What About Racism?
Socialists think that the struggle against racism is central to undoing the ruling class's power.
Search Result(s) for: “martin luther king jr”
The X-Files: The Truth Was Out There
The classic show The X-Files celebrated and satirized America’s love of conspiracy theories before they became an all-consuming obsession. When the show returned to the air after a long gap, it had to confront a culture of paranoia that made Fox Mulder’s imagination look tame.
Protests Are About Changing Public Opinion, Not Cowering in Response to Polling Data
Critics of the demand to “defund the police” cite current polling snapshots as supposed proof of protesters’ electoral malpractice. They’re politically shortsighted — and confused about the key role of mass protest movements in dragging such demands from the margins to the mainstream.
In Chicago, a Socialist Teacher Takes on the Entrenched Political Machine
Ambria Taylor, a socialist teacher from a working-class background, is running for Chicago City Council. In a ward long known as a stronghold for conservative Democratic machine politics, she says she hopes to usher in a new era of participatory governance.
The Art of Saying Nothing
Louis Menand’s new history of Cold War art and thought The Free World wants to rehabilitate liberal anti-communism. To do so, it downplays both the political repression of the US left and imperial America’s genocide against its Third World political opponents.
Diplomat Richard Haass’s Shallow Centrism Has No Answers to the Problems America Faces
In The Bill of Obligations, Council on Foreign Relations president and MSNBC stalwart Richard Haass offers solutions to America’s democratic crisis. The book, littered with vacuous bromides, is proof that liberals are all out of ideas.
Jackie Robinson Was More Than a Baseball Player
Jackie Robinson is popularly portrayed as a mainstream figure who broke baseball’s color line by quietly enduring racist abuse. But he was much more a lifelong activist and defiant crusader for civil rights.
To Rev. Angela Cowser, “the Biblical Basis for Socialism Is Undeniable”
Rev. Angela Cowser, a cofounder of the Institute for Christian Socialism, argues that a society rooted in the dictates of the Gospel would look radically different from the one we have now. There is a name for what that change should look like: socialism.
The Spin Doctors
For decades, the American Medical Association has fought single-payer tooth and nail. But the US’s corporatized health system hurts doctors too — and cracks are forming in the AMA’s opposition to Medicare for All.
Vonnegut and Labor
Can literature be a force in the fight for economic justice?
Bob Moses (1935–2021)
Legendary civil rights champion Bob Moses died over the weekend at age eighty-six. He was a brilliant organizer who believed deeply in the capacity of ordinary people to change the world.
Ken Burns Talks to Jacobin About the Revolutionary Muhammad Ali
The new four-part PBS documentary Muhammad Ali, codirected by Ken Burns, examines the life of the legendary boxer and antiwar radical. Burns talks to Jacobin about how a kid from Kentucky named Cassius Clay became “the spirit of the 20th century.”
We Need “Outside Agitators”
Pro-Palestine student protesters are being smeared as puppets of shadowy “outside agitators.” The presence of community members and experienced activists in the protests is nothing to be ashamed of: we need outside agitators to build a better world.
The Left Owes a Lot to Jesse Jackson
As a movement builder, spokesperson, and candidate for the presidency, Jesse Jackson’s accomplishments were massive. He was one of the towering figures of American progressive politics in his era — or any era.
The Vice of Selfishness
The Left shouldn't sharply separate "moral" discourse from "self-interested" discourse, because the two are closely intertwined.
W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction Is Essential Reading
W. E. B. Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction in America is one of the greatest modern studies of revolution and counterrevolution. It’s also an extraordinary example of a materialist and class analysis of race under capitalism.
An Ode to Sanitation Workers
Without them, the factories would stop, the cities would empty, and civilization itself would collapse. An appreciation of sanitation workers — our whole lives depend on them.
Bob Herbert on Nelson Mandela (1918–2013)
Mandela was a revolutionary committed to the wholesale transformation of his society.
Bernie Has Opened an Opportunity for Us to Build an Anti-War Movement. We Should Seize It.
We need an anti-war movement more than ever. Through his insistence on the need to build grassroots power from the bottom up and his consistent anti-war record, Bernie Sanders can help give us the tools to build one.
Student Divestment Campaigns Can Work
Student activists demanding disclosure and divestment of their universities from Israel have been demonized and attacked. That’s because there’s recent historical precedent for divestment campaigns working, as they did against apartheid South Africa.