KPFA - Against the Grain

It took more than three generations of struggle to win the vote for half the population of the United States. The fight for women’s suffrage rose out of the battle for slavery’s abolition and later foundered in the backlash against Reconstruction, gaining new life with the social upheavals of the early 20th century. Historian Ellen Carol Dubois discusses the advances and setbacks, fractures and divisions of the 75-year-long struggle for women’s enfranchisement. Resources: Ellen Carol DuBois, Suffrage: Women’s Long Battle for the Vote Simon and Schuster, 2021 The post The 75-Year Struggle for Women’s Enfranchisement appeared first on KPFA.

The movement of Chinese people – around 300 million of them – from rural areas to China’s cities has been called the largest mass migration in human history. Have the working-class migrants who’ve built China’s megacities been rewarded for their efforts? Eli Friedman describes the obstacles and injustices they’ve encountered, particularly when trying to get schooling for their children. (Encore presentation.) Eli Friedman, The Urbanization of People: The Politics of Development, Labor Markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City Columbia University Press, 2022 (Image on main page by Matt Ming.) The post Migrant Workers in China appeared first on KPFA.

Pirates are some of the most immediately recognizable figures in popular culture –- and some of the most inaccurately represented. Historian Marcus Rediker argues that the actual pirates who lived during the 17th and 18th centuries created a remarkably egalitarian world for themselves at sea, democratically electing their leaders and sharing their takings equally. Resources: David Lester and Marcus Rediker, Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic, a Graphic Novel Beacon Press, 2023 Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age Verso, 2012 The post The Egalitarian World of Pirates appeared first on KPFA.

A women’s history-themed program featuring Bettina Aptheker on her efforts to assist Angela Davis and her turn toward feminism; Jennifer Guglielmo on Italian American women anarchists in New York City; and Manijeh Moradian on an Iranian women’s uprising amidst the revolutionary ferment of 1979. Bettina Aptheker, Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel Seal Press, 2006 Jennifer Guglielmo, Living the Revolution: Italian Women’s Resistance and Radicalism in New York City, 1880-1945 University of North Carolina Press, 2010 Manijeh Moradian, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States Duke University Press, 2022 The post Inspired Women appeared first on KPFA.

What can our fantasies about space tell us about life on earth? Fred Scharman discusses competing visions for long-term space occupancy over the last century and a half, many of them emanating from Russia and the United States even before the Cold War, and now monopolized by billionaires like Elon Musk. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Fred Scharmen, Space Forces: A Critical History of Life in Outer Space Verso, 2021 The post Conquering Outer Space appeared first on KPFA.

What makes one group of people show up and stand up for another group’s interests? Manijeh Moradian describes how what she calls affects of solidarity spurred Iranian student leftists in the U.S. to become active in Black liberation, Palestine liberation, and other radical movements and struggles of the 1960s and ‘70s. Manijeh Moradian, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States Duke University Press, 2022 The post Solidarity Across Difference appeared first on KPFA.

Following the attacks of September 11th, the administration of George W. Bush instituted the widespread use of coercive interrogations of detainees, as well as kidnapping, forced disappearance, and sham commission proceedings. Yet for the first several years of the “war on terror” little was known about what the U.S. state was doing to prisoners, until hundreds of lawyers — some from the left, but others even from the military itself — challenged the U.S. government in court. Sociologist Lisa Hajjar describes the legal fight against torture and its legacy now. (Encore presentation.) Resources: Lisa Hajjar, The War in Court: Inside the Long Fight against Torture UC Press, 2022 The post Litigating Torture appeared first on KPFA.

According to Jesse Olsavsky, vigilance committees in Philadelphia, Boston, and other northern cities constituted the militant, highly organized urban wing of the Underground Railroad. According to Olsavsky, the interviews conducted by vigilance committee members with runaways acted as crucial conduits for information, ideas, and strategies for resistance. (Encore presentation.) Jesse Olsavsky, The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861 LSU Press, 2022 (Image on main page by Melissa Grimes Guy.) The post The Vigilance Committees appeared first on KPFA.

Twenty years ago, Against the Grain came on the air for the first time, in the midst of turmoil, protest, and impending war. In the second half of a two part retrospective, historian Iain Boal discusses the context out of which Against the Grain emerged, from the media reform, global justice, and antiwar movements at the turn of the new century, to the program’s deeper roots in West Coast radicalism and radio. Photo credit of Sasha Lilley and C.S. Soong: Ilona Bray The post Against the Grain’s Beginnings appeared first on KPFA.

In the first of a two-show retrospective marking Against the Grain’s twentieth anniversary, C. S. presents excerpts of some of his favorite interviews. Featured are David Hawkes talking about money, magic, and ideology; Laura Kipnis on monogamous coupledom; Theodore Brown on the history of socialism; Juliet Hooker on “democratic loss” and Black activism; and Louise Erdrich on the search for answers to life’s big questions. (Image on main page by Upsilon Andromedae.) The post Celebrating Twenty Years appeared first on KPFA.