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Thursday
2 May 2024
7.00-8.30pm
Quaker Meeting House
38 Elmbank Crescent
Glasgow, G2 4PS
In Conversation with...
Rich Feldman
PEN is excited to welcome to Scotland friend and collaborator Richard Feldman from the Boggs Project, Detroit, Michigan. Join us for this exciting one-off event, organised as part of Glasgow's May Day celebrations.
In this discussion, led by leading British academic on trade unionism and the far-right, Dr Stephen Ashe, Rich will talk about his experiences in the Civil Rights movement in the USA in the 1960s, and how this influenced his own political development. He will also share his experiences of working for over twenty years as a trade union official on the Ford production lines in 'Motor City'. This included working alongside, and trying to challenge colleagues who were open members of the KKK.
The discussion will also reflect on Rich's role and work of the Boggs Center in teaching a new generation of workers and activists to self-organise. In this context, he will also discuss current political challenges the left are facing, particularly in Michigan and the upcoming presidential elections in the USA. A Q&A session will follow.
The discussion will begin at 7pm on Thursday 2 May, 2024 at the Quaker Meeting House, 38 Elmbank Crescent, Glasgow.
This event is free but ticketed. Tickets will be on sale from 12 March 2024.
Teas, coffees and light refreshments will be provided at this event.
More about Rich...
Rich Feldman is a member of James and Grace Lee Boggs Center, Detroit, Michigan. He spent over twenty years on the Ford Wayne Truck assembly line at the Ford Michigan Truck Plant, ten years as an elected union official and twelve years with the International Staff of the United Autoworkers. He co-edited the book End of the Line: Auto Workers and the American Dream. His writings appear on the www.boggscenter.org website in the “Living for Change” Newsletter.
Rich currently works with the Boggs Center to nurture the transformational leadership capacities of individuals and organisations in and around Detroit. He organises tours of Detroit entitled 'From Growing Our Economy to Growing our Souls' as a means to shifting and shaping the narrative of Detroit, all the more important as displacement and gentrification seeks to steamroller the city's radical past. He is also involved in other areas of the Boggs Center's work, including working toward an eco-village that is off the grid for universal design housing, fab lab, carpentry shop and food sovereignty.
Click to find out more about PEN Scotland's links with the Boggs Center.
You can follow Rich on Twitter / X @rfeldman60
More about Stephen...
Stephen was appointed as a Teaching Fellow in Sociology in April 2021. Prior to joining the Sociology Department, Stephen was a Research Associate in the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity at the University of Manchester where he conducted research on untold stories in the anti-racist and anti-imperial struggle for civil rights and social justice in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s (with Satnam Virdee), workplace racism (with James Nazroo), and the relationship between race and class in post-Brexit Britain (with James Rhodes and Sivamohan Valluvan).
Since 2018, Stephen has carried out research on different aspects of racial inequality and institutional whiteness in higher education at four different universities in England. This included research on the awarding gap in the social sciences, the effectiveness of widening participation schemes and the transition to undergraduate student life, and the impact of programmes designed to empower students racialised as non-white through the creation of safe spaces and a sense of belonging. Stephen co-edited and contributed to Routledge’s recently published edited collection, Researching the Far Right: Theory, Method and Practice (Ashe, Busher, Macklin and Winter, 2020).
Click to find out more about Stephen's writings and research on the University of Durham website.
