Transformation: Toward a People’s Democracy
Longtime Southern organizer, Suzanne Pharr, has released Transformation: Toward a People’s Democracy (Virginia Tech Publishing, ISBN 978-1949-37367-7), a collection of her writings from over six decades. It reflects her work on the frontlines of the fight for a multi-racial, multi-gendered democracy and examines our social justice successes and failures as well as the growth of the oppositional rightwing over the decades. Transformation… is a movement book that is held in the Creative Commons and is available at no cost for digital download at www.suzannepharr.
Please find the press release below and the press kit attached. We are seeking your partnership in sharing this book with your political community by
· Sharing on social media: Please help circulate the book description and links to download the book.
· Posting the eBook on your website: Post digital copies of the book (PDF, ePub) on your organization’s website.
· Hosting virtual conversations: Invite people in your networks to join one another to read and discuss portions of the book in reading groups, and consider hosting Suzanne for a virtual discussion with your base.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Transformation: Towards A People’s Democracy is a movement book for anyone working for an expansive vision of social justice.
Little Rock, AR. September 13, 2021 ― In this movement book, Suzanne Pharr offers social justice movements a collection of essays spanning six decades of work at the frontlines of organizing for democracy and social justice. Transformation offers a clear and compelling vision for action amid social and political turmoil.
Pharr, a Southern queer feminist and anti-racist organizer, explores the pitfalls and the strengths within social justice movements. Her writings reflect the collective work of thinkers and organizers who led activists to lift up the liberation of gender and sexuality, to advance anti-racist and anti-fascist strategies, to work against the advancement of rapacious capitalism, and to confront the rise of the Right in all of its forms. Transformation examines not just what happened but how it happened.
From the Book:
“Coalition work is hard because we are taunted and baited and set off against one another by the Right who keeps drilling the message that exclusion is necessary, that there is not enough to go around, that one person’s gain is another person’s loss. There is plenty to go around; the problem is that the method of sharing has not been equalized.We have to understand that if any group can be left out, then reasons can be found to leave any other group out.” says Pharr in her 1993 essay, “Racist Politics and Homophobia.”
Advanced praise:
“Suzanne brilliantly analyses the development of the U.S. anti-fascist movement to offer wisdom based on her lived experiences spanning six decades. She never uses a single-issue approach in her intersectional inspiring work because she connects the dots between all social justice and human rights movements. She’s as vital to read as Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Adrienne Rich. Anyone reading this book will recognize what a gift she’s given us.” – Loretta J. Ross, Activist, Public Intellectual, Professor
About the Author
Suzanne Pharr is a southern queer feminist and anti-racist organizer. She founded the Women’s Project in Arkansas in 1981, was a co-founder of Southerners on New Ground in 1984, and was director of the Highlander Center from 1999 to 2004. Her movement work focuses on intersectional issues and strategies, anti-violence, racial and gender equality, cross-generational collaboration, democratic participation, economic justice, and human rights based on equality and justice.