Detroit braces for Trump’s ICE invasion

February 4, 2025

Rumors about ICE are spreading in Southwest Detroit. In a school, student absences are already elevated. Meanwhile communities are gathering resources and planning activities. The sooner we gather, more people can be helped.

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In Memoriam Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) 1958-2024

February 8, 2024

As youth, woman, and educator, Erica Rae (Erica Sufritz) made many contributions to News and Letters Committees since she was a teenager. We will miss the comrade who loved music passionately and sang with the North Shore Choral Society and who cheerfully worked alongside us for revolution for her whole life.

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Ecuador’s Indigenous movement wins concessions

July 2, 2022

On June 30, after 18 days of protests, the government of Ecuador sat at the negotiating table with the leaders of the Indigenous movement. A representative of the Catholic Church asked reluctant Indigenous leaders to sign the agreement prepared by the government.

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Detroit dispatch #3: a pall over the city

April 27, 2020

Two weeks of chilly weather—including a little late-spring snow—combined with increasingly dangerous Presidential “leadership,” a quarter of Michigan’s workers claiming unemployment, and more deaths of friends and relatives has cast a pall over the city and state.

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Youth in action, March-April 2020

March 17, 2020

Youth in action column on the Valentine’s Day’s Fridays 4 Future and Climate Strike protests, and the student group Teens Take Charge’s actions against segregation in New York schools.

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Queer Notes, July-August 2018

July 25, 2018

Queer notes on Delaware’s anti-Transgender legislation; Gay asylum seeker and detainee Udoka Nweke; Lesbian activist Constance Kurt; Aryman Menem, founder of Tea and Talk for Syrian LGBT; and Baltic Pride’s Pride Parade in Riga, Latvia.

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Handicap This!, January-February 2018

February 1, 2018

Santa Barbara’s jail system and sheriff are sued; Texas caps the number of students who can receive special education services; people with disabilities criticize Esther McVey, the Work and Pensions Secretary in the United Kingdom.

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25 years since the Los Angeles Rebellion

June 5, 2017

A participant reports on the actions on April 29, the 25th Anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion, when over 500 Latino, Asian, and Black and white mostly youth marched through the streets starting from Florence and Normandie, where the Rebellion began.

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Detroiters oppose school closings

February 7, 2017

Report of the “Emergency Community Meeting on School Closings” in Detroit, MI, taking up and condemning Gov. Rick Snyder’s plan to close 38 schools, most of them in Detroit.

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Letter from Mexico: Meaning of Mexican workers’ struggles

March 18, 2016

Upsurge of workers’ struggles in 2015 in Mexico, from field workers in San Quintin, Baja California to maquiladora workers in Ciudad Juarez along with ongoing opposition to government educational “reforms” by teachers in the autonomous union CNTE, demonstrate workers’ resistance to the plans of capital and its state. How can organizations of activist-thinkers meet what workers have achieved in our own organizational response?

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Handicap This!: March-April 2016

March 12, 2016

Pasadena schools deny equal education to students with mental health needs; Florida prisons deny disabled prisoners access to wheelchairs, canes, sign language interpreters and hearing aids; and a proposed rule requires federal agencies to work toward more workforce representation of the disabled.

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Dismantling Detroit public schools

December 10, 2015

Article highlighting the continued dismantling of Detroit public schools by Gov. Rick Snyder as well as the taking away any power of Detroit parents to have a say in the education of their own children.

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Stop charter schools!

September 6, 2015

The expansion of charter schools comes at the expense of unionized teachers, students and public education. It is a money making venture for the few while destroying public education in the process for the many.

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Sandra Bland speaks for herself

September 3, 2015

Excerpts of videos of Sandra Bland speaking for herself. She made the videos in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Bland died in Waller County, Texas, after being thrown in jail there for a manufactured traffic violation.

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Letter from Mexico: CNTE teachers’ goal: autonomous learning

August 31, 2015

The National Coordination of Education Workers (CNTE) has been struggling for autonomy, new labor relationships and a non-capitalist educational model. In September 2013, tens of thousands of people—teachers outside the CNTE, students, parents and activists—demonstrated throughout Mexico to show their rejection of the government’s privatizing educational reforms.

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The todayness of Selma, USA, 1965

March 8, 2015

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.

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Readers’ Views, November-December 2014, Part 1

November 23, 2014

From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters

Readers’ Views, Part 1

WOMEN FIGHT RAPE, HARASSMENT AND ABUSE

When I voted, many posters reminded folks that within 100 feet of the polling place you may not “interrupt” a person, nor “harass” nor even speak about your political views. [=>]

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Educators rally in New York City

July 8, 2014

From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters

New York—More than 300 teachers—as well as education personnel, parents, students, and community leaders and supporters—from New York City and other parts of the tri-state area concerned about education inequalities rallied outside New York City’s City Hall.

In a “Take Back Our Schools” rally, we [=>]

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From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: The Free Speech Movement

July 7, 2014

Suddenly, a generation of new radicals was born to replace “the silent generation” of the 1950s. By winter 1964 a new form of revolt, with a new underlying philosophy, called itself the Free Speech Movement. It becomes necessary to view the moment when the student revolt culminated in a mass sit-in.

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NYC fighting the test

May 21, 2014

Rallies and protests were held at over 30 New York City schools on the first day of state-enforced mandatory standardized English language testing.

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Godless Americana

May 15, 2014

Review by Adele of “Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels,” by Sikivu Hutchinson (Infidel Books, 2013).

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Detroit workers fight for jobs and pensions

December 4, 2013

Yesterday, a judge approved Detroit bankruptcy. Emergency manager Kevyn Orr outrageously claimed that the attack on workers’ pensions would be “thoughtful, measured and humane.” Read the News & Letters article for a view from the other side of the class struggle.

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School’s out! Where’s my next job?

July 9, 2013

People may imagine that teachers here hit the beach or kick up their heels poolside, sipping cocktails and working on a suntan. For me and many other teachers, though, Monday will be the kickoff to the summer routine of registering for unemployment benefits and looking for work, as, once again, a year’s contract has come to an end.

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July-August 2013 issue of News & Letters is now online

July 1, 2013

News & Letters, July – August 2013. Lead: Turkey, Syria and Iran at crossroads of world revolt; From the Writings of Raya Dunayevskaya: ‘Russia more than ever full of revolutionaries…’; Editorial: Support striking prisoners!; Essay: Communization theory and its discontents truncate Marx’s dialectic; Workshop Talks: The boss is spying; Revolutionary from Turkey speaks; Brazil’s uprising; Teacher and school struggles; and more…

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