Susan Van Gelder reviews the book “The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart” by Alicia Garza.
Ferguson
Youth in action, July-August 2020
July 1, 2020Girls fight dress codes in Israel; mostly young high school women speak out and plan mass demonstrations against police abuse that arose after the murder of George Floyd.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2018, Part I
January 31, 2018Readers’ views on: U.S. Racism on trial, the right’s crocodile tears, creeping fascism, climate change, nuclear alarms, teachers as labor, Pat Hunt Presente! and Judy and Dan presente!
Voices from the inside out: Ferguson, Mo., at three
November 14, 2017Black prisoners ponder if Black Lives Matter, as a functional organized entity, can develop philosophically, and thereby become capable of generating something beyond a national discussion of U.S. racism?
Rising U.S. racism challenges all freedom movements
September 2, 2017A Marxist-Humanist analysis of the history and meaning of the rising of the right-wing neo-Nazi white supremacist movement, its relationship to President Donald Trump and his administration, and its challenge to the freedom forces arrayed against it who are fighting for a humanist world. .
Jasmine Richards – Black Lives Matter speaks
July 3, 2016A revolutionary critique of the “lynching” charge against Black Lives Matter activist Jasmine Richards and how it reveals the racism endemic to U.S. society and spotlights the revolutionary Black youth fighting against it.
I. Discontent, revolt and reaction in the U.S.
May 6, 2016Part I of the Draft Perspectives 2016: Discontent is seething in the U.S. among workers, youth, Blacks, women, LGBTQ, including elements of the new society. Fear of revolution is powering neo-fascism opposing the revolt.
Editorial: Evolving Black Lives Matter movement
August 29, 2015One year after the murder of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson, the Black Lives Matter movement continues to challenge racist U.S. society. In doing so, it deepens itself in both content and thought.
Handicap This! July-August 2015
June 30, 2015A roundup of actions around disabilities, including the police gunning down of mentally ill Thaddeus McCarroll in St. Louis, MO; a protest against Peter Singer, who called for legalizing killing disabled infants; and how American Airlines forced a woman in crawl onto a plane.
Black Lives Matter actions: Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland, Los Angeles
Demonstrations in Chicago, Oakland, Calif., and Los Angeles show the ongoing militant character of the Black Lives Matter movement as mostly young Black protesters take their anger and demands to the streets.
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.
Chicago marches in solidarity with Baltimore protesters
May 7, 2015On April 28, hundreds gathered outside Chicago Police Department headquarters, at 35th and Michigan, to show love and respect for Rekia Boyd, Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, and all the others whose Black lives matter. The crowd was largely young and multicultural. What is the truth about Freddie Gray’s death? The truth is that he was murdered by the notoriously racist and brutal Baltimore Police. Baltimore has exploded in anger because of the attempt to obscure this obvious fact, to pretend that the basic life experience of Black people over the last five decades, if not the entirety of U.S. history, can be dissolved into a social mystery. This generation serves notice: that shell game is over.
Decaying social order shows need for philosophy, revolution
May 6, 2015Introduction; I. Black Lives Matter; II. Things fall apart (A. Arab Spring: Revolution and war; B. Economic weakness and shifts in global politics; C. Whiff of fascism); III. Greek masses in peril; IV. Marxist-Humanist organization and philosophy.
The fact that the old, crumbling order will not go away quietly explains why we mark the 60 years of activity of the Marxist-Humanist organization News and Letters Committees—not as an anniversary but as an open window onto the needed philosophy of revolution, without which all revolutions and freedom movements remain incomplete.
Black Lives Matter
May 3, 2015The long-simmering outrage of Black masses has broken out into a movement against this racist society, particularly its pattern of racist killings by the police. It has not only reverberated internationally, but also made itself felt in the battle of ideas and the sphere of theory.
King March transformed
March 11, 2015The annual Martin Luther King march here on Jan. 19 was changed after Michael Brown, the unarmed Black teenager, was shot dead by the police in Ferguson, Mo., under circumstances that some called an outright murder.
Reader’s Views, March-April 2015, Part 2
March 8, 2015The thoughts of News & Letters readers on: MARXIST-HUMANIST PHILOSOPHY IN THE WHIRLWIND OF EVENTS; SAVING THE PLANET; and VOICES FROM BEHIND THE BARS.
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
Rage against lawless police murders
January 28, 2015Participant reports from several Black Lives Matter protests in different cities.
Revolt surges against racist system destroying Black lives
January 27, 2015Protests erupted following the decision by a St. Louis County grand jury not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for the cold-blooded murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Thousands marched under the slogan “Black Lives Matter!” These demonstrations grew in the wake of the equally outrageous decision of a Staten Island grand jury not to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the murder of Eric Garner.
From Ferguson to Staten Island: The logic of racism is genocide
December 5, 2014Protests erupted after the cops who murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner were let off. They mark a new moment of rebellion against a social order in which Black youth are made to live continuously suspended over an abyss of non-existence.
The passion to tear up this deeply racist society by the roots calls for the fullest development in activity and thought.
Michael Brown rally
November 25, 2014A participant reports on demonstrations in St. Louis and Memphis over the killing of Michael Brown and others by police.
Racist election deepens reactionary direction of U.S.
November 20, 2014The U.S. government took an ominous, reactionary political turn in the 2014 midterm elections, with Republicans taking control of the Senate. Extreme pro-war Senators like Joni Ernst in Iowa and Tom Cotton in Arkansas join veterans like Senator “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran” John McCain, who will now control the Armed Services Committee and is hell-bent for new “boots on the ground” in Syria and Iraq. The whole Republican campaign—including these pro-war, pro-fossil-fuel, pro-“fetus is a person” candidates—ran on a cynically deceptive anti-Obama mantra….
Comments from the new News & Letters website
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Regarding “New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, police show pattern of violence against Black people” (Aug. 11 N&L web statement): In 2009 in the UK we saw something similar. Police officers killed a man in the vicinity of a political protest, then told the press [=>]
Readers’ Views, September-October 2014, Part I
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
U.S. CRISES: RACISM, POLICE, LABOR STRUGGLES
New York News and Letters Committee prepared a flyer on Eric Garner (see: “NYC Police murder Eric Garner” this issue) headlined: “Wanted For Murder: Daniel Pantaleo.” It denounced the fact that the cops who killed Garner are [=>]
World in View: U.S. imperialism comes home
August 30, 2014As with the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, how imperialist oppression is tied to domestic repression in the U.S. was shockingly apparent in the heavily militarized police presence in Ferguson, Mo.
Protests stop Israeli ship from unloading
From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters
Oakland, Calif.—On Saturday Aug. 16 thousands of marchers descended on Pier 57 at the Port of Oakland to prevent unloading of an Israeli ZIM Lines cargo ship. “Block the Boat” organizers say the Piraeus, originally scheduled to dock at 5:00 AM, rescheduled to 3:00 PM [=>]
Justice for Ezell Ford
August 29, 2014From 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.
New York City and Ferguson, Missouri, police show pattern of violence against Black people
August 11, 2014Queens, New York–The first story was that Eric Garner had died of a heart attack in the ambulance as he was being taken to the hospital. Segments of the New York press were happy to report that the heart attack was probably caused by his obesity and diabetes, letting the cops off the hook. People [=>]