America's legacy was marred by arrogance, greed, and amoral strategies. The cost in human fatalities, including women and children, and trillions of dollars have been a huge economic and ethical blow at home plus an enormous loss for our stature around the world. History may show the USA may never fully recover from these idiotic and unnecessary events.
Who gets to name things? Since the 1970s a growing effort has been made to update American history to include voices long left out: African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, gay people, and of course women, who not incidentally form a majority of the population. One of the most egregious examples was that for a century histories of slavery completely omitted the testimony of the people who were enslaved, suggesting that slavery and the slave owners weren’t so bad.
Most people accept such rewriting of history as a normal thing, one needed as new information becomes available. But Republicans have chosen to attack it. However, they generally do not attack the “1619 Project.” That is too close to the real object of their ire. Instead they have concentrated their fire on something called “critical race theory.” Even though it is something only taught in law schools, the label is better suited to their propaganda purposes. Why are our children being taught “theories” instead of the “facts?” And “critical” means they are criticizing America! And when will they ever be done with this “race” thing?
The media has fallen for this bullshit hook, line, and sinker. As happens so often, they have adopted the Republican labeling of the issue. Even those who criticize what the Republicans are trying to do repeat the label and thereby give it a credibility it does not deserve. How about this instead: “Republicans are trying to stop the updating of American history.” In other words, the truth rather than Republican propaganda.
By the standards Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have set for federal action on voting rights, the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution -- two pillars of the post-Civil War effort to ensure equality for all Americans -- would never have become law.
What the "anyone can succeed" mantra fails to acknowledge is that capitalism defines "success" in very narrow terms -- you're counted a "success" if and only if you fall in line and produce, not for the benefit of your community, but for the benefit of the capitalist class. There will never be real social progress until we, as a society, reject the belief that work resulting in the upward movement of "wealth" is "success" and not ruthless exploitation.
Maggie Phair passed away on June 29, 2021, at the age of 91.
Maggie was born just before the stock market crash of 1929 and she grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression in southern California.
Maggie’s activist career began at San Fernando High School when she brought the director of the Urban League to challenge racial slurs made by a teacher against Japanese, who had just been released from relocation camps. She challenged the discriminatory standards that enrolled all Chicano students in agriculture or home economics majors. She was a strong advocate for free speech, even for the bad guys.
Soon after enrolling at UCLA she joined the Congress on Racial Equality, helped to desegregate Bullock’s Tearoom, and Bimini Baths, a popular swimming pool. Anti-racist work convinced her of the need for full employment, and for democratic socialism. It was there that she met lifelong friends Vern Davidson and David McReynolds while organizing for the socialist club on campus.
In 1967 she became a founding member of the Peace and Freedom Party of California to provide a viable alternative for voters who support civil rights and oppose war. She remained a member for the next 50 years. She was on the Los Angeles Central Committee for the party and ran for office several times on the party’s ballot line.
Nationally, Maggie was active in the Socialist Party USA. She had first joined the party (then the Socialist Party of America) in the early 1950s as a college student and remained a party member for close to 70 years. In the SPA, she had been a member of the Debs Caucus, and was one of the core members who helped form the SPUSA when the old SPA split into three factions in the 1970s. She held several positions within the party, serving at one time as National Co-Chair. She also helped publish the party newspaper when it was in Los Angeles.
Maggie helped build the social workers’ chapter of Service Employees International Union Local 535. She fought the company association to its defeat and was one of the key organizers who brought the chapter to a strength of 2000 members and its status as SEIU Local 535.
A peace activist, her opposition to war began with the dropping of the atom bomb and has included opposition to the Korean War, Vietnam War and to U.S. intervention in Central America and the Middle East. In August 1990, Maggie helped to organize the first demonstration in Los Angeles opposing a U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Maggie co-founded the January 22nd Committee for Reproduction Rights which was a leading pro-choice organization in Los Angeles.
Maggie had a lifelong enjoyment of kaleidoscopes, limericks and hootenannies.
She is survived by her daughter, Katherine Goldman, and granddaughter, Sydney Goldman.
Cuba's medical syringe shortage is the direct result of a criminal embargo – and it's undermining the country's laudable efforts to combat COVID
Working through Global Health Partners, friends of Cuba have raised $450,000. We need to raise $25,000 more to complete our goal of purchase and delivery of 6 million syringes.
If successful, the entire city of Havana can get their 2nd and 3rd dose of the Abdala vaccine. With the population of Havana vaccinated, Cuba can open up again to visitors. A revived tourist industry will help break the U.S. embargo stranglehold on the Cuban economy. Visitors will help to save lives.
Last month, the U.S. and Israel were completely isolated at the United Nations in rejecting Cuba’s resolution to end the inhumane, illegal U.S. blockade of Cuba. At the same time, the U.S. government continues its regime change plans by funding people and organizations in Cuba that are fomenting anti-government actions in the name of “human rights” – all the while Cuba is working to develop effective anti-corona virus vaccines and sending health brigades around the world.
PLEASE REGISTER YOUR OPPOSITION TO U.S. POLICY BY DONATING TO THE SYRINGES FOR CUBA CAMPAIGN. Click here to donate
JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN TO SPUR CUBA’S FIGHT AGAINST COVID!
Republican demagogues are whipping up hysteria around scare-words and boogeyman terms. They are passing laws to prohibit educators from teaching about systemic, structural, institutional white racism from our nation's founding up to the present day. Courageous teachers are fighting back, pledging to defy attempts to censor the truth. The SNCC Legacy Project (SLP) and the Civil Rights Movement Archive (CRMA) today issued a joint statement of support "We've Seen This Before and We Stand With You" (https://www.crmvet.org/comm/teachers.htm).
We urge Freedom Movement veterans and all others who believe in justice, equality, truth, and honesty to become aware of this new and virulent form of McCarthyism and to stand against it in whatever way you can.
We who fought and struggled to win voting rights for all Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and '60s stand now to fight against the new wave of voting-rights suppression and voter nullification laws that are being promulgated across the land. And we who marched for equality and endured jail for Freedom rise now to fight against this new wave of teacher-intimidation and thought-suppression laws being enacted in Republican-controlled states to distort and deny the violent realities of racism and white-supremacy in American life and history.
We who resisted the laws of segregation by sitting at "White Only" lunch counters, and organized voter registration campaigns among those historically denied the right to vote, stand now in support of those teachers and professors who today defy this new form of McCarthyism by pledging to continue writing, speaking, and teaching about systemic racism, structural inequality, and institutionalized white-supremacy past and present. These teachers continue to teach the truth.
We who were young just the day before yesterday recall our teachers being fired because they dared to support and join the NAACP in defiance of laws enacted by white-rule governments in the South. And we came of age in an era when college professors, community leaders, union organizers and famous entertainers were shamed and pilloried in the press, hauled before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and dismissed from their positions because they criticized segregation, or advocated racial equality, or spoke in favor of anti-lynching laws, or the United Nations or the New Deal, or signed a petition against atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons.
From our lived experience we know how bigots, bullies, and demagogues use scare-words to stoke fear, hatred, and division for their personal gain, and how politicians use bogeyman-terminology to confuse and distract their constituents, and smear organizations who call upon America to "Live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident that all people are created equal." Yesterday, their targets were the NAACP, SNCC, SCLC, and CORE. Today they are taking aim at organizations such as the 1619 Project, the Zinn Education Project, Black Lives Matter at School, Learning for Justice, Teaching for Change, and also teachers throughout this nation who want their students to better understand the history behind the economic and social disparities so evident in their communities ... and the ways every day Americans have long fought to make America live up to its ideals.
But the ideas that these demagogues decry so stridently are not new. Civil rights advocates, civil libertarians — and courageous teachers -- have been discussing these same ideas for generations. We know this because we still hold living memories of the words spoken by Septima Clark, Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ella Baker, John Lewis, James Forman, Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriette Moore, James Farmer, Vincent Harding, Howard Zinn, Bob Moses, and so many others. All forthrightly organized against the systemic, structural, and institutional racism that has shaped American history and crippled American lives for generations.
To all the courageous teachers who won't back down from teaching their students the truth, we stand with you. We know you risk much in this struggle — with threats to your jobs, safety, and your right to teach the truth -- just as so many in generations past risked their lives and livelihoods in the long struggle for democracy. But...together we will win, because we must. Future generations depend on our standing strong...together!
In 2021, Haymarket celebrates 20 years of radical, independent publishing.
Founded in 2001, with a mission to publish books that contribute to struggles for social and economic justice, Haymarket has now published over 1,000 titles. Ranging from bestselling books about current events, to urgent interventions about activist strategy, to indispensable histories of past struggles, to re-publications of out-of-print classics, we strive to publish books that contribute to the development of a critical, engaged, international left.
To celebrate our 20th anniversary year, we are offering 40% Off ALL of our books through August 15th!
Featured Reading List: 20 Years of Haymarket Books
A reading list celebrating two decades of publishing books for changing the world, representing Haymarket's history and mission. All of these books are currently 40% Off, as part of our 20th anniversary sale.
CCA's Summer Organizing Institute is an opportunity to learn more, deepen your skills, and fight for a world without cages. While we are prioritizing people and families who have been directly impacted by mass incarceration, all are welcome to apply. Sessions will start on Saturday, July 24th and then run weekly on Tuesday evenings from July 27th through September 7th. All sessions will take place online.
Applications are due next week! Apply here by July 14th or use this link: bit.ly/summer-organizing.
Do you know others who might want to apply? Help spread the word! Will you share the graphic below or retweet our public announcement to loop in your communities and networks?
Spread the word about the Summer Organizing Institute!
If you have questions, please reach out to Marvin Mayfield at [email protected].
Art for People’s Sake: Artists and Community in Black Chicago, 1965–1975
Duke University Press
Tap into the deeper knowledge formations and structures that played out within the context of the Black Arts Movement. This BAM School Modality places emphasis on the span of ideas that informed the work, giving those historical and pedagogical bearing.
The BAMSM offers a limited number of seats to junior-senior level undergraduates, graduate students, and the public. We encourage individuals from diverse backgrounds to apply. For consideration, we require the following materials:
* A 1-2 page resume or CV.
* A 500 word single-spaced letter detailing your interests, what you hope to achieve, and how BAMS would further your educational pursuits.
BAMSM is conceived by Romi Crawford and support is generously provided by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Northwestern University, Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture and Arts and Public Life at the University of Chicago, and Colby College.
