Thank You, Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders took socialism out of the margins and into the American mainstream for the first time in generations. His contributions to the struggle for a better world cannot be overstated.
Search Result(s) for: “martin luther king jr”
North Carolina Nurses’ Union Victory Is One for the History Books
Earlier this month, nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina voted to unionize. Taking place in one of the most anti-union states in the country, and challenging a bitterly anti-labor employer, the campaign is a monumental victory for labor.
The Majority of Americans Aren’t Scared Off by Policies Like Medicare for All
Liberal pundits argue that Bernie Sanders's policies were too radical for “ordinary Americans.” But primary voters are much richer than the average voter in the general. Among working-class Americans, ideas like Medicare for All are becoming common sense.
How McCarthyism and the Red Scare Hurt the Black Freedom Struggle
In the years immediately following World War II, the movement for black equality, rooted in the militancy of black workers, was making massive strides. The McCarthyist anticommunist campaign of the late 1940s dealt a hammer blow to that project, attacking its unions and scattering its activists, ultimately narrowing the ambitions of the black freedom movement.
Capitalism Is Not the Solution to Urban America’s Problems — Capitalism Itself Is the Problem
The COVID-19 crisis has triggered a fresh round of soul-searching in establishment media outlets about the problems of urban America. Unless we address the root cause of those problems in the structure of our economic system, we’ll never be able to solve them.
Polls Showed Many Americans Opposed to Civil Rights Protests in the 1960s. But That Changed.
Don't let opponents of the current racial justice protests fool you by citing public opinion polls — such polls often showed the majority of American opposed to the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Public opinion is not immovable through protest.
The Freedom Rides Made the Most of a Multiracial Activist Base
Today’s protests for racial justice are strikingly multiracial. Civil rights organizers have historically considered this an asset and often used it creatively and strategically to their advantage, as they did during the Freedom Rides through the American South in 1961.
The CIA Is Still Spying on American Citizens and Lying About It
The CIA has operated above the law and resisted accountability throughout the century, and now we find out it’s been operating an illegal domestic spying program for years.
Manning Marable Was a Pioneering Black Marxist. His Work Speaks Directly to Our Moment
Manning Marable was a leading radical thinker whose brilliant writings showed how the struggle for black liberation is bound up with the struggle against capitalism. Though he didn’t live to see the rise of Black Lives Matter, his work has a tremendous amount to offer the movement today.
To Fight Racial Inequality, We Have to Attack the Power of Corporations
Corporations are a central driver of racial inequality in American society. But it’s not because they haven’t thought enough about racial injustice — it’s because their basic goal is to maximize profits, even when it decimates the lives of black people.
When Socialists Gain Power in States Like New York, Expect Bogus “Antisemitism” Charges to Follow
New York Democrats: stop trying to make “socialists are antisemitic” happen. It’s not going to happen.
The Young Eugene V. Debs
A pair of leftist historians has undertaken a massive project: compiling a six-volume collection of Eugene Debs’s writings and speeches. We spoke with one of them, who detailed Debs’s extraordinary journey from moderate young trade union leader to courageous socialist militant.
Marek Edelman and the Struggle for Democracy in Poland
Marek Edelman was a leader of the heroic Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi genocide. After 1945, Edelman stayed on in Poland as a champion of democratic socialism who played a courageous role in the country’s dissident movement.
Last Week’s Pro Athletes Strikes Could Become Much Bigger Than Sports
Professional athletes have an enormous amount of power that they put to good use this past week in a series of unprecedented strikes. But workers of all types have similar kinds of power — and could, just like athletes, use it to shut society down to fight injustice.
We Must Learn to Embrace Populism
Thomas Frank’s brilliant new book The People, No focuses on the long elite tradition of anti-populism. But it is really an urgent plea to liberals and radicals alike to embrace a left populism and universalism — or keep on losing.
Oliver Cromwell Cox and the Capitalist Sources of Racism
Radical sociologist Oliver Cromwell Cox argued that racial antagonism was an essential tool for maintaining capitalist power. Cox’s understanding of race and class can help us forge a broad, multiracial movement against oppression today.
Georgia’s Reactionary Ruling Class Needs to Be Toppled
In Georgia, Republicans have leaned on voter suppression to push their reactionary agenda for years — and now they’re withholding unemployment benefits for pandemic-wracked workers. The only way to stop their pillaging is for poor and working-class Georgians to unite across racial lines, to finally win the economic and social rights they deserve.
How Local Civil Rights Protests Produced an Increase in War on Poverty Spending
Three social scientists crunched the numbers and found that counties where the Civil Rights Movement was active received almost 50 percent more War on Poverty spending than those counties that didn’t — and the more active the movement, the more funding received. It confirms what the Left has long argued: protests get the goods.
Politicians Come to Selma Every Year to Commemorate the Civil Rights Struggle, But Nothing Changes
Democrats use Selma, Alabama as a political prop and ignore the city’s current struggles. Residents told Jacobin that they need real help, not just annual photo ops with Oprah and Joe Biden.
Donald Trump Lied About Passing Pro-Worker Industrial Policy
In his first presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to bring back manufacturing jobs with good pay. Those promises were empty. But Democrats haven’t been much better on industrial policy recent decades. Socialists need to fight for a real industrial policy.