The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.9           March 9, 1998 
 
 
Stores Order Books On Iraq, Black Rights  

BY SARA LOBMAN
Pathfinder supporters in several areas are taking advantage of the increased political discussion in the wake of Washington's moves toward war on Iraq, as well as the new Pathfinder title John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s, by Frank Kofsky to increase efforts to place Pathfinder titles in bookstores and libraries.

"Enclosed is an order $189 of books and pamphlets from a store that has ordered several Pathfinder titles in the past," Rick Young reports from Chicago. "We recently visited them to show them the new book by Kofsky and titles on the Middle East."

In addition to four copies of John Coltrane, the store ordered three copies of issue no. 7 of the Marxist magazine New International with "The Opening Guns of World War III," three copies of U.S. Hands of the Mideast! Cuba Speaks Out at the United Nations by Fidel Castro and Ricardo Alarcón, and two copies of the new booklet Celebrating the Homecoming of Ernesto Che Guevara's Reinforcement Brigade to Cuba.

A supporter in Vancouver reports that after an initially chilly reception from a book buyer who said his store didn't order locally, she walked away with an order for two copies each of John Coltrane and Pombo: A Man of Che's `guerrilla', and one copy each of Ernesto Che Guevara's Bolivian Diary and Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War. "His whole demeanor changes when I showed him the catalog and the Coltrane book," she commented.

A team of supporters in Washington, D.C., just won a new account from a combination video and bookstore. The first order for 40 books included New International no. 7, Cointelpro: The FBI's Secret War on Political Freedom, and The Communist Manifesto.

*****
BY RICH STUART

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - Pathfinder supporters here in the last week of January made sales calls to 25 campus and community bookstores and libraries, as well as the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

The sales effort included visits in Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Auburn, Montgomery, and Tuskegee. Birmingham is an industrial city with a large steel industry and coal mines in the surrounding area. The city and the entire state of Alabama have a large Black population.

The very first visit to a shopping mall bookstore in Tuscaloosa netted an order for 20 books. The store staff told the Pathfinder representatives that people had come into the store asking for The Communist Manifesto. They ordered five copies. This store also stocked up for Black History Month, ordering Pathfinder's newest title John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s by Frank Kofsky. The order also included the upcoming title by Kofsky Black Music, White Business, as well as books by Malcolm X and Nelson Mandela.

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, a museum of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, ordered titles on the Black struggle for the museum bookstore. The museum and bookstore are visited daily by people from around the world. In addition to several books by Malcolm X, they ordered Fighting Racism in World War II by C.L.R. James and Blacks in America's Wars by Robert Mullen.

A Birmingham university bookstore ordered 12 different titles, many of them on Cuba. The sales trip coincided with the Pope's visit to Cuba. The book buyer there told the Pathfinder representatives that a professor had recently come into the store asking for books on Cuba. The store had none. The book buyer plans to send the professor the Pathfinder catalog, which includes four pages of books on the Cuban revolution.

Among the titles this campus store ordered were The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara and To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's `Cold War' against Cuba Never Ends by Fidel Castro and Guevara, The Changing Face of U.S. Politics by Jack Barnes, and New International no. 7.

Eight Alabama Pathfinder supporters joined in the effort, teaming with a representative of Pathfinder in New York. Several supporters here took days off from work to participate.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home