Press Releases from Progressive Organizations and Projects

 Events

SLAVERY - Not For Sale’s 2012 Global Forum will be held November 1-2 in Sunnyvale, CA. Conferencegoers will hear about recent developments and new strategies to fight human trafficking.

Contact: http://www.nfsglobalforum.org/.

VETERANS - Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) will have its annual convention November 2, in Baltimore, MD.

Contact: http://www.ivaw.org/.

MEDIA - the 12th annual Media Democracy Days Vancouver (MDD) will host free public events, including a film screening, public talks, hands-on workshops and panel discussions on the state of Canada’s media system. The events will take place November 2-3.

Contact: http://mediademocracyday.org/.

RESISTERS - The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) is celebrating its 30th anniversary November 2-4 in Colorado Springs, CO.

Contact: http://www.nwtrcc.org/.

RACISM - On November 3-4 the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations is sponsoring a rally, march and conference in Washington, DC to break the silence surrounding the escalation of the historical oppression of black people in the U.S. and throughout the world.

Contact: 1329 Stevens Rd SE, Washington, DC 20020; 202-681-7040; info@blackisbackcoalition.org; http://blackisbackcoalition.org/.

WOMEN’S STUDIES - The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) will host its annual conference November 8-11, in Oakland, CA, under the theme: Feminism Unbound: Imagining a Feminist Future. The conference is the only annual meeting in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to showcasing the latest feminist scholarship.

Contact: NWSA, 11 E Mount Royal Ave., Suite 100, Baltimore, MD 21202; 410-528-0355; nwsaoffice@nwsa.org; http://www.nwsa.org/.

BOOKFAIR - The 2012 Boston Anarchist Bookfair will be held at Simmons College, November 9-11. There are planned work- shops, tabling, and a film festival.

Contact: http://www.bostonanarchistbookfair.org/.

WOMEN/LAW - The Public Leadership Education Network (PLEN) will host its Women, Law & Public Policy conference November 9-11, in Washington, DC.

Contact: www.plen.org.

ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVISM - The Shadbush Environmental Justice Collective will host the Shalefield Justice Action Camp November 10-12 near Pittsburgh, PA. The Camp will provide traditional non-violent direct action tactics, as well as workshops and discussions. 

Contact: info@shadbushcollective.org; http://shadbushcollective.org/.

ENVIRONMENT - The San Francisco Green Festival will take place November 10-11 at the SF Concourse Exhibition Center.

Contact: http://www.greenfestivals.org/sf/updates/.

 

ARTS EDUCATION - The 75th annual Conference for Community Arts Education will be held in Dallas, TX, November 14-17. The conference provides professional development and networking opportunities for staff, faculty, trustees and teaching artists at more than 350 arts education organizations and programs.

Contact: 520 8th Ave., Suite 302, New York, NY 10018; 212- 268-3337; guildinfo@ nationalguildorg; http://communityartsed.nationalguildorg/.

RACE - The Facing Race 2012 conference will be held in Baltimore, MD November 15-17. The conference is a national, multi-racial gathering of leaders, educators, journalists, artists and activists. Attendees share their knowledge on advocating for racial justice in all walks of life.

Contact: arc.org/facingrace/.

TEACHERS - The 12th Annual Teaching For Social Justice Curriculum Fair will be held November 17 in Chicago.

Contact: http://www.teachersforjustice.org/.

DIRECT ACTION - The annual November vigil to protest the School of the Americas is scheduled for November 16-18 at Fort Benning, GA.

Contact: SOA Watch, PO Box 4566, Washington, DC 20017; 202-234- 3440; info@soaw.org; http:// soaw.org.

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION - The National Association for Multicultural Education (NAME) will host its 22nd annual conference in Philadelphia, November 28-December 1. This year’s theme is Realizing the Power of Movements through Multicultural Education.

Contact: http://nameorg.org.

JOBS - Jobs with Justice will celebrate its 25th anniversary November 29 in Washington, DC.

Contact: http://www.jwj.org/.

ROOTS CAMP - RootsCamp will be held November 30 in Washington, DC. The idea of the conference is to bring together progressives who design sessions and decide the program. 

Contact: http://neworganizing.com/.

GUANTANAMO - “Why Remember Guantanamo?: GTMO before 9-11, What Now, and What’s Next,” will bring together an international group of diverse scholars to launch the Guantanamo Public Memory Project’s traveling exhibit. The Project explores the long history and contested memory of the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from 1898 to the present. The conference will be held December 13-14 at NYU and Columbia University.

Contact: http://heymancenter.org/ events/why-remember-guantanamo/.

RACISM/MIGRANTS - December 18 is the Global Day of Action Against Racism and for the Rights of Refugees, Migrants, and Displaced People, as ratified at the 2011 World Social Forum.

Contact: info@globalmigrantsaction.org; http://globalmigrants action.org/.

SYRIA/MIDDLE EAST - The Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) is currently seeking funds to assist more than 200,000 refugees fleeing violence in Syria.

Contact: https://www.meca forpeace.org.

PALESTINE - Palestinian students have called for all U.S. students to put boycotts, divestments and sanctions at the heart of University action.

Contact: http://pacbi.org/; http://www.bdsmovement.net/; http:// www.boycottisraelnetwork.net/.

SCHOOL/FOOD NOT BOMBS - Food Not Bombs activists have started the Free Skool in Toas, New Mexico. Donations of money or supplies are welcomed.

Contact: http://foodnot bombs.net/.

IRAN/WAR - United For Peace and Justice has initiated and launched the Iran Pledge of Resistance with numerous member groups and other peace and social justice organizations. The pledge is to take action against war with Iran.

Contact: http://www.iranpled ge.org; http://www.unitedforpeace.org.

Books

BLACK PANTHER - My People Are Rising: Memoir of a Black Panther Party Captain, is the story of Aaron Dixon, the founding member of the Seattle Black Panther Party in 1968 at age 19. The memoir begins with the story of his enslaved ancestors and takes us on a journey throughout America. We see the courage of a generation, and the unforgettable legacy of Black Power.

Contact: Haymarket Books, PO Box 180165, Chicago, IL 60618; 773- 583-7884;  http://www.haymarketbooks.org/.

DISABILITY - A Disability History of the United States by Kim E. Nielsen, is the first book to cover the entirety of disability history, from pre-1492 to the present. Throughout the book, Nielsen illustrates how concepts of disability have shaped the American experience—from deciding who was allowed to immigrate to establishing labor laws and justifying slavery and gender discrimination.

Contact: Beacon, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108; 617-742-2110; http://www.beacon.org/.

MUMIA - Veronica and the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, as told to her sister Valerie Jones, is the posthumous memoir of a key witness in the frame-up conviction of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Contact: Rachel Wolkenstein, 917-689-4009; icffmaj@aol.com.

LIBERATION - From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation is a short guide to overthrowing a dictatorship by nonviolent means, including 198 specific methods to consider depending on circumstance.

Contact: The New Press, 38 Greene Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10013; 212-629- 8802; http://thenewpress.com/.

ARTISTS - Live Through This: On Creativity and Self-Destruction, is a look at the bizarre entanglement of destructive and creative forces. It explores the uses of art to overcome abuse, incest, madness, depression and impulses towards self-destruction.

Contact: Seven Stories Press, 140 Watts Street, New York, NY 10013; 212-226-8760; info@sevenstories.com; http://www.sevenstories.com.

WWII - In Unpatriotic History of the Second World War, James Heartfield argues that the Second World War was not fought to stop fascism, or to liberate Europe, but that it was a war between imperialist powers to decide which among them would rule over the world, a division of the spoils of empire, and an iron cage for working people enslaved to the war production drive.

Contact: http://www.zerobooks.net.

LESSER EVIL - The Least of All Possible Evils: Humanitarian Violence from Arendt to Gaza by Eyal Weizman, explores the principle of the “lesser evil”—the acceptability of pursuing one exceptional course of action in order to prevent a greater injustice.

Contact: Verso Books, 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201; 718-246-8160; http://www.versobooks.com/.

Film

WATER - Bullfrog Films has just released Chasing Water, a documentary that follows the Colorado River from source to sea, with photographer Pete McBride. 

Contact: Bullfrog Films, PO Box 149, Oley, PA 19547; 800-543-3764; http://www.bullfrog films.com/catalog/chasw.html.

WHITE - Not Quite White: Arabs, Slavs, and the Contours of Contested Whiteness is a documentary that explores the complicated relationship of Arab and Slavic immigrants to American notions of whiteness.

Contact: http://typecastfilms.com/.

HEALTHCARE - Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Health- care tackles one of the most pressing issues of our time: how can we save our badly broken healthcare system? The film follows dramatic human stories as well as leaders fighting to transform healthcare at the highest levels of medicine, industry, government, and even the U.S. military.

Contact: info@ourtimeprojects.com; http://escapefiremovie.com/.  

Music/Media

RAP - Brooklyn hip-hop artist and activist Talib Kewli will release a new album, Prisoner of Consciousness, this autumn.

Contact: http://www.yearoftheblacksmith.com/.

OCCUPY WALL STREET - Donate to the Occupy Wall Street Bail Fund and get a live single of Which Side Are You On featuring Jello Biafra, Tom Morello and others.

Contact: http://occupationrecords.com/.