Lynn Lewis, Benjamin Heim Shepard
The theme of the 2025 Howard Zinn Book Fair, “Fight Supremacy: Actions Against Authoritarianism”, looks to the past for insight into how we can effectively organize today. We draw inspiration from abolitionists, Indigenous resistance movements, organized labor, the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and LGBTQ+ Rights Movements, Occupy Wall Street, and the countless groups and individuals who continue to take to the streets in defiance of autocracy. With this in mind, Lynn Lewis and Benjamin Shepard propose a panel on ways to remember and connect movements, in order to learn from the past to inform our current and future organizing and movement building work. Oral history is a method to trace through lines between movements, ever-evolving from labor to civil rights, to housing and healthcare, to AIDS and queer, autonomous movements. We will share our work, rooted in activism and oral history, and engage participants to imagine what an oral history process would look like in their work. Building on his new book On Activism, Friendships, and Fighting: Oral Histories, Strategies and Conflicts, Shepard explores conflict and resolution as the lifeblood of social movements. How, and with whom, do we find lasting friendship, support, and joy in a world in need of so much repair
