Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Communist Party Leader to Visit The University of Memphis

Comrades,

Make sure to pick up today's copy of The Daily Helmsman and check out the front page story on Jarvis Tyner's talk tomorrow at 7 p.m. in Mitchell Auditorium!


The full text of the article by Erica Horton can be read below.

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With the presidential debates officially over and election night nearing, people are still discussing the issues and needs of the American people.

Jarvis Tyner, civil rights activist and executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA, will speak to students in the Mitchell Hall auditorium Thursday at 7 p.m. on the topic, “We Who Believe in Freedom Cannot Rest: The Great Challenge of the 2012 Elections.”

Free and open to the public, the event is hosted by the Marxist Student Union, the Graduate Association for African American History, the University of Memphis chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Student Event Allocation Committee.

James Raines, former student and vice president of the Marxist Student Union at the U of M, helped plan the event.

“I think this is important because of the challenges that we’re facing in these upcoming elections. There has been a lot of noise from the right wing,” he said. “A lot of the attacks on President Obama have been racist. A lot of noise we hear out of the Romney camp has been sexist and homophobic.”

Raines said Tyner will present an alternative vision to the right wing noise.

“I think he’s going to highlight the fact that the struggle for equality and civil rights is still going on in America,” Raines said.

He said students should pay attention to the election because of the overwhelming debt some students will face when they graduate and because who is elected will affect the laws in their work place and personal lives.

“The overall message I think that’s going to be presented is also of putting people before profits. I think that’s what’s really at stake here,” he said. “As Americans, which do we think is more important — that some multi-billion corporations make 10 percent more or people have jobs where they can earn a living wage and that they can work with dignity?” 

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In solidarity,

The University of Memphis Marxists

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Jarvis Tyner at the University of Memphis this Thursday

Comrades,

Jarvis Tyner, the executive vice chair of the Communist Party USA and founding member of the Black Radical Congress, will be giving a talk  "We Who Believe in Freedom Can Not Rest: the Great Challenge of the 2012 Elections" this Thursday October 25th at 7 p.m. in Mitchell Auditorium.

Thanks to the generous support of the Graduate Association for African-American History pizza and soda will be provided.

Hope to see you all there!





In solidarity,

The University of Memphis Marxists 

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Black Panthers and other Histories Video and Audio Recordings

Comrades,

In preparation for Michael Blum's talk, "We Want Power: Black Power and Community Control in Tennessee" on October 17, we have found an excellent resource online for anyone interested in the topic.

At Black Panthers and Other Histories you can find both the 1968 documentary "Black Panthers - Huey!" the 1968 Black Panther newsreels, Angela Davis' talk on the prison industrial complex, the documentary "Prisons on Fire," and Aaron Dixon's "The History of the Black Panthers."

It also has close to one hundred other films and audio files on everything from dialectics to racial violence, from Cointelpro to the struggle of indigenous peoples. It really is a great resource for anyone interested in the topic.

In Solidarity,

The University of Memphis Marxists