Forbes, “The World Need Not Burn Out On Laura Jane Grace”
Laura Jane Grace felt conflicted. At the close of 2017, the 38-year-old Against Me! frontwoman just finished a two-month tour which capped off a cycle of shows and press that coincided with the release of her band’s seventh album, Shape Shift With Me, and her tell-all memoir, Tranny: Confessions of Punk Rock’s Most Infamous Anarchist […]
Chicago Magazine, “Why Anthony Rayson, Anarchist Grandpa, Sends Zines to Prison”
You can usually find Anthony Rayson, 64, in the bright wood sunroom at the rear of his home in south suburban Monee. Through the window, there’s a sandbox and kids toys for Rayson’s grandson, when he visits. At a small table, he lays out apple slices for guests. The room is stuffed with bookshelves, and […]
Chicago Tribune, “Second City and the Democratic Convention: When Abbie Hoffman improvised about himself”
Fifty years ago, the political activist and anarchist Abbie Hoffman, a co-founder of the Yippies, was arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Along with other members of the so-called Chicago Eight — which, following the separation of one prosecution, later became the Chicago Seven — Hoffman was charged with conspiracy and intent […]
CBS Chicago, “Great Places To Visit On Chicago’s West Side”
Haymarket produce district. Chicagoans gathered in the streets to watch anarchist activists speak, from atop a freight wagon, about the violent death of workers during a labor dispute that occurred during the previous day elsewhere in the city. When about 175 police officers arrived to disperse the spectators, a dynamite bomb was thrown at them, […]
Chicago Tribune, “Public insults? Chicago’s potentially offensive monuments, street names and other symbols”
Lucy Parsons Park: When Chicago announced in 2004 that a park would be named for labor activist Parsons, the police union opposed such an honor for a “known anarchist.” And indeed she was that. Her husband, Albert Parsons, was one of four anarchists executed after the 1886 Haymarket bombing, and she may well have been […]
Chicago Reader, “Teaching Chicagoans that in Rojava, resistance is life”
It’s also gained the admiration of the Western left for its secular political system. Known as Democratic Confederalism, it’s a libertarian socialist political system developed by Öcalan that’s based on the ideas of American anarchist and ecologist Murray Bookchin. At heart, Rojava’s utopian status comes from its rise out of the ashes of a patriarchal […]
Chicago Tribune, “Exhibit on U.S. spies and traitors hopes to speak to present day”
“We have sometimes gone too far,” Russick says, noting what happened with the so-called anarchist riot at Haymarket Square here in Chicago: “People were executed, and people who were sitting in prison were later exonerated. There can be pitfalls to clamping down.” Continue Reading
Chicago Reader, “The radical queer punks at Fed Up Fest throw a fund-raising Rock Lotto show”
Even in the explicitly inclusive realm of queer punk, though, not everyone feels at home. Growing up and going to shows in Portland, Oregon, in the mid-2000s, Ornelas was exposed to riot grrrl, anarchism, and queercore, while also coming to identify as genderqueer (Ornelas uses “they/them” pronouns when necessary). “It was coming together in me. […]
Chicago Tribune, “The marches were uplifting, but what happens now?”
But not all protests have been successful, he said. An example of a failed one, he said, is the Chicago 1886 Haymarket Riot, which was intended to address the labor unions’ desire for an eight hour workday. A bombing by an anarchist resulted in the death of police officers, protesters and the execution of the […]
Radical Faggot: #BlackOutPride Action Disrupts Chicago Pride Parade
#BlackOutPride Action Disrupts Chicago Pride Parade Radical Faggot, June 28, 2015 Members of the Black queer community of Chicago are disrupting the Chicago Pride Parade. Here is their public statement: On this day in 1969, Sylvia Rivera, a Boricua trans woman, threw the bottle that sparked the infamous Stonewall Riot. A year later, she and […]