The People's Forum

James Counts Early joins Manolo De Los Santos and Claudia De La Cruz, Co-Executive Directors of The People’s Forum, for the tenth and final interview of New World Coming. For this episode, James becomes the interviewee and he discusses the personal and historical currents that developed his radicalization and informed his politics. They also discuss the conversations that led to the creation of New World Coming along with the legacy of Black liberation and socialist movements and struggles that we have drawn upon in this project. Finally, James shares his analysis of the role of identity expression in our movement, not as categories that divide us but as historical expressions of class struggle that unite us. To learn more about James, Manolo, and Claudia’s discussion, check out our Political Education platform at https://politicaleducation.peoplesforum.org/new-world-coming-ep-10 to see resources, texts, and a glossary of terms for each episode! New World Coming is a new interview series program produced by The People’s Forum. Our host for this program is James Counts Early, longtime thinker and collaborator of Afro-descendent movements and Black liberation struggles in the Americas. We will be interviewing scholars, activists, and leaders of the African diaspora on lessons from the history of anti-racist organizing.

OUT NOW! Click over to our YouTube page to watch the 9th episode of New World Coming: Working-class Pan-Africanism! In this interview, James Early is in conversation with Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, editor and researcher with the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. In this conversation, James and Mikaela discuss how popular movements are reviving Africa’s historical struggle for socialism. This episode is available on our YouTube page and on Apple podcast/Spotify! Subscribe and follow to find out about future episodes!

For the past 4 years, the Haitian people have continuously mobilized in protest against inhumane living standards, rapid inflation and skyrocketing fuel prices, and most recently, rejecting calls for foreign intervention and demanding the resignation of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ariel Henry. As significant sectors of the US media and foreign policy elite prepare the ground for further intervention, we ask, what would military intervention mean for the Haitian people? What has led to the protracted crisis we are witnessing today? What does the Haitian fight for sovereignty look like, and what do the people demand? Listen to this conversation with historian Vijay Prashad, Haitian-American professor and activist Mamyrah Prosper and on-the-ground journalist Jackson Jean as they give us insight into the reality of the crisis in Haiti and the state of the people’s struggle.

James Counts Early is joined by Barbara Ransby, historian, writer, activist in the Movement for Black Lives, and author of important texts like Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century (2018) and Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (2013). In this conversation, they discuss the important legacy of Black feminism and how capitalism cannot be undone without the destroying patriarchy, the current and active history of the Black Lives Matter movement, and why the struggle for Black liberation in the U.S. must be connected to global struggles for liberation. To learn more about James and Barbara’s discussion, check out our Political Education platform at https://politicaleducation.peoplesforum.org/new-world-coming-ep-7 to see resources, texts, and a glossary of terms for each episode! New World Coming is a new interview series program produced by The People’s Forum. Our host for this program is James Counts Early, longtime thinker and collaborator of Afro-descendent movements and Black liberation struggles in the Americas. We will be interviewing scholars, activists, and leaders of the African diaspora on lessons from the history of anti-racist organizing.

James Counts Early is joined by Esteban Morales Domínguez, economist, social scientist, militant participant of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and pioneering scholar on the question of race and racism in Cuba. In this conversation, they discuss the strategies for confronting and beginning to resolve racism and discrimination in Cuban society, how the Cuban government has worked to put in place the conditions for ideological and social change, and what our solidarity task is as organizers within the United States. To learn more about James and Esteban’s discussion, check out our Political Education platform at https://politicaleducation.peoplesfor... to see resources, texts, and a glossary of terms for each episode!

James Counts Early is joined by activist and doctor, Mary Louise Patterson, to discuss Mary Louise’s upbringing under two leading organizers with the Communist Party USA, the importance of community and family in the lifelong struggle for liberation, and her Cuba solidarity work with IFCO/Pastors for Peace. Mary Louise Patterson is an activist and doctor trained in the former Soviet Union at the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University in Moscow. She works with Physicians for a National Health Program and is a member of the IFCO/Pastors for Peace medical committee for the Latin American Medical School (ELAM) in Havana, Cuba. Mary Louise is also the daughter of militant Communist Party USA members William L. Patterson and Louise Thompson Patterson.

For Episode 4 of New World Coming, James Counts Early is joined by historian, activist, and former diplomat, Jesus “Chucho” Garcia to discuss the complexities of the state, social and civil organizations, and the people working together to deepen the principles of the Bolivarian Revolution. They also discuss the power relations of developing democracy, the struggle for reparations in Latin America, and his career work of studying African history. Jesus “Chucho” Garcia is the founder of Fundación AfroAmérica Y Diáspora Africana and former Venezuelan Ambassador to Angola. To learn more about James and Chucho’s discussion, check out our Political Education platform at https://politicaleducation.peoplesforum.org/new-world-coming-ep-4 to see resources, texts, and a glossary of terms for each episode! New World Coming is an interview series program produced by The People’s Forum. Our host for this program is James Counts Early, longtime thinker and collaborator of Afro-descendent movements and Black liberation struggles in the Americas. We will be interviewing scholars, activists, and leaders of the African diaspora on lessons from the history of anti-racist organizing.

James Counts Early is joined by British historian Hakim Adi to discuss history as a tool for social political change, culture as a place to challenge the power relations of society, and how the global communist struggle attracted revolutionaries from across the world. Hakim Adi is a Professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester.To learn more about James and Hakim’s discussion, check out our Political Education platform to see resources, texts, and a glossary of terms for each episode! New World Coming is an interview series program produced by The People’s Forum. Our host for this program is James Counts Early, longtime thinker and collaborator of Afro-descendent movements and Black liberation struggles in the Americas. We will be interviewing scholars, activists, and leaders of the African diaspora on lessons from the history of anti-racist organizing.

James Counts Early is joined by scholar and activist Zuleica Romay Guerra to discuss the history of Afro-descendants in Cuba’s historic struggle for liberation, what anti-racism work looks like in Cuba, and the complexities of what comes after revolution. Zuleica is the Director of Afro-american Studies at Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba. This episode features a dubbed translation of Zuleica's responses read by Claudia De la Cruz, Co-Executive Director of The People's Forum. To learn more about James and Zuleica’s discussion, check out our Political Education platform to see resources, texts, and a glossary of terms for each episode! New World Coming is an interview series program produced by The People’s Forum. Our host for this program is James Counts Early, longtime thinker and collaborator of Afro-descendent movements and Black liberation struggles in the Americas. We will be interviewing scholars, activists, and leaders of the African diaspora on lessons from the history of anti-racist organizing.

James Counts Early is joined by historian and activist Robin D.G. Kelley to discuss Robin’s career work on racial capitalism, multiculturalism and identity, and the history of the struggle for socialism.

Listen to the history and legacy of a true internationalist, feminist visionary, Clara Zetkin. This podcast is a Zoom recording of one of the sessions of our Revolutionary Feminism course. This session was taught by David Chung of the People's Forum and Kavita Kabeer of All Indian People's Science Network. Clara Zetkin was a leader in early socialist and feminist movements, often known as the "grandmother of German communism." Zetkin co-organized the International Socialist Women’s Congress, the Spartacist League, International Women’s Day, and opposition to World War I, fascism, and the Nazi party. In 1919, she became a founding member of the German Communist Party. Her feminist analysis was rooted in and with the exploited class; in her words, socialism was the only movement that "could truly serve the needs of working-class women.

Under capitalism, gender oppression and violence is a permanent condition. State violence, domestic violence, femicide, and economic marginalization are real and urgent issues for women both in the United States and internationally, and we must fight for another world! However, we know that no revolution has been possible without the struggle, organization, and leadership of women. For this reason, we must study the legacy of revolutionary women that came before us.

Jim Crow was not a regional sickness, it was a national cancer. Even at the high point of twentieth century liberalism in the North, Jim Crow racism hid in plain sight. Perpetuated by colorblind arguments about “cultures of poverty,” policies focused more on black criminality than black equality. Procedures that diverted resources in education, housing, and jobs away from poor black people turned ghettos and prisons into social pandemics. Liberalism, rather than lighting the way to vanquish the darkness of the Jim Crow North gave racism new and complex places to hide. Americans in the North made this history. They tried to unmake it, too.

Jim Crow was not a regional sickness, it was a national cancer. Even at the high point of twentieth century liberalism in the North, Jim Crow racism hid in plain sight. Perpetuated by colorblind arguments about “cultures of poverty,” policies focused more on black criminality than black equality. Procedures that diverted resources in education, housing, and jobs away from poor black people turned ghettos and prisons into social pandemics. Liberalism, rather than lighting the way to vanquish the darkness of the Jim Crow North gave racism new and complex places to hide. Americans in the North made this history. They tried to unmake it, too. Join The Peoples Forum and the editors and contributors of the anthology The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle Outside of the South (NYU Press, 2019) for a two-day investigation into the system of institutionalized racism created by Northern Jim Crow.

Hybrid Wars, Sactions and more. Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Chief Editor of Leftword Books, delivers a presentation on Hybrid Wars and U.S. Imperialism at "Holding the Future Hostage: A Conference on Hybrid Wars, Sanctions, and Solidarity," held on Oct. 19, 2019 at The People's Forum in New York City.

Class 12: Bastiat and Carey, Pages 881-893 & Reprise. A new podcast series featuring David Harvey teaching Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. Recorded live in 2020 first at The People's Forum and then in quarantine, these 12 accessible lectures both guide the reader through the major themes of Marx's seminal text, as well as feature contemporary commentary relating the text to the pandemic and economic crisis. David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at CUNY.

Class 11: The Chapter on Capital, Pages 759-880. A new podcast series featuring David Harvey teaching Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. Recorded live in 2020 first at The People's Forum and then in quarantine, these 12 accessible lectures both guide the reader through the major themes of Marx's seminal text, as well as feature contemporary commentary relating the text to the pandemic and economic crisis. David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at CUNY.

Class 10: The Chapter on Capital, Pages 707-758. A new podcast series featuring David Harvey teaching Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. Recorded live in 2020 first at The People's Forum and then in quarantine, these 12 accessible lectures both guide the reader through the major themes of Marx's seminal text, as well as feature contemporary commentary relating the text to the pandemic and economic crisis. David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at CUNY.

Class 9: The Chapter on Capital, Pages 668-706. A new podcast series featuring David Harvey teaching Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. Recorded live in 2020 first at The People's Forum and then in quarantine, these 12 accessible lectures both guide the reader through the major themes of Marx's seminal text, as well as feature contemporary commentary relating the text to the pandemic and economic crisis. David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at CUNY.

Class 8: The Chapter on Capital, Pages 595-668. A new podcast series featuring David Harvey teaching Marx's Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft). Written during the winter of 1857-8, the Grundrisse was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory. Recorded live in 2020 first at The People's Forum and then in quarantine, these 12 accessible lectures both guide the reader through the major themes of Marx's seminal text, as well as feature contemporary commentary relating the text to the pandemic and economic crisis. David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at CUNY.