Former US Congressman and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, who passed away recently, played a leading role in the global fight against South African Apartheid in the 1980s.
On the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, Lynn Collins, British Trade Union Congress regional secretary, explains how his legacy will live on in Liverpool for generations to come.
Hugh Masekela - trumpeter and singer-songwriter was a pioneer of jazz in South Africa and a campaigner against apartheid in exile. The "Father of South African jazz," Masekela died in Johannesburg Tuesday. Masekela was one of those rare artists who succeeded in fusing politics with music, making his songs and performances compelling and timeless.
One of the reasons why we need to recall Luthuli's life in this time of shameful and shameless greed is that he consciously emphasised what he called the "gospel of service". Even if the ANC chooses to neglect the memory and legacies of Luthuli we, the citizens of South Africa need to draw on these. Luthuli was the first non-racial leader in South Africa, the first African to have a following amongst whites.
South African anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada, who was sentenced to life imprisonment alongside Nelson Mandela, died Tuesday, aged 87. Affectionately known as “Uncle Kathy,” the liberation struggle stalwart spent 26-years in prison under the apartheid government and went on to be an open critic of President Jacob Zuma. He was one of the most senior African National Congress (ANC) leaders to criticize Zuma as allegations of government corruption mounted.
Reader Comments: Anita Hill-What We Can Still Learn From Sexual Harassment; Readers on The Left Deserves Better Than Jill Stein; Racism and Fight Against Public Lands; Secret Struggle Against Apartheid; Spain's Turmoil and Europe's Crisis; CCR Takes John Ashcroft to Supreme Court;
Announcements: Ethel Rosenberg's sons on 60 Minutes - Sunday; Chicago forum-Contemporary Capitalism and Why We Need Marxism; New York - three different book talks; exhibit - U.S. Radical Left
They undertook secret missions against South Africa's apartheid regime. Sensational story hidden for over 40 years. In the 1960s, a group of leftists risked everything to revive the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. These international activists who embraced a working-class radicalism that was internationalist, cosmopolitan, anti-imperialist, and anticapitalist - and most important, steadfastly opposed to legalized racial oppression in South Africa.
The security services set out to ensnare Lessing. But they weren't sure where she lived, why she went to Communist party meetings or even whether her nickname was Tigger or Trigger. M15 spied on Doris Lessing for 20 years, declassified documents reveal. Lara Feigel interrogates the secret archives.
Reader Comments: Sanders Ignites a Populist Movement; How Sanders Should Talk About Democratic Socialism - readers offer differing views; Clinton and Labor Support; Argentina; Indonesia and the Act of Killing; Vera B. Williams and Children's Literature; A Progressive Song To Tap Your Feet To! from Kristin Lems;
Announcements: Paul Robeson Play - More Performances - Hackettstown, NJ; Cuba Speaks for Itself - New York- Nov 4; Washington, DC- Nov 7; Bay Area- Nov. 13
A Book Review by the Nobel Laureate, Nadine Gordimer, on Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid, a new biography of South Africa’s revolutionary couple. One is reading not of self-perceived martyrs but individuals greedy for life even while giving up so much personal fulfillment for a way of intense certain risk. A level of involvement, the process in making a life, living, hardly to be imagined.
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