The Sojourner Truth Organization: Notes Toward a History

Much of STO’s early analysis and strategy developed out of a careful assessment of the lived experience of several revolutionary movements of the twentieth century:  the Italian “Hot Autumn” of 1969, the French uprising of 1968, the experiences of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit during the late 1960’s, and further back the history of the IWW’s hey-day from 1905 until the mid-1920’s.  At the same time, however, STO was hardly averse to theory, or to the close reading of classic works of Marxism.  Of course they read Marx and Engels, and Lenin, and even Mao every once in a while, but three Marxist writers must be put at the top of the list in terms of the influence they had on STO as an organization:  Antonio Gramsci, WEB Du Bois, and CLR James (more…)