Striking Blows in Defense of the Earth: An Evening with Jeffrey “Free” Luers and Leslie James Pickering
*Saturday, December 11, 2010
*5pm, Social Science Building 1114
*childcare provided
(Flyer here.)
Earth liberation movements have worked tirelessly for many years to bring a revolutionary perspective to the environmental movement, to build solidarity with prior struggles and political prisoners, and to prepare today’s activists for state repression. More recently, however, while state repression has intensified, we have seen a decline in major earth liberation movement activities. Luers and Pickering will analyze these trends, their consequences, and readdress the issues that activists were fighting for a decade ago, which made the movement such a formidable social force.
Jeffrey “Free” Luers is a political activist who served a ten-year prison sentence for arson in the state of Oregon. The arson was an act of protest against climate change and excessive consumption. Before serving time, Luers was already well known for his participation in tree-sitting campaigns to save old growth forests in the Pacific Northwest.
Leslie James Pickering is a founder and former spokesperson for the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office. He is the author of two books: “Earth Liberation Front 1997-2002” and “Mad Bomber Melville,” the biography of Vietnam War era revolutionary Sam Melville, a key figure in the Attica Prison Uprising of 1971.
Event co-sponsored by: EWOK!, Scott and Carrie Support Committee, Women’s Student Activist Collective, MN NLG, UofM Sociology Dept., UofM Geography Dept., UofM Political Science Department, Scholars for Academic Justice, MN Global Justice Project
This event is a part of the “National Anti-Prison Groups Day of Action.”
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