Mary Anne Trasciatti teaches rhetoric, women’s studies, and labor studies at Hofstra University. She is writing a book on Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s free speech activism.
Eighty years ago today, the leadership of the ACLU voted to expel labor radical and founding member Elizabeth Gurley Flynn for her Communist Party membership. It was a stunning capitulation to red-baiting — and a reminder that liberal-radical alliances are often a tenuous thing.
The execution of Sacco and Vanzetti ninety years ago today is a reminder of how the American state treats radicals.
As we build a movement to thwart Trump and win genuine social change, the activist life of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is instructive.
The Verizon strike recaptured some of the uncompromising militancy of the early American labor movement.