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The Communist Party Helped Shape US History
A new book tells the story of American communism as an integral part of 20th-century US history, with Communists “as social critics and social change agents.”
by
Daniel Colligan
via
Jacobin
on
September 16, 2024
Bring American Communists Out of the Shadows — and Closets
In the 20th century, American Communists were seen as an enemy within. In reality, they were ordinary people with complex lives that deserve to be chronicled.
by
David Bacon
via
Jacobin
on
August 15, 2024
Red Weather Vanes
Maurice Isserman’s history of American communism documents both its achievements and its fatal obeisance to Soviet doctrines.
by
Harold Meyerson
via
The American Prospect
on
August 8, 2024
How and Why American Communism Failed
Plus: One historian’s about-face on the Communist record.
by
Ronald Radosh
via
The Bulwark
on
August 2, 2024
The Cause That Turned Idealists Into Authoritarian Zealots
The history of American Communism shows that dogma and fervor are no substitute for popular support.
by
Maurice Isserman
via
The Atlantic
on
June 17, 2024
California Communism and Its Afterlives
A new book explores the Communist Party's western base and its alliance with the labor movement.
by
Matt Ray
,
Matthew Wranovics
via
Los Angeles Review of Books
on
May 27, 2024
‘Hell, Yes, We Are Subversive’
For all her influence as an activist, intellectual, and writer, Angela Davis has not always been taken as seriously as her peers. Why not?
by
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
via
New York Review of Books
on
September 1, 2022
The Civil Rights Movement Was Radical to Its Core
The Civil Rights Movement was a radical struggle against Jim Crow tyranny whose early foot soldiers were Communists and labor militants.
by
Glenda Gilmore
,
Robert Greene II
via
Jacobin
on
August 28, 2022
Angela Davis, Charlene Mitchell, and the NAARPR
A Red-Black alliance defended political prisoners and drew attention to death and prison sentences disproportionately handed out to people of color.
by
Tony Pecinovsky
via
Black Perspectives
on
June 15, 2022
Claudia Jones and the Price of Anticommunism
During the Cold War era, communist activists and their families suffered from harassment by the federal government.
by
Denise Lynn
via
Black Perspectives
on
September 30, 2020
partner
Woody Guthrie's Communism and "This Land Is Your Land"
Was he or wasn't he a member of the Communist Party USA?
by
Aaron J. Leonard
via
HNN
on
September 20, 2020
“We Were Called Comrades Without Condescension or Patronage”
In the Jim Crow South, the Alabama Communist Party distinguished itself as a champion of racial and economic justice.
by
Arvind Dilawar
,
Mary Stanton
via
Jacobin
on
April 30, 2020
Bad Romance
The afterlife of Vivian Gornick's "The Romance of American Communism" shows that we bear the weight of dead generations—and sometimes living ones, too.
by
Alyssa Battistoni
via
Dissent
on
April 13, 2020
How 'Communism' Brought Racial Equality to the South
The Communist Party fought for racial equality in the South, specifically Alabama, where segregation was most oppressive.
by
Robin D. G. Kelley
,
Michel Martin
via
NPR
on
February 16, 2010
Bigoted Bookselling: When the Nazis Opened a Propaganda Bookstore in Los Angeles
On Hitler’s attempt to win Americans over to his cause.
by
Evan Friss
via
Literary Hub
on
August 21, 2024
The AAUP and the Angela Davis Case
Revisiting the AAUP's 1971 UCLA investigation.
by
Emily Houh
via
Academe
on
April 30, 2024
Eclipsed in His Era, Bayard Rustin Gets to Shine in Ours
The civil-rights mastermind was sidelined by his own movement. Now he’s back in the spotlight. What can we learn from his strategies of resistance?
by
Adam Gopnik
via
The New Yorker
on
November 6, 2023
Is the History of American Art a History of Failure?
Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.
by
Lynne Feeley
via
The Nation
on
July 31, 2023
The Black Radical Tradition Can Guide Our Struggles Against Oppression
Uncovering a tradition of African American radicalism that was—and is—a crucial part of the American left’s history.
by
Robin D. G. Kelley
,
Daniel Denvir
via
Jacobin
on
July 6, 2023
The 1950s Hollywood Blacklist Was an Assault on Free Expression
The blacklist didn’t just ruin many workers’ careers — it narrowed the range of acceptable movies and contributed to the conservatism of the 1950s.
by
Larry Ceplair
via
Jacobin
on
May 18, 2023
New Hampshire Removes Historical Marker For Feminist With Communist Past
The state removed the educational marker after Concord Republicans complained about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's communist ties.
by
Andrew Jeong
via
Retropolis
on
May 17, 2023
Angela Davis Exposed the Injustice at the Heart of the Criminal Justice System
In 1970, Angela Davis was arrested on suspicion of murder. The trial — and her eventual victory — proved to everyone that the justice system was corrupt.
by
Joel Whitney
via
Jacobin
on
April 1, 2023
Abraham Lincoln Is a Hero of the Left
Leftists have regarded Lincoln as a pro-labor hero who helped vanquish chattel slavery. We should celebrate him today within the radical democratic tradition.
by
Matthew E. Stanley
via
Jacobin
on
February 20, 2023
This Radical Reporter Dedicated Her Life to Fighting the System
"I idolized women like Marvel Cooke," Angela Davis tells Teen Vogue.
by
Olivia Lapeyrolerie
via
Teen Vogue
on
February 8, 2023
I've Got Those Old Talking-Blues Blues Again
The Folkies and WWII, Part Two.
by
William Hogeland
via
Hogeland's Bad History
on
October 13, 2022
"Which Side Are You On, Boys..."
Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.
by
William Hogeland
via
Hogeland's Bad History
on
October 3, 2022
The 1929 Loray Mill Strike Was a Landmark Working-Class Struggle in the US South
Murdered during the 1929 Loray Mill strike, Ella May Wiggins became a working-class martyr—and a symbol of labor’s fight to democratize the anti-union South.
by
Karen Sieber
via
Jacobin
on
September 14, 2022
The Proletarian Poet
A new book on Claude McKay is part of an effort to place the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance within the Black radical tradition.
by
Jennifer Wilson
via
Dissent
on
July 25, 2022
partner
Students Are Protesting Covid Policies — And the Adults Who Won’t Listen to Them
For a century, student activists have demanded a say in their schools.
by
Jack Hodgson
via
Made By History
on
January 18, 2022
Outcasts and Desperados
Reflections on Richard Wright’s recently published novel, "The Man Who Lived Underground."
by
Adam Shatz
via
London Review of Books
on
October 4, 2021
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