1946 GEORGIA: A JIM CROW EXECUTION Family fights for long-denied justice Editor’s note: The family of James Lee Allen asked for help in getting a posthumous pardon for Allen from the state of Georgia. In 1946 Allen, a Black teen, was executed. He was 14 years old when he “confessed” to the crime of raping… Read more »
people of color
Freedom Socialist Guest Book Review — Between the World and Me: Whose life matters, and why?
In his courageous book Between the World and Me, written as a letter to his 15-year-old son, Ta-Nehisi Coates explains to him the “justifiable” verdict in the killing of Michael Brown, a black teenager who was shot eight times by a white police officer and then left in the streets. This fatal shooting came on… Read more »
Anti-racist politics finish first at 1968 Olympics
The little-known story of an Australian runner’s solidarity with U.S. Black athletes.
Review of Hardly War — Memories of the “Forgotten War”
Hardly War, by Don Mee Choi / Wave Books, 2016 / Illustrated; 97 pages Don Mee Choi is a South Korean poet, translator and anti-militarist now living in the U.S. Through a startling, kaleidoscopic collection of prose, poems, and photographs in her new book, Hardly War, she makes a powerful case against the U.S. justification… Read more »
In solidarity with protesting athletes
Hats off to Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback who refuses to stand for the national anthem at NFL games. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.” He’s also spoken out for police accountability and against cop… Read more »
Affirmative action = class solidarity
This 2016 article argues that affirmative action can not only address the oppression of targeted groups, but also build working-class unity in the process.
Blood at the Root book review: Forsyth County, Georgia — a saga of racial cleansing
Southern trees bear strange fruit, / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root. Using these lyrics from a poem by Abel Meeropol, immortalized in Billie Holliday’s song about lynching, author Patrick Phillips opens his tale of terror, theft and racial apartheid in one Georgia county, USA. Following a brutal assault on a white… Read more »
Fighting spirit shines at post-election forums
Activists and organizers from every social justice movement were stunned by the election of right-wing billionaire businessman Donald Trump. Angry demonstrations tens of thousands strong filled streets in cities and towns across the country and the world. In December the Freedom Socialist Party sponsored forums in Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and… Read more »
The art of Black working-class life
After last year’s hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, it’s refreshing to see two fine films about African American working people. Loving’s true story shows a brave couple persevering with their 9-year Supreme Court case that finally struck down laws against inter-racial marriage in 1967. Fences, by playwright August Wilson, delves into the strengths and tensions of a Black… Read more »
Intersectionality: its meaning and its potential for movement-building
“Intersectionality” is a term that has been coming up a lot in political movements and in the news, especially in regard to the Women’s March on Washington in January. It means examining how the intermingling of all forms of discrimination that people experience — based on race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality and more — affect… Read more »
