Vol. 73/No. 14      April 13, 2009

Vicky Mercier, a subscriber from Toronto, responded right away to the appeal for funds with this message: “I’ve been enjoying the coverage on the Havana book fair and I was very inspired by the remarks from the Cuban panelists on Teamster Rebellion and Habla Malcolm X. I always look forward to the arrival of the Militant! I would like to pledge $100 toward the fund drive.”

The eight-week campaign helps raise money to cover basic operating expenses like printing, mailing costs, rent, and equipment, as well as travel for covering events like the recent Havana International Book Fair. The chart on this page shows the current pledges and the amount collected so far.

“We raised $2,355 in pledges this past weekend in North Carolina,” reports Rachele Fruit, a sewing machine operator who is the organizer of the fund campaign in Atlanta. Militant readers in North Carolina organized a dinner where Fruit gave a talk on the value of the Militant and what it shows about the developing resistance by working people in the face of the worldwide crisis of capitalism. Readers also discussed the paper’s coverage of the Havana book fair and the important discussions in Cuba about working-class struggles in the United States.

Fruit says one of the participants was a North Carolina A&T student who met socialist campaigners one week earlier at a conference of the National Council of Black Studies. At the dinner she bought a subscription to the Militant and a copy of New International no. 14 featuring the article “Revolution, Internationalism, and Socialism: The Last Year of Malcolm X.”

Atlanta supporters are holding a fund-drive dinner and panel discussion April 4 that will feature Socialist Workers Party leader Dave Prince. Similar meetings focusing on world politics today are planned the same weekend in Los Angeles, with SWP leader Norton Sandler and in Vancouver, Canada, featuring Michel Prairie, Communist League candidate for mayor of Montreal. Supporters will be holding meetings in many more cities in the coming weeks.

As campaigners sell subscriptions in the coming weeks, talking to everyone about how they can help with a contribution—no matter how modest—will increase the number of workers who make possible the coverage you can find nowhere else.

To make a contribution or find out about a fund meeting in your area, contact a distributor listed on page 6 or write directly to the Militant at the address on page 2.

$105,000 'Militant' Fund Drive: March 21–May 19