AREA News

• Haymarket 1886:2011, a special publication from AREA Chicago

  by AREA   |   Published April 27, 2011

  • haymarket

  Join us on April 30, at the POCKET GUIDE TO HELL Haymarket Reenactment Afterparty, 4pm, Haymarket Brewery, 737 W. Randolph (corner of Halsted & Randolph) for the official release of a special commemorative collection from AREA Chicago on the 125th anniversary of the Haymarket tragedy, exploring the legacy of Haymarket and the many ways it directly influences art, research, education, and activism in Chicago today. Copies will be available for $5.

  Facebook Event
  

  Mail order copies of this booklet are available from AREA Chicago for $6 ppd. Please write a check to “Experimental Station” (write “AREA Haymarket” in the memo line), and mail to:
  AREA Chicago
  P.O. Box 476971
  Chicago, IL 60647.
  email haymarket@areachicago.org for international postage rates
  
  Haymarket 1886:2011
  featuring contributions by and about:
  
  Penelope Rosemont, David Roediger, Alma Washington, the history of Haymarket walking tours, Euan Hague, Paul Buhle, Peter Chanthasena and Anh Nguyen, the Haymarket Historic Landmark District, Paul Durica, the South Chicago ABC Zine Distro, reflections on Haymarket from the shadow of September 11, Holly Nelson, May Day, the Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, Josefa Mellor and Nick Naber, 134 years of social struggle in Pilsen, Teko Sãso, Anthony Rayson, Josh Otte and Jordon
  Olson, Jerry Mead-Lucero, Sam Mitrani, alternative Haymarket monument proposals, Samuel Barnett, Lucy Parsons, teaching and learning about Haymarket, Bucky Halker, Nicolas Lampert.
  
  Before the Release, Check out the Haymarket Reenactment
  
  Paul Durica of Pocket Guide to Hell in partnership with The Illinois Labor History Society, Haymarket Pub & Brewery, Drinking & Writing Theater, Fulton River District Association, and Version 11: The Community
  
  announces LET THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE BE HEARD!
  a full-scale reenactment of the Haymarket Affair
  to commemorate its 125th Anniversary
  
  

  Randolph St., between Desplaines and Halsted

  
  2pm: The Illinois Labor History Society dedicates a new plaque
  3pm: THE REENACTMENT
  4pm: afterparty at Haymarket Pub & Brewery
  (please note the restaurant is all-ages)
  
  FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!
  COSTUMES & PROPS WILL BE PROVIDED

  And Join the March on May Day
   
  2:00PM Reunion at Union Park, Corners of Lake St and Ashland

  3:00PM March to Plaza Tenochtitlan in Pilsen begins.

  4:00PM March Ends and Rally Starts at Plaza Tenochtitlan in Pilsen.
   
  On May 1st millions of people around the world march to celebrate international solidarity among working people. We march because the classic union anthem of “Solidarity Forever” must be expanded to every worker – documented and undocumented, waged and unwaged, those who labor and those who work in the home, students, the unemployed, in the US and around the world. We march because the scapegoating and criminalization of immigrants is a crucial part of the overall attack on working people. We march because anti-immigrant legislation has created the conditions of modern-day slavery formigrant workers. We march because as long as one worker is deport-able, all workers are exploitable.
  

• Message from Madison

  by Nicolas Lampert, Aaron Hughes, Dan Wang   |   Published March 10, 2011

  To our Chicago friends and allies,

  This is a plea from three of your comrades who have been witness to the events in Wisconsin.

  Since the day Hosni Mubarak fell half a world away, fast-developing events in Madison, only 2.5 hours northwest of Chicago, have combined to produce what the three of us agree is the most important political struggle happening at the moment, certainly in the United States, and one of the most important in the world. Further, this is unlike anything else we've seen in our lifetimes, in terms of the diversity of constituencies mobilized, the palpable anger on display, and the underlying movement dynamic.

  A slumbering labor movement and public have arisen in Wisconsin and have mobilized tens of thousands of people, in self-organized groups, without central leadership, and in successive waves of independently initiated actions that have surprised and even shocked all involved. The degrees of self-organization and displays of solidarity are heartwarming, inspiring, and on all levels impressive, whether that's the three exempted unions standing firm with those under attack, the thousands of high school students walking out, or the parents w/children who slept overnight in the Capitol. The fourteen Wisconsin Senate Democrats who fled the state and are holding up the vote on the budget repair bill would not have had the courage to take this action had it not been for the three days of momentum early on, before any non-Wisconsin media took notice. The two-week occupation of the State Capital and massive demonstrations, some exceeding 100,000 people, have earned this movement a distinction not often granted to the left these days: this is about average, ordinary Americans, the highly educated, the poor, the retired, the children, the students, the police and firefighters, everybody; this is without a doubt one of the largest and most significant US labor struggles of the past fifty years.

  Read the full letter in Grid City

• Rahm Emanuel Notebook

  by Rebecca Zorach   |   Published Jan. 28, 2011

  • Rahm

  AREA Adviser Rebecca Zorach has been keeping a notebook of what Rahm Emanuel has been up to. Read the ongoing Notebook in AREA's new blog Grid City.  Here's a sample:

  Day 5. In 2008, 17 of Rahm's top 20 campaign committee contributors (ranked by aggregate per organization or business) were in the financial services industry: that is, banks, options traders, private equity management companies, hedge funds, etc.

  (In case it seems like this is probably typical of politicians, just for comparison, of IL Rep. Jan Schakowsky's top 20 contributors, none were in the financial services industry.)

  Open Secrets explains; "The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families." This means that companies are ranked according to the totals of those individual donations. 

Report Back

• ReportBack #1: Tamms/Laurie Jo Reynolds @ Hyde Park Art Center

  2008-03-25
  A report back on the day of the tenth anniversary of Tamms CMAX prison, concerning an event called TalkingPoint at Hyde Park Art Center, December 10, 2007 by Laurie Palmer It felt like a great weight falling off; or like a stone decomposing in response to vibration. The weight was an old calcified idea, a prohibition that [...]
  Read the full article

• AREA Chicago Announces a New Web Project: Report Back

  2008-02-11
  A new weblog dedicated to documenting events and people’s impressions of them throughout Chicago AREA Chicago, the publication and event series, has initiated this as an extension of its ongoing interest in documenting activities at the intersections of arts, education, research and activism in Chicago. The site is meant to fill in some of the gaps [...]
  Read the full article