Civil Rights and Structural Attacks (Conversations with Walter Riley)

Eighty years of lessons from the Black freedom struggle, labor movements, and internationalism.

Raised among the entrails of chattel slavery in Durham, North Carolina, Walter shares political reflections and lessons from decades of movement experience. This includes 1950s and early 1960s mobilizations against Jim Crow apartheid laws and welcoming Freedom Riders to Durham, followed by later 1960s student and labor organizing with the Progressive Labor Party, early Black Panther Party formations, anti-war activities, and co-leading the Peace and Freedom Party’s Black Caucus.

In the 1970s, Walter became a leader in the national Progressive Labor Party and led labor and welfare organizing in Chicago and Detroit. In the 1980s he became a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer and organized against South Africa’s apartheid system. His more recent work supporting infrastructure for Haitian movement-building and confronting police violence in Oakland allowed him to draw parallels between the dangers of international structural adjustment programs abroad, and the pitfalls of the nonprofit industrial complex at home.

This text is a multi-generational conversation between legendary Civil Rights organizer Walter Riley and longtime friend and Oakland organizer, Jesse Strauss. Together, they reflect on the importance of political action as the primary venue for learning and reflection. Walter Riley has a never-ending commitment to building a better world and he’ll challenge readers to avoid the paralysis of analysis that slows movements down and to avoid getting caught in the missives of ego. Includes a foreword by Walter Riley's son, Boots Riley.