Revolution Books 40th Anniversary

1. For 40 years Revolution Books has fought for revolution and emancipating humanity.

2. We have a culture of the “selfie”—a society obsessed with “look at me” as I look out for just me—while the world literally burns and drowns. The truth on the war on the environment… And what it will take to save the planet.

3. This is a moment of stark contrast between our hopes and dreams for the future and the reality that great catastrophe looms as fascist regimes take root here and around the world. Revolution Books is needed more than ever

4. Revolution Books embodies the potential bright future for humanity. You feel this when you first walk through the door and find the literature, poetry, history, science, art, and the revolutionary theory for a radically different world….

5. Challenging a world where women are subordinated, dominated, degraded, battered, mutilated and murdered to keep them in their place and a dark ages future is being set in place by the fascist Trump/Pence regime.

7. The animating heart of the store is the framework for unleashing the revolutionary potential of humanity: the breakthrough in scientifically knowing and radically changing the world through revolution, the new communism developed by Bob Avakian.

9. Avakian emerged from the 60s in Berkeley, and is a leader who never gave up asking the hard questions of the road forward to human emancipation and developing the path to that future.

10. Through promoting the works of Bob Avakian, Revolution Books argues for a completely scientific and visionary outlook that shatters demoralized defeatist preconceptions that the misery and spirit crushing world of today is all that could be. It upholds the legacy of past revolutions while arguing that we can and must do better. Rediscovering China’s Cultural Revolution—Art and Politics, Lived Experience, Legacies of Liberation, a 2009 symposium at UC Berkeley

11. "There is nothing sacred to us about the USA, as it is presently constituted, or about the borders of the U.S. as they are presently constituted. Quite the opposite."- Bob Avakian (BAsics 3:20)

12. Edwidge Danticat reads from her first work of children’s literature. Mama's Nightingale was written to share the story of Haitian immigrants and family separation.

13. The store concentrates and captures what was best in Berkeley in the 60s -- the wildness and fury and intellectual, cultural and scientific daring and rebellion of the times.

14. In 1970s, Asian and Asian-American activists, founded “Everybody’s Bookstore” in San Francisco-- a mainly Chinese language Maoist store in Manila Town and then in Chinatown. Early Beginnings

15. Revolution Books began in different storefronts, including one on University Avenue. Around the early 1980s RB volunteers distributed revolutionary literature in the store and out on the streets.

16. The first store off Telegraph Avenue was established in 1987. The new store was close to the campus and its political and intellectual ferment and student activism. And Berkeley was becoming a place where youth from all over the East Bay would come together. It’s first programs were on the bombing of the Black radical group MOVE in Philadelphia, and readings by NtozakeShange and SherleyAnne Williams. Graffiti artists and supporters packed the store for a slide presentation by James Prigoff, author of “Spraycan Art.”

17. When white supremacy is being openly promoted by the government, Revolution Books is fighting back with history, culture, theory, and in the streets.

18. In 1987, when Revolution Books opened off Telegraph, the bookstore organized an outdoor concert on the Avenue in the face off police apartheid-like attacks on Black youth on Telegraph Ave., the first time rap artists performed there, and it featured a graffiti art exhibition. The store was widely known for the large “Take Back Telegraph” Mural

19. When people took to the streets nationwide against police murder, Revolution Books co-sponsored a teach-in at Berkeley Law which brought together high school and college students, professors, and families of those killed by police.

20. In 1992, as people rose up in Los Angeles in the Rodney King Rebellion, people in the Bay Area also came into the streets. SFPD staged a mass arrest of more than one thousand people. Revolution Books’ staff, table and literature were targeted in this sweep, the books confiscated. In Berkeley, Revolution Books stayed open, and people gathered there defying the curfew on Telegraph Avenue. San Francisco Examiner May 2, 1992: Caption reads: Police seal off the intersection of 24th and Mission Streets Friday night to quash protest’s “seeds of violence.” Berkeley High School and University students on the Bay Bridge.

21. 2000 students and others attended a forum at UC Berkeley with Cornel West and Carl Dix opposing police terror and mass incarceration sponsored by Revolution Books.

22. The truth about slavery and the United States… Daina Berry, author of “The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation”

23. Revolution Books hosts discussions, for students and for the larger community, to grapple with the biggest questions of philosophy, how to understand the world, think critically and challenge them to take up the science of revolution. Why we need an actual revolution and how we can really make revolution Revolution, Religion, and Epistemology Reform vs Revolution

24. Panel Discussion of Life of George Washington Mural:Art, politics, the "founding fathers" and what it will take to get beyond this world of oppression.

25. Revolution Books seeks to foster a culture of revolt against a revolting culture while nurturing art that imagines in the present what a future world and people could be. KayhanIrani’sArtivista Project

26. Joyce Carol Oates at Revolution Books

29. Scott Saul, author of Becoming Richard Pryor

30. Nalo Hopkinson

31. Other authors who have read at Revolution Books

32. America was NEVER Great!

33. In 1979, in the midst of a patriotic frenzy against Iran, Revolution Books helped launch “Iran Day” more than one thousand demanded no U.S. attacks on Iran.

34. Revolution Books consistently opposed U.S. aggression wars in the Middle East and brought out the real – imperialist – interests behind them. In 2010 Revolution Books was a sponsor of “Berkeley Says No To Torture Week,” which kicked off with a book event with Andy Worthington and Justine Sharrock. Alfred McCoy, author of “A Question of Torture”

35. If you can conceive of a world without America—without everything America stands for and everything it does in the world—then you’ve already taken great strides and begun to get at least a glimpse of a whole new world. -- Bob Avakian

36. Book tables at protests, festivals, in the community and on campuses

37. On August 5, 2018, fascists called a “Death to Communism” rally in Martin Luther King Park. Revolution Books defiantly set up a book table in the middle of the park. The table was attacked and surrounded by police. In the face of attacks by both fascist thugs and those in police uniforms Revolution Books did not back down.

38. In the face of the danger of the white supremacist fascist Trump/Pence regime Revolution Books has actively supported the call to “Drive out the Trump Regime” and has brought out the reasons for the rise of Trump and what it will take to put an end to this system.

39. Since Trump was elected mobs of fascist thugs have blocked, menaced, and physically assaulted Revolution Books many times -- and threatened to “burn it down.

40. Revolution books has been defiant in the face of the attacks…

41. And rallied others to stand with the bookstore.

42. "It is outrageous that Revolution Books is being targeted by right-wing / fascist/ T***p-supporters.  We in the Berkeley community & throughout the country are solidly on your side, & applaud your courage, tenacity, & determination.   #ResistPersist"  —Joyce Carol Oates, author "It horrifies me to hear that our beloved Revolution Books was targeted by vicious white supremacists. Bookstores like Revolution Books are examples of the best this nation has to offer: freedom-loving, science-celebrating, creativity-inspiring. It's one of the many heartbeats of this wonderful community of ours, and we won't allow it to be silenced or destroyed."  —Ayelet Waldman, author  

43. Donate your ideas, time, and especially funds to keep Revolution the vibrant, daring intellectual center for an actual revolution it must be now more than ever.

44. Humanity Needs Revolution! Revolution Needs Revolution Books!Revolution Books Needs You!