FRIDAY MAY 1ST (MAYDAY) Multimedia program 7-10pm including POSTER EXHIBIT and remarks by Jim Huberty. PARTY 10pm-midnight with live music. ELECTRIC EARTH CAFE, 546 W. Washington Ave (the cafe sells beer as well as coffee, other beverages, and food). Admission: $5 to $10 donation (sliding scale).
May 2009 marks the 40th anniversary of the “Battle of Miffland” when at a time of growing protest against the U.S. war in Vietnam a reactionary Madison mayor and his police chief denied the permit for a neighborhood block party by the “hippie-radical” community around the then-newly established Mifflin Street Co-op. Police attacks on partying youth provoked a 3-day street battle--a mini-insurrection--which dramatically altered the political landscape of Madison.
In recent years the Mifflin Block Party has recurred mainly as an apolitical undergraduate drunken spree, with scant awareness of its origins. Forgotten is that Miffland was part of an international youth radicalization of the late 1960s, characterized by mass street actions, campus and community uprisings, blockades, and sometimes armed struggles which shook global capitalism, bureaucratic regimes in the so-called "socialist bloc", and authoritarian structures everywhere. Despite relentless efforts by power elites to crush and co-opt recent movements for social change, such forms of struggle remain indispensable. New strategies and tactics have evolved to confront ever-more sophisticated governmental repression. “From Mifflin to Oaxaca & Beyond” will explore some episodes in the continuing struggle for human liberation, social justice, peace, and ecological sanity.
Multimedia Program 7-10pm:
Part I. Miffland 1969: the Story & Lessons of a Street Fight, with film footage and remarks by participants and witnesses.
Part II: Mexico, Latin America, and What We Can Celebrate, presented by Community Alliance on Latin America.
Part III Governmental Repression & Contemporary Resistance, presented by the Madison Infoshop & others
Sponsors: Madison Infoshop, Industrial Workers of the World, WORT, Community Alliance on Latin America, Madison Area Peace Coalition, Immigrant Workers Union, Four Lakes Green Party, and Peregrine Forum.
For more info 442-8399 or dvdwilliams51@tds.net