From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor

Join us for a discussion between author Andrew Stone Higgins and historian Nelson Lichtenstein on the new book From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor: A Collective History of the International Socialists. -------------------------------------------------------------- Founded at UC Berkeley in 1964 as a radical civil rights group, lit the spark of the Free Speech Movement that same year, and its members and successor organizations would go on to play an outsized role in shaping the course of both the Black freedom struggle and the rank-and-file labor insurgency of the 1970s. Following their success in the Bay Area, the ISC launched chapters across the country, and in 1969 became the International Socialists, with much of its growing membership relocating to the Midwest to take industrial jobs in the auto, steel, communications, and trucking industries. In their final years, among other important efforts, the IS created a majority-Black youth group known as the Red Tide, founded the seminal publication Labor Notes, and helped create Teamsters for a Democratic Union. From the Free Speech Movement to the Factory Floor includes twenty-six original reflections by leading members—including renowned scholar-activists Nelson Lichtenstein and Nancy Holmstrom—offering invaluable insights into this influential but little-known organization. Speakers: Andrew Stone Higgins is the author of Higher Education for All: Racial Inequality, Cold War Liberalism, and the California Master Plan, called "required reading for understanding the complex politics of race and higher education" by Daniel Martinez HoSang. He earned his PhD in U.S. history from the University of California at Davis. Nelson Lichtenstein is a research professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His most recent book is A Fabulous Failure: The Clinton Presidency and the Transformation of American Capitalism. -------------------------------------------------------------- This event is organized by Haymarket Books. While all of our events are freely available, we ask that those who are able make a solidarity donation in support of our important publishing and programming work.