHEREAS, Israel had already forced a siege onto Gaza for the past 16 years, making it the world’s largest open-air prison, restricting 2.2 million people from access to the outside world;

WHEREAS, there are currently almost 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and prisons including more than a thousand on “administrative detention” without charges or trial, including hundreds of children;

WHEREAS, the U.S. supports Israel with almost 4 billion of our tax dollars every year, and just passed another bill to send an additional 14 billion dollars to Israel; money that could be used to fund education, health care, and affordable housing in communities of color and other working-class communities here in the United States;

WHEREAS, the Unified Palestinian Resistance initiated a morally and legally justified self-defense campaign on October 7th, 2023, and ever since, the IOF has been on a racist, vengeful rampage, killing more than 25,000 Palestinians, in Gaza, including almost 10,000 children; injuring tens of thousands more; forcing the internal displacement of almost two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip;

WHEREAS, armed Jewish settlers and the IOF are attacking Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem as well, killing hundreds;

WHEREAS, Israel and the IOF is preparing to invade Lebanon;

WHEREAS, the U.S. government as a whole, Democrats and Republicans; leading zionist organizations; and all levels of law enforcement have been politically attacking Palestinian students, activists, organizers, and workers who are fighting in the U.S. to support the Palestine Liberation Movement;

WHEREAS, the Israeli government has, in a desperate attempt to repress any resistance to its occupation and colonization, recently designated six progressive and leftist Palestinian human rights groups as “terrorist organizations”;

WHEREAS, police departments in the U.S. exchange resources, tactics, and trainings with the IOF and Israeli police on a regular basis;

WHEREAS, the Black Liberation movement in the U.S. and the anti-colonial struggles have had a long history of global unity and solidarity with the Palestine Liberation Movement.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the National Alliance Against Racist & Political Repression

1. Supports the Unified Palestinian Resistance and its self-defense campaign against over 100 years of Zionist settlement and occupation, 75 years of Israeli military occupation, and decades of Jewish settler violence;

2. Demands that Israel immediately stop its campaign of bombing raids, ground invasion, war crimes, and genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza;

3. Demands that Israel also end its rampage against Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, respectively;

4. Demands that Israel also end its apartheid policies and political repression against Palestinians in the 1948 Palestinian territories, including listing Palestinian human rights organizations as “terrorists”;

5. Demands the end of Israeli Zionist occupation and colonization of all Arab and Palestinian lands;

6. Demands a complete end to all U.S. financial, military, diplomatic, political, cultural, and social aid to Israel’s racist, apartheid regime;

7. Demands that the U.S. immediately brings its aircraft carriers, warships, aircraft, and special operations forces back from the Mediterranean Sea and other bases in the Middle East;

8. Expresses unity and solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and self-determination;

9. Upholds the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants to the homes and lands that were stolen from them in 1947-48 and 1967;

10. Upholds the determination, which was included in a United Nations general assembly resolution for almost 20 years, that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”;

11. Supports the worldwide Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, which is modeled after components of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa;

12. Demands freedom for all Palestinian and Arab political prisoners in Israeli jails, especially those on hunger strikes and administrative detention; for example Walid Daqqa, imprisoned since 1986 and now diagnosed with a rare form of cancer;

13. Pledges to (politically and physically, if necessary) defend the democratic rights of all Palestinians and supporters who are coming under government, zionist, and law enforcement attack in the U.S. and everywhere else;

14. Supports the Palestine national liberation organizing and campaigns of NAARPR’s affiliate organization, the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN);

Financial Exchanges Between CTU and CAARPR

The K-12 Extremism Tracker’s previous reporting showed that CAARPR had received $10,000 from CTU’s PAC in September 2024. CAARPR then “contributed” $5000 in October and again in November to the PAC.

The PAC’s D-2 Quarterly Report for the period 7/1/2024 to 9/30/2024 shows that it donated $10,000 to CAARPR on 9/19/2024.

In its D-2 Quarterly Report for the period 10/1/2024 to 12/31/2024, CAARPR is listed as having contributed $10,000 to Chicago Teachers Union Local 1 PAC - $5000 on 10/2/2024 and a further $5000 on 11/1/2024.

The purpose of the CTU PAC is to “Support candidates favorable to unions and oppose those who do not support unions and to support and oppose questions of public policy.” The purpose of its donation to CAARPR was not listed in its Quarterly Report.

NAARPR’s 2025 Conference

At this year’s conference, hosted by CTU and at which CTU members Kobi Guillory and Ashley Harris spoke, the agenda included the following:

10:00 AM PLENARY: THE FIGHT FOR COMMUNITY CONTROL OF THE POLICE IN THE ERA OF TRUMP

A plenary focused on the many advances that NAARPR branches and affiliates have made in the fight for community control and police accountability. We will hear from representatives from branches all over the country on the challenges and accomplishments they have made in the fight for community control

#1B: THE FIGHT FOR A FREE PALESTINE

This workshop will be centered on discussing movement strategies, campaigns and best practices on organizing for a Free Palestine, with those involved in the movement sharing their experiences along with teaching current campaigns happening in the movement.

NAARPR’s affiliates include U.S. Palestinian Community Network (an organization with ties to the U.S designated terror organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), Communist Party USA, and Anakbayan-USA, a Filipino activist group which believes that “Only through militant struggle can the best in youth emerge.”

Angela Davis sent in a video message for the conference, in which she referred to the “ongoing genocide” in Gaza.

Kobi Guillory is CAARPR’s Labor Committee Co-Chair. Guillory is also a member of the Chicago Teachers Union’s executive board. As a delegate, Kobi Guillory received $3000 from CTU.

In 2021, Guillory travelled to Syria with a pro-Assad organization to “observe” the elections.

Guillory is also active within FRSO, which also had a presence at the convention. Perhaps unsurprising given that Frank Chapman is a member of FRSO’s central committee.

At its 2022 Congress, FRSO passed a “Resolution in Support of the Palestinian Struggle for Self-Determination, Liberation, and Return” in which it declared its support for the US-designated terror organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine:

As anti-imperialists and proletarian internationalists, Freedom Road Socialist Organization supports the heroic national liberation struggle of the people of Palestine to liberate every inch of their land, to secure their rights to self-determination and Return, and to end Zionist Israel’s colonization and occupation of all Arab territories. We especially support the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and its revolutionary struggle for a free, democratic, and socialist Palestine!

….

We echo the call from progressive forces in Palestine and the Arab world for an end to official Arab government normalization with Zionist Israel; for an end to U.S. and Israeli attacks and threats against Syrians, Hezbollah and the Lebanese, Iranians, Yemenis, Somalis, Iraqis, and others; and for the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historical Palestine with Al-Quds as its capital.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

On February 15, 2024, Kobi held a teach-in for FRSO on “black and Palestinian liberation.”

In August 2024, he along with Chapman, held a meeting with FRSO to organize the March on the DNC (Guillory is wearing a CTU shirt in the ad).

Here is more of Guillory’s convention speech:

And Guillory is a candidate to be on NAARPR’s national board.

Guillory was not the only CTU member to speak. Shared first by City Journal’s Stu Smith, CTU executive board member Ashley Harris also spoke:

And CAARPR and NAARPR ally, U.S. Palestinian Community Network also spoke at the convention.

“Palestinian liberation is directly connected to black liberation and legalization for all and labor rights and workers rights…”

The co-chair of USPCN emphasized the talking point that “Palestine” is the central issue.

As captured by Stu Smith, USPCN Co-Chair Nazek Sankari, to loud applause, says that

“people in Gaza and all historic Palestine will continue to resist until we have achieved total and complete liberation from the river to the sea and until we have freed all colonized Arab lands.”

Sankari’s speech refers to Israel as Palestine.

It is worth noting that Chicago’s progressive mayor and CTU ally received a mixed reception at the convention. While Sankari praised Johnson in her speech, protestors rushed the stage during Johnson’s address.

Radical Activism Spills Into The Classroom

If CTU’s close association with an openly communist group which collaborates with organizations that embrace political violence wasn’t concerning enough, it is also quite clear that the political activism of figures within CTU like Kobi Guillory doesn’t end at the classroom door. After all, that is the point for “educator-activists” - the classroom must be a site of political activism and resistance.

Guillory is a middle school teacher. His classroom is adorned with the Palestinian flag and a poster with a quote from Assata Shakur. Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Liberation Army. She was wanted for the murder of a police officer in New Jersey and died in exile in Cuba.

It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and protect each other. We’ve got nothing to lose but our chains.

In the below video, Guillory, along with Frank Chapman, leads elementary school kids in a chant of Shakur’s words.