Although the early years of Lucy Ella Gonzales Parsons are
shrouded in mystery, the historical record revealed that she came from
African America, Native American, and Mexican ancestry,.the daughter of John Waller, a Muscogee, and Marie del Gather from Mexico.Parsons Her parents died when she was a child and was raised by relatives.
Since she was
born in Texas around 1853, her parents were probably slaves. Lucy
quickly learned to function in her prejudiced society by using different
names. Often giving Lucy Gonzales as her name, she used her Mexican
ancestry to explain her dark skin tone instead of acknowledging her
African American roots.
While
Lucy was living with Oliver Gathings, a former slave, she met Albert
Parsons.
Born in Montgomery, Alabama, on June 24, 1848, Albert Parsons was
one of ten children of the owner of a shoe and leather factory. Both of
his parents died when he was just five years old and Albert’s older
brother William and Esther, a slave, helped raise him in Texas. After he
attended school for about a year, Albert went to work as an apprentice
at the Galveston Daily News. While still a teenager, Albert served in the Confederate Army including a stint in Parson’s Mounted Volunteers.
After the Civil War, Albert settled in Texas, attending college at what
is now Baylor University and working on several other newspapers. He
became an activist for former slaves and a Republican overseer of
Reconstruction which earned him the admiration and respect of the former
slaves he championed and the hatred of his fellow southerners and the
Ku Klux Klan. In what seemed to him a natural crossover, he also became
interested in the rights of workers.
In 1869, Albert worked as a traveling correspondent and business agent for the Houston DailyTelegraph and
during this time he met Lucy Ella Gonzales Waller. They were married in
1872, and Lucy Parsons, a political force in her own right joined her
destiny with her political mentor and partner. Their marriage not only
produced an interesting combination of political ideas, it also
committed what southerners, especially Ku Klux Klan members, called
miscegenation.
The South enforced both legal and social laws against miscegenation or racial mixing through marriage or cohabitation. In
1872, shortly after their marriage, the Parsons left Texas because of
their political involvement and their interracial marriage. Four years
before the formal ending of Reconstruction in 1876 when all federal
troops left, the South methodically instituted restrictive Jim Crow
segregation laws. Albert worked tirelessly to register Black voters and
his enemies shot him in the leg and threatened to lynch him.
In 1873,
Albert and Lucy Parsons moved north to Chicago to what they hoped would
be a better life. Albert began work as a printer for the Chicago Times.Life
in Chicago didn’t provide a safe haven for the Parsons. They arrived in
Chicago during the Panic of 1873, a financial collapse and depression
that lingered on for years. Causes of the Panic of 1873 include post
Civil War inflation, over speculation especially in railroads, a large
trade deficit, declining bank reserves, and European economic problems
stemming from the Franco-Prussian War. Chicago and Boston also suffered
the financial losses from devastating fires, Chicago in 1871 and Boston
in 1872.
As
Albert’s tenure as a printer continued, so did the labor troubles of
the United States. A law called the Contract Labor law of 1864 permitted
American businesses to contract and bring immigrant laborers into the
country which created a surplus of unskilled workers in cities like
Chicago and lowered wages. Socialist and anarchist ideology also gained a
toe hold in the United States and began to radicalize its labor force.
After they settled in a German-immigrant community, embracing first socialism and then anarchism Albert and Lucy became Labour actiists. In 1877, the Baltimore Ohio
Railroad cut worker’s wages igniting a nationwide strike and motivating
railroad workers all over the country to join picket lines. Reaction to
the railroad strike rippled through Chicago in the summer of 1877 when Chicago railroad workers took up the cause with a vengeance, derailing an engine and baggage cars fighting sporadic battles with the police. Motivated
by the plight of striking workers, Albert embraced an activist role,
taking time from his work and family life to advocate peaceful ways for
workers to negotiate. Soon the small number of workers he initially
addressed grew to crowds of more than 25,000 people and Albert stood at
center of the Chicago anarchist movement. Lucy stood by his side both
literally and figuratively.
Albert and Lucy Parsons joined the Socialist Labor Party in 1876, and they were active members of the International Working People’s Association or the First International which supported racial and gender equality. Albert Parsons also became the editor of the Alarm, the anarchist weekly journal that the International Working People’s Association published.
As Albert’s labor activities and speech making increased so did his fame and eventually the Chicago Times fired
him for supporting striking workers and the printers’ unions in Chicago
black listed him. Lucy Parsons opened a dress shop to support Albert
and their two children, Albert Jr. and Lulu Eda.Like
Twentieth Century women, Lucy found herself jugging her family
responsibilities and her career. She chaired meetings for the
International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union with her friend Lizzie
Swank, and she began to write for several radical publications.
Both her friends and enemies considered Lucy Parsons a
more dangerous radical than Albert, because of her outspoken speeches
and writing defending the rights of poor people. She also challenged the establishment because she refused to be confined to the role of a
homemaker but expanded her resume to include militant and radical woman. The Chicago Police Department describing her 'as more dangerous than a
thousand rioters.'
Together she and Albert would
fight for African American voting rights, and against KKK terror,
condemning racist attacks and killings. Getting involved also in
radical labour organising, they fought for the rights of political
prisoners, women, people of color, and homeless people, advocating a
syndicalist theory of society.
She began writing for the radical newspapers The Socialist and The Alarm.' On the topic of the growth of homeless people
begging for food on the streets of Chicago, the Chicago tribune said '
When a tramp asks you for bread , put strychnine or arsenic on it and
he will trouble you no more, and trouble will keep out of your
neighbourhood.' In response to this depravity, Lucy wrote one of her
most famous articles called - ' To Trams, the Unemployed, the
Disinherited, and Miserable.'
On
May 1, 1886, Albert and Lucy Parsons and their two children, led 80,000
people down Michigan Avenue to support the eight hour work day, and
this parade is considered to be the first May Day parade. The
International Working Peoples Association organized a campaign for the
eight hour day and on May 1, 1886, a national strike of American workers
began in support of an eight hour day.
Over
the next few days over 340,000 male and female workers participated in
the strike with more than 25 percent of them hailing from Chicago. The
unity of the Chicago workers so surprised Chicago employers that they
granted the workers a shorter work day. Thrilled, Lucy Parsons
proclaimed that the United States was ripe for a mass worker’s
revolution.
On
May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of unarmed strikers at the
McCormick Harvest Works in Chicago, wounding many strikers and killing
four of them. The Radicals called a meeting for May 4, 1886, in
Haymarket Square to discuss the situation. Many versions of the story
say that the Chicago police fired on a peaceful rally and an unknown
person threw a bomb, while some modern labor historians like Timothy
Messer-Kruse argue that the anarchists had a premeditated plan and
provoked the confrontation. However it started, a riot broke out and one
officer was killed and several officers and workers were wounded.
Over
the next few days, police scoured Chicago, searching for and arresting
any anarchists and radicals they could capture. They raided homes,
offices, and meeting halls of suspected radicals and Albert Parsons had
not been in Haymarket Square that day, but the police accused him as one
of the eight men responsible for the bombing. Albert Parsons went into
hiding, moving to Waukesha, Wisconsin, and remaining there until June
21, 1886.
Both
proud and angry that Albert Parsons believed in his anarchism enough to
die for it, Lucy launched into a campaign for clemency. She toured the
United States on a speaking tour, distributing fliers and pamphlets
about the unjust arrests and trials, and raising funds to help the
defendants. Armed policemen greeted Lucy had almost every place she
visited, barring her admission to meeting halls and monitoring her
speech and actions.
As
well as outside threats, Lucy Parsons also had to fight a battle within
the labor movement. She had belonged to the Knights of Labor for over
ten years and she vehemently disagreed with Terence Powderly, the leader
of the Knights. Terence Powderly opposed strikes and often discouraged
Knights of Labor members from participating in them and he strongly
disagreed with radicalism. He believed that the government should make
an example of the Haymarket defendants and the Knights of Labor firmly
stood against the Haymarket defendants.
Despite
these setbacks, Lucy continued her speaking tour, sparking more
interest in the Haymarket case and becoming more and more famous in her
own right.
The
police kept Lucy Parsons under constant surveillance and whenever they
had the slightest suspicion she knew Albert’s whereabouts, they arrested
her. Although they never charged Lucy with conspiracy in the bombing,
the authorities did arrest and charge Oscar Neebe, Adolph Fisher, August
Spies, Louis Lingg, Michael Schwab, Samuel Fielden, Carl Engle, and her
husband Albert. Eventually, Albert turned himself in to stand with his
fellow defendants and they were brought to trial, even though many of
them were not even at Haymarket Square at the time of the riot.
Corporate
lawyer William Perkins Black defended the anarchists, and witnesses
testified that none of the eight defendants had thrown the bomb. The
jury found them all guilty. Oscar Neebe was sentenced to 15 years in
prison and the others drew death sentences. Samuel Fielden and Michael
Schwab asked for clemency and eventually Illinois Governor John Peter
Altgeld pardoned them and they were released from prison on June 26,
1893. Albert Parsons could have been pardoned as well, but he didn’t
petition Governor Altgeld for a pardon because he felt that asking for a
pardon meant admitting guilt and he had committed no crime.
The day before his death,Albert Parsons wrote
a letter to his two young children. Dated Dungeon No. 7, Cook County
Jail, Chicago, Illinois, November 9, 1887, the letter read:
“To my Darling, Precious Little Children Albert R. Parsons, Jr. and his sister Lulu Eda Parsons:
As
I write this word, I blot your names with a tear. We will never meet
again. Oh, my children, how deeply, dearly your Papa loves you. We show
our love by living for our loved ones, we also prove our love by dying
when necessary for them. Of my life and the course of my unnatural and
cruel death, you will hear from others.
Your
Father is a self-offered sacrifice upon the altar of liberty and
happiness. To you I leave the legacy of an honest name and duty
done.Preserve it. Emulate it. Be true to yourselves, you cannot be false
to others. Be industrious, sober, and cheerful.
Your
mother! She is the grandest, noblest of women. Love, honor, and obey
her. My children, my precious ones, I request you to read this parting
message on each recurring anniversary of my death in remembrance of him
who dies not alone and for you, but for the children yet unborn. Bless
you my darlings! Farewell,
Your Father,
Albert R. Parsons”
On
November 10, 1887, while in his jail cell, Louis Lingg committed
suicide by exploding a dynamite cap in his mouth and on November 11,
1887, Albert Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fisher and Carl Engle were
hanged..https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/11/commemorating-haymarket-martyrs.html Lucy
brought her two children. Lulu Etta and Albert Jr., to see their father
one last time. The police arrested her and her children and took them
to jail. They forced Lucy to strip and left her naked in a cold cell
with her children while they executed her husband. When they finally
released her, she vowed to continue her fight against injustice even
though the authorities had killed her husband and she feared that they
would kill her too.
The immigrant workers of Chicago revered her, politicians reviled
her, and the general public maintained an intense fascination with
her, all for good reason. Parsons lived a life that was rife with
contradictions. She denied that she was of African descent, instead
claiming that her parents were Hispanic and Indian. She remained
largely indifferent to the injustices faced by black laborers, focusing
her attention on the white workers of Chicago and other big cities. In
private, she took lovers after the death of her husband, but in public
presented herself as a prim Victorian wife and mother and a
grief-stricken widow. She glorified the bonds of family, yet did not
hesitate to rid herself of her son Albert Junior when he threatened to
embarrass her by joining the U. S. army. In 1899 she had Junior
committed against his will to an insane asylum, where he died twenty
years later.
After her husbands death , Lucy came into her own as one of the leading radicals of the day.
she continued to spread her anarchist message, and became known
for her powerful oratory, urging the laboring classes to “Learn the use of explosives!”
to protect themselves from predatory industrialists and police forces.
In describing her, Parsons’s enemies often evoked the Great Chicago
Fire of 1871. She was a “firebrand” who delivered “fiery,” “red-hot,”
“incendiary,” “inflammatory” speeches that her critics feared would
spark a bloody uprising among her followers
In 1905 she participated in the founding of
the International Workers of the World, in what became known as the 'Wobblies ' She was one of two women, the other being Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2012/11/mary-harris-jones-151830-30111930.htmlwho founded the IWW. The union welcomed all
workers, regardless of nationality, religion, gender or skill, into its
ranks. she believed in their
committment to direct action, which she believed would inspire a
strong working class movement. She was a founding member of the Chicago chapter and wrote for the
organization’s paper. Drafted as a speaker at the IWW founding
convention, Lucy used this opportunity to speak to the tactics required
to end oppression and for success in strikes and outlined her vision:
“We, the women of this country, have no ballot even if we wished to
use it, and the only way that we can be represented is to take a man to
represent us. You men have made such a mess of it in representing us
that we have not much confidence in asking you. …
“We [women] are the slaves of slaves. We are exploited more
ruthlessly than men. Whenever wages are to be reduced the capitalist
class use women to reduce them, and if there is anything that you men
should do in the future it is to organize the women. …
“Now, what do we mean when we say revolutionary Socialist?
“We mean that the land shall belong to the landless, the tools to the
toiler, and the products to the producers. … I believe that if every
man and every woman who works, or who toils in the mines, mills, the
workshops, the fields, the factories and the farms of our broad America
should decide in their minds that they shall have that which of right
belongs to them, and that no idler shall live upon their toil … then
there is no army that is large enough to overcome you, for you
yourselves constitute the army. …
“My conception of the strike of the future is not to strike and go
out and starve, but to strike and remain in and take possession of the
necessary property of production. …
“Let us sink such differences as nationality, religion, politics and
set our eyes eternally and forever toward the rising star of the
industrial republic of labor; remembering that we have left the old
behind and have set our faces toward the future. There is no power on
earth that can stop men and women who are determined to be free at all
hazards. There is no power on earth so great as the power of intellect.
It moves the world and it moves the earth. …
“I hope even now to live to see the day when the first dawn of the
new era of labor will have arisen, when capitalism will be a thing of
the past, and the new industrial republic, the commonwealth of labor,
shall be in operation.”
She went on to found The Liberator newspaper writing extensively in the newspaper on topics such as worker strikes, industrial conflict, and classism. Parsons believed that revolutionary social change was possible through
the empowerment of labor unions. She sought to overthrow capitalism and
dismantle the federal government by advocating for the creation of a new
society self-managed by workers. In her writings and speeches, Parsons
addressed the oppression of women and the working class, and was among
the first to address lynchings and racial oppression in the South, but
largely arguing that capitalism and the economic conditions were to blame.
While she continued championing the anarchist cause, she came into
ideological conflict with some of her contemporaries, including Emma Goldman over her focus on class politics over gender and sexual struggles, nevertheless she continued to work with various Labour
groups, while raising two children that she had had with Albert.
Finding time to organise demonstrations, talking to crowds of workers,
for the unemployed, homeless and hungry delivering power passionate
speeches against police brutality, judicial murder. Getting involved in
the International Labour Defence, fighting for Sacco and Vancetti,https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2014/08/remembering-sacco-and-vanzetti-executed_23.html Tom
Mooney, Scottbro Nine, 9 young African Americans who had become symbols
of criminal injustice at the time, and for Women's emancipation, for
free birth control, advocating for organisation of sex workers,and the
struggle and rights of the poor and disenfranchised. Preaching justice
for the poor by way of revolution. Her radical beliefs prompted the
police to arrest her many times but believing in freedom of speech,
she would spend the rest of her life, fighting the forces that seeked
to eliminate her voice.
Continuing to remain active into her eighties, she died in a
suspicious house fire on the 7th of March 1942 her lover, George Markstall, died the next day from wounds he received while trying to save her. She was believed to be 89 years old. It seems she was viewed as a
threat to the political order in death, as well as in life, it was
revealed that her ashes barely being cold, the Chicago Police force
seized her entire personal library, in all it's 3,000 volumes, on sex,
socialism and anarchy and turned it over the F.B.I. Most of it would
never be seen again, an attempt to whitewash and write her out of
history as they tried to rob her of the work of her life.
Fortunately some of her writings survived, as do her ideas,
fighting strongly for what she believed in, defying both racial and
gender discrimination, at the forefronts of movements and battles for
social justice, her entire life. She challenged the racist and sexist
sentiment in a time when even Radical Americans, believed a woman's
place was in the home.Parsons' radical vision for a just society was decades ahead of her
time, making her the predecessor for so many women of color who sought
to challenge the system.
The legacy of her fight for workers rights,
freedom of speech, the African-American, is still a strong influential
one. Her voice still resounding against all kinds of oppression and the
forces of capitalism long after her death. She is buried near her husband in Waldheim Cemetery (now Forest Home Cemetery), Forest Park, Illinois.
For more information on Lucy, The Lucy Parsons Project has a wealth of links including links to Lucy's own writings.
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg,Marxist theorist,
agitator, internationalist, philosopher, economist.Rosa was one of the most famous political figures of the last century. For the
international workers’ movement, she is renowned as a dedicated
socialist whose sacrifice and theoretical contributions to Marxism make
her one of history‘s foremost revolutionaries. The close proximity of
her birth date to International Women’s Day (8 March)https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-socialist-roots-of-international.html means that this
year, more than ever, Rosa Luxemburg’s courageous life and revolutionary
ideas will be of continual interest to many.
Rosa Luxemburg was born on March 5, 1871, in the city of Zamosc, Poland,
then under control of czarist Russia. Her father, Eliasz Luxemburg, was
a prosperous timber trader, who had inherited his business from his
father, Abraham.
of Polish Jewish descent who
became a naturalized German citizen. Rosa’s mother was Lina Loewenstein, the daughter of a traditional rabbi
and sister of a Reform rabbi. Rosa, who grew up speaking German, Polish
and Yiddish, was the youngest of the couple’s five children. As a young
child, she suffered from a hip ailment, which left her permanently
afflicted with a limp.
During Poland’s 1863 uprising against Russian rule, Eliasz supplied the
independence movement with weapons, so that for several years after the
revolt’s failure, he had to remain in hiding from czarist authorities.
In 1873, the family moved with him to Warsaw, where Rosa attended the
gymnasium.
Even during high school, Rosa was drawn to politics, becoming active in
the Proletariat party, a forerunner to the Polish Socialist party. After
several of her comrades in the party were arrested and executed, she
decided to pursue her higher education in Switzerland. Luxemburg began at the University of Zurich as a student of zoology but
ended up focusing on economics, philosophy and law. Throughout her
political career, Luxemburg consistently opposed Polish
nationalism, believing that socialist action had to take place on the
international level, and that a separate revolution in Poland would be
self-defeating.
Similarly, she was opposed to Jewish nationalism or separatism. Though
she was sensitive to the problem of anti-Semitism, she was sure it would
disappear with the overthrow of capitalism. since 1899,she became an
important figure in the world socialist movement, and became involved in
the international organisation of workers overcoming physical infirmity
and the prejudice she faced as a Jew to become an active revolutionary
whose philosophy enriched every corner of an incredibly productive and
creative life.
After finishing her studies in 1898, Luxemburg moved to Germany, gaining
citizenship via a marriage of convenience and became a member of the
Social Democrat Party of Germany (SPD),which, unlike the German SPD of today, was developing into a
mass party of the working class. At that time, the social democrats had
a clear anti-capitalist orientation, invoking Marxist doctrine, she became lleader of the
radical wing of the Party , however she broke with the SPD after it
supported the
imperialist drive towards war, she believed in the build up to the First
World War that
' workers blood should not be shed in defence of the
capitalist system'.
The 1905 Russian revolution had a profound effect on discussions
within the international labour movement, at the time. Although it was
crushed, this event strengthened the revolutionary wing. There were
extensive discussions about the lessons from 1905, for example, the role
of the mass strike.
In the period running up to the 1905 revolution, massive strikes had
already shaken the Russian Empire: individual strikes quickly spread
like wildfire.Unlike many SPD leaders, Luxemburg enthusiastically supported a new form
of workers’ struggle – the mass strike. When revolution broke out in
Russia in 1905, she seized the opportunity to study this phenomenon at
first hand, hailing it in her book The Mass Strike as :
“the natural
method to mobilise the broadest proletarian layers into action, to
revolutionise and organise them” and simultaneously a means “to
undermine and overthrow the established State power as well as to curb
capitalist exploitation”.She argued that " The mass strike is the first natural,
impulsive form of every great revolutionary struggle of the proletariat
and the more highly developed the antagonism is between capital and
labour, the more effective and decisive must mass strikes become. The
chief form of bourgeois revolutions, the fight at the barricades, the
open conflict with the armed poor of the state, is in the revolution
today only the culminating point, only a moment on the process of the
proletarian mass struggle."
Returning to the false separation between
economic and political struggle, she pointed out that in a revolutionary
period the economic struggle grows into a political one, and vice
versa. There is a reciprocal influence between the two, as each enriches
and deepens the other. The Mass Strike shows in detail how this occurs;
it also demonstrates how completely justified she was to have faith in
the ability of the working class to grow and learn and lead the struggle
for a better world. Rosa Luxemburg recognised that the political action of a
mass strike is one of the most important tools of the working class in
its struggle for liberation.
The right-wing of the SPD and the trade union leaders, of the time,
rejected this position, arguing that mass strikes are only possible when
the entire working class is organised and trade union coffers are
filled to the brim.
Though Luxemburg was militant about the idea of proletarian revolution,
she was also strongly anti-militarist. She believed in democracy and was an outspoken
opponent of the Bolsheviks’ belief that a small cadre of bureaucrats
should made political decisions on behalf of the proletariat: Revolution
had to be political as well as economic, she felt.
Because of her socialist agitation during this
terrible war , she spent the majority of the years from the outbreak of World War One in
1914 to the revolution of November 1918 behind bars, imprisoned for
being one of the very few people in Germany with the courage to speak
out against the slaughter unfolding in the trenches. In the Junius
Pamphlet, written from her freezing prison cell in early 1915, she painted a vivid
picture of the choice she believed humanity faced in those
years:
“Either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all
civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation,
degeneration—a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means
the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against
imperialism and its method of war”.
She scolds those who sit quietly as injustice is done:
" Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping filth – there stands
bourgeois society. This is it [in reality]. Not all spic and span and
moral, with pretense to culture, philosophy, ethics, order, peace, and
the rule of law – but the ravening beast, the witches’ sabbath of
anarchy, a plague to culture and humanity. Thus, it reveals itself in
its true, its naked form."
After Germany's
defeat she was released, and with her friend Karl Liebnecht,
formed the anti war Spartacist league, and she assumed the leadership of the
radical independent socialists. Her will and her desire was to see an
end to all exploitation and oppression.
Her faith was a socialist idea that combined the powerful passion of
both mind and heart. She devoted herself to the cause of revolution,and
its preparation. She lived and breathed its fire, with selflessness and
devotion, in every waking moment she dedicated herself to its cause.
Standing bravely up for freedom with a strong powerful intellect. An
individualist, she formulated her own ideas, using her own words to
energise and radicalise the people and bring about a socialist
revolution.
She followed no leader, was no ones puppet and while Rosa was enthusiastic about the Russian revolution, she
nevertheless criticized Lenin, her lifelong comrade, for his concession
of democracy and centralist tactics such as the dissolution of the
Provisional Government and Constituent Assembly. Luxemburg defended
democracy as an integral part of the process of revolution as well as
its goal. When she criticised
Lenin, it was in relation to dictatorial aspects. She said " Terror has
not crushed us. How can you put your trust in terror."
She quoted Leon Trotsky saying
"As Marxists we have never been idol worshippers of formal democracy." She went on "All that really means is: We have always distinquished the social
kernal of social inequality and lack of freedom hidden under the sweet
shell of formal equality and freedom - not in order to reject the latter
but to spur the working class into being satisfied with the shell, but
rather, by conquering political power, to create a socialist democracy to
replace bourgeois democracy - not to eliminate democracy
altogether....... but socialist democracy is not something which begins
only in the promised land, after the foundations of socialist economy
are created, it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the
worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of
socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the
beginnings of the destruction of class rule and the construction of
socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the
Socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the
proletariat. Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the
manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic,
resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic
relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist
transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the
work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of
the class - that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active
participation of the masses, it must be under their direct influence,
subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out
of the political training of the mass of the people."
Possibly her believe in democracy is what failed her philosophically,
nevertheless the questions she posed still worth looking at today. She
also wrote " the revolution is the sole form of war, and this is also
its most vital law - in which the final victory can be prepared only by a
sense of defeat.".
She had determination by the buckets and a steely willful commitment.She
herself took part in revolutionary events , recognising the need
of a revolutionary party, which could unite and give a lead in a
revolutionary situation, seeing socialism as a movement of the
proletarian masses that should emphasise unity and equality rather than
highlight the oppression of any particular group, with an undogmatic
commitment to an unfinished notion of freedom that still appeals to
many people today.
In November 1918 after four years of war, German society crumbled both
at the front at home, and a revolutionary fervour swept the land, the
working class took to the streets in a series of strikes and the navy
mutinied., though critical with some demands of the revolutionary
movement, Rosa threw in her lot with her comrades, believing that she
could not simply wait on the sidelines. Subsequently on the night of
January 15, 1919 she
and Liebnecht were abducted, tortured in the luxury Hotel Eden, and
then driven seperately to the nearby Tiergarten Park and murdered,
Liebknecht was delivered to the city morgue while Luxemburg’s skull
was smashed by a rifle butt and her body dumped into Berlin’s Landwehr
canal. They were both 47.
Her body was only recovered five months later after the winter ice had
thawed. She was buried next to Liebknecht in the Friedrichstelde
Cemetery.
Famously on the evening of her murder almost certainly knowing that her fate was sealed she wrote.
'"The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be
recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the
decicive element, they are the rock on which the final victors of the
revolution will be built. Order reigns in Berlin! Your 'order' is built
on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already raise itself with a
rattle and announce with fanfare, to tour terror; I was, I am, I shall
be!"
The murders of Luxemburg and Liebknecht were a major blow to the
immediate hopes of the German (and by extension, the world’s) working
class. But Luxemburg’s legacy as a revolutionary activist and theorist
couldn’t be extinguished so easily. Her ideas, whether on the question
of reform versus revolution, the significance of the mass strike or the
civilisation-threatening barbarism of imperialist war, are as relevant
today as ever.
Today 150 years after her birth she has left an indelible mark on history, her ideas can be pressed into many meanings. There is a feminist
Rosa, an anarchist Rosa, then there is a red Rosa, but she remains an
icon in the truest sense of the word. “She was the sharp sword, the living flame of revolution.” So wrote Clara Zetkin in her obituary for her close friend and comrade, Rosa Luxemburg. The words are a fitting tribute to a woman who was an outstanding leader of the socialist movement who never shied away from speaking her mind..
She has become part of Germany's
cultural memory, immortalised in art, poetry, an award winning biopic, a
musical and a graphic novel. And in her own words too, as well as being a
brilliant Marxist theorist. Luxemburg was a prolific writer of letters,
and her emotive lyrical writing has seen her emerge as a literary
figure in her own right. Here's to Red Rosa, lets hope her spirit is not
forgotten. Peace, bread, roses, Her revolutionary socialist politics
endure because the struggle against barbarism remain as relevant as
ever.
Here is poem written by Bertolt Brecht in 1920 about Rosa.
About the drowned girl - Bertolt Brecht
As she drowned, she swam downwards and was borne,
From the smaller streams to the larger rivers,
In wonder the opal of the heavens shone,
As if wishing to placate the body that was hers.
Catching hold of her were the seaweed , the algae,
Slowly she became heavy as downwards she went,
Cool fish swam around her legs, freely,
Animals and plants weight to her body lent.
Dark light smoke in the evenings the heavens grew,
But early in the morning the stars dangled, there was light,
So that for her, there remained too,
Morning and evening, day and night.
Her cold body rotted in the waters there,
Slowly, step by step, god too forgot,
First her face, then her hands, and finally her hair
She became carrion of which the rivers have a lot.
Luxemburg and Liebknecht are commemorated every year on the second
Sunday of January when red flowers are scattered on their graves.
Red Rosa now has vanished too. Where she lies is hid from view. She told the poor what life is about And so the rich have rubbed her out
- Bertolt Brecht, "Epitaph, 1919"
She was also much admired by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893 -1978), a
musicologist, composer, poet and novelist, who gained little recognition
for her poetry during her own lifetime, who once joked, ' I intend to be
a posthumous poet!
Like Rosa Luxemburg, she was appalled by the militarism of the First
World War. Here is her tribute to Rosa Luxemburg , first published in
her 1925 collection The Espalier.
I Bring Her a Flower
Sweet faith
Such looks of quiet hath
That those on whom she’s smiled Lie down to sleep as easy as a child.
No night,
However dark, can fright
Them, no, nor day
To come, however bleak and fell, dismay.
But sound
Sleep they in prison-bound
As when at liberty
And if they wake, they wake in charity;
Like her,
Who rousing at the jar
Of weary foot in the rain
Pitied the wakeful sentry for his pain.
(1925)
Further Reading
Rosa Luxemburg: A reapraisal - Lelio Besco
Andre Deutsch, 1975.
Rosa Luxemburg: A life
- Elizvieta Ettinga , Beacon Press 1987.
The letters of Rosa Luxemburg, Verso
The essential Rosa Luxemburg :Reform or Revolution and the Mass Strike
Red Rosa;a Graphic biography of Rosa Luxemburg - Kate Evans. Verso
"either capitalism will continue, with fresh wars and a rapid plunge
intp chaos and anarchy, or else capitalist exploitation will be
abolished." Rosa Luxemburg 14/12/18 Rote Fahne
"Revolutionary idealism .... can be maintained over any period
of time only through the intensely active life of the masses themselves
under conditions of unlimited freedom." Rosa Luxemburg " Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be."Rosa Luxemburg
Today, Rishi Sunak. the multi-millionaire Tory Chancellor, delivered his budget in the House of Commons. It was a budget for the few. It was a budget that did not meet the needs of the British people or our brilliant public services. It was a budget that papered over the cracks and that failed to build the foundations of recovery. Once again letting down the country and the people that they should be serving
But nothing new here, time and time again we see how the Tories only look after their friends. They have been found to have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds having handed over to companies associated with the Conservative Party, contracts that have failed to deliver for the NHS and essential workers and for public safety.
Millions of people are going to have to pay more in council tax because the Tories have failed to support local councils through this pandemic. Hard hit families and those struggling to get by are going to face higher bills. meaning may will be pushed into poverty,
If that does not expose their meanness, at the same time the Tories are cutting the international aid budget to the world's most ravage country, Yemen by 50%. Children in that war torn country are starving and the Tories are cutting their support. This is the reality of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak's vision of a 'global Britain.'
1.3 m lowest paid workers will now pay tax, £7.5bn tax hikes on workers wages, new Autumn furlough and Universal Credit cliff edge, ten's of thousands on legacy benefits ignored The decision to delay the cut to Universal Credit instead of securing incomes in the long term my making it permanent will lead to 26,000 families in Wales not being able to afford essentials in six months time.
There is absolutely nothing for schools, which are struggling with increased Covid costs, The Tory failure to invest any resources -, staff, space, support-to help make schools safe continues unaltered, The Tory obsession with full reopening of schools is not matched by any practical support for making it safe and sustainable.
No extra money for a social care system on its knees, no funding lifeline for councils struggling to provide services holding communities together.
Even with a crippling 4% rise in council tax, adult social care services, along with other services, will require an additional £1.6 billion of funding just to stand still, let alone restore the funding axed during the last decade. On top of this our NHS front line workers are being forced to accept a pay freeze, after a year of battling the deadly Coronavirus and working to keep us all safe, many of them sacrificing their lives, contracting the virus and dying because Matt Hancock couldn't be bothered to supply proper personal protective equipment (PPE) at the right time, and now they and other key workers are being rewarded with the prospect of serious economic hardship, instead of a pay rise that they more than earned and deserved. Sunak has insulted millions of workers who have seen us through this crisis. Adding insult to injury Lifetime Allowance on pensions is also frozen. As a consequence many doctors will leave the NHS or reduce their hours.
This while big business and multinational corporations who have made billions during the pandemic will get away scot free; because Sunak has backed away from calls to impose a wealth tax. Emergency action is needed to protect jobs and wages. But instead Sunak intends to shore up profits and wealth, Even in a pandemic the Tories, it seems protect the ultra-wealthy.and want us to pay for the crisis as the economy recovers from the Covid crisis, while the rich laugh all the way to the bank.
I'm baffled that Sunak boasts that we need to spend £407 bn to deal with the pandemic, in comparison to other countries who have not needed to spend anything like this, Why? Because they dealt with it all early.
Keir Starmer's weak opposition means that Sunak and the Tories can largely get away with real scrutiny and challenge but no amount of trickery can conceal that this budget attacks the poorest, it is after all a Tory budget and as a result their budget will do nothing to address a decade of economic inequality that they have been responsible for. At end of the day Tories are still bloody Tories. It is a budget of half measures and quick fixes , a budget that does not begin to measure up to the scale of the challenges we face. If not times were not stressful enough at the moment, these measures will further increase the burden on the disadvantaged among us, whose numbers will no doubt rise as a result of Sunak's ill thought out budget for the few.
Today as has become traditional, I mark St David's Day/ Dydd Dewi
Sant, on the anniversary of St David’s death
in 589AD .
I've written previously in more detail here https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2020/03/some-praise-for-dewi-sant-st-david.html but the story goes that David's mother St Non, or Nonitta was raped by Xanctus or Sanctus, Prince of Ceredigion, and the product of the violation was David. Non, gave birth to her son on a clifftop during a wild storm. Today the ruins of St Non's Chapel on the Pembrokeshire coast marks the spot.
St David is rumoured to have been educated in Cardiganshire before making his way to Jerusalem where he was appointed as Archbishop.
After his pilmgrimages he is said to have settled in Glyn Rhosyn (St David’s) in south-west Wales.Here he established a religious community and the cathedral of St David’s became a popular centre of pilgrimage.
Much of his life story is based on the Buchedd Dewi (Life of David) written by the scholar Rhigyfarch at the end of the 11th century.
Various
miracles are attributed to St David, including restoring the sight of
his teacher and, most famously, creating an entirely new hill (now the
village of Llanddewi Brefi) during an outdoor sermon.
He became a
renowned missionary in Wales and beyond, and is credited with founding
monasteries in his homeland, the south-west of England (including
Glastonbury) and Brittany.
He was named the Archbishop of Wales at
the Synod of Brefi church council in 550, but remained in the
settlement of Menevia – later named St Davids in his honour – where he
had set up a large monastery which is now St David’s Cathedral.
His body was buried at St David’s Cathedral, which became a prestigious site of pilgrimage in the middle ages.
The cathedral stands today on the site of St David’s 6th century
monastic settlement. The cathedral has had a tumultuous past with
invasions, earthquakes, royal visits and refurbishments. It stands today
in Pembrokeshire as a mighty symbol of religious pilgrimage and as a
remarkable reminder of Welsh heritage.
David was officially recognized as a Catholic saint in 1120 and the
day of his death was decreed as a national festival in the 18th century.
To mark St David’s Day people around Wales wear one of the two national emblems – the leek or the daffodil.
Like any folklore, there is much speculation as to why these two objects exist as national emblems.
The daffodil, however, was more of a seasonal introduction as their spring sprouting coincides with the national day.
There will be no big St David’s Day Celebrations this year, with Wales remaining under lockdown restrictions.Nevertheless. we will celebrate Wales, our people, our language and the unique culture that we all share.
Google`s iconic logo though gets the annual St David’s Day makeover today marking the national celebration of the Welsh patron Saint.
The Google Doodle as it is known is the latest in a long line of
designs celebrating St. David’s Day on the search engines website dating
back to 2004.
Google says today’s Doodle that shows the traditional Welsh red dragon curled up in some long grass, with a white castle in the background. which is illustrated by Welsh guest artist Elin Manon was inspired by the legend of Dinas Emrys—one of Wales’ most famous historic tales—celebrating St. David’s Day.
The artwork relates to a Welsh myth about a Celtic king named Vortigen,
who accidentally tried to build a castle on a hillside above the lair of
two sleeping dragons – one red, one white.
He awoke the dragons and they fought, with the red one ending
victorious. The red dragon has come to be Wales and St David’s most
famous symbol, along with the daffodil, which you can see surrounding
the dragon in the doodle.
Google’s doodle website says “Myth has it that in the fifth
century, a Celtic king named Vortigen discovered what he thought was
the perfect place to build his castle on the Welsh hillside.’
‘However, Myrddin Emrys (Merlin, the wizard) convinced Vortigen that there was a catch—a large fire-breathing one!’
‘The spot he had chosen was directly above the lair of two slumbering
dragons; one red, one white. Upon the castle’s construction, the two
dragons were found in a fierce battle.”
“The red dragon emerged victorious and returned to rest in his
subterranean lair, allowing Vortigen to complete the building of his
fortress once the dust had settled.”
“The red dragon has since become an immortal symbol of the Welsh
people and St. David’s Day, along with the daffodil—the yellow flower
surrounding it in the Doodle artwork.”
“Although the tale of Dinas Emrys may sound like nothing but fantasy,
a 1945 excavation of the site found remains of a fortress dating back
to Vortigen’s time.”
“So take caution if you ever plan to venture to the ruins of Dinas Emrys… you may awaken a dragon.”
The doodle takes pride of place on the Google UK front-page until midnight tonight.
St David's last words to his followers came from a sermon that he gave on the previous Sunday: 'Be joyful, and do the little things that you have heard and seen me do,The phrase “Gwnewch y pethau bychain” or “Do the little things” are considered to
be St David's most famous words, and potentially his final ones and are still a well known maxim here in Wales. St
David believed that the people of Wales should do the small, considerate
things that often make a big difference. During the difficult days of the pandemic, this is exactly what the people of Wales have been doing, making small sacrifices to keep each one another safe. Doing the little things have made our communities stronger in such dark times.
In her St David's Day message the Bishop of St Davids Joanna Penberthy said :
" And let all of us, in this difficult time, as St David asks, do the
little things. Let us keep the faith of kindness, truthfulness, honesty
and justice. St David spent his life nurturing his community. As we
gradually come out of Covid, let us work together, wanting for everyone
else no more and no less than we want for ourselves. Let us make Wales
the place where no one is left behind."
In the latest yearly
St. David’s Day Poll, support for Welsh independence has risen again with 11% supporting independence in a multi-option
question compared to just 7% last year. The dragon awakens.
Let's do the little things that can lead to big change. A better society that makes a difference every day. We can offer help to those fleeing from persecution of any kind. We are all
beneficiaries of the generosity of others in this Country for many of
our ancestors were in desperate need of shelter, safety or simply
wanting a better life, and though we may walk different paths and hail from different beginnings you cannot break the bond that is our shared national identity. On May 6th. Vote for Wales. Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! Happy St David's Day everyone!
Lawrence Ferlinghetti,,poet, painter, activist, publisher (and co-owner) of the world-famous City Lights Bookstore and
literary icon died on Monday at his home, his
son Lorenzo Ferlinghetti said. A month shy of his 102nd birthday,
Ferlinghetti died " in his own room," holding the hands of his son and
his son's girlfriend, "as he took his last breath." The cause of death
was lung disease. Ferlinghetti had received the first dose of the
COVID-19 vaccine last week, his son said Tuesday Ferlinghetti epitomized the soul of San Francisco counterculture for
generations of artists and writers. As the founder of City Lights, a
bookstore and publisher that grew from a small, avant-garde press to a
literary institution, he provided a bedrock of support for scores of
groundbreaking writers, from the Beat Generation onwards, staunchly defending the work that risked erasure
and oppression from authorities.
“We intend to build on Ferlinghetti’s vision and honor his memory by
sustaining City Lights into the future as a center for open intellectual
inquiry and commitment to literary culture and progressive politics,”
City Lights said in a statement“Though we mourn his passing, we
celebrate his many contributions and give thanks for all the years we
were able to work by his side.
We love you, Lawrence.”
Often concerned with politics and social issues. Ferlinghetti's work countered the
literary elites definition of art and the artists role in the world.
Though imbued with the commonplace, his poetry cannot be simply
described as polemic or personal protest, for it stands on his
craftmanship, thematics and grounding in tradition. An activist who was brave
enough and daring to challenge peoples beliefs.His life saw him act as a
catalyst for numerous literary careers and for the Beat movement itself,
publishing the early work of Allen Ginsberg,Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder.
Making poetry accessible to all, with his lucid views he has long
watered my senses. I've admired his work since getting hold of copy of Penguin Modern Poets No 5 (where he was alongside Ginsberg and Gregorry Corso)https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/04/penguin-modern-poets.html His bookstore quickly became an iconic literary
institution that has embodied social change and literary freedom. A
truly remarkable person, and a great inspiration.
The youngest of five children he was born Lawrence Monsanto Ferling in Yonkers, N.Y., on March 24,
1919. His Italian father, an estate agent who changed the family name after arriving in
America, died before Lawrence was born. Soon after, his mother was
hospitalized with a nervous breakdown and his family was split up.
Lawrence
was sent to live with an uncle, Ludovic Monsanto, and his
French-speaking wife, Emily, when he was 2. When the Monsantos’ marriage
collapsed, Emily took Lawrence to France. When they returned to New
York, she put Lawrence in an orphanage (of which
his sole memory was "undercooked tapioca pudding") but later retrieved him.
She took him to live in the Bronxville household of the wealthy
Bisland family, which had hired her as a governess. But his life was
ruptured again when Emily disappeared mysteriously, never to return.
The
Bislands, who had lost a son, coincidentally named Lawrence, raised
him like their own. They nurtured a love of books and sent him to
private schools, but they were emotionally reserved and Lawrence, who
would later dub himself the “Director of Alienation” in one of his
poems, often felt lonely.
His happiest time came during the
Depression when the Bislands sent him to board with another family, the
Wilsons, and attend a Bronxville public school. He formed a close bond
with one of the Wilson sons, played sports, had a paper route and was a
Boy Scout. He also engaged in minor hooliganism with a group of street
youths called the Parkway Road Pirates, whose activities brought certain
ironies into his young life:
I got caught stealing pencils
from the Five and Ten Cent Store
the same month I made Eagle Scout
The
shoplifting incident ended his idyll with the Wilsons. He was enrolled
at the Mount Hermon prep school in Massachusetts, where he led a
disciplined life of prayer, work and study. He discovered the work of
Thomas Wolfe and later studied at Wolfe’s alma mater, the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where Ferlinghetti earned a bachelor’s
degree in 1941.
Later that year, just before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the
Navy. He commanded a 30-man
submarine chaser, part of the so-called "Donald Duck Navy" of tiny
wooden craft, which were nonetheless entitled to call in as many
supplies as a battleship – a loophole he used to request a full set of
the Random House Modern Library and copious amounts of "medicinal"
brandy. The war went by with Ferlinghetti "enjoying every minute of it",
until as part of the American occupation in Japan, he toured
Nagasaki after the atomic blast that killed 70,000 of its residents. The
monstrous sights (“hands sticking out of the mud broken tea cups hair
sticking out of the road”) turned Ferlinghetti into a pacifist and
political activist.
After the war, he earned a master’s degree on the GI Bill at Columbia University.In 1946 he moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne where he received a doctorate.he met his future
wife, Kirby, on the ship over. They had two children, Julie and Lorenzo,
and separated in 1973, but remained close until Kirby's death in 2012.
Though Ferlinghetti settled with Lorenzo in North Beach, for much
of his life he travelled compulsively. "Why do I voyage so much? And
write so little?" he once wrote, on a bus to Mexico. The answer may come
from his nomadic childhood., Ferlinghetti moved several times
during his childhood.
In 1951, he arrived in San Francisco, where his work would pave
the way for a national literary movement while stoking a vibrant local
literary scene.In San Francisco, Ferlinghetti taught French, painted, wrote art reviews
and translated the poetry of Jacques Prevert and Guillaume Apollinaire. In a 2019 interview with The Paris Review, he described what he first encountered there:
When I arrived in town the only
bookstores were like Paul Elder’s, downtown. None of them had
periodicals. I felt right from the beginning there was no locus for the
literary community. These bookstores all closed at five o’clock, they
weren’t open on the weekend. What’s a literary person supposed to do,
where is he supposed to go? From the beginning, when Peter Dean Martin
and I started City Lights Bookstore in 1953, our idea was to create a
locus for the literary community. We used to run a one-inch ad in the
San Francisco Chronicle saying, “A literary meeting place since 1953.”
That was our original line.
He also launched a friendship with Kenneth Rexroth, dean of the avant-garde poets driving the city’s
literary scene. whose show on
the Berkeley community radio station KPFA captured his imagination. He
told Interview in 2012:
He didn’t just review books, he knew
every possible field-geology, astronomy, philosophy, logic, classics. It
was a total education listening to him. It was a radical position. I
used to go to his soirees on Friday nght. There were a lot of poets
that would show up. He lived in the Fillmore District, which was black
at that time. He lived at 250 Scott Street, above Jack’s Record Cellar.
Anyway, Friday night soirees at his house were old and young, but just
poets. That’s where I met Kerouac and [Neal] Cassady and Gregory Corso .
. .
Ferlinghetti and Martin each invested $500 to open City Lights Pocket
Book Shop in 1953 at 261 Columbus Avenue. The store sold only
paperbacks, a bold choice for a time when publishers were not
particularly invested in the format; the decision reflected
Ferlinghetti’s belief in making literature accessible to a mass
audience.The bookshop, renowned for its bohemian atmosphere and vast collections
of international poetry, fiction, progressive political journals and
magazines in 1956 spawned a literary press, City Lights Publishers, aiming to
encourage an “international, dissident ferment.”
He first encountered Allen Ginsberg’s "Howl"
at a reading that same year.https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/10/7th-october-1955-allen-ginsbergs-first.html The following year, City Lights published
it. (Ferlinghetti had given notice to the American Civil Liberties Union
in advance.) Then, on June 7, 1957, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an intriguing
headline on page two: "Bookshop Owner Surrenders." A warrant had been
put out for Ferlinghetti's arrest, for printing and selling "obscene"
materials.
The prosecutor, a self-proclaimed "specialist in smut cases", ignored
Ginsberg's tragic, era-defining portrait of "the best minds of my
generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked", instead
totting up the four-letter words. Unexpectedly, the judge – a
conservative Sunday school teacher – found Ferlinghetti not guilty,
declaring that unless a book "is entirely lacking in 'social importance'
it cannot be held obscene".
This victory for freedom of expression would set a legal precedent for other
authors who faced obscenity charges in subsequent years, including
William S. Burroughs, D.H. Lawrence, and Henry Miller and cemented the idea of the Beat Generation. .
Ferlinghetti pointed out that the Beats were self-mythologising from the
start, because Ginsberg "was a very clever publicist for his group of
poets. Without Allen Ginsberg there would not have been the Beat
Generation. It was a creation in Allen Ginsberg's mind."
He notably did not think of himself as a Beat poet, though others would
assign him the label throughout his life; in a 2006 interview with The Guardian,
he called himself “the last of the bohemians rather than the first of
the Beats.”
When Ginsberg tried to push Ferlinghetti to publish more of his friends, he
replied: "I'm not out to run a press of Poets That Write Like Allen
Ginsberg." To his credit, he didn't. City Lights soon established itself as a vital publisher
of progressive, experimental, and high-quality literary projects, City Lights' eclectic list ranged
from Denise Levertov. Malcolm Bradbury, William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Patchen and
Pablo Picasso. As editor, Ferlinghetti had an eye for talent,
sensitivity and patience. He wrote Frank O'Hara https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2017/07/frank-ohara-poet-of-intensity-and.html postcards for five years
saying he would "starve" without a full manuscript for his Lunch Poems,
before O'Hara finally handed one over. ("I am very happy that you have
stayed hungry," wrote O'Hara. "Lunch is in toaster and I hope you like
it.")
Ferlinghetti would also release Jack Kerouac's Book of Dreams, prison writings by Timothy Leary and Frank O'Hara's Lunch Poems. Whist Ferlinghetti had risked prison for Howl, he rejected William Burrough's classic Naked Lunch worrying that publication would led to 'sure premeditated legal lunacy.
As a gathering space for artists and intellectuals, the City Lights
Bookstore its events, along with Ferlinghetti himself, became a hub
of collaboration, artistic invention, and literary dialogue.City Lights became a meeting point for Bohemian writers who refused to
accept what Ferlinghetti dubbed the "Coca-Colonization" of America.
City
Lights' goal was not to promote "our gang" but to start "an
international, dissident, insurgent ferment", open to hepcats and "Red
Cats" (Soviet poets) alike. Shunning the "Beat" label, Ferlinghetti
always preferred the term "wide-open" – which is how Pablo Neruda,
another City Lights poet, described Ferlinghetti's verse when they met
in Cuba in 1960.
There,
over dinner, Ferlinghetti looked up to see a "big guy with beard
wearing fatigues and smoking cigar come out of restaurant kitchen". It
was Fidel Castro. The poet realised they had an acquaintance in common:
"Soy amigo de Allen Ginsberg." This was enough to win him a "big smile"
and a "soft handshake".
A self confessed moral anarchist and socialist, Ferlinghetti never shied away from making his political beliefs
known and using avenues such as poetry to express them. He has been
credited with helping to bring poetry out of the academic arena and back
to the public. He travelled widely, and in the ensuing years, Ferlinghetti intensified his political
activities. He visited Chile and Cuba. He demonstrated against the
Vietnam War and was arrested with 67 others, including folk singer Joan
Baez, after participating in a 1967 protest at an Oakland Army induction center. Ferlinghetti's activism did not fade away like that psychedelic summer of '67, it lived on in his words and deeds. In 2012, he turned down a literary award partly funded by Hungary’s
government due to concerns about human rights in the country. , And on the day in 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq, he closed the
bookshop in protest.
“To be disengaged is to be dead,” he once said in a critique of the Beat philosophy of detachment.
City Lights expanded in 1987 to
include a revered poetry room
which encourages readers to enjoy their books before purchasing. Ferlinghetti also defied history. The internet, superstore chains and high
rents shut down numerous booksellers in the Bay Area and beyond, but
City Lights remained a thriving political and cultural outlet, where one
section was devoted to books enabling "revolutionary competence," where
employees could get the day off to attend an anti-war protest.
"Generally, people seem to get more conservative as they age, but in
my case, I seem to have gotten more radical," Ferlinghetti told
Interview magazine in 2013. "Poetry must be capable of answering the
challenge of apocalyptic times, even if this means sounding
apocalyptic."
The
bookstore is so important to San Francisco culture that during the coronavirus outbreak, when it was
forced to close and required $300,000 to stay in business. A GoFundMe
campaign quickly raised $400,000.
Ferlinghetti published more than 30 books of poetry in his lifetime. His
work, including the well-known poem “Tentative Description of a Dinner
to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower,” often explicitly
dealt with the social and political upheavals of the late 20th
century,his collection A Coney Island of the Mind
published by New Directions in 1958, received mixed reviews from critics. Typical was Harvey Shapiro’s
critique in the New York Times, which called it “a grab bag of
undergraduate musings about love and art, much hackneyed satire of
American life and some real and wry perceptions of it.” Yet it remains
one of the most-read books of modern American poetry, and is one of the best-selling poetry
collections of all time, according to City Lights. A well thumbed copy is among my bookcases. In “A Coney Island of the Mind” he wrote several poems with jazz
accompaniment in mind. He recorded two of the poems , “Autobiography”
and “Junkman’s Obbligato” with the Cellar Jazz Quintet of San
Francisco on a 1957 album with Rexroth called “Poetry Readings in the
Cellar.”
Serious critics and even some of his friends dismissed him. Corso and
others in the Beat circle “consider me a business man with a loose
pen,” he wrote in a letter to Ginsberg included in the 2015 volume “I
Greet You at the Beginning of a Great Career: The Selected
Correspondence of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, 1955-1997.”
His
admirers (which I definitely consider myself to be one) have been vociferous in their admiration. Well into his 80s,
Ferlinghetti performed his poetry on college campuses, where audiences
greeted him like a rock star, shouting out the titles of favorite poems.
Hundreds showed up at City Lights for his 100th birthday in 2020. To celebrate Ferlinghetti's birthday, its storefront displayed a
line from his manifesto "Poetry as Insurgent Art" (2007): "Paper may
burn but words will escape."
Among the events at City Lights' was a celebration of Little Boy,
Ferlinghetti's newly released, stream-of-consciousness novel.
Ferlinghetti had been working on the book for close to a dozen years
before it was released in 2019. It was mostly written by hand, due to
his dwindling eyesight, but otherwise he was known to be in fairly good
health. The book was a fictionalized account of the author’s life
growing up. Ferlinghetti's assistant, Garrett Caples, also an editor and
poet, said in an interview back then that Little Boy showed
how the author filtered through his own experiences as he wrestled with
the cosmic questions facing a 100-year-old man, such as "What is life
all about?" The publisher Doubesday
said it was “a story, steeped in the rhythmic energy of the
beats, gleaming with Whitman’s visionary spirit, channeling the
incantatory power of Proust and Joyce.”
Ferlinghetti, tall and bearded, with sharp blue eyes, could be
soft-spoken, even introverted and reticent in unfamiliar situations. But
he was the most public of poets and his work wasn't intended for
solitary contemplation. It was meant to be recited or chanted out loud,
whether in coffee houses, bookstores or at campus gatherings. "I
have committed the sin of too much clarity,” he told a biographer,
reflecting on the critical neglect. Poetry, he wrote in “Americus, Book
I” (2004), “is eternal graffiti in the heart of everyone.”
His other collections
include Pictures of the Gone World (1955) Endless Life(1984) Selected Poems (1981). These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems, 1955–1993, A Far Rockaway of the Heart (1997), Poetry as Insurgent Art (2007), and Time of Useful Consciousness (2012). He also wrote plays, novels and broadsides, notably “Tyrannus Nix” (1969), an attack on the Richard M. Nixon presidency.
Whilst the poets of the Beat Generation garnered much of the attention
at the time, Ferlinghetti’s own poetry was based firmly in the lyric,
narrative traditions of the past. His theme was often the common man and
the broken promise of democracy and how the individual thrives as part
of the masses.
Few poets of the past 60 years were so well known, or so influential.
His books sold more than 1 million copies worldwide, a fantasy for
virtually any of his peers, and he ran one of the world's most famous
and distinctive bookstores, City Lights. Although he never considered
himself one of the Beats, he was a patron and soul mate and, for many, a
lasting symbol.
Ferlinghetti began his career at a revolutionary time in arts and music.
In 1994, he still believed art could make a difference. "I really
believe that art is capable of the total transformation of the world,
and of life itself," he said. "And nothing less is really acceptable. So
I mean if art is going to have any excuse for, beyond being a
leisure-class plaything — it has to transform life itself."
Through more than half a century of writing and publishing, Lawrence Ferlinghetti did.
Despite Ferlinghetti's eyesight being poor in recent years, he continued to
write and to keep regular hours at City Lights. The establishment,
meanwhile, warmed to him, even if the affection wasn't always returned.
He was named San Francisco's first poet laureate, in 1998, and City
Lights was granted landmark status three years later. He received an
honorary prize from the National Book Critics Circle in 2000 and five
years later was given a National Book Award medal for "his tireless work
on behalf of poets and the entire literary community."
"The dominant American mercantile culture may globalize the world,
but it is not the mainstream culture of our civilization," Ferlinghetti
said upon receiving the award. "The true mainstream is made, not of oil,
but of literarians, publishers, bookstores, editors, libraries, writers
and readers, universities and all the institutions that support them."
"Poetry should be dissident and subversive and an agent for change" wrote Ferlinghetti in his 2007 book, Poetry as Insurgent Art "Question everything and everyone, including Socrates, who questioned everything, Strive to change the world in such a way there is no need to be need dissident, A natural-born nonviolent enemy of the state,"
Ferlinghetti also suggested
that every poet must decide whether birdsong is joyous or sad, "by which
you will know if you are a tragic or a lyric poet". Readers of
Ferlinghetti's poetry, often funny, always alive with music, and
"constantly risking absurdity" – might have imagined him to be in the
lyric camp. But the final words of Little Boy make his choice clear: "the cries of birds now are not cries of ecstasy but cries of despair"..
Throughout Ferlinghetti’s long life, the revolutionary poet and born
maverick had been beholden to none. Part of his nonconformist side was
revealed in the courage he displayed in defending freedom of the press
at a time when few did so. A poet and publisher with a
conscience, producing clear, direct, redeeming work about social
responsibility, beauty, and spirit. Ferlinghetti’s poetry welcomed me and millions of readers to art and
the idea that it can have a meaningful impact on the world.As an iconoclast and provocateur, he actually shared the same principles as the beats, in that poetry and literature and poetry can serve as a cultural counterforce for change
And though saddened immensely by his passing, Ferlinghetti at least gracefully outlived all his flashier friends and contemporaries. He never disintergrated ,like Jack Kerouac into 'drunk uncle ; rants about how 'hoodlums and communists' were infiltrating his Beat movement,; and he never grew obsessed with his own mythology, like Allen Ginsberg, endlessly recounting how the 'best minds' of his generation just coincidentally happened to hang out with him. He was a modest man of great dignity. And unlike many Fifties-era radicals, Ferlinghetti never shrank from promoting socialist principles on the world stage as a poet, an activist, a publisher and a businessman, repeatedly calling out the crimes of the American empire, from Eisenhower and Johnson to Obama and Trump,
Ultimately Ferlinghetti deployed his many talents in support of world peace, equality and justice, subsequently his rich legacy is guaranteed, he will forever be remembered as a significant figure in contributing to the betterment of society. Ferlinghetti is survived by his son, Lorenzo; a daughter, Julie Sasser; and three grandchildren. In these dark days I am reminded that some manifestos still matter, thank you Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Rest in power.
.
Populist Manifesto No,1 - Lawrence Ferlinghgetti (1976)
Poets, come out of your closets,
Open your windows, open your doors,
You have been holed-up too long
in your closed worlds.
Come down, come down
from your Russian Hills and Telegraph Hills,
your Beacon Hills and your Chapel Hills,
your Mount Analogues and Montparnasses,
down from your foothills and mountains,
out of your teepees and domes.
The trees are still falling
and we’ll to the woods no more.
No time now for sitting in them
As man burns down his own house
to roast his pig
No more chanting Hare Krishna
while Rome burns.
San Francisco’s burning,
Mayakovsky’s Moscow’s burning
the fossil-fuels of life.
Night & the Horse approaches
eating light, heat & power,
and the clouds have trousers.
No time now for the artist to hide
above, beyond, behind the scenes,
indifferent, paring his fingernails,
refining himself out of existence
No time now for our little literary games,
no time now for our paranoias & hypochondrias,
no time now for fear & loathing,
time now only for light & love.
We have seen the best minds of our generation
destroyed by boredom at poetry readings.
Poetry isn’t a secret society,
It isn’t a temple either.
Secret words & chants won’t do any longer.
The hour of oming is over,
the time of keening come,
a time for keening & rejoicing
over the coming end
of industrial civilization
which is bad for earth & Man.
Time now to face outward
in the full lotus position
with eyes wide open,
Time now to open your mouths
with a new open speech,
time now to communicate with all sentient beings,
All you ‘Poets of the Cities’
hung in museums including myself,
All you poet’s poets writing poetry
about poetry,
All you poetry workshop poets
in the boondock heart of America,
All you housebroken Ezra Pounds,
All you far-out freaked-out cut-up poets,
All you pre-stressed Concrete poets,
All you cunnilingual poets,
All you pay-toilet poets groaning with graffiti,
All you A-train swingers who never swing on birches,
All you masters of the sawmill haiku in the Siberias of America,
All you eyeless unrealists,
All you self-occulting supersurrealists,
All you bedroom visionaries and closet agitpropagators,
All you Groucho Marxist poets
and leisure-class Comrades
who lie around all day and talk about the workingclass proletariat,
All you Catholic anarchists of poetry,
All you Black Mountaineers of poetry,
All you Boston Brahims and Bolinas bucolics,
All you den mothers of poetry,
All you zen brothers of poetry,
All you suicide lovers of poetry,
All you hairy professors of poesie,
All you poetry reviewers
drinking the blood of the poet,
All you Poetry Police –
Where are Whitman’s wild children,
where the great voices speaking out
with a sense of sweetness and sublimity,
where the great new vision,
the great world-view,
the high prophetic song
of the immense earth
and all that sings in it
And our relations to it –
Poets, descend
to the street of the world once more
And open your minds & eyes
with the old visual delight,
Clear your throat and speak up,
Poetry is dead, long live poetry
with terrible eyes and buffalo strength.
Don’t wait for the Revolution
or it’ll happen without you,
Stop mumbling and speak out
with a new wide-open poetry
with a new commonsensual ‘public surface’
with other subjective levels
or other subversive levels,
a tuning fork in the inner ear
to strike below the surface.
Of your own sweet Self still sing
yet utter ‘the word en-masse –
Poetry the common carrier
for the transportation of the public
to higher places
than other wheels can carry it.
Poetry still falls from the skies
into our streets still open.
They haven’t put up the barricades, yet,
the streets still alive with faces,
lovely men & women still walking there,
still lovely creatures everywhere,
in the eyes of all the secret of all
still buried there,
Whitman’s wild children still sleeping there,
Awake and walk in the open air
