Local
Sunday, April 1, 3-5pm
Also, April 3, 8-10pm
Short North Stage, 1187 N. High St.
Short North Stage and the King Arts Complex will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination with playwright Katori Hall’s gripping re-imagination of the last night of Dr. King’s life. While a storm rages outside his hotel room in Memphis, a mysterious stranger arrives, forcing Dr. King to confront his destiny and his legacy to his people. Magical and haunting.
NOTE: A special memorial performance of The Mountaintop will be presented on Tuesday, April 3—the eve of the anniversary of Dr. King’s death.
Reviewers loved the Mountaintop on Broadway:
“Even before the first flash of lightning—and there will be plenty of that before evening’s end—an ominous electricity crackles through the opening moments of THE MOUNTAINTOP.” —NY Times.
“…as audacious as it is inventive…[a] thrilling, wild, provocative flight of magical realism…The King that is left after Hall’s humanization project is somehow more real and urgent and whole.” —Associated Press
Purchase Tickets
The first memory I have of Wendy’s was in the mid 1970’s in Albuquerque, New Mexico. My mother told me of a new restaurant in Old Town that served square hamburgers. She loved that they had a salad bar – the old-style salad bar where you had the option of one serving or all you can eat, but everyone cheated. They served a delicious burger with fresh lettuce and tomatoes. It’s a good memory of my mom who was born in the country but called herself a “city girl.” She considered Wendy’s to be “city living.”
More recently in 2013, a friend of mine and local Columbus worker’s rights activist Rubèn Castilla Herrera gave a talk. He held up a tomato and contemplated, how did the tomato in his hand arrive in Columbus? Who picked it? He and his family were pickers of fruit and vegetables in his youth. He was working with an organization called the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) and their struggle for justice in the fields and their goal for Fair Food. The CIW formed to combat the historical mistreatment of these farm workers in the work place.
March 31 is Cesar Chavez's birthday and Transgender Day of Visibility
Cesar Chavez was a Mexican-American community organizer turned labor leader. A former migrant farmworker recruited by the Community Service Organization (CSO) in its heyday of the 1950s, he co-founded the National Farmworkers Association (NFWA,) which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW,) the first successful union for migrant farmworkers. The UFW’s membership consisted mostly of indigent Latinos and Filipinos, and their struggle for justice and dignity, fighting to gain higher wages and better conditions in the fields where they were deprived of basic needs such as clean drinking water and bathrooms, became a national moral cause under the stewardship of Chavez, who courted national and international sympathy using militant non-violent tactics in the vein of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr, such as strikes, boycotts, fasts, and peaceful marches.
As the primary election for Ohio governor draws near, voters want to know where candidates stand on issues that affect Ohioans the most. To get some answers, Yes We Can Columbus hosted a candidates’ forum on March 12 at Strongwater Food and Spirits.
Democratic and Green gubernatorial candidates answered questions that were crowdsourced from the audience — about economic segregation, affordable housing, funding public education, police brutality, abortion rights, and gun control. Candidates proposed various solutions to these issues, but they had no major disagreements about the causes and nature of the problems.
Candidates did disagree about the influence of moneyed interests in politics. Moderator Dr. Melissa Crum asked the candidates these questions: Will you pledge to refuse contributions from corporate PACs, from the fossil fuel industry, and from the National Rifle Association? And what will you do fight the influence of money in our politics at all levels of government?
Thursday, March 29, 7pm
2115 North High Street (The Busch House), NOT St. Stephen’s
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico six months ago. It was the most catastrophic storm to hit the island in over a century. 200,000 people are still without power making this the longest blackout in U.S. history.
Federal neglect, colonial oppression, and climate change brought devastation even before the storm. After the storm, we have seen a battle between wealthy investors and working class Puerto Ricans fighting for the island's future. The Puerto Rican government, under the control of US Empire, has pushed intense forms of austerity and neoliberalism on to the island. They have tried to privatize public power providers as well as public schools. However, just last week, teachers planned a day-long strike to resist the privatization. The story of Puerto Rico after Maria is one of suffering and imperial exploitation, but also one of solidarity and the struggle against oppression.
Join ISO this Thursday as we discuss the state of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and stick around to discuss our upcoming plans for the Socialism 2018 Conference!
Wednesday, March 28, 6-8pm
King Arts Complex, 867 Mt Vernon Ave.
On the 50th Anniversary of the untimely death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., The King Arts Complex is convening a citywide celebration honoring his life and work. Organized with community partners across central Ohio, venues throughout Columbus will host nearly a dozen unique events. Join us for the unveiling of MLK: 50 Years Later. This is a free community event to be held in the Nicholson Auditorium within the King Arts Complex.
On Monday, March 26, Governor Kasich commuted the death sentence of William T. Montgomery to life without parole. And he did so because of you and about 122,580 others who took action asking him to commute. On behalf of William T, I want to thank you for signing the petitions, making phone calls to the governor and helping OTSE reach as many people as possible through social media. There are scores of organizations to thank and dozens of people who worked to make this commutation a reality. The Columbus Free Press highlighted his case thier March 2018 issue.
If you'd like to thank Governor Kasich for commuting, go ahead and send him a thank you card with a personalized note. Governor Kasich's mailing address is:
Tuesday, March 27, 8-10pm
Lincoln Cafe, 740 E. Long St.
Join us for a spoken word/open mic night to fund raise for Community Pride 2018!
During Columbus’ Pride parade on June 17, 2017, a group of protesters asked for 7 minutes of silence to bring awareness to the 7 shots fired at Philandro Castile as well as the 15 trans women who have been murdered in 2017.. Within 30 seconds, police met the protestors with violence, peppery spray, and criminal charges. Four were arrested during pride, now known at the #BlackPride4. Now, we are organizing our own Community Pride in 2018 to ensure Queer and Trans people of color are safe!
After a disturbing pattern of apparent retaliation, neglect and discrimination at the highest level of power within the Columbus Police Department (CPD), State Rep. Bernadine Kennedy Kent (D-Columbus) is calling on Mayor Andrew Ginther and City Council members to hold Police Chief Kim Jacobs accountable for her blatant insubordination and dereliction of duty.
"When people pick up the phone for help, they need the police to do everything in their power to keep our community safe and bring criminals to justice," said Kennedy Kent. "Police Chief Jacobs has not only failed to ensure the rights of victims are protected, but public records support her biases opened the door to undeserved intimidation, discrimination, and retaliation of whistleblowers as well as victims. It's politics at its worst. Taxpayers deserve accountability from the city's top cop."