Tag activism

Free the Beaches

Andrew W. Kahrl— It was a hot and hazy August afternoon in the summer of 1975. The line was long, and tempers were short. Outside the entrance to Hammonasset State Park, sunburned arms dangled from the sides of cars, children’s heads rested on windows, and idle drivers burned fuel that

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Richard Oakes and the Takeover of Fort Lawton

Kent Blansett— On Sunday at 3 a.m. Richard Oakes and ninety other members of UIAT [United Indians of All Tribes] assembled at a rendezvous point in downtown Seattle. A veteran and leader of the Alcatraz takeovers, Oakes must have been transported back to the three attempts it had taken IAT

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Reconstructing the Vietnam Peace Movement

Tom Hayden— It is time for a new effort to reverse the propaganda about Vietnam and our movement to end the war. It is time for truth telling, for healing, and for legacy. Who will tell our story when we are gone? So much has already escaped memory, and now

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Politics and Mindsets in Poor Rural Communities

Mil Duncan— Poverty alleviation has always been politically charged in the United States. Are the poor trapped by their own bad choices—dropping out of school, having children young and out of wedlock, getting in trouble with the law? “Cultural” failings? Or is it the paucity of good jobs and good

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Barbara Ransby on the Melissa Harris-Perry Show

Last week, Yale University Press author Barbara Ransby appeared on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry show to discuss her new book, Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. The interview discusses Essie’s many humanitarian and intellectual pursuits— as a writer, chemist, academic, activist, celebrity and world traveler. When Harris-Perry

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World of Letters: The Beginnings of Adrienne Rich

Adrienne Rich is unforgettable. Last month, we announced the winner of the 2012 Younger Poet Series competition, and beginning our celebration of Poetry Month in April, it takes little effort to remember one of YSYP’s best and greatest poets. The world was sad to note her passing last Tuesday, March

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For Tomorrow’s Leadership Still Growing Today

For twenty years, the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity has been awarding its Ethics Prize to college students writing on particularly difficult ethical challenges and dilemmas in our society, and advocating the actions necessary for our society to undertake. These have now been published in a new volume, An Ethical

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February is…

National African American History Month! Yale Press has a wide range of books covering this topic for you to check out. Here’s just a sample: Aaron Douglas: African American Modernist, edited by Susan Earle In paintings, murals, and book illustrations, Aaron Douglas (1899–1979) produced the most powerful visual legacy of

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