This month, we're diving into the first half of Assata Shakur's autobiography, inspired by a chapter in last month's book by Angela Davis. The blurb on the back cover gives you a sense of why this feels like such an imporant book right now, at a time when the Trump regime is attempting to demonize and criminalize anythign resembling leftist thought, much less action:

On May 2, 1973, Black Panther Assata Shakur (aka JoAnne Chesimard) lay in a hospital, close to death, handcuffed to her bed, while local, state, and federal police attempted to question her about the shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike that had claimed the life of a white state trooper. Long a target of J. Edgar Hoover's campaign to defame, infiltrate, and criminalize Black nationalist organizations and their leaders, Shakur was incarcerated for four years prior to her conviction on flimsy evidence in 1977 as an accomplice to murder.

This intensely personal and political autobiography belies the fearsome image of JoAnne Chesimard long projected by the media and the state. With wit and candor, Assata Shakur recounts the experiences that led her to a life of activism and portrays the strengths, weaknesses, and eventual demise of Black and White revolutionary groups at the hand of government officials. 

You can order the book for yourself in hardcover or eBook form from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here, or by calling the shop at 334-834-3556. 

Keep an eye on our calendar of events or email us at riverregiondsa@gmail.com.  

If you're ready to join us for our next reading discussion on May 17, you can go ahead and sign up here.

The second half of the book features speeches and interviews that focus on the racism baked into the American experiment, feminism and prison abolition, political activism through the decades, and transactional solidarity, which led to a lot of conversations about the past, as well as the situation we find ourselves in today. It also, as it happens, led to the discussion that inspired our May/June read! 

You can order the book for yourself in hardcover or paperback from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here, or by calling the shop at 334-834-3556. A DRM-free epub is also available from the publisher, Haymarket Books.  

After a month off, we got back back to reading in March!

If it feels like things are really dark right now, we get it. The fight against fascism seems like a losing battle. For every step forward, it feels like we take two steps back, and many of us are suffering under the weight of that perception right now. That's why we dug into the first half of Angela Davis' Freedom is a Constant Struggle for our March read: to remind us that even if the fight is never-ending, it is worthy and necessary.

The book's description says it all: "Reflecting on the importance of black feminism, intersectionality, and prison abolitionism for today's struggles, Davis discusses the legacies of previous liberation struggles, from the Black Freedom Movement to the South African anti-Apartheid movement. She highlights connections and analyzes today's struggles against state terror, from Ferguson to Palestine.

Facing a world of outrageous injustice, Davis challenges us to imagine and build the movement for human liberation. And in doing so, she reminds us that 'Freedom is a constant struggle.'" The conversations for this one were far-reaching, and extended well beyond the covers of the book itself. If you missed it, you missed a great discussion!

For January, we wrapped up our quarter-long discussion of Vivek Chibber's three-part ABCs of Capitalism with Volume C: Capitalism and Class Struggle, which makes the case for why any meaningful opposition to the violence of capital must be based in working-class struggle and solidarity. As with Volumes A and B, this one is brief at just 36 pages long. But as we proved with November and December's discussions, the brevity of the source material wasn't reflected in the length or depth of the conversation. 

You can order print copies of the series here or get free PDF versions from Jacobin's website. 

For December, we continued our deep dive into Vivek Chibber's three-part ABCs of Capitalism, discussing Volume B: Capitalism and the State, which discussed sources of state bias and why governments tend to reinforce the power of capital instead of counteracting it. We barely had time to discuss the information-dense 42 pages of this pamphlet, but the conversation was excellent and the ice cream was legit. 

You can order print copies of the series here or get free PDF versions from Jacobin's website. 

For November, we went back to basics, starting with the first volume of Vivek Chibber's three-part ABCs of Capitalism. At a mere 40 pages, this one doesn't take long to read, but it surely  took a a while to discuss, as it's a dense modern critique of the system of economic oppression that most people in the West are programmed to understand as simple economic freedom--which it most certainly is not. 

This was a lead-up to our December and January discussions, in which we'll be digging into the second and third pamphlets in the series: Capitalism and the State and Capitalism and Class Struggle. 

You can order print copies of the series here, or get free PDF versions from Jacobin's website. 

For October, we read the second part of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality by Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara. Following our discussion from September, we dug deep into Sunkara's case for why the time is finally right for democratic socialism in America, how we get there, and how we avoid the mistakes of the past. 

Granted, the book was released during Bernie Sanders' second campaign, and conditions on the ground are a little different here in 2025. But we agreed that the principles are the same, and even if we fail, it's worth trying to create a people-powered movement for and by the working class.

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.

Socialism has supposedly been attempted many times around the world, and it's failed in almost every case. The reasons for that are numerous, and usually boil down to sabotage. But for September, we read the first half of a book that examines what those ostensibly socialist countries did wrong themselves. 

The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality by Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara is information dense and covers a lot of historical ground, but the conversation was lively and we all learned a lot from the perspectives of our fellow readers.

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.

In the second half of Calling In, author Loretta J. Ross teaches the reader how to develop techniques for resisting the urge to call others out, and how to build a culture in which we bring people to our side or at least bring down tensions that might otherwise threaten to end relationships or destroy organizations from within.

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.

In the first part of Calling In, author Loretta J. Ross spells out the lessons she's learned from a career of organizing and activism about how to have constructive confrontations. The first half of the book explores how this self-professed "reformed call-out queen" learned to find common ground with people she cannot fully see eye-to-eye with, or those who had slighted her. Our discussion revolved around the origins of call-out culture and how Ross' unique perspectives might help us deal with internal conflict within our burgeoning organization.

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.

In digging deep into Chapters 7 through 10 of this historical examination of strongmen of the sort that Donald Trump emulates, we discussed endings—specifically, how corruption, state violence, and resistance bring down authoritarian regimes of the sort we're currently living through.

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.

The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? Or do they. Our May book club get-together explored, by way of  Ruth Ben-Ghiat's brilliant book, what common characteristics are shared between strongmen and how the archetype has evolved over time, as the nature of capitalism, global geopolitics, and media have evolved over the years.

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.

Where do you start when you're trying to organize a working-class solidarity and mutual-aid group in a city where that has been attempted multiple times with little success?

Somewhere. You start somewhere. And the insights gleaned from the conversations about this book led us to where we are today.  

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.

As we were discussing this important book and its lessons, our discussion leader mentioned a derisive common from an outsider... something to the effect that our little book club wasn't serious scholarship, but rather an "ice cream social." 

On that night, we took that insult as a badge of honor, because socializing is part of community building, community building is essential to democracy, and democracy is non-negotiable if we want to build a socialist future. We chatted and agreed that our little book club would be called "Ice Cream Socialists," and the rest is... well, not quite history. But it's a start!

You can order the book for yourself from The NewSouth Bookstore in Montgomery here.