New York Labor Mural: Censorship or Curatorial Standards?

Mike Alewitz, the internationally famous muralist, is fighting for the installation his mural “The City at the Crossroads of History” at the Museum of the City of New York. Commissioned by the Puffin Foundation, the museum has refused to install the piece because of objections to its content. Alewitz calls this a case of censorship, while the museum argues it is a question of “curatorial standards.” There is a petition campaign in support of the installation of the mural. (Find at the foot of this article links to a slideshow of the mural, an interview with Alewitz, and the petition site.)

Black Lives Matter Gathering Points a New Direction for the Movement

The Black Lives Matter Movement is alive and well. If it has for the moment—under political attack and facing the winter’s sub-freezing temperatures—withdrawn from the streets, it has done so to plan a new stage in the fight for justice for African American victims of police racism and violence. As many as 400 people, mostly young people of color, attended the eight-hour long Black Lives Matter Gathering at the famous Riverside Church in Manhattan on January 30 where in workshops, trainings, and plenary sessions it seemed that a new direction was being set for the movement.

Philly teachers - the kind of troublemakers who built teachers unions

        I have a long-time  friend who recalls how, as a young teacher, she came to  her Brooklyn school on November 7, 1960  to walk the picket line. She was terrified at breaking the law and was only one of a very few teachers in her school to strike. Fearful but also committed, she held hands with a gal pal for mutual support.

Julio Scherer García - 1926-2015 - Mexican Journalist

Julio Scherer, who worked as a journalist for 70 years, will be most remembered for founding Proceso, the weekly news magazine that transformed Mexican journalism and helped to contributed to the ongoing struggle for democracy in Mexico.

Mexico - The Year in Review

President Enrique Peña Nieto, who had been so successful in advancing his fundamentally conservative economic program during his first year and a half in office, suddenly faced a serious challenge beginning in September 2014 when police apparently cooperating gangsters killed six students, injured at least 25 injured, and kidnapped 43 in the town of Iguala in the state of Guerrero.

As Mexican President Peña Nieto Visits White House, Protestors Demand His Resignation

Cuba - A Personal Reflection

When in 1959 I was fourteen, my socialist, pacifist father gave me a gift subscription to Liberation, the leftist magazine sponsored by the War Resisters League that was published from 1956-1977. My parents had divorced and I lived with my mother in the town of Imperial Beach, California, on the Pacific Ocean and the Mexican border, while my father lived in Chicago. Liberation was my father’s way of seeing to my political education from a distance. In the pages of Liberation I first read C.

Collapse of Oil Prices, Fall in Peso, Exacerbate Mexican Political Crisis

A New American Civil Rights Movement is Being Born

A new civil rights movement is arising in the United States.

Teachers unions, police, and the real 'new civil rights movement'

            When Rudy Giuliani blamed the deaths of unarmed Black men on teachers unions in appearances on Geraldo Rivera’s show and Fox News’ “Hannity,” Giuliani relied on the same logic that Rod Paige, Secretary of Education, employed in more