Vol. 78/No. 4      February 3, 2014

Nearly 3,000 signed up for a subscription during last fall’s campaign. Hundreds also bought books on working-class history and politics published by Pathfinder Press. Many of these subscriptions will expire in the coming weeks. If yours is one of them, we urge you to renew.

New and renewing readers around the world bought more than 750 copies of the nine books on special during the fall drive. This offer is still available. (See ad on page 3.)

“We have integrated the renewal work into our regular door-to-door campaigning,” reported David Rosenfeld, who organizes efforts to expand the paper’s readership in Des Moines, Iowa. “On Jan. 19 one team started by dropping by the homes of a number of readers whose subscriptions had just run out. We got one renewal and several subscribers asked us to check back with them in a couple of weeks.”

Tray Rochon, who runs a neighborhood barbershop, renewed when supporters visited him. After discussing the ongoing campaign to win freedom for the Cuban Five, which the Militant covers weekly, he volunteered to come up with a list of people who would be interested in getting involved.

Tom Baumann from Miami reported that he was invited to give a talk on “The Cuban Revolution in the World Today” at the Deerfield Progressive Forum in Deerfield Beach, Fla., Jan. 4.

Baumann said he described how workers and farmers of Cuba made their revolution, transforming themselves in the process. He spoke about Cuba’s role in defeating the apartheid South African army in Angola, and the importance of building the fight to win freedom for the Cuban Five.

“I also described the response we get selling the Militant and communist literature, and talking about the fight to free the Five, door to door, at the Miami book fair and on the job,” Baumann said.

“Our table was swarmed,” he said. “We sold three subscriptions, four copies of Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own and five of The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free.”

The Militant supported and wrote about the 20-month fight by workers locked out by American Crystal Sugar at plants in the Upper Midwest that ended in April last year. Many of those battling the lockout got introductory subscriptions. Several have now become long-term readers.

Brian Berg in Mayville, N.D., just sent in his second one-year renewal, reported Frank Forrestal in Minneapolis. Berg said he likes how the paper takes “our side” in whatever is going on in the world and that it has a lot of truth in it.

Morris Gilbertson, who works at American Crystal’s Drayton, N.D., plant, recently renewed for a year. “He said he likes the ‘25, 50, 75 years’ column and reprints from Pathfinder Books of the Month — the long history,” Forrestal said. During the lockout Gilbertson picked up all four Pathfinder volumes on the battles of the Teamsters union and its revolutionary leadership in the Upper Midwest during the 1930s.

Matthew Herring, who works at McDonald’s, subscribed at a December protest by fast-food workers in Chicago. After further discussions he agreed to speak at a Jan. 17 Militant Labor Forum on the fight to raise the minimum wage.

Herring told forum participants that he’d been trying to get co-workers to the action, but some are afraid of being fired. He described how he organized house meetings to discuss the need to fight for higher wages.

To renew or get a trial subscription, mail in the coupon on page 2, contact a distributor listed on page 8 or the Militant at (212) 244-4899.  
 
 
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