The Pox Lover is a personal history of the turbulent 1990s in New York City and Paris by a pioneering American AIDS journalist, lesbian activist, and daughter of French-Haitian elites. In an account that is by turns searing, hectic, and funny, Anne-christine d'Adesky remembers "the poxed generation" of AIDS—their lives, their battles, and their determination to find love and make art in the heartbreaking years before lifesaving protease drugs arrived. Join us as we welcome Anne-christine d'Adeski and Mark King to present "The Pox Lover" and discuss the history of AIDS activism.

Join the author of the recently published book Mirrors, Autumn Burton, a 17 year-old Baltimore native and incoming freshman at Duke University, for an evening discussion of the power of empathy for the human rights crises occurring both in Baltimore and abroad.

We are excited to welcome Russia expert and former CIA analyst Mel Goodman to present his new book, Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider's Account of the Politics of Intelligence! Mel Goodman's long career as a respected intelligence analyst at the CIA, specializing in US/Soviet relations, ended abruptly. In 1990, after twenty-four years of service, Goodman resigned when he could no longer tolerate the corruption he witnessed at the highest levels of the Agency. In 1991 he went public, blowing the whistle on top-level officials and leading the opposition against the appointment of Robert Gates as CIA director. In the widely covered Senate hearings, Goodman charged that Gates and others had subverted "the process and the ethics of intelligence" by deliberately misinforming the White House about major world events and covert operations.

In this breathtaking expose, Goodman tells the whole story. Retracing his career with the Central Intelligence Agency, he presents a rare insider's account of the inner workings of America's intelligence community, and the corruption, intimidation, and misinformation that lead to disastrous foreign interventions. An invaluable and historic look into one of the most secretive and influential agencies of US government--and a wake-up call for the need to reform its practices.

In a world of misinformation and “alternative facts,” we need axioms of truth and justice! Join us for an open mic of justice, conscious thought, spirituality, fam, real life—whatever advances the village! In the tradition of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth magazine, come drop some progressive “fiyah” on us, or contribute just with your presence and energy! 

Since 2000, water rates have more than tripled in Baltimore City and more than one third of residents cannot afford their water bills. When our neighbors can’t afford to pay, the City shuts off their water, renters are evicted, and homeowners lose their homes through tax sales. With the lack of substantial assistance from the Department of Public Works, it’s time for radical change to come from City Hall. Access to safe, affordable water is a fundamental human right, one that our City must affirm for all Baltimoreans.

The members of the Baltimore Right to Water Coalition are working with the City Council on a water affordability bill that will be introduced onMonday, August 14. Join us on Wednesday, August 9 at 6:30PM to hear from an expert panel about how we got into this mess, the proposed solutions, and what YOU can do to ensure that everyone in our city has access to water. Grab your friends and join us!

Thousands of pregnant women pass through our nation’s jails every year. What happens to them as they carry their pregnancies in a space of punishment? In this time when the public safety net is frayed, incarceration has become a central and racialized strategy for managing the poor. Using her ethnographic fieldwork and clinical work as an ob-gyn in a women’s jail, Carolyn Sufrin explores how jail has, paradoxically, become a place where women can find care.

The stories we tell one another have an enormous impact on what we see as possible, what we strive to create, and what we know to resist. The speculative fiction landscape is changing. Margaret Killjoy, on tour with her new anarchist, punk fantasy novella The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion (tor.com, out on August 15) will join Baltimore native author K.M. Szpara for a reading and discussion.

That education should instill and nurture democracy is an American truism. Yet organizations such as the Business Roundtable, together with conservative philanthropists such as Bill Gates and Walmart’s owners, the Waltons, have been turning public schools into corporate mills. Their top-down programs, such as Common Core State Standards, track, judge, and homogenize the minds of millions of American students from kindergarten through high school. But corporate funders would not be able to implement this educational control without the de facto partnership of government at all levels, channeling public moneys into privatization initiatives, school closings, and high-stakes testing that discourages independent thinking.

Educational Justice offers hope that there’s still time to take on corporatized schools and build democratic alternatives. Forcefully written by educator and journalist Howard Ryan, with contributing authors, the book deconstructs the corporate assault on schools, assesses the prevailing teachers union responses, and documents best teaching and organizing practices. Reports from various educational fronts include innovative union strategies against charter school expansion, as well as teaching visions drawn from the social justice and whole language traditions. Bold, informative, clearly reasoned, this book is an education in itself—a democratic one at that.

Behind the smiling faces of cashiers, wait staff, and workers of all sorts, a war is going on, usually without the knowledge of official political and labor organizations. Guerrillas of Desire maps these undercurrents, documenting the history of everyday resistance under slavery, in peasant life, and throughout modern capitalism, while showing that it remains an important factor in revolution and something radicals of all stripes must understand. Join the author for a reading and discussion.