Staying Human on the Left Coast
Bay-area hip-hop artist and political activist Michael Franti (of Spearhead) recently put out an anti-war single titled “Bomb Da World.” In this song, Franti calls on the people to rise up against the insanity of Bush’s perpetual war.
Charting a New Course: An Interview with the Communist Party of Vietnam
'Our reform and innovation process arose from the fact that we made some quite serious mistakes. The first mistake was a simplistic understanding of socialism. Vietnam was at best at the beginning of the transition period. At that time we wanted to build pure socialism instantly.'
Let the Dreamer Awake: Talking with Robin D. G. Kelley
Author/activist Robin D. G. Kelley teaches at Columbia University in New York City. He is the author of Hammer and Hoe and Freedom Dreams. He is currently working on a book on musician Thelonius Monk.
Paris Gets a Bad Rap
Editor’s Note: Paris is a Bay-area artist who has made a big impact on Hip-hop as an independent artist through his use of the Internet as an organizing tool for political activism as well as making his work available to the public. His most recent album, Sonic Jihad, was released last summer. Most recently, he has come under fire for his criticism of Bush’s perpetual “war on terrorism” and on Iraq.
Making the Dream Real: A Conversation with Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Bill Fletcher is the president of TransAfrica Forum, a founder of United for Peace and Justice and the Black Radical Congress. This interview was conducted by Debbie Bell.
The Dialectics of History: An Interview with David Levering Lewis
Editor’s Note: David Levering Lewis won two Pulitzer Prizes for his two-volume biography of W. E. B. Du Bois titled, W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919 and W. E. B. Du Bois: The Fight for Equality and the American Century, 1919-1963. Lewis also authored the noted study of the Harlem Renaissance, When Harlem Was in Vogue. He also wrote the widely read biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., King: A Biography. Additionally, he has written a book on the scramble for Africa, The Race to Fashoda, and a study of the Dreyfus affair, Prisoners of Honor. He is a Martin Luther King, Jr. University Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University. He sits on the board of directors of The Crisis magazine in New York. This interview was conducted by Joel Wendland.
Writing Class: An Interview with Russell Banks
Editor’s Note: Russell Banks is the widely acclaimed author of over a dozen novels and collections of short stories, including Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, and Success Stories. He helped organize a chapter of Students for a Democratic Society at the University of North Carolina in the 1960s. He recently retired from teaching creative writing at Princeton University. Two of his novels, Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, have been made into acclaimed films. A third, Cloudsplitter, is in the works with HBO. Banks was interviewed by Joel Wendland.
An Execution in the Family: An Interview with Robert Meeropol
Editor’s note: Robert Meeropol, executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children, talks about his recently published memoir An Execution in the Family, the 50th anniversary of the execution of his parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and the relevance of defending civil rights and liberties. The Rosenberg Fund for Children provides for the educational and emotional needs of children of targeted progressive activists, and youth who are targeted activists themselves.
Taking a Stand with Walter Mosley
Editor’s note: Most well-known for his mystery fiction, Walter Mosley is also the author of numerous social commentary books, including most recently What Next. He has also published science fiction such as Futureland and Bluelight. This interview was conducted by Libero Della Piana.
Portrait of an Artist in Exile: An Interview with Farnoosh Moshiri
Editor’s note: Iranian writer Farnoosh Moshiri is the author of two novels, At the Wall of the Almighty (Interlink Publishers) and The Bathhouse (Black Heron Press/Beacon Press). Her recently published collection of short stories is called The Crazy Dervish and the Pomegranate Tree and was put out by Black Heron Press in October. After the revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979, Moshiri, who had just received her Masters degree in drama from the University of Iowa, returned to Iran. She taught at the College of Dramatic Arts and worked as a dramaturge for the Theatre Division of the Ministry of Culture and Art. She also was politically active and a member of The Council of Writers and Artists of Iran and Women’s Organization. When the fundamentalists seized power by 1981, she was labeled “an enemy of God” and was forced to flee with her two year-old son. “This marked the end of my career as an Iranian playwright,” she says. She teaches college English in Houston, Texas.
