Welcome to the Sojourner Truth Organization Digital Archive.

The Sojourner Truth Organization, according to historian Michael Staudenmaier, was an American "revolutionary group based largely in Chicago during the 1970's and 1980's. STO, as it is commonly known, created a small but vibrant political tendency around the concepts of challenging dual consciousness, opposing white supremacy, supporting extra-union organizing in factory settings, defending anti-imperialist and national liberation struggles, and building an internal culture of intellectual rigor and sophistication." [STO: Notes Toward a History]

This archive, which we have been maintaining for over six years, will serve as a resource for STO's newspapers (Insurgent Worker), pamphlets, shop leaflets, theoretical journals (Urgent Tasks, Tendency Newsletter), collaborative works (Collective Works), and others.

We will be making their works available in both PDF and HTML formats. The PDFs offer a view of what the original material looked like, pictures and all, for those who wish to print copies for themselves or for distribution, while the HTMLs provide a more web-friendly version.

All of our PDFs have been scanned using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology with the intent of digitally restoring them as well as to make them easier to reference and copy to any word processing program.

The only exceptions to this rule are the Insurgent Worker series and the shop leaflets included with the Workplace Papers collection. These were assembled by hand and makes OCR difficult and unnecessary. Thus they will be rendered in JPEG format.

We add materials as they are made available to us in no systematic fashion, so if anyone would like to see anything in particular or has any constructive criticism, corrections, or suggestions, please contact us at info@sojournertruth.net. If you are looking for literature on a particular subject, use the Google search feature below.

For those of you who have original prints of any STO material that you would like to donate either to the digital or physical archive, please let us know.

If there are former STO folks who would like their names to be removed from these materials, use the contact email address. We will simply replace your name from the digital archive documents to "anonymous."

Thank you.

-STO Digital Archive

UPDATES

August 5, 2013: Just added "Tendency Newsletter #4" in PDF format. The text is selectable and able to copied to any word processing document.

July 3, 2012: We'd like to bring readers' attention to the recent publication of Michael Staudenmaier's book Truth and Revolution, a History of the Sojourner Truth Organization 1969-1986. When we first began the archive in 2005, which at the time was merely a clearinghouse for existing links to available STO literature already online (about seven links total), it was only a matter of days before making contact with Mike who was then beginning the research and interviewing of former STO members for the publication of a history on them. He was also responsible for giving us most of the literature currently available, either in original form or copies. It has been a long time in the making, but we're proud to have been even peripherally a part of this project. The two of us responsible for maintaining the archive have been making our way through the book and it has been exciting to tie the literature with which we are already familiar with the actual lived experience and organizing of the STO.

January 23, 2010: Uploaded the shop leaflets that were included with "Workplace Papers," a collection of essays over several years that deal with workplace organizing. They can only be viewed by downloading the PDF. Scroll down to the "COLLECTIONS" section to locate it. I also uploaded the PDF version of Noel Ignatin's "Study Guide to Reconstruction" from Number 3 of their theoretical journal, Urgent Tasks.

January 17, 2010: The main page of the archive is going through some code/cosmetic changes though I expect nothing drastic yet. I'm trying to get it on par with the latest HTML coding (HTML 5) which will help make its presentation more consistent for different browsers and future use.

*I was successful at getting the STO main page to validate as XHTML Transitional. Now to CSS. This will clear up all the formatting inconsistencies of each individual html page.

October 27, 2009: I finally added the remaining pages of the HTML VERSION ONLY to Hamerquist's section of the Althusser symposium in UT No. 4. Somewhat timely, I suppose, since his most recent essay on Leninism takes up Althusser's contributions (or lack thereof) to the subject. That essay is available on a new blog I collaborate with called Gathering Forces.

Also I just added a piece on Afghanistan from UT 8. The piece is decent and somewhat timely too since the power change at the top with General McChrystal replacing McKiernan and the former's campaign for a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Lastly, I've been diggin the new Big Flame archive blog (though I haven't read a single document) and the format too and we are in discussions about doing something similar for this site. The nice thing about their site is that there are BF folks behind it and they are facilitating discussions about their works which is something our format doesn't allow. So I wanted to encourage folks who want to talk about STO stuff to hit up Mike's blog and use it as such a forum until, if ever, it becomes available here.

May 27, 2009: We have recently made changes to the archive that have affected site navigation and some links. Prior to the change, we had separate pages for Urgent Tasks and Collections publications where each publication's articles were featured. In order to simplify browsing and streamline HTML coding, we created drop-down menus for publications that have multiple articles where you can click the article from the main page. If you have trouble accessing a link, click the blank option in the drop-down selection and then click the link you want to read. Sorry for the confusion.

MASS PAPER

Insurgent Worker
Nov-Dec 1971
not yet available

Insurgent Worker
June-July 1972
not yet available

Insurgent Worker
Oct-Nov 1972
not yet available

Insurgent Worker
July 1973

Insurgent Worker
Spring 1974
not yet available

THEORETICAL JOURNALS

Urgent Tasks Number 3
Spring 1978
partial issue

Urgent Tasks Number 4
Summer 1978
partial issue

Urgent Tasks Number 6
Fall 1979

Urgent Tasks Number 7
Winter 1980

Urgent Tasks Number 8
Spring 1980
partial issue

Urgent Tasks Number 9
Summer 1980
partial issue

Urgent Tasks Number 10
Fall 1980

Urgent Tasks Number 11
Spring 1981
partial issue

Urgent Tasks Number 12
Summer 1981

Urgent Tasks Number 13
Spring 1982
partial issue

Urgent Tasks Number 14
Fall/Winter 1982

Newsletter #3
not yet available

Tendency Newsletter #4
1984

PAMPHLETS

Towards a
Revolutionary Party
by Sojourner Truth Organization
PDF | HTML
1971
from the 1976 Reprint

Thirty Years of
Selective Service Racism
by Ken Lawrence
PDF | HTML
1971
from the 1981 Reprint

The Anti-War Movement
& Elections '72
by Sojourner Truth Organization
PDF | HTML
1972

Organizing
Working Class Women
by Sojourner Truth Organization
PDF | HTML
1972

The United Front
Against Imperialism?
by Sojourner Truth Organization
PDF | HTML
1972

Mass Organization
at the Workplace
by Sojourner Truth Organization
PDF | HTML
1972

General Strike
France 1968
a factory by factory account
by Andree Hoyles
with an introduction by
Sojourner Truth Organization
PDF | HTML
1973

Fighting Racism:
An Exchange
by Staughton Lynd
Noel Ignatin
Ken Lawrence
PDF | HTML
1975

Marx on
American Slavery
by Ken Lawrence
PDF | HTML
1975

Roots of Class Struggle
in the South
by Ken Lawrence
PDF | HTML
1975

Fascism In The U.S.?
a discussion paper
by Don Hamerquist
PDF | HTML
1976
not yet available

"...no condescending saviors,"
by Noel Ignatin
PDF | HTML
1976

Rape, Racism, and the
White Women's Movement:
An Answer to Susan Brownmiller
by Alison Edwards
PDF | HTML
1976
from the 1979 Reprint

White Supremacy and
the Afro-American
National Question
by Don Hamerquist
PDF | HTML
1976
from the 1978 Reprint

Since When Has Working
Been A Crime?
The Deportation of
Mexicans Without Papers
by South Chicago
Workers' Rights Center
PDF | HTML
1977

In Partial Payment:
Class Struggle, Sexuality
and the Gay Movement
by A. Rausch
PDF | HTML
1980
from the 1981 Reprint

Introduction to the United States
An Autonomist Political History
by Noel Ignatin
PDF | HTML
1980
from the 1992 Reprint

Back Toward Slavery:
excerpts from
Black Reconstruction
In America
by W.E.B. Du Bois
PDF | HTML
not yet available

COLLECTIONS

Fascism In The U.S.?
Current Debates On Fascism
1976
partial issue

Understanding and Fighting
White Supremacy
1976

Workplace Papers
1980