Opal Lee is a writer.
Sixty years ago today, hundreds of thousands gathered at the Washington Mall, where they heard Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Since then, we’ve beaten a retreat from the march’s vision of racial and economic justice.
This year, Democrats used their control of the Michigan legislature to pass a suite of pro-worker reforms, including repealing right-to-work laws. We spoke with Michigan House member Joey Andrews about these wins and the current moment in labor.
Iran has been subjected to extensive sanctions for the better part of the last decade. The sanctions were meant to target the country’s elite; instead, they have hurt the poor most and enabled the richest households to take a greater share of Iran’s wealth.
Greece’s recent elections saw two new far-right parties enter parliament for the first time. Grinding austerity is not fueling continued popular resistance but the rise of conspiracy theorist cranks who promote war among the poor.
Today is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. Ignore the lies and distortions — the reality, as the latest research shows, is that scores of socialists influenced or were themselves key figures in the civil rights movement.
Chile’s 2019 protests witnessed some of the most audacious public art the world had ever seen. Today, amid a right-wing backlash, the radical imagination displayed on Santiago’s graffiti-covered walls feels like a distant dream.
Imprisoned, exiled, and threatened with death, Peruvian activist Hugo Blanco never once wavered in his commitment to peasant liberation. Latin America’s unbreakable revolutionary will be sorely missed.
Writers are striking to save film and TV from destruction by corporate giants. New Deal-era schemes like the Federal Theatre Project and the Group Theater offer a tantalizing glimpse of how entertainment could be run as a public good, not as a business.
Juggalos, the intense Insane Clown Posse fanbase, have long been targeted by police, including in a dubious federal investigation under the legacy of a Red Scare law. The group’s crime, it seems, is its very existence as a visible working-class counterculture.
Unlike other war criminals from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, Henry Kissinger’s reputation has never received public rehabilitation. He hasn’t needed it — despite his murderous rap sheet, the media and political establishment has always fawned over him.
Newly released emails show an oddly friendly relationship between the Secret Service and the Oath Keepers militia ahead of the January 6 capitol riot. It’s a reminder that we still don’t know the full story of what happened that day.
Since coming to office in 2018, Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has made tackling inequality a key tenet of his Fourth Transformation. Millions have been lifted out of poverty, and the divide between rich and poor is shrinking.
Canada has long brandished its image as an honest international broker and champion of human rights. Its massive arms shipments to Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most authoritarian regimes, paint a very different picture.
Bargaining between California State University and faculty has broken down after management offered an insultingly low salary increase. It’s time for the university to live up to its mission and support quality public education — instead of massive payouts to administrators.
In Germany, conservatives responded to the high-profile trial of a left-wing activist by creating a panic around the rise of left-wing extremism. But it is neo-Nazi violence that has actually increased in the country, and the far-right that has institutionalized itself.
Accusations of antisemitism are regularly used to silence advocacy of Palestinian liberation. Here, a British academic describes how Zionists smeared her as an antisemite and tried to get her fired for her public criticism of the Israeli occupation.
Democrats are calling Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney Fani Willis a “national hero” for her high-profile case against Donald Trump. Meanwhile, thousands of incarcerated people live in squalor in Fulton County jails, some dying without a day in court.
Donald Trump skipped the first GOP debate to chat with his courtier Tucker Carlson. Their conversation revealed the utter insincerity of their branding as opponents of the elite and the military-industrial complex.
Consumer boycotts have a storied history in labor struggles like the United Farm Workers’ organizing campaigns in the 1970s. But they’re difficult to pull off. Veteran union organizer Stephen Lerner explains when a boycott can work for workers.
In November, Mainers will decide whether they want to put two price-gouging private power companies out of business and take control of the state’s electric grid. So-called progressive consultants are being paid to oppose the measure.