Additional Information on Frances Fox Piven

Additional Information on Frances Fox Piven

Overview


* On September 20, 2001, Piven was a guest speaker at a New York City gathering to honor the work of her husband, Richard Cloward, who had died a month earlier. Other speakers included Barbara EhrenreichHoward Zinn, June Jordan, Gus Newport, Tim Sampson, Joel Rogers, Miles Rappaport, and Cornel West.

* In August 2004, Piven endorsed a demonstration at the site of the Republican National Convention in New York City, protesting President George W. Bush’s “endless war and repression.” The rally was organized by Not In Our Name, a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party. To view a list of additional endorsersclick here.

* While attending a Socialist Scholars Conference in New York (one of many which she has attended) in the early 2000s, Piven was interviewed by PBS. She was asked, “What does socialism mean to you? What is its future?” Piven replied:

“Socialism is a broad tradition and it has many meanings. So if you were to ask me, ‘What are the core values in that tradition?’ ‘The values of equality and fraternity and democracy,’ I would say… That tradition has a future; it’s the only future that’s possible.

“At this particular moment in time I think that those values are fired up by a great social movement that has spread across the globe. Nobody expected it, it’s taking everyone by surprise, and it is probably the largest social movement in recorded history. The whole world is rising up to say ‘No’ to war, and they’re saying ‘No’ to war because of their convictions that war means imperialism; war means the United States becoming a new Roman Empire and settling down on the Middle East…war means that the fundamental things that all human creatures want, which is enough to eat and a place to sleep and a community and a voice, that those fundamental values will be denied.”

* In addition to Poor People’s Movements, Piven has authored such books as: Regulating the Poor (1972, co-authored with Richard Cloward); Why Americans Don’t Vote (1988); The War at Home(2004); Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (2008), and Keeping Down the Black Vote (2009).

* Today Piven sits on the advisory committee of Wellstone Action, a self-described “national center for training and leadership development for the progressive movement.” Fellow committee members include Robert BorosageJulian BondHeather BoothPeter EdelmanKeith EllisonRuss FeingoldAl FrankenLeo GerardTom HarkinJohn LewisRobert ReichMark RitchieAndrew Stern, and Antonio Villaraigosa.

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