Departments

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radicalism

  • SOURCE: In These Times
    12/1/2020

    The Great Black Radical You've Never Heard Of

    by Peter Cole

    The author of a new book on an understudied Black labor radical presents context for an exerpt of an interview Ben Fletcher gave to the New York Amsterdam News, a rare surviving case of the organizer telling his own story.

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    10/21/2020

    Aaron Sorkin Sanitizes the Chicago 7

    by Jeet Heer

    According to Jeet Heer, "Sorkin takes many liberties with the facts, most of which are designed to make both the New Left and its conservative opponents more palatable to contemporary liberal viewers."

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    10/7//2020

    Getting to Freedom City (Review)

    by Robin D.G. Kelley

    Historian Robin Kelley reviews Mike Davis and Jon Weiner's "Set the Night on Fire," which chronicles the growth of resistance to inequality and miltarized policing in 1960s Los Angeles.

  • SOURCE: Toward Freedom
    9/19/2020

    Against State Capture

    by Austin McCoy

    Austin McCoy warns that the energy of today's protest movements, which demand deep changes to the organization of society, is at risk of being captured and contained by small-scale reforms. The challenge for "abolition democracy" is to involve people in deciding how to dismantle and replace repressive institutions.

  • 9/20/2020

    Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land"

    by Aaron J. Leonard

    The author of a new book on the FBI's surveillance of folk musicians argues that Woody Guthrie did join the Communist Party, though he was at odds with leadership over discipline. The affiliation is reflected in the lyrics of his most famous song. 

  • 7/26/2020

    One of the Chicago 7 Reflects on Dissident Politics Then and Now

    by Lee Weiner

    A veteran of dissident politics in the 1960s warns that while today's broad coalition of activists for a more just and democratic America are on the right track, they must learn from the mistakes of an older generation and find ways to keep united despite difference. 

  • SOURCE: New York Times
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/obituaries/vale

    Overlooked No More: Valerie Solanas, Radical Feminist Who Shot Andy Warhol

    Solanas was a radical feminist (though she would say she loathed most feminists), a pioneering queer theorist (at least according to some) and the author of “SCUM Manifesto,” in which she argued for the wholesale extermination of men.

  • SOURCE: Boston Review
    6/11/2020

    Protest, Passion, Politics (Review Essay)

    "As protests work to remake the world, the reissue of Vivian Gornick’s The Romance of American Communism invites a new generation to reflect on what it means to live a life of political commitment—where the passionate pursuit of justice meets organized political action," writes Alan Wald, a reviewer of classic work of left political activism.

  • Respectability and Remembrance: The Continued Condemnation of Black Resistance

    by Anne Stokes

    Addressing the full depth of racism and white supremacy in America requires understanding the limits of the non-violent civil rights movements, and the necessity of armed self-defense for African Americans against the violence perpetrated or instigated by whites — including the police — throughout American history.