7/21: Truth and Revolution / Michael Staudenmaier @ Iowa City Public Library
A discussion with Michael Staudenmaier, author of Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization 1969-1986, and Alan Rausch, a former member of the Sojourner Truth Organization on New Left organizing in the 1970s.
About Truth and Revolution: In the 1970s and 1980s, as the movements of the sixties receded from view, the revolutionary left in the United States went through a series of profound political, demographic, and cultural transformations as it struggled to find its footing in a rapidly changing world. The unorthodox political agenda of the Sojourner Truth Organization represents a small but powerfully resonant thread running through this arc of history. Drawing on detailed archival research and oral interviews, Truth and Revolution skillfully combines social and intellectual history approaches to shed light on both the theory and the practice of STO. Perhaps most famous for its theoretical formulations of white skin privilege, the group also developed a novel analysis of class consciousness that reflected its commitment to an autonomist Marxism. In all the major arenas of its work—factory organizing, anti-imperialist solidarity, anti-nuclear and anti-fascist struggles, among many others—STO combined a strategic assessment of the urgent tasks facing an activist left with a theoretical sophistication that merits sustained attention. Historian Michael Staudenmaier also includes a final chapter linking the legacy of STO directly to the challenges facing twenty-first century radicals.
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