Wooden Shoe Book, 704 South Street, Philadelphia PA 19147. 260 years of bloody colonial history - an illustrated talk. A mighty counter blast to the deoiction of Quaker, Willaim Penn as a peace lover and promoter of brotherhood and religious freedom. It will include: how Penn's family accumulated their wealth over five generations; their constant anti-republicanism; their involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the bloody colonial British expansion into Ireland, Jamaica and America. It […]
USA 2011
Brecht Forum, 451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets, New York, NY 10014 Phone: (212) 242-4201 - Email: brechtforum at brechtforum.org Despite the cheerleading you may have seen in the media about the Diamond Jubilee of the British Monarch, a wave of nausea and apathy, rather than nationalism has suffused 'Albion' of late. Echoes of the English Revolution of the 1640s still haunt the British Royals; an historic event which led to the first modern popular Republic and culminated in […]
This week marks the 75th anniversary of the 'Barcelona Maydays' an uprising in response to the Republican Government's attempt to seize power in revolutionary Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War. Tensions had been building over several months between the anarcho-syndicalist CNT membership and the Soviet controlled Republican army which centred on the questions of militarisation and 'War or Revolution'? When armed 'Communist Party' units attacked the Telephone exchange in Barcelona, thousands […]
On Tuesday May 4th 1886 near the Haymarket, Chicago, police attempted to violently disperse 200 remaining members of a peaceful demonstration called to protest about the police killing the day before of two workers at a strike at the McCormick Reaper Works. As the police moved against the crowd a bomb was thrown by an unknown person which killed a police officer and in the ensuing chaos the police opened fire killing and wounding demonstrators and police alike. In the days following the incident […]
Using a magical "live animation " technique, Roots of Resistance celebrates the rise of radical ecological activism in the last 20 years: from the treetops of Newbury to the tops of power station chimneys. It draws together personal stories, and brings to life both legendary and more recent victories, in an inspiring call to action.
Ben Tillett ~ Working class friend or foe? A talk and discussion led by Jim McNeill To launch Bristol Radical History Group's new pamphlet, "Ben Tillett" this talk will cover the life and work of this Bristol-born, Trade Union leader. Tillett was the fiery and outspoken leader of numerous dock strikes from 1888 to 1914 in Bristol, London, Hull and elsewhere. However, by the outbreak of the First World War he, along with many union and Labour Party leaders, had become an open class collaborator […]
We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause and will rearange this event for a date in the near future. Steve Higginson will interpret the re-birth of misogyny by looking at the period of the Great Plague, 1345 onwards, and the great moralising discourse that swept across Europe post plaque. Located within this discourse of purity, women were viewed as both cause and effect of the plague, and were to be "enclosed" accordingly within the domestic sphere. The purity campaign against women […]
Meet at 2pm at Hydra Books for a History Walk through the streets of Old Market and Central Bristol, where Bristol Radical History Group members will recount the stories associated with the various scenes on route.
February 23rd 1932 was the scene of a confrontation between the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement and the police. To mark the 80th anniversary, historians Roger Ball and Dave Backwith will consider the impact of the events of that day and the wider context of the struggles of the unemployed during the great depression. Dave backwith is a researcher of Bristol’s working class history in the inter war years particularly 1919 and the unemployed workers movement in the 1930's. He is a family and […]
Minor Compositions is a research – theorizing – publishing project whose aim is to bring together, develop, and mutate forms of autonomist thought and practice, avant-garde aesthetics, and an everyday approach to politics. This draws a good deal of inspiration from history of militant research and workers’ inquiry, expanding it beyond inquiry into particular workplaces into a more general investigation of cultural labor, social reproduction, and the relationship between radical politics and […]
