In the coffeehouse, you'll find delicious fair trade, organic coffee and espresso as well as a selection of vegan and vegetarian food. In the bookstore, you'll find books and periodicals on a wide range of topics, with a focus on radical politics and culture. We also offer free internet access, both through our wireless network and our public internet terminals.
If you are looking for information about 2640, the community events space we run in conjunction with St. John's United Methodist Church in Charles Village, please have a look at the 2640 website .
If you are looking for information about the Baltimore Free School, another project that's spun off from the Red Emma's Collective, please check out the Free School website.
Jordan Flaherty presents Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six @ Red Emma's
by Jordan Flaherty
Jordan Flaherty—editor at essential radical magazine Left Turn, and award winning independent journalist who broke the story of the Jena Six—presented his brand new book Floodlines, a firsthand account of community, culture, and resistance in New Orleans. The book weaves the stories of gay rappers, Mardi Gras Indians, Arab and Latino immigrants, public housing residents, and grassroots activists in the years before and after Katrina. From post-Katrina evacuee camps to torture testimony at Angola Prison to organizing with the family members of the Jena Six, Floodlines tells the stories behind the headlines from an unforgettable time and place in history.
Jordan was joined by Manju Rajendran, an amazing community organizer and artist from North Carolina. She is one of many founding members of Ubuntu, a women-of-color and survivor-led organization ending sexual assault and creating transformative love in Durham, NC. Manju is a long-time member and former worker of Southerners On New Ground (SONG), connecting race, class, gender, and sexuality, and she volunteers as a copy editor and occasional writer for Left Turn magazine. On tour, Manju is telling the story of Vimala’s Curryblossom Cafe, her family’s restaurant experiment in creative resiliency and food justice.
Audio: The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual
by Network of Concerned Anthropologists
As the war in Afghanistan drones on, and the armed occupation of Iraq morphs into a more politically palatable "soft occupation" relying on private mercenaries and various forms of diplomatic and economic control, one can only expect an increase in the demand for imperial anthropologists, willing to deploy their professional training in the service of American geopolitical hegemony.
With the release in 2006 of the new Counterinsurgency Field Manual (as a joint U.S. Army/U.S. Marines publication), it became painfully apparent that upper echelons of the American military were deeply interested in finding ways to harness anthropological expertise as a part of their apparatus of strategic control. The strategy outlined in the Manual was put into practice with the launch of the controversial "Human Terrain System" teams, in which anthropologists are "embedded" within the combat structure of the U.S. military, but it has also appeared in more diffuse forms, as seen in the recent revelations about the role of the US military in funding and directing research into the human geography of Oaxaca's insurgent indigenous population.
The Network of Concerned Anthropologists, which believes that such practices are not only ineffective and dangerous, but a serious breach of the ethical constraints to which an academic discipline in the social sciences must subscribe, has been one of the most important critical voices in the struggle to "unembed" anthropology, and we were exceptionally excited to have welcomed NCA members David Price, Hugh Gusterson, Andrew Bickford, and David Vine for a discussion of their collectively authored book The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual: Or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society.
Audio: In Utopia w/ J. C. Hallman
by J. C. Hallman
In 2005, J.C. Hallman came across a scientific paper about “Pleistocene Rewilding,” a peculiar idea from conservation biology that suggested repopulating bereft ecosystems with endangered “megafauna.” The plan sounded utterly utopian, but Hallman liked the idea as much as the scientists did—perhaps because he had grown up on a street called Utopia Road in a master-planned community in Southern California. Pleistocene Rewilding rekindled in him a longstanding fascination with utopian ideas, and he went on to spend three weeks at the world’s oldest “intentional community,” sail on the first ship where it’s possible to own “real estate,” train at the world’s largest civilian combat-school, and tour a $30 billion megacity built from scratch on an artificial island off the coast of Korea. In Utopia explores the history of utopian literature and thought in the narrative context of the real-life fruits of that history.
Audio: Sassafras Lowrey presents the Kicked Out! Anthology
by Sassafras Lowrey Editor
Sassafras Lowrey - editor of Kicked Out - published by Homofactus Press, came to Red Emma's to speak about how the book brings together the voices of current and former homeless LGBTQ youth and tells these forgotten stories of some of our nationâs most vulnerable citizens. Diverse contributors share stories of survival and abuse with poignant accounts of the sanctuary of community and the power of creating chosen families. Kicked Out highlights the nuanced perspectives of national organizations such as The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and The National Alliance Against Homelessness and regional agencies, including Sylviaâs Place, The Circus Project and Family Builders. This anthology introduced by Judy Shepard, gives voice to the voiceless and challenges the stereotypical face of homelessness.
http://www.homofactuspress.com
Get ready for the fifth year of the Radical Bookfair! September 24th-26th in Mt. Vernon Square!
It's our fifth year hosting a Radical Bookfair here in Baltimore, and our third year doing the Bookfair within the city-wide Baltimore Book Festival. We've got a great program of speakers and panels lined up, and all our favorite tablers are coming back to help us pack the giant tent we'll be setting up for the weekend right on Mt. Vernon Square. The zine bazaar is also coming back, and will run all day on Friday—if you want to sell/trade/give away/read from zines at the Bookfair, get in touch! For more information, and the list of speakers and tablers so far, head over to the Radical Bookfair website.
Emory Douglas coming to Baltimore
So Emory Douglas, the legendary illustrator for the Black Panther Party, is coming to Baltimore on August 20th, for a special talk and reception at the Cork Gallery to raise money for former Baltimore Black Panther and current political prisoner Eddie Conway, who, as regular readers of this website hopefully know by now, has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit as a result of a counterintelligence frameup for over 40 years. It's a crucial time to be funding Eddie's legal defense, and as part of that effort, Eddie's support committee will be selling limited edition Emory Douglas prints to raise money. The event starts at 7PM, at the Cork Gallery (1601 Guilford), and costs $10.
Down here at Red Emma's, we've been working with Eddie to put together a quarterly study group, where we all read a text and then discuss it together, with Eddie joining us over the telephone from the prison in Jessup where he's imprisoned. The first installment, convened around Frederick Douglas' "What is the Fourth of July to the Slave?", went great—you can hear the audio below, and keep on eye on the website for details about the next session, where we will be talking about Huey Newton's Revolutionary Suicide.
Serving new rad coffee!
We are now serving coffee from a new, quality, and simply rad coffee roaster called Just Coffee. Based in Madison WI., Just Coffee is a worker cooperative (a wob shop just like Emma's!) that roasts and distributes quality, fair-trade, organic coffees grown by small scale farmers who are members of worker-run cooperatives. This translates to a good cup of coffee and a fair amount of justice for those producing it.
Check out their website to see what other roasts are provided.
For those of you who are addicted to our Orinoco Coffee, no worries, we will still be serving that coffee as well.
New Community Grants in Baltimore!
Are you a struggling activist, organizing, or social justice organization in the Baltimore area? Then come to 2640 on June 12, and find out more about an exciting new opportunity for small-scale community grants in the city. Research Associates Foundation is pleased to announce the launch of a new Community Grants Program starting in Baltimore this fall - organizations will be able to apply for $500 - $2500 grants to fund movement-building and organizing work! Hear from members of the RAF, ask questions about the new grant program, find out how you can apply, and celebrate the first round of grantees! Find out how you can be involved as a funder, to help support RAF's important work. Plus, music by the Charm City Labor Chorus, and free food & drink! June 12, 5-7PM, at 2640 Saint Paul Street. For more info rafbaltimore.org.
Antero Pietila presents Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City
We're sometimes prone to exaggeration here when we talk about new books, but when we say that Antero Pietila's Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City is the most important book about Baltimore in recent memory, we're 100% serious. Pietila, a former Sun reporter, has exhaustively catalogued the strategies of exclusion, segregation, and discrimination which have characterized the way this city has developed, to the point where Baltimore can legitimately be considered a kind of laboratory for racist (and anti-Semitic) urbanism. We've been hard-pressed to keep this book in stock---it's obviously a story that's helping a lot of people, ourselves included, make sense of how this city, still in so many tragic ways separate and unequal, was made. Obviously, therefore, we're thrilled to welcome Antero to Red Emma's for a presentation and discussion of the book. (Also, we might be putting together a reading group at the Baltimore Free School to work through the book together before the event--get in touch at books@redemmas.org if you'd like to participate.)
Monday Oct 18, 7PM @ 2640
Autonomous Education from Chiapas to Mexico City: Urban-Zapatista Links with Patricia Hernández
Red Emma's and the Mexico-US Solidarity Network invite you to join us for a discussion on popular education in Zapatista indigenous communities and the role of urban academics as resources in constructing an autonomous education system.
Patricia Hernández, a sociologist specializing in education & gender, has worked since 2001 with indigenous communities to develop their primary and secondary schools, following a model of "autonomous education." She worked intensively with indigenous teachers—called "education promoters" (promoter@s)—to develop the secondary school for indigenous children living in the Zona Selva Tzeltal. Local leaders, who oversaw the project, wanted the community's demands for land, food, peace, justice and democracy to serve as the content for classes on history, language and mathematics.
As a sociologist in Mexico City, Patricia spent 10 years teaching college courses in social sciences, economics and Mexican politics. Her organization, Organización Zapatista "Educación para la Liberación de Nuestros Pueblos" (OZELNP), formed in 1999 when Zapatista leadership first called for experienced educators (capacitador@s) to share knowledge with indigenous promoter@s and participate in building their educational programs. OZELNP is now also collaborating with a community organization in the outskirts of Mexico City to build an autonomous school, and seeking ways to bring the principles of autonomous education into the urban education system.
Patricia will be joined by a representative from the Mexico Solidarity Network and both will discuss:
* The meaning of "autonomous education" and her experience working in Zona Selva Tzeltal
* The role of academics and other urban activists in the Other Campaign
* The role of women in Mexican social movements
Wednesday Oct 20, 7PM @ Red Emma's
Black Bloc, White Riot
Canadian author and activist AK Thompson comes to Baltimore to discuss his new book, Black Block, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent, just released by our favorite anarchist publisher, AK Press!
Black Bloc, White Riot revisits the struggles against globalization that marked the beginning of the twenty-first century and explores the connection between political violence and the white middle class. Drawing on movement literature, contemporary and critical theory, and his own practical investigations, Thompson (co-founder of Upping the Anti: A Journal of Theory and Action) outlines the movement's effects on the white middle class kids who were swept up in it and considers how and why violence must once again become a central category of activist politics.
Thursday Oct 21, 2PM @ 2640
IDKE XII: Gender Justice
We're thrilled to welcome the twelfth annual International Drag King Community Extravaganza to Baltimore! IDKE XII is a five-day conference that brings together an international collection of individuals interested in exploring gender, critically and artistically, through performance and art. Members of this community include those who perform in, watch, write about, study, document, and make art about the drag king community. IDKE includes an academic conference with workshops, panels, presentations, how to demonstrations, and open discussions. IDKE XII will occur October 20—24 2010, at venues and creative spaces in Baltimore, including Sonar, 2640 and Grand Central Station, and 2640!
This year, noted author, director and educator Tristan Taormino will keynote the conference. An art show and film festival run concurrently with the conference. In addition IDKE highlights performance with an open mic drag night, a cabaret-style brunch, and an international showcase that has drawn more than 1,000 people in past years.
For more information and to register, please visit http://www.idkexii.com. Hope to see you there!
Sunday Oct 24, 12PM @ 2640
The 4th Annual DIY Fest (Do It Yourself Festival)!
The event is free (donations are greatly appreciated) and is open to anyone wanting to learn a new skill, teach or present one of their skills/hobbies or just check out what goes down at a DIY Fest! 12 - 6 pm.
We are currently seeking tablers and people to teach workshops. Wanna know more? Wanna teach a workshop or table? Check out our website at www.diyfest.org!
Tuesday Oct 26, 7PM @ Red Emma's
Spencer Compton presents Get Real
Spencer Compton’s new book Get Real is a series of essays that rummage through semi-disparate correlations and cultural debris in order to bring about a new yet familiar geopolitical aura. Extracting and then naming synonyms like contemporary art and imperialism, popular music and despotism, nations and youth cliques, the excessive qualification of our speech and that of capital, “Get Real” sheds a long-awaited light on the fractured historicity of the contemporary. The premise is simple and formidable: capital now overrides creativity as the prime denominator in the ever too popular production, exhibition and critique of Art as such. What to do?
Not to pat ourselves on the back....but, yeah, we have great cups of coffee. Yeah, we have mind-blowing concerts by celebrity musicians. And, yeah, our courses take place on many diverse points of the spectrum.
We've been tagged as a radical clubhouse...a space for misfits. Perhaps there is this element.
Yet, we are much more than merely stomping grounds.
We are many things, this family of projects.
We are a collection of numerous different activists. All of us have fascinatingly different and aligning perspectives. Over the counting years, we've come together to found three projects: Red Emma's Bookstore Coffeehouse, The 2640 Space, and The Baltimore Free School.
These projects have purpose. They were founded and have evolved with objectives, stakes, and ideals.
In our first ever Open House all three projects would like to thoughtfully share and discuss with you the multifaceted dimensions of what we do and why.
If you want to start something similar, become involved, or are simply curious about the history and/or the conversation.....
Please, Join Us.
Contrary to our plans last year or so, Red Emma's is not at the moment actively pursuing a new location for the bookstore and cafe. Instead, at least for the time being, we are concentrating our efforts on keeping the existing space thriving, but also on the 2640 project, a partnership between Red Emma's and St. John's United Methodist Church in Charles Village, where both parties are cooperating to restore the (beautiful) building at 2640 St. Paul St. and to put this building to work as a space for social justice organizing and independent culture. Like most big projects, this is going to take a lot of money and a lot of work - if you're able to offer either, please drop us a line at 2640 [at] redemmas.org.
800 St. Paul St. * Baltimore, MD 21202 * (410) 230-0450 * info@redemmas.org
Red Emma's is open Monday through Saturday from 10AM-10PM, and Sunday from 10AM-6PM. Our weekly collective meetings are Sunday at 7PM, and are open to anyone interested in the project, except for the first Sunday of every month, which is closed to everyone except collective members.
Red Emma's is part of IU 660 of the Industrial Workers of the World, one of the only unions to recognize that worker collectives can stand in solidarity with those fighting the bosses as part of one big union.
