Netflix’s new feel-good Bayard Rustin biopic, Rustin, claims the civil rights hero has been forgotten because of his sexuality. But it was his fiery and provocative class politics that makes him both controversial and prophetic today.
Bernie Sanders’s embrace of the New Deal legacy is an opportunity to dispel some pernicious historical myths about the New Deal’s relationship with socialism and its attitude toward the struggle for racial equality.
The Obama presidency gave rise to a uniquely powerful iconography that projected a sense of hope and radical possibility. But behind the president’s messianic imagery was a country unraveling at the seams — and a president who stood for nothing.
Socialists in the US are more likely to be experts on the Russian Revolution than the American civil rights movement. That’s a mistake: this homegrown revolution is a strategic guidebook for winning social change today.
From the struggle for civil rights to opposing apartheid in South Africa and the war against Cuba, Harry Belafonte was a fighter for justice both at home and abroad.
Activists with Atlanta’s Stop Cop City movement, which seeks to prevent the construction of a massive police militarization complex, want to put the issue to a popular vote. But city officials are hostile to the democratic initiative.
Whenever mass protests of any kind kick off, defenders of the status quo immediately accuse protesters as being duped by “outside agitators.” Don’t fall for it — the lie of the outside agitator is designed to weaken protests and downplay our widespread anger at injustice.
Lorraine Hansberry is best known for her classic play A Raisin in the Sun. But she was also a committed radical who insisted that black workers must be at the heart of the struggle for liberation.
The US nuclear arsenal gobbles up massive resources for death that should be used for human life. For decades, Catholic activists have put their bodies on the line to insist we dismantle that arsenal.
A historian debunks liberal myths about racism, the New Deal, and why the Democrats moved right.
Major league baseball has a long but little-known history of rebels, reformers, and radicals.
Declining union density has diminished American workers’ awareness of labor organizing, pride in union status, and sense of belonging to a tradition of collective struggle. The history of the CIO can teach us how to embed unions in the working class again.
Gene Sharp has been called the most important American political figure you’ve never heard of. How did a militant Cold Warrior come to wield so much influence in protest movements from Venezuela to the Middle East?
Writers in the US must embrace traditions of radical dissent — not American exceptionalism — if they want to resist Trump.
Companies are increasingly turning to lockouts to break labor. How should unions respond?
Amid the horrors of war, it’s always tempting for some on the Left to stake out more and more radical sloganeering. This was a dead end during the Vietnam War — mass action was not.
Pope Francis may be inspiring hope in the church, but Catholic radicals point the way toward an even brighter future.
Fifty-four years ago today, Medicare became the law of the land. The program has been massively successful despite continued efforts to destroy it. While defending Medicare, our next step is clear: Medicare for All.
Aretha Franklin was a legend. But the new Franklin biopic, Respect, is a forgettable film that avoids the darker and more difficult parts of her life.