James Tracy (activist)

Last updated
James Tracy
Born1970
Oakland, California
CitizenshipAmerican

James Richard Tracy (born 1970) is an American author, poet and activist living in Oakland, California. He is the co-author (with Amy Sonnie) of Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times (Melville House Publishers 2012).

Contents

Early life

Tracy was born in Oakland, California in 1970. His family moved shortly thereafter to Vallejo, California. His father was a kindergarten teacher in the Richmond Unified School District. His mother worked a variety of jobs in the social work field. Tracy has two younger brothers.

Tracy credits several formative events in shaping his early political outlook. His first job was as a paper delivery person for the Vallejo Independent Press , a worker-owned newspaper founded by striking newspaper workers. This introduced the idea of worker self-management to him. In early 1989, the presence of Neo-Nazi organizers in Vallejo helped him form an anti-racist commitment.

Housing organizing

In 1992, Tracy co-founded the Eviction Defense Network (EDN) an organization which utilized direct action to prevent evictions. [1] The EDN was invited to work alongside public housing residents organizing for the right-of-return in the federal HOPE VI program. Subsequently, he was a member of the Coalition On Homelessness, Mission Agenda, and the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition. [2] [3]

Teaching

In 2023, Tracy was lecturing at San Francisco University. [4]

Published work

Anthologies and encyclopedia entries

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References

  1. Carlsson, Chris (2009). The Political Edge . San Francisco: City Lights Publishers. ISBN   978-1931404051.
  2. Lovell, Jarret (2009). Crimes of Dissent: Civil Disobedience, Criminal Justice, and the Politics of Conscience. USA: New York University Press. pp.  213–220. ISBN   978-0814752272.
  3. Matthew, Dineen (24 July 2007). "More For Everyone". Towards Freedom. Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  4. San Francisco University website, Department of Political Science section, James Tracy, retrieved 2023-12-12
  5. "No Fascist USA!, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today's Movements".