As a start to the Chicago Anarchist Black Cross zine project, we’re releasing a zine series in honor of Black August. Each one will feature the words of a key figure in the Black revolutionary tradition. Many of these are an attempt to respond to frequent requests we receive from prisoners who write to our zine distro. For our very first release, we present four speeches by Chicago’s own Fred Hampton. This publication was requested by one of the Vaughn 17 who are currently being charged in connection with the uprising that took place at Delaware’s James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in February of 2017. We published and circulated a zine of their writings, which will be featured here in a separate post.

An “indescribably touching, extraordinarily intelligent" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ) chronicle of a fatal gun-battle between FBI agents and American Indian Movement activists by renowned writer Peter Matthiessen (1927-2014), author of the National Book Award-winning The Snow Leopard and the novel In Paradise   On a hot June morning in 1975, a desperate shoot-out between FBI agents and Native Americans near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, left an Indian and two federal agents dead. Four members of the American Indian Movement were indicted on murder charges, and one, Leonard Peltier, was convicted and is now serving consecutive life sentences in a federal penitentiary. Behind this violent chain of events lie issues of great complexity and profound historical resonance, brilliantly explicated by Peter Matthiessen in this controversial book. Kept off the shelves for eight years because of one of the most protracted and bitterly fought legal cases in publishing history, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse reveals the Lakota tribe’s long struggle with the U.S. government, and makes clear why the traditional Indian concept of the earth is so important at a time when increasing populations are destroying the precious resources of our world.

A Thin Black Veil is a collection of Gothic stories by Henrik Sorensen drawn from the Mormon cultural, historical, and cosmological landscape. Sorensen weaves familiar pieces of Mormon folklore with original concepts, exploring the tenuous link between life, death, and the unknown and unknowable forces that dwell in the space between. The result is eleven short stories that, whether you grew up listening to tales about pioneer ancestors or are just dipping your toes into unfamiliar waters, will leave you questioning just how thin the veil is that separates us from a dark spiritual plane.

Think you know the person you married? Think again… Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts – paper, cotton, pottery, tin – and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after. Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget. Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.

An accessible, bold new vision for the future of intersectional trans feminism, called "one of the best books in trans studies in recent years" by Susan Stryker Why are trans women the most targeted of LGBT people? Why are they in the crosshairs of a resurgent anti-trans politics around the world? And what is to be done about it by activists, organizers, and allies? A Short History of Transmisogyny is the first book-length study to answer these urgent but long overdue questions. Combining new historical analysis with political and activist accessibility, the book shows why it matters to understand trans misogyny as a specific form of violence with a documentable history. Ironically, it is through attending to the specificity of trans misogyny that trans women are no longer treated as inevitably tragic figures. They emerge instead as embattled but tenacious, locked in a struggle over the meaning and material stakes of gender, labor, race, and freedom. The book travels across bustling port cities like New York, New Orleans, London and Paris, the colonial and military districts of the British Raj, the Philippines, and Hawai'i, and the lively travesti communities of Latin America. The book shows how trans femininity has become legible as a fault line of broader global histories, including colonial government, the sex work industry, the policing of urban public space, and the line between the formal and informal economy. This transnational and intersectional approach reinforces that trans women are not isolated social subjects who appear alone; they are in fact central to the modern social world.

An essential primer on capitalism, politics and how the world works, based on the hugely popular undergraduate lecture series 'What is Politics?' Is there an alternative to capitalism? In this landmark text Chomsky and Waterstone chart a critical map for a more just and sustainable society. 'Covid-19 has revealed glaring failures and monstrous brutalities in the current capitalist system. It represents both a crisis and an opportunity. Everything depends on the actions that people take into their own hands.' How does politics shape our world, our lives and our perceptions? How much of 'common sense' is actually driven by the ruling classes' needs and interests? And how are we to challenge the capitalist structures that now threaten all life on the planet? Consequences of Capitalism exposes the deep, often unseen connections between neoliberal 'common sense' and structural power. In making these linkages, we see how the current hegemony keeps social justice movements divided and marginalized. And, most importantly, we see how we can fight to overcome these divisions.

In perhaps the most potent of his speeches released on CD (this one recorded in 1995 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), linguist and political critic Noam Chomsky frankly addresses the evident—but largely undiscussed—lines of class in American society, comparing, for example, American labor laws and practices with those of its global comrades. "The government," Chomsky says, quoting John Dewey, his favorite Democratic philosopher, "is the shadow cast by business over society." He bemoans corporate propaganda, the crushing of unions, and the "created wants" that have left us "a devastated peasant society.... People are scared, angry, and hostile." Pretty tough stuff, but Chomsky does offer one ray of hope: "If you want to change something, change the substance, not the shadow." —Michael Ruby

This collection of interviews offers Chomsky's views on himself and on such political issues as deficit spending, how free markets destroy competition, and why "family values" crusades destroy family life

We all know what Noam Chomsky is against. His scathing analysis of everything that’s wrong with our society reaches more and more people every day. His brilliant critiques of—among other things—capitalism, imperialism, domestic repression and government propaganda have become mini-publishing industries unto themselves. But, in this flood of publishing and republishing, very little ever gets said about what exactly Chomsky stands for, his own personal politics, his vision of the future. Not, that is, until Chomsky on Anarchism, a groundbreaking new book that shows a different side of this best-selling author: the anarchist principles that have guided him since he was a teenager. This collection of Chomsky’s essays and inter-views includes numerous pieces that have never been published before, as well as rare material that first saw the light of day in hard-to-find pamphlets and anarchist periodicals. Taken together, they paint a fresh picture of Chomsky, showing his lifelong involvement with the anarchist community, his constant commitment to nonhierarchical models of political organization and his hopes for a future world without rulers. For anyone who’s been touched by Chomsky’s trenchant analysis of our current situation, as well as anyone looking for an intelligent and coherent discussion of anarchism itself, look no further than Chomsky on Anarchism. Noam Chomsky is one of the world’s leading intellectuals, the father of modern linguistics, an outspoken media and foreign policy critic and tireless activist. He lives in Boston, Massachusetts.