Protests boost interest in books on working-class politics, history
https://themilitant.com/2020/08/15/protests-boost-interest-in-books-on-working-class-politics-history/
BY JIM ALTENBERG
Vol. 84/No. 33
August 24, 2020
Eso Won Books co-owner James Fugate talks with customers in Los Angeles.
Protests against cop killing of George Floyd led to jump in sales of
political books. Supporters of Pathfinder Press are campaigning to
increase distribution of books by SWP leaders, other revolutionaries.
LOS ANGELES TIMES/JULIA WICK
Eso Won Books co-owner James Fugate talks with customers in Los Angeles.
Protests against cop killing of George Floyd led to jump in sales of
political books. Supporters of Pathfinder Press are campaigning to
increase distribution of books by SWP leaders, other revolutionaries.
“When social protests pick up, people start to read more about
working-class struggles,” Jim Kendrick, from Kansas City, Missouri, told
the Militant. Kendrick is one of dozens of volunteers across North
America working to get Pathfinder books into bookstores and libraries.
Pathfinder publishes books by Socialist Workers Party and other
revolutionary leaders on working-class history and politics.
In mid-June sales volunteers in the U.S. and in Canada began a special
six-month effort to win 100 new bookstore and library orders. The
volunteers are approaching both existing and new customers, including in
smaller cities and towns, and rural areas.
They have found a wide interest in the range of Pathfinder titles, at a
time when working people are in the midst of a developing worldwide
social and economic crisis, and discussing and debating the causes and a
solution.
Many stores are not yet open for readers to browse, but a number are
filling internet and phone orders for books. Sales by bookstores slowed
considerably in the spring because of government-ordered business
shutdowns during the pandemic. But some store owners report that things
began to change after police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd and
protests broke out around the world.
Since then, orders for titles on the history and lessons of the fight
against racist discrimination have grown tremendously.
James Fugate, co-owner of well-known Eso Won Books in Los Angeles, told
the Orange County Register that online sales had been sort of slow when
they reopened May 27. Then on Saturday, May 30, in the wake of
Minneapolis cops killing George Floyd, something unusual happened,
Fugate says.
“On a good day, an incredible day, we’d get maybe 25 orders,” he said.
“That Saturday, we must have had 400 orders. Sunday, we had maybe close
to 900 orders, and Monday, about 2,300.” Eso Wan carries Pathfinder titles.
Los Angeles volunteers Nick Castle and Betsy Whittaker visited a Black
bookstore owner in nearby Long Beach who had just reopened. She said she
“needed some of our books right away. People were lined up around the
block.”
Kendrick told the Militant he has been calling bookstores across
Missouri, Kansas, and as far away as Texas and Louisiana. He reached one
in New Orleans, which ordered 125 books, including titles by Malcolm X
and Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? by SWP National Secretary Jack
Barnes.
Malcolm X emerged as the most powerful voice speaking out against racism
and for Black rights in the 1950s and ’60s, first as a leader of the
Nation of Islam. He broke with the Nation as his political outlook
broadened, becoming in the last year of his life, Barnes says in Malcolm
X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power, “the authentic voice
of the forces of the coming American Revolution.”
In Canada, like in the U.S., anti-racist protests have taken place in
small towns and rural communities, as well as large cities, Rosemary Ray
reported from Hamilton, Ontario. She called a bookstore 50 miles west in
a small town of 12,000. “People want to get books on racism,” the owner
told her. Ray took a phone order for Pathfinder’s titles by Malcolm X,
and plans to visit the store.
“These smaller stores are also in tune with the times,” she said.
One store in Kansas City placed a large order for different Malcolm X
titles; as well as for Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to
Workers Power; How Far We Slaves Have Come! by Nelson Mandela and Fidel
Castro, and other books.
A store in Texas placed a large order, including titles on the Cuban
Revolution and by Thomas Sankara, the leader of the 1983-87 popular
revolution in Burkina Faso. And orders for the new edition of The Jewish
Question, by Abram Leon, about the origins and character of the
working-class fight against Jew hatred, are also beginning to come in.
We’ll keep readers posted on the results of the sales campaign.
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Also In This Issue
Protests boost interest in books on working-class politics, history
SWP ‘stimulus’ appeal at $143,600, more to come
Protesters: Prosecute cops who killed Breonna Taylor!
Philadelphia: Political fight breaks out over Jew-hatred
London bans China’s Huawei, looks for trade bloc with US
As crisis deepens, workers fight boss attacks on jobs, conditions
Sugar workers in Iran on strike since June over unpaid wages
Belarus protests erupt over presidential election results
Socialist Workers Party 2020 campaign platform
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‘American workers: Stop your rulers throttling our revolution’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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Carl Sagan
“Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder
and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to
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prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
