Spirit in Action

A glimpse into the horror of one piece of the genocide that took place in Turkey in the early 1900's, The Great Fire, by Lou Ureneck, conveys the dark side and a few strands of silver lining amidst the disaster.

Most activists recognize the strength to social action groups of drawing power from across the racial and sex/gender landscape, but too few recognize the key effects of class. In Missing Class: Strengthening Social Movement Groups by Seeing Class Cultures, Betsy Leondar-Wright shines a focused light on the opportunities for pulling together as never before, by seeing the many ways in which social class impacts our thoughts, actions, and organizing.

A visit with a student participant of, the UW-EC staff founder of, and a Selma, AL, presenter of the Civil Rights Pilgrimage.

Joel Westheimer asks the deep questions and provides the important facts in What Kind of Citizen?: Educating Our Children for the Common Good. How should education in a democracy differ from that in other systems? What are the wider effects of standardized education? What kind of citizen do we want our schools to promote?

In Incident at the Bruce Mine Shaft, Stephen Ivancic uses historical fiction to highlight the real life issues around workers, unions, and opportunistic capitalists. Set in the iron mines of Northern Minnesota in the 1920s and focusing on the Finnish workers, some communist, some not, Stephen helps us to understand the dynamics of individualism, community, and power.

A powerful advocate for democracy and progressive causes, Matt Rothschild led The Progressive Magazine for most of 32 years, and in now Executive Director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Matt has a birds-eye view of the nuts and bolts of government, elections, & the success or failure of democracy.

While there are many sources of info on urgent environmental threats and of technological methods of dealing with those threats, few books tackle the major underlying question of how can we make a sustainable life actually be sustainable for the individual. In A Sustainable Life, Douglas Gwyn examines the essential inner work and the myriad complexities of initiating and supporting the choices of living sustainably, mostly using Quaker experience & insights as guideposts to the process.

Bruce Dancis is author of Resister: A Story of Protest and Prison during the Vietnam War, was raised by secular Jewish parents, nurtured at the NY Society for Ethical Culture, and became a passionate advocate for social justice and student leader as a student at Cornell U.

The War Tax Resistance Penalty Fund (WTRPF.org) is a way to help manage the risks of conscientious objectors to paying for war, something to think seriously about as April 15th approaches.

In Mumbet's Declaration of Independence, Gretchen Woelfle, brings to life the true story of Elizabeth Freeman (Mumbet), whose efforts & determination led slavery to be declared unconstitutional in Massachusetts in 1783. Gretchen writes books for youth on a variety of social justice & environmental topics.