radicalism 
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SOURCE: Jacobin
3/2/2021
Newly Obtained FBI Files Shed New Light on the Murder of Fred Hampton
by Aaron J. Leonard and Conor A. Gallagher
New documents shed further light on the involvement of the FBI in the 1969 assassination of Chicago Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, who is the subject of the new film "Judas and the Black Messiah."
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SOURCE: New York Times
2/26/2021
The Deep South Has a Rich History of Resistance, as Amazon Is Learning
Columnist Jamelle Bouie draws on the work of historians Michael W. Fitzgerald, Paul Horton, Robin D.G. Kelley, and Robert Widell, Jr. which shows that Alabamians, and Black Alabamians in particular, have organized to fight both racial oppression and labor exploitation.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
3/1/2021
‘The Trial of the Chicago 7’ is the Film to Help Us Understand 2021. Here’s Why
by John Beckman and Theo Zenou
Abbie Hoffman used his conspiracy trial as a guerrila theater stage, the peak of his career as an activist who used absurdity and wit to expose the hypocrisies of American society.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
2/22/2021
The Campaign to Free the Wilmington 10 Holds the Key to Successful Activism Today
by Kenneth Janken
A campaign to free 10 racial justice protesters in 1972 worked because it connected the cause to the problems with police, poverty, and racism experienced by a broad cross section of the community, and "recognize[d] racism not as separate from history but as part of historical processes and political economy."
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2/21/2021
From Red Finn Halls to The Lincoln Brigade: Class Formation on Washington’s “Red Coast”
by Jerry Lembcke
If the current crisis revives interest in class as an analytical concept, a recent book on union organizing on the Washington state coast offers a model for reconstructing the work, community and social life of a community.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
2/17/2021
The Retrograde Quest for Symbolic Prophets of Black Liberation
by Adolph Reed, Jr.
The prevailing pattern of invoking activist or intellectual figures from Black history as prophetic exemplars of moral and political authority takes those figures out of their historical contexts and discourages consideration of how racism connects to multiple systems of economic and political power in contemporary crises like COVID-19.
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SOURCE: Black Perspectives
2/1/2021
Law Enforcement’s Double Standards for Black Radical Activists
by Denise Lynn
Those puzzled at the FBI's inability to monitor white supremacist and right-wing extremist groups like those involved in the Capitol rioting should consider how the bureau has historically worked to surveil and harass radical Black organizations like the Sojourners for Truth and Justice.
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SOURCE: Boston Review
2/1/2021
Why Black Marxism, Why Now?
by Robin D.G. Kelley
Robin D.G. Kelley places the work of Cedric Robinson in the context of Black radical traditions that have challenged the use of Marxism as a critique of power and politics.
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12/13/2020
Anarchism and the Avant-Garde: Félix Fénéon at the Museum of Modern Art
by Sam Ben-Meir
A new MOMA exhibition centers not on artists, but on the avant-garde critic and editor Félix Fénéon, whose championing of innovative artists meshed with his radical politics as a critique of the injustices of modern society.
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SOURCE: In These Times
12/1/2020
The Great Black Radical You've Never Heard Of
by Peter Cole
The author of a new book on an understudied Black labor radical presents context for an exerpt of an interview Ben Fletcher gave to the New York Amsterdam News, a rare surviving case of the organizer telling his own story.
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SOURCE: The Nation
10/21/2020
Aaron Sorkin Sanitizes the Chicago 7
by Jeet Heer
According to Jeet Heer, "Sorkin takes many liberties with the facts, most of which are designed to make both the New Left and its conservative opponents more palatable to contemporary liberal viewers."
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SOURCE: National History Center
10/14/2020
Julia Rose Kraut: Threat of Dissent: A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States
Julia Rose Kraut's "Threat of Dissent" examines major court decisions and legislation affecting the deportation of political radicals in the face of the First Amendment and America's stated ideals, while showing the lives of the people involved. She addressed the National History Center's Washington History Seminar this October.
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SOURCE: Boston Review
10/7//2020
Getting to Freedom City (Review)
by Robin D.G. Kelley
Historian Robin Kelley reviews Mike Davis and Jon Weiner's "Set the Night on Fire," which chronicles the growth of resistance to inequality and miltarized policing in 1960s Los Angeles.
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SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
9/18/2020
Scapegoating Antifa for Starting Wildfires Distracts from the Real Causes
by Steven C. Beda
The idea of left-wing radicals starting wildfires in the Pacific Northwest dates back to timber companies blaming the Industrial Workers of the World for blazes as a way to discredit demands for workers' power through unions.
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SOURCE: Toward Freedom
9/19/2020
Against State Capture
by Austin McCoy
Austin McCoy warns that the energy of today's protest movements, which demand deep changes to the organization of society, is at risk of being captured and contained by small-scale reforms. The challenge for "abolition democracy" is to involve people in deciding how to dismantle and replace repressive institutions.
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9/20/2020
Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land"
by Aaron J. Leonard
The author of a new book on the FBI's surveillance of folk musicians argues that Woody Guthrie did join the Communist Party, though he was at odds with leadership over discipline. The affiliation is reflected in the lyrics of his most famous song.
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SOURCE: Orange County Register
8/9/2020
There’s Nothing New About Federal Meddling In Protest Movements
by Brian Bensimon
The FBI has a long history of acting more as a "national security" agency than a law enforcement body, targeting racial and ethnic minorities and leftist activists.
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7/26/2020
One of the Chicago 7 Reflects on Dissident Politics Then and Now
by Lee Weiner
A veteran of dissident politics in the 1960s warns that while today's broad coalition of activists for a more just and democratic America are on the right track, they must learn from the mistakes of an older generation and find ways to keep united despite difference.
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SOURCE: The Intercept
7/15/2020
The Revolutionary Life of Paul Robeson: Scholar Gerald Horne on the Great Anti-Fascist Singer, Artist, and Rebel (Podcast)
Historian and Robeson biographer Gerald Horne discusses the singer and activist's legacy and politics.
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SOURCE: New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/obituaries/vale
Overlooked No More: Valerie Solanas, Radical Feminist Who Shot Andy Warhol
Solanas was a radical feminist (though she would say she loathed most feminists), a pioneering queer theorist (at least according to some) and the author of “SCUM Manifesto,” in which she argued for the wholesale extermination of men.
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