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We Can Breathe! Anti-Fascists United

What was the Popular Front? Where did it come from, and where did its energies go?
by Gabriel Winant via London Review of Books on August 1, 2024
George Padmore

Black Americans in the Popular Front Against Fascism

The era of anti-fascist struggle was a crucial moment for Black radicals of all stripes.
by Mohammed Elnaiem via JSTOR Daily on November 12, 2020

When Antifascism Comes to America

Many compare the rise of "Trumpism" to that of 1930s Fascism. More worthwhile might be an examination of antifascist resistance.
by Joseph M. Fronczak via Process: A Blog for American History on January 12, 2017
Woody Guthrie.

This Land Is Our Land

The Popular Front and American culture.
by Michael Kazin via Humanities on May 1, 2011
A group of adult students at Highlander Folk School holding class outside.

The Left Needs Its “Schools of Enlightenment and Revolution”

Throughout the entire history of left-wing organizing in the United States, the building of institutions of political education has been key.
by Nelson Lichtenstein, Steve Fraser via Jacobin on February 9, 2025
CPUSA members demonstrate in Union Square on May Day, ca. 1930s.

Maurice Isserman’s Red Scare

A new history of the CPUSA reads like a Cold War throwback.
by Benjamin Balthaser via The Baffler on November 21, 2024
summer campers around a fire
partner

Around the Campfire with Paul Robeson

The history of Camp Wo-Chi-Ca tells a largely overlooked story about left-wing politics and Black culture.
by Nina Silber via HNN on August 6, 2024
Illustration of Abraham Lincoln writing the Emancipation Proclamation.

Abraham Lincoln Is a Hero of the Left

Leftists have regarded Lincoln as a pro-labor hero who helped vanquish chattel slavery. We should celebrate him today within the radical democratic tradition.
by Matthew E. Stanley via Jacobin on February 20, 2023
The Almanac Singers playing various instruments, including guitars, a banjo, and an accordion.

"Which Side Are You On, Boys..."

Watching the Ken Burns series on the U.S. and the Holocaust and thinking about American folk music.
by William Hogeland via Hogeland's Bad History on October 3, 2022
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade, led by Milton Wolff.

Soldiers of Solidarity

Giles Tremlett tells the story of the foreigners who joined the first line of defense against fascism in Europe.
by Dan Kaufman via New York Review of Books on February 3, 2022
Leonard Bernstein in the 1960s, at his desk piled with music scores, reading one, pen in hand.

Conservatives Say Liberals Want West Side Story to Be “Woke Side Story”

The beloved musical’s creator struggled to find a place between left and center.
by Daniel Wortel-London via Slate on December 13, 2021
Socialist deputies march with strikers on February 12 1934.

Feb 6 1934/Jan 6 2021

What do the two events really have in common?
by John Ganz via Unpopular Front on July 15, 2021
Scottsboro Boys standing

Ada Wright, The Scottsboro Defense Campaign, and the Popular Front

The Scottsboro Case quickly became one of the most infamous international spectacles that would eventually define the interwar period.
by Ashley Everson via Black Perspectives on July 13, 2021
James Baldwin smoking at a table in the South of France in November 1979.

The Socialism of James Baldwin

By the end of his life, inspired by the radicalism of the Black Panthers, Baldwin was again ready to proclaim himself a socialist.
by Arvind Dilawar via Jacobin on January 2, 2021
Harry Sternberg’s 1947 visualization of fascism as a three-headed monster.

What We Don’t Understand About Fascism

Using the word incorrectly oversimplifies history—and won't help us address our current political crisis.
by Victoria de Grazia via Zócalo Public Square on August 13, 2020

We’re Getting These Murals All Wrong

The murals have been denounced as demeaning, and defended as an exposé of America’s racist past. Both sides miss the point.
by Robin D. G. Kelley via The Nation on September 10, 2019
Members of the American Communist Party march with signs at a protest.

The Communist Party Helped Shape US History

A new book tells the story of American communism as an integral part of 20th-century US history, with Communists “as social critics and social change agents.”
by Daniel Colligan via Jacobin on September 16, 2024
Rep. Marcantonio in front of a mobile office trailer meeting neighborhood children.

Congressman Vito Marcantonio: A Utopian Vision for His Time and Ours

Vito Marcantonio fought racial, social, and economic injustices, promoting cross-cultural solidarity and progressive ideals amid McCarthyism and segregation.
by Sandhya Shukla via The Abusable Past on August 9, 2024
Ella Fitzgerald at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, 1970.

The Genius of Ella Fitzgerald

She remade the American songbook in her image, uprooting the very meaning of musical performance.
by Sam Fentress via The Nation on May 28, 2024

The Disciplining Power of Disappointment

A new book argues that American politics are defined by unfulfilled desire.
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on August 11, 2023
American blues singer and guitarist Leadbelly performs for a room full of people, 1940.

Is the History of American Art a History of Failure?

Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.
by Lynne Feeley via The Nation on July 31, 2023
Striking workers at General Motors in 1970.

Nelson Lichtenstein on a Half-Century of American Class Struggle

The esteemed labor historian reflects on his life and career, including Berkeley in the 1960s, Walter Reuther, the early UAW, Walmart, Bill Clinton, and more.
by Nelson Lichtenstein, Micah Uetricht via Jacobin on July 10, 2023
Black and white photo of communists marching in front of the White House to demand the release of the Scottsboro Boys.

The Civil Rights Movement Was Radical to Its Core

The Civil Rights Movement was a radical struggle against Jim Crow tyranny whose early foot soldiers were Communists and labor militants.
by Glenda Gilmore, Robert Greene II via Jacobin on August 28, 2022
Students crowded around General Logan Monument during the 1968 National Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Are We Still Fighting the Battles of the New Left?

Revisiting post-war activist movements around the world to understand generational conflicts in the left.
by Terence Renaud, Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins via The Nation on March 15, 2022
Artistic photo with american flags

Richard Hofstadter’s Discontents

Why did the historian come to fear the very movements he once would have celebrated?
by Jeet Heer via The Nation on October 6, 2020
Police wielding batons face a crowd of people.

'Fascist Storm Troopers': Racist Police Violence in 1940s America

In 1949, truncheon-wielding police officers descended on the racially integrated concert of singer Paul Robeson.
by Gustavus Stadler via Al Jazeera on September 4, 2020
A line of Black men sit and stand in a half circle. They all where Pullman Porter uniforms.

How Black Pullman Porters Waged a Struggle for “Civil Rights Unionism”

Led by A. Philip Randolph, Black Pullman porters secured dignity on the job — and laid the foundation for the modern Civil Rights Movement.
by Eric Arnesen, Arvind Dilawar via Jacobin on July 28, 2020

The Forgotten History of Feminismo Americano

Over the first half of the 20th century, the movement galvanized groups throughout the Americas who helped inaugurate what we think of today as global feminism.
by Katherine M. Marino via Tropics of Meta on February 22, 2019
Uncle Sam standing at center, gesturing to the left toward American soldiers boarding ships to return to America after defeating the Spanish in the Philippines, and gesturing to the right toward a group of matronly women, one labeled "Daughters of the Revolution", who have just arrived to educate the peoples of the Philippines.

The Left's Embrace of Empire

The history of the left in the United States is a history of betrayal.
by Lyle Jeremy Rubin via The Nation on March 28, 2018
Orson Welles

A Hundred Years of Orson Welles

He was said to have gone into decline, but his story is one of endurance—even of unlikely triumph.
by Alex Ross via The New Yorker on November 30, 2015
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