The Maggie Phair Institute for Democracy and Human Rights

Maggie Phair was born just before the stock market crash of 1929 and she grew up in the shadow of the Great Depression.

Maggie’s activist career began at San Fernando High School when she brought the director of the Urban League to challenge racial slurs made by a teacher against Japanese, who had just been released from relocation camps. She challenged the discriminatory standards that enrolled all Chicano students in agriculture or home economics majors.

Soon after enrolling at UCLA she joined the Congress on Racial Equality, helping to desegregate Bullock’s Tearoom, and Bimini Baths, a popular swimming pool. Anti-racist work convinced her of the need for full employment, and for democratic socialism.

In 1967 she became a founding member of the Peace and Freedom Party of California to provide a viable alternative for voters who support civil rights and oppose war. She is a strong advocate for free speech, even for the bad guys. Nationally, Maggie was active in the Socialist Party USA.

Maggie helped build the social workers’ chapter of Service Employees International Union Local 535. She fought the company association to its defeat and was one of the key organizers who brought the chapter to a strength of 2000 members and its status as SEIU Local 535.

A peace activist, her opposition to war began with the dropping of the atom bomb and has included opposition to the Korean War, Vietnam War and to U.S. intervention in Central America and the Middle East. In August 1990, Maggie helped to organize the first demonstration in Los Angeles opposing a U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf.

Maggie co-founded the January 22nd Committee for Reproduction Rights which was a leading pro-choice organization in Los Angeles. Maggie had a lifelong enjoyment of kaleidoscopes, limericks and hootenanies.

It is with a heavy heart that we announce that Maggie Phair, founder of the Maggie Phair Institute for Democracy and Human Rights passed away this morning. 

The Maggie Phair Institute for Democracy and Human Rights would like to announce Adonis Cherry and Nyemah West as the first recipients of the Mimi Soltysik Memorial Scholarship Fund. 

Adonis Cherry just graduated  high school in Las Vegas, NV. He will be attending the Sage Colleges in New York. He has been active in a local food bank, the Special Olympics, and the Miracle Baseball League. 

Nyemah West just graduated high school in Connecticut. She is a member of the NAACP, the Minority Student Coalition, and, March for Education Foundation.  

This scholarship is present in the honor of Mimi Soltysik. In addition to being an Educator for the Maggie Phair Institute, Mimi was a community activist and presidential candidate for the Socialist Party, USA in 2016. 

Check out our new photo contest. You could win a $50 gift certificate. 

Music and left-wing politics have always been good bedfellows. So  Elvis Guevara- Mixing Pop and Politics seeks to spread the political messages of good tunes. It is designed to be primarily low traffic. Posts will usually be a song or two a day, and perhaps a few other posts related to music and politics. Also, the page is non-sectarian. No particular group or ideology is being promoted, aside from promoting music that represents the interests of the working class and the underdog.

Need a daily inspirational quote to get you through this cold heartless capitalist world? Then check out Daily Bread For The Radical Soul, it might just be what you need.

Join Maggie Phair Institute Educator Mimi Soltysik for a Zoom video discussion with Colin Jenkins. Colin is the founder, editor, and Social Economics Department Chair at the Hampton Institute (a working-class think tank). Call-in information will be posted on the day of the event. If you do not have access to a webcam, you can still participate via phone.

About Colin Jenkins:

Colin Jenkins is founder, editor and Social Economics Department chair at the Hampton Institute. His work has been featured at Black Agenda Report, Truthout, Truthdig, Counterpunch, the Transnational Institute, Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict, and World Order, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, Popular Resistance, Z Magazine, and New Politics.

Colin is an interdisciplinary researcher and writer with a B.A. in Historical Studies and M.A. in Social Policy. His academic work includes concentrations in Community & Government, African American Studies, and Political Economy, with focuses on Marxian and Anarchist analyses. He is the author of A Fatal Agenda: The Social, Economic and Democratic Consequences of Neoliberalism.

Colin is a military veteran, a former world record-holding powerlifter, and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). He currently resides in Albany, NY.

Join Maggie Phair Institute educator Mimi Soltysik for a viewing of “Zapatista”. We’ll also have a brief discussion following the film.

About “Zapatista”:

“Jan. 1 1994: The Day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went in effect. A few minutes after midnight in Southeastern Mexico, several thousand Indian soldiers take over half the state of Chiapas, declaring a war against global corporate power and for humanity. They call themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Zapatista is the definitive look at the uprising in Chiapas. it is the story of the Mayan peasant uprising, armed with sticks and their word against a first world military. It is the story of a global movement that has fought 175,000 federal troops to a standstill and transformed Mexican culture and international political cultural forever. Transcribed from back of VHS box.”

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  Wednesday, April 11 at 7 PM – 10 PM

• pin	The Maggie Phair Institute 2617 Hauser Blvd, Los Angeles, California 90016