1963: Freedom Rider Jerome Smith takes on the Kennedys

Vol. 90/No. 33 - September 21, 2026
Four Freedom Riders at New Orleans airport, May 27, 1961, after posting bond in Jackson, Mississippi, where they were arrested at interstate bus station. From left, David Dennis, Doris Jean Castle, Julia Aaron and Jerome Smith, speaking to a reporter on their struggle.

From his youth, Jerome Smith had dedicated his life to the fight to bring down Jim Crow segregation, where he grew up in New Orleans, as well as in the 1961 Freedom Rides across the South and the fight against…


Seattle teachers rally in fight for new contract

Vol. 90/No. 33 - September 21, 2026

SEATTLE — Hundreds of teachers, members of the Seattle Education Association, rallied here Sept. 1, the day before school reopened, to press their fight for a new contract. Parents, students, unionists and others gathered on the front lawn of Seattle…


Teamsters at Cargill Salt reject company bribe, continue strike

Vol. 90/No. 33 - September 21, 2026

NEWARK, Calif. — After a month on strike, picket lines at Cargill Salt are still up 24/7 in a hard-fought fight over wages and medical coverage. A key issue is the draconian monthly payments of $1,200 that workers have taken…


Working people have no interest in backing their rulers’ trade wars

Vol. 90/No. 33 - September 21, 2026
After Ottawa used anti-labor laws to block three major union strikes, 10,000 flight attendants at Air Canada defied government back-to-work order Aug. 16, 2025, and won important gains.

MONTREAL — “When the acrimonious trade talks between Washington and Ottawa broke down Aug. 21, Prime Minister Mark Carney proclaimed: ‘We are at war.’ It wasn’t entirely an exaggeration,” Steve Penner, the organizer of the Communist League in Canada, told…


Nurses strike Prime Healthcare over contract, better staffing

Vol. 90/No. 33 - September 21, 2026

CHICAGO — More than 400 members of the National Nurses United union carried out a one-day strike Sept. 3 at the St. Mary of Nazareth hospital here and three other hospitals owned by Prime Healthcare in California and Nevada. Nurses…


Special sale of books by Marx and Engels

Vol. 90/No. 32 - September 14, 2026

Pathfinder Press has launched a special sale of selected volumes of the collected writings of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, as well as the collected writings of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. The books are on sale for the special price…



Women’s liberation intertwined with working-class fight for power

Vol. 90/No. 32 - September 14, 2026
Literacy class for women in the Soviet Union in 1920s, in early years of the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks mobilized working class to win universal literacy, advancing women’s equality.

Feminism and the Marxist Movement by Mary-Alice Waters is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for September. Marxists have always explained that the economic roots of women’s oppression are an integral part of the workings of capitalism. Only the…