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Podcast

Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson w/ Barbara Ransby

Join Dr. Barbara Ransby and Dr. Lynette Jackson for a conversation celebrating the release of Ransby's new memoir, Eslanda. Eslanda "Essie" Cardozo Goode Robeson lived a colorful and amazing life. Her career and commitments took her many places: colonial Africa in 1936, the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, the founding meeting of the United Nations, Nazi-occupied Berlin, Stalin's Russia, and China two months after Mao's revolution. She was a woman of unusual accomplishment—an anthropologist, a prolific journalist, a tireless advocate of women's rights, an outspoken anti-colonial and antiracist activist, and an internationally sought-after speaker. Yet historians for the most part have confined Essie to the role of Mrs. Paul Robeson, a wife hidden in the large shadow cast by her famous husband. In this masterful book, biographer Dr. Barbara Ransby refocuses attention on Essie, one of the most important and fascinating Black women of the twentieth century. Join us for a limited-capacity in-person book launch event and discussion with Dr. Barbara Ransby and Dr. Lynette Jackson on the extraordinary life of Eslanda Robeson and the implications of her work on freedom struggles today. Masks and proof of vaccination are required for those attending in person. For those attending in-person doors will open at 6 PM. The event will also be livestreamed for those unable to attend in-person. Closed captioning will be available for the livestream. Order your copy of Eslanda here. --------------------------------------------------------- Speakers: Dr. Barbara Ransby is a widely acclaimed historian of the Black Freedom Movement, award-winning author, and longtime activist. She is the John D. MacArthur Chair and Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Black Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies and History at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also directs the Social Justice Initiative, which promotes connections between academics and community organizers working on social justice. A founding member of Scholars for Social Justice, she works closely with activists in the Movement for Black Lives and The Rising Majority. She is an elected fellow in the Society of American Historians, as well as a recipient of the Angela Y. Davis Prize for public scholarship from the American Studies Association. Ransby is the author of multiple books, including the award-winning Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century and Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson. Dr. Lynette Jackson is an associate professor of Gender and Women's Studies and Black Studies at UIC. She received her PhD in African History from Columbia University in 1997. Dr. Jackson is the author of Surfacing Up: Psychiatry and Social Order in Colonial Zimbabwe and numerous other articles and book chapters on topics relating to women, the state and medical and public health discourses in colonial and postcolonial Africa, particularly having to do with the regulation of African women's sexuality. Dr. Jackson's current research explores the history of child refugee diasporas from Southern Sudan, particularly focusing on two streams of unaccompanied children: The Lost Boys and Girls and the Cuban 600. Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/s4xq5KpOZZI Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks

More Episodes

Mar 11, 2026

Abolish ICE, Abolish the Border

Join Harsha Walia, Silky Shah, and Beatrice Adler-Bolton of Death Panel for an urgent discussion on the brutal enforcement of immigration policing in Minneapolis and beyond, and why resistance calls for the abolition of much more than ICE.

With at least 6 people dying in immigration detention in January 2026 alone, and following the executions of Renee Nicole Good, Alex Pretti, and Keith Porter Jr. at the hands of ICE agents, the call to abolish ICE can be heard across the US. In this conversation, co-hosted by Haymarket Books and Death Panel, thinkers and organisers Walia, Shah, and Adler-Bolton will discuss the realities of immigration enforcement, detention, and deportation; the history of ICE and the US border regime; and the many ways people can - and do - resist.

Remember that you can download three crucial e-books on migrant justice for free from Haymarket here, including Shah’s Unbuild Walls and Walia’s Border & Rule: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/525-free-ebooks-abolish-ice-abolish-the-border

Speakers:

Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition building power to abolish immigration detention in the U.S. She is also the author of the recently published book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition (Haymarket Books, 2024). She has worked as an organizer on issues related to immigration detention, the prison-industrial complex, and racial and migrant justice for over 20 years.

Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Border and Rule (Haymarket Books, 2021) and Undoing Border Imperialism (AK, 2013). Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women’s Memorial March Committee.

Beatrice Adler-Bolton is an author, disability and mad justice agitator, and theorist of debility, care, class struggle, and the state. She is the cohost of the Death Panel Podcast about the political economy of health, and the coauthor of the books Health Communism (Verso 2022) and All Care for All People (forthcoming from Haymarket). She is based in South Minneapolis and has struggled and organized against occupation by ICE and CBP with comrades and neighbors since "Operation Metro Surge" descended on the Twin Cities in early December 2025.

This event is organized by Haymarket Books and Death Panel.

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/d9YJqx1zY2c

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Mar 12, 2026

Venezuela in Crisis: US Imperialism, Maduro, and the Neoliberal Turn

Join four left Venezuelan voices for an urgent discussion of the neocolonial US intervention and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro on January 3 and its aftermath. The event will examine the evolution of the Bolivarian process and its neoliberal turn under Maduro, along with the weakening of the social forces within Venezuela capable of resisting imperialist invasion. As the situation changes rapidly, speakers will also assess the post-invasion configuration under Delcy Rodríguez, the collaboration with U.S. imperial power, oil concessions, and the consolidation of a “Madurismo without Maduro.”

The discussion will challenge both pro-invasion narratives and apologetics for the Venezuelan state, advancing a left, anti-imperialist critique rooted in sovereignty, democracy, and working-class self-determination.

Speakers:

Simón Rodríguez is a Venezuelan socialist writer and journalist. He was a student organizer and later became professor at the Universidad de los Andes. When he was a member of the national leadership of the Socialism and Freedom Party, he ran as a candidate for the National Assembly in 2015. He is a founding member of Laclase.info and Venezuelanvoices.org and has published articles in Humania del Sur, NACLA Report on the Americas, The New Arab, and Rebelión and on dozens of electronic outlets, and his articles have been translated into six languages. He has given talks and lectures in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. He is coauthor with Miguel Sorans of the book Why Did Chavismo Fail? A Left-Opposition Balance Sheet (CeHUS, 2018).

Emiliano Terán is a sociologist from the Central University of Venezuela and has a master’s degree in ecological economics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He is a PhD candidate in environmental science and technology at the same institution. He is also an associate researcher at the Center for Development Studies in Venezuela and a member of the Observatory of Political Ecology of Venezuela

Gonzalo Gómez was a leader of the Socialist Workers Party from the 1970s to the 1990s. He was a key figure in the regroupment of Trotskyism in Venezuela and was a critical supporter of Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution. He participated in the Popular Revolutionary Assembly against the 2002 coup. Gómez also was a cofounder of the alternative media site Aporrea. He was one of the founders of Marea Socialista, a current that joined the PSUV, of which he was a founding delegate and part of the regional leadership in Caracas. In 2014, Marea was excluded from the PSUV and then broke with the Maduro government. Gómez participated for several years with the Citizen’s Platform for the Defense of the Constitution with several former Chávez ministers. Gómez has continued to organize with Marea Socialista as an independent organization and section of the International Socialist League.

Yoletty Bracho is a Venezuelan political science researcher currently teaching at the University of Avignon in south of France who studies authoritarian governance and popular mobilization in Venezuela.

Moderator:

Anderson Bean is a sociology professor at North Carolina A&T State University, as well as a North Carolina–based activist and editor. He is a contributor and editor of the book Venezuela in Crisis: Socialist Perspectives, out this month from Haymarket Books, and the author of Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis (Lexington Books)

Watch the live event recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/cOe2ZWX7f8M

Get the book: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2604-venezuela-in-crisis

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Apr 1, 2026

One Day Longer, One Day Stronger: How Minnesota's Labor Movement is Resisting ICE

“When a seed is ready to sprout, and when the conditions are right, nothing can stop it.” –Ricardo Levins Morales

In the last few months, Minnesota has not only made headlines, but history. The resistance to ICE atrocities has been fueled by working class collective action and care. There is much to learn about how the crisis is evolving, from January 23rd’s historic work stoppage to the continued daily, on-the-ground mutual aid and rapid response networks keeping people fed, housed, and safe from authoritarian aggressors. Hear from union leaders and rank-and-filers who have been active on the frontlines and behind the scenes about what we are capable of when we come together, and what must be done to keep growing worker power.

Speakers:

Paul Kirk-Davidoff - Twin Cities Labor Report

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou - Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation

Feben Ghilagaber - UNITE-HERE 17

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and Workday Magazine.

Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/riV6B7D4diA

Check out WorkDay Magazine: https://workdaymagazine.org

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org

Apr 7, 2026

Stop the War Now!: Against the US and Israel's Wars on Iran and Lebanon

The devastating US-Israeli war on Iran and Israel's war on Lebanon show no signs of ending soon. What is behind the attacks and how can we organize to oppose them without supporting the Iranian theocracy? Join Tempest Magazine and Haymarket Books for this important discussion.

Speakers:

Manijeh Moradian is assistant professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. Her book, This Flame Within: Iranian Revolutionaries in the United States (Duke University Press, 2022), tells the story of Iranian students who organized against US support for the Shah of Iran in the 60s and 70s. She has been an anti-war activist for many years, serving on the United for Peace and Justice organizing committee for the February 15, 2003 global protest against the US invasion of Iraq. She is a founding member of the Raha Iranian Feminist Collective and a member of Feminists for Jina, a global network which formed in fall 2022 to support the women, life, freedom uprising in Iran.

Ida Nikou is a sociologist working on international political economy, labor regimes, and financialization, with a focus on Iran and the Middle East. She received her PhD at SUNY Stony Brook and is currently based in Germany. Her research examines how sanctions, neoliberal restructuring, and financialization transform class relations, labor precarity, and patterns of worker resistance in Iran. She has written on sanctions and labor struggles in Iran for venues including MERIP, Jadaliyya, and the Global Labour Journal, and is currently developing new work on sanctions, accumulation, and state restructuring in Iran.

Rima Majed is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies Department at the American University of Beirut (AUB). She is the co-editor of The Lebanon Uprising of 2019: Voices from the Revolution. Her work has appeared in several journals, books and media platforms including American Political Science Review, Social Forces, British Journal of Sociology, Global Dialogue, OpenDemocracy, CNN, and Al Jazeera English.

This event is sponsored by Haymarket Books and Tempest.

Watch the live event recording: https://youtube.com/live/l58tVX8d7tI

Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org