The Price of Dissent
Testimonies to Political Repression in America
$29.95, £17.95 paperback
978-0-520-22402-5
Available Now
479 pages, 6 x 9 inches, 45 b/w photographs
November 2001, Available worldwide
Categories: American Studies; Anthropology; Literary Studies; Law; Politics; Public Policy; Ethnic Studies; Sociology; Social Problems; Social Problems
November 2001, Available worldwide
Categories: American Studies; Anthropology; Literary Studies; Law; Politics; Public Policy; Ethnic Studies; Sociology; Social Problems; Social Problems
"A fascinating collection of memories of dissenting voices in America."—Booklist
"An extraordinary collection of oral histories that reminds us, vividly and painfully, that the price of freedom is constant vigilance, that a refusal to exercise our rights, especially when we are menaced by outside forces, guarantees that we will lose them."—San Francisco Bay Guardian, 4/24
"An extraordinary collection of oral histories that reminds us, vividly and painfully, that the price of freedom is constant vigilance, that a refusal to exercise our rights, especially when we are menaced by outside forces, guarantees that we will lose them."—San Francisco Bay Guardian, 4/24
"If there is anything in this country to be prized, it's the propagation of the bill of rights, free speech, and freedom of the press. Yet how strange, with all the success and prosperity we have achieved throughout the world, how rarely dissent and protest seem to be practiced in this country. The heroes of this book are the real Americans. This is a must-read for all of us."—Edward Asner, actor/activist
"Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. government has targeted radicals and activists. The Price of Dissent tells that story with unique and eloquent voices--and also documents some impressive and moving battles to expand our freedom."—Jon Wiener, author of Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI File
"The Price of Dissent is an inspiring history that includes personal memories by well-chosen participants. They reveal their private awakenings and accomplishments, and they also discuss their repression--by narrow-minded fellows and, more frequently, at the hands of authorities, such as the FBI and COINTELPRO."—Dave Dellinger, author of From Yale to Jail
"It is time we replaced the traditional heroes of our orthodox textbooks-the generals, the politicos, the industrialists-with those courageous people who fought for peace and justice, against great odds. This book goes a long way towards that goal, by letting us hear the voices of the great dissenters."—Howard Zinn, author of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
"The Price of Dissent vividly chronicles the courage and impact of activists in the American labor, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam War movements. If this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, much credit goes to the freedom-fighting and bravery of the women and men featured in this inspiring book."—Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union; Professor of Law, New York Law School
"In this splendid collection of annotated testimonies by American citizens repressed before and during the first 'red scare' and those still victimized forty years after the second scare, the Schultzes remind us that only those willing to pay the price of dissent can hope to achieve a true understanding of the value of democracy."—David Levering Lewis, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning two-volume W.E.B. Du Bois
"Vivid and revealing testimonies about the impact of political repression on American social justice movements. This fascinating book adds greatly to our understanding of a wide range of political movements."—Clayborne Carson, editor of The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Gripping first-hand accounts provide human faces and engrossing details to what is often only an abstract and theoretical concern for human rights."—Robert Justin Goldstein, author of Political Repression in Modern America
"These women and men risked life, limb and freedom to protect our precious rights, paying a great price so that we'd not have to. We owe them our thanks and owe thanks to the authors for bringing their stories to us."—Julian Bond, Chairman, NAACP
"Throughout the 20th century, the U.S. government has targeted radicals and activists. The Price of Dissent tells that story with unique and eloquent voices--and also documents some impressive and moving battles to expand our freedom."—Jon Wiener, author of Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI File
"The Price of Dissent is an inspiring history that includes personal memories by well-chosen participants. They reveal their private awakenings and accomplishments, and they also discuss their repression--by narrow-minded fellows and, more frequently, at the hands of authorities, such as the FBI and COINTELPRO."—Dave Dellinger, author of From Yale to Jail
"It is time we replaced the traditional heroes of our orthodox textbooks-the generals, the politicos, the industrialists-with those courageous people who fought for peace and justice, against great odds. This book goes a long way towards that goal, by letting us hear the voices of the great dissenters."—Howard Zinn, author of You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train
"The Price of Dissent vividly chronicles the courage and impact of activists in the American labor, civil rights, and anti-Vietnam War movements. If this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, much credit goes to the freedom-fighting and bravery of the women and men featured in this inspiring book."—Nadine Strossen, President, American Civil Liberties Union; Professor of Law, New York Law School
"In this splendid collection of annotated testimonies by American citizens repressed before and during the first 'red scare' and those still victimized forty years after the second scare, the Schultzes remind us that only those willing to pay the price of dissent can hope to achieve a true understanding of the value of democracy."—David Levering Lewis, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning two-volume W.E.B. Du Bois
"Vivid and revealing testimonies about the impact of political repression on American social justice movements. This fascinating book adds greatly to our understanding of a wide range of political movements."—Clayborne Carson, editor of The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Gripping first-hand accounts provide human faces and engrossing details to what is often only an abstract and theoretical concern for human rights."—Robert Justin Goldstein, author of Political Repression in Modern America
"These women and men risked life, limb and freedom to protect our precious rights, paying a great price so that we'd not have to. We owe them our thanks and owe thanks to the authors for bringing their stories to us."—Julian Bond, Chairman, NAACP
Bud and Ruth Schultz's vivid oral history presents the extraordinary testimony of people who experienced government repression and persecution firsthand. Drawn from three of the most significant social movements of our time--the labor, Black freedom, and antiwar movements--these engrossing interviews bring to life the experiences of Americans who acted upon their beliefs despite the price they paid for their dissent. In doing so, they--and the movements they were part of--helped shape the political and social landscape of the United States from the beginning to the end of the twentieth century.
The majority of the voices in this book belong to everyday people--workers, priests, teachers, students--but more well-known figures such as Congressman John Lewis, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Abbie Hoffman, and Daniel Ellsberg are also included. There are firsthand accounts by leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World, active early in the century; Southern Tenant Farmers Union of the 1930s; Women's Strike for Peace, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Berkeley's Free Speech Movement of the 1950s and 1960s; and the Hormel meatpackers' Local P-9 in the 1980s. Lively introductions by the authors contextualize these personal statements.
Those who tell their stories in The Price of Dissent, and others like them, faced surveillance and disruption from police agencies, such as the FBI; brutalization by local police; local ordinances and court injunctions limiting protest; inquisitions into beliefs and associations by congressional committees; prosecution under laws that curbed dissent; denaturalization and deportation; and purges under government loyalty programs. Agree with them or not, by dissenting when it was unpopular or dangerous to do so, they insisted on exercising the precious American right of free expression and preserved it for a new century's dissenters.
The majority of the voices in this book belong to everyday people--workers, priests, teachers, students--but more well-known figures such as Congressman John Lewis, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), Abbie Hoffman, and Daniel Ellsberg are also included. There are firsthand accounts by leaders of the Industrial Workers of the World, active early in the century; Southern Tenant Farmers Union of the 1930s; Women's Strike for Peace, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; Berkeley's Free Speech Movement of the 1950s and 1960s; and the Hormel meatpackers' Local P-9 in the 1980s. Lively introductions by the authors contextualize these personal statements.
Those who tell their stories in The Price of Dissent, and others like them, faced surveillance and disruption from police agencies, such as the FBI; brutalization by local police; local ordinances and court injunctions limiting protest; inquisitions into beliefs and associations by congressional committees; prosecution under laws that curbed dissent; denaturalization and deportation; and purges under government loyalty programs. Agree with them or not, by dissenting when it was unpopular or dangerous to do so, they insisted on exercising the precious American right of free expression and preserved it for a new century's dissenters.
From the book:
"In northeast Arkansas, they beat the union workers up. They killed some. Peacher, being the sheriff, would arrest union members and take them out and put them on his plantation. And they would have to work for him. It was like a prison." —Sharecropper George Stith, who helped organize the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, 1934
"Up until the demonstrations in Chicago, the antiwar movement was spontaneous, decentralized. There were hundreds of groups. We were the ones who had a national strategy--Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, and me."—Abbie Hoffman
"In northeast Arkansas, they beat the union workers up. They killed some. Peacher, being the sheriff, would arrest union members and take them out and put them on his plantation. And they would have to work for him. It was like a prison." —Sharecropper George Stith, who helped organize the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, 1934
"Up until the demonstrations in Chicago, the antiwar movement was spontaneous, decentralized. There were hundreds of groups. We were the ones who had a national strategy--Jerry Rubin, Dave Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, and me."—Abbie Hoffman
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Targets of Political Repression in Twentieth-Century America
1. Part One: Subverting the Organization of Labor
Prologue: Attacks on Labor Before the Triumph of Industrial Unions
The Unrelenting Campaign Against the Industrial Workers of the World
Fred Thompson
African American Sharecroppers: Repression as a Way of Life
George Stith
Ideological Assaults: Labor at Mid-Century
Prewar Red Scare: Holding Militant Teamsters at Bay
Harry DeBoer and Jake Cooper
Postwar Tests of Loyalty: Attempts to Silence an Auto Workers' Spokesman
Stanley Nowak
Imposing Cold War Orthodoxy: A Teachers Union Under Attack
Mildred Grossman
The Purge of the Left: Expelling International Unions from the CIO
Ernest DeMaio
A Pittsburgh Story: Two Rank-and-File Labor Leaders and a Labor Priest
Margaret (Peg) Stasik
Monsignor Charles Owen Rice
Joseph (Sonny) Robinson
Epilogue: Cracking Down on New Voices of Union Militancy
The Local P-9 Meatpackers Strike, Austin, Minnesota
Local P-9 Strikers and Supporters: Cecil Cain, Pete Winkels, Jim Guyette, Denny Mealy, Ray Rogers, Carol Kough, and Emily Bass
2. Part Two: Suppressing the Black Freedom Struggle
Prologue: Cold War Constraints on African Americans' Demands for Freedom
Eradicating a Powerful, Defiant Voice from the American Consciousness
Paul Robeson Jr.
The Black Freedom Movement Under Siege
Facing Up to Southern Terror
Walter Bergman
John Lewis
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth
In the Midst of the Storm
Anne Braden
The Crucible of Lowndes County, Alabama, and Emergent Black Power
Johnny Jackson
Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael)
The Assault on the Black Panther Party: The Murder of Fred Hampton
Ron Satchel
Akua Njeri (Deborah Johnson)
Flint Taylor
Epilogue: Voter Rights Revisited
Undercutting African American Elected Officials
Mervyn Dymally
3. Part Three: Silencing Opponents of War
Prologue: Tainting the Antinuclear Movement
HUAC and the Irrepressible Women Strike for Peace
Dagmar Wilson
The Vietnam Era: The War Against the Peacemakers
Berkeley's Free Speech Movement: A Prelude
Jackie Goldberg
Harassing Antiwar Demonstrators
Norma Becker
HUAC, the Police, the FBI, the Courts: Containing an Extraordinary Generation
Abbie Hoffman
Retribution for Acts of Conscience
Daniel Ellsberg
Samuel Popkin
The Shootings at Kent State
Roseann (Chic) Canfora and Alan Canfora
Epilogue: The Heresy of a Modern-Day Social Gospel
The FBI and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
Jack Ryan and Peggy Ryan
Linda Hajek and Jose Rinaldi-Jovet
4. Part Four: Preserving the Right to Dissent
A Notable Reversal: Holding the Chicago Red Squad Accountable
Chicago Red Squad Targets: Richard (Rick) Gutman, John Hill, Jack Spiegel, Janet Nolan, and Father Donald Headley
Notes
Index
Introduction: Targets of Political Repression in Twentieth-Century America
1. Part One: Subverting the Organization of Labor
Prologue: Attacks on Labor Before the Triumph of Industrial Unions
The Unrelenting Campaign Against the Industrial Workers of the World
Fred Thompson
African American Sharecroppers: Repression as a Way of Life
George Stith
Ideological Assaults: Labor at Mid-Century
Prewar Red Scare: Holding Militant Teamsters at Bay
Harry DeBoer and Jake Cooper
Postwar Tests of Loyalty: Attempts to Silence an Auto Workers' Spokesman
Stanley Nowak
Imposing Cold War Orthodoxy: A Teachers Union Under Attack
Mildred Grossman
The Purge of the Left: Expelling International Unions from the CIO
Ernest DeMaio
A Pittsburgh Story: Two Rank-and-File Labor Leaders and a Labor Priest
Margaret (Peg) Stasik
Monsignor Charles Owen Rice
Joseph (Sonny) Robinson
Epilogue: Cracking Down on New Voices of Union Militancy
The Local P-9 Meatpackers Strike, Austin, Minnesota
Local P-9 Strikers and Supporters: Cecil Cain, Pete Winkels, Jim Guyette, Denny Mealy, Ray Rogers, Carol Kough, and Emily Bass
2. Part Two: Suppressing the Black Freedom Struggle
Prologue: Cold War Constraints on African Americans' Demands for Freedom
Eradicating a Powerful, Defiant Voice from the American Consciousness
Paul Robeson Jr.
The Black Freedom Movement Under Siege
Facing Up to Southern Terror
Walter Bergman
John Lewis
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth
In the Midst of the Storm
Anne Braden
The Crucible of Lowndes County, Alabama, and Emergent Black Power
Johnny Jackson
Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael)
The Assault on the Black Panther Party: The Murder of Fred Hampton
Ron Satchel
Akua Njeri (Deborah Johnson)
Flint Taylor
Epilogue: Voter Rights Revisited
Undercutting African American Elected Officials
Mervyn Dymally
3. Part Three: Silencing Opponents of War
Prologue: Tainting the Antinuclear Movement
HUAC and the Irrepressible Women Strike for Peace
Dagmar Wilson
The Vietnam Era: The War Against the Peacemakers
Berkeley's Free Speech Movement: A Prelude
Jackie Goldberg
Harassing Antiwar Demonstrators
Norma Becker
HUAC, the Police, the FBI, the Courts: Containing an Extraordinary Generation
Abbie Hoffman
Retribution for Acts of Conscience
Daniel Ellsberg
Samuel Popkin
The Shootings at Kent State
Roseann (Chic) Canfora and Alan Canfora
Epilogue: The Heresy of a Modern-Day Social Gospel
The FBI and the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador
Jack Ryan and Peggy Ryan
Linda Hajek and Jose Rinaldi-Jovet
4. Part Four: Preserving the Right to Dissent
A Notable Reversal: Holding the Chicago Red Squad Accountable
Chicago Red Squad Targets: Richard (Rick) Gutman, John Hill, Jack Spiegel, Janet Nolan, and Father Donald Headley
Notes
Index
It Did Happen Here, by Bud and Ruth Schultz
Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, Volume One: Made for America, 1890-1901, by Emma Goldman
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929-June 1951, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Outspoken: Free Speech Stories, by Nan Levinson
The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s, edited by Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik
Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American, by Nat Hentoff
Emma Goldman: A Documentary History of the American Years, Volume One: Made for America, 1890-1901, by Emma Goldman
The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929-June 1951, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Outspoken: Free Speech Stories, by Nan Levinson
The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s, edited by Robert Cohen and Reginald E. Zelnik
Living the Bill of Rights: How to Be an Authentic American, by Nat Hentoff