Author Talk: Walter Riley @ Orca Books Cooperative

Walter Riley has been involved in political organizing for most of his life- that starts with 1950s mobilizations against Jim Crow apartheid laws followed by 1960s student and labor organizing with the Progressive Labor Party, early Black Panther Party formations, anti-war activities, and co-leading the Peace and Freedom Party’s Black Caucus. By the 1970s Walter was focused on labor and welfare organizing in Chicago and Detroit. In the 1980s he became a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer, and challenged South Africa’s apartheid system. The organizing efforts he’s been most attentive to since the earlier 2000s has supported infrastructure for Haitian movement building as well as challenged police violence in Oakland.

We are honored to be hosting Walter Riley, Jesse Strauss and Alma Busby-Williams in-person at Orca Books on Wednesday, June 24th at 6pm. Walter will be discussing the political lessons and tools he's gleaned from since his early years as a leader in the Civil Rights Movement to now. Civil Rights and Structural Attacks is a inter-generational conversation between Walter Riley and Jesse Strauss. Rebecca Solnit notes of the book: "Riley embodies the living memory of a nation and its movements undergoing profound change. This book in the form of an interview traces their evolution, including the intense protests in the late 1960s at San Francisco State University to found the country's first ethnic studies department, and other landmarks in "how we got here."