Letters from Young Activists

Today’s Rebels Speak Out

Edited by Dan Berger, Chesa Boudin, and Kenyon Farrow

Review by Amin Sharif 

Given this book to review, I hesitated to open its pages. What could a book about today’s young activists say to me or my generation? I grew up in a segregated world so far from the reality of what today’s youth experience that I imagined that the gulf between the two worlds would forever separate us into two camps—those who lived under segregation and fought against it; and those who had not. Perhaps, the gulf still exists. If it does, this book has certainly narrowed the space between my generation—of Civil Rights and Black Power—and the present one of international anarchy and Gay rights. That is the best thing that I can say about this work.

Letters from Young Activists is a mixture of the most intimate and personal revelations, serious political insights, and fluff. The writing is, on the whole, exceptional and stylish. Yet the actual message of the book is at times confusing and lacks focus. By attempting to give voice to so many activists, Letters fails to make a coherent case for the “movement” of these young activists as a whole. We do not know at the beginning exactly what these young men and women want collectively and the question remains open even at the end of the book.

Letters from Young Activists contains some fine pieces that make it worth reading. I have chosen to focus on three letters more or less typical of the many presentations found within its pages.

Chesa Boudin

The very first letter in the book is by Chesa Boudin—an activist who works for the revolutionary government of Venezuela—and is addressed to his father, David Gilbert, who took part in the Brinks bank robbery which was a part of a series of radical actions taken by the white Left. After wishing him a happy birthday, Chesa says to his father who is being held at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York:  

It goes without saying that the prism through which Chesa sees and interprets the world is far different from any of his peers, even those who are activists. He has seen the consequences and cost of radical activity—not as a theoretical possibility, but as an actual fact in his own life. And despite his acknowledgement that his father’s actions were conducted with the best of intentions, Chesa finds it hard to reconcile the need to use revolutionary violence as a tool for social change with the sometimes devastating affect in might have on others.

The actions of his parents—both were convicted and sentenced to long prison terms for the robbery—resulted in three deaths and “the traumatic disruption of untold children’s lives.” It is evident in his writings that Chesa’s counts his own childhood and family life as a causality of his mother and father’s revolutionary activism.

There is so much humanity contained in Chesa’s insights that it is hard to render any criticism concerning all that he reveals to us. But it is clear that Chesa would have rather his parents had not taken part in the robbery.  He was only fourteen months old when the robbery was committed. He says that if “he had been old enough to talk” to them, he would have tried to “convince both of [them] not to go.” What Chesa reveals to us is that, in his mind, the cost of his parents’ participation in revolutionary violence was too great a price to pay for the uncertain reward of social progress.

This most human of responses to what Chesa considers the loss of innocent life and the disintegration of his own family. In the narrow context of family relations, Chesa is very much justified in his observations. Revolutionary action, by definition, transcends family needs. This position has always been an ethical dilemma This is a harsh but well known corollary of revolutionary struggle. One has only to read the letter that Patrice Lumumba wrote to his wife on the way to be executed to understand the consequences of revolutionary action on the personal lives of those who use it as a tool. Lumumba says to his wife on the last day of his life:

As to my children, whom I leave and whom I may never see again, I should like them to be told that it is for them as it is for every Congolese, to accomplish the scared task of reconstructing our independence and our sovereignty: for without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.

What Chesa is wrestling with in his letter is nothing less than what was known by some of us older radicals as the revolutionary imperative. There was much debate about the imperative or something equivalent to it in radical and revolutionary circles across the country in the sixties. Many radicals felt that it was indeed “imperative” to overthrow what they considered a ruthless, oppressive system that supported racist repression at home and imperialist aggression abroad.

From Fred Hampton to Emmit Till, from Alabama to Vietnam, radicals and revolutionaries could see the hundreds of thousands of death that innocent Black Americans, Latin Americans, Africans, Palestinians, and Asians suffered at the hands of a misguided U.S. policy. The question for radicals in America and around the world was whether to redress this policy through gradualist, non-violent actions or through revolutionary violence.

The question was as Lumumba put it: How to make free men? Folks like the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army and the anti-colonial freedom fighters of the last century decided in favor of the imperative. They believed that not only was revolutionary violence a necessity but that it was also a morally acceptable choice when faced with overwhelming oppression.    

Chesa seems baffled that his father and mother could choose the revolutionary imperative over, say, non-violent reformist actions. For him, the imperative led his parents nowhere but to a prison cell. He would have his father express publicly remorse for his actions. Only then does Chesa believe that his father can be forgiven for what he did. Stubbornly, Chesa’s father declines to express any remorse. It is clear that Chesa does not know exactly why his father seems unwilling to make this concession to the families of those killed in the robbery.

All this makes for a kind of bittersweet emotionalism which runs through not only Chesa’s letter but through many other letters contained in the book. But, it begs the question whether these new radicals fully understand what they are getting themselves into? Are they saying that they are only willing to go so far in the eradication of oppression?

If this is what they mean by activism, than I would rather they sit in their living rooms listening to hip-hop and play video games. They do not seem to understand that if you really believe in the transformation of the world, you may regrettably have to get blood on your hands. This does not mean that one should seek to use revolutionary violence as a first option when other non-violent methods may achieve one’s purpose.

Going in one must be aware that revolutionary violence may be one’s last, best option to end oppression. The alternative view would be to throw up one’s hands when gradualist tactics no longer work and allow the oppression to continue. Denial of the imperative may mean the denial of freedom for the oppressed and an end to the transformation of society. Does the imperative rise exacting questions concerning radical and revolutionary morality? Yes, of course, it does. And, this is exactly why the choice to use it as a tool is so complicated and makes the political transformation of society such a messy affair.

It is this awareness that revolutionary violence may be justified under extreme situations that separates Chesa from his father in terms of political consciousness. His father understands that the actions he took might be considered reprehensible to those who believe that the oppressor can be reasoned with—who think that moral arguments can prevail and orderly change will follow. Chesa’s father exercised the revolutionary imperative to end to the suffering that he felt his country authored at home and in the Third World.

He decided that his political life was secondary to his role as father and husband.  This was no doubt a difficult decision for Chesa’s father. But revolutionary violence has been the principle means by which oppressed peoples throughout the world have thrown off repression. That revolutionaries in America should choose to use it as a tool in their own struggle against injustice during the turbulent period of the 1960s was perhaps inevitable.

Still that this decision had tragic personal consequences for Chesa and his father can not be causally set aside. Nor can the deaths connected to this action be easily justified or dismissed. One feels deeply for Chesa’s plight. It is a testament to his strength that he has become something of an activist himself. Yet one is still haunted by the question: Does he really understand what it takes to change the world? In the end, only Chesa knows the answer. Many will find Chesa’s letter troubling but I strongly recommend that it be read by all activists—young as well as old.

Andy Cornell

Perhaps the most fascinating missile found in Letters comes from a self-proclaimed white punk rock activist named Andy Cornell. He is an exceptionally intelligent young man endowed with the ability to apply criticism to his own political life and those involved in what he terms acts of “cultural resistance.” Andy is one of the many white youth who reject all “middle class white culture.” In a broader sense, Andy’s definition of punk seems to be part of a legacy of alienation that extends back to the counter culture movement of the 1960s.

One of the problems that emerged around that movement was whether it should be considered part of a greater political effort for equality and justice or whether counter culture was rooted in the non-political rejection of corporate culture found in a white, capitalist society. Was the counter culture of the hippies radical in nature or a rebellion born of youthful alienation?

Andy sees the alienation he experiences as a punk-rock activist interwoven in the oppression experienced by others factions in America.  This is not a naïve assertion on his part. There is every indication in his letter that Andy fully realizes the difference between “alienation” on one hand and “political oppression” on the other. Yet Andy posits that there can be no ending of the alienation experienced by America’s white punks without the ending of the general oppression of other minority factions within America.

He asks his fellow punks: “Is being radical about creating an alternate identity or is it about organizing masses of people?” Thus, he is asking again whether the punk rock culture of his own time, like the hippie culture of decades ago, is based in a self-indulgent alienation or in social and political responsibility.

What I enjoyed about reading Andy’s letter is his ability to cut through the hype and get to the crux of matter. Andy is not a member of an “oppressed minority.” He is not a woman nor is he by any outward indication gay. But he is a young, white man who sees himself as a member of a greater humanity and who is just as concerned with issues of justice as any Black, woman, or gay activist. Andy says it all much better than I when he addresses other punk rock activists in his letter:  

This passage is beautifully composed and insightful. Letters such as Andy’s makes this book socially and politically relevant and gives hope to a long-in the-tooth radical like myself for the next generation.

Kenyon Farrow

Sadly, for every eloquently composed letter by Chesa Boudin and Andy Cornell, there is one or two composed by a Kenyon Farrow, a gay activist. In a section of Letters from Young Activists addressed to “authorities,” Kenyon addresses Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He begins his letter with the promise of a fiery exchange between himself and Rice:  

Kenyon was constantly asked by white radicals what he thought about her. He thought that these radicals were asking him about Rice so that he might break ranks with his sister.

On a trip to Denver, Kenyon reads Rice’s biography. He is impressed and decides that he will not be pulled into the game of “a black man” denigrating “a black woman” for the benefit of whites on the Right and the Left. The rest of Kenyon’s letter is a justification as to why he can and will not criticize Rice in public.

Kenyon argues that because Rice was a “genius black girl born in 1950s Birmingham, Alabama” she had “no other options” but to become a conservative and to serve a racist administration. Not only is this reasoning sloppy, it is just plain wrong. Are we to absolve Rice of her responsibility as a leading member of the political ruling class because of an accident of background and birth?

This is exactly what Kenyon suggests. This is a woman who stood by Bush’s side when Black people were trapped in the Superdome during Katrina and said nothing. This is the person who supports the War in Iraq.  This woman Kenyon has decided to give a free pass. In the interest of Black Unity, no word should be uttered against her.

Sorry, Kenyon, but I am having none of it. Why stop at Rice? Why not give blacks who rape and rob a free pass as well? Many claim their acts of violence are born of accidents of background and birth.

There has been for too long a kind of self-indulgence evident among many—thankfully not all—young black activists—that implies that the older generation has no sense of what is going on in the new political environment. If Kenyon’s letter to Rice is the norm for the quality of reasoning that is prevalent among new black activists then there is real trouble for all of us on the horizon. Mistakenly, Kenyon refers to himself as a “black revolutionary.” 

A revolutionary would have skillfully, creatively found a Rice criticism that did not “denigrate” her as woman or as Negro. A revolutionary has an obligation to educate not only Black folk but also white folk about the racist, sexist, and imperialist intentions of the Bush regime. And point out those who defend it.

In any event, Rice is more than capable of her own defense. She has risen to her position of power with skill. She’s been through the grinder of more skilled criticism than he even dares to muster. Kenyon’s Rice is the “little lady” you don’t throw hardballs.

He is neither clever nor original, nor an encouraging guide. How are the masses to know friend from foe if an activist is silent and refuses to expose the truth? How can his white colleagues trust him if he’s going to fall back on race in the most crucial issues of our time? He should state plainly whether he thinks Rice has acted in the best interests of the poor and oppressed in this country and around the world.

Kenyon’s equivocation blurs the issue of where he really stands. Our responsibility to the poor and oppressed requires more than this letter writer is willing to express. We cannot without emphasis allow this kind of passive deference to race and class go unnoted, the phenomenon is so widespread. We all need to sharpen our analyses when it comes to faces in high places, regardless of color. A letter “to” authority is different from a letter “for” authority.

Even with its fluff and lack of focus, Letters from Young Activists, contains enough passion, revelation, and truth to make it worth reading. I sincerely hope all these young activists find a way to serve humanity and achieve their dreams.

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Other Reviews

Whether North American or Other you will not regret the hours spent with this inspiring, compassionate and soulful book. It allows a glimpse into the hearts of young activists of today, one much needed by their elders. Here they are, our children: beautiful, committed, serious in their belief that it is possible to assist and care for the human and the natural world. They are making of themselves an offering to the Goddess of Peace. Aché. – Alice Walker

If anyone wonders about what that nebulous thing called ‘the Movement’ is, here are their many and varied voices. In letters of love and hope, of anger and depression, of wonder and rebellion, young people, from preteens to twenty-somethings, grapple with what it means to be part of ‘the Movement’ in these dim days of empire. They demand to be heard, by parents, by politicians, and by those who peopled ‘the Movement’ before their birth. These voices will not be ignored. They will be heard.– Mumia Abu-Jamal

posted 12 January 2006

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update 3 July 2009