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Vol. 74/No. 5      February 8, 2010

 
Sell the book on ‘Workers Power’
 
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS  
The campaign to read and sell copies of Pathfinder’s new book Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Jack Barnes is off to a good start.

The book draws lessons from the past century and a half of class struggle in the United States and points to the role that workers who are Black will play in the mass social movement that will make a proletarian revolution.

“Don’t start with Blacks as an oppressed nationality,” writes Barnes. “Start with the vanguard place and weight of workers who are Black in broad proletarian-led social and political struggles in the United States. From the Civil War to today, the record is mind-boggling. It’s the strength and resilience, not the oppression, that bowls you over.”

A focus of the sales drive is reaching out to Black workers in neighborhoods where they live and at workplaces, as many will be especially interested in the contents of this book.

“After one week we have sold six new books and Militant renewals,” writes Frank Forrestal about sales at the Dakota Premium beef slaughterhouse in South St. Paul, Minnesota. “We have concentrated on Black coworkers. One, who works near me, has given a helping hand, suggesting other people to talk to. Based on his suggestions, two other Black workers on the kill floor took the book to look over and will probably pick it up.”

In Seattle a couple of workers originally from Ethiopia purchased the book. One renewed his Militant subscription and the other bought an introductory one, writes Edwin Fruit. “We need to fight for the future for all of us and this is what the book seems to be about,” one commented. Supporters in Seattle have sold five Militant renewals. Each of the subscribers has bought the new book.

Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power can be purchased for just $10, half the cover price, with any subscription or renewal to the Militant, or together with Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, or Is Socialist Revolution in the U.S. Possible? (See ad for special offer on page 6.)

“All five workers at a small industrial laundry and sewing shop in Oakland, California, picked up a copy of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power,” writes Eric Simpson from San Francisco. Four of these workers purchased the book along with at least one of the other specially discounted Pathfinder titles.

Widely distributing the Militant supplement containing the new book’s introduction is one of the best ways of getting more people interested in the entire book. Arranging to promptly get back to these individuals for further discussion can boost book sales.

Additional copies of the English supplement have just been reprinted and can be purchased for 50 cents from distributors listed on page 8. The supplement in Spanish is also available, and one in French will be printed February 4. The Spanish edition of the book will be available by the end of March. It can be preordered now for $10 along with a Militant subscription or with one of the three specially discounted Pathfinder titles.

Militant supporters are encouraged to take goals for sales of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power between now and June 1. In Des Moines, Iowa, supporters have adopted a goal of 80 and are organizing a weekly class on the book, reports Maggie Trowe.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Militant’ supporters respond to interest in communist paper
Vanguard place of Blacks dates to Reconstruction
New Pathfinder title in bookstores  
 
 
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