by Tom O’Connell
I grew up in the 1960s and the great social movements of that era sparked my interest in history. Where did the civil rights movement come from? What happened to the worker organizing of the 1930s and social reforms of the New Deal era? What conditions lead to progressive change and what gets in the way?
I stayed active in the 1970s and 80s, through a much less promising political environment. Then came the Great Recession of the 1980s and with it here in Minnesota, the re-emergence of progressive farm organizing like Groundswell and labor struggles, most famously at the Hormel Plant in Austin, up on the Iron Range, and among public sector workers across the state.
Some of us hoped that the multiple economic and cultural crises of the Reagan era would lead to new opportunities for truly transformative change. We wondered, is worse better? Can Crises lead to social change?
I realized even then, that the reaction to Crises leads in many directions—not all of them positive. As we are finding out in real time Crises can reveal both the latent power of a mobilized people and the fault lines of society riven by a legacy of racism and class division.
Through the rest of 2020, East Side Freedom Library will host – via broadcast on our Facebook and YouTube pages — a series of conversations on how the Crises are impacting the way activists are thinking about issues ranging from police violence to climate change, labor rights to voting rights, public health to neighborhood well being, and more broadly, incremental reforms versus deeper change. I will be curating and chairing these conversations. They will be held in a format which will enable you to ask questions, make comments, and participate.
We will begin on Monday evening, June 29, at 7PM, with a conversation with artist-activist Ricardo Levins-Morales, and we will continue with a new conversation on the last Monday evening of every month. I look forward to “seeing” you there.
Note: Tom O’Connell was a founding board member of the East Side Freedom Library and retired professor in Political Studies from Metropolitan State University.