July/August 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

South End Press at 25

After 25 years, why does South End Press still matter? The obvious answer: most of the conditions that led to its founding--economic injustice, racism, sexism, homophobia, the degradation of the environment, corporate globalization--persist on a grand scale. What's worse, today a small number of multinational corporations control book publishing, as well as the media at large. So, it's more important than ever to support the Press. This collectively run, nonprofit organization publishes books that are, first and foremost, tools for activism and social change.
--Barbara Ehrenreich

South End Press is a badly needed dissenting voice in today's increasingly concentrated corporate publishing world.
--Michael Moore

South End Press has consistently shown itself able to produce substantive material despite meager resources and in the face of industry norms that are not supportive, to say the least. They have also created models of internal organization that are democratic and non-hierarchal, a rare and important achievement. They have made it possible for work of a wide range of progressive thinkers and activists to reach a substantial audience.
--Noam Chomsky

 In 1978, while E.L. Doctorow testified before congress against the increasing monopolization of the media, the South End Press, then one year old, was preparing to publish its first title by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism. Originally published, printed, and even advertised by Warner Modular Publications, The Washington Connection had been abruptly canceled --an auspicious move for Warner, whose understanding of the importance of censoring dangerous ideas helped move it along on the road to becoming one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. Rescued by South End Press, the book had a powerful impact on many thousands of readers, and marked the entrance of the Press and its commitment to political consciousness into the realm of publishing, already beginning to suffer from a growing conservative climate.

This entrance was anything but smooth. Facing such obstacles as limited cash, huge debts, and not too many people willing to loan money to a left-wing, collectively run, independent publisher attempting to make a go of it in an increasingly monopolized and corporate-oriented industry, the founding members of the South End Press Collective struggled through the early years of the press with little more tangible than a vision to steer them through. Our members worked without pay for the first few years, took on side jobs to generate income, and reduced their expenses by setting up living quarters in and around the office equipment. They made hard decisions about juggling debt and convinced authors and others to whom they owed money to be patient, and to keep their eyes on the long-term prize.

Members of the South End Collective © Herb Boyd

It became immediately clear that for something like South End to survive, people had to be willing to work extremely hard. But, in a way, that was the easy part. Much more challenging was keeping the relative importance of our project in perspective when dealing with everyday setbacks and challenges. We had to have the confidence to pick up the phone and solicit titles from authors--with those books often representing years of work --even though we couldn't promise them royalties and, in all honesty, couldn't promise we'd exist the following year. We had to forge ahead knowing that the surest way not to exist the next year would be to not make the phone call. And not existing was more costly in political terms--in books not published, ideas not generated, analysis not made available--than the cost of rejection or of appearing foolish or of having to once again argue the Press's case, which so many ridiculed as a pipe dream.

The vision of the South End Collective encompasses not just the product of the press,  but the internal organization of the Press itself. At its founding in 1977, the Press organized itself as an egalitarian collective with decision-making organized so as to eliminate power hierarchies, and from then until today, all of our job descriptions combine editorial with business tasks. From conception, we were united in our intention not to recreate the oppressions of capitalist workplaces; we have made a practice of inverting traditional racial and gender hierarchies, with people of color and women making up the majority of our staff.  Early on, in fact, the experiment in workplace democracy was often the more radical, exciting part of what seemed like years of rather apolitical office work. It was no easy task to implement our principles of

(1) Availability of all information relevant to decisions for all workers;

(2) No hiring and firing other than by agreement of the whole project;

(3) Sharing of fundraising skills, so no member has sole connection to the progressive funding community;

(4) Democratic decision making, one person one vote with attention to a strong minority;

(5) Equal salaries;

(6) Equality of work assignments.

We divided the work into two categories: editorial/book production and business, and resolved that every member of the collective would be responsible for deciding on and "coordinating" books from the time a contract is signed through the publishing and promotion of them. We rotated business jobs on a yearly basis (with variations), and other jobs, like phone answering, chairing meetings, mail dole, and cleaning, on a monthly or weekly basis.

By its tenth anniversary, the Press began to move away from debt and into success, marked by a physical move and a production move that made us one of the first in the industry to switch to desk-top publishing.  Between the resulting savings in labor time and a substantial backlist of over 100 titles that required little maintenance but generated steady income, South End finally started making good on its royalty debt. Our experiment worked! and the Press grew stronger. The collective's commitment to long-term goals governing daily decisions (a lesson well-learned at a time when even short-term goals seemed out of reach) and our democratic voting system held us together.

Through the past 25 years, South End Press has helped keep the left end of public debate alive in a climate where media conglomerates strive daily to stifle the social critique and free-thinking that threatens their profit. We have demonstrated the efficiency of creating strong flexible structures that foster workplace democracy, and the radical promise of demystifying expertise. The Press's democratic self-management and its ability to break down race, gender, and class barriers in the workplace make it not only a role model but a challenge to other progressive workplaces to reconsider internal hierarchies and work structures that leave some people in charge of content and others tasked with carrying it out. 

--This article was compiled by Emma Alpert from pieces written by Loie Hayes, Cynthia Peters, and Lydia Sargent, previously published, May 2002 in Z Magazine. To find out more about South End Press, visit www.southendpress.org

The Decline and Fall of Public Broadcasting by David Barsamian with foreword by Amy Goodman and afterword by Mumia Abu-Jamal; insider's account of new media activists and the challenges they confront, drawing on his years of experience in public radio.

Lost Ground, a new release lambasting welfare reform, with contributions from prominent feminists, antiracist, and progressive social scientists including Mimi Abramovitz, Randy Albelda, Gwendolyn Mink, Frances Fox Piven, and Ann Withorn. The authors highlight the racialized components of the debate around welfare reform and the fallacies of welfare-to-work programs.

Policing the National Body: Race, Gender and Criminalization edited by Jael Silliman and Anannya Bhattacharjee, with an afterword by Angela Davis, places issues of race, class, and gender at the center of the reproductive rights and social justice agenda revealing the unrelenting efforts by conservatives to define and regulate reproduction in ways that uphold white privilege. Contributors include Judith A.M. Scully, Sarah L. Brownlee, Dazon Dixon Diallo, Luz Rodriguez, Syd Lindsley, H. Patricia Hynes, and Rajani Bhatia.

The Trajectory of Change by Michael Albert, charts a course for the growing, international movement against corporate globalization. Albert, longtime activist, challenges us to build a broad-based and effective movement for social change.

Terrorism and War, Howard Zinn, edited by Anthony Arnove. Based on new interviews conducted since the tragic events of September 11 and the bombing campaign against Afghanistan, Terrorism and War explores the growth of the American empire, as well as the long tradition of resistance in this country to US militarism. Truth is indeed the first casualty of war, but war has many other casualties, Zinn argues, including civil liberties on the home front and human rights abroad.

South End Press, 7 Brookline Street #1, Cambridge MA 02139-4146; 617/547-4002: www.southendpress.org

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