In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action, we steady our shaken selves through the strength of racial justice activists in Robert Shetterly’s Portraits of Racial Justice: Americans Who Tell the Truth. Starting with Barbara Johns (1935–1991), featured on the cover, we remember that affirmative action for equity needs to start earlier than college. Barbara Johns organized strikes against the public school system and negotiated a lawsuit that became one of the five reviewed in Brown vs. the Board of Education. Her firm belief in equitable education changed the face of the civil rights movement.

Don’t miss Arlene Goldbard’s article based on her recent talk at Bluestockings Cooperative bookstore that was organized by City Lore and Artists Alliance Inc, and sponsored by Creatives Rebuild New York. Her talk opened the program where she and other cultural leaders deliberated on the past and future support of artists’ labor.

Arlene Goldbard, the author of In The Camp of Angels of Freedom, introduces the topic and moderates a discussion among four panelists on the power of art to make social change. Arlene is introduced about five minutes into this program hosted by the Jewish Liberation Fund.

Talking to the Girls Review

Professor Maddalena Marinari has written a thoughtful review (especially for educators) on Talking to the Girls: Intimate and Political Essays on the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire edited by Edvige Giunta and Mary Ann Trasciatti.

Find it on Iperstoria, an open access journal published by the University of Verona, Italy.

Read the new review here!

Appalachian Roadside Theater; Plus . . .

Don't miss this Law and Disorder Podcast on the history of Roadside Theater and Appalachian culture in this interview with Ben Fink about the two-volume anthology Art in a Democracy: Selected Plays of Roadside Theater that he coedited. 

Diana Rothbard Margolis, author of We Built a Village: Cohousing and Commons and cofounder of Cambridge Cohousing gives a virtual tour of Cambridge Cohousing for the Fellowship of Intentional Community.

Margaret Randall, poet, activist, and author of four New Village titles including the forthcoming Luck, has three New Mexico readings for several of her many other works in July. 

July 8, 12:00 PM MT, Tranquibuzz Coffee Shop in Silver City. Reading and book signing.

July 9, 6:00 PM MT, Casa Camino Real Bookstore in Las Cruces. Reading, book signing, and reception.

July 12, 3:00 PM MT, Bosque Books in Albuquerque, with Richard Vargas. Reading and book signing.

July 20, 7:00 PM EST, Waldo Theatre,

Screening of Truth Tellers

This feature documentary film chronicles the lives of Americans fighting for peace, racial equity, environmental justice, and indigenous rights through the eyes of Robert Shetterly, a long-time activist and artist and the author of Portraits of Racial Justice and Portraits of Earth Justice.

The film Truth Tellers is a documentary about the more than 260 courageous Americans that Robert Shetterly has painted and honored. Find out how to bring it to your community.

Bagaduce Music

49 South Street, Blue Hill, ME

This collaborative fundraiser will benefit Americans Who Tell the Truth and Bagaduce Music with music and stories from both organizations and celebrate the power of music to connect the community and inspire work for the common good.

BALE, (Building A Local Economy) a community-building organization in Vermont’s White River Valley, is hosting a show of Robert Shetterly’s Americans Who Tell the Truth (AWTT) portraits from 2023. BALE describes its work: “we focus on such things as gratitude, conscious living, and valuing what is important to the human spirit.”

Portrait right of Leah Penniman, farmer, educator, and food justice advocate, is from Portraits of Earth Justice, in which Penniman's essay, "Black Land Matters" is featured.

We're excited for multi-award-winning cartoonist and New Village Press author, Keith Knight being featured at Comic-Con. Keith's work is famous for its urgency, edge, humor, satire, politics, and its candor on race. His cartoons appear worldwide, including in the Washington Post, New Yorker, San Francisco Chronicle, The Nib, and Ebony. His work is the inspiration for the television series Woke, on Hulu!

Have you seen Keith's "serious book" Beginner's Guide to Community-Based Arts?

Colorfully written and illustrated "anti-memoir" of the activist art writer Lucy Lippard

The roles that Christodora House has played from 19th-century settlement house to its newest forms.

Paperback, 256 pages12 b/w illustrations, 5.5 x 8.5 inch

Frank, breath-taking writing by more than fifty

arts-in-corrections educators

Fearless personal essays from treasured feminist poet

and activist, Margaret Randall

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Seventeen full-page line drawings by Barbara Byers

Paperback, 256 pages, 17 b/w illustrations, 5.83 x 8.27 inch