BY TED LEONARD

NEWARK, New Jersey - The 10-week-long Pathfinder fund drive began September 1 with local targets reaching $106,000 of the $125,000 goal. The main challenge over the next week is to get in goals from all local areas that surpass the $125,000 international target, accelerate collection from those who've already made pledges, and begin reaching out to fighting workers and youth for new contributions. The fund is aimed at raising the resources to ensure that the hundreds of Pathfinder books and pamphlets can be reprinted in a timely way so that they remain available to working-class fighters.

Supporters in New York City are preparing for the annual "New York is Book Country" book fair. They got warmed up last weekend by selling over two dozen books at a huge Caribbean parade and festival in Brooklyn.

"At previous `Book Country,' fairs thousands of people from Manhattan and around the world learned about Pathfinder books from volunteers at our booth," explained Tamar Rosenfeld, Pathfinder Bookstore Director in New York. "This year thousands more will learn about these indispensable weapons."

"New York is Book Country" is a series of events that climaxes with a bookfair that sprawls down 5th Avenue on Sunday, September 29. The fair attracts up to 250,000 people. Pathfinder supporters are promoting several events to draw interest in the revolutionary books including a screening and discussion on Friday of "The Baku Congress 1920," historic film footage, and on Saturday a discussion on revolutionary Cuba, based on Ernesto Che Guevara's, Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War - both at the Pathfinder Bookstore in Manhattan.

An "author talk" with Olga Rodríguez, editor of The Politics of Chicano Liberation, will be featured on Saturday at the Pathfinder Bookstore in Brooklyn. At the Pathfinder Mural Bookstore in Manhattan a discussion on the book Cosmetics, Fashion and the Exploitation of Women is also scheduled for Saturday.

"An important part of this weekend will be explaining the whole arsenal of Pathfinder titles, why and how they are kept in print and the role of the current Pathfinder Fund to help finance that process," explained Rosenfeld. One of the displays at the booth on Sunday will highlight the $125,000 Pathfinder Fund. As well, the programs at the Manhattan Bookstore will include a presentation on the reprint fund and a collection.

Pathfinder supporters in Christchurch, New Zealand, got their fundraising off to a strong start August 30 at a meeting that also celebrated the Pathfinder Mural. More than $1,300 was pledged toward the fund. Organizing such meetings around the world rapidly is indispensable to boosting the fund drive.

Malcolm McAllister was the keynote speaker in Christchurch. McAllister helped organize the Pathfinder Mural project, which drew dozens of artists from around the world into painting the six-story mural on the side of the Pathfinder Building in New York in the late 1980s. McAllister painted portraits of Eloi Machoro, a leader of the Kanak people of the South Pacific, of Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin, and other leaders of the Communist International. "The mural stood for seven years, a billboard of revolutionary politics," he explained. But the mural is now faded and water is seeping through the wall when it rains so that it is affecting the production of revolutionary literature in the long term - the very reason for Pathfinder's existence. In order to repair the wall the mural will have to be removed. McAllister explained that the slogan of Pathfinder supporters must be, "Sell the books, produce the books, read the books."

Supporters of the fund in Newark, New Jersey, are making plans for their participation in the New Brunswick, New Jersey, Book Fair September 21 where they will also seek new contributions to the fund.

With goals in from 14 cities, the Pathfinder 1996 Fund is building toward the $125,000 goal. Those wishing to make a contribution toward the fund should make checks payable to Pathfinder and send them to: Pathfinder, 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014 or contact the nearest Pathfinder distributor listed in the directory on page 12.  
 
 
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