This Week in People’s History, Apr 23–29

The cover of the book, The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists
Class Struggle by the Book (in 1914), The Global South Gets Organized (1955), Portugal Dumps Fascism (1974), Apartheid’s End (1994), Nixon on the Skids (1974), Pray for the Dead, Fight for the Living (1989), A College with No Color Line (1854)

Green Groups Cheer $7B in US ‘Solar for All' Grants

President Joe Biden marked Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal grants for residential solar projects serving 900,000-plus households in low- and middle-income communities.

UAW Scores One for the North in Our Endless Civil War

We still have two labor systems, and need mass unionization to end our immense inequality, which has its roots in the South.

Wisconsin on Earth Day:

We know our health depends on the health of our planet. Clean Wisconsin, the state’s oldest environmental organization, was founded on the first Earth Day in 1970. But for all of us, every day is Earth Day.

Agent and Informant Behind Fred Hampton’s Murder

Special Agent Roy Martin Mitchell was recognized in the FBI for his skill in developing informants in “the racial field.” Now we know the extent of Mitchell’s activities — including how they aided the killing of the Black Panther Party’s Fred Hampton

Scientists Discover First Nitrogen-Fixing Organelle

After years of work, an international team of scientists have detected a sign of a major life event that may have only occurred three times before in the last billion years. They’ve observed two lifeforms merging into one organism.

Two-State Solution: an Unjust, Impossible Fantasy

The Two-State solution mantra has allowed policymakers to avoid confronting the reality that partition is unattainable in the case of Israel and Palestine, and illegitimate as an arrangement originally imposed on Palestinians without their consent.

Brazil’s Landless Workers’ Movement

In the four decades since its founding, the MST has achieved significant milestones: 450,000 families have gained legal tenure of their land, another 65,000 are organized in squatters encampments, fighting for legal recognition of land.

How to Remember the Transatlantic Slave Trade

How to create an appropriate memorial for the recently uncovered remains of thousands of formerly enslaved Africans, one of the most significant traces of the Atlantic Slave Trade.

We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court

The risks of calling on politicians to push back against the court must be weighed against the present reality of a malign judicial dictatorship.
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Culture

food

Strange Soups and Brass Bands

David Bacon The Reality Check: Stories and Photographs by David Bacon
Soups are made from the traditions of the countryside where people are used to eating the animals that live there (the rat is a country creature, not the urban variety) and some think of them even as a kind of medicine.

poetry

Si, Se Puede (It Can Be Done)

Philip Kolin
Marking the anniversary of his death (April 23, 1993), Cesar Chavez continues to inspire support for immigrant farm workers’ rights around the country.

food

New York City’s New Gilded Age

Linette Lopez Business Insider
Beneath the city's victory over the pandemic and dining's glorious return is great divide between the haves and the have-nots. This new economy reveals the dramatic difference between those who can handle an inflationary shock and those who cannot.

Labor

labor

Workplace Militancy Isn’t Enough for Labor

Bob Master Jacobin
The uptick in high-profile strikes in recent years has been heartening. But sustaining and expanding the gains won by that militancy will require careful strategizing and deep political engagement that starts with but goes beyond the shop floor.

labor

Antitax Nation

David Cay Johnston American Prospect
Michael Graetz’s new book explains how clever marketing duped America into shoveling more tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations.

labor

UAW Wins Organizing Election at VW Tennessee Plant

Luke Ramseth Detroit News
The United Auto Workers achieved a historic organizing victory Friday night at a Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee plant as workers voted overwhelmingly to join the union following a three-day election.

labor

Militancy—and Beyond

Bob Master Convergence
Millions of non-union workers took notice of the 2023 strike wave. But moving from a year of high-profile strikes to building working class political power, let alone transforming US politics, will not happen automatically.

Friday nite video