Sunday, March 28, 2010
7:00-9:00pm
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church
14311 Wells Port Drive, west of I-35 off Wells Branch Parkway.
http://www.staopen.com/
UT professor Robert Jensen will interview Fletcher onstage, questioning him about the social justice movements that have been the focus of his life and work. What lessons about the today’s crises can we draw from Fletcher’s experience in the struggle for racial and economic justice, at home and abroad? Drawing on Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and A New Path toward Social Justice, his 2009 book co-authored with Fernando Gapasin, Fletcher will offer new ideas for progressive organizing.
Fletcher, the executive editor of The Black Commentator web magazine and founder of the Center for Labor Renewal, is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, a national non-profit organization organizing, educating and advocating for justice for the peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. He is also a founder of the Black Radical Congress and a Senior Scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
Fletcher has served as Vice President for International Trade Union Development Programs for the AFL-CIO’s George Meany Center, as well as Education Director and Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO. Beginning in the labor movement as a rank-and-file member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, he combined labor and community work in efforts to desegregate the Boston building trades. He later served in leadership and staff positions in District 65-United Auto Workers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
For a copy of the provocative essay on “Reimagining Socialism” that Fletcher wrote with Barbara Ehrenreich for The Nation magazine, go to
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090323/ehrenreich_fletcher
Sponsored by:
Third Coast Activist Resource Center, http://thirdcoastactivist.org/
MonkeyWrench Books, http://www.monkeywrenchbooks.org/
Workers Defense Project, http://workersdefense.org/
The event is free and open to the public, with a suggested donation of $10 at the door.
For more information, contact Robert Jensen at 471-1990 or rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
AND
“The Crisis facing Working People: A New Path toward Social Justice”
a talk by Bill Fletcher, Jr., author of Solidarity Divided
Monday, March 29, 2010
3 p.m.
LBJ Conference Room (CMA 5.160)
Dean Keaton St. and Guadalupe
University of Texas at Austin
http://www.utexas.edu/maps/main/buildings/cma.html
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the executive editor of The Black Commentator web magazine and founder of the Center for Labor Renewal. A longtime labor, racial justice and international activist, he is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, a national non-profit organization organizing, educating and advocating for justice for the peoples of Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Fletcher is also a founder of the Black Radical Congress and a Senior Scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.
A graduate of Harvard University, Fletcher is the co-author (with Fernando Gapasin) of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and A New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press, 2009). He has served as Vice President for International Trade Union Development Programs for the AFL-CIO’s George Meany Center, as well as Education Director and Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO. Beginning in the labor movement as a rank-and-file member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America, he combined labor and community work in efforts to desegregate the Boston building trades. He later served in leadership and staff positions in District 65-United Auto Workers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
This event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Senior Fellows honors program of the College of Communication and the Center for African and African American Studies of the University of Texas at Austin. For more information, contact Robert Jensen at (512) 471-1990 or rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
For more events, please visit: http://www.austintexassoul.org/events
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