Vol. 78/No. 8      March 3, 2014

Supporters have begun knocking on doors of the 2,975 people who subscribed during last fall’s drive, discussing the paper’s coverage of politics from the point of view of the working class.

Supporters report a good percentage of those they talk to are interested in continuing to receive the paper, but need to set an appointment for a later date when they have the money to renew. Some want to sit down when they have time to discuss the fight to defend the Cuban Five or other political questions.

So it will take more than one visit to reach those who are interested. For this reason, the drive has been extended to six weeks, through March 23.

“We signed up seven readers to renew their subscriptions this past week,” reported Laura Anderson from Chicago Feb. 16. “We also visited the Workers United union hall to promote the upcoming showing of Antonio Guerrero’s watercolors.” (See ad on page 7.)

“I Will Die the Way I’ve Lived,” an exhibition of prison paintings by Guerrero, one of the Cuban Five, will be shown at the Beverly Arts Center on the city’s South Side for three weeks, starting March 21.

“At the union hall we ran into Herlinda Hernandez, a member of Service Employees International Union and a supporter of the Cuban Five,” Anderson wrote.

Hernandez renewed her subscription for three months and got Voices from Prison: The Cuban Five and I Will Die the Way I’ve Lived. These two books, just published by Pathfinder Press, are new tools in the fight to free the Five and help involve Militant readers in organizing showings of Guerrero’s paintings.

“We invite readers to join us to attend the exhibition and to walk the picket line in Dixon, Ill., where food workers are on strike,” Anderson said. “We invite them to the Militant Labor Forums.”

“Charlie Brown, one of my coworkers and a long-term reader, organized to get a renewal slip to Tim, another coworker, who is an electrician,” wrote Anderson, who works at Electro-Motive Diesel in La Grange, Ill. “The next day Tim came by saying, ‘It’s that time, here’s the money.’ He shares the paper with others to read on breaks.”

Miami: ‘Off to a good start’

On Feb. 15, Craine and Tom Baumann visited Ivette Haiti, a hotel worker and artist originally from Cuba, to pick up her renewal. She was thrilled to see the new Spanish-language translation of Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploitation of Women. “Why should I make myself up like a doll?” she said. “That’s not who I am.”

The book is one of 10 Pathfinder titles on special offer with a renewal or subscription. (See ad below.) Haiti bought a copy of the book as well as I Will Die the Way I’ve Lived.

“We knocked on the door of a former subscriber who wasn’t home,” Craine wrote. “But his next-door neighbor remembered the Militant from a previous visit, and this time decided to get a subscription and a copy of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power,” another title on special offer.

“I’ve come across someone who had a subscription to your paper,” wrote a prisoner in Florida recently. “Could you be kind enough to send me an order form and along with a copy of the Militant, so I can subscribe.”

An increasing number of prisoners are reading the Militant. Since the drive started four inmates have renewed and two others got new subscriptions. Four are from Florida, where the Militant recently beat back attempts by prison authorities to stop subscribers from receiving the paper.

We have added a prisoners’ quota of eight renewals to the scoreboard.

To renew, get a subscription or join in the drive, contact a distributor listed on page 6 or the Militant at (212) 244-4899.
 
 
Related articles:
‘Militant’ Renewal Drive Feb. 8 – March 23 (week 1) (chart)
 
 
 
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