On July 20, 1969, one month before Woodstock and the very day Neil Armstrong would make the first successful moonwalk, a young white guy in a denim work coat, sunglasses, and beret took the stage at the Black Panther Party’s National Conference For A United Front Against Fascism in Oakland California. His name was Bill Fesperman, but he went by Preacherman among his comrades.
I’ll never forget the evening of Thursday, May 28th. The Minneapolis Police Precinct 3 was burnt to the ground. Around the same time in Kentucky, the Louisville Police Department deployed tear gas on a small crowd of around 300 peaceful protestors. The following morning I began receiving messages all asking the same question. “You going to Louisville tonight?”
Neoliberalism, as defined by David Harvey in his book A Brief History of Neoliberalism, is “a theory of political and economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade.”
What is a tenant? A “tenant” is anyone who does not ultimately control their own housing. This includes people who rent, are houseless, or whose bank owns the loan for their home.
A report on an action co-organized by Metro Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky DSA helps show the way forward for how DSA can play a leading role in the struggle for racial justice while not getting caught in the trap of “allyship.”
A few weeks ago, Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton appointed “The Commission for Racial Justice & Equality” to look at ways to address systemic racism. While that commission has created a number of subcommittees to look at various aspects of the matter, it has left one overarching issue to the vagaries of history. Lexington was one of the two largest slave markets in the South. Even more important was the fact...
