Joe Allen (writer)

Last updated
Joe Allen
Born (1960-07-19) July 19, 1960 (age 63)
NationalityAmerican
Occupation(s)Author and Journalist

Joe Allen (born July 19, 1960) is an American author, journalist, historian, and activist. He authored People Wasn't Made to Burn: A True Story of Race, Murder, and Justice in Chicago ( ISBN   1608461262) published by Haymarket Books in 2011. His latest book is The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service (2016).

Contents

Early life

Allen was born in Stoughton, Massachusetts, the son of Beverly Ann Vigneaux and William Henry Allen. He has three sisters.[ citation needed ] He graduated from Stoughton High School in 1978. He entered the University of Massachusetts Boston in the fall of 1978 and took classes through 1983 but did not graduate.[ citation needed ]

His previous books, Vietnam: The (Last) War the U.S. Lost and People Wasn't Made to Burn: A True Story of Race, Murder, and Justice in Chicago, were both published by Haymarket books.

Allen has contributed over the years to the U.S. edition of Socialist Worker , the International Socialist Review, CounterPunch , In These Times , and Jacobin .

Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Letter bomb</span> Terrorism method

A letter bomb is an explosive device sent via the postal service, and designed with the intention to injure or kill the recipient when opened. They have been used in terrorist attacks such as those of the Unabomber. Some countries have agencies whose duties include the interdiction of letter bombs and the investigation of letter bombings. The letter bomb may have been in use for nearly as long as the common postal service has been in existence, as far back as 1764.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stoughton, Massachusetts</span> Town in Massachusetts, United States

Stoughton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 29,281 at the 2020 census. The town is located approximately 17 miles (27 km) from Boston, 31 miles (50 km) from Providence, Rhode Island, and 35 miles (56 km) from Cape Cod.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Parsons</span> American labor organizer (c.1851–1942)

Lucy E. Parsons was an American social anarchist and later anarcho-communist. Her early life is shrouded in mystery: she herself said she was of mixed Mexican and Native American ancestry; historians believe she was born to an African American slave, possibly in Virginia, then married a black freedman in Texas. In addition to Parsons, she went by different surnames during her life including Carter, Diaz, Gonzalez and Hull. She met Albert Parsons in Waco, Texas, and claimed to have married him although no records have been found. They moved to Chicago together around 1873 and Parsons' politics were shaped by the harsh repression of the Chicago railroad strike of 1877. She argued for labor organization and class struggle, writing polemical texts and speaking publicly at events. She joined the International Workingmen's Association and later the Knights of Labor, and she set up the Chicago Working Women's Union with her friend Lizzie Swank and other women.

Max Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Haywood</span> Labor organizer (1869–1928)

William Dudley Haywood, nicknamed "Big Bill", was an American labor organizer and founding member and leader of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and a member of the executive committee of the Socialist Party of America. During the first two decades of the 20th century, Haywood was involved in several important labor battles, including the Colorado Labor Wars, the Lawrence Textile Strike, and other textile strikes in Massachusetts and New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Kurtis</span> American journalist and radio personality

Bill Kurtis is an American television journalist, television producer, narrator, and news anchor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phoenix Program</span> CIA-led effort to eliminate the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War

The Phoenix Program was designed and initially coordinated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the Vietnam War, involving the American, Australian, and South Vietnamese militaries. In 1969, CIA responsibility was phased out, and the program was put under the authority of the Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Lane (author)</span> American lawyer, politician and writer (1927–2016)

Mark Lane was an American attorney, New York state legislator, civil rights activist, and Vietnam war-crimes investigator. Sometimes referred to as a gadfly, Lane is best known as a leading researcher, author, and conspiracy theorist on the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy. Lane authored 10 books on the JFK assassination, including Rush to Judgment,, the 1966 number-one bestselling critique of the Warren Commission and Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK, published in 2011.

Staughton Craig Lynd was an American political activist, author, and lawyer. His involvement in social justice causes brought him into contact with some of the nation's most influential activists, including Howard Zinn, Tom Hayden, A. J. Muste, and David Dellinger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Chester</span> American writer and academic

Eric Thomas Chester is an American author, socialist political activist, and former economics professor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Green (historian)</span>

James Robert Green was an American historian, author, and labor activist. He was Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert F. Kennedy</span> American politician and lawyer (1925–1968)

Robert Francis Kennedy, also known by his initials RFK, was an American politician and lawyer. He served as the 64th United States attorney general from January 1961 to September 1964, and as a U.S. senator from New York from January 1965 until his assassination in June 1968, when he was running for the Democratic presidential nomination. Like his brothers John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, he was a prominent member of the Democratic Party and is an icon of modern American liberalism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haymarket affair</span> 1886 aftermath of a bombing in Chicago, US

The Haymarket affair, also known as the Haymarket massacre, the Haymarket riot, the Haymarket Square riot, or the Haymarket Incident, was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration on May 4, 1886, at Haymarket Square in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The rally began peacefully in support of workers striking for an eight-hour work day, the day after the events at the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, during which one person was killed and many workers injured. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at the police as they acted to disperse the meeting, and the bomb blast and ensuing retaliatory gunfire by the police caused the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; dozens of others were wounded.

Events from the year 1967 in the United States.

Kim Moody is an American socialist activist and writer on labor who advocates social movement unionism, a revitalized labor movement of mobilized and militant rank-and-file workers, rather than business unionism, structured from the top down and compromised by coziness with corporations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Morris (lawyer)</span> American lawyer

Robert Morris was one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States, and was called "the first really successful colored lawyer in America."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Rader</span> American army draft protester (1944–1973)

Gary Eugene Rader was an American Army Reservist known for burning his draft card in protest of the Vietnam War, while wearing his U.S. Army Special Forces uniform. Afterward, he engaged in anti-war activism.

Lea Demarest Taylor was the head resident of the Chicago Commons, a settlement house in Chicago, Illinois, from 1922 to 1954. Although often overshadowed by her famous father, Graham Taylor, she made significant contributions to the settlement house movement in her own right.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor</span> American academic and author

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an American academic, writer, and activist. She is a professor of African American Studies at Northwestern University. She is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (2016). For this book, Taylor received the 2016 Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book from the Lannan Foundation. She is a co-publisher of Hammer & Hope, an online magazine that began in 2023.

Willard Saxby Townsend was an African-American labour leader. He worked to improve the working conditions of African-American baggage handlers in railroad terminals, and was the first African-American to serve as Vice President of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He was inducted into the National Railroad Hall of Fame.

References