Nobody wanted to hear, "You're reactionary in what you're doing"

An Interview with Earl Silbar

Nobody wanted to hear, "You're reactionary in what you're doing"
On April 23, 2019, Stephanie Gomez interviewed Earl Silbar, co-editor of the recently published You Say You Want a Revolution: SDS, PL, and Adventures in Building a Worker-Student Alliance (2018). Spencer A. Leonard helped draft the questions. On April 25, an edited version of the original interview was aired in an episode of “Radical Minds,” a radio show on WHPK 88.5 FM in Chicago, hosted by Gomez. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview, including follow-up questions. [Read More]

Democracy and the Left

Democracy and the Left
The following is an edited transcript of a panel hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society at the University of Pennsylvania on March 21st, 2019. The panelists were Jon Bekken, editor of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Review, Adolph Reed, Jr., Professor of Political Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, Warren Breckman, Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and Erin Hagood, member of the Platypus Affiliated Society. The panel discussion was moderated by Austin Carder, member of the Platypus Affiliated Society. [Read More]

"Through the lens of the national liberation struggle"

An Interview with Carl Davidson

"Through the lens of the national liberation struggle"
On February 20, 2019, Spencer A. Leonard interviewed veteran of the New Left and New Communist Movement Carl Davidson, who recently edited a collection of “lost writings of SDS” entitled Revolutionary Youth & the New Working Class (2011).1 What follows is an edited transcript of that interview. Spencer A. Leonard: Tell me about your own early politicization and experience in the SDS. What does the phrase “Prairie Power,” with which your cohort was associated, mean? [Read More]

"On the side of the oppressed"

An interview with David Gilbert

On April 20, 2019, Spencer A. Leonard wrote to David Gilbert by the post, sending him written interview questions. Gilbert replied with his responses in a letter dated May 12, 2019. A former member of the Weather Underground, Gilbert is currently imprisoned at the Wende Correctional Facility for his role in a 1981 armored car robbery that resulted in the deaths of two police officers and a security guard. He has written two books: No Surrender: Writings from an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner (2004) *and* Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond (2011). [Read More]