by Bobby Sullivan
Akashic Books
12/4/2018, paperback
SKU: 9781617756559
"This is a wildly provocative and worthwhile read, and I'm delighted that the late revolutionary Marilyn Buck emerges in these pages as the courageous and committed fighter that she was--in the radical abolitionist tradition of John Brown. Live like her!"
--Bill Ayers, author of Demand the Impossible! A Radical Manifesto
Revolutionary Threads offers an American Rasta's retelling of episodes in American history with an anticolonial thrust, accented by Bobby Sullivan's own personal experiences.
The book ties together various subjects while returning each time to the culture of Rastafari, social justice movements, and cooperative economics. From how we perceive history in general, America's precolonial past, and global capitalism's early development and the resistance to it, to political prisoners and a celebration of religious tolerance, the book approaches North America with an African-centrical perspective. Sullivan aims to dispel the oversimplification of our perceptions of Rastafari, as well as other cultures, in the age of the Internet, where the loudest voices are often the most extreme and divisive. Revolutionary Threads hopes to serve as a unifying agent for our all-too-connected global village, and for the resistance to the consolidation of global capital and all its excesses.
About the Author:
Bobby Sullivan grew up in the Washington, DC, punk scene, fueled by Rasta rockers Bad Brains and the foundational Minor Threat. His most notable band continues to be Soulside (of which he is the singer), which had multiple releases on Dischord Records. Along the way, Sullivan became an activist, working with Food Not Bombs, the Anarchist Black Cross political prisoner support network, and a Rasta prison ministry. He currently manages a retail grocery co-op and sits on the board of the National Co+op Grocers. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his family.