Every year I write a long letter to the editor on May Day dealing with socialist history. I write it well in advance. This year I think I'm going to highlight five great anarchists, socialists, or communists from American history. I want to provided a diverse group that includes a number of women and people of color. Any recommendations? The only person I'm sure I'll include is Debs.
Jan 26 2012 08:32
Jan 26 2012 09:37
Lucy Parsons!
"I want every greasy bum to arm himself. Then stationing themselves at the doors of the rich, shoot or stab them as they leave."
Jan 26 2012 09:38
Kevin Keating 
Jan 26 2012 17:37
a parliamentarian but a curious figure in US politics who needs a bit of exposure
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vito_Marcantonio
Jan 26 2012 18:14
Paul Robeson?
Angela Davis ?
W.E.B Du Bois?
Upton Sinclair?
Jan 26 2012 18:38
Did Rocker not get u-s citizenship?
Jan 26 2012 18:53
I believe the guy who played Grandpa in the Munsters was some sort of socialist or anarchist 
Jan 26 2012 20:17
Twas Al Lewis - apparently was involved with the Sacco & Vanzetti Defence Committee!
Jan 26 2012 20:20
no, your thinking of Ataturk!
Jan 26 2012 20:37
RedEd wrote:
Lucy Parsons!"I want every greasy bum to arm himself. Then stationing themselves at the doors of the rich, shoot or stab them as they leave."
Becky Edelsohn preferred to spit in their face.
Jan 26 2012 20:44
Oh, and Ed Asner!
Jan 26 2012 21:32
also green party candidate for governor of NYS
playinghob wrote:
apparently was involved with the Sacco & Vanzetti Defence Committee!
wiki:
Quote:
Lewis has claimed that he was a member of the Sacco and Vanzetti Defense Committee in 1927 and that he worked in the 1930s to free the Scottsboro Boys. However, both of these occurrences would be unlikely if he had been born in 1923.
sorry to be a wet blanket, just checking it out ...
Jan 26 2012 22:30
Thats cool. Just checked wiki - He also claimed to have been born in 1910. But perhaps he just made it all up...... sad really
Jan 26 2012 22:54
Jeffrey "the Dude" Lebowski (signer of the "original" [not watered down] Port Huron Statement & one of the Seattle 7)
Jan 26 2012 23:18
Maybe he said he was younger due to his job, and I know plenty of people that have ID's that say that they are younger than they really are.
He might have been born in 1910. I wanna see the birth certificate!
Jan 26 2012 23:29
playinghob wrote:
Oh, and Ed Asner!
Spookily enough, I watched JFK a couple of nights ago. He must have had a real laugh playing the role of the fascist private eye who pistol whipped Jack Lemon.
Yeah, I so much want Gandpa Munster to have been born in 1910.
Jan 27 2012 00:40
Carlo Tresca - anarchist italian-american union organizer
Ben Fletcher - african-american IWW dock workers organizer
Mary Marcy - one of the main people behind CH Kerr publishers, extremely important/influential libertarian socialist
Dr Marie Equi - Anarchist, IWW, San Quentin prisoner, Birth Control advocate, bad ass.
Genora (Johnson) Dollinger - dissident Trot, influential in Flint Sit-Down strike.
Jan 27 2012 00:48
Carl Sagan!
A socialist but mainly a non-proliferation activist. Got arrested for locking himself to something at the Nevada Test Site .
Jan 27 2012 01:29
playinghob wrote:
Paul Robeson?
Angela Davis ?
W.E.B Du Bois?
Upton Sinclair?
Did Du Bois and Robeson have a big case of Stalinophilia? I'm trying to choose people that you need to make as few apologies for as possible. Obviously every historical figure has baggage though.
Does anyone know much about A. Phllip Randolph?
Jan 27 2012 01:37
plasmatelly wrote:
Did Rocker not get u-s citizenship?
Na man, he got told to fuck off at the border because he went there with a partner but wasn't married.
Good shout on Du Bois, yeah shame about the text 'On Stalin' but it is hardly representative of his life and work....
Jan 27 2012 01:39
I second the nomination of K. Keating and would also like to nominate Chuck0.
Jan 27 2012 01:40
and why not Hakim Bey while we're at it?
Jan 27 2012 02:02
Does anyone know much about A. Phillip Randolph? His Wikipedia "resume" is incredibly impressive, listing him as leader of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the March on Washington Movement of the Roosevelt era, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington. Additionally, he was a member of the Socialist Party of America. What was his conception of socialism? Perhaps I'll buy a biography of him.
Jan 27 2012 04:48
Vincent St. John
Quote:
"The Saint was afraid of nothing. A Goldfield gangster shot him, crippling his left forearm for life. He jumped the next thug who threatened him and beat him with his right hand,” from Art Shields’ “The San Pedro Waterfront Strike, 1923” (originally in My Shaping Up Years volume II)
And
Quote:
"The Saint lived his ideas and methods. He radiated sincerity and integrity, and unselfishness free from taint or ostentation. The air was clear in his presence," from Bryan Palmer's James P. Cannon and the Origins of the American Revolutionary Left: 1890-1928, p. 58
Jan 27 2012 05:32
Why not CLR James?
Jan 27 2012 06:02
William James Sidis for being the smartest person EVER
Jan 27 2012 07:34
waslax wrote:
Why not CLR James?
Read Not Without Love: Memoirs by Constance Webb, his second wife. He was quite the lady's man, except with her. Doesn't present him in a very favorable light.
Jan 27 2012 09:12
Soapy wrote:
Carl Sagan!A socialist but mainly a non-proliferation activist. Got arrested for locking himself to something at the Nevada Test Site .
He didn't know what one is, apparently.
Daniel DeLeon for calling James Connolly a Jesuit spy.
Jan 27 2012 10:51
Jan 27 2012 11:53
waslax wrote:
Why not CLR James?
Because he is from Trinidad? 
CLR James is a truly international man though. No attempt at a national-comunist history can adequately encompass him
Helen Keller?