![fotojournalismus:
Striking miners react as they make way for a security vehicle at the AngloGold Ashanti mine in Carletonville, northwest of Johannesburg Oct. 25, 2012. AngloGold Ashanti sacked 12,000 wildcat strikers who defied a deadline to return to work on Wednesday, the latest South African company to resort to mass firings after weeks of crippling labour unrest.
[Credit : Siphiwe Sibeko / Reuters]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mci1y2Pmit1r44q44o1_250.jpg)
Erased Peoples, Excised Histories
After finding a boycott target of the Palestine solidarity movement on Amtrak, this essay was written to tackle the grim intersections of oppression at home and abroad its presence evoked for me, the kid of a railroad worker. In five vignettes, the following thoughts are shaped by the Asian-American experience, and by the state of urgency that is anti-racism in the time of Trayvon Martin. It was written with those fellow people in mind anxious to change the world, trying to figure out effectively how.
The Woolworth Strike of 1937: 110 women participated in a sit-down strike against one of the largest chain stores in the early 20th century, at the Woolworth Five and Dime store in Detroit, Michigan. Some of their demands included a 10 cents/hour raise, union recognition, an eight-hour workday and free uniforms. They weren’t alone during their strike: they reached out to Local 705, a waiters and waitresses union, which helped with food and sleeping arrangements while the Woolworth women were on strike.
On the 7th day of the strike, after sit-down strike leaders said they were ready to call for a national sit-down - which could have lead to all 40 Woolworth stores closing - owner Frank Woolworth and the women came to an agreement, effectively accepting nearly all of their demands, including a 5 cent/hour raise and overtime pay past 48 hours/week.
[Photos: William Vandivert/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images]
(Source: pantslessprogressive)
Matt Damon Headlines "The People Speak, Live!" Benefit Performance of Dramatic Readings and Songs at the Metro, Jan. 31
Chicago, the best theatrical / activist / people’s history event of your life is about to take place here, Jan. 31
"I often have thought that the original content of Asian American identity…was simply the construction of a counter-narrative—an oppositional voice—to the white supremacist narrative and culture about the inferiority of people of color, and Asians in particular… It was as much a mechanism to identify with one another as [it was] to identify with the struggles of others…and that it was less a marker of what one was and more a marker of what one believes.”
—Chris Iijima (1948-2005) Asian American singer and activist."
- www.kqed.org/w/snapshots/01transforming/07iijima_chris.html
Feature documentary trailer on the supremely bad ass Richard Aoki (1938-2009), third generation Japanese American; Oakland born and raised founding member of the Black Panther Party; leading member of UC Berkeley’s Third World Liberation Front; lifelong activist.
(Source: aokifilm.com)
