Jerry B. Brown | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | November 9, 1942 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | Antioch College (BA), Cornell University (PhD) |
| Occupation(s) | Anthropologist, Ethnomycologist |
| Spouse | Julie Brown |
| Website | psychedelicgospels |
Jerry B. Brown (born November 9, 1942 in Paterson, New Jersey) is an anthropologist and ethnomycologist.
In 1965, Brown graduated from Antioch College with a B.A. degree in Philosophy and Religion and received his doctorate degree in Anthropology from Cornell University in 1972. From 1972 through 2014, he served as founding professor of anthropology at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami. [1]
From 1968 to 1971, Brown conducted field work on the California farm workers movement for his dissertation at Cornell. In fall 1968, he co-coordinated the national grape boycott from the United Farm Workers (UFW) headquarters in Delano, California. [2]
Brown conducted a city-by-city analysis of the impact of the national grape boycott, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture weekly reports of table grape shipments to 41 North American cities. [3] He also coordinated an international boycott which resulted in blockades of California grapes by longshoremen on the docks of London, England and Malmo, Sweden. His work was documented in the 2012 book From the Jaws of Victory: The Triumph and Tragedy of Cesar Chavez and the Farm Worker Movement by Matt Garcia. [4]
In 1972, Brown wrote his doctoral dissertation for Cornell University on The United Farm Workers Grape Strike and Boycott, 1965-1970: An Evaluation of the Culture of Poverty Theory. [5]
In 1979 Brown founded Floridians United for Safe Energy (FUSE). [6] [7] In 1983, the organization intervened before the Florida Public Service Commission to prevent Florida Power and Light Company (FPL) from charging ratepayers $500 million for the replacement of corroded steam generators at the Turkey Point nuclear generating station near Miami, Florida. [8] [9]
From 1998-2003, he was a Research Associate with the Radiation and Public Health Project (RPHP), coordinating the national baby teeth study (also known as the "Tooth Fairy Project"). [10] It found an unexpected increase in Sr-90 in U.S. baby teeth, suggesting that "it is likely that, 40 years after large-scale atmospheric atomic bomb tests ended, much of the current in-body radioactivity represents nuclear reactor emissions." [11]
From 2013 to 2018, Brown directed the World Business Academy’s Safe Energy Project, with a goal of causing the closure of California’s remaining nuclear power plants [12] and to accelerate the state’s transition to 100 percent renewable energy in ten years through the "California Moonshot Project". [13]
In 1975 Brown designed an annual course on "Psychedelics and Culture" at Florida International University. [14] As a researcher, he has pursued historical images of psychedelic mushrooms in Christian art. In 2006, he discovered an image of the psychoactive Amanita muscaria mushroom sculpted into the forehead of a green man in Rosslyn Chapel, a fifteenth century Church in Scotland. Mycologist Paul Stamets confirmed that this was a “taxonomically correct Amanita muscaria.” [15]
Expanding on ethnomycologist R. Gordon Wasson’s theory of the entheogenic origins of religion, [16] Brown’s 2016 book, The Psychedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity hypothesizes that Christianity has a psychedelic history. [17]
Cesar Chavez was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Ideologically, his world-view combined leftist politics with Catholic social teachings.
The United Farm Workers of America, or more commonly just United Farm Workers (UFW), is a labor union for farmworkers in the United States. It originated from the merger of two workers' rights organizations, the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) led by organizer Larry Itliong, and the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta. They became allied and transformed from workers' rights organizations into a union as a result of a series of strikes in 1965, when the mostly Filipino farmworkers of the AWOC in Delano, California, initiated a grape strike, and the NFWA went on strike in support. As a result of the commonality in goals and methods, the NFWA and the AWOC formed the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the AFL–CIO in 1972 and changed its name to the United Farm Workers Union.
Juli Loesch is an American anti-abortion activist and former media coordinator for Operation Rescue in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dolores Clara Fernández Huerta is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later merged with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). Huerta helped organize the Delano grape strike in 1965 in California and was the lead negotiator in the workers' contract that was created after the strike.
Ethnomycology is the study of the historical uses and sociological impact of fungi and can be considered a subfield of ethnobotany or ethnobiology. Although in theory the term includes fungi used for such purposes as tinder, medicine and food, it is often used in the context of the study of psychoactive mushrooms such as psilocybin mushrooms, the Amanita muscaria mushroom, and the ergot fungus.
Philip Villamin Vera Cruz was a Filipino American labor leader, farmworker, and leader in the Asian American movement. He helped found the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which later merged with the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) to become the United Farm Workers (UFW). As the union's long-time second vice president, he worked to improve the working conditions of migrant workers.
The Delano grape strike was a labor strike organized by the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), a predominantly Filipino and AFL-CIO-sponsored labor organization, against table grape growers in Delano, California to fight against the exploitation of farm workers. The strike began on September 8, 1965, and one week later, the predominantly Mexican National Farmworkers Association (NFWA) joined the cause. In August 1966, the AWOC and the NFWA merged to create the United Farm Workers (UFW) Organizing Committee.
Eliseo Vasquez Medina is a Mexican-American labor union activist and leader, and advocate for immigration reform in the United States. From 1973 to 1978, he was a board member of the United Farm Workers. He is currently secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. He was previously an international executive vice president, the first Mexican American to serve on the union's executive board. Medina announced his resignation as an SEIU executive vice president effective October 1, 2013.
Pedro Andres Garcia is a Cuban-born American sports administrator who was the athletic director for Florida International University since 2006. Previously, Garcia was director of football operations at the University of Miami, vice president of the Cleveland Browns, and associate athletic director at the University of Miami.
The Salad Bowl strike was a series of strikes, mass pickets, boycotts and secondary boycotts that began on August 23, 1970 and led to the largest farm worker strike in U.S. history. The strike was led by the United Farm Workers against the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. The Salad Bowl strike was only in part a jurisdictional strike, for many of the actions taken during the event were not strikes. The strike led directly to the passage of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975.
The California Agricultural Labor Relations Act (CALRA) is a landmark statute in United States labor law that was enacted by the state of California in 1975, establishing the right to collective bargaining for farmworkers in that state, a first in U.S. history.
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, more commonly known by the acronym PCUN, is the largest Latino union in the U.S. state of Oregon. PCUN is located in Woodburn. According to the Statesman Journal, the meetings that led to the formation of PCUN were held at Colegio Cesar Chavez, the nation's first fully accredited and independent Latino college. PCUN was founded in 1977 by Cipriano Ferrel, who graduated from Colegio Cesar Chavez and worked closely with Cesar Chavez himself. Ferrel was motivated to create the organization after an increase in immigration raids in Oregon. PCUN has organized the creation of migrant housing and farmworker housing. Cipriano Ferrel worked closely with Cesar Chavez.
Modesto "Larry" Dulay Itliong, also known as "Seven Fingers", was a Filipino American labor organizer. He organized West Coast agricultural workers starting in the 1930s, and rose to national prominence in 1965, when he, Philip Vera Cruz, Benjamin Gines and Pete Velasco, walked off the farms of area table-grape growers, demanding wages equal to the federal minimum wage, that became known as the Delano grape strike. He has been described as "one of the fathers of the West Coast labor movement." He is regarded as a key figure of the Asian American movement.
Cesar Chavez is a 2014 Mexican American biographical film produced and directed by Diego Luna about the life of American labor leader Cesar Chavez, who cofounded the United Farm Workers. The film stars Michael Peña as Chavez. John Malkovich co-stars as the owner of a large industrial grape farm who leads the opposition to Chavez's organizing efforts. It premiered in the Berlinale Special Galas section of the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.
Rinaldo S. Brutoco is an attorney and corporate executive. He was raised in Southern California and has remained in California ever since.
Raul Loya was a Mexican-American workers' rights activist, known for his association with Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association.
Jessica Govea Thorbourne was a labor activist, United Farm Worker union leader, and educator. She is best known for her lifelong efforts to achieve justice, equality, education, and economic opportunity for Latino laborers. At age 58, she died from breast cancer in West Orange, New Jersey. However, she believed that the true source of her illness later in life was related to the damaging pesticides that she had worked with for years.
El Malcriado was a Chicano/a labor newspaper that ran between 1964 and 1976. It was established by the Chicano labor leader Cesar Chavez as the unofficial newspaper of the United Farm Workers during the Chicano/a Movement of the 1960s and early 1970s. Published in both English and Spanish editions, El Malcriado provided a forum for migrant workers to criticize working conditions and served as a way to organize the collective voice of Mexican American farmworkers. The newspaper's contents ranged from articles on union activities, coverage of labor issues, political commentary, cartoons, satire, and artwork. It is an example of ethnic press or alternative media that developed from political movements and immigrant communities within the United States to challenge existing power structures and gain political leverage.
Gilbert Padilla is an American labor leader and civil rights activist who, along with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NWFA), which later became the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). In his position as Chavez's right-hand man, he served as vice president of the NWFA and then secretary-treasurer in the UFW. He helped to build the UFW through organizing union membership drives, boycotts, and strikes. In 1965, Padilla was the center of the rent strike in Tulare County. He and Jim Drake challenged the California state government for a sudden rent hike in labor camps where the buildings were long past their demolition date; it helped garner attention for the grape strike later in the year.
Anti-nuclear protests in the United States have occurred since the development of nuclear power plants in the United States. Examples include Clamshell Alliance protests at Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant, Abalone Alliance protests at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, and those following the Three Mile Island accident in 1979.