Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company

01/22/2025

We all need some joy right now - coming soon! Thanks to the author for the photo.

01/19/2025

Thank you, Working Class History! See links to related Kerr books.

01/14/2025

A fantastic collection of essays by Kerr author Franklin Rosemont, edited by Kerr board members Paul Buhle and Abigail Susik, put out by our friends at PM Press. Link to purchase below.

12/27/2024

Out now! A new and expanded edition of Rising Up Angry, a photo history of the underground newspaper and community activist organization of the same name. Black and white photos plus color reproductions of RUA newpaper covers. A joint publication of Charles H. Kerr Publishing and Prairie Dancer Press.

"Between 1969 and 1975, Rising Up Angry produced one of Chicago’s underground press newspapers, operated a free health clinic, delivered free legal services, held people’s dances and sports events, protested against the Vietnam War, and worked with active and returning GIs.

"The group’s female members participated in the founding of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union and the group allied with the Young Lords Organization, the Black Panther Party, and the Young Patriots in a multiracial, grassroots Rainbow Coalition.

"In addition to organizing in Chicago’s working class communities to tackle issues like slum housing, members also made a short film, Trick Bag (1974) that interviewed young people about their experiences with racism. Under the slogan, 'To Love We Must Fight,' Rising Up Angry was a vibrant cry for justice and equity in an era when youthful radicals sought to change the world. This sharing of RUA has lessons and inspiration for today."

—Euan Hague, Ph.D.,
Director, School of Public Service, DePaul University

Rising Up Angry

12/04/2024

Thank you, Our Black Union .

Today in American History December 4, 1969:

21yr old community leader & Black Panther was drugged and un-alived during an illegal raid by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, the Chicago Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

Fellow Black Panther was also killed, Rest In Power ✊🏿

12/04/2024

Thank you, Working Class History .

12/04/2024

Thank you, Zinn Education Project .

Black Panther Party members Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated by police and FBI agents in Chicago, Illinois.

12/04/2024

Friends of Kerr: See Abigail Susik's talk next Tuesday on surrealism and the Race Traitor journal! Many Kerr authors are represented in the surrealist issue of the journal, whose tagline was "Treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity." Reservation is free. Learn about the surrealist revolution against whiteness so we can all carry it forward.

Join Abigail Susik for the final lecture in the 2024 - 25 Frank Davis Memorial Lecture series 'A Century of Surrealism: Resistance and the Image Since the Manifesto of Surrealism'.

12/02/2024

Thank you, Working Class History.

On this day, 2 December 1859, US abolitionist John Brown was executed in what is now West Virginia for his leadership of an armed rebellion against slavery.
Brown and a small band of Black and white fellow abolitionists attempted to seize the federal arsenal of weapons at Harpers Ferry. The weapons would be used to arm enslaved people and abolitionist whites, and set up a chain of forts across the country which could launch raids on enslavers, helping free large numbers of enslaved people then funnel them north to Canada, meanwhile disrupting the slave economy.
On December 2, after a battle with US troops, Brown and his men were defeated. Two of them managed to escape – Osborne Anderson and Albert Hazlett – and the survivors were put on trial for treason, murder and "conspiring with Negroes to produce insurrection".
Brown was hanged at 11:15 AM outside the Charles Town jail. On his way to the scaffold he handed a note to one of the guards, which declared: "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land: will never be purged away; but with blood."
In the wake of the attempted uprising, fearing further such attempts, pro-slavery militias formed across the US South. These would soon fight for the Confederacy in the civil war which would break out less than two years later, during which Union troops would sing: "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on."
More information, sources and map: https://stories.workingclasshistory.com/article/12650/john-brown-executed
* If you appreciate our work, please consider supporting us on patreon: https://patreon.com/workingclasshistory

11/23/2024

Your donation to Charles H. Kerr Publishing will allow us to publish more subversive literature for the whole family. And it's tax-deductible! . . . for now. Charles H. Kerr: not-for-profit terrorist supporting organization since 1886. Click the "donate" button on our web page - link in comments. Thank you for your support!

11/12/2024

“The day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today.” — August Spies

11/12/2024

Thank you, Working Class History.

On this day, 11 November 1887, four of the Haymarket martyrs were executed in Chicago. They were anarchist labour organisers framed for a bombing by authorities because of their role in the fight for the 8-hour day. The May Day holiday, International Workers Day on May 1 each year, commemorates the martyrs. Lucy Parsons, a formerly-enslaved Black anarchist activist, and wife of Albert Parsons, one of the martyrs, recalled that day 50 years later:
"On that gloomy morning of November 11, 1887, I took our two little children to the jail to bid my beloved husband farewell. I found the jail roped off with heavy cables. Policemen with pistols walked in the enclosure. I asked them to allow us to go to our loved one before they murdered him. They said nothing. Then I said, 'Let these children bid their father goodby, let them receive his blessing. They can do no harm.' In a few minutes a patrol wagon drove up and we were locked up in a police station while the hellish deed was done. Oh, Misery, I have drunk thy cup of sorrow to its dregs but I am still a rebel."
The others to be executed were George Engel, Adolph Fischer, August Spies and Louis Lingg, although Lingg cheated the hangman by blowing himself up the previous night.
Upon his sentencing, Spies told the court: "if you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the labour movement — the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery, the wage slaves, expect salvation — if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but here, and there, and behind you, and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out. The ground is on fire upon which you stand."
On the gallows, he said: "There will be a time when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today."
We've got books and other items commemorating May Day in our online store with global shipping: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/all/may-day

11/08/2024

Thanks again to Working Class History for this remembrance of the great Judi Bari.

On this day, 7 November 1949, revolutionary carpenter, postal worker and environmental activist martyr Judi Bari was born. A member of both the radical Industrial Workers of the World union and eco-direct action group Earth First! she was key in building links between activists protecting ancient redwood trees and logging workers whose livelihoods were under threat from unsustainable logging. After receiving death threats and being rammed by a logging truck, she was blown up by a car bomb. The FBI then tried to claim she had bombed herself. The attack left her disabled and in constant pain until her early death from cancer a few years later, although she continued the struggle until her final days.
Learn more about women in the early IWW in episode 16 of our podcast: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/12/02/e16-women-in-the-early-iww/

11/08/2024

Thank you, Working Class History! See link in comments to Joseph Grim Feinberg's Praise Boss! The Erotic Adventures of Mr. Block - Or, Labor's Loves Lost.

On this day, 7 November 1912, the Industrial Workers of the World's newspaper the Industrial Worker published the first Mr. Block comic strip by Ernest Riebe.
The character Mr. Block is a man "devoid of class-consciousness" who blindly believes that America is the land of opportunity, hard work pays off, and the boss looks out for the employee, thus he is "the personification of all that a worker should not be."
Furthermore, through these comics, Riebe satirised reformist organisations such as the American Federation of Labor and the Socialist Party of America.
In the next year, twenty-four of the Mr. Block strips were compiled into America’s first radical comic book, and famous IWW songwriter Joe Hill wrote a song named after the character.
A large number of Riebe’s comics and writings have been collated in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/mr-block-the-subversive-comics-and-writings-of-ernest-riebe

10/28/2024

Authors and others in publishing, please sign:

Translations: Arabic, Korean, Spanish, Italian, German, French,  Download our press release here. Full updating list of signatories here. We, as writers, publishers, literary festival workers,…

10/17/2024

Thanks to JB Daniel for the tip: Chicago friends! This weekend (Oct 19th & 20th, 2024) The Gumball Project will be part of Open House Chicago on exhibit at the Historic Pullman Exhibition Hall 11141 S. Cottage Grove Ave. Chicago, IL

Learn more about the Gumball project online: https://jbdaniel.com/gumballproject.html

Learn more about Open House Chicago: https://www.architecture.org/open-house-chicago/

The Chicago Architecture Center's Open House Chicago is a FREE annual festival that typically offers access to hundreds of sites across Chicago, from iconic locations to under-the-radar architectural gems.

10/07/2024

Thank you, Working Class History! The Joe Hill book pictured is the second edition, a part of PM Press's Charles H. Kerr Library.

09/24/2024

https://publishersforpalestine.org/2024/09/23/publishers-for-palestine-open-letter-to-the-frankfurt-book-fair/

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: International publishers demand Frankfurt Book Fair cut ties with IsraelDownload We international publishers stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine, and with resist…