Editorial Board

Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Jr.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is the executive editor of globalafricanworker.com, former president of TransAfrica Forum, and a lifetime trade unionist. He is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, and the author of The Man Who Changed Colors, “They’re Bankrupting Us” - And Twenty Other Myths about Unions and the novel The Man Who Fell From the Sky. He is also the co-author of Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice, which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Mr. Fletcher is also Co-editor of "Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral". Other Bill Fletcher, Jr. writing can be found at billfletcherjr.com. Contact Mr. Fletcher and BC.

309 pieces

Commentary

Think Piece: Reclaiming Curt Flood; Reclaiming Baseball

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Editorial Board

Growing up in New York in the 1960s meant sports, and sports in the spring, summer and fall, meant baseball if you had a field to play in, or stickball if you did not. There was no other way. It meant baseball cards, and as an African American, it meant intense pride in the accomplishments…

Growing up in New York in the 1960s meant sports, and sports in the spring, summer and fall, meant baseball if you had a field to…

Continue reading 5 min

Commentary

Think Piece: Debate Over the Future of the AFL-CIO – More Heat Than Light

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Editorial Board

A debate over the future of the AFL-CIO, the federation of most unions in the USA, has been underway for some months and, for the life of me, while the debate becomes more intense, the differences seem to blur. Yet, the feeling that one gets is that we are headed for a train wreck. The…

A debate over the future of the AFL-CIO, the federation of most unions in the USA, has been underway for some months and, for the life…

Continue reading 6 min

Commentary

1930s Movement Planted Seeds of Civil Rights

By Bill Fletcher, Jr. Editorial Board

Mr. Fletcher is President of the TransAfrica Forum, and a longtime activist in the labor movement. He gave the following speech at the 25th Anniversary Conference of Labor Notes, in Detroit, September 12. The conference slogan was “Troublemaking in Troubled Times.” My hope is to present some lessons from an earlier period in US history,…

Mr. Fletcher is President of the TransAfrica Forum, and a longtime activist in the labor movement. He gave the following speech at the 25th Anniversary Conference…

Continue reading 16 min