Tag Archives: Racism

Events

Wednesday 17th December 2025: Encounters with James Baldwin

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On Wednesday 17th December 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of Encounters with James Baldwin – a collection celebrating the centenary of his birth. It’s a wide-ranging volume of short essays, reflections and poetry, demonstrating the significant legacy of the writer and activist from his work during the era of the Black Civil Rights movement in the US, and after. We will meet at Redz Youth Hub, 6 Threadneedle St, GL5 1AF. Entry is free and anyone interested in the book is welcome – you don’t need to have read it to join us. See below for more information. At this event we’ll be celebrating 10 years of Stroud Radical Reading Group, so people are encouraged to stay after the discussion for a social where we’ll make plans for 2026 and share memories from the last year and, indeed, last decade.

In the literary anthology Encounters With James Baldwin, over 30 contributors reveal the influence of Baldwin’s thought, speech and writing to their personal journeys and their awareness of the need for social justice. Local resident Ronnie McGrath will introduce the book and his essay “What’s Love Got to Do with It?”

Below in our resources section you can find a link to buy the book at a discount, and free audio/visual resources. There is also more information about the book and Stroud Radical Reading Group events.

Entry to the reading group session is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before. We encourage people to read as much of the book as possible, but you are welcome to attend to listen to the discussion without reading any of it.

About James Baldwin

James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel Go Tell It on the Mountain was ranked by Time magazine as one of the top 100 English-language novels. His 1965 debate with William Buckley is regarded as one of the most influential debates on Racism. As well as being an influential public figure and orator discussing racism, especially during the civil rights movement in the United States, Baldwin’s writing explored themes of masculinity, sexuality, and class. His unfinished manuscript Remember This House was expanded and adapted as the 2016 documentary film I Am Not Your Negro, winning the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary. His 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk was adapted into a 2018 film of the same name. Read more: the Wikipedia page on James Baldwin.

About Ronnie McGrath

Ronnie teaches creative writing at Imperial College London, Bath Spa University, and South Gloucestershire and Stroud College. A published writer and poet, Ronnie is a graduate of Manchester University’s MA in Novel writing and was both a runner up and 1st place winner of Len Garrison’s ACER award for Young Penmanship. Born in the UK, he spent his early years growing up with his grandmother Sarah, brother Michael, and other members of his extended family in Kingston, Jamaica. Just like his neo-surrealist poetry and postmodern writing, Ronnie produces contemporary works of art which are informed by the changing same of his ‘black’ identity. Read more on Ronnie McGrath’s website.

Resources

  • Buy Encounters With James Baldwin – RRP £15.99, £13.59 with discount (saving £2.40). To get the 15% discount: Look at your “basket”, and enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage.
  • Wikipedia page on James Baldwin
  • Watch James Baldwin on the Dick Cavett Show (17 minutes, embedded below)
  • Watch James Baldwin in conversation with Maya Angelou (26 minutes, embedded below)
  • Watch James Baldwin debating William F Buckley in 1965 at Cambridge University – a legendary debate broadcast on the BBC at the time (1 hour, embedded below)
  • Available on some streaming services through subscription, for rent, or to buy online is “I Am Not Your Negro” – a documentary “Narrated entirely in the words of James Baldwin, through both personal appearances and the text of his final unfinished book project, this film touches on the lives and assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr and Medgar Evers, and how the images and reality of black lives in America today are fabricated and enforced”.

About our events

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash if you can afford it (a few pounds would be great).

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

The venue for this session is Redz Youth Hub, a hub for organising, creativity, and community building. It’s a free space for young people to host their own events, workshops, and meetups. They’ve been hosting sessions by Mutiny: Stroud’s Youth Assembly and The RYSE – the Radical Youth Space for Educations – see their schedule for the rest of the year here, including sessions on the Peace Movement, Stroud Water riots, and decolonial action.

Redz is in central Stroud, close to the train station and bus station, with nearby stands to lock bikes, and parking for cars nearby at Fawkes Place or Church St car park. There is step-free access to the ground floor but for this session we will be meeting upstairs. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Saturday 28th June 2025 – Black on Both Sides

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On Saturday 28th June 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of C. Riley Snorton’s Black on Both Sides: a racial history of trans identity. We have selected the final chapter, “DeVine’s Cut” as a focus chapter for those unable to read the full book – and will spend around half the discussion time on this. See below for links to download the chapter free as a pdf, buy the book at a discount from the local Yellow Lighted Bookshop and to view free audio/visual resources relevant to the book.

We will meet at Creative Sustainability’s shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

Entry is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

We’re reading Black on Both Sides at the recommendation of a participant in the reading group. Our discussion comes at a time of increasing hostility (in legislation, media, and public) to trans people in the UK – and elsewhere around the world, for example the USA and Hungary, and rising racism.

Our discussion is on a Saturday – unlike usual. This is because it will take place the night after Stroud Pride’s annual event. This year this will begin with a Parade at 11am, followed by entertainment, information stands, and stalls selling goods from 12noon at Bank Gardens (GL5 1BB, mapcarta map, Accessible Gloucestershire’s images and description of access). It would be great to see Radical Reading Group members at these events earlier in the day too!

Content notes:

This is an academic book and can be hard to read. As with all SRRG sessions, the idea is that collective discussion will help us to explore and improve our understanding of the difficult content.

This is a book that deals with many difficult topics, including in graphic ways. Obviously, Transphobia, Racism and Sexism are covered extensively. The following is a summary of additional content notes for the whole book from StoryGraph:
Ableism, Bullying, Deadnaming, domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence hate crime, Homophobia, Injury detail, Torture, Slavery, Discussion of mental illness, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Rape, Sexual assault/violence.

The chapter “DeVine’s Cut” which we will focus on, specifically references 3 murders.

More information about the books, venue and how sessions work is below.

About the book:

“In Black on Both Sides, C. Riley Snorton identifies multiple intersections between blackness and transness from the mid-nineteenth century to present-day anti-black and anti-trans legislation and violence.

Drawing on a deep and varied archive of materials—early sexological texts, fugitive slave narratives, Afro-modernist literature, sensationalist journalism, Hollywood films—Snorton attends to how slavery and the production of racialized gender provided the foundations for an understanding of gender as mutable.

In tracing the twinned genealogies of blackness and transness, Snorton follows multiple trajectories, from the medical experiments conducted on enslaved black women by J. Marion Sims, the “father of American gynecology,” to the negation of blackness that makes transnormativity possible.

Revealing instances of personal sovereignty among blacks living in the antebellum North that were mapped in terms of “cross dressing” and canonical black literary works that express black men’s access to the “female within,” Black on Both Sides concludes with a reading of the fate of Phillip DeVine, who was murdered alongside Brandon Teena in 1993, a fact omitted from the film Boys Don’t Cry out of narrative convenience.”

About the author:

C. Riley Snorton is Visiting Associate Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California and Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Cornell University. He earned his PhD in Communication and Culture, with graduate certificates in Africana Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2010. Snorton’s research and teaching expertise include cultural theory, queer and transgender theory and history, Africana studies, performance studies, and popular culture.

Snorton’s first book, Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (University of Minnesota Press, 2014), traces the emergence and circulation of the down low in news and popular culture.

Resources

DeVinesCut-BlackOnBothSidesDownload

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Creative Sustainability shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (round the corner from Iceland and next to the Ale House pub). This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There is a small step to access the building, which is then step free). The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 30th April 2025- Climate in Parable of The Sower and It’s Not That Radical

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On Wednesday 30th April 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of two books looking at climate, one fiction and one non-fiction. We suggest people pick one or other of the books to read in full, or read excerpts from both – see below for links to buy the books at a discount from the local Yellow Lighted Bookshop and a variety of free text, audio, and visual resources relevant to the books.

We’ve combined a fiction and non-fiction book looking at climate change. Parable of the Sower was published in 1993 and set from 2024 and onwards. It explores a number of prescient “speculative” ideas around a future of climate and societal breakdown, displacement, violence, authoritarian nationalism and inequality, also incorporating space exploration [Content Notes: rape, murder, torture, substance abuse, violence against adults, children (including torture and death), and animalsdeath of family members, cannibalism, slavery, body horror.]

It’s Not that Radical was published in 2023 with the subtitle “climate action to transform our world”. Its a book that argues that tackling the climate crisis requires looking at poverty, capitalism, police brutality, and legal injustice – at the roots.

We will meet at Creative Sustainability’s shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

Entry is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

More information about the books, venue and how sessions work is below.

About the books:

Parable of the Sower: “Set in a California where civilisation has all but broken down and poverty and unspeakable violence are the norm, this is a horrifying vision of what might be. Teenage Lauren knows there must be a better way to live and invents a new religion.” It’s a work of dystopian “speculative fiction” often hailed for its eerie prescience – for example around the recent California wildfires, or the (re)election of Donald Trump through a slogan used in the book: Make America Great Again.

Octavia E. Butler was a renowned African American author acclaimed for her lean prose, strong protagonists, and social observations in stories that range from the distant past to the far future. Learn more about her on the website maintained by her family and literary agent: octaviabutler.com

It’s Not That Radical: “For too long, representations of climate action in the mainstream media have been white-washed, green-washed and diluted to be made compatible with capitalism. We are living in an economic system which pursues profit above all else; harmful, oppressive systems that heavily contribute to the climate crisis, and environmental consequences that have been toned down to the masses.”

“Tackling the climate crisis requires us to visit the roots of poverty, capitalist exploitation, police brutality and legal injustice. Climate justice offers the real possibility of huge leaps towards racial equality and collective liberation as it aims to dismantle the very foundations of these issues. In this book, Mikaela Loach offers a fresh and radical perspective for real climate action that could drastically change the world as we know it for the benefit of us all.”

Mikaela Loach is an acclaimed author, climate justice organiser, and speaker, recognised as one of the most influential women in the climate movement. Learn more about her on her website: mikaelaloach.com

Buy the books

When looking at your “basket” enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical for a 15% discount. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage. If posting books, you may wish to buy other books we are reading this year.

  • Buy Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler in paperback – RRP £10.99, £9.34 with discount (saving £1.65)
  • But It’s Not That Radical: climate action to transform our world by Mikaela Loach in paperback – RRP £9.99, £8.49 with discount (saving £1.50)

Free Resources

Text Resources

Audio/visual resources

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash.

We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. We do not want the sessions to feel like school – the idea is that everyone has something to contribute, even if primarily through finding the discussion texts difficult and having questions with other attendees can attempt to answer.

To ensure marginalised people feel welcome, we encourage care and thoughtful contributions that respect people’s identities and lives. We are an LGBTQ+ inclusive and anti-racist space.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Creative Sustainability shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (round the corner from Iceland and next to the Ale House pub). This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There is a small step to access the building, which is then step free). The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

Wednesday 26th March 2025- Revolutionary and Enemy Feminisms

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On Wednesday 26th March 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of two books looking at feminisms. The discussion will follow International Women’s Day, which is held annually on the 8th March. We suggest people pick one or other of the books to read in full, or read excerpts from both – see below for links to buy the books at a discount from the local Yellow Lighted Bookshop and a variety of free text, audio, and visual resources relevant to the books.

  • Revolutionary Feminisms: Conversations on Collective Action and Radical Thought, Edited by Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah
  • Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against Liberation, by Sophie Lewis

We will meet at Creative Sustainability’s shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (a short distance from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

Entry is free and everyone is welcome – you do not need to have attended previous sessions, and we do our best to make the sessions welcoming to people who have not been to reading groups or similar settings like university seminars before.

More information about the books, venue and how sessions work is below.

About the books:

Revolutionary Feminisms – “Black, anti-colonial, anti-racist feminist thought is often sidelined in mainstream discourses that transform feminism into simplistic calculations of how many women are in positions of power.

This book sets the record straight. Through interviews with key scholars, including Angela Y. Davis and Silvia Federici, [Editors of Revolutionary Feminisms, Brenna] Bhandar and [Rafeef] Ziadah present a serious and thorough discussion of race, class, gender, and sexuality not merely as intersections to be noted or additives to be mixed in, but as co-constitutive factors that must be reckoned with if we are to build effective coalitions.”

Enemy Feminisms – “In a time of rising fascism, ceaseless attacks on reproductive justice, and violent transphobia, we need to reckon with what Western feminism has wrought if we have any hope of building the feminist world we need. Sophie Lewis offers an unflinching tour of enemy feminisms, from 19th century imperial feminists and police officers to 20th century KKK feminists and pornophobes to today’s anti-abortion and TERF feminists.

Enemy feminisms exist. Feminism is not an inherent political good. Only when we acknowledge that can we finally reckon with the ways these feminisms have pushed us toward counterproductive and even violent ends. And only then can we finally engage in feminist strategizing that is truly antifascist.

At once a left transfeminist battlecry against cisness, a decolonial takedown of nationalist womanhoods, and a sex-radical retort to femmephobia in all its guises, Enemy Feminisms is above all a fierce, brilliant love letter to feminism.”

Buy the books

When looking at your “basket” enter the “couponcode” 25stroudradical for a 15% discount. Pick up book from Nailsworth, Tetbury or Chalford shops, or get books delivered to your door for £3.50 postage. If posting books, you may wish to buy other books we are reading this year.

Free Resources

Text Resources

  1. TERF Island – There Have Always Been Enemies Inside the Feminist Camp | lux-magazine.com [5,000 words]
  2. How the Girlboss Lost: Sophie Lewis on the Rise and Fall of a Feminist Moment – Leaning Into the Death of Lean-In Feminism and Its Many Resurrections in Our Conflicted Zeitgeist | lithub.com [3,150 words]
  3. Lipstick on the Pigs​ | Kamala Harris and the Lineage of the Female Cop | thedriftmag.com [4,600 words]
EnemyFeminismsExcerptsDownload

Audio/visual resources

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash. We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing. There is an opportunity for more informal discussion after the session in the Ale House pub for anyone who wants to continue their evening.

About the venue

We will meet at the Creative Sustainability shopfront space at 10 John St, GL5 2HA (round the corner from Iceland and next to the Ale House pub). This is close to the train station and not far from the bus station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There are no toilets at the venue. There is a small step to access the building, which is then step free). The room is well lit. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions

Events

Wednesday 19th February 2025- Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism

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On Wednesday 19th February 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of “Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism” by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber. The event will be hosted jointly by Stroud Radical Reading Group and Na’amod Gloucestershire. Na’amod is “a movement of Jews in the UK seeking to end our community’s support for Israel’s occupation and apartheid, and to mobilise it in the struggle for freedom, equality and justice for all Palestinians and Israelis”, and a Gloucestershire branch was formed in 2024.

Entry is free and everyone is welcome.

PLEASE NOTE DIFFERENT VENUE FOR THIS EVENT: We will meet at The Exchange on Brick Row, GL5 1DF (a short walk from the town centre train or bus station, with parking available nearby at Church St).

More information about the book, venue and how sessions work is below – together with a link to buy the book at a discount and a variety of free text, audio, and visual resources relevant to the book/discussion.

About the book:

“From online trolling of Jews by the ‘alt-right’ to synagogue shootings by white nationalists to the spread of QAnon and George Soros conspiracy theories, antisemitism is a fixture of U.S. politics today. Its rise is part and parcel of growing exclusionary nationalist movements – putting multiracial democracy itself at risk. At the same time, conversations about antisemitism are more polarized than ever.

How is antisemitism connected to anti-Blackness, xenophobia, anti-LGBTQ bigotry, and other forms of oppression? How do we build the coalitions and movements we need to fight it all together? Why is it important to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and antisemitism?

Using personal stories, historical deep-dives, front-line reporting, and interviews with leading change-makers, Lorber and Burley help the reader understand how antisemitism works, what’s at stake in contemporary debates, and how we can build true safety in solidarity.”

This event follows the annual Holocaust Memorial Day, this year marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex (and the 30th anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia). In Stroud, Community Solidarity Stroud District hosted a local event on Sunday 26th January at the Lansdown Hall from 2-3pm.

Our 2025 event follows discussions of books linked to Holocaust Memorial Day in the past – Primo Levi’s The Drowned and The Saved, Revolutionary Yiddishland, and We Fight Fascists. Links to those previous events are provided for interest only – you do not have been to any of our previous events to come along to this one.

Resources

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover venue hire costs – please bring some cash. We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

We will meet at The Exchange on Brick Row in Stroud. This is near the centre of town, a short walk from Stroud Railway Station or the Merrywalks Bus Station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby at Church St car park. There is sloped access to the building and to an accessible toilet. The room is well lit and warm. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Get in touch
Facebook event – invite friends/receive reminders
Join the Stroud Radical Reading Facebook Group for online discussion with others who attend the discussions
Events

January 15th 2025- The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah

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On January 15th November 2025, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah. Entry is free and everyone is welcome. We will meet at 10 John St, GL5 2AH.

This event has been rescheduled from December – when it was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances – many apologies. It was originally planned to mark the one year anniversary of Benjamin Zephaniah’s death – on the 7th December 2023.

On his own website, this is how the book is described: “Benjamin Zephaniah is old. So he decided to write his autobiography. It documents his life from the sound systems of Birmingham to the world stage.”

In the early 1980s when punks and Rastas were on the streets protesting about unemployment, homelessness and the National Front, Benjamin’s poetry could be heard at demonstrations, outside police stations and on the dance floor. His mission was to take poetry everywhere, and to popularise it by reaching people who didn’t read books. His poetry was political, musical, radical and relevant.

The Lifes and Rhymes of is the stunning autobiography of the poet, writer, lyricist and activist, Benjamin Zephaniah.

This event follows our discussion of “Speak Out!” – an anthology of work by the Brixton Black Women’s Group in October, and Angela Davis’ autobiography – but you are welcome to attend this event alone, and do not have been to any of our previous events to come along to this one.

Resources

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover costs – please bring some cash. We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

We will meet at 10 John St, GL5 2AH. This is near the centre of town, a short walk from Stroud Railway Station and a slightly longer walk from the Merrywalks Bus Station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby in either Brunel Mall, Fawkes Place, or Church St car park. There is a low step to enter the building, which is flat. There are no toilet facilities. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Events

November 27th 2024 – An Autobiography by Angela Davis

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On Wednesday 27th November 2024, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will host a discussion of An Autobiography by Angela Davis. Entry is free and everyone is welcome. We will meet at 10 John St, GL5 2AH.

The book is a powerful and commanding account of the life of trailblazing political activist Angela Davis, detailing her journey from a childhood on Dynamite Hill in Birmingham, Alabama to one of the most significant political trials of the century. From her political activity in a New York high school to her work with the U.S. Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Soledad Brothers; and from the faculty of the Philosophy Department at UCLA to the FBI’s list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Told with warmth, brilliance, humour and conviction, this autobiography is a classic account of a life in struggle with echoes in our own time.

Find links to buy the book and free resources related to it below, as well as information about the venue for our events and our group. If you do not have time to read the full book, we recommend focusing on Part 4 – Flames. Download part 4 here (this is still a big section, over 100 pages). We welcome contributions to the discussion from anyone who has engaged with any of the resources – even if they haven’t finished Part 4 or the book, and anyone to join us to listen in even if they have not been able to engage with any of the resources.

We’ll be following this event with a discussion on autobiography by Benjamin Zephaniah in December, and it follows our discussion of “Speak Out!” – an anthology of work by the Brixton Black Women’s Group in October – but you are welcome to attend this event alone, and do not have been to any of our previous events to come along to this one.

Resources

AngelaDavisAutobiography-4FlamesDownload

About our events and the venue

Stroud Radical Reading Group events are free to attend, though we will make a collection to cover costs – please bring some cash. We try to create a comfortable discussion space for everyone, including people who have not been part of a reading group or been to university. Anyone is welcome to listen to the discussion, though we encourage contributions only from those who have read at least some of the book we are discussing.

We will meet at 10 John St, GL5 2AH. This is near the centre of town, a short walk from Stroud Railway Station and a slightly longer walk from the Merrywalks Bus Station. There are stands to lock bikes to outside, and parking for cars nearby in either Brunel Mall, Fawkes Place, or Church St car park. There is a low step to enter the building, which is flat. There are no toilet facilities. Please get in touch if you’d like to get more of an idea of what the sessions are like or if you have any accessibility needs.

Events

Wednesday 30th August 2023: Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

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On Wednesday 30th August 2023, from 7.30-9.30pm, Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman. Noughts and Crosses is described as Young Adult fiction – this is the first time we’ve read such a book. It’s fitting to link to the BBC Bitesize intro page, which summarises the book as “a novel set in a dystopian Britain in which society is divided by racism. Dark-skinned Crosses are privileged in society over the light-skinned noughts. Against the odds, the main characters, Sephy and Callum, fall in love across the divide which leads them into danger. Malorie Blackman was inspired by real events from history and her own life when she wrote this novel.”

As usual we’ll discuss what we made of the book and how it might be relevant to us in our own lives. SRRG regular Asha will introduce the book for us. At this session, we’ll also provide a quick introduction to Stroud Radical Reading Group – mentioning the books we’ll be reading later in the year and providing a quick history of books we’ve read in the past. We enourage people to read the book but you are also welcome even if you haven’t read the book – to listen to the discussion and ask questions.

On this webpage you can find details to buy the book at a discount, free resources, and information about the author, the book, how our sessions work, and the venue. We’ll be in a new venue this month – the SISTER Summer School – an empty building Stroud in Internationalist Solidarity Together for Earth Repairs (SISTER) have reclaimed on Lansdown Road.

The book is available from Yellow Lighted Bookshop for £8.99, and you should be able to get a 12% discount: after adding the book to your ‘basket’, view your basket where there is an option to enter a ‘Coupon code’. Add the code “StroudRadical23” and click/tap “Apply coupon”.

Freely available resources related to the book are available below. We like to ensure everyone can attendee our sessions and get something out of them even if they can’t afford to buy a copy of the book or the time to read it. We would encourage people to read/listen to as much as possible, but you are welcome to attend and listen along even if you are unable to engage with any of the below.

Free resources

About the author and the book

Malorie Blackman has written over seventy books for children and young adults, including the Noughts & Crosses series. Many of her books have also been adapted for stage and television, including a BAFTA-award-winning BBC production of Pig-Heart Boy and a Pilot Theatre stage adaptation by Sabrina Mahfouz of Noughts & Crosses. In 2005 Malorie was honoured with the Eleanor Farjeon Award in recognition of her distinguished contribution to the world of children’s books. In 2008 she received an OBE for her services to children’s literature, and between 2013 and 2015 she was the Children’s Laureate. Most recently Malorie wrote for the Doctor Who series on BBC One, and the fifth novel in her Noughts & Crosses series, Crossfire, was published by Penguin Random House Children’s in summer 2019.

Published twenty years ago last year, Malorie Blackman’s ‘Noughts & Crosses’ broke the hearts of a generation of teenage readers, and its influence on Young Adult fiction can be felt across the genre with the themes of racism, diversity and conflict still as pertinent in this era of Black Lives Matter as they were when the series was first published.

Endorsements:

‘The Noughts & Crosses series are still my favourite books of all time and showed me just how amazing story-telling could be’ – Stormzy

‘The most original book I’ve ever read’ Benjamin Zephaniah

‘Unforgettable’ Guardian

Events

Books we will read in 2023

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Please see below a full list of the books we will read in 2023. Each monthly session will have its own page on the website providing links to excerpts (‘focus texts’) to enable those who aren’t able to buy/read full books to participate, discounted copies of the books, and audio/visual materials that act as alternatives/additions to the reading. For now, only January-May’s sessions has these details, but full details will be added, together with dates for sessions beyond January, ASAP.

* Wednesday January 25th: “We Fight Fascists: The 43 Group and Their Forgotten Battle for Post-war Britain”, by Daniel Sonabend

* February: “No Pasaran! Antifascist dispatches from a World in crisis”, edited by Shane Burley

* March: “Fractured: Race, Class, Gender and the Hatred of Identity Politics” by Michael Richmond and Alex Charnley

* April: “The Post-Internet Far-Right and Ecofascism“, both by Sam Moore and Alex Roberts

* May: “White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism”, by Andreas Malm and The Zetkin Collective

* June – The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below by Peter Gelderloos

* July – After Geoengineering: Climate Tragedy, Repair, and Restoration, by Holly Jean Buck

* August: Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman

* September: Disaster Anarchy – Mutual Aid and Radical Action by Rhiannon Firth

* October 2023 – Old Gods, New Enigmas by Mike Davis

* Nov 2023 – Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective

Events

The Purpose of Power – by Alicia Garza. August 2022

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On Monday August 29th 2022, from 7.30-9.30pm at The Exchange, Brick Row, Stroud (GL5 1DF), Stroud Radical Reading Group will discuss Alicia Garza’s book The Purpose of Power: How to build movements for the 21st Century (discounted copies are available from a local bookshop – click the previous link/see below).

Our events are free to attend, though we will collect donations to cover the costs of venue hire on a donate-what-you-can-afford basis. We try to ensure the discussions are welcoming to new people, including people who have never been to a reading group before – and you don’t have to have been to university. You don’t even have to have read any of the book – you can just come along and listen to the discussion. Some free resources including a sample chapter we’ll focus our discussion on are included below though, and we’d encourage people to read/listen to as much as they can ahead of the session.

“Black Lives Matter began as a hashtag when Alicia Garza wrote what she calls ‘a love letter to Black people’ on Facebook. But hashtags don’t build movements, she tells us. People do.

Interwoven with Garza’s experience of life as a Black woman, The Purpose of Power is the story of how she responded to the persistent message that Black lives are of less value than white lives by galvanizing people to create change. It’s an insight into grass roots organizing to deliver basic needs – affordable housing, workplace protections, access to good education – to those locked out of the economy by racism.

It is an attempt not only to make sense of where Black Lives Matter came from but also to understand the possibilities that Black Lives Matter and movements like it hold for our collective futures. Ultimately, it’s an appeal to hearts and minds, demanding that we think about our privileges and prejudices and ask how we might contribute to the change we want to see in the world”

– Publisher information about the book

We will focus our discussion on Chapter 1 – which is available free. We encourage people to buy a copy of the book and read as much as possible, but appreciate not everyone can afford this in terms of either money or time – or may prefer audio/visual content. Below we provide links to another excerpt from the book, and two interview with Alicia Garza (one a video, the other text), which are all freely available.

The Exchange has step-free access. We will keep windows open for ventilation, hand sanitiser is provided, and we ask people who are ill to stay away (whether they are ill with covid or something else). Attendees do not generally wear masks but we will be respectful to anyone who chooses to and other members may wear masks at request of other attendees – let us know your preferences in advance. Please contact us if you have any accessibility requirements – or other questions about how the events work.

Resources