Participant report from Detroit’s 16th Annual Martin Luther King Day Rally.
Black liberation
Charles Denby’s life story: the story of the struggle for freedom
March 8, 2018Excerpts from the introduction to the new French edition of Charles Denby’s book “Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal.”
Across U.S. students fight fascism
July 6, 2017Students around the country protested neo-fascist speakers this spring. .
Voices from the inside out: “I Am Not Your Negro”
Review by a prisoner of the companion book to the documentary film “I Am Not Your Negro” on James Baldwin, whose title speaks to the liberation of New Afrikan people in Amerika. .
I. Trumpism as an excrescence of world capitalism’s crises
May 17, 2017Trumpism’s self-perpetuating disorder is based on negation of social movements, trying to stifle the positive in their negation of this exploitative society. His deceit and power grabs express capitalism’s disintegration, exuding racism, sexism, and fascism.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2016, Part 1
November 27, 2016Readers’ Views on Election Stirs Battles in Thought and in Life; Deep Racism in the USA; Women Fight Back; Indigenous Struggles; Global (In)Humanity; Why Read N&L?
Lead-Editorial: No to Trump’s counter-revolution! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 26, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
No to Trump! No to fascism! Fight for a new human society!
November 12, 2016Trump’s electoral victory by appealing to racism and sexism menaces all freedom movements. It is the index of this system’s crisis and bankruptcy of thought, which needs to be met with a truly revolutionary vision.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: Nixon’s ‘racist mayhem’ lingers today
May 18, 2016Our era, when racist police gun down Black men, women and youth, continues a history as old as the U.S. The piece excerpted here shows some of that history and how racism can be spurred on by this country’s leaders and would-be leaders, out for power. It takes up how Left movements respond to racism and the attempt to answer the question by funneling liberatory impulses into the dead end of electoral politics. The relationships between the Black freedom movement, anti-war youth, workers, and philosophy of revolution remain as critical today as when this article was written.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2016
May 17, 2016Readers’ Views on Women as Reason; Harriet Tubman; Racism and Internationalism; Bisexual Health; Trans Liberation and Feminism; Chinese State vs. Workers; Nuclear Arms Threaten All; Ireland’s Red Banner; Remembering Olga Domanski; Haggard but Not Tired; Voices from Behind the Bars.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2016, Part 1
March 30, 2016Readers’ Views on: Environment, Labor, Race and Philosophy; Queer Liberation; Black Lives Matter; Bolivian Social Movements; Trumpery’s Fascism & Racism.
Call for Convention 2016
February 28, 2016Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2016-2017
Stop campus racism!
January 26, 2016The last quarter of 2015 was marked by a national campaign against racism at campuses across the U.S.
Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015)
September 3, 2015On Aug. 12, Hugo “Yogi” Pinell (1945-2015) was killed in the California State Prison-Sacramento. Pinell was a comrade of George Jackson, W.L. Nolen, James Carr, and other founders of the modern prison movement.
World in View: Charleston terrorism
July 8, 2015The racist murder of nine people at the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C., is the characteristic U.S. form of terrorism, directed against the expression of Black self-determination.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2015
July 4, 2015Black lives as Subject; Russia in crisis; Nothing about us without us; Homelessness in L.A.; Central Canada Alliance; Perspectives and philosophy; Elderly to the streets?; Women and Yemen half-peace; Labor and climate justice; Dialectic and women’s liberation; Voices from behind the bars
Editorial: Black Lives Matter NOW!
June 28, 2015The video of Cpl. Eric Casebolt’s June 5 attack on Dejerria Becton and other kids at a pool party in McKinney, Texas, went viral because it was simultaneously shocking and commonplace. In 2015 USA, protests were inevitable and were heard around the world.
From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The meaning of revolutionary archives
June 27, 2015In celebrating the online publication of the Raya Dunayevskaya Collection, we present excerpts of her Introduction/Overview to Volume XII, which takes up the Marxist-Humanist concept of archives as not only retrospective but perspective, in the quest to establish “continuity with the historic course of human development.”
30 Years Later: AIDS activism and ACT UP Chicago
May 9, 2015ACT UP Chicago grew out of an organization that began in 1984 of Dykes and Gay Men Against Racism and Repression. We became an AIDS activism organization, first called Chicago For Our Rights, then by spring Chicago for AIDS Rights. We pushed for lowering the prices of AIDS drugs, and the release of more of them. By October and the national action in Washington, D.C., we had become ACT UP Chicago. AIDS is a global issue today. This time around, I’d like to see an AIDS activist movement that’s organized by poor, working-class, mostly people of color.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2015, Part 1
March 8, 2015Revolt and Counter-Revolution, from Greece to Syria; Here Come the Reformers; Women’s Freedom; Against Racism
60 Years of News & Letters (Readers’ Views, March-April 2015)
Readers’ Views on the 60th anniversary of News & Letters and Terry Moon’s column on it.
The todayness of Selma, USA, 1965
In acquainting readers with coverage of the forces of revolution in News & Letters over its first 60 years, we present “Continuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of ‘Great Society,’” written by Charles Denby in February 1965, in the midst of the bloody campaign for voter registration in Selma, Alabama.
Detroiters fight to keep their houses
March 7, 2015The number of Detroiters helping their neighbors resolve property tax foreclosure has grown by leaps and bounds as community groups all over the city host meetings on what can be done.
Solidarity with striking oil workers
The first national oil refinery strike since 1980 manifested safety-related demands by the workers and garnered much labor, community, and environmentalist support.
News and Letters Committees Call for Plenum 2015
March 3, 2015Official Call for national gathering of News and Letters Committees to work out Marxist-Humanist perspectives for 2015-2016
Readers’ Views, January-February 2015, Part 1
January 30, 2015From Ferguson to Staten Island; Revolutionary Rojava; Youth Protest; Violence Against Women; Detroit Solidarity; Paris March; Recalling Mary Jo
Enough is enough: This movement is about humanity
On Dec. 4 we marched all over Boston for Black Lives Matter and all traffic we passed was stopped. There was so much humanity that night.
Chicago teachers’ strike reviewed
January 29, 2015Review of “Strike for America: Chicago Teachers Against Austerity” by Micah Uetricht and “How to Jump-Start Your Union: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers” from Labor Notes.
Essay: ‘We all can’t breathe’–Reflections on Marx’s Humanism and Fanon
As a Black man, I asked myself: Why—through the dialectical crises of the social relations of production and the subsequent implosion of multiple outlived modes of production—has racism persisted? Why, despite the relations of property literally bursting asunder, does racism survive? How and why does racism, sexism, homophobia survive revolution after revolution? Will we again be left behind after the next revolution?
Rage against lawless police murders
January 28, 2015Participant reports from several Black Lives Matter protests in different cities.
New Spanish Translation of American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard
November 25, 2014Contradicciones históricas en la civilización de los Estados Unidos. Las masas afroamericanas como vanguardia: New Spanish Translation of American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard by Raya Dunayevskaya.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 2
November 23, 2014From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters
Readers’ Views, Part 2
PHILOSOPHY, ACTIVITY, ORGANIZATION AND SOCIALISM
I appreciate how Dunayevskaya relates Hegel’s Absolutes with the concrete tasks of building a revolutionary organization. History is the process of becoming. Hegel said that Being and Nothing are abstractions, whereas [=>]
Picketing for jobs
August 29, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Chicago–Altgeld Gardens residents picketed the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) on June 26. They told News & Letters that the CHA contracts with Walsh Construction to work on housing projects like Altgeld Gardens, which is 97% Black. But Walsh refuses to follow Section 3, which requires 30% [=>]
Justice for Ezell Ford
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Los Angeles—On Aug. 17 over 1,000 protesters gathered at the downtown LA Police Department (LAPD) headquarters. We were there not only in support of Michael Brown, but also to protest the many killings over the years of Black, Brown and even a few white youths [=>]
We march in Oakland for #NMOS14
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Oakland, Calif.—Several hundred came out on Aug. 14 to a vigil in Oscar Grant Plaza, as part of a national day of protest over the police murder of Michael Brown. We read out the names of a growing number of unarmed young Black men executed [=>]
Kansas City for Michael Brown
Over 700 people gathered in the Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., to protest the police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and the militarized attacks on protesters.
NYC Police murder Eric Garner
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
New York, N.Y.–There are certain facts in the case of the police murder of Eric Garner which are not in question. The use of the chokehold by the NY Police Department (NYPD) has been illegal for over 20 years. Eric Garner was a 43-year-old father [=>]
Thousands in Chicago: From NY to Ferguson, stop killer cops!
Thousands of people packed into Daley Plaza on Aug. 14 for the National Moment of Silence. Observed in 90 cities, it was called to respond to the police killing of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African American, in Ferguson, Mo.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2014, Part 1
April 8, 2014Readers’ Views from the March-April 2014 issue of News & Letters, part 1.
‘A Dreadful Deceit’ and unceasing rebellion
March 30, 2014Jacqueline Jones’ new book, A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America, is not a call to ignore effects of the concept of race in law and practice. She finds the definition of race repeatedly twisted to suit the needs of the ruling class and wielded as a tool for subjugation of Black and white labor alike.
Women fight for freedom against growing retrogression
March 13, 2014While experiences in the squares of the Arab Spring, in Turkey’s Gezi Park, in the streets of Spain and Greece, and in the U.S. Occupy Movements have revealed moments of what new human relations between women and men could look like, those moments of hope and exhilaration have been followed by devastating reaction and retrogression.
Charles Denby, worker-editor
February 8, 2014As a contribution to Black History Month we reprint Raya Dunayevskaya’s memorial for Charles Denby (1907-1983), her comrade of 35 years, Editor of News & Letters from its founding in 1955 until his death and the author of Indignant Heart: A Black Worker’s Journal.
Readers’ Views, Nov.-Dec. 2013, Part 1
December 14, 2013Readers’ Views from Nov.-Dec. 2013 N&L: U.S. RACISM AND BLACK AND LATINO STRUGGLES; LABOR UNDER ATTACK; CTA vs. THE HOMELESS; DISABILITY AND HUMANITY; ABORTION IS A HUMAN NEED; EGYPT’S CONTRADICTIONS; DETROIT CRISIS; NUCLEAR PERIL; WHY A NEWSPAPER LIKE N&L?
Cultural critic Albert Murray (1916-2013)
December 11, 2013Remembering Albert Murray, who set out a vision of the African American as the representative “American,” of Black freedom as the soul of this nation’s culture.
Youth on the move
December 1, 2013Whenever you go to demonstrations, whether it is fast food workers demanding a living wage and a union where they work, or immigrants demanding total legalization now instead of a phony 14-year “path to citizenship,” or marches after the Trayvon Martin verdict, young people are playing a major role in the struggles for social justice and equal rights.
Outrage at Trayvon Martin injustice
September 24, 2013Participant reports from Trayvon Martin demonstrations in Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago, Raleigh, and New York.
Recreating Detroit
September 12, 2013A different Detroit is struggling to be realized in the minds and hearts of its citizens: individuals (unrecognized thousands of whom routinely maintain nearby abandoned property) as well as organizations—from churches and small businesses to youth and athletic programs, block clubs and neighborhood associations, and social and environmental justice organizations.
September-October 2013 issue of News & Letters available
September 3, 2013The new September-October 2013 issue of News & Letters is online.
News & Letters, Vol. 58, No. 5
Lead
Racism and the fight against it take center stage in the U.S.
Nationwide protests erupted immediately after the outrageous July 13 acquittal of George Zimmerman for murdering 17-year-old African-American high school student Trayvon Martin last year. Within three days, thousands [=>]
American Civilization on Trial
April 8, 2013Raya Dunayevskaya’s sublimely researched American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard (ACOT) deserves a place among the U.S.’s most honest historical treatises.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2013, Part 1
March 9, 2013RAVAGES OF CAPITALISM SHOW NEED FOR NEW WORLD
The article on “Climate chaos and capitalism” (Sept.-Oct. 2012 N&L) is very relevant, especially the conclusion about how capitalism’s contradiction is that the growth of the economy, of capitalist production, means more global warming and climate change worldwide.
Activist for humans and environment
Los Angeles
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The technologies we [=>]