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More copies of this ISBN:
The Portland Red Guide: Sites and Stories From Our Radical Past
by Michael Munk
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About This Book
ISBN13: 9781932010152 
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Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
A historical guidebook of social dissent in Portland, Oregon, Michael Munk's The Portland Red Guide links notable radicals, their organizations, and their activities to physical sites in the city.
With the aide of maps and numerous photos, Munk tells the stories history books exclude, stories of working class people and organizations who fought against repression and injustice. The book is a testament to Portland’s rich history of individuals who insisted on a better justification for their lives than the quest for material wealth; instead, they dedicated themselves to offering alternative visions of how to organize our economy and society.
Both a guidebook and an informal history, The Portland Red Guide will expand readers' perspectives of their city and their past. The book is divided by physical or topical entries and loosely grouped into the following chronological periods:
- Nineteenth Century (Utopians and Marxists)
- 1900–1930 (Wobblies and Socialists)
- 1930s (Unions and Commies)
- WWII–1960 (McCarthyism and Cold War)
- 1960–1973 (Peaceniks and Civil Rights)
- 1974–Present (Identities, Protests, and Environment)
Book News Annotation:
From free speech protests by the Industrial Workers of the World to
protests of the George H. W. Bush administration that prompted the
nickname of "Little Beirut," Portland, Oregon, has long been a site
of radical organizing and protest. Munk, a retired political science
professor with biographical ties to Portland's radical past and
present, here offers a tour guide of Portland's radical history,
presenting city maps that mark the places and buildings that
witnessed the activities of Wobblies, socialists, unionists, anti-war
protestors, and civil rights organizers from the 19th century to the
present and offering brief descriptions of the importance of each.
Distributed in the US by Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company.
Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Review:
"A roller-coaster ride through Portland's radical past. Who knew that being on the losing side of just about everything could be so much fun?" Phil Stanford, Portland Tribune columnist, author of Portland Confidential
Review:
"Michael Munk is the Lewis and Clark of Portland's radical past, leading his readers on a voyage of discovery through a long-lost and wonderfully evocative historical terrain. I only wish the Red Guide had been around in the days when I was one of those Portland radicals he writes about with such knowledge (and affection)." Maurice Isserman, author of If I Had a Hammer: the Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left, and former staffer at The Willamette Bridge and The Portland Scribe
Review:
"Whoop! Whoop! I'm impressed by how many names from Portland's past have not made it into our official histories and public memorials. Some were good friends of mine. Local history is too often overlooked. Good work, Mike." Bud Clark, Saloon keeper, Goose Hollow Inn, and Mayor of Portland, 1985–1992
Review:
"Michael Munk did a terrific job of researching local leftist and labor struggles usually ignored by conventional historians and the commercial media." Gene Klare, columnist, Northwest Labor Press. Former reporter, pre-strike The Oregonian and the Portland Reporter
Review:
"What fun to learn all the ordinary places have a not-so ordinary history. Some will call The Portland Red Guide subversive, others will welcome it as the sweet breeze of revelation, but all will have to admit it adds a fascinating new layer to appreciating Portland. Even those Portlanders who think they know their city's past will likely find themselves shocked at the wealth of radical Portland history related in this volume. One hopes it becomes as ubiquitous as cell phones in Portland pedestrians' hands." Sandy Polishuk, author of Sticking to the Union: An Oral History of the Life and Times of Julia Ruuttila
Review:
"Going to these addresses can bring to mind what has gone before and perhaps, encourage more resistance today. I had no idea so much has happened in Portland. And reading the names of people who struggled and whom I worked with brought up lots of memories." Sandra Ford, former wife of Black Panther Party leader Kent Ford
About the Author
Michael Munk was born in Prague in 1934 and escaped the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia, fleeing with his family to Portland in 1939. He majored in political science at both Reed College and the University of Oregon and received a PhD in politics from New York University in 1974. He taught political science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Roosevelt University in Chicago, and Rutgers University in New Jersey for twenty-five years before retiring to Portland.
What Our Readers Are Saying
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Average customer rating based on 3 comments:
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lastmarx, November 13, 2007 (view all comments by lastmarx)
It's a wonderful book and it's so well organized I can't believe it... delighted that my May Day toast is part of it. Gary Snyder
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michael munk, July 2, 2007 (view all comments by michael munk)
An informal illustrated history and walking guide to about 150 radical sites, the Red Guide asks us to remember and respect ?those who worked for a better world rather than their own place in the present one.? Fits in your back pocket. Original cover art by Icky A.
Check out :John Reed's birthplace /William Z. Foster's favorite bar/ Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's home with Portland's radical doctor Marie Equi/ the site of "Bloody Wednesday" where police shot four longshoremen during the Great 1934 waterfront strike/ Woody Guthrie's home while composing "Roll On, Columbia"/ the site of the Afro-American's League 1898 protest against the only armed overthrow of a elected municipal government... and 150 other sites related to Portland's radical, labor and equal justice struggles.
Blurbs
A thorough and thoroughly fascinating trip through Portland's rabble-rousing history. Munk has a passion for his subject that comes accross on the page and in person. --Jeff Baker's "Hot Sheet" in The Oregonian
***
Michael Munk is the Lewis and Clark of Portland?s radical past, leading his readers on a voyage of discovery through a long-lost and wonderfully evocative historical terrain. I only wish the Red Guide had been around in the days when I was one of those Portland radicals he writes about with such knowledge (and affection).--Maurice Isserman, author of If I Had a Hammer: the Death of the Old Left and the Birth of the New Left; former staffer at the Willamette Bridge and The Portland Scribe
***
Whoop! Whoop! I?m impressed by how many names from Portland?s past have not made it into our official histories and public memorials. Some were good friends of mine. Local history is too often overlooked. Good work, Mike.--Bud Clark, saloon keeper, Goose Hollow Inn, and Mayor of Portland, 1985?1992
***
The writing is often vivid. To a surprising and completely appropriate extent he incorporates poetry, ranging from known Portland writers to the published verse of a six-year-old child supporting paper workers on strike. The extensive photos are well chosen and integral to the book's mission of enabling us to see and think anew.-- Norm Diamond in the Portland Alliance
***
Michael Munk did a terrific job of researching local leftist and labor struggles usually ignored by conventional historians and the commercial media.--Gene Klare, columnist, Northwest Labor Press. Former reporter, pre-strike The Oregonian and the Portland Reporter
***
What fun to learn all the ordinary places have a not-so-ordinary history. Some will call The Portland Red Guide subversive, others will welcome it as the sweet breeze of revelation, but all will have to admit it adds a fascinating new layer to appreciating Portland. Even those Portlanders who think they know their city?s past will likely find themselves shocked at the wealth of radical Portland history related in this volume. One hopes it becomes as ubiquitous as cell phones in Portland pedestrians? hands.--Sandy Polishuk, author of Sticking to the Union: An Oral History of the Life and Times of Julia Ruuttila
***
Going to these addresses can bring to mind what has gone before and perhaps, encourage more resistance today. I had no idea so much has happened in Portland. And reading the names of people who struggled and whom I worked with brought up lots of memories.--Sandra Ford, former wife of Black Panther Party leader Kent Ford
***
A roller-coaster ride through Portland?s radical past. Who knew that being on the losing side of just about everything could be so much fun?--Phil Stanford, Portland Tribune columnist, author of Portland Confidential
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lastmarx, June 17, 2007 (view all comments by lastmarx)
Portland's lively left-of-center history is brought back to life in 'Red Guide'
John Terry ,The Oregonian June 17, 2007
Interesting, the things found in the closets of Portland's radical past:
The founder of the exclusive Catlin Gabel School was accused of being a communist.
Two Tuskegee Airmen of World War II fame were from Portland; 12 in all were from Oregon.
The principal of Kenton Elementary School allied herself with social reformer Jane Addams, played host to muckraker Upton Sinclair and hobnobbed with Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House.
All this and much more thanks to the closet-cleaning work of intrepid Portland radical Michael Munk, whose new book, "The Portland Red Guide, Sites and Stories of our Radical Past," is new from Portland State University's Ooligan Press.
Munk is a native of Prague, Czechoslovakia, whose family fled the Nazis and came to Portland in 1939. He's a graduate of Lincoln High School and Reed College, has a master's degree from the University of Oregon and doctorate from New York University. For 25 years Munk taught political science at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, Chicago's Roosevelt University and Rutgers before retiring in Portland.
Munk -- Internet moniker "lastmarx" -- freely admits he's about as far to the political left as one can get without straying into the lunatic fringe. He's also an engaging personality with a delicious sense of irony evident throughout "Red Guide."
The book is divided into six political eras from the 19th century to the present, each entry in each section numbered and cross-referenced to maps and photographs.
Here is where radical writer John Reed grew up unfettered by Portland's upper-upper crust. There is where the Marine Workers Industrial Union headquartered during the 1934 Maritime Strike. Here is where Dr. Marie Equi in 1918 railed against war and was rewarded with three years in San Quentin.
Much of Munk's material understandably deals with the social, labor and political conflicts that roiled local waters throughout the city's history, events old-guard conservatives would just as soon see black-lined from its history. It also memorializes many who added richly to the city's fabric and heritage -- racial minorities, social reformers, religious leaders.
Ruth Catlin opened Miss Catlin's School for Girls in 1911 on Northwest Irving Street. She dedicated it to the "independence and freedom of action for women" and drew students "largely from Portland's wealthy elite," Munk says. She turned the school over to a board of directors in 1928 to become Catlin Gabel School.
The late 1930s found her on the infamous Portland Police Red Squad's list of communist sympathizers because she was active in a group "devoted to defending the elected Spanish government against a fascist invasion," says Munk.
Brothers Robert (Ruby) and Carl Deiz, graduates of Franklin High School, were Portland's contribution to the Tuskegee Airmen. Robert flew 93 missions with the segregated 332nd Fighter Group in Europe and was featured on a 1943 War Bond poster, "one of few depicting a black person," Munk says. Another Tuskegee airman, Charles Duke, was the first African American member of the Portland Police Department.
Grace De Graff, Kenton Elementary principal, was among the founders of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, organized to urge women worldwide to "refuse to do the work men cannot do because they are busy murdering other men."
Munk quotes a De Graff niece as recalling her thinking "what the Russians were doing was a desirable state of affairs," but also "Aaron Frank (of the department store Meier & Frank) was the nicest man" for helping out needy Kenton families.
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Product Details
- ISBN:
- 9781932010152
- Subtitle:
- Sites & Stories of Our Radical Past
- Author:
- Publisher:
- Ooligan Press
- Subject:
- United States - Pacific - Oregon
- Copyright:
- 2007
- Publication Date:
- June 2007
- Binding:
- Paperback
- Language:
- English
- Illustrations:
- Y
- Pages:
- 253
- Dimensions:
- 8.44x4.60x.66 in. .66 lbs.
