Sisters, Brothers, and Kin,
The pandemic, police murders of people of color, and the uprising of an invigorated movement against white supremacy have inspired us to bring more intentionality to our longstanding commitment to work at intersections: between our resources, like books, and our programs; between education and entertainment; between class, race, and gender; between indigenous people and immigrants; between the descendants of European immigrants and new immigrants from Central America, Africa, and Asia; between elders and young people; between the labor movement and the civil rights movement; and between challenging racism in domestic politics and racism in international policy. We see these intersections as sites of energy and possibility.
In the past two months, ESFL has convened several programs which have explored intersections. If you missed these conversations live, we encourage you to access archived videos of these programs on our YouTube channel. On April 2, African American and indigenous writers came together, after a workshop, to read new work, via the Kaleidoscope Project, curated by Rebecca Nichloson. On May 4, authors of two new social justice books for children – one exploring the challenges faced by White and Black teens in 1930s Pittsburgh, the other exploring the challenges faced by undocumented immigrants in contemporary California – came together for a conversation. On April 24, in collaboration with our comrades from the Trilingua Cinema project, we hosted a remarkable conversation with actor/writer Roger Guenveur Smith, about the connections between Spike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” and the murder of George Floyd.
In the next two weeks, we invite you to join us for rich explorations of intersections. On Friday evening, May 21, we will discuss the documentary film Plutocracy I: Divide and Rule, which explores the intersections between the struggles for democracy and the struggles for workers’ rights in the middle of the 19th century. You can watch the film here, then join us via Zoom for the conversation. Last month, the effort to unionize by 6,000 workers at the Bessemer, Alabama, Amazon warehouse attracted nationwide attention and a bevy of analytical articles. One of the most insightful was written by Mike Goldfield, a labor scholar-activist based in Detroit. On Monday evening, May 24, Mike will visit ESFL virtually for a conversation about his new book, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s. He will be engaged by four readers of his book and by any of you who might read either his article or the book. In the past two years we have been impressed by the efforts of younger workers in the hospitality, retail, and service sectors to improve working conditions, raise wages, and gain a voice through unionization. Our friends at Hard Ball Press have published a new book, Union Made, which centers the experiences and ideas of these young women and men, and we are excited to bring Eric Lotke, the book’s author, into a conversation with several local activists on Tuesday evening, June 1.
Join us for explorations of these intersections!
Love and Solidarity,
Beth Cleary and Peter Rachleff