A young man who has subscribed to the Militant for a couple of years came from Harrisburg to help staff the bookstore and joined a team distributing revolutionary literature from a regular street corner table. He picked up a copy of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics during his visit.

A packinghouse worker who lives near the bookstore helped translate a publicity flyer into Spanish. He urged socialists to talk with workers at the Excel meatpacking plant where he works to help get out the word.

One worker from the Dominican Republic, after perusing the books, exclaimed, "almuerzo!" (lunch). He said the bookstore contained so much food for his mind that it was difficult to figure out what to buy first.

A Vietnam-era veteran who stopped by took a rain check for Out Now, the story of the anti-Vietnam War movement in the United States. He also plans to pick up The Case of the Legless Veteran, which chronicles the successful fight of a World War II veteran who was fired because of his communist views.

Pathfinder volunteers are gearing up for a grand opening event June 8. Speakers at the opening will include Frank Forrestal, National Committee member of the Socialist Workers Party, and Ma’mud Shirvani, the Farsi-language editor for Pathfinder Press. There will be a dinner at 6:00 p.m. and the program begins at 7:30 p.m.
 

The Hazleton Standard-Speaker ran an article in the business section of the paper June 1 covering the opening of the bookstore. Printed below is an excerpt from the article, titled, "Pathfinder is first bookstore in city since early 1990s."

BY KENT JACKSON  
Struggles described on Tim Mailhot’s shelves have touched Hazleton.

One volume he plucks from its place in the Pathfinder Bookstore, which is scheduled to open today, has a chapter on The Great Coal Strike that began 100 years ago in Hazleton.

Another volume, Mother Jones Speaks, contains the words of one of the activists who came to town during the strike.

"She didn’t look at working people as helpless people. They were the ones that could do the fight and could win," Mailhot said.

Mailhot too has been around scenes of strife. His last address, before moving to Hazleton two years ago, was a cradle of the Civil Rights Movement, Birmingham, Ala.

In Hazleton, Mailhot has seen residents of the Laurel Gardens struggle for relief from gasoline spilled beneath their neighborhood.

He arrived after miners at Jeddo Coal went through a year-long strike that ended in 1999.

"People that get into a struggle, their horizons are broadened," Mailhot said.

He thinks the people of Hazleton might want to check out the books published by the Pathfinder Press that he sells at the store at 69 N. Wyoming St.

Pathfinder publishes approximately 350 titles in English, Spanish and other languages.

Most of Pathfinder’s books have a leftist take on labor, international politics and history, but the firm also published speeches and papers of the Socialist Workers Party and firebrands like Mother Jones and Malcolm X.

"A new generation (can) read and discover what this guy was all about," said Mailhot, who has distributed Pathfinder’s books for years.  
 
 
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