Contributors’ checks are needed now, not simply by the end of the drive. The fund allows Pathfinder to continue its month-to-month efforts to publish and reprint its entire arsenal of books and pamphlets on revolutionary working-class politics.
Good news came in recently from Australia. Following a successful Pathfinder fund appeal event in Sydney on September 14, increasing contributions to more than $850 and boosting pledges, Pathfinder supporters there decided to increase their goal to $1,500, reports fund director Linda Harris.
The meeting featured Rebecca Williamson, a member of the Young Socialists in the United States. She outlined some of the working-class struggles she has been part of and built solidarity with, from the West Coast longshore workers’ fight, to a farm workers’ rally in Sacramento, to actions against police brutality.
Boost to fund in San Francisco
Pathfinder supporters from Los Angeles to Seattle have been busy. "The Pathfinder Fund got a boost from an appeal made at the Militant Labor Forum in San Francisco on September 21," writes Deborah Liatos.
Nearly $1,500 was brought in, bringing the total collected in the Bay Area to nearly 40 percent of the area goal of $8,500. Participants gave more than $700 in new pledges. To date, 40 people have contributed or pledged to the Pathfinder Fund in the area, and fund campaigners are working to raise that number as they build an October 19 fund event to celebrate the publication of Pathfinder’s new book, October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis as Seen from Cuba by Cuban author Tomás Diez Acosta.
Pathfinder supporters have encountered a keen interest in the publications at book fairs around the United States. Emily Fitzsimmons reports that at the September 29 New York Is Book Country event, people crowded around the Pathfinder booth throughout the day. By closing time more than $1,200 in books had been sold, including 14 copies of October 1962: The "Missile" Crisis as Seen from Cuba and its Spanish-language counterpart published in Havana.
Gale Shangold, the organizer of the work of volunteer Pathfinder sales representatives in New York, reported that she and others visited the booths of several bookstores and libraries at the New York event. "We were able to drop off catalogs, introduce some people to Pathfinder, and get the names of buyers to follow up on," she said.
In Detroit, Pathfinder sales reps from Chicago and Detroit teamed up to visit 33 buyers at the Great Lakes Trade Book Association event, where they got two orders and the possibility of more, Ilona Gersh reports.
Pathfinder supporters sold more than $700 worth of books at the Baltimore Book Festival, Janice Lynn writes, and then headed to American University in Washington for a forum titled "Déja Vu ‘62: the Cuban Missile Crisis Today," where they featured the new book on the missile crisis.
Contributions to the fund can be sent to the Militant, 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014, with checks made out to Pathfinder.
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