Dear Progressive Reader,

U.S. President Donald Trump was in the Persian Gulf region over the past several days making deals (as he likes to do) and accepting gifts (which he likes even better). Meanwhile, back at home, his attempts to deport immigrants without trial and to eliminate “birthright citizenship” seem to be experiencing significant pushback in the courts. But in typical Trump fashion, as he tries to push out one set of immigrants, the Trump Administration chose to welcome another—white South Africans who claimed persecution from their popularly elected Black majority government. And, at the same time, in something that almost sounds like a story from the Onion, the Department of Homeland Security is currently reviewing a pitch for a “reality TV” program where immigrants would compete for U.S. citizenship. Perhaps something like The Hunger Games meets The Island ?

This week on our website, incarcerated writer Rashon Venable pens an op-ed on the lack of due process given to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who remains in a prison in El Salvador in spite of court orders for the administration to bring him back to the United States. “The denial of due process to asylum seekers and the banishment of American prisoners should concern us all because it won’t stop there,” writes Venable. “Once the proverbial floodgates are opened, others will be next.” Also, Andrew Holter, whose new book of the writings of Murray Kempton (a number of Kempton’s writings appeared in The Progressive in the 1950s and early 1960s), relates how the journalist responded to Trump in the late 1980s noting, “Kempton recognized that envy and hatred were the two operative elements of Trump’s appeal.” Plus, Mary Jo McConahay covers the first days of the new Chicago-born Pope; Bill Lueders reviews the new book by Judy Karofsky about end-of-life care; and Sarah Lindstrom Johnson opines on the threats to funding that helps keep schools safe. In addition, for our Public Schools Advocate program, Marium Zahra looks at the experiences of students of color with police officers in schools; Sarah Lahm reviews a new documentary film about community members organizing against book bans; and Carol Burris of the Network for Public Education examines a pending case in the U.S. Supreme Court about charter schools.

Also, Nyki Duda’s story about the eightieth anniversary of the end of an anti-fascist war and its lessons for today was featured this week in the monthly newsletter from the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA). ALBA is the organization that keeps alive the memory and lessons of the first U.S. volunteers to fight against fascism in Spain in the 1930s. Earlier this month I was able to attend their annual human rights award ceremony in New York City.

Our Hidden History of the United States calendar notes that Thursday marked the fifty-fifth anniversary of the tragic killings of demonstrators and others at Jackson State University in Mississippi. Police repression on U.S. campuses had been increasing over the previous decade—moving from the use of campus security, to city police forces, to National Guard troops—from the “free speech” fights on the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall of 1964; to the famous demonstration against Dow Chemical recruiters on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus in October 1967; to the tragic murders of four students by National Guard troops on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. But the killings at Jackson State, just less than two weeks after Kent, have received much less recognition. Two students were killed (one of whom was a high school student) and twelve more wounded. All of the victims were Black. As The New York Times reported at the time, “Not a window was left unbroken on the narrow end of the building that faces Lynch Street, where an estimated total of forty state highway patrolmen lined up and fired with shot guns from a distance of thirty to fifty feet.” Although a grand jury was convened to investigate the shootings, no members of law enforcement were ever convicted or punished for the incident.

Today, as campus protests against the ongoing war on Gaza continue to be cracked down upon by universities and colleges, and U.S. President Donald Trump issues an Executive Order to “strengthen and unleash law enforcement,” it is important to remember the history of courageous student protests against unpopular government policies and actions, and to support and protect their Constitutional right to free speech and peaceful assembly.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

P.S. - If you are in Madison, Wisconsin, next Thursday, The Progressive, together with Wisconsin Humanities, will be hosting a screening at the Barrymore Theatre of the new documentary film When Rubber Hit the Road which tells the story of the Uniroyal tire plant abandoning the community where it had been for seventy-five years. The film tells the story of a Midwestern community responding to industrial decline. It was funded in part by a Wisconsin Humanities grant and the organization’s funding is now under threat from the Trump Administration. When Rubber Hit the Road will also be airing on PBS Wisconsin (whose funding, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is also under threat from a Trump Executive Order). If you are able to join us on Thursday night at 7:00 p.m., several speakers—including journalist John Nichols and the filmmakers B.J. Hollars and Steve Dayton—will be on hand to introduce the evening.

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