Hello to each of you–

I hope you’re hanging in there in these trying times. It’s been quite the season for me. I lost my second campaign for Justice of the Peace in Travis County, Texas six weeks ago, took a month off of work, rested, hit the road, and dreamed expansively of how to continually build upon my organizing as a Black socialist in the American South at this critical juncture of human history. As you can imagine, I have many thoughts; I’m excited to distill them through this forum.

On an administrative note, my Substack now serves as an archive. Feel free to check out my writing from 2023 to 2026 there. I imported my subscriber list to a WordPress-operated Jetpack newsletter, and you’ll now get updates from me here. I hope you’ll stay for the new phase of the journey, but I understand if you want to opt out. Send me a direct note if you want me to remove you from the list. If you do stay, please do consider becoming a paid supporter if you can swing it – the journey to the demise of capitalism is a long one.

I present the first piece of an updated newsletter: A Century Later

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Grandma Jackson entered the world on April 15, 1926 in Rodney, Mississippi. Like millions of Black people a century ago, she immediately faced exploitation as a sharecropper.

The same year, Fidel Castro was born in Cuba. Within that twelve-month stretch, Eugene Debs died, and the Austin Public Library commenced its operations.

A century is a significant milestone for a socialist. Literally one hundred years have elapsed since these monumental occurrences of 1926. It is humbling to connect with the rich intellectual tradition of comrades – through their writing and their personal impact on me – who lived ten decades ago. It is encouraging to see what mass movements won from 1926 to 2026 in a hostile organizing terrain. It is jarring that the conditions of the world in 2026, even with technological advancements, largely mirror what was happening in the mid-1920s.

A class of billionaires replaced oil barons. In 1926, the globe shifted from one world war to the next; in 2026, the United States needlessly devotes hundreds of billions of dollars toward imposing its corrupt, imperial will in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran. A century ago, private philanthropy directed ill-gotten wealth toward building libraries; today, a wave of privatization threatens public goods through voucher programs & deregulated profiteering. What can be drawn from this seemingly endless history of imperialism, racism, and unrelenting greed?

I finished Socialism and Man in Cuba by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro yesterday, and I thank a dear comrade from Charlottesville for sending it to me at the end of 2025. Fidel’s contribution to this important text is basically a eulogy to Che, delivered in 1987 at the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the American government murdering Che in Bolivia. Fidel expresses that “we must conclude that in the life of our revolution, Che never died, and that in reality he’s more alive than ever, is more influential than ever, and is a more powerful opponent of imperialism than ever.” He later remembers Che as “a man who never asked others to do something that he himself would not do first; a model of a righteous, honest, pure, courageous man, full of human solidarity.”

What a poignant legacy, clear vision, and rallying cry for socialists who are organizing today. We must consistently draw inspiration from our departed comrades, recognizing that our efforts will one day motivate comrades who have yet to arrive. On April 27, 1901, Eugene Debs spoke about the climax of capitalism, As he stared down his eventual prison sentences, he pushed us to realize that a glorious day would dawn when “the capitalists work for what they get, and the workers get what they work for.” He then reminded comrades that “every capitalist is your enemy, and every workingman is your friend.” In 2026, as isolation and despair run rampant, we must keep this wisdom in mind as we continue the work of our comrades from a century ago. We require a broad multinational, multiracial, and multigender coalition to achieve human dignity. We will get there with the foundation of socialist thought, which transcends time, as a bedrock. No one is disposable.

On what would’ve been Grandma Jackson’s one hundredth birthday, I reflect deeply on what she taught me and the gift she always will be to me. As a public school educator who worked in Madison Parish, Louisiana for thirty years, she taught me to think critically. She nurtured my love of reading as a child, and – in her own way – she pushed me to contend with the organized abandonment that generations of Black communities in the American South have faced. With her steadfast example in mind, I feel renewed each day to complete my mission and win a world where Black people own the means of production as they democratically determine how their public institutions operate. I am honored to remember Grandma Jackson as both a cherished forebear and a comrade.

We honor those who lived in 1926 – particularly Grandma Jackson – and look ahead to the better world that will await our comrades in 2126.

Venceremos (we will win)!