Richard Wright, best known for his books “Native Son” and “Black Boy,” was a crucial figure in the Black radical and anticapitalist traditions. So asserts Joseph Ramsey, who has written widely on Wright’s life, literary production, and political commitments. Ramsey also elaborates Wright’s views toward Black nationalism, views that Ramsey contends should be heeded by progressives and radicals today.

Joseph Ramsey, “Rest in Power, Richard Wright!” Socialism & Democracy

Shelter & Solidarity

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Many are the names forgotten to history, of people who fought to transform our world for the better. One of them was Benjamin Lay, a trailblazing figure who opposed slavery and devoted his life to forcing his fellow Quakers to end their complicity in the enslavement of others. Historian Marcus Rediker seeks to rescue a revolutionary figure who speaks to us across the ages.

Resources:

Marcus Rediker, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist Beacon Press, 2018

David Lester, Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, A Graphic Novel Beacon Press, 2021

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What happens when missionaries try to get indigenous people to read and write English? Sometimes what results is very different than what the missionaries intended. Laura Rademaker describes how members of an aboriginal community in Australia resisted and repurposed English literacies. (Encore presentation.)

Tony Ballantine, Lachy Paterson and Angela Wanhalla, eds., Indigenous Textual Cultures: Reading and Writing in the Age of Global Empire Duke University Press, 2020

Laura Rademaker, Found in Translation: Many Meanings on a North Australian Mission University of Hawaii Press, 2018

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The urgency of the climate crisis can’t be overstated. Yet the impediments to a rapid shift to a carbon-free future are numerous. These include not just the obvious problem of the entrenched political power of the fossil fuel industry, but according to Holly Jean Buck, national revenues derived from fossil fuels and the elimination of well-paid, often union jobs in that sector. She argues for left coalitions linking rural and urban people to head off the potential political backlash against renewable energy.

Resources:

Holly Jean Buck, Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero is Not Enough Verso, 2021

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Helena Sheehan participated, as an activist, educator, and Marxist philosopher, in a great variety of radical movements and groupings, among them the New Left, the IRA, and the Communist Party of Ireland. She describes her engagements with many of the key ideas and debates around socialism and communism, both in the U.S. and abroad. (Encore presentation.)

Helena Sheehan, Navigating the Zeitgeist: A Story of the Cold War, the New Left, Irish Republicanism, and International Communism Monthly Review Press, 2019

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