By halting a proposed $150 million police precinct, Seattle activists have made headway in redirecting funding toward services like affordable housing and education.
The lynching of Emmett Till some six decades ago still stands as a singular moment in the movement for black liberation, racial equality, and against racism. This new book revisits that history.
President Donald Trump wants to impose a police state on undocumented immigrants. Workplace raids - sometimes called 'silent raids' - have been a mainstay of immigration enforcement, will likely ramp up. Now - predawn raids, arrests and deportation of undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of the most minor criminal offenses, and stops of dark-complexioned motorists and pedestrians - will become the norm, in the new anti-immigrant policy to be soon rolled out.
The women's marches in Washington DC and around the country were stunning, inspiring and the first of a million steps that will be needed to build the resistance to Trump. It might not have been as black, brown or working class as many might have liked. But criticizing it from the sidelines doesn't help anyone.
Steve Thornton has been an activist in Hartford since moving there in the 1970's after graduating from the University of Connecticut. He worked for many years for the Hartford-based health care workers union, New England District 1199, and has been involved in many organizations and campaigns there over the last 40 years. He also has a keen interest in local people's history, and some years ago started a website, shoeleatherhistoryproject.com, to popularize that history
Albert Murray (1916-2013), was the kind of intellectual for whom Duke Ellington would write a book jacket blurb. He called the African American writer and esteemed cultural critic “a man whose learning did not interfere with understanding," in praise of Murray's 1975 book Train Whistle Guitar, adding that Murray was "the unsquarest person I know." The Library of America has published new volume of Murray's writing. Greg Thomas takes a look.
NoDAPL - No Dakota Access Pipeline - Stand with the Native Peoples at Standing Rock. You have seen the stories, the posts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media. What can you do? Can you go to Standing Rock? Why not contribute or send needed supplies. Can you host a solidarity house party? Here's how you can help, how your solidarity can be expressed.
Professional athletes have provided a flicker of hope during these agonizing days by speaking out against police violence. "Shut up and play" clearly doesn't fly when black bodies are falling at the hands of those whose job is to serve and protect. Now, after the filmed deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, athletes' statements - which have the potential to reach an audience far beyond the normal political blather - are starting up yet again.
Americans have largely forgotten the anti-Communist sentiment from decades past. Anti-communism has been a powerful force for over 150 years. American communism has always been racialized. When Jim Crow laws banned interracial organization, the Communist Party was the only group that dared to flout the rule. Socialists and Communists in the South in the 1930s fought both economic and racial inequality - an important lessor for today's developing socialist movement.
Tess Asplund, 42, stood in the way of the right-wing extremists and silently raised her fist - this brave woman photographer steps out in front of a 300-strong Nazi march in central Sweden. The image of her peaceful protest and stand against racism has gone viral in Scandinavia. This activist is deemed a hero in Sweden for 'iconic' defiant gesture in front of a fascist march.
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