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Visit the new Red Emma's Bike-Books Kiosk at the Baltimore Bicycle Works!
Jan 7, 2009
We're really excited that there's a bike shop in the vicinity of Red Emma's - it always seemed strange to us that you couldn't find a place to buy a bike, get something fixed, or grab a tube anywhere near the middle of the city. And we're extra excited that the Baltimore Bicycle Works is not just a great shop, but a worker-owned, 100% Wobbly shop - it's great to see alternative economic arrangements like collectives and cooperatives taking hold in Baltimore.
We've just installed a Red Emma's kiosk in the shop - it's filled with the best bike books and zines we carry at the store - so stop by and check it out - the BBW is down at 1813 Falls Road - a block or so away from the Charles Theater and Velocipede (another excellent cooperative bike project!), and right along one of the most convenient and well-designed bike paths in the city.
more >>The New School Occupation and Victory
Dec 19, 2008
From www.newschoolinexile.com:
University in Exile Occupation Wins Major Victory over University Administration in 3rd Day (3 am) !!
After more than two weeks of concerted actions on campus, students in the occupation were finally able to win significant victories in the ongoing struggle to improve the New School. Those victories include: an agreement not to press charges or impose academic punishments for students involved in the protest, the implementation of a Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) committee within the university, more autonomy and power for Student Senate to communicate with the student body, more representation on the Board of Trustees for students and faculty, and finally the creation of more student study space on campus. As of approximately 4am this morning New School and other students have left the 65 5th Avenue building and declared the occupation successful, ending this stage of the action.
Raising the stakes: Chicago workers occupy their own factory!
Dec 9, 2008
Workers at the Republic Windows and Doors Factory in Chicago were laid off last Friday without receiving their proper severance pay or health insurance continuation. They're taking this shabby pre-holiday surprise sitting down - inside their own factory, occupying the premises, and refusing to leave until they get what they are legally entitled to under law. There's a larger dimension to their struggle, too, one that connects this factory with the so called "bailout" which is giving away trillions of dollars to the financial sector with no relief in sight for ordinary folks and their communities: Bank of America, they were told, had refused to loan Republic the necessary funds to pay the workers rightful benefits - severance and vacation pay owed --- the same Bank of America that received and will receive a total of 25 billion in our taxpayer dollars under the bailout.
In Baltimore a new network was formed this past Sunday - The Baltimore Emergency Crisis Network - and a rally in support of the Republic workers, to take place at Bank of America's corporate location in Baltimore, has been planned for Wednesday at 1 p.m. It is URGENT that we have a visible presence in opposition to the Bailout of the banks with no funds for people at the grassroots.
So join us at the Bank of America building on Wednesday, December 10th at the corner of Redwood and Light St. The action coincides with a national day of action called by Red Emma's union, the Industrial Workers of the World (you can read a great piece by IWW organizer Daniel Gross - a featured speaker at the Radical Bookfair Pavilion - over at Counterpunch).
For continuing updates on the fight at Republic, see Indymedia Chicago and the "Pilsenprole" blog.
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Special Holiday Hours - Red Emma's open later!
Dec 8, 2008
Through 12/23, Red Emma's will be open for late night gift shopping a whole extra hour on Mondays through Saturdays (so until 11PM). Also special for the holidays - we've got some very cheeky and generally awesome custom-printed greeting cards - just $2 a piece, and printed in the new Red Emma's mini-print shop. Can't figure out what to get someone? We've got gift certificates, available in the store and online. And if you buy $100 or more when you come in (or if you order a $100 or more in gift certificates online), you'll get a great Red Emma's tote-bag free!
In general this holiday season (and year round), it's extremely important that if you want to see a thriving network of sustainable local businesses like Red Emma's that embody the principles you believe in and keep money in your community where it belongs rather than directly feeding the fires of disaster capitalism, you need to make sure that you help keep those businesses and projects alive with your shopping habits. It's been a bad year for independent bookstores in the Mid-Atlantic region - Baltimore has lost Lambda Rising and Karibu Books in 2008, and this month alone has seen the demise of the 73-year old Robin's Bookstore in Philadelphia as well as DC's radical bookstore, the Brian MacKenzie Infoshop. So don't take your favorite independent businesses for granted - they need your business and your support!
more >>A new website for some old friends....
Nov 28, 2008
The Charles H. Kerr Company is the oldest radical publisher in operation today in the US - producing subversive literature for the whole family since 1886! We're big fans of their publications here at Red Emma's - they've filled up our IWW section with essential texts like Franklin Rosemont's Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, added to our Autonomist Marxism section with classics like Facing Reality by C.L.R. James and Grace Lee, and, through their associated imprint Black Swan Press, published an avalanche of radical surrealist texts like The Forecast is Hot! Tracts & Other Collective Declarations of the Surrealist Movement in the U.S., 1966-1976. We're always pretty well stocked with Kerr titles down here at Red Emma's, but until now their online presence has been a little sparse - so we're exceptionally excited that a couple of the Red Emma's computer gnomes were able to offer some digital mutual aid and get the Kerr company up and running with a brand new website, complete with a searchable inventory and online ordering.
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A real Black Friday Sale
Nov 24, 2008
This Friday (11/28) only!
Special sale on two of our very favorite subjects - get 10% off on any book with the word "Black" in the title (we've got 153 to choose from - black power, black america, black panthers, black workers, black civilization, black feminism and a lot more). Plus you also get 10% off any book about anarchism - flying the black flag against the state and all forms of domination since the 19th century.
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Coming this spring....
Nov 21, 2008
The City From Below
March 27th-29th, 2009
Baltimore
The city has emerged in recent years as an indispensable concept for many of the struggles for social justice we are all engaged in - it's a place where theory meets practice, where the neighborhood organizes against global capitalism, where unequal divisions based on race and class can be mapped out block by block and contested, where the micropolitics of gender and sexual orientation are subject to metropolitan rearticulation, where every corner is a potential site of resistance and every vacant lot a commons to be reclaimed, and, most importantly, a place where all our diverse struggles and strategies have a chance of coming together into something greater. In cities everywhere, new social movements are coming into being, hidden histories and herstories are being uncovered, and unanticipated futures are being imagined and built - but so much of this knowledge remains, so to speak, at street-level. We need a space to gather and share our stories, our ideas and analysis, a space to come together and rethink the city from below.
To that end, a group of activists and organizers, including Red Emma's, the Indypendent Reader, campbaltimore, and the Campaign for a Better Baltimore are calling for a conference called The City From Below, to take place in Baltimore during the weekend of March 27th-29th, 2009.
We'll be hosting this conference at 2640. Find out more and read the full call for participation on the City From Below website. And keep an eye there or here on the Red Emma's site for details of our upcoming City From Below film series, to be held at Red Emma's over the coming months. We're depending on some community support to pull this off - if you can raise money to help us pay for participant travel costs, if you're willing to host an out-of-town participant in your home, or if there's some other way you can help, please drop us a line at cityfrombelow -at- redemmas.org.
more >>Three upcoming actions this week that need your support
Nov 12, 2008
There's three great actions this coming week - your chance to defend the environment, stand in solidarity with local workers, and face off against global capitalism.
First up is Friday, November 14th - join Baltimore Rising Tide in their first action for the nationwide Coal Finance Day of Action and demand that the banks stop investing in coal and mountain top removal, destroying Appalachia and threatening the health of our communities. 11am to 1pm, at the Bank of America and Citi Bank on the corner of East Baltimore St. and Calvert St. More info here
Next up is a host of actions in DC around the G20/World Economic Forum on November 14th and 15th - as the capitalists of the world unite, people are taking to the streets and offering alternative visions of economic recovery. Check out the full schedule here.
And finally, there's a March & Food Drive for Baltimore Hotel Workers on Tuesday, November 18th. Workers of the Sheraton Baltimore City Center Hotel have called for a boycott of their own hotel because their employer, Columbia Sussex, has increased employees' workloads, increased the cost of health benefits, eliminated key employee rights, and is insisting on having the right to contract out workers' jobs. Many organizers are getting unjustly fired for standing up for their rights, and in these lean economic times being out of a job is even more serious. Bring canned goods to support the workers, and join them in a march to demand a fair contract: meet up at War Memorial Plaza in front of City Hall at 4PM.
more >>Further Developments in the Maryland State Police political surveillance scandal
Oct 1, 2008
Yesterday (9/30) the great folks at the Maryland ACLU filed a new round of Maryland Public Information Act requests. The new requests, made in the name of 32 groups and more than 250 individuals, are intended to reveal the full extent of the recently revealed political surveillance in Maryland (read our last post about the spying scandal here) - which agencies were involved, which laws were broken, which activists and groups were targeted. It's pretty clear that what we already know about police spying on anti-death penalty and anti-war groups may potentially be the tip of the iceberg here, and we're grateful to the ACLU for following through with this new round of requests. Red Emma's is proud to be one of the 32 groups on whose behalf these new requests were being filed, and we hope that you'll join us in demanding full disclosure from the State of Maryland and other agencies regarding these troubling programs of infilitration, intimidation, and surveillance.
For more information, check out:
Maryland ACLU Press Release on the new round of filings
Spying may have started earlier than police said (Baltimore Sun)
ACLU Seeks Data on Spying for 32 Groups (Washington Post)
more >>FBI and Police raid Infoshop and Community Centers
Aug 30, 2008
UPDATES:
Donate to help RNC arrestees here: Cold Snap Legal Collective
Donate to help the Long Haul here: Long Haul Infoshop
Long Haul Infoshop Raid
From Indybay
On August 27th at around 10:30am, 5-6 police officers from three agencies made their way into the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley, broke down every door, and confiscated all computers on the property. Computers taken included those used by the Slingshot Collective and East Bay Prisoner Support. Police also broke into cabinets, cut locks, and went through mail.
People arrived after being informed of the situation, and demanded that the police show a warrant. The police said they would show one once they were done, and they did. Both CopWatch and The Berkeley Daily Planet were there to cover the incident. The raid was conducted by the UC Berkeley Police, Alameda County Sheriff, and the FBI. The police stated that the computer equipment "may have been used to commit a felony." This is the first time there has been a raid since the infoshop opened 15 years ago.
More Info:
http://thelonghaul.org/
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/27/18530407.php
Twin Cities Raid
At 9:15 Friday night, the Saint Paul Police entered all doors of the RNC Convergence Space in St. Paul, MN with guns drawn. The Space serves as a community center and organizing space for the upcoming protests against the Republican National Convention. At the time of the raid, people were sitting down to dinner and watching a movie.
The police presented no warrant at the time of the raid, but claim that they have a warrant to search the space for "bomb-making" materials. No "bomb-making" materials were found. Rather, the police barked orders for everyone, including a 5 year old child, to get on the floor with their faces to the ground. Everyone inside was put in handcuffs.
In the hours following, the police photographed everyone inside the space and recorded information from their Identification cards. The police took all personal laptops and hard drives. One female activist was sexually harassed by a cop who groped her crotch.
At around 11pm, after a crowd had gathered outside the space, the police began releasing detainees one by one. Corporate media showed up eventually. By midnight, the last detainees were being released. As of the most recent reports, there have been NO ARRESTS. The police are claiming that the space must be closed down due to "fire code" violations. According to City Council member Dave Thune, the police do not have the authority to enforce fire code. Only the Fire Department has the power to enforce this code.
More Info:
http://twincities.indymedia.org/
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