Podcasts about east side freedom library

From MPR News, Art Hounds are members of the Minnesota arts community who look beyond their own work to highlight what's exciting in local art. Their recommendations are lightly edited from the audio heard in the player above. Want to be an Art Hound? Submit here.Time-traveling puppets and Cherokee futurismOogie Push is a Minneapolis-based actor and playwright. She wants people to know about Z Puppets Rosenschnoz's upcoming performances of “Tales of ᏓᎦᏏ Dagsi Turtle & ᏥᏍᏚ Jisdu Wabbit,” a time-traveling, Cherokee-language-learning puppetry adventure for ages 5 and up. Shows are Saturday, April 19 at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. at Open Eye Theatre in Minneapolis. There are also upcoming performances at two libraries: April 26 at 10:30 a.m. at East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul and April 29 at 5:30 p.m. at Hosmer Library in Minneapolis. The show runs 45 minutes.Oogie Push described the show: It's a musical adventure that goes into Cherokee futurism, and it's just a really fun sort of sci-fi adventure. Dagsi Turtle and Jisdu Wabbit are racing through time and space to save Grandmother Turtle. So they hop aboard their Turtle Ship and travel across space and time. I find it amazing that they find a way to get to historical, important events in Cherokee history. So you visit Sequoyah and Ayoka when they are coming up with the Cherokee syllabary, for example.Chris Griffith, who is Cherokee and part of Z puppets Rosenshnoz, was an adult language learner of the Cherokee language, and so the language came to him in the form of song. And so he thought, How can I incorporate this into a puppet theater? And so he just started envisioning futurism, sci-fi, fantasy and just sort of like this hero's journey.— Oogie PushLaughter, identity and healing at the OrdwayTerri Thao of St. Paul loves the Funny Asian Women Kollective (FAWK), and she booked her tickets early to see The FAWK Hmong (+ Friends) Super Show this Saturday at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts in St. Paul. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. Thao remembers when FAWK was packing the house at Indigenous Roots Studio in East St. Paul, and she's looking forward to a night of laughter as a mix of familiar FAWK members, stars and some local newbies bring their comedy to the Ordway stage. Thao said: When they came together, I just thought this, this is a great idea. You know, Asian American women can be funny! My understanding about comedy is a lot of people talk about real life, right? They're making observations about things happening.And I think so many times in communities, you know, refugee communities, there's been a lot of strife but at the same time, we've used humor to cope with so much. I just think they're able to just offer a lens into that experience with some humor. Seeing people on stage who look like you matters.— Terri ThaoHonoring Minnesota's poetic legacyJoshua Preston grew up in Montevideo, Minn., and he's proud of western Minnesota's poetry heritage, including the work of Minnesota's first poet laureate, Robert Bly (1926-2021). Preston's looking forward to the launch of Mark Gustafson's new book “Sowing Seeds: The Minnesota Literary Renaissance & Robert Bly, 1958-1980.” The book explores how Minnesota became the literary hub it is today. Mark Gustafson will discuss his new book with poets Jim Lenfestey and Nor Hall at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis this Saturday, April 19 at 6 p.m. People are encouraged to pre-register here. Preston says people who arrive early can see a slide show of The Loft through the years. Preston shared why this history matters to him: I believe Robert Bly is one of the most consequential poets of the 20th century. And I'm not just saying that as a Minnesotan from western Minnesota who's very proud of our literary tradition, but I'm saying this as someone who has had the immense fortune of being able to grow up in a state that takes its arts and culture seriously. How do you get to a point in a state's culture to where that is seen as a civic good? It begins with poets. It begins with our creatives. And “Sowing Seeds'” is about the influence of one individual, by no means the only, famous writer from Minnesota, but from someone who is very intentional of wanting to go out and set a new course for American poetry.— Joshua Preston

For 150 years, Richmond's place in history has been as "the capital of the Confederacy." But this label hides a much richer and more complex history. On today's show, originally aired on Feb. 20, 2022, we hear from Peter Rachleff, Co-Executive Director of the East Side Freedom Library, a retired professor of history at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and author of "Black Labor in Richmond, 1865 -1890," as he reveals part of that hidden history, that of Black and White workers in the second half of the 19th century. Note: Excerpted from Rachleff's Feb. 2, 2022 talk for The Virginia Worker; click here for the complete talk.   On this week's Labor History in Two: Yale Grad Students Strike (2/17/1992). Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Editing this week by Patrick Dixon. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory @virginia_worker

The Supreme Court has shown once again that it's no friend of labor. In fact, recent decisions hurt unions. This week on the Heartland Labor Forum, we'll speak with law […] The post Latest Decisions on Unions from the Supreme Court and The East Side Freedom Library appeared first on KKFI.

Workers at six Kowalski's grocery stores across the Twin Cities will not walk off the job this week after all. About 600 workers had authorized an unfair labor practices strike last week. But this past Friday the union, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 663, announced it has a tentative agreement with Kolwalski's management. This is the latest Twin Cities grocery store union to narrowly avoid a strike. In the meantime, union organizing continues its surge across Minnesota and the nation. For more on the context of this moment, MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with Peter Rachleff. He's co-executive director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, and a retired history professor at Macalester College specializing in labor history.

Laura Van Zandt (Bite-Sized Beet) joins us to chat with playwright Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay and actor Michelle de Joya about Theater Mu's The Kung Fu Zombies Saga: Shaman Warrior and Cannibals, running July 20 - August 13, 2023 at the Luminary Arts Center.From Theater Mu's website:  "The Kung Fu Zombies Saga: Shaman Warrior & Cannibals brings us to a world overrun by zombies—“and these motherf— know kung fu.” In the first act, shaman warrior Arun must fight the demons inside and out as she tries to rescue her sister with the help of the Monkey King. Then in Act Two, we return to an updated Kung Fu Zombies vs. Cannibals (2013), where Lao American Sika is on a treacherous quest to release her dead parents' ashes in her motherland. Together, they're two halves of one epic saga."Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay is an award-winning Lao American poet, playwright, essayist, children's book author, cultural producer, arts & cultural consultant, and philanthropist. Find out more about Saymoukda Duangphouxay Vongsay at her website Refugenius.  Michelle de Joya is a Filipino-American actor, playwright, theater maker, teaching artist, and fitness instructor. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook, or check out one of her classes at The Workroom. Also mentioned in this podcast are Legacies of War, an educational and advocacy organization working to address the impact of the American Secret War and the conflict in Southeast Asia, including removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO), the Southeast Asian Diaspora Project, Minnesota Eight, and the East Side Freedom Library.Twin Cities Theater Chat is produced and hosted by Carol Jackson of Minnesota Theater Love and members of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers collective. As always, you can find the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers on Facebook and on Instagram. Read our review round-ups and go see a show today!

(PUBLIC NEWS SERVICE) - Union leaders for postal workers say they're mindful of the need for strong protections amid a push in the labor force for improved working conditions. The USPS holiday hiring blitz coincides with the need for more career clerks and carriers. Comments from Dominic Corso, president, Youngstown Area Local #443, and State Clerk Craft Director, American Postal Workers Union; Karen Garber, postmaster, Cincinnati; and Peter Rachleff, labor historian and co-executive director, East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, Minnesota. 6 ways to support the podcast Subscribe to the podcast Ways you can support the show Check out our latest podcasts Connect with Chris Pugh on social media Ways you can save money Check out our latest contests --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theohioan/message

For 150 years, Richmond's place in history has been as "the capital of the Confederacy." But this label hides a much richer and more complex history. On today's show, we hear from Peter Rachleff, Co-Executive Director of the East Side Freedom Library, a retired professor of history at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and author of "Black Labor in Richmond, 1865 -1890," as he reveals part of that hidden history, that of Black and White workers in the second half of the 19th century. Note: Excerpted from Rachleff's Feb. 2, 2022 talk for The Virginia Worker; click here for the complete talk.   On this week's Labor History in Two: Yale Grad Students Strike (2/17/1992). Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. Editing this week by Patrick Dixon. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #LaborHistory @wrkclasshistory @virginia_worker

This week's show explores the question of how “Striketober” and “The Great Resignation” happened simultaneously. Union organizing and strikes surged this Fall while millions of workers quit their jobs. Labor historian Gabriel Winant spoke about “Putting the current labor upheaval in historical context” at a December 10 labor history discussion hosted by the East Side Freedom Library in St Paul, Minnesota. Winant is the author of The Next Shift: The Fall of Manufacturing and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America and his latest essay, Strike Wave, was published in the British journal New Left Review in late November. Winant's historical perspective seems especially useful as we look ahead to a new year and a rejuvenated labor movement, and we've included an inspiring report on local organizing in St Paul bookstores: these are the sparks that are firing the tinder of worker discontent across the country. On this week's Labor History in Two: the year was 1945. That was the day workers ended their ninety-nine-day strike against the Ford Motor Company in Windsor, Ontario. Questions, comments or suggestions welcome, and to find out how you can be a part of Labor History Today, email us at LaborHistoryToday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. This week's music: Take This Job and Shove It: Moonshine Bandits, Dead Kennedys, Canibus With Biz Markie. #LaborRadioPod #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle @GeorgetownKILWP #LaborHistory @UMDMLA @ILLaborHistory @AFLCIO @StrikeHistory #History #WorkingClass #ClassStruggle #LaborHistory @AFLCIO @LaborHeritage1 @ESFLibrary @UChicagoHistory @NewLeftReview

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Gatsby is now in the public domain. This gives us the opportunity to dig deeper and fuller into the cultural image of our iconic literary figure. Join the East Side Freedom Library and literary curator Danny Klecko at The University Club in welcoming AJ Odasso in conversation with Maryanne Grossmann! We will also be joined by special guests Doug Green, Kasey Payette, Klecko, Anthony Cebellos and emcee Clarence White. The queering of Gatsby takes form in the new novel, The Pursued and the Pursuing by AJ Odasso. In their tale, Odasso explores what might have been had it left Gatsby with another chance at happiness. Find it he does, although not in the arms of Daisy Buchanan. As Gatsby travels the world with Nick Carraway, his friend and narrator, he sheds wealth, performance, and glamor in favor of honesty, intimacy, and love. A. J. Odasso's poetry has appeared in a variety of publications, including Sybil's Garage, Mythic Delirium, Midnight Echo, Not One of Us, Dreams & Nightmares, Goblin Fruit, Strange Horizons, Stone Telling, Farrago's Wainscot, Liminality, Battersea Review, Barking Sycamores, and New England Review of Books. A.J.'s debut collection, Lost Books (Flipped Eye Publishing), was nominated for the 2010 London New Poetry Award and was also a finalist for the 2010–11 People's Book Prize. Her second collection with Flipped Eye, The Dishonesty of Dreams, was released in 2014; their third collection, Things Being What They Are, was shortlisted for the 2017 Sexton Prize. They hold an MFA in creative writing from Boston University, and works in the Honors College at the University of New Mexico. A.J. has served in the Poetry Department at Strange Horizons since 2012. They live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. View the video here: https://youtu.be/PLBmwyW_jOk

The East Side Freedom Library and Teamsters Local 320 invite you to a panel discussion, Unsung Heroes of Justice: Six Public Defenders and Staff Discuss Their Work. Minnesota Public Defenders are court-appointed attorneys for indigent citizens who cannot afford access to justice. Public defense is a mandated service enshrined by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963), in which the Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution requires states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own. Minnesota Public Defenders have been stretched to the max during the COVID-19 pandemic with significant backlogs, unmanageable caseloads, and unsafe working conditions. The Board of Public Defense is failing to retain and reward its employees and this failure will have severe and lasting repercussions for indigent clients. Please join a panel discussion by six public defense employees who are represented by Teamsters Local 320 and are in the midst of contract negotiations, negotiations which will impact not only their lives but also the lives of the women and men who depend on them for representation. View the video at https://youtu.be/ftcFNKcQIm8

Sponsored by the Solidarity Committee of the Americas (SCOTA), a Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) committee in Minnesota, the Minnesota Cuba Committee, East Side Freedom Library,j Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) and others. Links posted during the event: U of MN-Cuba medical collaborations: https://www.sph.umn.edu/events-calend...Belly of the Beast video series: https://www.bellyofthebeastcuba.com/ACERE: https://www.acere.orgSolidarity Committee of the Americas (SCOTA) email: solidaritycommitteeofamericas@gmail.com SCOTA Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/solidarityco...Women Against Military Madness (WAAM): https://www.womenagainstmilitarymadne... After 20 months of pandemic restrictions, Cuba is reopening and preparing to ease travel restrictions to the island on November 15. Ambassador Torres Rivera and panelists discuss how Cuba is functioning today and, despite the punishing 60-year blockade by the United States, is battling Covid and climate change and continuing to work toward the betterment of its people. Minnesotans have long been interested in Cuba, with many having traveled there. They have also proposed and passed governmental resolutions, engaged in medical collaboration and assistance, traded agricultural goods and knowledge, and have reached out in many other ways. This meeting was an opportunity to build on those efforts. Panelists include: -Nachito Herrera, Cuban-American and renowned musician who survived Covid with the help of Cuban and University of Minnesota doctors -Kevin Paap, President, Minnesota Farm Bureau -Senator Sandy Pappas, author of legislative resolutions opposing the blockade, has led several legislative delegations to Cuba -Dr. Teddie Potter, University of Minnesota School of Nursing -Dr. John Oswald, Adjunct Professor, University of Minnesota School of Public Health -Ofunshi Raudemar ACT DDHH, Cuban-American Babalawo from the Yoruba religious tradition Video: https://youtu.be/IxKTEguxogk

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to Samora Machel: The Struggle Against Colonialism, featuring Allen Isaacman and Barbara Isaacman authors of the new book, SAMORA MACHEL: A LIFE CUT SHORT, in conversation with Rose Brewer and August Nimtz, Jr. Samora Machel (1933–1986), the son of small-town farmers, led his people through a war against their Portuguese colonists and became the first president of the People's Republic of Mozambique. Machel's military successes against a colonial regime backed by South Africa, Rhodesia, the United States, and its NATO allies enhanced his reputation as a revolutionary hero to the oppressed people of Southern Africa. In 1986, during the country's civil war, Machel died in a plane crash under circumstances that remain uncertain. Allen and Barbara Isaacman lived through many of these changes in Mozambique and bring personal recollections together with archival research and interviews with others who knew Machel or participated in events of the revolutionary or post-revolutionary years. Allen is the Regents Professor of History at the University of Minnesota and Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He is the author of seven books exploring African history. Barbara Isaacman is a retired criminal defense attorney in Hennepin County. She worked with the Mozambican Women's Movement and taught at the law faculty of the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane while living in Mozambique in the late 1970s. Rose Brewer and August Nimtz, Jr., are models of scholar-activists. Dr. Brewer is Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Department of African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota. She has won many teaching awards, has worked on curricular transformation, and has published widely in both academic and activist platforms. Dr. Nimtz is a Professor of Political Science and African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota. He has published widely in African American political thought, and he has been active in building bridges between local communities and Cuban activists. View the video here: https://youtu.be/pp_6S5dV1fk 0 Comments

SubText Books and East Side Freedom Library are pleased to present a virtual event to celebrate the release of "Yellow Rain" by Mai Der Vang (Graywolf Press) on Friday, October 1st at 7:00 PM. Mai Der Vang will be in conversation with Kao Kalia Yang. About: In this staggering work of documentary, poetry, and collage, Mai Der Vang reopens a wrongdoing that deserves a new reckoning. As the United States abandoned them at the end of its war in Vietnam, many Hmong refugees recounted stories of a mysterious substance that fell from planes during their escape from Laos starting in the mid-1970s. This substance, known as “yellow rain,” caused severe illnesses and thousands of deaths. These reports prompted an investigation into allegations that a chemical biological weapon had been used against the Hmong in breach of international treaties. A Cold War scandal erupted, wrapped in partisan debate around chemical arms development versus control. And then, to the world's astonishment, American scientists argued that yellow rain was the feces of honeybees defecating en masse—still held as the widely accepted explanation. The truth of what happened to the Hmong, to those who experienced and suffered yellow rain, has been ignored and discredited. Integrating archival research and declassified documents, Yellow Rain calls out the erasure of a history, the silencing of a people who at the time lacked the capacity and resources to defend and represent themselves. In poems that sing and lament, that contend and question, Vang restores a vital narrative in danger of being lost, and brilliantly explores what it means to have access to the truth and how marginalized groups are often forbidden that access. Mai Der Vang is an editorial member of the Hmong American Writers' Circle. Her poetry has appeared in the New Republic, Poetry, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, and her essays have been published in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post. Her debut collection, Afterland, received the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. She lives in California. Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer, teacher and public speaker. Born in the refugee camps of Thailand to a family that escaped the genocide of the Secret War in Laos, she came to America at the age six. Yang holds degrees from Carleton College and Columbia University. Her works of creative nonfiction include The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, The Song Poet, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Indigenous Women and Women of Color, and Somewhere in the Unknown World. Yang has also written multiple children's books such as A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, and The Most Beautiful Thing, Yang Warriors, and the forthcoming From the Tops of the Trees. Her work has won numerous awards and recognition including multiple Minnesota Book Awards, a Charlotte Zolotow Honor, an ALA Notable Children's Book Award, Dayton's Literary Peace Prize, and a PEN USA Award in Nonfiction. View the video: https://youtu.be/Wu2-CoXNeH0

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a discussion of the new book, Watershed: Attending to Body and Earth in Distress, featuring author Ranae Hanson and discussants Sarah Degner-Riveros, Chelsea DeArmond, and Sam Grant. Watershed explores the lands of northeastern Minnesota where Hanson's parents cleared land and built a house by a lake. As a young person in those woods, Hanson learned an abbreviated history of the land—one that largely left out Indigenous neighbors. “The fur trappers left cabins; the lumbermen, tree stumps; the Finns, grandmothers on swamp farms; the Englishmen, mine shafts; the miners, company towns. All of us came from somewhere else. None of us belonged.” As an exchange student in Europe, during the Vietnam War, Hanson explains: “I discovered, to my surprise, that some people found my life interesting. My new friends had never been in a canoe, did not know how to knead bread, had not built a fire or slept in a tent.” As a graduate student in Ohio, Hanson “began to see the woods where I had grown up as an outsider would. I had thought we were living a real-time regular life, that eating from the woods was what people did. […] We had been part of nature.” Hanson raised two children on her own, taught at three colleges while pursuing a doctorate, and began to notice how quickly the earth was shifting. “In the summer of 1989, the rains did not come. When I drove north, I noticed that the pines on the southern edge of the boreal forest were dying.” She noted that tent caterpillars ate the early birch and poplar leaves four years in a row. Drinking water from the lakes was no longer safe. In Watershed, Hanson asks: What if we tended to an ailing ecosystem just as we care for ourselves in the throes of a medical condition? She offers a work that is at once a memoir of illness and health, a contemplation of the surrounding natural world in distress, and a reflection on how these come together in opportunities for health. Join Ranae Hanson for a conversation with three people who have read her book—Augsburg University Spanish-language professor Sarah Degner-Riveros, SP350 East Side activist Chelsea DeArmond, and MN350 Executive Director Sam Grant. There will be time for you to ask questions as well, via Zoom or Facebook. View the video here: https://youtu.be/UcCEs_4j6uQ

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a presentation by Dr. Chris Mato Nunpa, The Great Evil: Christianity, The Bible, and the Native American Genocide. In this account of the history between Indigenous Peoples and the United States government, readers learn the role the bible played in the perpetration of genocide, massive land theft, and the religious suppression and criminalization of Native ceremonies and spirituality. Chris Mato Nunpa, a Dakota man, discusses this dishonorable and darker side of American history that is rarely studied, if at all. Out of a number of rationales used to justify the killing of Native Peoples and theft of their lands, the author emphasizes the role of a biblical rationale, including the “chosen people” idea, the “promised land” notion, and the genocidal commands of the Old Testament God. Mato Nunpa's experience with fundamentalist and evangelical missionaries when he was growing up, his studies in Indigenous Nations history at the University of Minnesota, and his affiliation with the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) were three important factors in his motivation for writing this book. Chris Mato Nunpa, Ph.D is a former Associate Professor of Indigenous Nations & Dakota Studies at Southwest Minnesota State University. Professor Mato Nunpa holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities campus, with the Collateral Field for the Ph.D. in American Indian Studies. He also studied theology at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois. Dr. Chris Mato Nunpa is a Wahpetunwan (“Dwellers In The Leaves,” or Wahpeton) Dakota from the Pezihuta Zizi Otunwe, “Yellow Medicine Community” (BIA name, Upper Sioux Community), in southwestern Minnesota. View the video here: https://youtu.be/_KV8F5azq64

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a presentation of Brains Explained, a new book by Alie and Micah Caldwell! Curious about how billions of neurons make up your consciousness? How anxiety hijacks your body? Whether AI will replace your therapist? Learn about this witty, enlightening book, presented live by the brilliant neuroscientist and clinical therapist duo, neuroscientist Alie Caldwell and clinical therapist Micah Caldwell. In 2015 they created the YouTube channel "Neuro Transmissions" with a singular mission in mind: explain the brain . . . simply! This book scrutinizes the sometimes-dubious history of brain science from a modern perspective, wanders through explanations about how your senses trick you into believing some wild things, speculates about whether we'll be able to upload our consciousness to the Matrix, and so much more. Brains Explained is sure to be one of the most cherished popular science titles on your bookshelf for years to come bookshelf, and this evening 's conversation is sure to be unforgettable. View the video: https://youtu.be/0PFyE36a5hQ

Join us for a special event about the intersection of sports, activism, and equity with special guests Dave Zirin and Mi'Chael Wright. This event is a fundraiser for the East Side Freedom Library to support our equity work in community. About Dave: Named one of UTNE Reader's “50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Our World,” Dave Zirin writes about the politics of sports for the Nation Magazine as their first sportswriter in 150 years. Winner of Sport In Society and Northeastern University School of Journalism's ‘Excellence in Sports Journalism' award, Zirin is also the host of the Edge of Sports podcast. He has been called “the best sportswriter in the United States,” by Robert Lipsyte. Dave Zirin is, in addition, a columnist for SLAM Magazine and the Progressive. Dave is a graduate of Macalester College in Saint Paul. About Mi'Chael: Mi'Chael N. Wright is a PhD student in the Dept. of Sociology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Her primary research focuses on sociology of media, sociology of mental health, collective memory and trauma, and identity. She is specifically interested in how digital communities, which can be simultaneously encouraging and hostile, constitute the identity development of Black and Brown adolescent girls. Mi'Chael is also interested in digital sociology, a sub-discipline of sociology that highlights the role of digital media in everyday life and its contribution to social relationships. Mi'Chael is a former Division I athlete who organized taking a knee in 2016 and has much to share from that experience. About the new book, The Kaepernick Effect Riveting and inspiring first-person stories of how “taking a knee” triggered an awakening in sports, from the celebrated sportswriter. “The Kaepernick Effect reveals that Colin Kaepernick's story is bigger than one athlete. With profiles of courage that leap off the page, Zirin uncovers a whole national movement of citizen-athletes fighting for racial justice.” —Ibram X. Kendi, National Book Award–winning author of Stamped from the Beginning and How to Be an Antiracist. In 2016, amid an epidemic of police shootings of African Americans, the celebrated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick began a series of quiet protests on the field, refusing to stand during the U.S. national anthem. By “taking a knee,” Kaepernick bravely joined a long tradition of American athletes making powerful political statements. This time, however, Kaepernick's simple act spread like wildfire throughout American society, becoming the preeminent symbol of resistance to America's persistent racial inequality. View the video: https://youtu.be/OYt8aLPnebk

The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society invite you to our monthly “History Revealed” program featuring Greg Poferl and his memoir, Turning Points: Never Give Up On Anyone, Especially Yourself. We are especially excited about this opportunity to provide our communities with a unique vantage point into our shared history, while also providing an example about the value of self-reflection. Greg Poferl has been a committed and generous individual, dedicated to fostering social justice from the workrooms of the U.S. Postal Service and the classrooms of Cretin-Derham Hall High School to protests at the School of the Americas and support for the struggles of workers and farmers in Central America. Greg has been integral to the development of the East Side Freedom Library, from cleaning our bathrooms and thwarting squirrels and raccoons on our roof to mentoring middle and high school students in National History Day projects. We are thrilled that he has written a memoir which provides insight into the history of St. Paul from the 1950s to the present while also providing us with a model of living a life rich with commitment, from his family, union, and community, to the world. The ESFL family has been fortunate to rely on Greg, and now we are delighted to celebrate his memoir and share it with our wider communities. ESFL published Turning Points, and we are happy to provide copies to you at $15 each. Turning Points reflects on kids at play and growing up in St. Paul in the 1950s and 1960s, and it moves on to stories about military service, labor struggles and strikes, directing youth in social justice theater projects, peace and justice actions, a sentence in federal prison, teaching social studies, and experiencing the overwhelming love of family. Please join Greg as he shares this book and his journey with us. For more Information and to view the video: https://youtu.be/gZhVqWH_OEY

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to A Book Launch Virtual Event with Christine Stark and her new book, Carnival Lights, and Mona Susan Power and her new book, A Council of Dolls. Chris Stark is an award-winning writer, organizer, and researcher with Ojibwe, Cherokee, and European ancestry. Her first novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, was a Lambda Literary Finalist. Blending fiction and fact, Carnival Lights ranges from reverie to nightmare and back again in a lyrical yet unflinching story of an Ojibwe family's struggle to hold onto their land, their culture, and each other. Carnival Lights is a timely book for a country in need of deep healing. Mona Susan Power is a Yanktonai Dakota author of four books of fiction, The Grass Dancer (awarded the PEN/Hemingway Prize), Sacred Wilderness, Roofwalker, and the recently completed novel, A Council of Dolls. A Council of Dolls tells the story of three generations of Yanktonai Dakota women and their dolls–allies manifested during times of great challenge, highlighting how generational trauma develops and persists, especially as a result of the horrors of the Indian Boarding School system. View the video here: https://youtu.be/mfvB2SR8Hl4

The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society invite invite you to join us for this very special History Revealed program with Karlos K. Hill, author of the new book, The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History, on the centennial of the event in Tulsa, OK. On the evening of May 31, 1921, and in the early morning hours of June 1, several thousand white citizens and authorities violently attacked the African American Greenwood District of Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the course of some twelve hours of mob violence, white Tulsans reduced one of the nation's most prosperous black communities to rubble and killed an estimated 300 people, mostly African Americans. This richly illustrated volume, featuring more than 175 photographs, along with oral testimonies, shines a new spotlight on the race massacre from the vantage point of its victims and survivors. Historian and Black Studies professor Karlos K. Hill presents a range of photographs taken before, during, and after the massacre, mostly by white photographers. Some of the images are published here for the first time. Comparing these photographs to those taken elsewhere in the United States of lynchings, the author makes a powerful case for terming the 1921 outbreak not a riot but a massacre. White civilians, in many cases assisted or condoned by local and state law enforcement, perpetuated a systematic and coordinated attack on Black Tulsans and their property. Despite all the violence and devastation, black Tulsans rebuilt the Greenwood District brick by brick. By the mid-twentieth century, Greenwood had reached a new zenith, with nearly 250 Black-owned and Black-operated businesses. Today the citizens of Greenwood, with support from the broader community, continue to work diligently to revive the neighborhood once known as “Black Wall Street.” As a result, Hill asserts, the most important legacy of the Tulsa Race Massacre is the grit and resilience of the Black survivors of racist violence. T he 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History offers a perspective largely missing from other accounts. At once captivating and disturbing, it will embolden readers to confront the uncomfortable legacy of racial violence in U.S. history. Karlos K. Hill is Associate Professor and Chair of the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the author of Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory. View the video here: https://youtu.be/SFanvpd_eYw

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a conversation with author Eric Lotke about his newly published novel, Union Made. Recent events have raised our awareness about the challenges faced by service and retail workers and by their efforts to organize. From Twin Cities brew pubs and coffee shops to Amazon warehouses in Alabama, Staten Island, and Shakopee, diverse workers are organizing to have a say about their working conditions and wages. Our friends at Hard Ball Press have just published a novel, Union Made, which takes readers inside this world. This novel is a fast-paced romance with a political edge, revealing the tactics, strains, and risks of mobilizing a multiracial group of workers to stand together against a merciless management holding them down. With a strong female lead and a gripping labor campaign that explores union organizing from the inside, Eric Lotke puts the reader in the shoes of Catherine Campbell, a labor organizer, and Nate Hawley, an accountant whose company is planning a hostile takeover of Pac-Shoppe, the company she's trying to organize. There are sparks between the union activists and the company's dirty tricksters, and sparks between Catherine and Nate. As Catherine's campaign falters in the face of Pac-Shoppe's illegal hardball tactics, Nate's sympathy for the workers and his fascination with Catherine grow. Can the lonely accountant interest the determined labor organizer by sharing evidence of Pac-Shoppe's dirty tricks? How much trouble will he be in if he reveals corporate secrets to the union? Find out in this touching love story wrapped in a contemporary labor battle. Eric Lotke is an author, activist and scholar. His early work, The Real War on Crime, was groundbreaking on criminal justice policy. His original research on Prisoners of the Census has led to new law in ten states so far. His lawsuit over the exploitative price of phone calls from prison led to new rules by the FCC. Joining Eric for this conversation will be Cathy Hanson, editor of the Minneapolis American Postal Workers Union's newspaper, KaeJae Johnson, staff director of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, and Luke Mielke, who has been an organizer for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees in Chicago. They have read Union Made, and they will help draw out its implications for organizers, activists, and readers. To view the video: https://youtu.be/iHZVdldiauE

Today we have an interview with Brett Grant, an organizer with Voices for Racial Justice and my organizing partner, and updates from Peter Rachleff with the East Side Freedom Library.

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a conversation with children's book authors Nicole McCandless and Alejandra Domenzain. Educators say, “If they can see it, they can be it.” When parents, teachers and librarians offer stories of children and their working parents fighting for their rights, they inspire children to imagine a better, more just world. The role models in their literature can teach them to fight bullying, gender inequality, racism and rigid conformity to class-based cultural norms. Stories about social justice issues encourage children to join the resistance when they come of age, and to question the grownups about who rules the world…and why. This is how our friends at Hardball Press describe their work. ESFL is proud to be featuring two newly published children's books from Hardball Press. Tune in to our Facebook page or YouTube channel to catch a conversation between Peter Rachleff and authors Nicole McCandless and Alejandra Domenzain, and stay tuned to hear them read their books. On Saturday morning, May 8, at 10am, they will be reading these books to our “Stories for (Little) People” audience. Please encourage the little people in your lives to tune in then. DOWN ON JAMES STREET takes readers into 1930s Pittsburgh, where two young teens, one White and one Black, are caught up in a police raid on an interracial dance hall. It puts young readers (aged 6-10) in the shoes of two courageous teens, in a story inspired by real historical events from the 1930s. The vivid illustrations evoke the cool vibe of that jazz era, while the story inspires young people today to stand up for justice. The bilingual PARA TODOS/FOR ALL follows Flor and her father as they leave their beloved country for the promise of a land called For All. Dad works long hours for little pay, while Flor struggles to find her place in school. In time, Flor realizes that not having the proper immigration papers means her father must work in unfair & unsafe conditions, and that doors of opportunity will be closed to her. Flor picks up her green pen and writes from the heart about immigrants excluded from “justice for all.” She inspires others to take action in the hope their new country will live up to its ideals. Join us for a conversation with the writers of these great new books. Order the books at www.hardballpress.com View the video: https://youtu.be/fkFohDIfA5w

St. Paul 350 and the East Side Freedom Library host an SPPS School Board candidate forum on climate action. SPPS has a fantastic opportunity to make a major impact on Saint Paul's energy generation, as well as a major impact on our students. To view the video: https://youtu.be/iRwSn6zX_lU

On April 17, 2021, Trilingua Cinema and East Side Freedom Library presented an online screening of the film "Do The Right Thing," followed by a public discussion featuring acclaimed actor, director, writer, and frequent Spike Lee collaborator Roger Guenveur Smith. The film is not featured in this video but can be viewed on several streaming services. About the Film: Perhaps no other film speaks more directly to our current cultural moment than Spike Lee's seminal work, released more than 30 years ago. Exploring the lives and communities that comprise the diverse, vibrant neighborhood of Bed-Stuy, Lee's picture clamours with color and creative vision. When Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) demands Sal of Sal's Famous Pizzeria (Danny Aiello) begin putting pictures of Black people on his "Wall of Fame," the entire community is inexorably drawn into an outburst of rage on the hottest night of the year. Register to watch the film and help us discuss what Lee's 1980's New York might say about our own neighborhoods and city. We hope to see you there ...and that's the truth, Ruth! About Roger Guenveur Smith: Beyond his appearances in many of Spike Lee's best known films, such as "Do the Right Thing," "Malcolm X," and "He Got Game," Roger Guenveur Smith is a talented writer and dramatist. Exploring the intersection of performance and history, his award winning works center on real people, including Huey P. Newton, Frederick Douglass, and Christopher Colombus. His one man show, "Rodney King", is currently streaming on Netflix. Smith has had recurring roles in the HBO series "K Street," "Oz," and "American Gangster," for which he was nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award. He studied at Yale University and Occidental College and has taught at both institutions as well as CalArts, where he directs his Performing History Workshop. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Watch the video here: https://youtu.be/vc0GMaZz5g0

Kao Kalia Yang and Billy Thao host a virtual event with the East Side Freedom Library on Friday, April 16, for a discussion of their new book, "Yang Warriors." In this inspiring picture book, fierce and determined children confront the hardships of Ban Vinai refugee camp, where Kao Kalia Yang lived as a child. For more information and to view the video: https://youtu.be/ay7CSG-NZVQ

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a special evening with Mary Moore Easter and her new poetry collection Free Papers: Inspired by the Testimony of Eliza Winston, A Mississippi Slave Escaped to Freedom in Minnesota in 1860. Mary Moore Easter is the author of The Body of the World (Minnesota Book Award in Poetry Finalist, 2019); Walking from Origins; From the Flutes of Our Bones (Nodin Press 2020), and Free Papers: poems inspired by the testimony of Eliza Winston, a Mississippi slave, escaped to freedom in Minnesota in 1860. (Finishing Line Press 2021) A Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, Cave Canem Fellow, veteran dancer /choreographer, and emerita professor of dance at Carleton College, Easter is the mother of two daughters and four grandchildren. Poet Danez Smith writes: “Mary Moore Easter's Free Papers is dreaming in the archives. Through poems that document and redocument the life of Eliza Winston paired beside poems that reach across time to unite Black women in their quest to rapture the self from the prisons of nation and whiteness, Easter has built a hall of mirrors where one can come out of the other side free, transformed. Here, documents morph like a mind suddenly free from its last shackle. The poetry, freedom's promise, knows no bounds.” As a special treat, for “Winslow House: A Script for Three Voices,” Mary will be joined by her daughter Allison Easter (Based in NY, Allison Easter was the first American woman in Stomp and has performed with MacArthur awardees Susan Marshall and Meredith Monk, in Law & Order and in Will Pomerantz's adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities.) and Siddeqah Shabazz (Originally from Oakland, CA, with degrees in theater from the University of La Verne in Southern California and the Guildford School of Acting in England, she has worked in the Twin Cities with Climb, Shadow Horse, Gadfly, Chain Reaction, Freshwater, and 20% Theaters, Exposed Brick Theatre, Savage Umbrella, Aniccha Arts, Intermedia Arts, Artistry, Underdog Theatre, Transatlantic Love Affair, and Full Circle Theatre.) View the video here: https://youtu.be/6OxPEAWlDG0

The East Side Freedom Library invites you a special version of our Labor History Film and Reading Group for March 2021. The Uprising of ‘34, the award-winning documentary by George Stoney, is the subject of a conversation on March 16, via Zoom, with the film's editor Susanne Rostock and labor historian Mary Wingerd, author of the essay Rethinking Paternalism: Power and Parochialism in a Southern Mill Village (Journal of American History, 1996). The film is available for rental on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/uprisingof34. For Women's History Month, join ESFL in an exploration of the lives, work, and struggles of southern textile mill workers. The Uprising of '34 is a startling documentary which tells the story of the General Strike of 1934, a massive but little-known strike by hundreds of thousands of Southern cotton mill workers during the Great Depression. The mill workers' defiant stance — and the remarkable grassroots organizing that led up to it — challenged a system of mill owner control that had shaped life in cotton mill communities for decades. Mary Wingerd's essay not only explores this system of control, but also unearths the under-the-radar forms of resistance which made this strike possible. And she encourages us to consider other times and places where such control and resistance informed working class life. The Uprising of '34 offers a penetrating look at class, race, and power in working communities throughout America and raises critical questions about the role of history in making democracy work today. More than a social document, the film is intended to spark discussion on class, race, economics, and power — issues as vital today as they were decades ago. “The thrust of this film is to give the workers their chance to speak,” said editor Rostock. “We're very proud of the fact that here's a film in which they speak for themselves [with no narrator].” Our conversation will feature Susanne Rostock the film's editor and Minnesota historian Mary Wingerd. Rostock is a director as well as an editor, perhaps best known for her presentation of Harry Belafonte's life in Sing Your Song (2011). In an HBO project, she is currently directing Another Night in the Free World which documents the lives of three young women activists from 2012 to the present. Wingerd is the author of Claiming the City: Politics, Faith, and the Power of Place in St. Paul (2001) and North Country: The Making of Minnesota (2010). Please join us. View the video here: https://youtu.be/1Qg3FmtSX-w

The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society invite you to our March 2021 “History Revealed” program: "The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson" A Conversation Between Author Donna T. Haverty-Stacke and Reader/Discussants Greg Poferl, Linda Leighton, and Mary Wingerd On December 8, 1941, Grace Holmes Carlson, the only female defendant among eighteen Trotskyists convicted under the Smith Act, was sentenced to sixteen months in federal prison for advocating the violent overthrow of the government. After serving a year in Alderson prison, Carlson returned to her work as an organizer for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and ran for vice president of the United States under its banner in 1948. Then, in 1952, she abruptly left the SWP and returned to the Catholic Church. With the support of the Sisters of St. Joseph, who had educated her as a child, Carlson began a new life as a professor of psychology at St. Mary's Junior College in Minneapolis where she advocated for social justice, now as a Catholic Marxist. "The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic, Socialist, Feminist" is a historical biography that examines the story of this complicated woman in the context of her times with a specific focus on her experiences as a member of the working class, as a Catholic, and as a woman. Her story illuminates the workings of class identity within the context of various influences over the course of a lifespan. The long arc of Carlson's life (1906–1992) ultimately reveals significant continuities in her political consciousness that transcended the shifts in her particular partisan commitments, most notably her life-long dedication to challenging the root causes of social and economic inequality. In that struggle, Carlson ultimately proved herself to be a truly fierce woman. Donna T. Haverty-Stacke, Professor of History at Hunter College of the City University of New York, is a historian of working-class and radical politics. She is interested in the intersection of that history with nationalism and collective memory, national security and free speech, gender identity, and Catholic activism. Her first book was "America's Forgotten Holiday: May Day and Nationalism, 1867-1960" (NYU Press, 2009) and her second, which she discussed four years ago at ESFL, was "Trotskyists on Trial: Free Speech and Political Persecution since the Age of FDR" (NYU Press, 2015). Greg Poferl is a lifelong labor and Catholic social activist and a generous collaborator at ESFL. Last year, Greg wrote his memoir, "Turning Points: Never Give Up on Anyone, Especially Yourself" (East Side Freedom Library, 2020). Linda Leighton is a lifelong labor activist who has played a major role in maintaining local memory of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters' strikes. Mary Wingerd is Emerita Professor of History at St. Cloud State University and the author of "Claiming the City: Politics, Faith, and the Power of Place in St. Paul" (Cornell University Press, 2001) and "North Country: The Making of Minnesota" (University of Minnesota Press, 2010). To view the video: https://youtu.be/Q0-pA3w88dE

A virtual panel discussion on the film “Jim Crow of the North” centered on housing inequities and food access in the Twin Cities. The event series “Co-op Community Conversations: Exploring the intersection of racial, social, and food justice” is presented by Eastside Food Co-op, Mississippi Market Food Co-op, Seward Community Co-op, and Twin Cities Co-op Partners as a way to examine and connect our cooperative values with social justice movements. Stay tuned for future events in this series taking place throughout the year. Why do Minnesotans experience some of the worst racial disparities in home ownership in this country? Join Twin Cities Food Co-ops, The East Side Freedom Library and TPT-2 to explore this question through the film “Jim Crow of the North,” which delves into the complex history of racial covenants in the Twin Cities and systematic racism that has lasting repercussions on housing inequities today. To view the video: https://youtu.be/Wnz7EJWcZaQ

On today's episode of the Radical News Radio Hour, we're talking about education equity. We'll listen to a clip from a recent discussion held by the Federal Reserve, reported by Rico Morales. Then we'll listen to some announcements from Peter Rachleff at the East Side Freedom Library. You can find the transcript for this episode here.

The uprising in the wake of the murder of George Floyd included an inspiring blossoming of mutual aid practices, networks, and visions across the Twin Cities. This live panel discussion features community members active in mutual aid organizing in the Twin Cities. Roxxanne, Sheff, Carmen, Rachel and Jae, organizers for mutual aid networks including Twin Cities Relief and Community Aid Network MN, talk about their experiences, challenges, and goals for long-term movement building. At the end of the discussion, panelists will address audience questions typed into the chat. (Roxxanne's video is turned off, so her name does not appear on the screen when she talks.) The panel discussion has been organized by History for the Future and is being hosted by East Side Freedom Library. History for the Future is a community-curated public history initiative asking how historical and present day mutual aid work in the Twin Cities can help us imagine radical futures of community care. View the video: www.youtube.com/eastsidefreedomlibraryorg

The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society invite you to a special session of our “History Revealed” series. This event will be archived on on the library's Facebook page and on our YouTube channel with closed captioning enabled: https://www.youtube.com/eastsidefreedomlibraryorg. “Middle class” is an ideologically shaped and deployed term in American culture and politics. Activist-scholar David Roediger makes clear in his pointed and persuasive polemic, this obsession with the middle-class is relatively new in US politics. It began with the attempt to win back so-called “Reagan Democrats” by Bill Clinton and it was accompanied by a pandering to racism and a shying away from meaningful wealth redistribution that continues to this day. Drawing on rich traditions of radical social thought, Roediger disavows the thinly sourced idea that the United States was, for much of its history, a “middle-class” nation and the still more indefensible position that it is one now. The increasing immiseration of large swathes of middle-income America, only accelerated by the current pandemic, nails a fallacy that is a major obstacle to progressives. David Roediger taught in the 1990s at the University of Minnesota and now teaches American Studies at the University of Kansas. His books include Seizing Freedom, The Wages of Whiteness, How Race Survived U.S. History, and Towards the Abolition of Whiteness and Working toward Whiteness. His book The Production of Difference (with Elizabeth Esch) recently won the International Labor History Association Book Prize. He is past president of the American Studies Association and of the Working-Class Studies Association. Professor Roediger will be joined in conversation by: August Nimtz, Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at the University of Minnesota. August has been an activist in progressive movements in the Twin Cities (and beyond) since the 1970s with a particular emphasis on solidarity with the people of Cuba. Kieran Knutson, President of Communications Workers of America Local 7250 (Minnesota AT&T). Kieran has been a long time activist at the intersection of the racial justice and labor movements. Megan Brown, Assistant Professor in the Masters in Advocacy and Political Leadership (MAPL) program at Metropolitan State University. A geographer by training and trade, Megan has recently found her way to St. Paul.

Peter Rachleff Author of Black Labor in Richmond, Virginia 1865-1890 and Co-Executive Director of East Side Freedom Library Welcome to the Harmony of Interest series where we explore ideas that positively shape our world. Professor Peter Rachleff is a retired Professor of History at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota specializing in United States labor, immigration, and African American history. He is the author of BLACK LABOR IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 1865-1890, and HARD-PRESSED IN THE HEARTLAND: THE HORMEL STRIKE AND THE FUTURE OF THE LABOR MOVEMENT.  Peter is Co-Executive Director at East Side Freedom Library, which has become a pillar of organizing and culture in the Twin Cities with a Mission: "To inspire solidarity, advocate for justice, and work towards equity for all." You can follow Peter’s work at the East Side Freedom Library on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/ESFLibrary. Empathy Media Lab is a proud member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. Support media, authors, artists, historians, and journalists, who are fighting to improve the prosperity of the working class.  #HarmonyOfInterest #PoliticalEconomyMatters #LaborRadioPod #1U #UnionStrong

Dr. Haidar Eid will give an introductory background on the situation in Gaza, focusing on the horror of the blockade and the three wars of aggression 2009, 2012, and 2014. He will then discuss the necessity of international intervention in the form of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions as the most effective tool of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Dr. Haidar will also discuss how to avoid normalization with apartheid Israel by heeding the BDS call made by Palestinian civil society. Please direct questions about this event to mepn@mepn.org. This event is co-hosted by our friends at the East Side Freedom Library, & American Muslims for Palestine-Minnesota. Co-sponsors include; Jewish Voice for Peace- Twin Cities Chapter, and Women Against Military Madness. About the Speaker" Dr. Eid holds a Ph.D from the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and is a member of the Palestinian Campaign for Academic Boycott of Israel, Al-Shabaka Policy Advisor, founding member of the One Democratic State Campaign, and Associate Professor of Postcolonial and Postmodern Literature at Gaza's al-Aqsa University. He has written widely on the Arab-Israeli conflict, including books Worlding Postmodernism: Interpretive Possibilities of Critical Theory and Countering The Palestinian Nakba: One State For All.

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to the next conversation in our series “Learning From the Past, Fighting for the Future”: A Conversation between Tom O'Connell and Barbara Freese. Join host Tom O'Connell as he interviews environmental attorney Barbara Freese about her new book, "Industrial-Strength Denial: Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible." This new and timely book takes the reader through eight campaigns of corporate denial from the slave trade to radium consumption; financial manipulation to climate change. In a general election campaign in which corporate abuses too often go unchallenged, Freese's powerful stories equip citizens with the understanding we need to hold corporations accountable in the future. Barbara is also the author of "Coal: A Human History," selected as a New York Times Notable Book and recently released in an updated edition. This critically-acclaimed book tells the story of how coal has transformed the world over the centuries, describes the drama swirling around coal use today, and explains why coal represents such a profound threat to the global climate. Barbara is an environmental attorney, policy analyst and speaker who has for several years been deeply involved in energy and climate issues, with a particular focus on coal. She has fought to block the construction of new coal plants and to enact climate protection laws at the state and federal level, and she co-authored multiple reports on coal use when she was a senior policy advocate on the staff of the Union of Concerned Scientists. In the mid-1990s, when she was an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Minnesota, Barbara litigated the science of climate change against the coal industry, confronting first-hand the science denial that would later become so prominent in the U.S. View the video: https://youtu.be/pbbHou0I3_U

George Cartwright (saxophone, guitar, and who knows what else) and Steve Hirsh (percussion) George Cartwright is a Minnesota-based composer, performer, band leader, producer and musical collaborator, with a prolific career spanning over 30 years. His career began in his home state of Mississippi, shaped by a childhood woven through with early memories of singing in church and learning songs at his grandfather's knee. He grew up on rock-n-roll and fell in love with jazz after hearing Charles Lloyd's iconic “Forest Flower,” and like the British bands that he listened to in high school, he was also heavily influenced by the blues being played literally in his own backyard of the Mississippi Delta. Steve Hirsh is a drumset player who performs with some of the area's finest improvisers. His recent ensembles have included Le Voyage (with Donald Washington, Matt Trice and Dick Studer), Fero (with Douglas Ewart, Donald Washington and Babatunde Lea), GH2 (with Brad Holden and Josh Granowski), and Original Mind (with Brad Holden and Dick Studer). Born and raised in New York City, over the last 30 years he has lived and performed in Bemidji, St, Paul, and the woods of greater Pine County. He is just tickled to be back playing at the East Side Freedom Library, a social, political and artistic harbinger of the world we strive to create. View video: https://youtu.be/bAIb3pU1SJc

A central mechanism of our dominant culture in the United States has been rendering workers and work invisible. As the old saying goes, “we don't want to know how sausage is made.” But, as the labor anthem “Solidarity Forever” reminds us, “without these hands not a single wheel would turn.” The pandemic has had a complicated impact on these deep-seated practices and visions. Some workers, long disregarded, have been labeled “essential” and have been given new attention. Some have even received hazard pay (for a time) and new respect. But some have also spoken out about feeling “sacrificial,” and some have protested and even struck over their working conditions. Duluth-based visual artist Carolyn Sue Olson has used her imagination, skills and pastels to create a stunning collection of images of “Essential Workers.” You can see her work here: http://carolynolson.net/current-work-.... Carolyn sees an intersection between her work and the project of the East Side Freedom Library. Join ESFL's Peter Rachleff in a conversation with Carolyn about her work and her concerns which have informed it. Through the end of this month, Carolyn and Lizzard's Art Gallery (https://www.lizzards.com/) are dedicating 20% of the proceeds from the sale of her work to benefit ESFL.

Presented by University of Minnesota graduate students in Geography and Professors Queen Quet and Kate Derickson In April 2018, a packed house heard Queen Quet, the elected chieftess of the Gullah/Geechee nation, present “Free to Be Who WEBE: The Gullah/Geechee Fight for Freedom and Identity.” If you attended that presentation – or if you missed that presentation – you will want to watch this presentation, not only to learn about the history and culture of the Gullah/Geechee people, not only to hear from the remarkable Queen Quet and her colleague and East Side Freedom Library collaborator, Kate Derickson, the reader of “Stories for (Little) People” every Saturday morning at ESFL, but also to learn about “a story map” as a way of producing and presenting knowledge. Queen Quet is the Fall 2020 Winton Chair in the Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota and Dr. Kate Derickson is Associate Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society at the U of M, and together, they have been teaching a graduate course called “WEBE Gullah/Geechee." Students in their course collaborated to create a St. Helena Island centered StoryMap which provides a historical chronology of the South Carolina Sea Island which has been home for centuries by African-descended people who identify as Gullah and Geechee. In this evening's presentation, students will share the StoryMap and Queen Quet and Kate Derickson will discuss the collaboration and respond to your questions. View the video: https://youtu.be/dN68Gj_xG4k

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a live discussion of a new novel, Passages of Rebellion, with author Fran Shor and discussants Bill Tilton, Charlotte Colantti, and Sidney Carlson White. Passages of Rebellion is a work of political fiction set at the University of Minnesota. It follows the semi-autobiographical protagonist, Frank Goodman, in his antiwar and anti-draft activities during the turbulent years of 1967-1970. The novel, moving back and forth in time, considers the role of violence in the international, national, and domestic arenas, while exploring the meanings of rebellion. Fran Shor participated in the anti-war movement while earning his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota. He taught for forty years at Wayne State University in Detroit, retiring as an Emeritus Professor of History. He is the author of five nonfiction books and hundreds of articles. He has been a longtime peace and justice activist. Appearing at almost the same time as Passages of Rebellion is his new analytical book, Weaponized Whiteness: The Construction and Deconstructions of White Identity Politics (Haymarket Press, 2020). ESFL seeks to bring together readers from different eras and dimensions of student activism. Joining Fran for the first round of conversation will be Bill Tilton, Charlotte Colantti, and Sid Carlson White. Bill Tilton participated in some of the very events described in Passages of Rebellion. He has been a Minnesota lawyer since graduating from the U of M Law School with a J.D. in 1977. In over four decades of practice, he has focused on personal injury and wrongful death matters, and has won many awards. For over three decades, Bill has served as a volunteer attorney for Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services. Charlotte Colantti graduated from the U of M in 2018, with a major in Cultural Studies. She researched and wrote about the late 1990s Highway 55 struggle, and interned at ESFL. Charlotte is currently a tenant organizer at the West Side Community Organization in St. Paul and is active with a legal support collective for the movement against Line 3. Sidney Carlson White, a native of the Twin Cities, is a senior at Yale University studying Economics and American Studies. He has been involved with fighting for reform in the financial aid system, and working to ensure that the university serves the city that its faculty and students call home. Sid recently hosted the ESFL's “UnMapping St. Paul” Quiz Bowl event. To view the video: https://youtu.be/y_F3iM5pDh8

he East Side Freedom Library invites you to our December Labor History Film Screening: Ghosts of Amistad with an introductory conversation with historian Marcus Rediker. The uprising this past summer against institutional racism raised debate and action about historical monuments and historical memory. These debates and actions are far from over, and there remains much to learn not only from history, but from struggles over “history.” The play Hamilton ends with the haunting question, “Who will tell your story?” This documentary film chronicles the journey of historian Marcus Rediker as he retraces the path of the enslaved Africans who rebelled against their captors and seized the slave schooner Amistad in 1839, leading to a watershed US Supreme Court decision that sparked Abolitionist action leading to the Civil War. Based on Rediker's ground-breaking book The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom, the film travels to present day Sierra Leone to visit the home villages of Sengbe Pieh (Joseph Cinqué) and the other captives who were held on the Amistad, interviewing elders about local memory of the case and searching for the long-lost ruins of Lomboko, the slave trading factory where their cruel transatlantic voyage began. The film uses the knowledge of villagers, fishermen, and truck drivers to recover the lost history of the Amistad, told from a seldom-voiced perspective in the historical struggle against slavery. Marcus Rediker is the Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. He has written and edited ten books, including The Many-Headed Hydra (2000, with Peter Linebaugh); two books about mutinies and pirates, Villains of All Nations (2004) and Outlaws of the Atlantic (2014); and two books about the transatlantic slave trade and resistance within it, The Slave Ship (2007) and The Amistad Rebellion (2012), which prompted this film project. His most recent book, The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist (2017), reconstructs the life story of one man as a way to interrogate political traditions and movements. Marcus' pathbreaking writings have won numerous awards and have been published in fourteen languages. Not only will he join us for a conversation about the making of Ghosts of Amistad, but on Tuesday evening, December 15, he will be joining ESFL's monthly Labor History Reading Group for a discussion of his essay, “The Poetics of History From Below.” View the video: https://youtu.be/KZsgAT28924

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to the final monthly conversation of 2020. Throughout 2020, activist scholar Tom O'Connell has anchored conversations which have sought to envision and shape the future through engagement with the past. These conversations are archived on ESFL's YouTube channel and we encourage you to revisit them. Now, at the end of this turbulent year, Tom convenes a conversation with three Minnesota-based historians, all of whom use their training and research as ways to guide us through the challenges of the present, with an eye towards a better future. Shannon Smith is an Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at the College of St. Benedict's and the College of St. John's. Her research has focused on the use of military and police organizations to quell rebellions and uprisings. This past summer, Shannon contributed to public discussions of grassroots protests' challenges to monuments and entrenched power. Doug Rossinow is a Professor of History at Metropolitan State University and the Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. Doug's research has focused on social movements and political thought, especially the complex roles played by religious ideologies. He recently edited a collection entitled The Religious Left in Modern America. Jeff Kolnick is a Professor of History at Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall. His research has focused on social and political movements, from Populist farmers in late 19th century Minnesota to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Jeff helped to found the Fannie Lou Hamer National Institute on Citizenship and Democracy in Jackson, Mississippi, and he has been a contributor to such Minnesota publications as MinnPost, Minnesota Reformer, and MNOpedia. He has been a leader in the Inter Faculty Organization, the union of Minnesota state university professors. View the video: https://youtu.be/ppRpFV_mZvA

The East Side Freedom Library invites you to a conversation with Abdul Dire about his new book, Oromo Witness: From Ethiopia to Minnesota, one man's struggle for his people, for his family, and for his freedom. Join ESFL's Co-Executive Director Peter Rachleff as he interviews Abdul Dire about his book, Oromo Witness. Dire has relied on oral history and story-telling to reconstruct the history of Arsi Oromo people in the Bale region of southern Ethiopia, from the late 19th century to the present, including their immigration to Minnesota. Abdul Dire, himself a descendant of leaders of the Bale revolts, recounts an epic saga of courage, resistance, perseverance, and sacrifice as told to him by his uncle, Hangasu Waqo Lugo. Oromo Witness brings to life the history of an extraordinary struggle for justice and equality through the lens of a participant observer. Abdul Dire, himself a descendant of leaders of the Bale revolts, recounts an epic saga of courage, resistance, perseverance, and sacrifice as told to him by his uncle, Hangasu Waqo Lugo. Oromo Witness brings to life the history of an extraordinary struggle for justice and equality through the lens of a participant observer. The complex struggles of the Oromo people included the navigation of transnational politics involving the governments of Italy (which invaded Ethiopia twice) and Somalia (which sought to use the Oromo people for their own purposes) and inter-ethnic politics which included Amhara, Tigre, and other Oromo groups. Their intergenerational struggles, stories, and aspirations are expressed in their motto: To root out tyranny in all of its forms in their lifetime, or, failing that, to raise a generation to finish the task. Dire has made his uncle Hangasu the main protagonist in the book. Now in his 60s, he's one of the few remaining living witnesses of the Bale people's struggle. Dire has written a profile-in-courage of Hangasu and those who inspired, shaped, and molded him. Hangasu's courage, strength, and endurance are awe-inspiring. In Minnesota, Hangasu has championed education as a tool for liberation. He now builds schools and sponsors young students. Oromo Witness can be a learning resource for all of us, as we seek to understand the experiences and aspirations of our Oromo neighbors. To view video: https://youtu.be/YxC3x9x_nWw

The East Side Freedom Library and the Ramsey County Historical Society invite you to our monthly “History Revealed” program, featuring Kao Kalia Yang. As the country's doors were closing and nativism was on the rise, Kao Kalia Yang—herself a refugee from Laos—set out to tell the stories of the refugees to whom University Avenue is now home. Here are people who have summoned the energy and determination to make a new life even as they carry an extraordinary burden of hardship, loss, and emotional damage. In Yang's exquisite, poetic, and necessary telling, the voices of refugees from all over the world restore humanity to America's strangers and redeem its long history of welcome. KAO KALIA YANG is a Hmong-American writer. She holds degrees from Carleton College and Columbia University. Yang is the author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir winner of the 2009 Minnesota Book Awards in Creative Nonfiction/Memoir and Readers' Choice, a finalist for the PEN USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, and the Asian Literary Award in Nonfiction. Her second book, The Song Poet won the 2016 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction Memoir, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, a PEN USA Award in Nonfiction, and the Dayton's Literary Peace Prize. The story has been commissioned as a youth opera by the Minnesota Opera and will premiere in the spring of 2021. She is now writing a series of children's books. For this event, before we open the virtual floor for questions and comments from audience members, Yang will be joined in conversation by four readers of her book: Saymoukda Duanphouxay Vongsay is an award-winning Lao American poet, playwright, cultural producer, and social practice artist. She is the author of the children's book WHEN EVERYTHING WAS EVERYTHING (Full Circle Publishing) and is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Playwright in Residence at Theater Mu. Visit her at www.SaymoukdaTheRefugenius.com and follow her @refugenius. Thet-Htar Thet (she/her/hers) is a writer, educator and activist originally from Yangon Myanmar. Now based in her home country, Thet-Htar is focused on education reform and identity-driven writing as a consultant for UNESCO and a freelance creative nonfiction writer. Sangay Taythi is a Tibetan refugee born in India who with his family immigrated to the United States in 1998. He has been a community and labor organizer, including the Students for a Free Tibet chapter at the University of Minnesota, the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress of Minnesota, the Tibetan American Foundation of Minnesota, the Tibetan National Congress and Tibetans for Black Lives and SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. Najaha Musse is a 4th year medical student pursuing a doctorate in Osteopathic Medicine. Her family fled rural Ethiopia for a refugee camp in Nairobi Kenya, and then settled in Minnesota where she began formal education in the 3rd grade. As the oldest in a family of 8 children, she became the first in her family to graduate from high school and receive a college degree. While attending medical school, Najaha has focused on social justice issues pertaining to educational access for disadvantaged students and social medicine. To view the video: https://youtu.be/c_p7Nx_SmD8

Join the East Side Freedom Library for a discussion with Victor Montori on his book on the politics of the healthcare industry, Why We Revolt: A Patient Revolution for Careful and Kind Care. In a series of brief and personal essays, Why We Revolt describes what is wrong with industrial healthcare, how it has corrupted its mission, and how it has stopped caring. Montori rescues the language of patient care to propose a revolution of compassion and solidarity, of unhurried conversations, and of careful and kind care. Our conversation will be moderated by book industry professional and historian David Unowsky. The panel will be joined by Sen. John Marty, Nurses Association director Rose Roach and SEIU Healthcare Executive Vice President Jigme Ugen. John Marty has been a state senator since 1987. He is a strong advocate for government ethics, environmental protection, and universal health care. John is the author of the proposed Minnesota Health Plan, which would replace the health insurance system with health care for all, to keep people healthy and enable them to get the care they need when they need it. John is a graduate of St. Olaf College with a B.A. in Ethics. John and his wife Connie live in Roseville, MN. Rose Roach is the Executive Director of the Minnesota Nurses Association. She has thirty plus years of experience in the labor movement in Minnesota and California. A Minnesota native, Roach spent eleven years, from 2003-2014, working for the California School Employees Association and was an active leader within the CA health care policy reform movement. Roach has been recognized as one of Minnesota's 100 influential leaders in health care. She is a board member for the healthcare justice organization Health Care for All-Minnesota. Jigme Ugen was born in Kalimpong, India and graduated from Delhi University with diplomas in Political Science, English and Economics. He is the first Tibetan refugee to be elected as a labor union leader. He worked in several non-profit organizations across the world before immigrating to the US in 2001. In 2007, he was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota. Jigme is deeply engaged with the Tibetan community and Tibet's independence movement. Victor Montori works at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (U.S.) as a diabetes doctor. He graduated medical school in his hometown of Lima, Perú, and completed postgraduate training at Mayo Clinic in the U.S. and at McMaster University in Canada. Considered “a patient's doctor,”, Montori received the Karis Award, a patient-nominated recognition for his compassionate care. A researcher in the science of patient-centered care, Montori and his colleagues have authored over 650 research articles. A full professor of medicine by age 39, Victor is today one of the most cited clinical researchers in the world. In 2016, Victor founded The Patient Revolution. Purchase your copy here from co-host SubText Books: http://subtextbooks.com/books/why-we-... For more information and to view the video: https://youtu.be/ueEteQtD_tMo view the video: https://youtu.be/ueEteQtD_tM

On today's episode, recorded before the insurrection that occurred on Jan. 6, we hear from organizers with Voices for Racial Justice about the work happening to prep for the legislative session, as well as Peter Rachleff with the East Side Freedom Library.

On Episode 15 we discuss the House Special Committee on Racial Justice and listen to its presentation on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and Racism. We'll also hear from Peter Rachleff at the East Side Freedom Library about upcoming events being held.

On this episode of the Radical News Radio Hour we'll be discussing the violent Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board and MPRB police response to the encampments of houseless and homeless people, what it means to support healthcare workers during this tumultuous time, and the work of the East Side Freedom Library.

Jeremy Brecher's “Strike for Your Life!”; Peter Rachleff and labor history's lessons for the COVID-19 crisis; plus a preview of Debs In Canton.  “The current situation has led us to reconsider the Minneapolis teamster strikes of 1934; their dramatic story shows that the labor movement is strongest when unions boldly organized workers on the job and in the community around a shared vision of fairness and justice.” Peter Rachleff, co-director of the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul, Minnesota, on how “Lessons from labor history can inform our labor movement during the COVID-19 crisis.” “As a labor historian, the closest thing I can think of to the spread of coronavirus strikes is the epidemic of sitdown strikes to spread across the country in the mid-1930s.” Historian and writer Jeremy Brecher, from “Strike for Your Life!” Also this week, we preview Debs In Canton, a new audio/radio drama from the filmmakers of American Socialist: The Life And Times Of Eugene Victor Debs. Produced by Chris Garlock; to contribute a labor history item, email laborhistorytoday@gmail.com Labor History Today is produced by the Metro Washington Council’s Union City Radio and the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.

Join us for this week's podcast in Episode 18 of Marrow in the Making, in which we get to interview our third guest, Victoria Blanco, in the very relaxed setting of our living room in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On October 23, 2018, we talked about everything from growing up on the border to working with the Rarámuri in Mexico. Victoria Blanco is a writer from El Paso and Ciudad Juárez. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Minnesota, where she taught creative writing and composition courses. Her manuscript was a finalist for the 2016 PEN/FUSION Emerging Writers’ Prize. Her research and writing have been supported by a Fulbright Award, research fellowships from the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota State Arts Board grant, a Bakeless Scholarship from Bread Loaf Orion, a writing residency at St. Paul's East Side Freedom Library from Coffee House Press In-the-Stacks, and the 2018 Roxane Gay Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction for the Jack Jones Literary Arts writers' retreat. She was a Fellow in the 2017-2018 Loft Mentor Series. Victoria’s writing has appeared in Catapult, Fourth Genre, and Bat City Review. Check out the El Paso essay we discuss along with Victoria's account of the Rarámuri, which were both featured in Catapult. Want to know more about Victoria Blanco? Check her out online: https://www.victoriaannblanco.com/ On Instagram On Twitter

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Performers at this event included: Introduction by Peter Rachleff and Beth Cleary Jayanthi Kyle Barb Tilsen and Gayla Ellis Amoke Kubat Shanai Matteson Ed Bok Lee Desdamona SisterTree (Dee Brust and Kerri Jakola) Ben Weaver Tish Jones Colleen Casey Louis Alemayehu Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

On Thursday Feb. 22, 2018 Storymobile was at the East Side Freedom Library in Saint Paul to celebrate Meridel LeSueur. Meridel LeSueur, one of the great voices of the 20th century, was born on this day in 1900. Her writings were grounded in the grassroots experiences and stories of women, working people, the disenfranchised and dispossessed. Her immense love and respect for the power of the people and the power of the word was ever present in her poetry, novels, and essays. Meridel’s work touched generations of artists and activists, from Minnesota and the Midwest to the wide expanse of this country and this world. Storymobile joined Meridel's family and fans for presentations and performances of Meridel’s work as well as original work by established and emerging artists.

The book Saint Paul Almanac was created in 2005 to bring together the diverse community of Saint Paul, Minnesota through literary arts. In 2017, the Saint Paul Almanac released their 11th volume, On A Collected Path. On A Collected Path is a collection of stories and artwork and is celebrated by being read at various venues throughout Saint Paul. On Wednesday May 10, 2017 readers gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul to read their amazing work. Peg Guilfoyle reading Uncle Tex's Wedding on p. 108

The book Saint Paul Almanac was created in 2005 to bring together the diverse community of Saint Paul, Minnesota through literary arts. In 2017, the Saint Paul Almanac released their 11th volume, On A Collected Path. On A Collected Path is a collection of stories and artwork and is celebrated by being read at various venues throughout Saint Paul. On Wednesday May 10, 2017 readers gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul to read their amazing work. Mary Virginia Winstead reading The Nice Grandmas on p. 190

The book Saint Paul Almanac was created in 2005 to bring together the diverse community of Saint Paul, Minnesota through literary arts. In 2017, the Saint Paul Almanac released their 11th volume, On A Collected Path. On A Collected Path is a collection of stories and artwork and is celebrated by being read at various venues throughout Saint Paul. On Wednesday May 10, 2017 readers gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul to read their amazing work. Jens Vanga reading Como on p. 17

The book Saint Paul Almanac was created in 2005 to bring together the diverse community of Saint Paul, Minnesota through literary arts. In 2017, the Saint Paul Almanac released their 11th volume, On A Collected Path. On A Collected Path is a collection of stories and artwork and is celebrated by being read at various venues throughout Saint Paul. On Wednesday May 10, 2017 readers gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul to read their amazing work. Readers include: Linda White reading Adventures In Midway Center on p. 74 Sarah J.K. Koper reading The Escolar Incident on p. 156 Adalinda Estrada reading The Man who Held (and Gave Me) Two More Colors on p. 246 Mary Virginia Winstead reading The Nice Grandmas on p. 190 Peg Guilfoyle reading Uncle Tex's Wedding on p. 108 Jens Vanga reading Como on p. 17

The book Saint Paul Almanac was created in 2005 to bring together the diverse community of Saint Paul, Minnesota through literary arts. In 2017, the Saint Paul Almanac released their 11th volume, On A Collected Path. On A Collected Path is a collection of stories and artwork and is celebrated by being read at various venues throughout Saint Paul. On Wednesday May 10, 2017 readers gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul to read their amazing work. Linda White reading Adventures In Midway Center on p. 74

The book Saint Paul Almanac was created in 2005 to bring together the diverse community of Saint Paul, Minnesota through literary arts. In 2017, the Saint Paul Almanac released their 11th volume, On A Collected Path. On A Collected Path is a collection of stories and artwork and is celebrated by being read at various venues throughout Saint Paul. On Wednesday May 10, 2017 readers gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul to read their amazing work. Sarah J.K. Koper reading The Escolar Incident on p. 156

The book Saint Paul Almanac was created in 2005 to bring together the diverse community of Saint Paul, Minnesota through literary arts. In 2017, the Saint Paul Almanac released their 11th volume, On A Collected Path. On A Collected Path is a collection of stories and artwork and is celebrated by being read at various venues throughout Saint Paul. On Wednesday May 10, 2017 readers gathered at the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul to read their amazing work. Adalinda Estrada reading The Man who Held (and Gave Me) Two More Colors on p. 246

Today there is largely universal praise for the ESPY statements of Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Dwayne Wade and LeBron James. But what about athletes who stood up in much more difficult environment? Today we take a critical look at the ESPY statement with 2012 NBA first round draft pick Royce White. This is an NBA-level talent who has been pushed out of the league for standing up. We talk to Royce about the ESPYS and his future. I also have some "Choice words" about the way this discussion of athlete activism is being framed in the #BlackLivesMatter era.Royce White twitter: http://twitter.com/highway_30Royce White & Dave Zirin have an event together on September 21 in St. Paul at East Side Freedom Library: http://eastsidefreedomlibrary.org/Dave Zirin article on Royce White from 2013: https://www.thenation.com/article/sports-interview-non-sports-fans-have-read-my-talk-nba-player-royce-whiteESPYs opening: http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=17061524Carmelo Anthony's statement: https://instagram.com/p/BHmtRkehDV8Royce White's open letter to Carmelo Anthony: https://twitter.com/Highway_30/status/751962281462730752--Music by Dr. Dre & Mat Beard (http://soundcloud.com/mtbrd, http://mtbrd.bandcamp.com, http://twitter.com/mtbrrrd)--http://edgeofsportspodcast.com | http://twitter.com/edgeofsports | http://fb.com/edgeofsportspod | email us: edgeofsports@slate.com

John Milton tells the story of how citizen opposition delayed for many years to completion of Interstate Highway 35 through St. Paul. And labor historian Peter Rachleff describes how he and his partner Beth Cleary plan to convert the closed Arlington Hills public library into the East Side Freedom Library in St. Paul.