Truth and Revolution. Michael Staudenmaier
2011).
122 In one case, an STO member at Stewart-Warner helped initiate a campaign to unseat a particularly corrupt steward, only to be forced to abandon the effort when no other candidate was forthcoming from the department, despite his co-workers attempts to convince him to run himself. Kathy and Lynn, “Organizing in an Electrical Plant in Chicago.”
123 “Who We Are,” Breakout! 1, no. 4, December 11, 1973, 2.
124 Telephone interview with John Strucker, February 5, 2006.
125 Kingsley Clarke, interview with author, July 6, 2005.
126 Author interviews with Noel Ignatiev, January 22, 2006; Don Hamerquist, September 14, 2006; and Carole Travis, June 6, 2006.
127 Much of the information that follows comes from an unpublished memoir by Beth Henson, in author’s possession, as well as the interviews with Noel Ignatiev, January 22, 2006; and Kingsley Clarke, July 6, 2005.
128 Henson, Memoir, 3.
129 Ibid., 5. Clarke remembers the same sequence of events. Author interview, April 2, 2006.
130 Henson, Memoir, 5–6.
131 For a useful analysis of inflation as a capitalist tactic during the seventies, see Harry Cleaver, Reading Capital Politically (San Francisco: AK Press, 2000 [1979]), especially 157–158.
132 An image of this poster is reproduced in the Spring 1974 edition of the Insurgent Worker, 19.
133 See “Payoff for Terror on the Road,” Time, February 18, 1974.
134 Talk Back 2, no. 5, Feb. 25, 1974.
135 This and subsequent quotes are from the interview with Carole Travis, June 6, 2006. Ellipses mine.
136 See “Payoff for Terror on the Road,” Time, February 18, 1974.
137 See Georgakas and Surkin, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying, esp. Chapter 7. The Insurgent Worker, May 1971, contains an optimistic description of the founding of the Black Workers’ Congress.
138 Interview with Noel Ignatiev, January 22, 2006.
139 I have been unable to locate a copy of this paper, which is described in the “Outline History of Sojourner Truth Organization” (1972).
140 STO, The United Front Against Imperialism? (Chicago: STO, 1972).
141 STO, Organizing Working Class Women (Chicago: STO, n.d., but probably 1972).
142 Organizing Working Class Women, 4–5.
143 For more on the Farah strike, see Laurie Coyle, Gail Hershatter, and Emily Honig, Women at Farah: An Unfinished Story (El Paso: Reforma, 1979).
144 Kathy W., “A Lesson in What Democratic Centralism Is Not, or How a Representative-Democratic Exec Did Not Work in a Revolutionary Organization,” unpublished paper in author’s possession, n.d, but approximately November, 1973.
145 This is described in the unsigned “Letter From El Paso,” in the Insurgent Worker, July 1973, 10–13. Additional information came from author interview with Guillermo Brzotowski, October 10, 2008.
146 Kathy W., “A Lesson.”
147 Author interview, Guillermo Brzotowski, October 10, 2008.
148 This problem was emphasized in author interview with Mel and Marsha Rothenberg, October 12, 2006, as well as in correspondence from George Schmidt, May, 2006.
149 Mel Rothenberg, Interview, October 12, 2006. It is worth noting that Rothenberg himself was a university professor and never worked in a factory during his time as a member of STO.
150 Interview with John Strucker, March 26, 2006.
151 Author interview with Kingsley Clarke, July 6, 2005.
152 Author interview with Noel Ignatiev, January 22, 2006.
153 Note on page 0 of the January 1972 edition of STO, Mass Organization in the Workplace (Chicago: STO, 1972).
154 Don Hamerquist, “Reflections on Organizing” (1970), in STO, Workplace Papers (Chicago: STO, 1980). This piece was also published in edited form, and signed by ”Members of Sojourner Truth,” in Radical America 6, no.2, March/April, 1972.
155 Hamerquist, “Reflections on Organizing,” 9.
156 Ibid., 12.
157 Ibid., 14–15.
158 Author interview with Marsha and Mel Rothenberg, October, 2006. Similar perspectives are put forward in Al, Evi, Gary, Hilda, Jim C., Marsha, Mel, Mike and Pauline, “The Crisis in STO” (n.d., but fall 1973), unpublished paper in author’s possession.
159 George S., “Critique of the Paper Entitled ‘The Crisis in STO’,” unpublished paper in author’s possession (n.d., but fall 1973).