From ACT Up to the Wto: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization [Paperback]

Benjamin Heim Shepard (Editor), Ronald Hayduk (Editor), Benjamin Shepard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2002

In March 1987 a radical coalition of queer activists converged on Wall Street...their target, 'Business, Big Business, Business as Usual!!!' It was ACT UP's first demonstration. In November 1999 a radical coalition of environmental, labor, anarchist, queer, and human rights activists converged in Seattle--their target was similar, a system of global capitalism. Between 1987 and 1999 a new project in activism had emerged unshackled from past ghosts. Through innovative use of civil rights' era non-violent disobedience, guerrilla theatre, and sophisticated media work, ACT UP has helped transform the world of activism. This anthology offers a history of ACT UP for a new generation of activists and students. It is divided into five sections which address the new social movements, the use of street theater to reclaim public space, queer and sexual politics, new media/electronic civil disobedience, and race and community building. Contributions range across a diverse spectrum: The Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, Jubilee 2000, Students for an Undemocratic Society, Fed Up Queers, Gender Identity Center of Colorado, Triangle Foundation, Jacks of Color, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, Lower East Side Collective, Community Labor Coalition, Church of Stop-Shopping, Indy Media Collective, Black Radical Congress, The Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory, Adelante Street Theater; HealthGAP, Housing Works, SexPanic! and, of course, ACT UP itself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Activist Benjamin Shepard and CUNY political science professor Ronald Hayduk team up to honor the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power in From ACT UP to the WTO, an anthology of essays and interviews that consider the group's influence on community activism, from their first demonstration on Wall Street in 1987 to "the Battle of Seattle" in 1999. The brief, fervent selections offer thumbnail portraits of contemporary social justice movements: transgender activist Leslie Feinberg recounts her arrest during a protest against the murder of Matthew Shepard; Jan Cohen-Cruz profiles the Church Ladies for Choice; and Starhawk, an activist witch, reveals "how we really shut down the WTO." Activism isn't dead after all, the editors insist and there's "a new brand of... joy, perhaps rambunctiousness, involved in the new direct action."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

Captures narratives of a new activism currently igniting our nation. -- Eric Rofes

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Verso (August 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1859843565
• ISBN-13: 978-1859843567
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 7.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,125,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jason Grote is the author of the plays 1001, Maria/Stuart, Civilization (all you can eat), Hamilton Township, Darwin's Challenge, Safe in Heaven Dead, and This Storm is What We Call Progress. He is the book writer for the musical Scheherazade and a staff writer for "Smash," Mondays at 10pm on NBC beginning February 2012.

He was the 2006 P73 Playwriting Fellow and is a resident playwright at New Dramatists. Visit him at www.jasongrote.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, radical, art-activist radical social change, March 12, 2008

By 

Ivan Boothe "www.QuixoticLife.net" (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: From ACT Up to the Wto: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (Paperback)

A fascinating, useful, comprehensive look at (mostly) Global North movements variously described as prefigurative politics, autogestion, precariousness, people-powered movements and radical social change. Landmark essays and recountings of key ideas and events in radical movements for global justice, queer rights, racial justice, environmental justice and public commons. All the rockstar organizations are here, in their most accessible and unpretentious forms: ACT-UP, Black Radical Congress, Students Against Sweatshops, Reclaim the Streets, Indymedia, Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, SexPanic!, Theatre of the Oppressed, Billionaires for Bush, Lower East Side Collective, and dozens of others. Nonviolent resistance, direct action, guerilla theatre, art-as-activism -- a brilliant reader and overview of the movements for social justice within the Global North.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars is there a link?, April 19, 2005

By 

L history "santa barbara" (santa barbara) - See all my reviews

This review is from: From ACT Up to the Wto: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (Paperback)

Some of the essays in this book are excellent, providing real life evidence of efforts to build community power through documenting struggles on a local level. Still on a whole this book represents an assemblage of popular kitch. Shepard and Hayduk don't seem to provide any unifying theme other than the fact that various groups are organizing. Does the ACT-UP struggle resemble community labor coalition organizing? What are the differences between the so called "Urban Protest and Community Building." The derivative nature of the collection is clear to this reader since I found much of the work widely available elsewhere. The editors effort is commendable but a better project would have linked the movements in a coherent fashion. I certainly think that each of the sundry efforts are interesting, but they do not add up to any trend. The authors mix and match organizing that does not help me in understanding the various trajectories presented in the essays that are on the whole fairly interesting but taken together do not show any semblance of coherence.

Yes some of the movements intersect, but none of them seem to connect. Think about it: do ACT-Up, the Seattle protest of 1999, transgender activism, a protest against the murder of Matthew Shepard, pro-choice activists, worker organizing, etc. relate in any way other than tangentially? Another serious omission is the failure to include race as a serious issue in the contemporary era.

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT!, November 9, 2010

By 

Alexandra Gonzalez "Alex Gonzalez" (Salinas, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: From ACT Up to the Wto: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization (Paperback)

The book was new & in perfect condition. I would definetly purchase from this seller again!