$30,000 Raised!

An Important Step in the Great Effort to Re-Open Revolution Books in Harlem

August 31, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a Revolution Books volunteer

Revolution Books in New York City succeeded just before midnight Friday, August 28, in reaching its $30,000 goal in its online crowd-funding campaign! The funds will go toward the essential renovations of the new space at 437 Malcolm X Blvd./Lenox Ave. in Harlem, NYC. As the deadline approached late Friday night, volunteers reached out to many, many contacts and friends of Revolution Books, new and old, with some of those folks themselves spreading the word on Facebook and in other ways. A lot of small contributions came together through the final hours to put it over the top! Altogether in the five week campaign, 236 donors contributed from $5 to $2,000—including two large matching challenges from “2 still-crazy senior women looking to a new world.” One of them sent this: “When you walk into Revolution Books... the books, the books! It’s bright, there’s color everywhere. Even the air feels fresh. You can breathe. My god, it’s a liberated area!”

The following are taken from the $30,000 crowd-funding campaign page of Revolution Books:

“This new, relocated Revolution Books will be filled with people of all nationalities and ages, wrangling with the biggest questions facing humanity—getting into the poetry, novels, history, philosophy, science that fill the shelves, as well as provocative children’s books that promote values of cooperation and understanding. The intellectual and cultural life at Revolution Books is marked by a critical thinking like nowhere else.
“Why?
“Because at the heart of the store is the scientific method and approach, the vision and architecture for a radically new society made possible by a path breaking strategy for revolution. All of this and more is concentrated in the new synthesis of communism developed by the revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian.”
—an excerpt of the fund-pitch from Revolution Books

“It’s not just a bookstore, it’s a big, wide radical world inside Revolution Books. It’s a feast for the heart and mind. Together we must make sure this place survives.”
—Naomi Wallace, playwright

“...For more than 35 years, Revolution Books has been a place where people from various backgrounds have gathered to obtain and swap information about the challenging issues we face in our society, and what we can do to make much needed changes. In September 2015, Revolution Books plans to re-open in a new location in Harlem. And they urgently need your support to re-open and to continue with the work they do with such conviction and fierceness.”
—The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College

“My favorite bookstore in NY—Revolution bookstore closed but wait there is good news! It is trying to re-locate to my hood Harlem! Yes! My FB folks this is the store that keeps it 100 with the BEST events in NY. From SAUL Williams to Vernon Reid to Eve Ensler to Junot Diaz to the best f-g writers on the planet that specialize in voices of dissent. Please find it your heart to support a place live Rev bookstore to exist in a world where we are choking on bullshit. PLEASE HELP SUPPORT THIS STORE!”
—Aladdin, comedian, playwright, actor, director/producer

“When you walk into Revolution Books ... the books, the books! It’s bright, there’s color everywhere. Even the air feels fresh. You can breathe. My god, it’s a liberated area!”
—one of RB’s matching fund donors, “a still-crazy senior woman looking to a new world”

“...I found more African American literature and history, women’s studies and activist information more than any store I’ve ever walked inside (trust me, there have been many). Revolution Books is that store you tell your friends about word of mouth that they HAVE to visit, support and absorb into...This is an important place with information and education that should be in the forefront of the masses or in your brain.”
—Kelsey Warren, musician, Pillow Theory

“... [RB] is perhaps the only venue where one can still find books that demand changing the world one step at a time. We live in an age where everything we see and read is presented as some form of propaganda, so we must judge for ourselves between right and wrong. And where else can one find these alternative points of view outside of Revolution Books...”
—Justin G. Schiller

“In a world where information is controlled and dominated by a mainstream narrative, we need to have access to alternative information, view points and political models. Revolution is in the air, everywhere, the only question that remains is: What will that revolution look like? Revolution Books is a significant resource for finding answers and political alternatives to the existing, failed, paradigm.”
—Donna Volatile, writer and political commentator, Truchas, New Mexico

On August 17, at a Revolution Books meeting held at the Harlem YMCA as the crowd-funding campaign entered its last week, Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books NYC, told a diverse group of professionals, ex-prisoners, older activists, and people living in nearby projects about Revolution Books’ mission and how and why they were needed to be part of opening this place. He said this: “There is no place else—no other site, no other bookstore, where there is consistent engagement with the biggest questions facing humanity, and which holds the possibility of connection to the movement for revolution. Something beautiful—a world with a radically different economy, with different values, a different form of government, social relations and a whole new way of thinking grounded in knowing the world as it actually is and transforming it with the aim of not only meeting the needs of the people of the world and protecting the environment for future generations—but a world where all the social relations that Bob Avakian spoke of in the ‘What if’ film clip¹ that we just saw are being worked on collectively and consciously. The vision of this society, the means to struggle together for it, is what drives the staff of Revolution Books, it is what we model, and all this is grounded in the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian which is not only a goal and the mission of a party and movement with a strategy to achieve that goal... it is most of all a scientific method and approach to probe, engage, understand and transform reality.”

Revolution Books, a bookstore for the whole world from Revolution Books on Vimeo.

This vision and spirit at the core of Revolution Books animates and is drawing together the donations and contributions of many people, from many different viewpoints, who want to see this bookstore for the whole world, and about the whole world, open in Harlem.

The successful completion of this latest round in the battle to re-open Revolution Books matters a great deal. It matters that $30,000 was raised to take the next steps in re-opening the store. And it matters that more than 230 donors have stepped into the Revolution Books community through working together to contribute and raise these funds. All this must be built upon and marshaled as we fight to raise the remaining funds for signage, new books, and promotion; as we draw forward volunteers to help with the renovations and be part of “Revolution Books Without Walls” tables throughout NYC until the new space is open; and as a whole new level the revolutionary intellectual ferment and community comes alive when the new store actually opens.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, September 1, at 6:30 pm, Revolution Books invites everyone to the next bookstore meeting at the Harlem YMCA, 180 W. 135th Street. Find out more about Revolution Books and how you can be involved in reopening this place that is needed now more than ever.

The world needs revolution, the revolution needs Revolution Books, Revolution Books needs you!

To donate now: the Indiegogo crowd-funding campaign is still open for contributions at http://www.igg.me./at/revbooksnyc and donations can be made directly at www.revolutionbooksnyc.org.

Information and to volunteer: www.revolutionbooksnyc.org or 212-691-3345.

1. An excerpt from the film of the November 2014 Dialogue between Cornel West and Bob Avakian: REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion [back]

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