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This Week in People’s History, Apr 16–22

Portside
A drawing of "Justice" being tortured
U.S. Torture Exposed, not Punished (in 2009), Dixie Demands “Bread or Blood!” (1864), Wasn’t That a Time? (1959), Justice Delayed Isn’t Justice (1989), An Unforgettable Song (1939), Why the U.S. Lost in Vietnam (1969), How the U.S. Was Built (1889)

Why Is It So Hard To Unionize a Bar? It’s Complicated.

Gabe Del Valle Punch
Death & Co.’s recent union drive could have made history. But the failed effort underscores the challenges that come with unionizing bar staff, even as restaurants, cafés and hotels see an uptick in labor organizing.

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.

Words and History: The Trouble With “Genocide Joe”

Fred Glass Stansbury Forum
Ascribing personal responsibility to Biden for the carnage in Gaza takes our eyes off the prize, which is the structure of imperialist oppression, on the one hand, and building the broadest possible movement to fight it, on the other.

How Alabama Communists Organized in the Jim Crow South

Robin D.G. Kelly, Daniel Denvir Jacobin
In 1930s Alabama, Communist Party members fought brutal repression to organize black and white workers in the Jim Crow South. Their efforts remain a source of inspiration for those fighting racism and exploitation today.

Slavery Was Crucial for the Development of Capitalism

Robin Blackburn, Owen Dowling Jacobin
Historian Robin Blackburn has completed a trilogy of books that provide a comprehensive Marxist account of slavery in the New World. He spoke to Jacobin about the intimate links between the slave systems in the Americas and the origins of capitalism.

How Britain Made Paul Robeson a Socialist

Taylor Dorrell Tribune
Pioneering black singer Paul Robeson was born on this day (April 9) in 1898. One of America’s great radical figures, it was his encounters with Britain’s labour movement which inspired his socialist and anti-imperialist politics.