May Day Marches and Much More: Commemorate the 125th Anniversary of the Haymarket Martyrs

April 29^th 5:30 pm Gage Gallery Reception for International Trade unionists and public and release of new publication of The Day Will Come by Mark Rogovin and viewing of his fathers photos, Milton Rogovin.  (ILHS event)

April 30^th, 2pm. Plaque dedication at Haymarket Square at Randolph and DesPlaines by Illinois Labor History Society and re enactment of the Haymarket Tragedy at the site followed by gathering of all who wish to come to Haymarket Brewery at Halsted and Randolph.  (ILHS event)

Sunday, May 1, 9 AM to 12 Noon at Haymarket Square, Randolph & DesPlaines;  Poetry for  Labor:  A free, public participatory reading to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the Haymarket Square Affair, bring your own poetry or prose, or poetry or prose that you love, that brings to life in celebration, in reflection, in commemoration work and those who do it!

Sunday, May 1, noon rally sponsored by Jobs With Justice to protest Walmart international worker exploitation. March from Walmart in Forest Park (DesPlaines and Roosevelt Road in Forest Park) to Haymarket Monument in Forest Home Cemetery (see next entry).

May 1, 1 pm, World wide gathering to celebrate 125^th anniversary of the Haymarket and the restoration of the Monument in Forest Park featuring AFL-CIO secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler  (ILHS event)

May 1, Marcha -May Day March and Rally — for Workers and Immigrants Rights:

2:00PM Reunion at Union Park, Corners of Lake St and Ashland Ave.
3:00PM March Begins heading to Pilsen Neighborhood
4:00PM March Ends and Rally Starts at Plaza Tenochtitlan in Pilsen (18th St and Blue Island Ave)

MARCHA EL PRIMERO DE MAYO

2:00PM Reunion en el Parque Union, Esquinas de las calles Lake y Ashland
3:00PM La Marcha Comienza rumbo a los barrios de Pilsen y La Villita
4:00PM La Marcha termina con in Mitin en la Plaza Tenochtitlan en Pilsen. (Esquinas de la calle 18 y la Blue Island)

May 1,  Sunday, 6-10 pm The Amoreys return with their open mic Jam May 1st, 2011  Jam/Open Mic at Lunar – 6 PM to 10 PM at the Lunar Brewery 54 E. St.Charles Road Villa Park, IL  (630) 530-2077

May 1, 7PM  Old Town School of Folk Music concert titled Music and Rebellion with Bucky Halker, his band, and some international groups. Tickets are 15 dollars. (ILHS event)

May 3, 6-8 PM Necessary: An Exhibit Exploring the Life & Legacy of Malcolm X, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Residents’ Dining Hall 800 S. Halsted Street Chicago, IL ( presented by Neighborhood Writing Alliance and the Black History 101 Mobile Museum)

May 5th, Thursday,6:00 – 7:30 pm Conversation about the difficult and surprisingly dangerous life of laundry workers in Chicago at Workers United 333 S. Ashland Ave.  Have a conversation with Daisy Sewell who has both worked in a commercial laundry and worked to unionize laundry workers. Light refreshments, soda and wine will be served.

Poetry For Labor on May Day; Link to Complete Schedule

Click here for complete Festival Schedule: http://chilaborarts.wordpress.com/events/

Check Here for Festival 2011 Events!

Festival events for 2011 can be found by clicking here!

Re-Enactment Of Haymarket Massacre April 30, 2011

Several events took place to commemorate the 125th anniversary of Haymarket, the even that spurred the May Day holiday. This is one of them. The photos are of the actual reenactment April 30, 2011.

The meeting 125 years ago had been peaceful and was coming to a conclusion about 10 pm. Mayor Carter Harrison, who was in the crowd, walked to the police station nearby and told the chief to send his forces home. Instead, the chief dispatched 176 officers to the scene. Here, marching across Randolph, North on DesPlaines, these "police" retrace the steps of the officers who attacked the 200 people left in the square 125 years ago

The wagon that is part of the sculpture in Haymarket Square reprises the makeshift platform from which the speakers addressed the crowd 125 years ago. Actors portraying the Haymarket martyrs and Lucy Parsons addressed the reenactment crowd.

Historian Tim Samuelson narrated the reenactment, pointing out the points of historic interest along the way. As the evening wore on 125 years ago, it began to rain and people talked about moving the rally to Zepf Hall (some of the crowd had actually gone there before the police charged). This is a picture of the building, still standing, that was then Zepf Hall.

The Haymarket monument sculpted by Mary Brogger was placed in Haymarket Square in 2004, located just north of Randolph on DesPlaines

May Day, 2011, Chicago: A Time To Remember, A Time To Dream A New World

[On this, the 125th Anniversary of Haymarket, it is appropriate and exciting to find all the work being done to rededicate the monuments where the martyrs are buried.  We are delighted to share the list of activities shown below.  May Day is the time of year when workers celebrate, "the only truly universal day of all humanity," as Eduardo Galeano wrote in The Book of Embraces.  It is also the time of year when the workers movement comes together to evaluate where we are, and what are the tasks that face us.  It should be transparently clear that corporations, in the name of defending their private property, are slicing away all the gains made in this country since the first general strikes of 1876, the legacy of the end of the Civil War and the precursor to Haymarket.  Every great movement for human liberation in the United States can be traced back to these two fundamental processes:  the movement to overturn slavery and the workers' movement.  It is the singular characteristic of our time to see these two great torrents of liberation fuse in a desperate awakening of a new class ejected from public as well as private employment by bloodless, robotic technology. The end of the American Civil War was indeed a nodal point in our history, marked by a change from an agricultural to and industrial economy and reflected by a shift in political parties to the domination of the industrial and financial sectors in those parties.  It took another 70 years and two World Wars for the financial sector's domination to establish itself and another political party shift to take place.  Now, 150 years after the end of the Civil War, another nodal shift is taking place.  It has been a long, difficult process of technological innovation.  Many times before the utopian cry of productivity reducing the need for labor has been raised, only to be lost in the expansion of capitalism and new markets.  But what to do when the global market has been saturated and "demand" -- expressed in money available for purchase of commodities -- has dried up? When the electronic manifestations of workers that we call "robots" do not need clothes, housing or food?  These are the trenchant May Day 2011 discussions that need to be held as we evaluate the legislative attacks on workers throughout the country, emanating from what has become known as the rust belt.  May Day is time to think strategically! -- Lew Rosenbaum]

Schedule of May Day Activities

April 7 3:00 PM Gage Gallery 18 s. Michigan. Forum on 100^th anniversary of Triangle Shirtwast Fire in New York. Textile organizing and unionization grow out of Chicago Struggle.

April 9^th 3:00 Pm. Chicago Temple Washington and Clark. New New Deal Forum with John Conyers on Full employment legislation.

April 12 7:00pm Oak Park Public Library Forum on meaning of restoration of Haymarket Martyrs Monument in Forest Park.

April 27^th 6:00pm. Haymarket Brewery and Pub at Randolph and Halsted . Film Screening of Sacco and Vanzetti

April 28^th 5:30 pm Newberry library. Forum and debate and reception with labor movement lawyers the American Constitution Society and others discussing Haymarket to the present.

April 29^th 5:30 pm Gage Gallery Reception for International Trade unionists and public and release of new publication of The Day Will Come by Mark Rogovin and viewing of his fathers photos, Milton Rogovin.

April 30^th, 2pm. Plaque dedication at Haymarket Square at Randolph and DesPlaines by Illinois Labor History Society and re enactment of the Haymarket Tragedy at the site followed by gathering of all who wish to come to Haymarket Brewery at Halsted and Randolph.

May 1, 1 pm, World wide gathering to celebrate 125^th anniversary of the Haymarket and the restoration of the Monument in Forest Park featuring AFL-CIO secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler and other dignitaries.

May 1, 7PM  Old Town School of Folk Music concert titled Music and Rebellion with Bucky Halker, his band, and some international groups. Tickets are 15 dollars.

May Day: Immigrants’ Rights Affect All Workers’ Rights — From Tribuno del Pueblo

Arizona’s New Immigration Law –

An Injury to One

Is an Injury to All

April Tribuno del Pueblo Cover page: thousands demonstrated for immigrant reform in March

On March 21, 2010 over 200,000 people protested in Washington D.C. to push the Obama adminstration to start working on immigration reform.  Although many were illegal citizens and feared being deported, they still marched to show their strength in numbers and to demand action.

The people of this country have not taken Arizona governor Jan Brewer’s signing of the state’s new immigration law sitting down.

The ink wasn’t yet dry on Brewer’s signature when the howls of the fight to uphold human civil and constitutional rights could be heard in the streets, the churches, and the union halls of this country.

Many are calling the new law racial profiling of Latinos. Others see it as an attack on all workers. It is both.

What’s behind the new law, SB 1070?

Capital’s goal with SB 1070 is to control, not just Latino workers, but all workers, it creates a reign of terror among a sector of the working class — Latino workers and their families.

Big business’s ultimate goal is to divide the American working class, get both sides fighting each other, and drive down everybody’s wages and standard of living in the process.

Arizona’s new law is a milepost in making Latinos the sacrificial lambs in capital’s efforts to divide workers and break their potential unity. This potential unity of workers in America — both immigrant and native-born — is based on their having a common destiny.

Migrant workers the world over are people who have been uprooted by this class of capitalists as it remakes society in the age of high technology. They are an expression of the new class being created by electronics in just the same way that the millions of native-born Americans are being displaced from their jobs here in the United States.

Immigrant workers pushed off the land when they could not compete with high-tech U.S. corporate farming are facing the same enemy as American factory workers who are being thrown out of their jobs by high-tech, computerized robots. Both immigrant and non-immigrant are part of this new class of dispossessed.

What does capital gain?

First, it provides an opportunity for both sides of the false political divide created by capital to vent their rage on one another, instead of on capital itself, and deepens the rift between the two.

Second, this Gestapo law in Arizona sets the stage for a “compromise” immigration bill in Washington, which will give capital much of what it wants.

While the bill will offer immigrants now who lack papers a difficult and costly path to citizenship, it will also most likely provide for an influx of “guest” workers. And by establishing a new, high-tech national work card, the law will create an important part of capital’s new apparatus of control.

Third, the creation of this “guest-worker” peonage system will pull down what remains of the decent wages and standard of living of native-born American workers, while providing them with a scapegoat on which to direct their wrath.

How do we win?

Keep targeting the economic system that thrives on the migration of millions.

During the U.S. Civil War, for example, the North could not have been victorious if the farmers and workers who made up the Union Army had not come to realize that it was not the runaway slaves competing for jobs but the whole system of slavery that they had to destroy.

Today, that’s exactly what we need to do — turn the attack on immigrant workers around and go after the economic system that thrives from their plight.

Across the world, immigrant workers are the vanguard of a new class of permanently unemployed and underemployed workers. To defend them is to defend this new class, and to defend the future of every worker.

What drives immigration?

See www.tribunodelpueblo.org

May Day 2010: 130 years of Working Class Immigrant Struggle

[We celebrate May Day as an international workers holiday throughout the world.  Until four years ago,it was common for us, particularly in Chicago where it all began, to hang our heads because May Day seemed all but forgotten.  Then the immigration rights marches overwhelmed the old and relatively isolated commemorations by people who had been long keeping the spirit from being extinguished -- so overwhelmed that it was easy to call this some other phenomenon.  There is, however, a direct line from the days in 1886 when the police fired on demonstrators and galvanized the eight hour movement.  That direct line starts with the composition of the original haymarket martyrs, the ones imprisoned in Illinois on the charges of instigating a riot, some of whom were executed.  Immigrants led the support for striking workers, immigrants were arrested and executed, immigrants continue to raise the banner of justice which has immense significance for the rest of the working class.

Four years ago, when the May Day march in Chicago swelled to a million people, the demonstration -- on a week day, when so many workers took off work and virtually stopped the city -- responded to draconian legislation proposed to control immigration.  Now the recent Arizona legislation has generated a similar response.  Saturday promises to be another important step in breaking down barriers between sections of the working class that have opposed each other.  Below is the lead article in the current Tribuno del Pueblo that comments on the situation confronting the immigration rights movement.  There is also a story about how Colombian singer Shakira responds to the Arizona law.

Remember the demonstrations taking place tomorrow; remember also that the arts have always played an important role in participating in the working class struggle, as we have tried to demonstrate on this blog, not only in the daily poetry contributions you have seen here in the month of April.  Today's contribution is Jack Hirschman's May Day poem you will find in a separate post. -- Lew Rosenbaum]

Editorial: ¡Si se puede!
A just immigration reform now! from the Tribuno del Pueblo

On March 22, 2010 more than a quarter of a million marched in Washington D.C. chanting, ¡Si se puede!, letting Congress and the Democratic Party know a just immigration reform is long overdue. As we move forward celebrating the fourth anniversary of the first immigrant rights marches, it’s time to also assess where the immigrant rights movement is at as a whole.
Immigration reform has been stuck. Considering the high hopes and spirited enthusiasm of the massive immigrant rights marches, the election of the first minority president in U.S. history and a Democrat controlled Congress, there has been no meaningful progress toward legalization and amnesty. Instead, there are even more security measures such as tighter border surveillance and enforcement and workplace identification checks such as e-verify.
Despite the recent passage of major national health care reform in this country, undocumented and even legal resident immigrants have been to a large extent excluded from coverage. They were victims of backroom political deals designed to insure passage of the health reform measure, ignoring the fact that immigrants pay taxes and contribute to this country. Their exclusion occurred despite the fact that Latinos and other immigrants compose the group with the lowest rates of health care coverage in the country. Several states such as California had already dropped undocumented immigrants from health coverage due to state budget deficits. Now, in response to further deficits, the California Governor is proposing to deny health programs even for legal residents.
Some in the immigrant movement will be quick to blame President Obama. For sure, many on the far right are already attacking “Obamacare” as they call the national health care legislation, but not for the same reason that immigrants are unhappy with it. They call it “big government,” socialized medicine, or communism, as they hurl racial epithets and incite violence against Democratic congressmen who voted for the legislation.
How does one make sense of this morass? Is it racism? Is it betrayal by our leaders? Is this the America of our dreams of democracy, fair play and equal opportunities?
One thing is for sure, and it is that the Democratic Party is not delivering even for U.S. citizens, let alone immigrants. It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish the Democratic Party from the Republican Party. While banks and General Motors were bailed out, foreclosures, job losses, and social service cuts are affecting even formerly comfortable and securely employed U.S. born workers. Congressmen of both major political parties receive major contributions from interests that keep the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies in control of health care, even as immigrants and U.S. born workers die from lack of health care. Those who strive to control this country behind the scenes are bigger than just one man and will utilize whichever party, movement or fringe group they need to do it.
So, as the May Day marches approach, it is important to see who our enemy is and who our friends are. Many immigrants are instinctively moving in this direction already, ignoring the calls to be patient and wait for a better immigration proposal. As an integral part of the workforce and social fabric of this country, immigrants are affected by the same social destruction that is occurring to the rest of the U.S. working class. We are united with the rest of the U.S. working in our mutual need to struggle to survive. We must also become united with them in unmasking and exposing the extremists who threaten the democratic ideals that also attracted us to this country.
It is in defending ourselves and demanding our full rights, while looking for what we have in common with the broader American working class which is also being hurt, that we will defeat the weapon of “divide and conquer” that our mutual enemy has historically used. That will be the beginning of political independence for the American working class, of which we as immigrants are an integral part.

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Shakira attacks Arizona immigration law

Reprinted from The Guardian, UK. Colombian singer protests controversial legislation allowing police to detain anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant

• guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 April 2010 10.10 BST

Controversial legislation … Shakira protests Arizona immigration law in Phoenix. Photograph: Joshua Lott/Reuters

Shakira has joined the chorus of opposition to Arizona’s new immigration law. President Obama has questioned its legality, Linda Ronstadt has called for its repeal, the band Stars have called for a boycott, and now the Grammy award-winning Colombian singer has visited Phoenix to discuss the controversial legislation with the city’s mayor.

Civil rights activists are furious about bill 1070, signed into law by Arizona governor Jan Brewer on Friday. If police suspect anyone of being an illegal immigrant, the bill directs officers to ask about their immigration status – and if they are not carrying proper papers they will be committing a crime. Critics have called this state-supported racial profiling.

“Shakira is deeply concerned about the impact of this law on hard-working Latino families,” said Trevor Nielson, the singer’s “political and philanthropic adviser”. “She is coming to Arizona to try to learn more about how law enforcement is reacting to this and how we can ensure that people in the state of Arizona are not being targeted because of the colour of their skin.”

While Shakira is best known for hits like She-Wolf and Hips Don’t Lie, she is also a long-time activist. The singer received a medal from the UN’s International Labour Organisation last month, and she is also a global ambassador for Unicef. Shakira is particularly involved with groups that are active in Central and South America.

According to Nielson, Shakira cancelled other commitments to visit Phoenix yesterday, where she met with mayor Phil Gordon, who opposed bill 1070, and the local police chief. Although she also hoped to speak with Governor Brewer, her staff said she was too busy.

Appearing on the radio show On Air With Ryan Seacrest, Shakira described her questions for officials. “Are they really willing to enforce [a] law [when] they know it is going to crush the dream of so many immigrants who would like to have a shot at the American dream, like so many minorities in this country have in the past? We all know how America has been forged by the dreams of those people, and by their passion, and by their contribution to the economy – by working really hard.”

Three Arizona cities are considering lawsuits to block the new bill, and the legislation may be challenged at referendum in November. At least one state sheriff has called it a “stupid law” and said this week he would not enforce it in his county.

• This article was amended on 30 April 2010. The original referred to Arizona governor Jan Brewer as ‘he’, when in fact she is female. This has been corrected.

More on May Day Rallies, 2010

Arizona immigrant law energizes Hispanics, Democrats

Tim Gaynor

PHOENIX

Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:08pm EDT in Reuters

People hold signs as they protest against Senate Bill 1070 outside the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix, Arizona April 25, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Joshua Lott

PHOENIX (Reuters) – U.S. Hispanics and Democratic lawmakers furious over Arizona’s harsh crackdown on illegal immigrants expect huge weekend rallies across the United States, piling pressure on President Barack Obama to overhaul immigration laws in this election year.

U.S.

Protest organizers said on Wednesday outrage over the Arizona law — which seeks to drive illegal immigrants out of the state bordering Mexico — has galvanized Latinos and would translate into a higher turnout for May Day rallies in more than 70 U.S. cities.

“The marches and demonstrations are going to be far more massive than they otherwise would have been,” said Juan Jose Gutierrez, a Los Angeles rally organizer who runs an immigration assistance company.

The backlash began on Friday after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a measure that requires state and local police to determine a person’s immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” they are undocumented. Critics say it is unconstitutional and opens the door to racial profiling.

Republican backers of the law say it is needed to curb crime in the desert state, which is a key corridor for drug and migrant smugglers from Mexico.

A Rasmussen Reports poll on Wednesday found that almost two-thirds — 64 percent — of voters in the state favored the measure.

The crowds on the streets, from Los Angeles to New York, could be the biggest since 2006, when hundreds of thousands of marchers urged former President George W. Bush to overhaul of federal immigration laws. He tried, but failed in Congress.

“With what’s going on in Arizona we see renewed energy for folks to fight for immigration reform,” said Marissa Graciosa, of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, an organizer of rallies and vigils on Friday and Saturday.

In Washington, a diverse group of more than two dozen lawmakers — Hispanics, blacks, Asians, whites — held a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to denounce the Arizona law as a violation of civil rights.

“What Arizona has done is that it has galvanized, united, fortified, focused our immigration movement,” Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez declared at the news conference.  Read more here.

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Web site for the Illinois Coalition on Immigrant Rights

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Illinois Labor History Association has two events set, including a rally scheduled in Haymarket Square:

See this link for Festival events including May Day events.

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See also this story by Eduardo Galeano about May Day in Chicago.

May Day Rallies Focus on Immigration Issues

From the Washington Independent comes this assessment of the national rallies that have become an annual event on May Day. (The Chicago May Day rally and march is listed at the bottom of this page.)

Organizers Prepare for May 1 Immigration Rallies

Poster for the 2009 immigrants rights May Day march

By Julissa Treviño 4/16/10 12:18 PM

Several pro-immigrant grassroots organizations today announced plans for major demonstrations across the country on May 1 that will focus on immigrant workers’ rights and comprehensive immigration reform. Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Milwaukee are among the cities that expect large rallies.

May 1 has long been a day for immigration protests, starting in Los Angeles more than 10 years ago, according to Maria Elena Durazo of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Organizations participating in the rallies, including Service Employees International Union (the largest union for immigrant workers), Mexican-American Coalition for Immigration Reform and Center for Community Change, expect this year’s demonstrations to bring together thousands of protesters like in previous years, especially when the stakes are so high.

During a conference call this morning, organizers pointed out that Arizona’s Senate bill 1070, recent immigration raids in Phoenix and Tucson and the 287 (g) program are just some examples of what’s heating up the immigration debate.

From a Center for Community Change press release today:

The grassroots organizations are escalating because President Obama has yet to deliver on his promise to move immigration reform, the Senate has yet to deliver on its promise to produce a bill, and DHS has yet to deliver on its promise to focus on arresting bad actors instead of terrorizing ordinary immigrants. The time for making promises has run out.  The time for concrete action has arrived.  We demand action from the President, Congress and DHS by May 1:

• Sens. Schumer and Graham must introduce a bill
• Congress and the President must pass comprehensive immigration in 2010
• The President must end rogue enforcement at ICE and enact policies that keep families united

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Meanwhile Fox News projects a large Chicago demonstration, especially given the furor over Arizona’s draconian new laws:

Furor Over Arizona Immigration Law Grows; Chicago Activists Plan Protest

Updated: Monday, 26 Apr 2010, 9:43 PM CDT
Published : Monday, 26 Apr 2010, 7:33 PM CDT

Associated Press

The furor over Arizona’s new law cracking down on illegal immigrants grew Monday as opponents used refried beans to smear swastikas on the state Capitol, civil rights leaders demanded a boycott of the state, and the Obama administration weighed a possible legal challenge.

In Chicago on May 1, thousands of people are expected to gather at Union Park to protest the law.

Nationally, activists are also planning a legal challenge, hoping to block the law from taking effect by arguing that it encroaches on the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration and violates people’s constitutional rights by giving police too much power.

The measure — set to take effect in late July or early August — would make it a crime under state law to be in the U.S. illegally. It directs state and local police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal.

“If you look or sound foreign, you are going to be subjected to never-ending requests for police to confirm your identity and to confirm your citizenship,” said Alessandra Soler Meetze, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona, which is exploring legal action.

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A number of organizations including Jobs With Justice, ICIRR, Road to Detroit-Chicago are organizing for a march from Union Park into the loop on May Day.  Here is the information from the Jobs With Justice site:

Join Chicago Jobs with Justice and the Labor Committee on Immigrant Worker Rights for a day of action on May 1st!

STOP THE DEPORTATIONS
STOP THE RAIDS AND E-VERIFY
LEGALIZATION AND JOB CREATION
IMMIGRATION REFORM NOW!

SATURDAY, MAY 1ST
1:00 P.M. • Union Park
1501 W. Randolph

MARCH BEGINS AT 3 PM

Call (312) 738-6161 to find out more or send an email to susanh@jwj.org!

2010 Festival Events List So Far

Click HERE for complete information.  For information on theatrical productions click HERE.

April 30:  Tom Morello is joined by Bucky Halker, the Rust Belt Ramblers in a benefit for the I.W.W.  8 pm at the Bottom Lounge

April 30: Tatsu Aoki and his Miyumo Project play a Jazz concert 9 pm at the Velvet Lounge for visiting Japanese trade unionists

May Day weekend:  A Century + of May Days Conference at De Paul University

May 1: 70 trade unionists from Japan dedicate a new plaque as part of the May Day commemoration at the site of the Haymarket monument, 10 am,  DesPlaines and Randolph.

May 1: historian Jeff Helgeson leads a bus tour of Haymarket and Chicago’s unique labor trail,  1-4 pm, Chicago History Museum.

May 2: Screening of Red Poet, film documenting the life of revolutionary poet Jack Hirschman, recent poet laureate of San Francisco, 7:30 pm at Mess Hall

May 3: Jack Hirschman will participate in the regularly scheduled Neighborhood Writing Alliance workshop at Hall Branch Library, 4 pm. (48th and Michigan)

May 3: Jack Hirschman will join with Kevin Coval and poets from Louder than a Bomb youth poetry slam to read and discuss their work: 7:30 pm Jane Addams Hull-House Museum Residents Dining Room

May 4: Jack Hirschman will read and discuss his work at Mess Hall, 7:30 pm.

May 9: Neil Gaiman‘s Neverwhere will be produced as a drama by Lifeline Theatre,  May 9 through June 20.

May 13: Athol Fugard’s Sizwe Bansi is Dead will be produced by the Court Theatre, the last of this year’s Fugard Chicago series.  May 13 through June 13.