“People who truly believe in justice and equality, and peace and socialism, should not actually really care whether their contributions are individually noted,” Angela Davis asserted at a tribute to her friend and mentor, Charlene Mitchell, in 2009.
Charlene (Alexander) Mitchell, a key leader of the movement in the early 1970s to free imprisoned activist Angela Davis, helped found NAARPR, and the CCDS, ran for President in 1968 on the U.S. Communist Party ticket.
When Angela Davis was arrested after two months on the lam in 1971, Michael Myerson interviewed her and a codefendant in jail — turning him into a prosecution’s witness. He was now in a tough spot: Could he defy the prosecution without going to jail
The modern movement for queer liberation—or gay liberation to use the as-yet less inclusive terminology of the 1960s and ’70s—wouldn’t exist without the Communist Party USA.
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The politics Gil fought for in 1934 informed his entire life. For the thirty years following his release from prison, Gil argued against the sectarianism of the Communist Party. Countless times he said, “You can’t have a united front with yourself..
Before the world knew what intersectionality was, the scholar, writer and activist was living it, arguing not just for Black liberation, but for the rights of women and queer and transgender people as well.
At the Jefferson School students were expected to study Marxism and to take that education into the street in mass actions including protests, and political organizing. This mission resonated with Du Bois’ goal to create inter-racial solidarity.
Communist bookstores provided a critical public space for radicals, operating in virtually every major American city. Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York had several apiece. Smaller and ostensibly less radical locales such as Birmingham, Houston, and Omaha, had communist bookstores, too. Some radical bookstores operate today. Venture into one of these shops in which left bookstores helped customers envision radical worlds that were often otherwise unimaginable in America
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