This is part 1 of an article by Marxist scholar George Novack written in 1963 as the civil rights movement was dismantling the Jim Crow system of segregation through the sustained mass action of Black working people and their allies. Almost 60 years later it remains relevant to today’s ongoing battles against racism as well as to understanding the vital history of the African American nationality and its indomitable battle for freedom and equality.
This is part 3 of an abridged version of the speech African American leader Frederick Douglass gave on July 5, 1852, at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. He had been invited there to address the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on the occasion of the July 4 national holiday.
This is part 2 of an abridged version of the speech African American leader Frederick Douglass gave on July 5, 1852, at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. He had been invited to address the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on the occasion of the July 4 national holiday.
This is part 1 of an abridged version of the speech African American leader Frederick Douglass gave on July 5, 1852, at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. He had been invited to address the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society on the occasion of the July 4 national holiday.
July 1, 2021—Despite the backbreaking obstacles stemming from Washington’s economic war, Cuba has achieved a stunning scientific accomplishment by rapidly developing five vaccines against the SARS-COV2 virus. This is the direct result of an initiative the central leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, promoted in the 1980s to prioritize government investment in developing a domestic biotechnology industry.
July 1, 2021—Cuba has set an unparalleled example of how humanity can fight a pandemic, while the impact of the Covid-19 crisis has highlighted the degree to which capitalism is incapable of protecting the vast majority from a devastating epidemic.
LOS ANGELES, June 29, 2021—The Saving Lives Campaign, a broad coalition of local and national organizations opposed to the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and Global Health Partners, a U.S.-based nonprofit with a long history of sending humanitarian medical donations to Cuba, recently launched a broad-based, urgent drive to send vaccine syringes to Cuba.
The is an Op-Ed based on a Facebook post the author, James Mac Warren, released June 17, 2021. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the centennial of this horrible milestone in African-American history. Above all, we believe the ideas expressed below have genuine political importance for today, in addition to setting the historical record straight on the Tulsa massacre.
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This is the second part of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1950. The post-Civil War period known as “Radical Reconstruction” is among the most important in U.S. history. It receives far too little attention in the country’s educational system. Its promise of genuine democracy was enormous. The “struggle to determine whether the southern revolution would be consummated according to the needs of the masses or be manipulated and restrained by the big bourgeoisie, came to the fore during this period,” wrote Novack.
This is the first part of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1950. World-Outlook is publishing it to celebrate Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday marking the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War. On June 17, 2021, more than a century and a half since African Americans began celebrating Juneteenth, the U.S. government declared it a federal holiday.
CHICAGO, June 17, 2021—“We have spent our whole lives working towards our futures, and without our input and without our consent, our control over our futures has been stripped away from us. I hope you can feel how gut-wrenching it is. I hope you can feel how dehumanizing it is, to have the autonomy over your own body taken from you.” These words spoken by Paxton Smith at her May 30 high school graduation in Dallas, Texas clearly express the sentiments of large numbers of people in this country, especially youth. They reflect the problems the ruling rich and their government face as they try to push back women’s right to choose abortion and deny us access to safe and legal procedures.
This is part 3 of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1961, in the thick of the mass struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the United States. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the 160th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, and in celebration of Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War.
This is part 2 of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1961, in the thick of the mass struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the United States. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the 160th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, and in celebration of Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War.
This is part 1 of an essay Marxist scholar George Novack wrote in 1961, in the thick of the mass struggle to end Jim Crow segregation in the United States. World-Outlook is publishing it to mark the 160th anniversary of the start of the U.S. Civil War, and in celebration of Juneteenth (short for June 19th), an annual holiday commemorating the end of slavery at the conclusion of the Civil War.
This article was first published June 8, 2021, by GroundUp, a news agency based in Cape Town, South Africa. World-Outlook is reproducing it by permission. The authors, Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel, are both former Israeli ambassadors to South Africa.
DENVER, CO, June 7, 2021—On May 6, Amazon worker Linda Rodriguez filed a complaint with the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment for Amazon’s “systematic failure to comply with even the most basic safety precautions necessary to protect her and her co-workers from exposure to the [Covid-19] virus” at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. “Amazon just wanted to pressure people to keep coming to work during the pandemic, even though we were terrified, and they didn’t tell us whether we’d been exposed and didn’t even explain to my Spanish-speaking co-workers…that they shouldn’t come to work if they were sick.”
May 28, 2021—The recent explosion of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression, as well as to legalized discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, has sparked some solidarity from Israeli Jews. While modest, this response points in the right direction.
The trial of the police murder that shook the world was barely days old before the police killed another unarmed civilian just miles away from where George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police. While the verdict was being announced another civilian, 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant was killed in Columbus, OH. 13-year-old Adam Toledo of Chicago was killed while his hands were up, Andre Brown, Jr was killed by North Carolina police, and video has just emerged showing the brutal and fatal arrest of Ronald Greene in Louisiana. Every day across the United States, unabated, another civilian is killed by police.
Hundreds of impacted families are joining together to say enough! They are demanding that the police that have killed their loved ones be put in jail. They are demanding that all past cases of police brutality be reopened.
May 25, 2021—On the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s brutal death at the hands of Minneapolis police, all opponents of cop violence and racism can rejoice in seeing Floyd’s executioner locked-up behind bars. We can celebrate the prospect of a long sentence awaiting former police officer Derek Chauvin. His conviction by a Minneapolis jury on April 20 was a victory for the mass movement against police brutality and racism that Floyd’s homicide sparked across the United States and around the world.
This interview with Hanan Ashrawi was given to Argiris Malapanis by telephone on April 9, 1991. Ashrawi was in Ramallah, West Bank, and Malapanis in East Jerusalem at the time.
While first published 30 years ago, many of the issues Ashrawi addresses in this interview remain central to the Palestinian struggle for national self-determination that has erupted now again. It is a timely reminder of the political context in which the most recent events have developed.
May 21, 2021—For the first time in 16 years, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and for an end to Israeli occupation and oppression has exploded again into the center of world politics.
This statement was issued by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) on May 14, 2021. JVP describes itself as “a national, grassroots organization inspired by Jewish tradition to work for a just and lasting peace according to principles of human rights, equality, and international law for all the people of Israel and Palestine.”
These are major excerpts of a May 14, 2021, interview with Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now. The news broadcast also included a second panelist, Rasheed Khalidi, Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies, Columbia University, New York.
This is the text of the call for a national march and rally in Washington, D.C. The action will take place on Sat., Aug. 28, 2021, from 11am to 7pm in the U.S. capital. Its demands include reopening all cases of police misconduct where justice has been denied and prosecution and jailing of guilty cops. Mass Action Against Police Brutality and other organizations issued the call, which has been endorsed as of May 2 by 245 members of families that have lost loved ones to police violence across the United States.
April 30, 2021—This is a partial but representative round-up of protests against police brutality and racism that took place in a number of U.S. cities on April 24. They were initiated by Mass Action Against Police Brutality in Boston and others and were largely led by members of families that have lost loved ones to police violence. Demands included prosecuting and jailing the guilty cops and re-opening all cases of police misconduct where justice has been denied. Similar actions will occur on May 25, the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police.
April 20, 2021, 5pm EST—A Minneapolis jury just found former police officer Derek Chauvin guilty on all charges—second degree murder, third-degree murder, and manslaughter—in the brutal killing of George Floyd. Chauvin could face up to 40 years in prison.
Now, we need justice for ALL the families who have lost loved ones to police violence.
This article was first published on April 17, 2021, by the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder (MSR), the oldest Black-owned newspaper in the state of Minnesota. It is re-published here by permission.
Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old African-American man and father of a 2-year-old toddler, Daunte Jr., was shot and killed by police officer Kim Potter during an April 11 routine traffic stop in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, about 10 miles north of Minneapolis.
This is the speech by Ambassador Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations, to the online event, “Why There Are No George Floyds in Cuba.” The virtual forum was held April 11, 2021, while the trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was under way in that city for the murder of George Floyd.
April 15, 2021—Pro-union workers suffered a setback in their effort to organize the giant Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. They lost the vote for union representation by a margin of 738 ballots cast in favor to 1798 against. The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union (RWDSU), which was seeking to represent them, said it plans to challenge the result and will ask federal labor officials to investigate Amazon for creating an “atmosphere of confusion, coercion and/or fear of reprisals.”
April 2, 2021—The vote at Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, closed March 29. The fight to establish a union there, however, is far from over.
Mar. 26, 2021— Workers in Bessemer, Alabama, are engaged in one of the most important union-organizing drives in recent years. Their goal is to win representation by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) at the giant Amazon warehouse there. Voting by mail by the 5,805 workers began in February. It closes March 29. The outcome can have far-reaching implications for the working class and the labor movement in the United States.
Hundreds of people marched to a rally at Jefferson Square Park in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13 to mark the one-year anniversary since Breonna Taylor’s death. Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency room technician, was shot and killed in her home by police officers who broke down her door in a midnight raid to serve a no-knock search warrant on the wrong house.
Mar. 23, 2021— Protests took place across the United States, leading up to the March 8 opening of the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, accused of killing George Floyd. Demonstrators demanded Chauvin’s conviction and used the attention focused on that case to highlight the many other ongoing fights against police brutality and racism across the country.
On March 4, 2021, a live Facebook video event turned a spotlight on the stories and demands of families who have lost loved ones to police violence in Washington State. A total of 23 people speaking on behalf of 17 families shared the heart-wrenching truth about the ongoing plague of police murders with few if any criminal consequences. That video has been shared 175 times on Facebook. World-Outlook.com hopes to continue that process.
We launched World-Outlook.com in January of this year and we need your help to continue. We were prompted to take this initiative by capitalism’s global economic depression and the resulting rising social tensions, accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. We are motivated by the ongoing efforts by working people to defend our welfare and our rights against the assaults by the privileged classes. We have now published seven articles including news analysis on U.S. politics related to the weighty events of Jan. 6 and the months leading up to it, political analysis on the movement against police brutality and racism, a document in defense of the Cuban Revolution, and the most recent interview and related speech on the struggle for women’s rights.
These are major excerpts from Ruthann Miller’s speech at the Aug. 26, 1970, Women’s Strike for Equality march and rally in New York City. Miller, 22 years old at the time, chaired the rally and was coordinator of the NY Aug. 26 Strike Committee, which organized the demonstration.
The 50,000-strong action was the largest of the Women’s Strike for Equality protests that took place across the United States that day. They marked a qualitative new stage in the women’s liberation struggle.
In August 1970, campaigners for women’s liberation mounted an extraordinary demonstration in New York, the largest of similar actions across the United States, which propelled the struggle for women’s equality to a new stage. Ruthann Miller, the protest coordinator in New York, was also a young socialist activist. The interview below, conducted by Nancy Rosenstock, first appeared in the Nov. 1, 2020, issue of Jacobin. World-Outlook.com is re-publishing it here by permission in celebration of Women’s History Month.
Feb. 3, 2021—In the article titled “Radicalism, Bonapartism, and the Aftermath of the 2020 U.S. Elections,” we described the Jan. 6 rightist mob attack on the U.S. capitol as the culminating step in a series of developments that posed serious dangers to civil liberties and the working class. Enough evidence is now established to detail further the extent of financial support from some sections of big business for former U.S. president Donald Trump. That backing, widespread and essential to his re-election campaign, did not end after Trump’s defeat at the polls. It diminished when Trump and his closest allies over-reached with the failed violent assault on U.S. Congress. Between Nov. 3 and Jan. 6, plenty of bankers, merchants, industrialists, and other capitalists kept up their donations to Trump as he peddled outlandish and conspiratorial claims of a “fraudulent vote” and instigated street actions aimed at overturning the popular vote and holding on to power.
Jan. 28, 2021—Following the Jan. 6 rightist mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social media companies shut down former U.S. president Donald Trump’s accounts on their platforms. Trump had encouraged the assault on U.S. Congress at a Washington D.C. rally earlier that day in a culminating step to a two-month-long campaign to overturn the results of the November election.
This article by Abel Prieto, director of Casa de las Americas in Cuba, responds to accusations leveled against the Cuban government for allegedly censoring artists and limiting free speech in the aftermath of the detention of members of the San Isidro Movement, a small and loose association of individuals claiming to speak for censored artists. The group burst into international notoriety in late 2020 thanks to backing by the U.S. government and savvy use of digital technology and social media.
CINCINNATI, OHIO, Jan. 24, 2021—The political stance and demands put forward by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) national organization, following the Jan. 6, 2021, rightist assault on the U.S. Capitol, highlight why dozens of women and men in Cincinnati, Ohio, changed our organization’s name from Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati to Mass Action for Black Liberation in 2018.
Jan. 13, 2021—In a culminating step to a series of developments unprecedented in U.S. politics in more than a century, outgoing U.S. president Donald Trump and his supporters engaged in a riot aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election. While Congress certified the outcome of the November vote next day, on Jan. 7, it is notable that more than 25% of members of the House and Senate, all Republicans, joined Trump’s challenge to his defeat at the polls, even after the rightist mob attack on the U.S. Capitol had been dispersed.