Theorizing the Present: The Revolutionary Foresight of Black Communist Women | Red May 2021

A discussion between Dr. Jodi Dean and Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, moderated by Dr. Ashley Farmer, about their forthcoming Verso edited collection, Organize, Fight, Win: Three Decades of Black Communist Women's Political Writing. This pathbreaking work is the first of its kind to bring together the writings of Black Communist and Communist-adjacent women, including Grace Campbell, Williana Burroughs, Louise Thompson Patterson, Esther Cooper Jackson, Claudia Jones, Vicki Garvin, Eslanda Goode Robeson, Lorraine Hansberry, and Charlotta Bass into a single volume. Organize, Fight, Win aims to expose activists, organizers, and scholars committed to internationalist anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-sexist, and Black liberation struggle to the ways that these women’s political writing consistently linked specific issues to international, historical, and structural patterns. The conversation will highlight how Dean and Burden-Stelly came to the project; some of the authors' favorite pieces; the major themes and topics of the volume; and the importance of Black communist women's writing for our current moment.

Charisse Burden-Stelly, Jodi Dean, Ashley Farmer (mod)

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