1970s

Reviews: valuable lessons from the Sojourner Truth Organization

Nate Hawthorne's review of Michael Staudenmaier's Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969–1986, for the Industrial Worker.

Staudenmaier, Michael. Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, 1969–1986. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2012. Paperback, 304 pages, $19.95.

Jeremy Brecher recalls forty years with Tim Costello

Jeremy Brecher's obituary of Tim Costello, who wrote for Root & Branch occasionally.

I first met Tim Costello in New York around 1969. A small group of us were holding meetings to start the magazine Root & Branch. Most of us had been influenced in one way or another by Paul Mattick, a German-born machinist and writer who for many decades had been the leading voice of Council Communism in the US.

Images from 1970 U.S. postal strike

Submitted by Juan Conatz on Dec 25 2013 03:12

Pictures from the 2 week wildcat strike at the post office in the U.S. For background on what and why it happened, we recommend these excerpts from Jeremy Brecher's excellent book, Strike!.

U.S. Army report on strikebreaking activities during the 1970 postal strike

A report by the U.S. Army on their strikebreaking activities (delivering the mail, etc.) during the 1970 postal workers strike.

1970 USPS strike: the strike that stunned the country

An article from March 30, 1970 Time Magazine about the nationwide United States Postal Service strike that year.

So invisible were the docile, dependable men in gray until last week that no one noticed that their passions were about to explode into a historic and ominous strike. The first national postal stoppage in U.S.

Organized labor and the black worker in the 1970s - Philip S. Foner

Submitted by Anonymous on Dec 12 2013 02:50

An essay by Philip S. Foner about the relation between the AFL-CIO unions and Black Americans in the 1970s.

Originally appeared in Insurgent Sociologist, 8:2/3 (1978:Fall) p.87

Swedish syndicalists host international gathering of industrial unionists (1975)

A 1975 article from the Industrial Worker about a conference hosted by Swedish syndicalist union, SAC.

Provided by the Workers Solidarity Alliance archives in New York.
Scanned by Juan Conatz

On the Line: Volume 2, Number 1 (February 1979)

Fifth issue of the Libertarian Workers Group's agitational newsletter.

Gays take on cops: From rage to madness

Submitted by wojtek on Oct 10 2013 21:36

The following is a report by Howard Blum in The Village Voice (Sept. 3, 1970) of a gay march/riot that took place in NYC on August 29, 1970. The march took place just months after the first Christopher Street Liberation Day, commemorating the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, and shows the deep connection to prisoner solidarity in early Gay Liberation-era actions.

Joel is a homosexual. Two nights before Saturday’s Gay Liberation March, I listened in his Upper West Side apartment as he articulated his despair: “I live in a culture that is not mine. I am afraid to hold my lover’s hand when we walk in the street. Afraid not because I think it is wrong or evil. I am proud to be gay. I am afraid because I don’t know who’ll be behind me.

[Video] Modibo Kadalie on the 1977 Atlanta sanitation workers' strike and direct action

Submitted by TeflonMaster on Oct 8 2013 01:38

"This damn Maynard Jackson..."

Scholar/actvist Modibo Kadalie discusses his role in organizing direct action during the 1977 Atlanta Sanitation Workers' Strike and dumping garbage at City Hall.

Interviewed in Decatur, Georgia, 6 October 2013.

For a complete account of the strike, see "A Disgrace Before God: Striking Black Sanitation Workers vs. Black Officialdom in 1977 Atlanta" by Jason Schultz: http://libcom.org/library/disgrace-god-striking-black-sanitation-workers-vs-black-officialdom-1977-atlanta