Collects nearly four decades’ worth of writings by Detroit political and labor activist James Boggs. Born in the rural American south, James Boggs lived nearly his entire adult life in Detroit and worked as a factory worker for twenty-eight years while immersing himself in the political struggles of the industrial urban north. During and after the years he spent in the auto industry, Boggs wrote two books, co-authored two others, and penned dozens of essays, pamphlets, reviews, manifestos, and newspaper columns to become known as a pioneering revolutionary theorist and community organizer. In Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook: A James Boggs Reader, editor Stephen M. Ward collects a diverse sampling of pieces by Boggs, spanning the entire length of his career from the 1950s to the early 1990s. Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook is arranged in four chronological parts that document Boggs's activism and writing. Part 1 presents columns from Correspondence a newspaper written during the 1950s and early 1960s. Part 2 presents the complete text of Boggs's first book, The American Revolution: Pages from a Negro Worker's Notebook, his most widely known work. In Part 3, "Black Power—Promise, Pitfalls, and Legacies," Ward collects essays, pamphlets, and speeches that reflect Boggs's participation in and analysis of the origins, growth, and demise of the Black Power movement. Part 4 comprises pieces written in the last decade of Boggs's life, during the 1980s through the early 1990s. An introduction by Ward provides a detailed overview of Boggs's life and career, and an afterword by Grace Lee Boggs, James Boggs's wife and political partner, concludes this volume. Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook documents Boggs's personal trajectory of political engagement and offers a unique perspective on radical social movements and the African American struggle for civil rights in the post–World War II years. Readers interested in political and ideological struggles of the twentieth century will find Pages from a Black Radical's Notebook to be fascinating reading.

Stephen M. Ward is assistant professor at the University of Michigan in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies and the Residential College. --Book Jacket.

Originally published: New York: Modern Reader, 1963.

James Boggs (1919-1993) and Grace Lee Boggs (1915-2015) were two largely unsung but critically important figures in the black freedom struggle. Born and raised in Alabama, James Boggs came to Detroit during the Great Migration, becoming an automobile worker and a union activist. Grace Lee was a Chinese American scholar who studied Hegel, worked with Caribbean political theorist C. L. R. James, and moved to Detroit to work toward a new American revolution. As husband and wife, the couple was influential in the early stages of what would become the Black Power movement, laying the intellectual foundation for racial and urban struggles during one of the most active social movement periods in recent U.S. history. Stephen Ward details both the personal and the political dimensions of the Boggses' lives, highlighting the vital contributions these two figures made to black activist thinking. At once a dual biography of two crucial figures and a vivid portrait of Detroit as a center of activism, Ward's book restores the Boggses, and the intellectual strain of black radicalism they shaped, to their rightful place in postwar American history.

Four veteran activists discuss the difficulties of creating social change in the United States. This volume touches on matters of philosophy, art, class analysis, and social strategy, in every instance seeking a new vision of social organization and an effective means of realizing that vision.

"Reading Grace Lee Boggs helps you glimpse a United States that is better and more beautiful than you thought it was. As she analyzes some of the inspiring theories and practices that have emerged from the struggles for equality and freedom in Detroit and beyond, she also shows us that in this country, a future revolution is not only necessary but possible." —Michael Hardt, co-author of Commonwealth "This groundbreaking book not only represents the best of Grace Lee Boggs, but the best of any radical, visionary thinking in the United States. She reminds us why revolution is not only possible and necessary, but in some places already in the making. The conditions we face under neoliberalism and war do, indeed, mark the end of an era in which the old ideological positions of protest are not really relevant or effective—and this book offers a new way forward."—Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination “Grace Boggs has long been a major voice of hope and action for transformation of the United States and the world. Here is her testimony of hope and program for action. It must be taken seriously.” —Immanuel Wallerstein, author of Utopistics: or, Historical Choices of the Twenty-first Century "One of the most accomplished radicals of our time, the Detroit-based visionary Grace Lee Boggs has become one of our most influential and inspiring public intellectuals. The Next American Revolution is her powerful reflection on a lifetime of urban revolutionary work, an ode to the courage and brilliance of her late partner James Boggs, and a plain-spoken call for us to address the troubled times we face with a sense of history, a strong set of values, and an unwavering faith in our own creative, restorative powers." —Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop

Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung' is a volume of selected statements taken from the speeches and writings by Mao Mao Tse-Tung, published from 1964 to 1976. It was often printed in small editions that could be easily carried and that were bound in bright red covers, which led to its western moniker of the 'Little Red Book'. It is one of the most printed books in history, and will be of considerable value to those with an interest in Mao Tse-Tung and in the history of the Communist Party of China. The chapters of this book include: 'The Communist Party', 'Classes and Class Struggle', 'Socialism and Communism', 'The Correct Handling of Contradictions Among The People', 'War and Peace', 'Imperialism and All Reactionaries ad Paper Tigers', 'Dare to Struggle and Dare to Win', et cetera. We are republishing this antiquarian volume now complete with a new prefatory biography of Mao Tse-Tung.

From a lauded poet and playwright, a novel of a young woman's life with the Black Panthers in 1960s San Francisco At first glance, Geniece’s story sounds like that of a typical young woman: she goes to college, has romantic entanglements, builds meaningful friendships, and juggles her schedule with a part-time job. However, she does all of these things in 1960s San Francisco while becoming a militant member of the Black Panther movement. When Huey Newton is jailed in October 1967 and the Panthers explode nationwide, Geniece enters the organization’s dark and dangerous world of guns, FBI agents, freewheeling sex, police repression, and fatal shoot-outs—all while balancing her other life as a college student. A moving tale of one young woman’s life spinning out of the typical and into the extraordinary during one of the most politically and racially charged eras in America, Virgin Soul will resonate with readers of Monica Ali and Ntozake Shange.

Legendary community organizer Saul Alinsky inspired a generation of activists and politicians with Reveille for Radicals, the original handbook for social change. Alinsky writes both practically and philosophically, never wavering from his belief that the American dream can only be achieved by an active democratic citizenship. First published in 1946 and updated in 1969 with a new introduction and afterword, this classic volume is a bold call to action that still resonates today.

James Boggs wrestles with the problems of the specific character of American capitalism and American democracy, the historic mission of the black revolution in the United States, and the need for the 1960s black movement to develop theoretically and organizationally. This collection of essays includes Bogg's remarkable "The City Is the Black Man's Land," an article anticipating the black nationalist programs that were to emerge in the later 1960s. Boggs hails the coming of what was at the time the new slogan of the black revolution with an essay called, "Black Power: A Scientific Concept Whose Time Has Come." In further essays, he hammers at his theme of the "second civil war" and black control of the cities. In his concluding piece, written especially for this book, Boggs evaluates and analyzes the movement of the late 1960s and its various groups.