Sedition Sunday #6: Assata Shakur

Assata Shakur is a revolutionary, former member of the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. Escaping from prison post conviction she has lived in exile in Cuba for the past 30 years. Read about her experiences in her own words in Assata: An Autobiography written in 1987 in Cuba.

Sedition Sunday #4: Lucy Parsons

This week Sunday Sedition focuses on Lucy Parsons. She was a labour organizer, an anarcho-communist and leading member of the International Workers Of the World also known as the Wobblies. "My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the necessary property of production." - Lucy Parsons

She was born sometime in the early 1850's in Texas. The woman who the Chicago Police Department described as "more dangerous than a thousand rioters" went on to become a labour organizer in Chicago with her husband Albert Parsons. After her husband was martyred in the aftermath of the Haymarket Affair she continued on with her labour activism with the Wobblies.

Lucy Parsons gave fiery speeches her whole life, inspiring Studs Terkel in her 80's. She died as result of a house fire in 1942. The police promptly seized her 1500 book library and all her writings. 

Sedition Sunday #3: Mujeres Libres

This week's Sedition Sunday focuses not on an individual but on a group, Mujeres Libres (Free Women). Mujeres Libres was an anarcho-feminist collective formed in 1936. Their ideological basis was what they called the "double struggle", that women's liberation and the revolution would go hand in hand. They organized themselves to assert their voices in the revolution and to ensure that the revolution would carry their voices. Today's book Free Women Of Spain: Anarchism And The Struggle For The Emancipation Of Women is written by Martha Ackelsberg.

You can purchase the book from AK Press here. What follows is from the AK Press page: cowards don't make history; and the women of Mujeres Libres (Free Women) were no cowards. Courageous enough to create revolutionary change in their daily lives, these women mobilized over 20,000 women into an organized network during the Spanish Revolution, to strive for community, education, and equality for women and the emancipation of all. Militants in the anarcho-syndicalist CNT union, Mujeres Libres struggled against fascism, the State, and reaction; and the less than supportive attitudes and concerns of their male comrades. Martha Ackelsberg writes a comprehensive study of Mujeres Libres, intertwining interviews with the women themselves and analysis connecting them with modern feminist movements. This new edition includes additional research Ackelsberg carried out for the Spanish language edition, together with a brand new introduction written in the light of the new social movements, and resurgence of anarchism, post-Seattle..

Martha Ackelsberg is is a Professor of Government and a member of the Women's Studies Program Committee at Smith College, where she teaches courses in political theory, urban politics, political activism, and feminist theory. She has contributed to a variety of anthologies on women's political activism in the United States

Sunday Sedition #2 - Emma Goldman - Anarchism & Other Essays

This week in the Sunday Sedition the focus is on Emma Goldman and her collection of writings, Anarchism & Other Essays. Initially published in 1910 by Mother Earth Publishing it consists of twelve essays on subjects as diverse as prisons, education and patriotism. While some of it has not aged as well as other parts it is essential for Anarchsim: What It Really Stands For.  Ebook here, online text here and audiobook here

Emma Goldman was born in what was the Russian Empire, now Lithunaia, in 1869 and emigrated to the US in 1885 where she ended up in New York eventually joining the emerging anarchist movement. She was a fiery speaker and writer, was jailed at various times, accused of inciting a riot and advocating for women's birth control. She was deported from the US in 1919 first to the Soviet Union where she became disillusioned with the USSR.

Sedition Sunday #1 - Peter Kropotkin - Memoirs Of A Revolutionist

Welcome to the Sunday Sedition. Each week there will be a piece of political news or a link to a political ebook/pdf. This week is Peter Kropotkin's autobiography Memoirs Of A Revolutionist.

Peter Kropotkin (1842 - 1921) was a Russian geographer, economist, activist, philologist, zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, writer and anarchist. He is perhaps most well known for his theory of Mutual Aid, that cooperation is more successful evolutionarily speaking than compeititon. He was born and raised in a well off family and could have become a noble person at the court. Instead he rebuked all that and became a scienttist, anarchist and revolutionary.