Over the weekend, the world lost a great revolutionary John H. Bracey Jr. at 81. His brilliance and generosity transformed many lives. In addition to be a pioneer in Black Studies and founding member of the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he fought for civil rights and Black liberation “as part of the Congress of Racial Equality, Chicago Friends of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Students for a Democratic Society, and the Revolutionary Action Movement.”

He wrote the introductions to We Will Return in the Whirlwind: Black Radical Organizations 1960-1975 by Muhammad Ahmad and the 2006 edition of Facing Reality by C.L.R. James and Grace C. Lee. A long-time champion of Kerr for its role in publishing central work from Black revolutionary movements, Bracey often quoted James saying, “I want the Kerr edition.” Kerr was fortunate to have him serve on its Board until his passing.

David Ranney presents DEAR RHODA

Tuesday Dec 13 2022 7:00pm - 8:00pm

Pilsen Community Books welcomes David Ranney in celebration of the publication of Dear Rhoda, out now from CHK.

LARB: “Whether on factory floors or through economic ebbs and flows, Ignatiev presented class struggle as a sequence of enigmatic forms of conflict, accommodation, and rapprochement. He traced, in microcosm, how the revolutionary processes initiated through the daily activities of ordinary people constituted important “outposts” of a future socialist society in the present. Given the political history and trajectory of capitalist development in the United States, capitulation to the color line and the “poison” bait of white-skin privilege was an overriding possibility. But in the actions of workers in motion, their deeds rather than words, Ignatiev perceived a genuine alternative.”

Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company offers condolences to all who knew our friend, board member, and author Paul Garon, who died on Monday at 80 years old.

Geoffrey Aung for Himal Southasian: “In the absence of an effective state response, instead, what has emerged has been a genuine global catastrophe only partially held at bay by the extraordinary actions of ordinary people, including volunteer networks in Wuhan where many volunteers died trying to contain the outbreak. This is essential reading for grappling with our present reality – and the possibility of overcoming it.”

Ferruccio Gambino: “Among the many diaries and memoirs written by blue-collar workers, some of the more impressive ones come from militants and revolutionaries on the left. Noel Ignatiev’s just-published Acceptable Men: Life in the Largest Steel Mill in the World belongs to this category and can captivate readers with its unrelenting attention to social relations unfolding around blast furnaces…

In "Dirty Work: Chuang on China, Communism, and Social Contagion," we are pleased to share the transcript of a new interview with Chuang, the collective author of our latest book Social Contagion and other material on the microbiological class war in China.

New video for release of Chuang’s Social Contagion, video by Perry Hohlstein

We are proud to present a panel discussion, recorded on November 27th, 2021, on Social Contagion and other material on microbiological class war in China. The book, authored by the anonymous binational collective Chuang, is an account and analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic in China—a piercing portrait of the simultaneously draconian and ineffectual response of the Chinese state and the self-organizing survival strategies of ordinary Chinese workers. We invited leading researchers on these issues to comment on the book and launch the debate on Chuang's provocative theses.

November 9, 2021 —

Today, on the second anniversary of Noel Ignatiev’s passing, Verso blog published a review of Acceptable Men. Jasper Bernes—comrade, poet and literary scholar—writes with great care for Noel, his memoir and the lessons it poses us for today.

Lausan HK: “Public discourse regarding Covid has gotten progressively worse since the essay’s publication, with disinformation campaigns and lab leak theories reaching wide distribution, which has furthered the conspiratorial discourse against China as a civilizational enemy. These dire conditions make Chuang’s book Social Contagion: and other material on microbiological class war in China (Charles H. Kerr 2021), including a revised version of the titular essay, all the more critical.”

Social Contagion ships early to patrons.

For Industrial Worker, Tamara L. Smith talks about Joe Hill: The IWW & the Making of a Revolutionary Workingclass Counterculture, a PM Press and Charles H. Kerr Library publication based on Franklin Rosemont’s history of Joe Hill, originally published by Charles H. Kerr in 2003.

For The Baffler, Asad Haider reviews Noel Ignatiev’s memoir Acceptable Men, published by us this summer and available now via AK Press. From “Molecules and Vectors: Noel Ignatiev’s radical commitments”…

The Black Hoboes Playlist

25 original recordings featured in What's the Use of Walking if There's a Freight Train Going Your Way?: Black Hoboes & Their Songs by Paul Garon and Gene Tomko.

Chicago Launch of Acceptable Men

September 25, 2021

5-7pm

Nelson Algreen 616 Sound Stage, Miller Beach, Indiana

For the Hyde Park Herald, Jennifer Bamburg reported on the release event of Acceptable Men in Miller Beach. “The event’s roster includes former co-workers from Gary Works, members of the Sojourner Truth Organization, and younger activists involved in similar struggles today. “I'm excited to see some steelworker families. It'll be different than your typical Chicago lefty event in that regard,” says Kingsley Clarke, Ignatiev’s closest friend, former Sojourner Truth Organization member, and member of the Kerr Press board of directors.”

Interchange - “Teaching a Man to Fish in a Steel Mill in Gary, Indiana” w/ John Garvey & Michael Staudenmaier - September 21, 2021

In this month's edition of the Brooklyn Rail, Aminda Smith and Fabio Lanza interviewed the anonymous collective Chuang whose first book, Social Contagion and Other Material on Microbiological Class War in China, is forthcoming in October from us.